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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/4/9/PAndersonW1501.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/4/9/AAndersonW150517.1.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Anderson, William
William Anderson
Les Anderson
W L M Anderson
William Leslie Milne Anderson
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Leslie Milne Anderson (1925 - 2018, 196733 Royal Air Force), and one photograph. William Anderson was a flight engineer and flew operations in Lancasters with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by William Anderson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Anderson, W
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
WA: My name is William Lesley Milne Anderson, and I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre, on the seventeenth of May, 2015 [pause] at – where am I [pause] at Beverley, in Yorkshire.
MJ: Right that’ll –
WA: Right [pause] I was a flight engineer on Lancaster aircraft. My rank a, at the end was flying [emphasis] officer. [Pause] I went to Edinburgh Aircrew Recruitment Centre when I was eighteen and a quarter, hoping to join the RAF and to fly. Everybody wanted to be a pilot. I went there with a school pal of mine who was going to join up as well, but we were told, at that time, if we wanted to be down for pilots, if we pass the various medical and tests, we would have to wait for nine months before we were called up. So this friend of mine decided, ‘fair enough’, to accept nine months wait so that he could eventually become a pilot, whereas I decided that I’d go for something else, and when I asked what was available to go more or less straight away I was told ‘a flight engineer’, so I said ‘that’ll do me fine’. [Pause] I w – when war broke out I’d only be, oh, fourteen [pause] and [pause] but, I thought ‘well, if I’ve got to go into the forces, I would rather fly somewhere than walk in the Army [laughs] to get there’, so that’s why I chose the Air Force. The training was at a place called Saint Athan in South Wales, that was after – well funnily enough, I had to report to Lords cricket ground, and that was where we had a medical and were issued with a uniform, and then we were marched along to a part of London called Saint John’s Wood, and when we had to go and collect our pay one day we were marched to the zoo [emphasis], I thought – was funny, I been in the Air Force and I’ve landed in a cricket ground, in a block of flats, and I get paid from the zoo [laughs]. So I thought ‘when do I see an aeroplane’. However, I was, was going to have to wait quite a bit longer [emphasis] because after, think it was a fortnight or three weeks, we were posted to Torquay, and when we got to Torquay we found that quite a lot of the hotels [pause] had been taken over by the RAF, and there, once again [emphasis], no aeroplanes in sight! But we did the basic training, the marching, ohhhh, the guard duties, even a bit of clay pigeon [emphasis] shooting, and this went on for about twelve weeks, and after the twelve weeks we were sent off to Saint Athan, and at last [emphasis] thank goodness, there were aeroplanes, because [pause] it was – I can’t remember exactly how long, but it was interesting, not sitting in little classrooms, but in a big [pause] building – a hanger I suppose – divided up into sections, where you could hear what was going on just across the wooden division that was separating you from the next group. So anyway – oh I missed the bit out where, at – the important bit, was I couldn’t swim [emphasis] [pause] and, they didn’t tell me, when I got to Torquay, until I got to Torquay, that I had to pass a swimming [emphasis] test, and so they took us down to the harbour, and the Corporal lined at the squad I was in [?], on the harbour, and told us we were going to jump in, and swim down just about twenty yards to a set of steps so that we could climb up to the top again. Luckily we had a Mae West , but [emphasis] my name being Anderson, on some occasions, is very handy because quite often you’re first, but in this case there was a chap called Adams before me, and when the Corporal said ‘Adams, jump in’, Adams said ‘I can’t swim, I’m not jumping in’, and so he said ‘Anderson, in you go’, and I said ‘I can’t swim, I’m not jumping in’, and so he said ‘if you go in the way I tell you to, you’ll go in and hit the water without doing yourself any damage. If I’ve got to push [emphasis] you in, you might land on your head or your back or your behind’, so bearing in mind that we got a Mae West on, he said ‘curl your toes over the edge of the harbour wall [pause] hold your nose, and take one step forward’, and of course, went down, and when I opened my eyes under water I saw millions of little bubbles, and with a Mae West on I was shot to the surface and up, and somehow or other I managed to get to the steps – don’t know how. But, when all the squad had been in, there was Adams, still in the water, still in the same spot where he’d jumped in, paddling like mad but going nowhere. So the Corporal said, ‘one of the swimmers, jump in, drag him to the side’, and that was our introduction to swimming. The rest of the swimming was done in the baths. And then, when we got to Saint Athan we carried on with swimming there. [Pause] Now, so, we did quite a bit of training at Saint Athan, I would say it was a very good course, and so, when the course was finished, although we’d made some friends during the time we were there, we were broken up by being posted to different placed training units up and down the country. I landed up in 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit at Lindholme just outside Doncaster. That was where I met the crew. The six other crew had been together for a while, flying of course, in two-engined Wellingtons, and the Conversion Unit was to convert them to four engine aircrafts so they had to pick up a flight engineer. At that time, which would be [pause] forty-three [pause] forty-three, most of the Lancasters were going from the factories to the squadrons, so we were actually trained on Halifaxes [pause] and then after a course there we went for a fortnight to RAF Hemswell which at that time was number one Lancaster finishing school, and we were only there for [pause] two weeks, and I seem to remember [pause] most of the work that we did there was ground work on the systems different in the Lancaster from the Halifaxes and the flying [pause] consisted only of circuits and bumps, daylight, circuits and bumps at night, and the number of flying errands we did was eight, and we were sent off to the squadron, and the squadron happened to be 166 Kirmington, which nowadays is, of course, Humberside International Airport. [Pause] At Kirmington [pause] it was a fairly basic [emphasis] airfield, had only opened in forty-three, near the end of the year, and [pause] roundabout in the countryside there were lots and lots of trees, forest, and the, the huts, the mission huts we were in, were in the trees. Fair bit of walking to be done to get to the airfield if you happen to miss the transports, but [pause] on the whole, it was Kirmington village, the people were very good to us, although I didn’t particularly drink, there was only one pub in the village [pause] that was in forty-four by this time – May. Now [pause] oh, got stuck, um, yes. The crew that I joined at Lindholme contained three Canadians, the mid-upper gunner, the rear gunner, and bomb aimer, were all from Canada. The pilot was English, from Halifax, the navigator was from Leicester, and the wireless operator was from a village – I’ve forgotten the name of the village again, but up somewhere around Newcastle. [Pause] Anyway, off we go, and start operations. We were lucky [pause] inasmuch that the battle for Berlin had finished roughly in the January of that year, because Berlin causalities had been heavy. Many of the trips that we did were not long trips because at that time – [pause] oh, forgotten, sixth of June, D-Day, that was the start, that was my first operation, sixth of June, D-Day, and that was to a marshalling yard north of Paris. A lot of marshalling yards had, were being attacked to make sure that the troops and supplies didn’t reach D-Day, er, reach the [pause] [knocks on something] [pause] and of course [pause] doodlebugs had put in an appearance, and so they had to be taken care of, and so many of the doodlebugs were, weren’t very far in to France, so a number of the trips were fairly short. For that we were thankful. Some of the trips of course were quite long. Anyway, we had got there in May, forty-four, and we did our last trip on the thirtieth of August forty-four. My skipper, the navigator, and myself, were all posted back to Lindholme as instructors. My skipper decided that he would like to stay in the RAF and by this time he had become a squadron leader, so he applied for a permanent commission. He stayed in and did his time after the war was finished, and finished up as Group Captain Laurie Holmes DFC, AFC [pause] and the OBE [laughs]. [Pause] When the war finished, because of my age I knew my demob group was a long way off, and I didn’t see much point in instructing to pass crews on to still to squadrons as if the war was still on, so I applied to join Transport Command. [Pause] Just as well, because, although the war finished, May, forty-five, I didn’t get out until, somewhere about August forty-seven! [Laughs]. But in that time I saw quite a bit of the world and got paid for it in Transport Command, flying on Yorks, which was virtually a Lancaster with a different shaped body. First flying carrying freight, because they changed the shape of the body so that freight could go easily in, or seats could be put in for passengers. After a number of trips taking us as far as Delhi and back, we were reassessed and went on to passenger carrying. Still Yorks, of course this time with seats in, and we went as far as Changi, Singapore, and that was our turnaround point, and came back. [Unclear muttering] [break in tape]. Well luck [emphasis] had to play a big part in things, I mean as I said earlier on, many, a number of our flights were fairly short because it was the time when doodlebugs were around, and they had got to be get rid [emphasis] of. Also, when you found that you were maybe down for mining. Mining was considered a, oh, quite a, you know, easy [emphasis] flight, mining, going along drop some mines in the water, come back. But we, one night, had to go to a place about fifty miles from Russia, right along the Baltic, and there were the airfield next to us, or closest to us, was called Elsham Wolds and there they had a, oh well all together there twelve Lancasters going mining at this target, all that distance away, and five were from Kirmington, and seven were from Elsham Wolds. Now because it was near the end of our tour, [unclear] some systems and some squadrons where, as you were classed as being more experienced, you moved up, from say maybe the third wave, to the second, to the first, and somebody got to be first in dropping – until this particular night we were down to drop first, the mines. But we went out with four hundred other aircraft that were going to Keel, but so we left this country, crossed the North Sea, in the company of four hundred other aircraft. Didn’t see four hundred aircraft but nevertheless, that’s what they said there were there, and then they turned off to starboard, to head for Kiel, where we kept on along the Baltic – twelve of us, supposed to be. As we got near the target [pause] a searchlight popped up, and another one, and another one, the three of them started waving around and we thought ‘they know we’re coming’. However, after they’d waved about for a little while they all went out – sigh of relief. So we were supposed to drop first. So we dropped and went through the target a bit and turned away and headed back, and as we turned away the searchlights came on, so the rest of the aircraft had to come through searchlights, but, although there was fire from the Baltic, from ships in the Baltic and [emphasis] from the harbour, we didn’t see any aircraft shot down. However, we had been told that we might not get back into Kirmington because of weather and so we were given an alternative route back to land at Lossiemouth, North of Scotland, so we landed up there, and but there weren’t twelve Lancasters, but we didn’t think much of it at the time because [pause] we knew that the weather was such that we weren’t getting back into Kirmington or Elsham, so then, landed somewhere else, maybe couldn’t get into Lossiemouth, or anyway, I don’t know, but it wasn’t until the next day that we got back to Kirmington that we found that we had lost two out of the five aircraft and word came through from Elsham Wolds that they had lost three out of the seven. Which meant five out of twelve, which wasn’t a very good result, and yet [emphasis] in coming back all [emphasis] that way, along the Baltic, we didn’t see an aircraft being attacked, or an explosion, but when the chap called – Squadron Leader Wright [?] came to read or to write the history of 166 Squadron, in doing research, they found the bodies had been washed up in, er, countries bordering the Baltic, from, from the raids. So, there we are – luck. Lost five out of twelve aircraft, but you haven’t seen one attacked, you haven’t seen one explode, you haven’t seen one on fire, you get back to Lossiemouth without any problems, you know.
MJ: And that’s unusual.
WA: Aye. But five out of twelve, aye. But for a mining trip, and people were thinking ‘oh, Holmsey [?] and crew they’ve been lucky they’ve been down to do a mining trip tonight’ you know, aye [laughs]. So, aye it’s, I don’t know. Anyway, anyway up there, that’s [break in tape].
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Oral History Project, I Michael Jeffries would like to thank Flight Officer Anderson for his recording on the date of the seventeenth of May, 2015. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with William Anderson
Description
An account of the resource
Flight Officer William Anderson began his service in the Royal Air Force at the age of eighteen when he signed up in Edinburgh. In this interview he speaks about his training, reporting to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, being paid at the London Zoo, and having to learn quickly how to swim in Torquay. After training at RAF St Athan, he was posted to 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit, and joined a Lancaster crew based at RAF Kirmington. His first operation was on D-Day to a marshalling yard near Paris. After that Anderson recounts stories of going on mine laying operations, particularly one over the Baltic, where five out of twelve aircraft were lost on one operation.
Creator
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Michael Jeffries
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Christina Brown
Heather Hughes
Identifier
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AAndersonW150517
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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00:30:43 audio recording
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-17
Language
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eng
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England
France
Wales
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Devon
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Normandy
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Scotland--Moray
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1656 HCU
166 Squadron
bombing
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Lindholme
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF St Athan
RAF Torquay
recruitment
searchlight
training
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/13/ADerringtonAP150715-01.2.mp3
2af1448baa606754816904ab2f0786c3
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
Derrington, Arnold Pearce
Arnold Pearce Derrington
Arnold P Derrington
Arnold Derrington
A P Derrington
A Derrington
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Derrington, AP
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-15
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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 I am conducting an interview with Doctor Arnold Pierce Derrington and we are in his house in Cornwall and we are going to talk about his experiences over the years in the RAF but starting off in his early days and then after the war with his civilian career. Today is the 14th July 2015 and I’m asking Derry to start in the early days. What was your background Derry and how did all of that progress?
DD: Well I was a child in Devon. I came to Cornwall at the age of eighteen months to live at St Erth. That’s still my model village and I was there until about 1930 and the family had grown by then and we moved to Marazion near St Michael’s Mount and I had my childhood days there. Very happy memories of Marazion and I still see friends from there and still hear from there.
I had a friend living nearby in a place called [?] and he was a navigator too. He’d been a clerk in an agricultural merchants and the, he went into the air force, and did a tour with Coastal Command and was posted to Rhodesia where he was an instructor. When he died eventually I spread his ashes from a lifeboat in Mounts Bay. But he and I were childhood friends. We were little rogues really because his father was a policeman and the father was very incensed sometimes. Some man came to him and said someone’s put water in the petrol of my motor tank in the tank the petrol tank of my motorbike and it turned out that we two boys had done it. Very embarrassing for the policemen. That boy’s sister is still alive. She visits me occasionally.
And at Marazion I was at the county school at Penzance and never dreamed I’d be flying. I saw Alan Cobham’s Air Circus. I’ve got his little notebook here. It’s in that blue container there. Do you have it? Alan Cobham’s book. That’s it. And I have a very dear friend I haven’t seen for seventy seven years. I went to that air display with his parents. And that was an air display that flew around with trailers behind the planes saying where the display was taking place and we were talking recently about that actual airfield which is between Marazion and Haile and my mother said, ‘Don’t you dare go up flying’ and I was offered a free flight and I did say no but within ten years I’d done a tour and got a DFC. It’s amazing how things go on isn’t it?
Now, where do we go from there now? I was at Marazion in the LDV or Home Guard and when I went to college at Exeter I decided to join the LDV there. And after a month or so the University Air Squadron was opening up in Exeter and I joined that and I was at St Luke’s, Exeter which was a teacher training place and until the last two or three years there were a few of us around but I’m the last one of them still going strong. One of the chaps Archie Smith from St Austell was on the county council with my wife. She was a councillor and had a very good career about it. She ended up with an MBE.
Well I went on then to University Air Squadron from this Home Guard lot there and I’ve even got a greeting telegram somewhere from a relation congratulating me on joining this University Air Squadron. I could dig that out if you want to see a picture of it I expect.
And well it was good training. We had a, a, a commanding officer called Searle who was the head of the physics department at Exeter and he had an adjutant called Crosscut and the main chap we met from an interesting flying point of view had the Croix de Guerre. He was a rear gunner. He was badly scarred.
And from the University Air Squadron I was attested in Weston Super Mare in June 1942 and that same month I joined the air force at Lords Cricket Ground. Our first payday, first money I’d earned in my life cause having been University Air Squadron I was a leading aircraftsmen and we were very superior indeed to the AC plonks. They only got a half a crown a day. And after a short time at Lords I was posted to Manchester to await overseas posting but they discovered that I needed corrective goggles so I was sent down to Brighton Aircrew Dispersal Wing, ACDW and had a very happy time there staying in a huge great hotel, sleeping on rough beds at the Hotel Metropole. And there was another one The Grand there was well and the [air?] parade still took place in those days and we saw some of the rather shaky soldiers who came back from there.
And from ACDW I was posted to grading school Ansty near Coventry. I was made into, well I did fly in a Tiger Moth but I was made into as a navigator and I’m very glad I was because it kept me going during the very horrible times that we were doing operations. I had my head down getting on with the job. I did look out a time or two but it was so horrific I got back to my base very soon and from the grading school I went to Blackpool waiting for overseas posting and from Liverpool I sailed to South Africa. It wasn’t straightforward because we were afraid of the submarines that might have damaged us so we went across the coast to America and then back again to freestone, Freetown and then from Freetown down around the Cape to Durban. We didn’t get off the boat at all. I was on gun duty on oerlikons.
When we got to Durban we went to a transit camp called Clairwood and there we were thrown an empty linen case and told to stuff it with grass because that would be our palliasse bed and the toilets, they were like huge great egg racks. I think there was accommodation for about eighty. And they fed us very well. It was very nice. The novelty of South Africa was interesting indeed. I met very interesting people there who worked in the Red Shield Club and they invited us into their homes and there was one family called Thornton who had a son same age as myself training as a doctor. I’ve heard from him right until recently when he died. And when I moved away from East London to Durban, Durban to East London we did some training in the air force work there. I went up there to do night flying at a place called Aliwal North and that was a place outside the town of Queenstown. It was a very strange volcanic rock there with a big flat top called [?] and there was [?] Association and I was a member of that for a long time and correspondence kept on.
And I met a dear man who was flying beside me called Harry Dunn. Because my name came in the alphabet first before his I was graded as first navigator he was graded as second navigator. And well I did turn out to be a better one than he did because I came top of the course. But Harry came to me when we went to our next stage up at Queenstown almost in tears. He said, “My maths is no good at all. Will you coach me?” Harry was out with the girls and drinking and didn’t bother at all really. He was good company but very happy go lucky.
And well we both got through and he came back with me on the same troopship back through Tufik (?)in the Red Sea. And the Germans were still in Italy and we had a lot of women and children on board who were being repatriated from India. They were service families. And they weren’t going to take any risks. When the Germans were clear, after a fortnight in Tufik we came back through the Mediterranean and home in time for Christmas 1943. And we were very popular because we brought back things which were normally rationed.
I bought a lovely Omega watch in East London for seven pounds ten shillings and well the same watch these days is nearly two thousand pounds. I lost that but that’s another story. I’ve bought another Omega since. I navigated on that one all the way through. They issued us with proper watches but I was delighted with my Omega. And I believe I had to hand wind it. I’d rather forgotten but recently I’ve seen the certificate when I bought the watch and apparently it had to be handed in to be oiled every year. Well mine never got any oil on it at all and I navigated on it pretty well. I was very happy with it. Delighted with my Omega.
Now where have we got? Oh yes. We were posted after Christmas leave, to West Freugh to acclimatise to British conditions and we flew up and down the Hebrides. Very fascinating indeed. I saw Iona which has a church which is the same pattern as our village church here in Pendeen - cruciform. And after going to this unit at West Freugh Harry got posted off to Transport Command and I was posted to Bomber Command. We were told, ‘write your wills. You won’t be here in six weeks time.’ I thought I’d find out how Harry’s going on. No reply. Wrote his parents – no reply. So I thought, well that’s it. I still have a lovely photo of him.
And I went on from West Freugh to, let’s see, OTU at Moreton in Marsh. Operational Training Unit. And that was on Wellingtons. In the meantime Harry had gone to Canada and became a fur merchant after the Transport Command experience as a fur merchant like his father was. And twenty or fifty years later on his conscience was pricking him because he had borrowed a book from an old aunt living near Bath and he came back to England from Canada to take this book to her. She was dead. Had an uncle ten miles away. Went to see him. He was dead too. So he thought I’m so far west I’ll go down Penzance and see old Derry. He didn’t tell me he was coming. I didn’t know where he was. I hadn’t forgotten him. And that day my wife and I were taking an old lady to hospital so we weren’t there in order to see him and Harry caught the train back to [?] to stay or he hoped to stay with a [sugar bidder[?]] there that he played rugby with before the war. When he got to the a [sugar bidder[?]] house he was out but the caretaker said, “Come on in and have a meal. He’ll be back in the morning.” and he was telling his tale of the book and going down to Penzance to see an old navigator friend. And that caretaker said was that navigator called Derry Derrington. He said, “How did you know that?” “I sat beside him on thirty one operations in bomber command. He was my navigator. I was his bomb aimer.” That dear boy has died since but his wife is still alive.
So after being at West Freugh Operational Training Unit there we crewed up, six of us, because we only had Wellingtons. We weren’t on a four engine outfit so we needed a flight engineer later and we gelled as a crew very quickly. Our pilot was an Australian called Les Evans, a dairy farmer’s son and he came from a place called Kingaroy in Queensland. And Les Evans was a very good pilot. He had been an instructor. We were all good chaps. We were never, there never was as good a crew as we are. Charlie will think so too. Charlie was friendly with another gunner called Dennis Cleaver and those two had crewed up together and they were looking for somebody to join and my pilot, Les Evans chose me for his navigator. I was delighted. Didn’t care whether he was Australian or Chinese or whatever he was. He was a dear old boy.
And after Les Evans, he and I were together, we chose the oldest wireless operator we could get and that was Tom Windsor. Tom was thirty one. We thought he was our grandfather [laughs] and Tom was a good old boy with the girls. One of the joking things which Charlie and I still talk about he used to say, “I’d like as many shillings,” and what that definitely meant we don’t quite know but we could guess all sorts of things. We were quite youngsters really in our early twenties. Tom was thirty one.
And well, we had Jonah who was in antiques with his brother. I was a trainee schoolmaster just qualified. Tom Windsor was a bookies clerk and Charlie and Dennis, the gunners, were both fitters and there were six of us. And we did OTU work at Moreton in the Marsh on Wellingtons and that was good. I saw my area where I live here from the air for the first time. I had been to see Alan Cobham’s Air Circus and did a flight - very limited indeed, but this was very wonderful to see our area from the, I suppose it was about ten thousand feet.
Well from the OTU we were posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit to get used to a four engine aircraft and we picked up an engineer who had been on the Queen Mary - Jock. Dear boy. Scotsman. A wee haggis we called him and he was good. In fact we had the most hair raising experience when we were doing a flight near the Isle Of Man because he had to change the petrol tanks over every so often in order to balance the aircraft, trim it up properly and he needed to go to the elsan and whether he was there longer then he should have done or what we don’t know but two engines cut out on us and I as navigator had to hold the escape hatch open, I did, ready for the crew to bailout and we got, Jonah, no Jock the engineer came back quickly, switched the right tanks over and she picked up and there we were again but we were very dicey indeed in those days.
Well we started our tour of operations. We were posted from our Heavy Conversion Unit to Driffield in Yorkshire just about twenty miles north of Hull. A lovely peacetime station. And the pilot did a second dickey, that is to give him experience. In the meantime we did all sorts of training to keep us well and fit. And on from there we started our own tour. And the first trip was an easy one cap griz nez. It was to do with army cooperation.
The second trip is one that was probably the most momentous in our lives. It was to a flying bomb site. Now on our back from leave we’d gone through London. We’d seen the headlines - Pilotless Aircraft over England and well those were the V1s and we didn’t know what that would mean and we were told this was a highly secret operation. We were not to talk to anybody about it at all and we were going to hit this target over, in daylight, at minute intervals. And as we were going down the country toward Beachy Head some silly bounder flying alongside us pressed the wrong button and what the crew were saying among themselves mentioned the name of the target. And that was [?] for the Germans. My pilot could see that every other aircraft was being shot down and he climbed an extra two thousand feet after Beachy Head [?] and did a shallow dive on the target. That gave us that bit more speed and we got there that split second before the minute was up but the flack came up and the Germans shot down one of their own fighters on our tail. Oh the gunners were quite screaming about it and we really felt we were getting acclimatised.
Well we got back from that we knew we’d got an aiming point. I’ve got a reconnaissance photograph of it here. It’s in my file which I’ll talk to you about later. That big fat file there is a list of all the things we did. All the, and I think it’s quite unique because the Australians were such a happy go lucky mob they didn’t collect them from us to shred them like most other people had done. I’ve got a complete unique set of operations and I know that we did well. We were good at wind finding and we did PFF support because we used to broadcast the wind that we found that was used by the master bomber.
Now where did we go from there? Well we did thirty one ops. Mainly over the Ruhr - Happy Valley, Flak Alley - all sorts of names for it and we got hit a time or two but we luckily came back and a lot of our dear chaps didn’t. I got back from a week’s leave and found seven complete crews wiped out. And they were dear boys. They were a jolly lot. They were mad as hatters. Motorbikes going around the mess, footprints on the ceiling. My speciality was doing forward rolls on the top of billiard tables or else in the fireplace. I’ve been told this later but I don’t remember it. And one chap flying with us he was the navigation leader he smoked his pipe through the side of the oxygen mask which was a little bit risky I think what do you think? Would you fancy doing that?
CB: No.
DD: No. No sensible person would I’m sure. In the middle of my tour I came home once and I thought I I’ll go up and see how my dad was getting on and I found him lying dead in the garden beside a bonfire. He’d had a stroke at the age of fifty four. That was, I was the oldest one of four children and my brother and I are the only two in our family now left but that was a great shock to me. It was the first dead person I’d seen and I was very saddened about it. I determined I wasn’t going to do any more flying when my tour was up although we were invited to be PFF people but I explained that I was the eldest of four and I couldn’t go back again and it wasn’t held against me. I was with a very fair lot.
The Aussies were a mad, happy lot. I got on wonderfully well with them. They were dears. And I never knew them do a bad, evil deed with anybody at all. They were wonderful. You’ll see pictures of some of them and some of the targets we had in my main logbook there.
Well we did get through our tour. I say the general thanksgiving every day for our creation, preservation. Preservation deeply underlined because we were preserved from all sorts of horrible things and we were able to save ourselves and our country by what we did. My Charlie, the rear gunner has a grandson I think it is who’s a Member of Parliament. There’s a photograph of him up there and I’ve got a letter of his in my general logbook here saying, ‘If I can do a much for the country as you chaps in Bomber Command then I shall feel I’ve done well.’ He’s a Doctor of Medicine as well as a Member of Parliament and I believe he had an increased majority at the last election. Charlie’s very proud of him. Charlie comes down this way on holiday occasionally. He was staying at a place called Mousehole not far from here with his, this man’s brother owns it and Charlie and his wife were down and we had some wonderful times together.
Earlier on I was talking about my friend in Canada who was, who met my bomb aimers crew over in Effingham near Goring and when this Harry came at one time he gave me my computer. Do you know it?
CB: I do.
AS: It’s a whizz wheel.
DD: A Dalton.
AS: A Dalton computer, yeah.
DD: A Dalton mark 3. While we were training as navigators this was our bible AP1234. There is an AP4567. I’ve seen it but I can’t get another copy. Anyhow, where I got this I don’t really remember but it was a precious book.
Well the tour was horrific. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world but I wouldn’t wish anyone else to have done it. And the crew were magnificent. We never had any quarrels or arguments. Les was a wonderful leader and well the mid gunner was a bit dicey sometimes but he was a jolly old boy and he loved singing too. We got on well. Talking about singing I’ve got a list of some of the ribald songs we sang.
We had lots of waiting around and because I live in the sticks down here in West Cornwall it took a long time to travel from Yorkshire to Cornwall. Twenty seven hours usually, stopping in London overnight very often, that I couldn’t come home on a forty eight hour pass. The time would be spent all with travelling and I passed my time away by doing this. This was my engagement present for my wife. This I did on an engineer’s bench in Air Force Station Driffield. The Song of Songs. In the back it says where it was done. Bound and written out by Arnold P Derrington between October and December 1944 at Driffield. I’m very proud of the title page of it. And I gave this to my wife and it will be my daughter’s eventually and this is the main title page. There.
CB: Wow.
DD: The Song of Songs. And I have bound a book before under ideal conditions but that was done on an engineer’s bench. The leatherwork as well and it’s very precious as you can imagine.
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Pardon?
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Well the language in it is very lovely and I felt it was a suitable engagement present for my wife.
[pause]
I’m wondering what is the next thing to talk about?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: Hmmn?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: No.
CB: Ok.
DD: No.
CB: So you said it was horrendous on operations so could you describe a typical operation that was hairy please?
DD: I got a diary which is totally illegal. There’s a black book over there somewhere. That’s it I think
[pause]
Yes diary of an RAF career after the 20th June ACRC etcetera. A tour of operations. An illegal document. Well its written, there’s quite a bit of detail there and I used it on one occasion for the people who are writing a history of our squadron. You see a book there, a big heavy book. That’s it. And my grandson Adam, who is going to have this stuff was so delighted he bought a copy for himself and, I was given a gratis copy and the two chaps who wrote it one is called Lax he was an ex air commodore and the other man there, a hyphenated name he was a chemistry professor very near where my daughter who lives in Australia. I’ve never met these two chaps but I’ve just had phone calls from them and with extracts from our diary and other things o sent them they got fifty references to us as a crew in that book. What’s it called again?
CB: To See the Dawn Again.
DD: To See the Dawn, yes. Well number, operation number eighteen. After much lighting, lightning the usual restless night I woke to a lovely morning. No signs of movement. Today is St Luke’s day. What happy memories it recalls. Possibly too many of us over the world - Canada, Africa, India, Gib West Indies and dear old England. Have I longed to, how I’ve longed to be on the cliffs today. Hanging around in the morning. FFI in the afternoon. Promise of pay then wait. Nothing doing. Draughts and roll call. Detailed for more, for move off tomorrow. I can’t read my own writing. Five weeks have elapsed since I heard from Helen and another five weeks will pass before I hear anything more. [?] I hadn’t done any operations that day.
CB: So this was a diary that you kept in addition to your logbook was it?
DD: Yes my logbooks are rather scruffy looking things.
CB: Yes I saw it on there.
DD: The South African one.
CB: Right.
DD: If I’d had it in England it would have had a rather nice blue cloth cover instead of a plain cover like that.
CB: Right ok. What prompted you to keep the diary?
DD: Oh just being [fussy?] and breaking regulations sort of thing.
[pause]
DD: I ought to be reading my own writing but I can’t.
CB: Well off the top of your head though what would you say was the most hair raising experience you had in a raid?
DD: Well even in the last raid we did. It was the 27th of December and we were going to the Ruhr and I’d had flu and I didn’t feel like flying at all. It wasn’t a case of LMF and it wasn’t a case of jitters it was a case of finishing near the end of the tour but I just did not feel well. My pilot Les said come on you’re alright you’ve always done well for us so far on previous occasions and off we went and I got taken sick and Jonah was sitting next to me the bomb aimer and I could tell him what to do when I couldn’t do it myself. And then I passed out and the heating failed at minus forty four. And we had to come down and I just vaguely knew what was happening. We had to come down to ten thousand feet because of the oxygen shortage. The heating had failed and the oxygen failed as well. And we had bombs being dropped by our own chaps up above and they were shooting at us down below and the fighters on our tail but I was able to work out the courses for the pilot. I’m sure you all know what the preparation is beforehand and there are estimated courses and things which one should take and as a navigator I’d worked that out in the briefing beforehand and I just read off from those and applied variation and deviation and gave the pilot those courses and we got through where we were going and whether we hit the target or not I don’t know because I handed over to Jonah, the bomb aimer. And on the way back I was feeling very unwell indeed and this was all due to the flu business I think. Anyhow, we did get back and thank God for that. That was a very hair raising situation to be in. I didn’t like feeling unable to do the job I had to do.
It was a very necessary job but a very horrible job and when I think we were trained to kill it’s a very revolting thought but if we didn’t do it we would have had much worse done to us as a nation and so I was very grateful to have got through my tour and because we were the only pommie crew amongst a lot of Australians they didn’t discriminate against us. Maybe we were favoured all the more I don’t know but they were dear fellows. We loved the lot of them and a very sad time it was when some got lost. There’s a recording of so many names of people who were lost after an operation.
That was a bit hair raising. Anything else you’d like to ask me?
CB: Yeah in practical terms was after the pilot was the navigator the most worked member of the crew?
DD: Oh yes and I was glad I was occupied like that. I didn’t see some of the horrible things that were going on but I had to record things. I had to give him new courses if need be and my main job was wind finding and I was able to do that well and our winds that we found were picked up, were broadcast so PFF could pick them up. And we were helpers of PFF we weren’t direct PFF people but PFF support was the denomination that we were given.
CB: So what is PFF?
DD: Pathfinders.
CB: Pathfinder right.
DD: Yes. They could wear a very special little golden wing.
[pause]
There’s a little map showing Elvington and such places we were talking about. You’ve got it alright?
CB: Yes thank you yeah.
CB Now on your plane.
DD: On?
CB On your Halifax did you have H2S?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How did you use that?
DD: Yes.
CB: How did you use it?
DD: Well there was good screen to pick up the shape of towns and if a town had particular projection on one corner we could take a bearing on that and know where we were and I’ve got one chart in my, the big book which you can look at later on and I’ll show you a map which was specially adapted for H2S work. Gee was our main help and I’ve a Gee chart there. That gave us position line and we took a fix every six minutes and that was very handy because six minutes is a tenth of an hour and we could use the decimal point to move whatever our speed was. It was my job to find out what speed we were going. If we were getting to a place too early we’d have to do a dog leg beforehand. Do you know what that means?
CB: Just a weave.
DD: It was an equilateral triangle.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And you flew sides of it instead of a third and you just dodged with a piece across the bottom and you could lose two minutes or three if you would but that if you did that you were taking a colossal risk because you were crossing the main stream coming along. We were pretty close to each other sometimes.
CB: You couldn’t see them could you?
DD: No and there were times when you felt the slipstream of other aircraft almost as if the plane had hit a brick wall. She juddered because of it. Can you imagine that?
CB: How did you do your wind finding?
DD: Joining up the position on the ground to the position in the air and taking the vector that you got between the two you could work out the speed and the direction of the wind. The angle between the air position and the ground position gave you the direction of the wind. The length of the vector a quarter of the time you’d been working in the air you could work out the speed. It was done, this computer, are you aware what it was like? We had a red and green end on the pencil. It’s a laptop.
[pause]
DD: Had you seen one of these? No?
CB: No.
DD: No? Well speeds are set like that, went around that way and you put your wind on and you take a reading off against this point here and you know what angle we were working on.
CB: So this is the navigational computer mark 3, the Dalton Computer.
DD: And this was the circular slide rule converting centigrade to fahrenheit. Nautical to statute miles and so on. And my dear old friend on Transport Command brought that home from Canada for me.
CB: Oh did he? So it wasn’t standard issue in -
DD: Yes.
CB: The RAF? Was it?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Oh it was. Right.
DD: Have a good look at it.
CB: Yes.
DD: And in that navigation manual there it tells you how to use it.
CB: Yeah.
DD: It talks about the duties of a navigator as such in that book too. The Navigator’s Bible.
CB: So back on operations a lot of it was the Ruhr. How did you actually find the target?
DD: Oh well the Pathfinders had been ahead normally and dropped flares. In daylight of course. It was a matter of the bomb aimer having taken near the target he’d then take over when we were say within ten miles of it, whateve,r and the target, when the PFF marked it, they had different methods of dropping flares. One name, I almost get nightmares about it - Wanganui. That was the name of an island near where Pathfinder Bennett lived. I’ve seen it from the air. Charlie Derby who you’ve met had been right around the south island of New Zealand and so had I. We went out at different times and stayed with Les Evans and his family. Les Evans has been here and stayed with us too. And Wanganui was the, when they dropped three different colours of flares and the master bomber would be overhead circling, looking down at the target and he’d give the bomb aimer instructions, drop your bombs to the right of the yellow flares or whatever. Yellow flares, red flares and green flares. Those were what we used.
And just to explain that Les Evans was an Australian but he emigrated to New Zealand.
DD: He married a New Zealand girl.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And he moved to Auckland.
CB: Right ok. So when you weren’t on operational flights what were you doing?
DD: Well keeping, getting as near to the right track as possible to the next turning point and we didn’t fly directly there. I can show you some little dots on little charts I’ve got there. Show you the operations we did and I’ve drawn them on straight lines but we never flew directly to the targets. This was in order to fox the Germans and we did all sorts of zigzags and shapes like that. And we also dropped window. Do you know what that is?
CB: Yeah.
DD: There’s some bits of window in my main big heavy blue book there. One of the wireless operator’s jobs used to throw out leaflets, propaganda leaflets. One thing which is rather saddening I had a lovely collection of leaflets and on one occasions when I was talking to a group somebody pinched them. I’ve got a few leaflets left but not the main lot that I did have.
CB: A collectable item.
DD: I suppose so yes.
So when you’re flying to the target you’re in a stream.
DD: Yes.
You’ve no idea where the other aircraft are. You said there were a number of issues, things that happened and you were glad you weren’t watching them because you were navigating so what sort of thing was that?
DD: Well it was up to the gunners and the bomb aimer went down into the nose. And they were keeping their eyes open for other aircraft too. We had no lights on of course as you can imagine and the pilot of course was alert to see that he was avoiding any other aircraft and you could feel the slipstream of other aircraft sometimes. It was quite a jolt at times to feel that but I still stayed at my post as navigator recording what was said by other people if it was necessary to record it and also making sure that I could easily feed the pilot with the course to steer once we’d been to the target.
I have rather an interesting business happening. Every October I go to a place called Porthleven and that’s where Guy Gibson was and I was flying at the same time as Guy Gibson but not actually on the same operations as he was and the people of Porthleven, he was there as a boy they’ve got a plaque up on a wall near the town clock which is away on a wing beside the harbour and because I’m a flying fellow I get invited over to it each year and they come and collect me for it and it’s a wonderful occasion. Very heartrending. And people reminiscent of their experiences of Guy Gibson as a child living in the town. Porthleven is about thirty miles from here I suppose. Out towards the Lizard Peninsula.
CB: As a crew, as a crew you did everything together.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: So when you weren’t flying what were doing?
DD: Writing that book you saw. Difficult to say. Ordinary sort of things. We visited local towns and did a bit of shopping. We weren’t a drinking party.
CB: Did you have many tasks to do on the airfield though?
DD: No.
CB: When you weren’t flying?
DD: Orderly Officer sometimes.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I was orderly officer on one occasion and a boy came up to the table and collected his pay, a corporal, and he’d been a boy at school with me. This was when I was at the Operational Training Unit and I got a message over the tannoy would Corporal Mitchell report to the Ordinary Officer. Got the fright of his life. Sounded terribly officious and when he saw me he just melted completely. And he was a boy with me at St Erth. His father was a carpenter and the president of the little band in the village and he was in that band.
CB: Now as you finished your operations.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Then what happened?
DD: I got posted to Operational Training Unit as an instructor at Moreton in the Marsh and I decided then it would be a good time to get married and we lived in a village called Blockley which wasn’t far from the airfield there. It was an interesting little village. The plumber was called Mr Ledbetter.
[laughs]
The butcher was called Balhatchet. The chemist was called [Milton?] and I might think of a few more in a minute but, and the vicar was called Jasper. I was confirmed in Blockley.
CB: And what did you actually do as an instructor? Did you -
DD: Well, I didn’t fly then.
CB: Go up in the Wellingtons much
DD: I was a ground instruction.
CB: Right.
DD: And the young fellows who were going through were just needing, they were glad of my operational experience and one student who came through was a squadron leader who’d been with me in South Africa. He was a regular I think. I can’t think of his name now.
CB: And why would he be there?
DD: Oh to take a tour of operations. He hadn’t done any operations beforehand. He, he’d been a navigational pilot instructor. I can’t think of his name at all.
CB: No. So he was a pilot instructor as a pilot.
DD: Yes.
CB: But why was he getting navigation -
DD: He wanted -
CB: Training from you?
DD: To do a tour.
CB: Right.
DD: A tour was normally thirty one.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I believe Charlie who you met he had to do an extra one and he did it with a crew he had some illness or had flu or something and couldn’t go on operation with us and he said that they were a ropey lot. They were smoking. They were falling out among themselves and they were no, no sense of duty at all. But we were a very agreeable wonderful lot together and it was an experience that I can’t define. Closer than brothers. Our lives depended absolutely on each other and we relied on each other totally. Absolute trust. Absolute frankness.
CB: So what was your feelings at the end of the tour when you were all dispersed?
DD: When I was?
CB: When everybody was dispersed to other places.
DD: Well we wanted to keep in touch. We kept in touch with each other. I went to Dennis’ wedding at one time down at Llanelli and Dennis was a good old singer as I was saying. He had been a rather broad Oxford dialect beforehand. Now he’d become quite a little Welshman.
CB: So how long were you at the OTU as an instructor and what happened at the end of it?
DD: Well I was approached by someone who said, “You are an experienced navigator. Would you like to become a full time navigator?” I took the staff end course at Shawbury which was not far from Shrewsbury and right near there a place was called Church Stretton and the hill Caradoc which is the bungalow name here was overlooking where we were flying from. And the doctor who lived in this house before me came from that home district and he named this house after that hill called Caradoc which is a [?] in Shropshire.
Church Stretton has been rather precious to me because I had an aunt who lived there. She had a Breeches bible and she gave it to me which I’ve now handed to my son. My grandson Adam who will receive all my air force stuff he was married to a girl who came from there so we went back there to his wedding. And so church Stretton has been a little bit meaningful to us.
We had very good instruction there and I flew up to Reykjavik in Iceland. Went up on astro and came back on LRN Long Range Navigation.
CB: When you said you went up on astro that was because you were using the astrodome.
DD: Yes.
CB: And the sextant
DD: It wasn’t very, it wasn’t very accurate.
CB: But using a sextant.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How often?
DD: A proper sextant.
CB: How often did you use sextants?
DD: Very rarely.
CB: On operation?
DD: I got I knew how to use one but it wasn’t used very often because it did need really precision and Gee and H2S gave us that. We could be much more precise than just map reading and well we were so high sometimes map reading wasn’t so easy and of course sometimes there was no character in what the land was below us.
CB: So how did you feel about using Gee because -
DD: Oh Gee was ideal. Yes the Gee screen gave us the position lines which we plotted and the more the angle between two position lines got nearer to a right angle the more precise it was. If it was shallow and less then say fifteen degrees it was little bit too inaccurate so we attempted to get position lines that would do that. In the book that I’ve got there the big heavy one you can look in that. Maybe you’d like to turn over a different pages in that and talk to me about that.
CB: Yes.
DD: But we, I stayed there after Shawbury, went back to Moreton in the Marsh again and I think I was offered the chance, “Would you like to come back in to the air force. Full air force.” No I didn’t wish to. I wanted to settle down to married life and family life and I did but I did ATC cadet work and that was very rewarding indeed.
CB: So -
DD: One of my cadets is still a local farmer here. He was a farmer’s boy and he was such a good cadet he was given something that in 1950 or so was a great privilege - a free flight to Singapore. I still see him and he still remembers the joy of being able to do that sort of thing. He went back to farming again.
CB: When were you demobbed and where?
DD: In September 1945. And my son David was born in that month as well. I was demobilised, where was it now? Harrogate I think. I’m not really sure. Harrogate I think.
CB: Right. I think in a moment we’ll pause for a break but just talk to me please a little more about H2S because that was sort of a mixed blessing.
DD: Well it was very good. H2S - just a code name for it, gave you on your screen a fluorescent picture of the ground below and towns stood out more so than anything else and if a town had a particular projection you could cotton on to that in order to get a bearing from it. And you’d rotate the screen [phone ringing] in order to – can you answer it please?
Tape mark 5308 the telephone begins to ring and the interview answers it for the interviewee – not transcribed.
Tape mark 5348 TAPE THEN REPEATS UNTIL MARK 1.47.20
CB: Derry we were just talking about the fact you were on 462 and then 466 squadrons
DD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield. Could you just explain how that evolved with the two squadrons?
DD: Well I started off with 466 all together but, and then 462 had been in the western desert and were posted back to England to take special duties. They were going to have a station of their own later on so we were transferred from 466 to 462 for that interim time. When 462 was built up to be a good squadron size then we were posted back to 466 and I can’t remember the name now but 462 went to not Swanton Morley
CB: Foulsham
DD: Faversham was it? That’s it so they were posted to that. They were a complete squadron on their own and you can read about it in the book by Mark Lax and the professor of chemistry. It’s possible that Mark Lax may be coming over to see me in late autumn this year. I’ve invited him. Whether he will or not I don’t know.
CB: So what’s his involvement with the squadron?
DD: He was just interested writing its history.
CB: Right.
DD: What his Australian Air Force career was I don’t know but he was an Air Commodore.
CB: And what age is he?
DD: Oh I should think middle fifties I should think.
CB: Right.
DD: They’re both younger than we are.
CB: So that covers that extremely well thank you very much and what were, oh final point. What were special operations?
DD: They might have been gardening which of course is laying mines in shipping tracks that was called gardening - code name for it. It could have been dropping food to needy people in certain areas that were damaged, overseas that is not in England. Those were their special duties.
CB: Right.
DD: They weren’t torpedo dropping but I did have a friend who was on Swordfishes dropping but that would have been a special duty but that was left to the RNAS which later was embodied in the RAF.
CB: Thank you. I’ll stop it there and pick up later.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Derry Derrington
Subject
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World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
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Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-14
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00:56:20 audio recording
Language
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eng
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ADerringtonAP150715-01
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Heather Hughes
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
South Africa
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Gee
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
love and romance
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Shawbury
RAF West Freugh
sanitation
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/85/772/LAnsellAV1390280v1.2.pdf
f44c61f6dd887ec5e19608c61cc79de4
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
Ansell, Albert
A V Ansell
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
16 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Albert Victor Ansell (-1943, 1390280 Royal Air Force). It consists of his logbook, notification of awards, correspondence from the air ministry and ten photographs. He trained in the United States and flew as a navigator with 57 Squadron from RAF Scampton. His Lancaster crashed on an operation to Essen 30 April/ 1 May 1943. Its remains were discovered in the Zuider Zee in 1978. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Vicki Ansell and catalogued by Terry Hancock and Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Victor Ansell is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/100453/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Date
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2016-07-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ansell, AV
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Albert Ansell's observer’s and air gunner’s log book
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force observer’s and air gunner’s log book for Sergeant Albert Victor Ansell from 25 October 1942 to 30 April 1943. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at Pan American Airways navigation school Miami, RAF Halfpenny Green (Bobbington), RAF Cottesmore, RAF Winthorpe and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown in were, Commodore, Anson, Wellington, Manchester and Lancaster. He trained as a navigator in the United States and flew three operations with 57 Squadron from RAF Scampton in April 1943. Targets were, Duisburg, Ameland and lost on an operation to Essen. His pilot on operations was Sergeant Glotham. Stamped ‘Failed to return, death presumed 30 April 1943’.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
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
Netherlands
United States
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
England--West Midlands
Florida--Miami
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Netherlands--Ameland Island
Florida
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943-04-26
1943-04-27
1943-04-28
1943-04-30
1943-05-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAnsellAV1390280v1
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MIke Connock
14 OTU
1661 HCU
57 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Commodore
Heavy Conversion Unit
killed in action
Lancaster
Manchester
mine laying
missing in action
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Scampton
RAF Winthorpe
training
Wellington
-
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
Green, Langford W
Bill Green
Joe Green
L W Green
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Langford William Green (1923 - 2022, 2236292 Royal Air Force), his logbook, service documents and photographs. After training, Langford Green served as an air gunner with 218 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh. He flew 18 operations and several Operation Manna supply drops to Dutch civilians.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Langford Green and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, these items are available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Green, LW
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Langford Green’s flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Air Force navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers flying log book for L W Green, air gunner, covering the period from 16 June 1944 to 8 July 1945. Detailing training, scores on gunnery course, and operations flown and post war flying. He was stationed at RAF Bishops Court, RAF Peplow, RAF Sandtoft, RAF Ingham and RAF Chedburgh. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He flew 18 operations with 218 Squadron, 11 Daylight and 7 Night. 3 Operation Manna to The Hague and Rotterdam and 6 Operation Exodus to Juvincourt. Targets were, Monchengladbach, Weisbaden, Dortmund, Wanne-Eickel, Dresden, Chemnitz, Gelsenkirchen, Datteln, Hallendorf, Wurzburg and Kiel.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGreenLW2236292v1
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Würzburg
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
Netherlands--Hague
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-25
1945-02-26
1945-03-09
1945-03-10
1945-03-12
1945-03-14
1945-03-19
1945-03-29
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-29
1945-05-05
1945-05-07
1945-05-11
1945-05-12
1945-05-14
1945-05-17
1945-05-23
1945-05-24
1945-06-14
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.
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
218 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Ingham
RAF Peplow
RAF Sandtoft
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/119/1215/PThomasWH1501.2.jpg
745fc204912c7bac71a5523c73801932
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/119/1215/AThomasWH150711.1.mp3
b0bbf81f2421a7d15357a2b007230236
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BB: Ok Bill.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Thank you for allowing me to come into your home and interview you. It’s a real pleasure to meet with a veteran like yourself.
WT: I’ll give you, I’ll give you the bill later on.
BB: Thank you very much. Ok. What’s your birthday date?
WT: 28th January 1922.
BB: And place of birth?
WT: Redruth in Cornwall.
BB: Redruth. And did you go to school there as well?
WT: Yes I did.
BB: And you did your school certificate and all that kind of thing.
WT: I did.
BB: Ok. When did you, did you volunteer to join the RAF or were you conscripted and then decide for aircrew?
WT: Volunteered because as I said I’ve got that thing all written out. We had, in 1938 they started a flight of the Air Defence Cadet Corp.
BB: Yeah
WT: I joined that because our headmaster was an ex-fighter pilot in the First World War. And then I left school to start work so I couldn’t carry on with the flight but I managed to find the town flight and joined them
BB: And what was your pre-war occupation?
WT: In local government.
BB: Ok.
WT: On the health department side.
BB: And what attracted you to wanting to volunteer for aircrew?
WT: I think it, it was our headmaster who was, as I say, he was a fighter pilot.
BB: The ex RAF sea pilot. Yes.
WT: Ex RAF.
BB: Yeah. Good. He encouraged you to do that.
WT: Not only do that when I, when I was working, walking down past his house, as I had to, I heard, ‘Thomas. Why haven’t you joined the ATC?’ I said, ‘Well,’ ‘It’s the school.’ ‘There’s one down the end of your road. I’ll see you tomorrow night at three.’
BB: Good. So you, you volunteered for aircrew. You obviously went for air crew selection.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And they obviously graded you as, as a bomb aimer or did you go for a particular -
WT: I wanted to be a pilot.
BB: Right. And what happened with that that you couldn’t be. Were they oversubscribed or they just needed bomb aimers?
WT: No well I came out from doing the stuff. I went up to Sywell.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Tiger Moths.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Well I got twelve and a bit hours in but I never saw it
BB: And then you were scrubbed.
WT: Well I could take off. I could do everything in the air
BB: But the landing was a problem.
WT: Landing was a problem. On the little mini run, place -
BB: Yes.
WT: We had.
BB: Yes
WT: But the big one I could get in at. The chief flying instructor
BB: Right.
WT: Took me on a check and he said, ‘I’ll try my best but I don’t know what I can do,’ but he couldn’t.
BB: Anyway, so you were remustered as a bomb aimer.
WT: No. As a NavB.
BB: Oh as a Nav oh as a NavB. Ok. Right.
Other: Excuse me for just a second. Turn it off and press that to start again. Hold that down to this constant.
BB: Ok.
Other: Ok, right.
BB: So -
Other: I want to go and check on my dog.
BB: Ok. So -
Other: I’d better check on the dog in the car.
BB: Ok.
WT: Oh alright my dear.
BB: A NavB.
Do you want me to get up?
BB: A navigator bracket bomb aimer ok. Now, was that the half brevet with the B on it?
WT: No the old-
BB: Oh as the old observer. Ok.
WT: Oh yes.
BB: The flying O.
WT: That’s what I got.
BB: Right.
WT: ‘cause I went to Canada. Eventually.
BB: Oh you went, part of the old Empire Training School.
WT: I did. And I did my bomb aiming and gunnery. And then to oh I’ve forgotten what it’s called now - L’Ancienne-Lorette. And I did my navigation training there. I must have come out fairly well because I got granted a commission.
BB: Right.
WT: So the first six, we never knew which ones out of thirty two were commissioned and then I went to Prince Edward Island and we did three or four weeks special training there to go out over the sea. Navigation and all that. So -
BB: Ok.
WT: That finished.
BB: Right.
WT: Back to Moncton and that was the holding unit.
BB: Yeah.
WT: There for ages waiting to go back to England and eventually doing so. I had come over to Canada on the Queen Elizabeth.
BB: Wow.
WT: Came back on the Aquitania.
BB: Which of course had been converted to a trooper so it wasn’t very luxurious.
WT: Luxurious oh it was luxurious enough.
BB: It was enough, still luxurious.
WT: oh it was alright. And then down to the holding unit waiting to be, go somewhere. We were pushed here there and everywhere and eventually back again and told we were then going to Scotland to something, I said, ‘What is that for? Bomb aimers.
BB: Bomber aimer.
WT: So they converted us from that to bomb aiming.
BB: I see. Right. And so what time, at what date did you actually go, finish that training?
WT: Oh I can do it.
BB: Ok.
WT: Do it from here. [?]
BB: Roughly.
WT: Monckton. Harrogate. Oh back to England in November ’43.
BB: November ‘43 so -
WT: And then to Harrogate.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And then we were at Sidmouth, back to Harrogate again and eventually up to Wigtown.
BB: Oh.
WT: That was April ’44.
BB: Ok and you joined so your OTU where you crewed up. Where was that?
WT: That was down at Castle Donington in May.
BB: Castle.
WT: ’44.
BB: And was that? When my uncle was flying for 9th squadron at Bardney, an Australian pilot he did his OTU at Kinloss.
WT: Ah huh.
BB: And they threw them in to a big hangar and all the navs and the pilots and the air gunners and the bomb aimers were all in this big hangar and they virtually crewed up until they found their own crew.
WT: This is what we did.
BB: Good. So it seemed to have been an RAF -
WT: That was the way of doing it. Yes.
BB: Programme.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And it was, it was very good because each crew kind of found the people they kind of trusted to fly with and they’d ask questions like, to the pilot particularly, ‘Were you alright on your course?’ ‘What were you?’ ‘Oh I was above average.’ ‘You’ll do.’ And it was usually the navigator that found the pilot.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And once they’d got those two, ‘oh I met a bomb aimer over there. A guy I liked.’
WT: This was the way we did it.
BB: And that was exactly the same -
WT: We did it the same way.
BB: That you did it.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Ok and so you were all taking each other on trust at that stage.
WT: Sure and then we went on from there to Prangtoft sorry, Sandtoft.
BB: Sandtoft.
WT: And then Hemswell for Lanc finishing school and then I did what, I was transferred then from there to 166 at Kirmington and 166 squadron was there and we were the 3rd flight. AB. I think it was C flight. And they -
BB: And what were they flying at the time? Lancs?
WT: Well that was Lancs.
BB: Lancs. Yeah.
WT: And what they did was they they nearly burst C flight ready and then we went back actually down to Scampton.
BB: Right.
WT: As 153.
BB: Ok.
WT: And we were the first aircraft to land at Scampton ’cause they had just put the stuff in. We were the first aircraft to land there. In A Able which was somebody else’s kite anyway.
BB: Yes.
WT: But er yeah we went along the runway the lads were all waving. He said, ‘There’s mine’
BB: Now, when my uncle was on 9 squadron in ’43 of course. This was a bit later on in the war. The pilot i.e. my uncle and his navigator flew a second observer, a second crew. They went with a regular crew on a raid.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Who were about to finish their tour so the pilot and the navigator flew on that raid as supernumerary just to see what it was like.
WT: Only one. It was only the pilot went from our -
BB: Ok. Right.
WT: ‘cause he -
BB: They still did that in that place by the time you -
WT: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: They did one trip.
BB: Yeah. As a spare bod. And -
WT: That’s right.
BB: They came back.
WT: That’s right.
BB: And then got their own crew.
WT: That’s right.
BB: Was the air, was the Lancaster you had on 153 a brand new one or was it, had it been recycled?
WT: Well -
BB: From another crew?
WT: Well it was one of the, it was one of the -
BB: One of them.
WT: In fact we didn’t get I Item until about four or five and then it was regular hours.
BB: Ok.
WT: Flying. That’s what it says up there.
BB: Yeah my uncle did much the same thing. He did, he did it seemed to be a Bomber Command practice.
WT: Yeah.
BB: That they got the pilot and the nav to fly these initial sorties.
WT: Ahum.
BB: And then they were given a gash not gash but spare Lancs or –
WT; Yeah.
BB: To fly one or two trips.
WT: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: And then their own brand shiny new Lancaster arrived from the factory and they had that for the whole of the rest of their tour. My uncle’s Lancaster was called Spirit of Russia and it finished the war with a hundred and nine ops.
WT: Did it?
BB: And so it was lucky. But anyway we’re not talking about my uncle we’re talking about.
WT: Thomas.
BB: So there you are on ops.
WT: Yeah and we -
BB: With your scratch crew. Yeah.
WT: Yes and we carried on right up until well we did one on the 3rd of February ’45. No sorry the 7th of March ’45. And on the 8th we did a grand loop.
BB: Ah.
WT: Our pilot passed out.
BB: Oh.
WT: We think it was a fit and we were on our way to Castle.
BB: Ah.
WT: And we came out and [wing co Piley?] said, ‘You’ll be flying tonight’ and we said, ‘Not [so and so] likely until we know what’s happened to the skipper.’ He said, ‘You’ll be on a charge.’ I said, ‘I’ll see you there. Sir’ and left it at that.
BB: So, what, the was pilot was
WT: He -
BB: Obviously written off.
WT: Yes he was pretty.
BB: Wrtten off.
WT: He was gone. By that time they’d taken him away. By the time we’d got gathered together and he came back, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s alright. The spare crew are going.’ so I saw him in the mess.
BB: He didn’t give you a spare pilot to fly that night.
WT: No. Well he wanted us to fly.
BB: Fly. So you didn’t do that.
WT: We didn’t go. No. We just didn’t. It was -
BB: That was your last trip?
WT: No.
BB: No.
WT: So what happened then, Bruce went into hospital and eventually they realised he wasn’t coming out. They sent us home on leave and brought us back and I can’t remember whether they gave us three weeks or anyway we came back again and we did our last three with a Canadian no an Aussie pilot who’d lost his crew and had three to do.
BB: Right. Ok that -
WT: So he did three.
BB: That was usually the way.
WT: We thought we should have done one more so what we did was twenty nine and a half ‘cause we had an abortion in the middle of it.
BB: Right. Right. Ok and I gather that rather unfairly French targets counted for half.
WT: No.
BB: At that time of the war.
WT: No.
BB: No.
WT: No.
BB: No.
WT: In fact the first one was Fort [Frederick Heinrich] just on the Dutch coast.
BB: Oh right. Ok.
WT: But that was a full.
BB: Ok.
WT: That was full.
BB: Yeah.
WT: They were all full.
BB: Yeah.
WT: ‘Cause we didn’t do very many French ones.
BB: No. Not at that stage. No.
WT: No. We were going out.
BB: No. No. Right.
WT: Including Dresden.
BB: Yes. Now what was you’re, ok we’ll get to Dresden later.
WT: Yes.
BB: ‘Cause it’s been quite controversial and everybody sees that as the bad thing that Bomber Command did. Um what what’s your opinion of that?
WT: My opinion is as I’ve said to many people we bombed Dresden because we, one, we were told to. But it turns out afterwards that Mr Churchill was given from the Russians three, three targets that needed to be hit, Dresden and two others. I don’t know which they were. And he was given to us, he gave them to Bomber Harris and said, ‘There’s the three. You do them whenever you think right.’ And we went on the Dresden -
BB: Yeah.
WT: Trip.
BB: Yeah Churchill gave them to Portal who was chief of the air staff.
WT: Yes and he -
BB: And Portal gave them to Harris.
WT: Yeah and Harris, Harris sent them.
BB: Just did what he was told basically.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah [?]
WT: But Harris said to us, you know, we didn’t, he chose them.
BB: Yes.
WT: He chose Dresden. Ten hours twenty that was.
BB: Yes it was a long trip.
WT: It was. And it was the best bonfire night I’ve ever seen.
BB: Yes it did. It was rather grand.
WT: But -
BB: As far as the crews were concerned –
WT: I found out afterwards and I’ve got the book saying -
BB: Yes.
WT: That Dresden was a target. It was full of troops. They were making very small arms stuff.
BB: Yeah.
WT: For submarines and things like that all scattered all over the place.
BB: Yeah it was a -
WT: So -
BB: Legitimate target.
WT: A legitimate target.
BB: Legitimate target. Yes. So that was Dresden and I think in the post war my own opinion and this is my own opinion and you know Churchill wanted to stand in the Conservative government. Labour were coming up and what we understand of labour it’s now called Labour it was a socialist government coming up and he wanted to back away from the actual how effective Bomber Command had been and um and more or less threw Harris to, to the wolves.
WT: And washed his hands.
BB: And washed his hands of it. But he did the same with Dowding after the Battle of Britain so there we go it says something about the great Churchill doesn’t it?
WT: No. I don’t, don’t respect him.
BB: No.
WT: Anymore.
BB: Anyway -
WT: Sorry.
BB: Enough of that.
WT: Go on.
BB: No. No. It’s ok but I saw Dresden on your bookcase and I thought I’d ask about it.
WT: I got it there.
BB: Now getting back to the crew.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And how you all trusted each other and had to rely on each other.
WT: Yeah.
BB: What, were there any, I mean were you scared?
WT: No.
BB: You weren’t scared.
WT: Never scared.
BB: Ok. Funny I’ve heard this a lot from Bomber Command crews. They weren’t, they were apprehensive but they weren’t particularly scared.
WT: No. We just went in and did it.
BB: And did it. Yeah ok. Now we’ve read a lot, or I’ve read a lot, there’s been a lot of post-war um study on LMF issues.
WT: Yes.
BB: Lack of moral fibre issues. In your time in Bomber Command did you ever come across anything of that sort?
WT: I think there was one. One night that I never found out true there was three of us three kites on a set of pads.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Or whatever you call them.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And we did a run up and then we used to come outside -
BB: Yeah.
WT: For a smoke or whatever knowing that the signal would go up, get in your kites, and there was a pilot on one of those things and I didn’t know him sat in the hedge smoking a cigarette and there was a little bit of a kafuffle and three staff cars came down and he went with them. Now, that was the bloke who had refused to go that night. When we got back everything was hushed.
BB: Was he commissioned?
WT: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: We didn’t, I don’t know what had happened to him. I didn’t know the guy.
BB: He was just posted. That was it. Gone.
WT: It was just, he was just taken off. Yeah.
BB: Yeah ok. What year would that be roughly? Roughly. Doesn’t have to be exact.
WT: I can’t remember. It was certainly in ’44.
BB: Ok.
WT: ’45 I mean.
BB: ’45.
WT: The beginning of ’45.
BB: Because, coming back to my late uncle’s crew his rear gunner um Sergeant Clegg had been a pre-war warrant officer but had been busted down to sergeant many times for doing nasty things, naughty things I should say. I won’t go into details.
WT: Right. No.
BB: But he was always in and out of Sheffield. You know what Sheffield was?
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. He was always in and out of Sheffield and that’s another place that doesn’t have much publicity. It was the air crew rehabilitation centre or whatever they wanted to call it.
WT: Ahum.
BB: But I only found this out by looking at the form 500, 540.
WT: 540.
BB: Yeah and it had all the missions for my uncle and the crews and you’d see Sergeant Clegg and then you’d see three or four trips no Sergeant Clegg some other gash gunner had gone in and I asked some survivors on my late uncle’s crew what about Clegg? At first they were all very protective and then they said well actually Clegg was a bit of a lad and he got into trouble with drink and women and was always been sent to Sheffield but in in the air he was a perfect rigger just I mean you know my uncle trusted him implicitly and when he was at Sheffield my uncle felt really, really uncomfortable with this gash gunner sitting at the back who he didn’t know. But you know he got, he got through his tour unfortunately my uncle but was killed instructing.
WT: Our wireless op he was, he was an Australian and he was a silly B really and he drank like old boots so when he got in the kite he would do everything he had to do but Jack, our navigator was a great guy ‘cause he knew there was a group, a message to come. I’ve forgotten was it half hourly -
BB: Yeah.
WT: Quarter hourly.
BB: Half hourly.
WT: He’d give Digger a kick.
BB: Usually the weather and, yeah.
WT: We’d could usually hear, ‘Digger wake up you silly B.’ And he’d be, ‘Oh oh alright,’ he says and he never missed, he had everything down, he never missed a thing. He knew exactly where we were going.
BB: Yeah. That’s great. My uncle’s navigator was the old man of the crew. He was -
WT: Yeah.
BB: He was thirty two.
WT: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: He’d been a postmaster in the Isle of Man and had volunteered to be a navigator because he was very good at maths but he was the old man of the crew and the rest of the crew called him Pop. Because the average age on, the average age on my uncle’s crew was what nineteen, twenty.
WT: Ahum.
BB: My uncle himself he was twenty one when he was killed. And that’s having done thirty trips.
WT: I was, I got I was twenty one in Canada. While I was in Canada.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I got deferred service so so such a long time.
BB: Yeah.
WT: In fact I registered as I had to do.
BB: Was that because you were local government job that was deferred?
WT: No nothing to do with that at all. ‘cause they were happy.
BB: It wasn’t a reserved occupation or anything.
WT: No it wasn’t.
BB: No.
WT: It wasn’t reserved. What happened was I signed on as we had to do and I said look here’s my number. Oh yes well that’s ok. Three weeks later I got called up for the army and [noise off] that’s somebody downstairs.
BB: Oh right.
WT: Don’t take any notice of that. And I got called up for the army and I managed to get out of that with a big brigadier somebody that we well knew. He rang them up and he said silly B. He told you what was happening because they were going to come and fetch me.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So that worked out alright.
BB: Good.
WT: Because, you know it didn’t always go right.
BB: No.
WT: I was lucky.
BB: So there were, there were evidence of LMF when you were on the squadron.
WT: Just that one.
BB: Just that one.
WT: Just that I know of.
BB: Yeah. Exactly. Just that you know of. And he was commissioned.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. I’ve heard other stories where had it been a sergeant air crew Harris was so worried about this kind of thing that we would call it post-traumatic stress disorder.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Today um they were, they were lined up in front of the whole squadron, stripped of their chevrons.
WT: That’s right.
BB: And their brevets taken off. Which was very very harsh but it did get the message. And other aircrews I’ve spoken to they were more scared of that happening to them.
WT: That they -
BB: Then facing the Germans.
WT: So that kept them going.
BB: And I suppose that was Harris’ view. You can either be scared of me or you can be scared of them.
WT: Sure.
BB: Make your choice.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Um but it now the Americans had a completely different attitude to it in the 8th air force and they were flying daylight raids.
WT: Ahum.
BB: As you know. So there was a different thing. The other commands, coastal, fighter, transport they had their, it wasn’t so prevalent.
WT: No.
BB: In those commands. But it’s, it’s, it’s an issue that is very interesting academically and the Sheffield thing. So that might be something that might be an aspect of the Bomber Command research.
WT: [?]
BB: No I’m just saying but you knew of it, it happened on your squadron and that was -
WT: That’s it.
BB: Quietly posted away.
WT: Didn’t take no notice of it.
BB: Yes, that’s right. I mean, you know, a very good friend of my father’s, a chap called Musgrave who was a pathfinder, a pre-war fitter when the heavies came in he volunteered to be a flight engineer, went to St Athan, came out with [E] joined his crew at the Heavy Conversion Unit and went on and did his thing but he did ninety three ops at the end and I said to him once, sadly he’s no longer with us but I have his log books and he said, ‘Well, you know we were dead anyway after four,’ four to five ops in that tour no statistically, statistically -
WT: I know. Yes.
BB: Dead. So let’s go.
WT: I’m going to empty that.
BB: Oh I’m sorry. Right.
WT: Are you going to switch it off or not? Whichever you want to do.
BB: No I’ll just.
WT: I’ll run.
BB: No don’t run. Take your time.
WT: No. No.
BB: Take your time.
WT: It’s only two minutes.
BB: Yeah.
[Pause]
BB: Ok.
WT: Sorry about that.
BB: No, don’t be. No, it’s fine.
WT: You can’t stop it you see.
BB: No. I know you can’t. Thank you very much.
WT: You know.
BB: So that’s great.
WT: You know.
BB: That’s great.
That’s great. Sure
BB: We’ve covered why you wanted to join, you joined, you got re-mustered from pilot to bomb aimer sorry NavB er went to Canada for your initial training.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And then came back to the Heavy Conversion Unit. Lancaster finishing school.
WT: Right.
BB: And went to the OTU and got your crew.
WT: Yes. That’s right.
BB: And you did your, you did your trip. Was it twenty nine do you remember? You told me.
WT: We did twenty nine. I always say one was a half.
BB: Ok.
WT: We got out one night and we had an engine go.
BB: A boomerang.
WT: And she wasn’t very, we weren’t very happy but we carried on for a while and then another one started to go sick so we turned -
BB: Now -
WT: So we turned and came back.
BB: Yeah.
WT: That was about -
BB: What mission, what sortie was that?
WT: That was about the 8th of February.
BB: 8th of, yeah.
WT: Politz I think it was called.
BB: 8th of February 45.
WT: Hmmn?
BB: 8th of February 45. Yeah.
WT: Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And er when we got back somebody said, ‘Why didn’t you go on?’ And he had a few rings there and I said, ‘Sir look out on the pan. There’s an aircraft out there. It’s got two good engines. One is alright I think. The other one’s rough.’ I said, ‘There’s seven of us here.’
BB: What did the flight engineer think about it? He must have made the judgement on that?
WT: No, he had -
BB: The captain.
WT: He had to shut it down. It was -
BB: Yeah.
WT: So I said, ‘And you’ve got the seven of us are here are ready to go again.’ I said, ‘We didn’t go over and get a VC and lose your aircraft for you.’ Cause that -
BB: What did he say to that?
WT: So he said, ‘Well forget it.’ I said, ‘just as well [stress] sir.’
BB: Station commander?
WT: Hmmn?
BB: Was that the station commander?
WT: Yeah. No. It was the er -
BB: Squadron commander?
WT: No. It was the station commander. He happened to be there, yes.
BB: Yeah. Station master as they used to call them.
WT: They usually had four rings.
BB: Yeah. Group captain. Yes.
WT: There was the AOC there. He was there. He was great ‘cause I was friendly with his WAAF lady.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I used we used very friendly just chatted and all that and had a drink and I was saying good night to her outside his house one night and suddenly he tapped me on the shoulder, he was coming in. He said, ‘Don’t keep her up all night because she’s got to get me breakfast in the morning.’ He said, ‘This isn’t a -
BB: Yeah, but they knew what was going on.
WT: He knew.
BB: They loved their aircrew. Yeah.
WT: He was happy.
BB: Now -
WT: I’ve done a whole lot screed on me.
BB: I’ll look at that later.
WT: Yeah that’s what I wanted to -
BB: One other thing I wanted to mention to you because -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Bomber Command had a high instance of venereal disease. VD.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And it was, it was a big a big issue because crews were getting sick and having to go to Halton and all these other hospitals and Harris had a view of it that, ‘cause the chief medical officer in Bomber Command went to see him about it, right. Went to see Harris
WT: Ahum.
BB: To, you know, tell him, you know, it’s got to stop and he said, ‘If my old lags want to have a bit of fun let them have it because they could be dead tomorrow. Now get out of my office.’ He said something like that. But I mean did you, were you aware of any of that?
WT: No. No.
BB: Were there any kind of big posters?
WT: No it was -
BB: Or lectures?
WT: No. It was a good squadron as far as that was concerned. No. We had good fun. We had this -
BB: Yeah
WT: We did a lot of that.
BB: Right. But less of the other.
WT: As far as I’m concerned.
BB: Apparently it was a big problem in Bomber Command but probably in certain areas.
WT: We, we were lucky. I was lucky. I think we had a good squadron there.
BB: Yeah.
WT: They really were. I didn’t know all of them or anything.
BB: No. No, of course.
WT: I didn’t get to know them.
BB: No. No. No. You didn’t.
WT: No.
BB: And I suppose there was the usual horror story in the morning when you went in for breakfast and there were blank chairs. Guys didn’t come back.
WT: Yeah but then I mean people weren’t in because I was lucky I was in the mess lower ground floor. All I had to do was come out of my room turn left and right and there was the dining room.
BB: Right.
WT: So I was dead lucky. Well the bar well there was no bar because it was a peacetime mess.
BB: Sure.
WT: I mean we had to go down a little alleyway.
BB: Sure.
WT: And get served in the trap hatch as we called it.
BB: Right.
WT: The [corps?] was very good.
BB: Now inter relationships within the crew between commissioned and non-commissioned crew members? Any, now you flew as a crew and that was it but of course when you landed you went to your separate messes.
WT: Yes well the, Bruce and I were in -
BB: The other mess, officer’s mess.
WT: The other -
BB: Sergeant’s mess.
WT: Five were together in a house.
BB: In a house ok they were billeted in a house.
WT: One of the wartime houses they were in.
BB: Ok. Ok. Right. I’ve heard a lot of stories where they couldn’t mix formally on base so they went to the local pub and the crew got out all together.
WT: Well you couldn’t do it on base.
BB: No. I know.
WT: You couldn’t be walking -
BB: No. I know.
WT: Around chatting.
BB: No but I meant there was the officer’s mess and the sergeants mess.
WT: They couldn’t mix them up. No.
BB: So they went off base to do it. At least that’s what my uncle did.
WT: The only time we, the only time we mixed was the pre-ops meal.
Interview: Yeah.
WT: And usually that was the sergeant’s mess because it was bigger because of their numbers so we could join them there for the meal.
BB: That’s right.
WT: ‘We had our pre-op meal there altogether.
BB: Because you were one of the privileged guys in the Lancasters. PNB pilot/navigator/bombardier. They were the three main crew PNB and they were recruited -
WT: Ahum.
BB: You know as slightly more rigorously selected and recruited more rigorously than let’s say the gunners because you had the, had to have the education to do those jobs.
WT: Oh you did. Yes.
BB: And you had to have the right characteristics.
WT: Yeah.
BB: So -
WT: I had my London General School Certificate.
BB: Well that’s right. That’s right um well that was, that was good. Let’s see, course you came, I mean I’m not, the time you got into the squadron -
WT: Yeah.
BB: It was late ‘43 or early ’44?
WT: Do you know my memory.
BB: Yeah.
WT: It’s the age.
BB: It’s ok.
WT: Alright. My first op was on the 15th of October ‘44.
BB: ’44. So the war was, the war was still there. And -
WT: Oh yes.
BB: Still brutal.
WT: Oh yes.
BB: Bombers were still being lost.
WT: Yes.
BB: Right up to the last day.
WT: Yeah. Yeah.
BB: But was there any feeling of it can’t be long now or did you think it was just going to go on and on until it stopped. I mean did you have any sense that we were winning?
WT: No.
BB: And doing all that stuff?
WT: We were, as I said.
BB: D-day had finished of course.
WT: No, no, yeah it didn’t. D day, D-day, D-day was over, yes.
BB: Yes.
WT: When I was at OTU.
BB: Yeah but there was still, you know -
WT: Yes.
BB: Still the fighting.
WT: Oh yes well we were the old line.
BB: Still bombing.
WT: The line went further -
BB: Yes.
WT: And further back.
BB: Yes, that’s right.
WT: But there was still a line.
BB: Oh a lot of day -
WT: There was.
BB: Yeah. And did you go on any daylights? Because there were a lot of daylight raids coming in
WT: We did, we did the odd daylights. We did one, two, three. About three. No four. I think there were four -
BB: Four daylights and at that stage of the war was the Luftwaffe still effective or were they -.
WT: Hang on. The last one we did was in April.
BB: April.
WT: ‘45.
BB: Ok.
WT: That was at Nordhausen. Wherever that was.
BB: Nordhausen ok but the um but the Luftwaffe by that stage was essentially gone. I mean no fuel, and losses had been high.
WT: They were up in the air.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And I spotted and -
BB: Did you ever see any of the new jets? ME262 or -
WT: I was going to say because I spotted some one night when we were out and we couldn’t understand. We thought they were rockets and they seemed to be going straight up and this happened a couple of times. It was more over Holland.
BB: Oh the V2s coming off.
WT: No. It was, it was the -
BB: Oh the exhaust from the -
WT: New jets.
BB: The new jets. Oh ok.
WT: The new jets no the V2s had finished by that time.
BB: You didn’t, you didn’t
WT: But we, I reported it but didn’t know anything.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I just said I didn’t know what they were.
BB: Yeah ok.
WT: So that was up to them. I, I didn’t know what they were.
BB: No.
WT: Until after the war. I found out.
BB: Yes. Yes and the German night fighters were still around, prowling around um did you, did you at that time they had Junkers 88s and Messerschmitt’s 110s with the Schräge Musik. Upward firing guns.
WT: Yeah. That was yeah.
BB: When they started to appear crews would just see this massive explosion in the sky and -
WT: Ahum.
BB: Thought they’d been hit by flak. They hadn’t, they hadn’t realised that they were getting under the -
WT: No.
BB: The belly and er it took a long time for Bomber Command to actually tell the crews -
WT: Yeah.
BB: About it.
WT: We knew about it.
BB: You knew about it but it, it was a very effective night fighter technique and -
WT: We only, we used to see searchlights in the sky.
BB: Yes.
WT: And there was the old master one.
BB: Yes.
WT: The red one.
BB: Yes and that was the radar and if that locked on to you the radar guided one -
WT: That was radar but one of them was coming towards us and I was screaming to Bruce and he said give me an idea of timing and I said, ‘Now,’ and what we did then we went straight through it.
BB: Yeah.
WT: As quick we could and he went like this and he disappeared.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So in other words he’d he’ll find somebody else.
Instructor: Yeah he’d find somebody else and ‘cause once you’d been combed that was it.
WT: We did it twice.
BB: More or less. Did it twice.
WT: That happened twice.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Ahum.
BB: That was it to get out.
WT: We didn’t get fired at.
BB: Well it happened to my uncle once and he actually put the aircraft straight down the path of the searchlight as best he could.
WT: The front gunner.
BB: With the front gunner blazing like mad.
WT: I would that’s right.
BB: And quick get out of the way and that ‘cause they changed that but it was -
WT: No. But we were, we were lucky.
BB: The [line was still] well ok with the advance of the allies but the German night fighter force went on quite effectively until more or less the end were constrained by fuel at the end and losses.
WT: It was.
BB: And losses of course. But what would between the flak and the night fighters and collisions and all that sort of thing what would you say was the main, the main fear? Night fighters?
WT: I don’t think we had fear.
BB: No.
WT: I’m sorry if -
BB: You put it away.
WT: It sounds big headed but -
BB: No, no, no.
WT: I don’t. I don’t think.
BB: No. I’m not I’m not. Yeah.
WT: We knew we had a job to do. If we didn’t do it -
BB: Ok. I’ll put it -
WT: We were in trouble.
BB: I’ll put it I’ll put it another way.
WT: Yeah. Go on.
BB: When you had the intelligence briefing.
WT: Yeah.
BB: At the brief.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Obviously they briefed you on night fighter tactics
WT: Yeah
Instructor: And where the flak concentrations -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Were and your route was planned.
WT: Yeah.
BB: To avoid these things and you had Window ah Window.
WT: Window.
BB: Were you dropping Window at that stage as a regular thing?
WT: All the way. All the way we could.
BB: And you had Boozer giving you the electronic aid that latched on to the night fighter radar.
WT: I didn’t do anything about that.
BB: Ok. That must have been with the wireless op.
WT: Wireless op had that.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Because he had, he had a little book.
BB: Yeah. That’s right because the Germans countered that by finding the frequency and all the -
WT: That’s right.
Instructor: And all the rest of it.
WT: That’s right.
BB: Everything like that. It went back and forth I think on the -
WT: Yeah he had that on his table.
BB: Yes. Ok. Rebecca and Boozer and all this stuff.
WT: Yeah we had [?]
BB: Yeah but window was quite effective, yeah.
WT: We did that religiously.
BB: Yes.
WT: I was glad to get rid of it mind.
BB: Yes.
WT: Get in the blooming way.
BB: Now the, my uncle’s wireless operator, he was the warmest guy on the Lanc. Everybody else was cold but he was the warmest behind his little curtain.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Um so he was either too hot or too cold but usually hot.
WT: I was happy.
BB: You were alright in your -
WT: I was alright.
BB: Your place.
WT: Where I was.
Instructor: Could you, you were usually you were at the front of course.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah and I mean for take-off you weren’t there you were probably back -
WT: For take-off we had an arrangement. When we were on OTU -
BB: Yeah.
WT: They trained the, what do you call it, to take off with Bruce?
BB: Yeah.
WT: What’s the, God -
BB: Flight engineer.
WT: Flight engineer. Sorry, I’ve got amnesia.
BB: It’s alright.
WT: No the flight engineer he trained, he was trained to take off and land so -
BB: Yes. That’s right.
WT: Fine. Instead of me being down in the nose which was a bad place to be -
BB: Yeah, Yeah.
WT: I’d be sitting on the engineer’s seat and there were two red wheels and those were the fuel.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And they said to me if I ever saw a red light come up.
BB: Scream.
WT: Do that.
BB: Turn it off.
WT: No turn them both off.
Instructor: Yeah.
WT: And that’s what I did until he poked me in the back and he said, ‘I’ve finished Bob, now’ and I’d say, ‘Cheers.’ and I’d go back to my office. We did that. I came up to landing the same way.
BB: Right. Now again I’m sorry to go back again to my uncle’s crew because it’s, it’s not him we’re talking about but they were representative. His bomb aimer, every time they were approaching the target, the whole crew would get on you know well the captain would say, ‘Try and make it one run this time will you?’ ‘Cause you know, ‘Sorry I’ve got to go around again boss. You know it was like it was never did so it was -
WT: Never did one more round. We went in every time.
BB: Excellent. Excellent.
WT: ‘cause I think it was a question of where you were.
BB: Yes, I understand. In the bomber stream. Yes.
WT: You know, in the stream. But I never had to once.
BB: Because you know the Germans were great at having dummy markers and flares.
WT: Sure.
BB: And changing the, trying to get a feel for the aiming point and, you know.
WT: And the whole thing when you worked it out the whole cross wind.
BB: Yes. Yes.
WT: You could pick it up
Instructor: Yes,
WT: Ages before you
BB: Right.
WT: And I’d get Bruce to change so that we had a good direction.
BB: Right. Ok.
WT: And he was very good ‘cause he just used the pedals to to do
BB: [the rudder bar] yes that’s right to correct the [yaw] My uncle’s bomb aimer only went around I think twice on one target but it was, it was, it was an important one. Um ‘cause my uncle went to Peenemunde. He did the Peenemunde raid. Well he was lucky. He was in the first wave. The diversion raids had, there were no night fighters because -
WT: No.
BB: They had, they weren’t there.
WT: They were somewhere else.
BB: They were somewhere else.
WT: Yeah.
BB: But the guys in the third wave-
WT: They copped it didn’t they?
BB: They copped it. Yeah. But of course they weren’t told what it was for.
WT: We were very, very lucky. I really think we were.
BB: I think luck had a big part to play whether you survived your tour or not
WT: I think so.
BB: And that yes as well
WT: Yes.
BB: That and a great crew and a competent crew.
WT: Well our navigator was red hot.
BB: Yeah.
WT: ‘cause one day Bruce said to him, ‘Jack, why don’t you let Bill take over?’ And before I could say anything he said, Bill you don’t mind or Bobs they used to call me. ‘Bobs you don’t mind but I’d rather be responsible myself for what’s happening.’ I said, ‘I’d rather you did.’ And he did. And he didn’t want me to help with the Gee. He did it all himself.
BB: No. Yeah. Yeah.
WT: He wanted to do it all himself. No, he did it all himself.
BB: Yeah. My uncle’s navigator too. He had all these aids.
WT: Yeah.
BB: But he liked to do it himself and used Gee as a backup you know and -
WT: You know Jack was a good navigator.
Instructor: Yeah.
WT: In fact I contacted him after the war. He was over in er, on the east, west coast somewhere and I had a couple of words with him, He got taken ill and died just like that within nine months of my knowing him.
BB: Oh dear.
WT: There’s one of our crew left still here. Harry the rear gunner. He’s down in Yorkshire.
BB: Oh right I must get his -
WT: He’s not a hundred percent.
BB: No.
WT: At the moment.
BB: No.
WT: And we have a reunion of 153 but it’s got that about there’s only about two members.
BB: No.
WT: That go. It’s all the associate members.
BB: I know.
WT: But they meet every year down in err oh down the road -
BB: Scampton oh in Yorkshire. No in -
WT: Lincoln.
BB: Lincoln. Scampton, Waddington.
WT: No. In Lincoln itself.
BB: Oh Lincoln. Ok
WT: In a pub, in a, in a hotel
BB: Yes.
WT: And go to BBMF.
BB: Yes.
WT: And BBMF -
BB: Yes
WT: Bring them in.
BB: Yeah it’s great. I’ve been there.
WT: They are very much with us.
BB: I had the very great privilege of flying in the BBMF Lancaster.
WT: Did you?
BB: Yeah I was on duty as a reservist and briefing and debriefing crews. Modern crews.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And they said do you want, do you want a flight? And I said yeah. They said, ‘There’s Jacko Jackson over there.’
WT: Ah.
BB: ‘He’s the captain.’ He said, ‘Go and see Jacko.’
WT: Yeah.
BB: And he’ll fix you up and I went across and I said, I was a flying officer at the time and I said, ‘Good morning sir.’ And he said, ‘Yeah. I know about you. You’re coming with me on a one hour flip around in the Lanc.’ We were doing a test, air test of something so
WT: Ahum.
BB: It was wonderful and I told him about my uncle and all that and I went to every position except the rear gunner position.
WT: Yeah.
BB: They wouldn’t let you in there but I went mid upper gunner, I went down the bomb aimer and it was the bomb aimer’s place. It was, it was great but you get a sense of how that main spar going across could be a real hindrance if you had to get out.
WT: I’ve got some photographs I don’t know where they are now of our people in that one going over the main spar.
BB: With all the kit on?
WT: No. Well we didn’t have that. We used to throw that down over the top but there’s one of the ladies, she took over as the squadron scribe, association scribe and I still keep in touch with her and there’s one of her looking over the top and all I could see was her backside so it appeared on the thing
Instructor: Yeah.
WT: Guess who?
BB: Guess who. Because you either went out the main door at the back.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Or you went out the bomb aimers hatch at the top.
WT: Hatch.
BB: Yeah and when that, if that’s in a spin or you know it was difficult but it was difficult getting out of the Lancaster but it was quite difficult when those things -
WT: Sure.
BB: When they caught you.
WT: I say, you know, we were so lucky.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So lucky.
BB: Yeah. So did all your crew that you trained with and flew with survive the war?
WT: Yes we all survived.
BB: All survived.
WT: Together yes we all survived together and after that we were dispersed to various place
BB: Of course. Yes.
WT: I went one way, somebody went, Harry funnily enough he was a sergeant he was sent to India and he was in the post office out there somewhere and they dropped him to corporal.
BB: Yeah. That happened a lot.
WT: Terrible that was. I couldn’t understand that.
BB: Wartime temporary. Now you’re a corporal. Yes.
WT: Yeah.
Instructor: That’s right. Yeah. And err in your own case when the war finished when did you actually leave the air force? Was it ‘46 sometime or -
WT: Yeah. I think, ohI can’t remember offhand.
BB: Well just vaguely?
WT: It’s in my in -
BB: Logbook?
WT: No. It’s in my script somewhere.
BB: Oh ok. Well anyway it was most. Most were let loose by 1947.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. Most.
WT: Where did I put my scribe script?
BB: Oh don’t worry about it but where
WT: Oh, here it is in my hand.
BB: What did they have you do in that time?
WT: Oh.
BB: Were you supernumerary somewhere or were you -
WT: No they wanted, wanted us to train as something and I trained as an equipment officer.
BB: Right ok so the whole surplus aircrew thing.
WT: Yes.
BB: Because of the war
WT: Yeah.
Instructor: They said you can go home, you’re a good bloke, you’re commissioned we need you blah blah blah but you got to remuster as something else.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And, and -
WT: And I was told that’s what I was going to be. I did a course for six weeks on equipment. Got sent to RAF Strubby.
BB: Oh I know where -
WT: Which had been -
BB: Strubby is in Lincolnshire.
WT: Coldest place on earth. Was shut down and it was ready to be everything taken out.
BB: Right.
WT: And I had a few bods there to do that and we had trucks coming out
BB: Taking -
WT: Getting rid of stuff and so on.
BB: That’s right
WT: And I had another guy ‘cause I was attached to some maintenance unit over on the coast and they sent a guy to help me Frank Wilkes bless him a brummy and we worked together and we both got our going off together so we, we, we went off down to London to get our -
BB: Right got your demob suit and out you went.
WT: I didn’t want a hat so he put his, he put my hat that I would have on. I took it outside and I gave it to - [laughs]
BB: So, ok. So you were demobbed.
WT: Yeah.
BB: After all of that. Having gone through that having gone through all that with Bomber Command being demobbed, done your trips with all the trials and tribulations and terror of what could have happened. What did you do then?
WT: I went back to my job.
BB: You went back to your job.
WT: It was reserved. I joined the health department of the Cornwall County Council in September ‘39, no August ’39.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So I was there then until I joined up but my job was held for me, my, while I was only on my two bob or whatever it was a week my pay was made up.
BB: Right.
WT: But as soon as I got more that stopped and I had to go in and pay the, pay the difference
BB: And obviously you rebuilt your life.
WT: Yeah.
BB: After that and here we are and well done.
WT: My wife, my wife was -
BB: I was going to ask about that.
WT: She was -
BB: Did you meet her in the RAF?
WT: No I met her in, at work.
BB: At work.
WT: I remember it was -
BB: Post war work.
WT: Yeah. The uniform did it.
BB: Ah the uniform did it.
WT: So what I would -
BB: It still had the pull of the air crew.
WT: Well I always went up in my full uniform.
BB: Of course you did.
WT: And it was funny when we had that grand loop.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I went home on leave. I went up to see somebody and I went in see the boss ‘cause I was his favourite. He was the first boy post boy he’d ever appointed ‘cause he was new.
BB: Ah.
WT: Dr Curnow and
BB: Curnow?
WT: Curnow same as Cornwall
BB: Yeah.
WT: Curnow.
BB: Yeah.
WT: C u r n o w.
BB: Yes I had, one of my medical officers was from Cornwall. His name was Curnow.
WT: Yeah. He, he stayed there all the time. For a long, long time and he said to me, when I’d finished I went back, and there was a brr brr and his secretary said that, ‘Yes he is.’ She said, ‘He says go in.’ He said, ‘Sit down. Have you finished?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Hold your hands out.’ He said, ‘You couldn’t do that last time you were here,’ he said, ‘You had the twitch.‘
BB: I was going to come to that
WT: [?] yeah
BB: This chap Musgrave I was telling you about. The guy that did the ninety three trips. He had a permanent twitch. It was sort of –
WT: Ahum.
BB: Like that.
WT: No. No.
BB: But he had a twitch and everybody knew you know he had been
WT: Yeah.
BB: Bomber command but he was very, not because he was boasting about it they just knew that he got out. He finished the war with DFC, DFM and God knows else what but he’d been a pre-war guy but he had a twitch and I asked him once where he got it. How it started. And he said he’d had a crash and er he survived. One or two guys didn’t and that affected him.
WT: That was, that was from when it started because he had said he hadn’t noticed it before.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He was a good chief was Doc Curnow.
BB: So
WT: I was his boy.
BB: Yeah. So these things did have a knock on, knock on affect.
WT: Sure.
BB: Now, the, and then you had all that post war thing you know getting a job, getting married, a family and all of that. Most of the Bomber Command people that I have met and indeed other wartime aircrew not just Bomber Command they never, ever talked about it for years and years. Never.
WT: I agree.
BB: And some of them really still are reticent to talk um either it’s too painful for them one way or another.
WT: I don’t know.
BB: Or it’s just that was that was a bit of my life I’ve now put it in a cupboard.
WT: That was me.
BB: And get on with life.
WT: For a long, long time.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Until eventually I joined you know the Aircrew Association and so on
BB: Yes. That’s right.
WT: Especially when I came up here.
BB: Well I mean you guys were young and you’d gone through such a lot.
WT: Ahum.
BB: And it was very hectic and life was for today.
WT: Yes.
BB: Tomorrow you didn’t know if it was going to happen.
WT: I was, I was getting, I was married.
BB: Yeah. You had responsibilities.
WT: And we had our -
BB: And other things took priority over all of that.
WT: Yes, there were.
BB: And then of course there was this post war denial about Bomber Command.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And what they did and all the rest of it. How did that make you feel? Did it make you feel angry? Did it make you feel what the hell did we do it all for?
WT: I could have killed Churchill. Easily. You know, without any argument.
BB: Because of what he did.
WT: Because of Bomber Harris.
BB: I mean they called him Butch.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Because you know but he he loved his crews and -
WT: He was, he came to Scampton once and he was great.
BB: And they loved him
WT: Yeah.
BB: Despite you know sending them off every night knowing that x number of Lancaster’s wouldn’t come back or Halifaxes or whatever. But that’s how he got his name Butch, Butcher.
WT: Yes.
BB: Butcher Harris but they seemed to get on with him.
WT: Yeah.
BB: They seemed to like, you know, his manner.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And his we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.
WT: The one person on the squadron the squadron we didn’t like was the four ringer.
BB: The group captain.
WT: The group. He was not a nice fellow at all. We didn’t like him a bit and he used to come in to get his fags so we’d push him to the top of the queue so he could get the hell out.
BB: Did he ever fly? Did he ever go off?
WT: Yes he did a few.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He did one or two.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And he was, fortunately not with us but the AOC was there. He was -
BB: Was that Cochrane? Or Saunby?
WT: I don’t know what he was called.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He was a lovely fellow.
BB: Yeah.
WT: He had his own little [?]
BB: Yeah.
WT: In fact his WAAF
BB: Driver.
WT: No.
BB: His PA.
WT: No. Looked after him.
BB: Oh right.
WT: Looked after him. I got courting with her a bit.
BB: Ahh.
WT: Nothing like, nothing
BB: Nothing like going for the top.
WT: Untoward and one night we were saying goodnight and suddenly there was this tap on my shoulder, ‘Hurry up, don’t keep her up all night. She’s got to get my breakfast in the morning.’
BB: The morning. You said, ‘Yes sir.’
WT: Now who would have said that?
BB: They knew and, they knew and they let the guys get on with it.
WT: I saw her afterwards.
BB: In that respect.
WT: And she said that he laughed his head off.
BB: Oh that’s great. That’s great.
WT: They were a good lot.
BB: And now you’ve got your grandchildren, great grandchildren.
WT: Great grandchildren.
BB: And you’re going to be giving them your logbook and one thing and another.
WT: Paul my grandson. I’ve got a grandson and a granddaughter. Paul is supposed to inherit all my stuff.
BB: Yes.
WT: Which he will do.
BB: Yes. Good.
WT: But in the meantime.
BB: I hope you’ve written that down in a will or something?
WT: I don’t. My son knows.
BB: Ok.
WT: He knows. He’s as good as gold but Paul sorry my oldest grandson, great grandson Jack is very keen on Lancasters ‘cause they live in Lancaster.
BB: Yes of course.
WT: And he knows all about that so Jack has got lots of stuff to do with Lancasters and I said I’ve got all these books I don’t know whether I ought to be getting rid of them sometime. Pete said to me, that’s my son, the other day, ‘Dad don’t do anything until August. Jack’s coming up. He’s mad on the Lancaster’s and things, he’s got stuff all over the place so, in his room.’ so there’s four Lancaster – one, two, three, four, five books.
BB: Yeah.
WT: But you know
BB: Garbett and Goulding books.
WT: Yeah I met him and one other there and he’ll have those whatever happens. What, what about the others in the bottom lot I don’t know ‘cause the top one is all Cornwall but they’re spoken for one way or another.
BB: I have four hundred such books and I do a lot of research and I write occasionally in Flypast and other magazines um and they’re just for my own research. I mean, for example you said you were 153 I went to the books oh yes but now coming back to the controversial issue of medals.
WT: Sorry.
BB: Did you have to apply for your medals or did they come through the post eventually to you?
WT: I had to apply for them.
BB: You had to apply for them. And when did you apply for them
WT: Lord knows. I can’t remember.
BB: Yeah because they ok they had a lot to get through.
WT: No. That’s not true. I, I when I was an equipment officer before while I was still under training a bit with another thing.
BB: Yeah.
WT: I was asked to go up the headquarters somewhere and I took the logbook with me and I went through about my medals then and then I said, ‘Yes but I want the Air Crew Europe.’ ‘Well you can’t have it.’ ‘Well I said I don’t want any more.’ I went to go out and they pushed me back in again and they insisted that I had to have these four.
BB: Right, so now the, I had a very, my father knew another very nice man and his name was Slim Summerville. He had been a pre-war regular but he was a wireless operator I gather on Whitleys the one’s that flew like that -
WT: Ahum.
BB: And he hated them. But then he was shot down in November 1940 in France he made a crash landing. All the crew got out, sorry Holland, all the crew got out still fly, they flew in their number ones. Odd. But anyway they were all sitting around, standing around this aircraft trying to get it to burn and they couldn’t burn it. The Germans came. November ‘40 Battle of Britain had just finished. There they were. This Luftwaffe feldwebel came to them and said, ‘look we’ve got nowhere to put you but this Dutch, this Dutch farmer will look after you, we’ll put one of our guards there promise you won’t try and escape.’ ‘We can’t do that,’ they said but, ‘Never mind you go there.’ A month they were in this farmhouse having a life, they thought this is alright. This is ok. And then things got, they were then they were sent back in to Germany and they were sent towards the east. They were part of the great march but and he finished the war all the rest of it. When he was ill he came, I went to see him and he said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Bruce I never claimed my medals because I didn’t think I’d have very many being a POW but I’d like to pass them on to my grandchild.’ So I said, ‘Well ok.’ He said, ‘I can’t give you my logbook because it was when I was taken prisoner it was all lost and whatever.’ So I had to go to the National Archive in Kew and reconstruct his logbook and I took all this stuff and I said right your entitled to the Aircrew Europe, you’ve done, you’ve done all these missions between the qualifying dates of the -
WT: Yes sure.
BB: Award. Why, they said he wasn’t entitled to it. That he was only going to get the ‘39 to ‘45 star, the defence medal and a war medal. That’s all he was going to get.
WT: Oooh there’s one -
BB: Because he was -
WT: There’s one missing there really.
BB: So -
WT: France and Germany.
BB: Yeah but he was a POW. He wasn’t there.
WT: But did he -
BB: So -
WT: But he’d been doing work.
BB: Yeah but he was captured in 1940. So anyway so I went back and I said no you did x number of missions on the Whitleys you’re entitled to the Air Crew Europe so he said, ‘Well you write. I’ll give you permission and you write.’ So I wrote back to them first to air historical branch then to RAF records and they sent, they said, ‘Yes you’re right.’ So they reissued it. But with, but with the Air Crew Europe and I had them mounted for him and I took them to the hospital to see him in hospital and I pinned them to his pillow and he died three hours later. But he was so happy -
WT: Lovely.
BB: To have got them.
WT: Of course he was.
BB: Yeah. And he said -
WT: I’ve got mine here somewhere.
BB: All the rest was rubbish but Air Crew Europe’s the one so I am going to take your fight up.
WT: No.
BB: If I can do it for him, I can do it for you.
WT: Oh, there’s no point.
BB: Yes there is.
WT: I shouldn’t bother.
BB: Your grandchildren need it. I understand how you feel but if you’re entitled to it why don’t you take it?
WT: I’ve got them somewhere. I thought I had them there.
BB: Let’s have a look. Oh there they are. Right.
WT: They’re a replacement ‘cause I lost mine.
BB: Did you?
WT: And I lost the -
BB: What happened?
WT: Hmmn?
BB: What happened?
WT: I don’t know it was -
BB: They were all issued unnamed.
WT: It was in a move.
BB: They were all issued unnamed.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Now you see if I get you the Air Crew Europe. Right. Just say, let’s just say no this annoys me with the the whole medal thing you did all of that. Now I know you’re very proud and, and, and you don’t particularly want it but you earned it and this parsimonious government took their bloody time in giving you the Bomber Command clasp which I, did you ever claim it?
WT: No.
BB: Right.
WT: Yes I got that.
BB: Right.
WT: Yes.
BB: You need to sew that on.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Now, if I get you the Air Crew Europe if by chance we’re successful they’ll probably give you the Air Crew Europe with the France and Germany clasp.
WT: Ahum.
BB: ‘cause you couldn’t have both.
WT: Ahum.
BB: So you have to give that one back.
WT: I think the other one’s still there ‘cause I always said I can’t sew so
BB: So what I’m saying is they’ll probably take that one probably ask you to return that one.
WT: I’m not fussed about it you know.
BB: I’m just going through the procedure.
WT: I know.
BB: And um they that’s what they would do. Um but it is such a prestigious, it was only it was the only thing of the stars that I’ve talked to with the guys before that meant anything was the Air Crew, Air Crew Europe whether your coastal, bomber or whatever -
WT: Yes. Exactly.
BB: It was. Because they didn’t get a medal. That was only medal they actually got that was you know air force.
WT: I got mine. Those are replacements.
BB: Yes.
WT: Because -
BB: Exactly I’ll take a photo of those later.
WT: In transferring -
BB: Well -
WT: Something got lost and we never found them. I didn’t, I didn’t -
BB: Let me put it this way let me see what I can do and if I can do it you’ll take it. Right? You’ll take it if I can get it for you.
WT: Alright.
BB: Fine. Good.
WT: You’ve won.
BB: I feel very strongly about that ’cause you know medals are very emotive things even today.
WT: I won’t argue with you.
BB: No. Good. Ok well I’m going to stop the interview now. I think we’ve covered all the ground. Is there anything else you’d like to say that I may have forgotten?
WT: No.
BB: To ask?
WT: [If you]
BB: Are these your target pictures?
WT: Target pictures.
BB: Yeah.
WT: We were allowed to have those as the crew, the crew -
BB: Now -
WT: Took some as well.
BB: The other thing that used to get people a bit jumpy, ‘Have you got the flash skip? I’ve got to go around again.’ And, ‘Oh go on then.’
WT: No.
BB: Because a lot of crews were really ‘cause that was flying straight and level for a bit of a time to get that flash picture and if you missed it the first time you had to go back and at debriefing as you know once they processed the film -
WT: [?] that’s right.
BB: You were kind of ticked in the box that it was ok.
WT: The problem was the bottom of those it was -
BB: Yeah.
WT: A job to read
BB: Yeah.
WT: Very difficult to read
BB: It is.
WT: All the stuff.
BB: It is but -
WT: But the one there the first one Fort [Frederick Heindricks].
BB: Yeah.
WT: That was an aiming point.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So I was told.
BB: Right.
WT: You could see the smoke coming away.
BB: How, we hear a lot about the pathfinders and the marking and all these different marking techniques. Were they, were they good? I mean were they -
WT: They were good as far as we were concerned. We would come up and every now and again they would say please you know bomb on so and so -
BB: Yeah they had the master bomber saying forget that that’s a spoof yeah go to -
WT: That’s right.
BB: Bomb on the greens.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Bomb on the greens. That kind of thing.
WT: Yeah. We had that.
BB: Yeah and because so -
WT: And that, that’s they’re all the same
BB: Oh ground zero.
WT: That’s, no that that’s Dresden.
BB: That’s what I’m saying ground zero at Dresden
WT: I wouldn’t know. With, you can see the modern building.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And the one that’s been destroyed.
BB: Yes.
WT: A friend of mine he lives here in Morpeth and they went over to Dresden and he came back he said, ‘Bill I thought I’d take a photograph. This is what you did you B.’
BB: Well yeah tough it was a legitimate target.
WT: Oh yeah as far as I was concerned it was.
BB: Thank you very much. They’re very interesting.
WT: Yes, I, those are, you know, to me, the crew had some you know.
BB: Yeah.
WT: So -
BB: My uncle had some and they used to put them in their logbook.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Because the pilot’s logbooks were different as you know.
WT: Yeah.
BB: They were slightly bigger.
WT: Yeah well they were. That’s why mine is a bit of a mess and just written on. You know, scrolled
BB: I’ll have a look at that later. So I’m going to stop the interview now. Are you happy with that?
WT: Yes you -
BB: Ok.
WT: I don’t know if you saw those. That’s my doings. That’s, that’s how I got to know you.
BB: That’s all the stuff.
WT: And that was the newsletter. Yes.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And that’s, yeah, that’s ok.
BB: And there’s your medals back.
WT: Oh there’s, ok.
BB: Give those back to you there.
Yeah oh don’t worry about that. Oh yes that’s the Bomber Command clasp in there.
BB: Oh yes well let’s have a look, you’ve got to sew that on haven’t you?
WT: Well yes I said my daughter and grand daughter.
BB: Well why don’t you. Is it still in it’s envelope? Let me just take a picture of that ‘cause that’s you. That’s-
WT: You can undo that clip better than I can.
BB: That’s very nice.
WT: That’s what it should be.
BB: About bloody time too.
WT: I think -
BB: I was -
WT: I, I hated the thing actually it should have been a blooming thing like the other people had.
BB: Yeah. I was I was privileged in being selected to be an usher at the Bomber Command memorial opening in London.
WT: Lovely.
BB: And I was in my squadron leader stuff and all my own medals on and it was great and I was given, I was given six, three Australian, three New Zealand, three Australian and three New Zealand air crew to look after. To host.
WT: [?]
BB: Yeah and they were all of your vintage, your age, you know, now.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And they’d come all the way from Australia and New Zealand for free business class with [doorbell] New Zealand sorry
WT: That could be your wife.
BB: Could be my wife.
WT: Oh she’ll be, open the door.
BB: Oh I can get that for you sorry.
WT: No that’s alright. It could be somebody else. Hello.
Other: Hello.
WT: I’ve got someone with me. We thought it was his wife.
Other: Oh a parcel for me.
WT: Oh yes darling.
Other: That’s why I came. That’s very kind of you, Bill.
WT: That’s alright.
Other: Thank you very much indeed.
WT: I’ll keep the sixpence you’ll, I’ll send you the bill.
Other: Sixpence and you’ll send me the bill.
WT: We do things for one another.
BB: Yeah of course you do.
WT: Only around the corner. She’s a dear.
BB: Well done for that.
WT: When I came home last time from hospital I weren’t all that brilliant and she was doing shopping, she was insisting on doing my laundry and all that and I said -
BB: So -
WT: So I took a parcel in for her today.
BB: Right so -
WT: Where’s that going in there wasn’t it
BB: It’s with your medals yeah. Yeah yeah. So I’m with these guys and we’re all sitting them all down and I was getting and it was a pretty hot day and one of the Australians said ‘cause my name’s Bruce you see.
WT: Yeah.
BB: ‘Here, Brucie go and get us a beer mate.’ So I went and got them the beer and they ate this up and, ‘Here, I’m pretty hungry mate. Got any sandwiches?’ And we were going away and they said, ‘Look mate it’s getting hot here when’s this thing going to you know finish?’ I said, ‘Well, you know, the royals are going to be there. The Queen’s going to open it and so on and Prince Charles and Camilla will come and see you.’ ‘Right. Right. Ok.’ So this went on and the RAF BBMF Lancaster flew down and dropped these poppies but it got it wrong got it, slightly, slightly off track and all the poppies ended up in Piccadilly all over the place and -
WT: That’s one of them,
BB: Yes. Yes I know. I recognised that,
WT: Yeah.
BB: And this Australian looked up and he said, ‘Oh Christ the navig, the navs all wrong you know’ and, you know, ‘I suppose you can’t get the people these days’ and all that sort of talk, you know. Anyway I sent one of my little one of my helpers, one of my guys in our squadron, a corporal. I said, ‘Go and pick up as many of those as you can get.’
WT: Sure.
BB: And he met a policemen, this guy, with his helmet -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Just doing this you see and the policeman kept some in his pocket and he gave the rest to this guy so he gave each one of these guys one of the poppies and that was great but this Australian who was really quite vocal, nice bloke but he had with him a group captain Royal Australian Air Force from the embassy must have been the air attaché standing maybe just about there and you’re the guy right and he said, ‘Brucie, look when the royals come down can I ask when I’m going to get my’ dot dot ‘medal because I’m getting old and I’m going to fall of my perch mate and I’d rather like it.’ And I said, ‘Well you could but I don’t think it would be, you know, polite.’ He said, ‘[Dot dot] polite mate I’ve been waiting a long time.’ And then the group captain came across and said, ‘Look I’ve told you about that. That’s my job. Leave that to me.’ You know. Blah. ‘Well you’d better hurry up mate.’ And that was the end of that conversation and of course you get your, get the clasp.
WT: Oh dear.
BB: But it all went it all went it all went very well and every time I’m in London and I’ll be there next week I always get one of those British Legion wooden little wooden crosses.
WT: Yes.
BB: With the poppy on.
WT: Yeah.
BB: And I take my uncle’s crew and -
WT: Put their names down
BB: Just the one name. So my uncle first, then the bomb aimer, then and I put them all down and I look at the little little book they’ve got there.
WT: Yeah
BB: And its people write things down.
WT: Yeah
BB: And there’s obviously flowers. There’s things that gets me is this little one flower and an old plastic see through bag or
WT: Yeah.
BB: Something. With, ‘To Uncle George’ killed blah blah blah blah and you think gosh, you know and it’s such a focus that place for everybody to come and do stuff.
WT: Standing there with tears streaming down my eyes that day
BB: Yeah. Yeah.
WT: I couldn’t even -
BB: And I said to the Ben Fund people
WT: I shouted once, ‘Excuse me I’ve got to go to the toilet. Don’t do anything.’ [laughs]
BB: And I said to the Ben Fund guys who run it you know I hope someone collects all this stuff and takes it away.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Because -
WT: Sure.
BB: You should do a book after five years or something with all the, ‘cause they leave copies of pictures.
WT: Sure.
BB: And crew pictures and -
WT: Yeah.
BB: You know, it’s a great archive there just on its own.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
WT: One of their associate members who’s a bit of a B really but he rang up and said Bill I’ve got a poppy that came falling down. Did you want one? And he sent it up to me.
BB: Oh excellent.
WT: So that’s why I popped it on there.
BB: Yeah.
WT: And it keeps falling down but it fell behind one day so I put it there -
BB: I think -
WT: So it doesn’t go anywhere else.
BB: I think –
And by the way that -
BB: Yes.
WT: Is as good a representation of a lot of us coming off -
BB: Ops.
WT: Off ops yes.
BB: I’ll take a picture of that.
WT: The actual depth of that thing.
BB: Yeah. I’ll take a picture of that but -
WT: It’s terrific.
BB: I think I have at home a programme from that day. I’ll send it to you. From the Bomber memorial.
WT: I was here then.
BB: Yes I know but I’ve got -
WT: Yeah.
BB: You know I think I’ve got a number of spares. I will send it to you.
WT: But I would love to have been there.
BB: Well it was such a privilege.
WT: Two or three of our members were there.
BB: Yeah it was a privilege to be there and, and
WT: ‘cause we had a, I started a help doing it with Johnny [Johns?] on, who by the way has written a lovely book on our stuff. Did I have that out? No I didn’t
BB: That’s ok well I’ve got a feeling -
WT: That is
BB: Ok.
WT: That’s on.
BB: 153.
WT: That is done. Is on the internet somewhere or something.
BB: Is it?
Yeah.
BB: I’ll try and find it when I go back.
WT: Johnny’s done it. He’s got -
BB: When was that written? Let’s have a look
WT: Just inside is by the date its a few years ago. I don’t know if
BB: Oh here we are. April 1998.
WT: Yeah Johnny was one of the pilots that came just after when the war was more or less finished. He started just when we were just finishing the war but he became the chairman of our Association.
BB: Yes. How lovely.
WT: It’s a terrific book because it’s got -
BB: It’s a lovely book.
WT: You know you can see when everybody did everything.
BB: Yeah it was a lovely book. And it’s, it’s -
BB: It’s terrific.
BB: I have one similar for 9 squadron but not in so much detail.
WT: That, that has got every op was done and who was on it and everything else.
BB: Yes.
WT: And about all these tables.
BB: Has anybody got all these for the national -
WT: And the aircraft.
BB: We would have got these for the national archive.
WT: Oh no. No he -
BB: Logbooks.
WT: He was down there. He used to go down and, and -
BB: Yes at the archive.
WT: Yeah, he’d go down there.
BB: Oh I was down. It’s a great place to be it really is.
WT: He lived down in York way.
BB: Yeah.
WT: No he didn’t Salisbury sorry it was Salisbury ‘cause his daughter, one of his daughter is still there.
BB: Yes, That’s lovely.
WT: He used to come regularly to our dos.
BB: And you were on C flight yeah.
WT: Hmmn?
BB: C flight.
WT: No A.
BB: A flight. Ok.
WT: I was A flight. Yeah.
BB: A flight. Ok.
WT: Yeah there was -
BB: Sorry.
WT: You will see our crew there somewhere.
BB: Yes. I’m just looking for it here.
WT: Bruce Potter at the top.
BB: Potter’s crew eh.
WT: Did you not see it?
BB: Yeah hold on.
WT: He was on A flight.
BB: Potter.
WT: Almost where you had your thumb there.
BB: Potter.
WT: Is it over that side somewhere?
BB: Oh here he is. Potter. There we are.
WT: Yeah.
BB: I’ll take a note of that.
WT: His name was Bruce.
10859
BB: Well he’s got an Australian name mate.
WT: Certainly has, yes mate.
BB: Except mine’s more Scottish than Australian. In fact one of my objectives for this when I was down here my uncle who was the Australian he married my mother’s sister ‘cause I was born in Gainsborough which is Bomber Command Hemswell not too far from Hemswell.
WT: Yes, Hemswell. Yeah.
BB: And my brother was born in Newark and my, this Australian pilot was courting my mother’s sister while he was on ops but he wouldn’t marry her while he was on ops ‘cause he didn’t feel, he’d had so many young ladies coming to the mess after their husband’s had died and he wouldn’t do it. He said he would marry her when he’d finished ops but he was killed instructing and they were only married four months but my cousin was born you know shortly thereafter well you know nine months later basically and so he, he was born in the place where I was brought up by my grandmother at Coldstream in Berwickshire and the family claimed, the family claimed the body.
WT: Oh yeah.
BB: And he was brought up by train to Cornhill station and lay overnight in the family house and my grandfather had, was a commander of the local home guard having been an old soldier and he wanted to open the coffin ‘cause it lay in the front room with a flag on it and my mother was a nurse and my mother said I don’t think we should do that ‘cause he was burnt. She knew he had been burnt and so they didn’t do it. They said let’s just remember him.
WT: As we thought he was.
BB: As we was and when the guys came up from, from the RAF station he was at for the funeral his widow, my aunt, said I’d like his watch or his flying jacket please. Sorry all we’ve got is this this and which you’ll get from the committee of adjustment and they’ll send to you and all the rest but so when you go to this little Scottish cemetery you’ll see this Australian AF war grave.
WT: Right.
BB: That’s him.
WT: That’s him. Well I never.
BB: But he was only twenty one and the last time his mother saw him was when he was seventeen and a half to leave, leave Australia to come home come here.
WT: Yeah.
BB: You know.
WT: Yeah.
BB: It was just one of those awful things.
WT: What are you trying to do there?
BB: He had finished his, he had finished his, his ops and was screened and funny you know the crew all got together you know.
WT: Ah huh.
BB: And they said, ‘We’ll go on pathfinders. We’re safer on pathfinders than we are instructing.’ And that was the view and he said, ‘No, I can’t. I’ve got to, I want to get married and I’m not going to that.’ but if he had done that he probably would have been alright.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Exactly.
BB: There we go. It wasn’t to be I suppose. These things are always -
WT: Yeah.
BB: Sad.
WT: Sent to, sent to try us.
BB: They are. Well Bill thanks very much.
WT: That’s alright my friend.
BB: And I’ll be back I’m sure if I’m down this way again. It’s so lovely to talk to you.
WT: Yeah.
BB: There’s all your bits.
WT: Yeah. You’ve got, you’ve got the medals.
BB: I’ve got that picture you leant me and I’ll send that back when I get home tonight and I’ve got -
WT: You didn’t, you didn’t take the medals.
BB: No. No.
WT: No.
BB: No you’ve got them. Better check I don’t want you to, there they are in the bag
WT: That’s alright, they’re in the bag.
BB: They are in your just check please just check. No, no, no I haven’t got them. There they are
WT: I don’t know why, yeah they’re there such as they are.
BB: Well we’ll try and change that.
WT: I’m never bothered about medals.
BB: No. Well a lot of people don’t but the gran
WT: I’m not a medal man.
BB: No. A lot of people weren’t but you know there’s things like grandchildren who, who -
WT: Well. Paul -
BB: You’ve got, you’ve got your grandchildren now.
WT: My grandson.
BB: Who you would obviously like.
WT: They’re down in Salisbury at the moment I’m hoping they’re going to move a bit nearer but he’s interested but his nephew bless him is he’s only seven and a half at the moment.
BB: Yeah.
WT: But there’s a photograph of him up there. Jack. He’s very, very keen on it. Very keen.
BB: Well so he should be. It’s a great honour that you’ve done this.
WT: There’s the office.
BB: There’s the office, that’s right.
WT: These were, these were taken from the just, what is she called the one over, Just Jane over there in, we used to go down there a lot to the Panton Brothers where they’ve got the aircraft that taxies around.
BB: Yeah. Ok what have I got to do here now?
WT: [yawn] excuse me. This is all to do with the Lincolnshire arrangement that going, the spire’s gone up hasn’t it?
BB: Not yet. No, no, no, not -
WT: Oh I thought they’d already lifted it because our lot were down on oh a month and a half ago to their, to the reunion and that was the day when it was going to be delivered. They moved, had to move away because time was going on they’d only just got down the road and they saw it going back up.
BB: Right.
WT: Just coming. So they couldn’t do anything about it.
BB: No.
WT: I thought they said they put it up that night. Erected it.
BB: What? The spire?
WT: Yeah.
BB: In Lincoln?
WT: Yeah.
BB: Well to tell you the truth it might have done but I haven’t heard of it yet but -
WT: Well I thought that’s what they it had happened. They brought that in and the lorries or whatever was carrying it were going to get it upright for them to to anchor it down or whatever. I don’t know. Because they are going to build a great big wall around it aren’t t they with the name of the people who died
BB: Yes
WT: Or were killed. So [they’ll have old Giffords?] down on that one bless him. My room-mate.
BB: Oh God. There’s more bumph here.
WT: Cost you more money now.
BB: Yeah. Yeah. Right so we’d better get on with the paperwork. Let me just have a look at it
WT: Oh I thought you’d done it.
BB: No I’ve just been reading it here so we’ll better get on with it. Won’t be a minute. I think I’ll just call my wife up I’m a bit worried about her. See where she is
WT: I was going to say from my bedroom you can probably see the car.
BB: So when’s your next medical people coming in. When, when do they come in, every day to see you?
WT: No. No. No Wednesday is the day when everything normally happens.
BB: Yeah.
WT: At the moment I’ve got ear trouble but I’m off for another week but on Wednesday they come in to change your leg bag and do all kinds of things so I have to watch it but I’m alright I’m off for the next week or two I’m not doing too badly.
BB: Hi Jeannie. It’s me. I’m finished with Bill. I wonder if you could come back to to look at this documentation. It might need a witness. I’m not sure. Ok I’ll call you later. Or you can give me a call now. Thanks bye.
WT: Oh you’ve left her a message have you?
BB: Yeah she’s -
WT: Oh.
BB: She’s probably walking the dog.
WT: Stay where you are I think I can see the car from here.
BB: Ok thanks.
From the bedroom.
[pause]
WT: No the trees are in the way. I said the tree is in the way.
BB: Oh its William [Headley] Thomas isn’t it?
WT: [Headley].
BB: Oh that’s worth, that’s worthy of a photograph.
WT: Oh I don’t know I was just going to show you that. They were taken more or less the same time. You see what she’s wearing?
BB: Yes.
WT: A new pair of wings.
BB: Oh that’s lovely. May I take a picture of that one?
WT: Oh, go on. You don’t want that man.
BB: Yes I do. You’re, now that, now that you’ve been interviewed my dear boy you are now part of the national archive.
WT: Don’t.
BB: You are going to be in the Bomber Command archive.
WT: Am I?
BB: Yeah, you are.
WT: I thought, I thought it was the Lincolnshire.
BB: Yeah but it’s going to the University of Lincoln.
WT: Yeah.
BB: Yeah.
WT: Yeah.
BB: But that’s why we’ve got to sign this other stuff.
WT: While you’re doing that it’s happened again this damned bag.
BB: Oh I’m sorry.
WT: No it’s alright ‘cause it just happens like that I have a big bag to put on the end of it at night thank God.
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 Bill Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Bill had joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps and Air Training Corps. He volunteered as a pilot in the Royal Air Force and flew Tiger Moths at RAF Sywell but was re-mustered as a navigator. Bill went to Canada as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, where he did bomb aiming, gunnery and navigation training. He was offered a commission and did some special training on Prince Edward Island before going to the holding unit at Moncton.
Bill returned to Scotland and converted to bomb aiming. He crewed up at RAF Castle Donington and went to RAF Sandtoft and RAF Hemswell to the Lancaster Finishing School. Bill was transferred to 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington, flying Lancasters. They then went to RAF Scampton as 153 Squadron. Bill conducted 29 operations and one which was aborted because of engine problems. Bill then trained as an equipment officer, being sent to RAF Strubby. He then demobilised and returned to his job in local government.
The interview discusses relationships between commissioned and non-commissioned crew, Bill’s thoughts on Dresden, Bomber Command and Arthur Harris, and the awarding of medals.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AThomasWH150711
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
Canada
Alberta
Ontario
Ontario--Toronto
Prince Edward Island
Québec
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Harrogate
England--Hastings
England--Lancashire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Manchester
England--Northamptonshire
England--Redruth
England--Sussex
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtown
Wales--Aberystwyth
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
United States
New York (State)
New York (State)--New York
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-11
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bruce Blanche
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:19:53 audio recording
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
153 Squadron
166 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
observer
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Bicester
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Scampton
RAF Strubby
RAF Sywell
target photograph
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/128/1278/AAbbottsC151015.2.mp3
cc3222384b5959170d324f9b72e8d83f
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
Abbotts, Cyril
C Abbotts
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection consists of one oral history interview and one service and release book related to Warrant Officer Cyril Abbots (b. 1924, 1583753 Royal Air Force). Cyril Abbotts volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained as a pilot in Canada. On his return to Great Britain he flew operations as a flight engineer with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby in 1945 and later converted from Lancasters to Lincolns. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Cyril Abbot and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-15
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Abbots, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: So today I’m with Cyril Abbott and we are at Malvern in Worcestershire and it is the 15th of October 2015 and we’re just going to talk about his time in the RAF. Cyril, could you start off by talking please about your, family early, your earliest times you recollect?
CA: I was born in 1924 in a place called Princes’ End, Tipton. I lived with father and mother, with my grandparents. My mother was one of a large family, unfortunately she died when I was six and for the next two years we were looked after by my Grandma until Dad remarried. My mother and father were, had a house built in a village Coseley, which was about two miles away but we never moved there because of my Mum’s death. But having remarried we moved as a family, mother, or I should say step-mother, and father and my sister Doris who was four years older than myself. And we moved to a house in Bradleys Lane Coseley. I went to junior schools in Princes End, Tipton and at the age of eleven I passed scholarship and entered Dudley Grammar School where I was educated for the next five, six years. I left school in ‘39 and went out to work with W and T Avery at Smethwick as a engineering apprentice. I didn’t like work so at the first opportunity I volunteered for the Air Force, for aircrew, and having had all the two days of tests at Digbeth, Birmingham, I was accepted as a recruit and sent home and told to wait until I heard from the RAF. I was a bit of a nuisance to my father and mother because every day I used to come home from work and say ‘Has the letter arrived?’ and nothing had appeared and I really caused a bit of grief. But eventually the letter arrived ordering me to report to ACRC at Lords’ Cricket Ground, London. I travelled to, down to London with a fellow from the village who was also joining up, I think it was the first time we’d ever been away from home by ourselves in the whole of our lives but we arrived at Lords’ and the cricket ground was full of recruits, you couldn’t see a blade of grass basically. But they formed us up in groups of about forty and marched us off to Seymour Hall baths where they told us to strip off and swim a hundred yards. This rather shook us I believe ‘cause having to swim without a costume, but we did this and those who could swim the hundred yards were pushed to one side of the bath, and those who couldn’t swim went to the other side. We found out later that the non-swimmers were sent off to RAF Cosford to learn to swim, if I’d have known that I would have done the same [laughs] because Cosford was within about twenty miles of home. But still, we, we were billeted in flats around St John’s Wood, waiting for postings to ITW. Eventually I was posted to 8 Wing ITW at Newquay, Cornwall where I spent the next three to four months school work. In actual fact I can remember the flight commander was a Flight Lieutenant Paine, he was an ex solicitor and the Squadron Leader I think was a man named Fabian, who was a English international footballer amateur. But, and the two PTIs was Corporal White and Corporal Beasley, one was a Londoner, a real Cockney, and they used to take us out on cross country runs. Because one day I, I decided I didn’t want to go, so we had to get changed and set off and I drifted to the back and at the nearest public toilets I disappeared into it, little realising that Corporal White was running right at the back and he caught me [laughs] and I was taken in front of the squadron commander and given three days CB, confined to barracks, but at the end of the, I think it was about twelve weeks of school work were finished and we were waiting then to, for postings and I eventually was posted to RAF Sywell for familiarisation, twelve hours in a Tiger Moth. Again, I remember the instructor was a Flight Lieutenant Bush, I think he could have owned the flying school which had been taken over by the RAF, but we did, we did about ten to twelve hours flying around in Tiger Moths to see if whether we were compatible with flying and then at the end we were posted to Heaton Park, Manchester which was a receiving centre for people waiting basically to go overseas. I mean there were literally hundreds of UT aircrew there and we used to have to attend in the morning when they would read out lists of people with the postings and you had to answer in a certain manner to signify that you’d understood the shouted instructions. Initially I’d received a posting to South Africa, Rhodesia for flying training and we went up to Blackpool to receive the inoculations required, and having received these inoculations we were sent back to Heaton Park where we found out that we weren’t going to South Africa after all. I was sent to Canada and we, we sailed from the River Clyde, Greenock, or something similar on the Queen Elizabeth, the original Queen Elizabeth one, and I think it was about three days and four nights journey which I didn’t like, I don’t, I’m not a, I don’t like sailing, I don’t like water and it was a welcome sight to go through the harbour bar at New York to get inside the docks because as we went through the bar and they closed it the ship lit up because we’d sailed in darkness over, through the Atlantic, and as soon as we entered the, the New York dock area all the lights came on the ship. I mean New York was lit up as you see it on the films, I mean we hadn’t seen lights for three years. Eventually we, we docked in Pier 91 next to the burnt-out Normandy which had been, it had gone on fire and had capsized in the dock next to us, and it was still there. But eventually we were taken off the boat and we went under the river to New Jersey to get a train to go up to Monkton, RAF Monkton in Canada. We had to pass through the customs between America and Canada, and we stopped on the American side and one or two of us shot off because we were near to a small town and got a glass of beer, and we’d got to drink this very quickly and we didn’t realise the American beer was practically frosty, it was very, very cold. But we, eventually we arrived in Monkton, and we were there for maybe a week or so before we were sent west to the flying schools and I finished up at 32 EFTS, RAF Bowden in Alberta, I mean we could see the Rockies on the horizon, as we drove from the station, Innisfail was the station, why I know that is because I was reading a book by an ex Worcestershire cricketer, Cheston, who had trained there as well, and I picked up the name Innisfail I’d forgotten, but as we drove up from the station to the aerodrome all the training planes were lined up with their tails towards us and we all thought God, we’re all going to be fighter pilots, they looked like fighter ‘planes ‘cause they were all Fairchild Cornell which was a low wing plane. We were there for a period of time, I think we got in about seventy or eighty hours, and I soloed quite quickly after about five hours and during the training I realised that I would never become a fighter pilot because I didn’t like aerobatics. I always remember being sent up to practice spins and to do this you climbed to about three or four thousand feet and then spun down, and pulled out and climbed back and did it again. But every time I went to do it I’d get practically to the point of stall, at which point I was supposed to kick in rudder to go right or left and my nerve went so I pushed the nose down and climbed another thousand feet until I finished up at about ten thousand feet before I forced myself to spin. But having done it the first time and realised I could get out of trouble it wasn’t so bad, but aerobatics I just did not like. So I made my mind up then that I would never become a fighter pilot, I’d go for twins or multi engines. Having completed the elementary training we were posted to service flying training and I was posted to a place called RAF Estevan in Saskatchewan it was right on the American border just a few miles on the Canadian side but it was more or less in the middle of the dustpan, everything was covered with dust, there was a wind at all times and it was just blowing this dust and coating everything. The dormitories had got double-glazing with a mesh screen to try to keep this dust out, but they were flying Ansons there for training and we had to have a check to see whether our leg length was sufficient to be able to apply full rudder in the event of an engine failure. Well I didn’t like the station I thought I’m going to do my best to get away from here, so when I came to do my test I put, extending my to get full rudder and I gradually slipped down in the pilots’ seat so that I couldn’t see over the top of the board, dashboard, so that I failed the test. I didn’t realise that I could have been washed out of pilot training but I was posted away from Estevan to RAF Moose Jaw at Saskatchewan to fly Tiger Moths. The Anson hadn’t got a moveable rudder pedal whereas the Oxford had, you could wind them in to suit your leg length. The Oxford had got a bad reputation for killing people. It was a very difficult aeroplane to fly and they said that if you could fly an Oxford you could fly anything. And I took to the Oxford, I soloed after about five hours again and from then on it was just train, train, train until we eventually finished, I think we did something like about a hundred and fifty hours flying, and it came, the wings, the graduation ceremony, and I believe we were presented with our wings by Air Vice-Marshal Billy Bishop who was a Canadian fighter pilot in the First World War. I believe that it was him but we had already sewn wings on our uniforms and stripes on our arms if we were becoming sergeants, but we had to parade without, without wings or stripes on. But then having graduated, we had, we were given a posting back to Halifax, to get the boat back to England. We were allowed, I think, forty eight hours to have a leave in either Quebec or Montreal on the way back. I can’t remember now whether we were in Quebec or Montreal, but we eventually got back to Halifax and boarded the French liner, Louis Pasteur, to come back and it was a terrible journey. Since we were now supposed sergeants capable of looking after ourselves on the ship some of us were posted as assistant gunners on the anti-aircraft guns which were put about ten feet above the boat deck on a little platform with a rail around it to stop you falling off. And we had an Oerlikon cannon to look after. I mean we’d never seen a firearm but we’d got a naval man as the gunner and we were just there to help, But we always said the Louis Pasteur was a flat bottomed boat because it rolled and rocked like nobody’s business and there were literally thousands on the boat, the conditions were terrible, but every morning at about twelve o’clock if I remember rightly, we had a rendezvous with a Coastal Command aircraft so that when it came time we had to close up the guns in case it wasn’t an RAF plane, but bang on the dot it would appear out of the clouds, circle round for about half an hour, and then off it would go and we’d plough on. I mean we were not escorted it was just a, a quick dash across and I must admit I saw more U boats in the sea, that on that journey, than the German’s had got, every wave was a U boat. [laugh] But eventually we arrived at Liverpool, and we disembarked and were shipped to RAF Harrogate, the Majestic Hotel we were billeted in, and there were literally thousands of pilots, bomb aimers and navigators there. We just, we just didn’t know what was going to happen to us. I mean they came round I think twice, once asking for volunteers to change to glider pilot training. I mean those that did, that accepted it, I think most probably went in at Arnhem. But I being frightened, I decided I would stay and get an aeroplane with engines. So I was there for quite some time and eventually I was sent, we had um, because we’d been in Canada, living the life of luxury, they sent us up to Whitley Bay, Newcastle under the Army to have a month toughening up, and everything was done at the double. I was given a rifle and a band to cover my sergeant’s stripes, we used to have to wear these because the instructors were corporals and privates of the commandos and they gave us a real tough time. Route marches of about twelve miles, my feet were sore, but that was completed and we came back to Harrogate. They just didn’t know what to do with us. So we, eventually I ended up at RAF Bridgenorth, under canvas, and we always said we were draining an air commodore’s farm because we were digging ditches all the time and there were, there were Australians, and other Commonwealth aircrew with us and they used to, to show how tough they were, they’d sleep out in the open without a tent, until they got wet once or twice, [laugh] but we were there most probably two or three weeks and back again to Harrogate. And then I went on airfield control at RAF Gamston, just outside Worksop, acting as traffic control watching the Wellingtons, it was an OTU unit, and we were there [indistinct] at night on flare path duty and the control hut flashing greens or reds as required with an Aldis lamp. While I was there, I became friends with one or two of the screened pilots so I managed to get a few hours in on a Wellington. At the end of the, at the end of the time Gamston was closed down and the ‘planes moved to other OTUs so I got a few hours flying with the screen people taking these aeroplanes to the stations. The funniest part was we landed at one, we had a plane which went round all the aerodromes picking up the screened crews to take them back to Gamston, a Wellington, and it was very funny we landed one control, or pulled up at the control tower and shut the engines down waiting for the people to be picked up and out trooped from the Wellington, about eighteen people and the control officer’s jaw dropped when he saw all these people coming out [laugh] but it was quite, we stood, down the Wellington hanging onto the geo, geodetic structure, it was quite funny. From Gamston, I eventually was posted, oh yeah, I think I went back to Harrogate again and there I was volunteered to do an engineers’ course at St Athan down in South Wales. There was no chance of becoming an official pilot because they hadn’t got enough aeroplanes and there was too many people. So we were volunteered to do an engineers’ course at St Athan on the Lancaster systems, which we did about six weeks just to get the fundamentals of the system. And having completed that I was posted to sixteen 54 HCU at RAF Wigsley in Lincolnshire, where I was going to get crewed up with an ex OTU pilot and crew who wanted an Engineer, so we walked in, as engineers we walked into an office where there were pilots sitting around and the first person I saw was a man who’d been on the course immediately in front of me at Moose Jaw, a flying officer, he was a Pilot Officer Coates and we made contact and starting talking, he said ‘Well I’m looking for an engineer’ I said, ‘Well I’m an engineer but I’m also a pilot’ he said ‘Do you want to come and fly with me?’ ‘Yep’, and that’s how I joined Pilot Officer Coates’ crew because we knew each other. We completed a number of hours on the, at the heavy con unit, the conversion unit, and we were posted as a crew to 57 Squadron at East Kirkby.
CB: So when was this exactly?
CA: Well I think it was in either February ’45, because I wasn’t on the squadron long enough to be able to be awarded the Bomber Command Clasp which I thought was a bit em, bit naughty of them, I can come to that later. Well we were introduced to Wing Commander Tomes who was the Squadron Commander and I think Squadron Leader Astall although I’m not sure about that name. And we were more or less sent off to go and do some practice flying which we thought we’d done enough with the heavy con unit but it wasn’t good enough for the squadron. So we did quite a few cross countries and bombing practice at Wainfleet. And one day I was, I think most likely the last one in the engineer’s office and I was about to go for tea, and as I was walking out the engineer officer shouts, ‘Cyril, what are you doing tonight?’ I said ‘I’m going to have a beer why?’ he said ‘No you’re not, you’re flying.’ He said so and so has called in, his engineer’s gone sick, so they want an engineer so you’re flying as a spare bod on Flying Officer Jack Curran, who was an Australian pilot, he was short of an engineer so I was going with him and that night we went to Luetzkendorf which was the first operation, our rear gunner had also been made a spare bod and he went as a rear gunner with another crew. But Jack, Jack Curran had been shot down about two months previously and had got back so he was, he was a bit nervous as a pilot, he gave me a bit of jitters, because once we crossed, if I remember rightly, once we crossed over the Channel and got to the other side he proceeded to weave all the time and it made a heck of a mess of my petrol consumptions. But the thing that I always remember, was having got to the target, was the different colours or shades of red that there are, or were, I’d never seen so many different shades. Of course I mean I didn’t realise what was happening I mean I was, I’d got bags and bags of window which I was pushing [unclear] down the chute like nobody’s business thinking they were saving me but they weren’t they were saving the people coming behind me. But I pushed packets of it down, I even jammed the ‘chute once I had to get a big file from out of my kit, my tool kit and try and clear it and the file went down the ‘chute as well so that if that hit anybody downstairs they would have had a headache. But eventually we got, we came back and as we neared East Kirkby, Jack had called in to ask for landing instructions and we were told to vamoose, scatter, it was either an intruder in the circuit or something but we scattered like nobody’s business heading towards Wales, and on the way, we were told to make for RAF Bruntingthorpe which we eventually reached and Jack landed the Lanc’ alright, we parked it and were taken into a room for a bit of a debrief, given something to eat and then we were taken to beds in the dorms, in the Nissen huts. And I was, I was lying there on the bed, I couldn’t get to sleep, I suppose it was the adrenalin still coursing through the veins, but I was smoking away like nobody’s business, and I woke up the man in the bed next to where I was and he sat up and he saw I was a flight sergeant, he saw my tunic on the bed, so he said ‘What’s happened?’ so I just explained that we’d been diverted there and we were talking, he was a corporal engine fitter and he looked at me and I looked at him quite intently as if we knew each other. So eventually one or other said ‘Were you ever in Canada?’ and I said ‘Yes, you were at Moose Jaw, were you at Moose Jaw?’ ‘Yes’, he’d been an Engine Fitter out on the flights at Moose Jaw and had been posted back to, from Canada and he was working, was working at Bruntingthorpe on the Wellingtons. Well eventually we were given the all clear to go back to East Kirkby and, although it was forbidden, the squadron pilots always shot up the aerodrome having taken off. So we, we took off and joined a queue of people waiting to go down the runway and ignored it which we did. The station commander went mad and by the time we got back to East Kirkby the squadron commander was waiting for us and he proceeded to tear us off a strip. ‘They were OTU pilots being taught to fly safely and you people go down and show them what not to do’ [laugh] still it was Lancaster below zero feet going at about two hundred miles an hour is something, it’s really exhilarating, but still. Um, oh yeah, a few days later we went to Pilsen as a crew, Fred Coates the pilot and the rest of the crew, I mean he’d already done two spare bods as a pilot getting the idea of what happened, and Johnny the rear gunner had been, but the, I’d been but the others hadn’t so it was all new to them, but us old hands [laugh]. Well we went to Pilsen and our navigator was a graduate and he was a very meticulous navigator, very good, but very meticulous. I mean when we were flying you’d hear his voice come over the, the intercom, ‘What speed are we supposed to be flying at?’ ‘About two hundred and twenty, why?’ he said ‘I want two hundred and twenty five, nothing else, two twenty five is the airspeed.’ So I spent minutes trying to get the, the right speed. And he’d come through, ‘What course are you steering?’ ‘Why?’ He said ‘You’re two degrees out’, oh he was a, he was a menace [laugh]. But on the way, it’s only in latter life that I’ve realised this, but it was his first trip, it was most of us second or third and he was navigating and he said ‘We’re too early, we’re going to get to target too early’ so Fred said ‘Well what do you want to do?’ So Marsh says ‘We’ll do a dog leg, turn, and he gave us a course to turn to the left, to port, and flew out for a few minutes and then to come back into the, into the stream and go, head toward the target again, we’d lose the required minutes. And like fools Fred and I did this, but during the flight we were getting, we were getting, bumped about a bit and we couldn’t understand this because there was no flak to blow us around but we’d get jumped up and down, it would last a minute and then die down and then about a few minutes later again. We couldn’t fathom out what it was, but it’s only in latter life that I’ve realised what it was, because we got to Pilsen and back okay, and then we were put on a daylight to go to Flensburg, and I mean the RAF didn’t flew, didn’t fly in formation, they just got into a gaggle and went. So we joined the bunch and the idea was to get into the middle of the stream, so you kept lifting yourself up a bit, move over and then gradually drop down and force the man underneath to move out of the way so that you were doing this all the time. And occasionally we’d get this bump and it’s only as I say in latter life that I realised that at night when we got these bumps it was the slipstream of planes in front of us, that I never, I never saw a plane during flying at night but we must have been very, very close because it showed up during this daylight. But we went to Flensburg and it was aborted we couldn’t bomb, why we were never told but I did see a Messerschmitt 262 I think was the jet fighter, something came, went through the formation like nobody’s business but we’d got Mustang fighter escort they were most probably about ten thousand feet above us, but we did see them come down and go through the formation, on the way down to the deck whether they’d, they went down to er, hit some of these two five twos taking off, two six twos, but that was quite a sight to see these little, little bits going through the, through the formation. But my war ended with that aborted raid on Flensburg. We were thinking we should be going to Berchtesgaden but all the, the higher ups of the squadron did that, they didn’t let the lower lads do it. Then after the , after the war I flew on Lincolns, 57 Squadron were given three Lincolns initially to carry out service trials on them and by this time our pilot, Fred Coates, had departed. He’d been a police constable before the war and since they wanted the police in peace time to build up again they got Class B releases, or they were allowed to take Class B release. So Fred had just married his Canadian girlfriend who’d come over here to marry and 57 Squadron was one of the squadrons that were going out on Tiger Force to the Far East but Fred said no he wasn’t going to go, he’d get his Class B which he did. And we had another pilot, a Flight Lieutenant Strickland, who was posted into us to take over the crew. He came up I think from Mildenhall, I can’t remember which group they were, but he’d been an instructor in Canada for a number of years and he was very meticulous with his flying, everything was perfect and he kept the rest of us on top line. We flew the Lincolns, we’d got three and I think Mildenhall station they’d got three, we had lots of trouble with engine failures where as Mildenhall had airframe failures, rivets popping and things like that so it was quite, it was quite stressful flying these Lincolns. I’ve got a write up.
CB: We’ll stop there just for a moment.
CA: Yeah, I’ve got a write up actually,
CB: So we’ve stopped for a comfort break, and you were talking about Lincolns, you took on Lincolns?
CA: Oh yeah.
CB: You took on Lincolns. What happened then?
CA: Well, with the Lincolns, we as I say we’d got three and I since found that there was a Flight Lieutenant, Flight Lieutenant Jones who was one of the leading lights in the flight, I can’t recall him really, but erm.
CB: This is still war time before the Japanese surrender isn’t it?
CA: It was, yeah, but it was after the European war –
CB: Yep.
CA: And it was in the time between May and August -
CB: Right.
’45. The Lincoln was, was being produced to go overseas with the Tiger Force because the Lanc’ hadn’t got the range that was required and the Lincoln was supposed to have. But it wasn’t, in our eyes, it wasn’t as good as the Lancaster, I mean we were in love with the Lanc’ whereas the Lincoln was, was something different. I fully remember on one flight, I was sitting down on the right hand side and Pete was flying and I looked out of the starboard side and looked at the wing and I could see the skin rippling and I nearly collapsed with fear because I could see the wing moving up and down, and when it lifted up, so it rippled the skin at the join between the mid-section and the wing section, and for the rest of the flight my eyes never left that section [laugh] that part, but I found out when we got down that the wings moved five feet between the bottom and top and this was due to the weight of them and the, the fuel. And it was only after then that I noticed that when the Lincoln sat on the ground the wings appeared to be drooped and they moved up during the take off period to obtain the flying attitude. But it was a frightening sight I will admit.
CB: So it was a bigger aeroplane?
CA: It was a bigger aeroplane, it was heavier, I don’t know about the bomb load. I don’t think it was any different.
CB: But they were bigger engines and could fly higher and the span was a hundred and twenty four feet?
CA: A hundred and twenty.
CB: Hundred and twenty.
CA: About a hundred and twenty feet, yeah.
CB: Now when did you get promoted to warrant officer?
CA: Two years after I graduated. You were made, when you got your wings, you were a sergeant for about nine to twelve months and then flight sergeant for a year and then you became warrant officer. I mean a lot of the ground crew, senior NCO’s didn’t like this, I mean there were us youngsters who were up to sergeants after about eighteen months and they’d been in the Air Force for years and had just made corporal. So there was a bit of resentment between the ground crew NCO’s and the aircrews. But of course I mean we were only as aircrew given stripes, or officers in case you were ever shot down and taken prisoner, you got better treatment as a NCO, but that was the only reason.
CB: OK, so fast forward again to the Lincolns, your time in the RAF finished when, 1946?
CA: 1946 November.
CB: Right, so what did you do?
CA: What did I do afterwards?
CB: After the war, after the war finished?
CA: Well, I came back and as I said previously, I’d been an apprentice with Avery’s, and my apprenticeship had been cancelled when I joined up. So I went back to Avery’s and recommenced my apprenticeship but due to my service, instead of having to do a further length of time, because I was apprenticed for about five years and I had only done about twelve months, they reduced the remaining time by about twelve months and they concluded my apprenticeship about twelve months, having served and I’d done a four year apprenticeship instead of five, and that would have been somewhere around about 1947, ‘48 when I, they transferred me into the drawing office at Avery’s and I became a draughtsman.
CB: How long did you work as a draughtsman?
CA: Well I left Avery’s in 1951 and I was employed by the Cannon Iron Foundries for a year and then I, I went to Thompson Brothers in Bilsden for about three years and finally finished at ICI Marston Excelsior in ’56.
CB: What did you do there?
CA: I was a design draughtsman there and I, I did design, design work on, I always remember my first job was designing a heat exchanger for the Folland Gnat , just a small one, I can’t remember what it was for, I believe it was for the pilot cooling system to keep him cool. But this was on heat exchange. I finished up actually on heavy fabrication work, in aluminium work, and I became a section leader. I did various jobs, I engineered a liquid ethylene storage plant for ICI organic, organic section I think, or one of the sections at Billingham where we stored surplus liquid ethylene. And we stored it in a big container like a gasometer and I, I was given a piece of ground on the side of the river and put a storage plant there. I must admit that my initial estimate of costs was way down, [laugh] I made a hell of a bloomer, I think I estimated about a hundred and fifty thousand and it finished up at about, eight hundred thousand [laugh] we had quite a, an argument, not argument, discussion why [laugh]. But then I went onto production, onto the production side of the factory, as chief planning officer on fabrications which I, I did until the work started to peter out so I went onto development work on cold rolling of noble alloys for jet engines.
CB: This is all for ICI?
CA: All, yes, it’s all under ICI’s name, we bought in a cold rolling machine from Holland and we used to roll to very, very close tolerances. Rolls Royce were trying to reduce their costs by getting in components where they didn’t really have to do any work on, and I mean the jet engines required diameters to a thou’ in tolerance and we were supposed to try to do this by rolling them, which we did eventually, I mean we bought this machine. I went out to G, GE the American counterpart of Rolls Royce. GEC?
CB: GE yeah, General Electric.
CA: And I spent a fortnight out there getting some idea of how they tackled it but I mean they’d got a different idea I mean where here we had to justify spending sixpence, there the engineer, development engineer said ‘I want a machine it costs two hundred thousand pounds’ and he was given the money and they got the machine. Whereas we were trying to do it on one machine they’d got a battery of them, about ten. I mean this is the reason why they are the world beaters. Money is no object.
CB: When did you finally retire?
CA: I retired in March ’86 having completed thirty years.
CB: OK, thank you, I’ll stop there. So we’re restarting, we’re restarting just on a flashback. So you’re back from Canada as a qualified pilot.
CA: Yeah. I should have said then that I went up to, we were asked where we wanted postings to go to for flying. I never realised that there was a flying school at Wolverhampton otherwise I would have asked, instead I got posted up to RAF Carlisle on Tiger Moths where we did about a month flying a Tiger Moth around getting used to flying in English conditions. We used to take a navigator or a bomb aimer as a passenger for them to practice map reading while we flew it. We did a lot of flying around the Lake District, we were flying over Maryport and Workington I think is the other port, on the coast there. And we, we used to go down and count the number of ships that were in the harbour and things like this, and then having to fly back over the Lake District which was very, which could be quite treacherous with the down draughts and the winds whistling over the hills. It used to bounce the Tiger Moths around like nobody’s business. But we did that for about a month and then we were posted again hoping we were going to get posted to OTUs but it never, never, I was, you asked how I felt. I felt disappointed having made my mind up I was never going to fly single engine fighters I put down for twin engines or multis. The onus was on providing crews for four engine planes. So to get there I’d got to go to an OTU and that was never going to happen. So when I was posted to the engineers’ course I accepted it and it, I was still flying, that was what I wanted to do, I wanted to fly. So that, I made the best of a bad job. I thoroughly enjoyed it I mean, I enjoyed the, being on a squadron, being a crew, being a member of a crew and we’d got a good crew. I mean our mid upper gunner was the only one who could shoot through the aerial leading to the rudders which he did time and time again, it used to cost him half a crown a time when he pierced them, I mean this was when we were doing air to air gunnery and he was firing at a drogue and he’d traverse and ‘ping’ and Andy the wireless operator would say ‘You’ve done it again’ [laugh], but um.
CB: So, how long did you keep your pilots brevet?
CA: All the time.
CB: Oh did you, throughout the war?
CA: Yes, yes we were never forced to change them. That is why I always say I was a PFE rather than a flight engineer, I was a pilot flight engineer. And the pilots that I flew with gave me the opportunity to fly, to pilot. I mean Peter who was the ex-instructor, he was always within reach of pulling me out of the seat if necessary, but Fred he used to go and wander down to the Elsan at the back and leave me in charge. I mean I was playing about one day above the clouds and I was following the, the shape of the clouds up and down and Johnny who was sitting with his turret doors open, fore and aft, and it, it started to get a bit robust, the movement of the up and down movement and the Elsan lid which was tied down with a bungee rubber broke and the contents of the Elsan came up, [laugh], oh dear, and it covered him [laugh], he didn’t speak to me for days [laugh] because he knew it was me and not Fred [laugh].
CB: How did the crew get on together socially?
CA: Very good, very good we never went anywhere unless we went as a six. I mean, we bought our beer in the mess, we bought it by the bucket and helped ourselves with dipping the glass into the bucket rather than separate. No, it was a very good crew, very good.
CB: So in those days you could buy beer in a bucket could you?
CA: In the mess.
CB: In the mess, right.
CA: In the mess yeah.
CB: OK, and as a crew you worked well together?
CA: Oh yes, yes.
CB: And er.
CA: Well Marsh, he was working, he wanted to get onto pathfinders.
CB: Marsh being?
CA: The navigator. He was a very good navigator but, Mac, the bomb aimer, he was more of, an easy come, easy go.
CB: So.
CA: That second or the first raid as a crew to Pilsen we went through the target twice because Mac he wouldn’t drop because he couldn’t line it up properly so he said ‘I’ll send you round again’ and the rest of us shouted ‘What the hell, will you pull them’ and Fred said ‘If you don’t I shall jettison’. So he says ‘Go round again!’ So we had to make our way round and come back and get it back in the stream and fly it through but on the second time he let them go.
CB: This is a daylight raid?
CA: No, this was a night raid —
CB: This was in the night. So the reason I said that is because that sounds a particularly dangerous thing to do when you can’t see anything —
CA: It was a, well this is it, I mean what with trying to get in, slip into the stream, I mean you, I never saw another Lancaster in the stream. And I mean we went through the target we were only given somewhere maybe half an hour from the start to the end of the squadron’s time over the target so I mean God knows how close we were, but we were very close when we were getting buffeted by slipstream. But I mean a, when Marsh sent us on a dog leg when we turned out of the stream and then had to come back and join it again. We didn’t realise the stupidity of it, but Marsh being Marsh he’d got to have it down on his chart.
CB: Why would it have mattered if you had arrived early?
CA: Well a, the target may not have been indicated, or they were down below marking it, so you, I mean er.
CB: You could have bombed your own people —
CA: You could have bombed them, yeah —
CB: Right OK.
CA: And since the Lancaster was always the top flight, I mean it was Lancasters, Halifaxes, Stirlings.
CB: Right, there’s a ranking.
CA: So.
CB: And how did the crew feel, and you feel, about what you were doing as bombers?
CA: I don’t think we thought about it.
CB: OK.
CA: I don’t think we thought about it. I mean the first one — we had been bombed at home in 1940. We’d had a landmine dropped within about a hundred yards of home and our house is most probably still standing with the back, back wall bulged where the roof lifted and the walls started to move and it dropped down and it held. So I wanted to do something back but having that I don’t think you, we never talked about whether there was a right or wrong, it was a job.
CB: My wife was born in a bombing raid in Birmingham.
CA: Eh hum.
CB: What about LMF, did you know anything about that, or experience.
CA: We knew of it.
CB: Yes.
CA: We knew of it but we never met anyone who was accused of it or anything like that. But we didn’t like the idea because it wasn’t nice when you were over there. A funny tale, we had a man on the squadron, he was a dark, a Negro, and he was as black as the ace of spades, colour. And he’d got perfectly white teeth and he was known as twenty three fifty nine, that was his nickname, because twenty three fifty nine is the darkest part of the night, or supposed to be, a minute before midnight. And he was a rear gunner and when he was in his turret at night and you walked past it all you could see was these white teeth. It was really funny, but he was a good lad.
CB: What about other aspects of the work? When you boarded the aircraft what did you have with you to eat or drink?
CA: I think the only thing I can remember is boiled sweets. I mean I can’t ever remember fruit, or anything like that. I don’t think we ever took, I never took a drink at all. I mean I can tell the tale where, I mean, we used, sometimes to remember to take a bottle to use and one day Fred had forgotten his, the pilot, and he was in, he was in dire trouble. So he said ‘I’ve got to have something, I’ve got to have something’ so I was scooting round trying to, what the hell can he have? And I went and took the cover off the G George instrument, gyro, which was a pan of about eight or nine inch diameter and about three or four inches deep held on with four screws. So I took this off and gave him this to use, which he used. So he used it and said ‘Here get rid of it’ so I said ‘How?’ he says ‘Throw it out the window’ so I pulled my sliding window back —
CB: [laugh] —
CA: and threw it out, threw the contents. Of course, I mean as soon as the contents went out the slipstream took it all the way down the canopy, the Perspex, and we, I couldn’t see out of that side all the way back, and I also lost the G cover [laugh] which cost me five shillings and a telling off from the engineer officer. How, why was the G cover uncovered. ‘I can’t remember’ [laugh].
CB: Now what about the ground crew because you relied on them so, what was the relationship with them?
CA: Very good, other than the first time I went, we joined the squadron, and I don’t know whether I ought to say this, can I, can I not get up?
CB: Um.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Cyril Abbotts
Description
An account of the resource
Cyril Abbotts volunteered for the Royal Air Force while he was an engineering apprentice with W T Avery at Smethwick. After his reception at Lord’s Cricket Ground and initial training,he trained as a pilot at RAF Bowden and Moose Jaw in Canada. On his return to Great Britain, he spent some time in holding units, before being posted to retrain as a flight engineer at RAF St Athan. He flew operations with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby in 1945 and later converted from Lancasters to Lincolns. Post-war he completed his apprenticeship, becoming a draughtsman for various companies including ICI. He retired after 30 years of service with them.
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2015-10-15
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
Format
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01:18:53 audio recording
Language
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eng
Identifier
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AAbbottsC151015
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Saskatchewan--Moose Jaw
England--London
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Great Britain
Germany
Wales
Saskatchewan
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
1654 HCU
57 Squadron
African heritage
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
Cornell
crewing up
demobilisation
fear
flight engineer
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lincoln
Me 262
military discipline
military living conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-51
physical training
pilot
promotion
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Carlisle
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Gamston
RAF Heaton Park
RAF St Athan
RAF Sywell
RAF Wigsley
RCAF Bowden
RCAF Estevan
recruitment
sanitation
Tiger force
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/107/1442/LGrayHM184299v1.2.pdf
29b880f1891e664a5308afa8e355cdcd
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
Gray, Herbert
H M Gray
Bertie Gray
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. The collection relates to the career of Sergeant Herbert M Gray (1593562 Royal Air Force), It contains his log book, three photographs, a handwritten account of his first flight, six letters he wrote to his wife between 28 June 1944 and 6 August 1944, and his medal ribbons. Herbert Gray was a flight engineer with 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds.
The collection was donated by his daughter Ann M Gregory and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-26
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
Gray, HM
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
Herbert Gray's navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
France--Normandy
France--Blaye
France--Caen
France--Creil
France--Dijon
France--Falaise
France--Flers-de-l'Orne
France--Le Havre
France--Mimoyecques
France--Paris
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Saarbrücken
Netherlands--Middelburg
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Domléger-Longvillers
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book for Sergeant Herbert Gray from 21 February 1944 to 10 November 1945. Detailing training and operations flown. Served at RAF Stradishall, RAF Hemswell and RAF Elsham Wolds. Aircraft flown were Lancaster and Stirling. He carried out a total of 30 night time and daylight operations as a flight engineer with 103 Squadron from RAF Elsham Wolds on the following targets in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands: Aachen, Aul Noye, Blaye, Bordeaux, Caen, Cahagnes, Dijon, Domleger, Dortmund, Duisburg, Falaise, Flers, Fontaine le Pin, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Kiel, Le Culot, Le Havre, Mimoyecques, Neuss, Paris, Rieme Ertveld (Ghent-Terneuzen Canal), Saarbrücken, Sannerville, Trossy St Maximin, Westkapelle. His pilot on operations was Squadron LEader Van Rolleghem.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGrayHM184299v1
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-17
1944-06-18
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-29
1944-07-01
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-07-07
1944-07-18
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-15
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-09-05
1944-09-08
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-10-03
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-06-25
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
103 Squadron
1657 HCU
49 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Hemswell
RAF Stradishall
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-3
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1559/LDarbyC1897788v1.1.pdf
fcd4a4bcfdac0e065595002419fce2ec
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
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
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
Charlie Darby’s observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDarbyC1897788v1
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--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Saint-Vith
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Le Havre
France--Watten
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Netherlands--Oostkapelle
Netherlands--Westkapelle
Germany
Netherlands
France
Belgium
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-09-09
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-30
1944-10-15
1944-10-23
1944-10-29
1944-10-30
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-11-16
1944-11-18
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-12-06
1944-12-21
1944-12-26
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-02
1945-01-05
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Sergeant Charlie Darby, air gunner from 22 January 1944 to 16 January 1945. Charlie Darby was stationed at RAF Castle Kennedy and RAF Driffield where he flew Anson, Wellingtons and Halifaxes Mk 2 and 3. He took part in 30 night and daylight operations over Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands: Saint-Vith, Boulogne, Brest, Calais, Le Havre, Watten, Bochum, Bottrop, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Hannover, Jülich, Kiel, Koblenz, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Magdeburg, Münster, Neuss, Oberhausen (Düsseldorf) Sterkrade, Opladen, Osnabrück, Wilhemshaven, Oostkapelle, Westkapelle. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Evans and Flight Lieutenant Stuart. Operations include V-1 sites and army cooperation, with details on anti-aircraft fire, searchlights and attacks by Me 109 and Me 110
1658 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Me 109
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Riccall
searchlight
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1563/ADarbyC150630.2.mp3
da9e5105946763a779ff81714d32e118
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
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: Right, so my name is Chris Brockbank and I'm here to interview a gentleman on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewee is Mr Charlie Darby and we've got here his wife Barbara as well and ably assisted and interrogated by Tony Lee their son-in-law.
CB: Okay Charlie it's running now, so here's Charlie Darby and please tell us about your life, Charlie.
CD: I'm Charlie Darby, I was born on the 26th May 1924 from a family of six boys, three girls and went through normal schooling. Went to work at fourteen [pause] er and when I became seventeen I was directed labour a government scheme that you had to fall in line with. If you didn't, there were two other choices: down the mines or prison. So, I took the job on which was at Mirdam [?] Ways, High Wycombe dismantling Churchill tanks. And I stuck at that for eighteen months and I just did not want to know any more about it [laughter]. So there was only one thing to do; that was to volunteer for the forces. And that's how I became to join the Royal Air Force. Now, having joined the Royal Air Force, or rather prior to that, I had to have an attestation which I took at Houston House, Houston Square in London. Got the result, I was passed to go into aircrew. Now, I waited my call up which came the 20th of September '43. I had to report to St John's Wood, London, for two weeks initiation. The same day of joining, I had to go down to Lord's Cricket Ground to get kitted out. And from there, I went to Bridlington ITW (Initial Training Wing) for eight weeks training. From there, number 3 EADS Bridgnorth, another eight weeks, from there, that was EDA Elementary Air Gunnery School. From there, to a place in Scotland, I don't know where they got it from but I was there. [background laughter] A place called Castle Kennedy. Never did see the castle. Eight weeks there was the AGS which I successfully passed and I was made aircrew and presented with brevet and I then awaited call to my next station which was Moreton in Marsh Gloucester, 21OTU and this is where we crewed up. There was one day we were assembled on this bit of green, [cough] and three officers came and approached us NCOs and my pilot, navigator and wireless operator were the three officers. And Les, my pilot, approached, we accepted and we found out afterwards: 'How did you do this, Les?' 'I went to each section and looked at your, your pass marks' and that's how he took judgement on us. Because we had our names on our breast and he knew where to go, he knew the names he was looking for. So therefore that is the way we crewed up. But, you never had an engineer, that came at a late a stage er at Heavy Conversion Unit. Which is what we did, er, [pause] yes just after that. But prior to that even, still in Yorkshire, we went to a place called Acaster Malbis and did a battle course. That was living rough, think that was the only, the occasion arise, you got adapted to it. Anyway, we went on to Riccall, near Selby, to 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit and did our first flying on four engines. And from there, we went to my operational station of Driffield where 466 was. Did er, training from there prior to operations [pause] yeah but-
CB: Okay we'll stop there for a mo. What I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to explain so we can understand what's coming next, how you were trained, so what happened at your initial training and in your gunnery training? So, how did that go?
CD: Dis-dis-discipline and er squad marching [pause] that it?
CB: Okay.
CD: Only two weeks of it.
CB: Right, then gunnery? So you had initial gunnery and then main gunnery.
CD: Initial training wing a little bit more extra started to pick up Morse code.
CB: Right
CD: That's something we had to know as a gunner to help the navigator. We had to know Morse at a simple rate of eight words a minute which was what occults and pundits flash at the rate of. A pundit flashed two red letters which were the letters of the aerodrome but an occult flashed one letter in white, that gave a navigator a bearing. So if you saw an occult flash, you called up your navigator and told him 'occult flashing so and so'. And then I guess I've got the bearing, we're not, we're about a mile off track. That sort of talk. Right then that it?
CB: And you're gunnery, so how did the gunnery training go?
CD: Very good.
CB: So what did they do initially?
CD: They started off with -
CB: Shotguns, was it?
CD: Yeah, yeah, started off with a point two two, a little pallet of a shot. At short range, yes, did quite a lot of clay pidge shooting, er, learning deflection. And from there, we didn't, we didn't go on to the main guns until we got to um [pause] er OTU. We were there on Wellingtons, oh may I add that, at this stage we haven't got a flight engineer. That came when we met with four engines, 'cause you didn't need a flight engineer on a Wellington.
CB: No.
CD: A pilot did all his -
CB: Yeah
CD: fuel changing. So we are now at Riccall on heavy conversion work. The normal day light, night time, cross countries, air-to-sea, air-to-air, firing and er -
CB: Were you firing live or with a camera gun?
CD: If we having fighter attacks you had a cine camera twenty-five feet of camera. And they assess you on the radical [?], on the film. To see whether you were on target or not. Er -
CB: And they had towed targets, did they? They had towed targets for you to shoot at?
CD: Yes the drogues I forgot that.
CB: Drogues
CD: I forgot that, I should have come up with that and erm -
CB: So that was live ammunition?
CD: Castle Kennedy, yes, at Castle Kennedy we were on Ans- I sh [?], I can't think of it all the time -
CB: That's alright, that's okay
CD: I can now, we were on Ansons, and an Anson took six gunners up at the time. And the one that sat next to the pilot wound the wheels up. Twenty-three turns, I might add. [laughter] Anyway, the drogue was towed by a Martinet, just above you, in front of you. So all you had level with you and behind was the drogue. Now, each gunner had a colour and the tips of those bullets for the space of two-hundred rounds I would think at the time, blue, red, etcetera etcetera. So if you were blue, they knew you were blue, bad aim [?]. And if you fired at this drogue, they'd count the number of blues and cut them in half, because it's going through the drogue, it's making two blue marks so it's gotta be halved. That's how they assessed how many hits you had. [pause] er this -
CB: I'll just stop you a mo. [beep] Right, so we're restarting now, with Charlie.
CD: I was -
CB: Johannson [?] wheels.
CD: At Castle Kennedy AGS and we were six to a plane. Six to an Anson. And the last one in sat next to the pilot who and then you had to wind the wheels up for him and [pause] I er, rather premature in that respect whereby I started to wind the wheels up far too soon for the pilot, not 'No no no!' he said 'I have not trimmed it yet'. By the way, he was a Polish pilot [laughter].
TL: Now carry on.
CD: And now, I finally passed the exam to become an air gunner and I went on leave waiting for posting to 21 OTU Moreton in the Marsh. This is where we crewed up, man-to-man, assembled on the grass. People approached one another, and that's how crews were formed. [pause] er less, a flight engineer, as you didn't need them on twin engines air craft. That was selected when you went to RCU - HCU - (Heavy Conversion Unit). The one we went to was 1658 Riccall, near Selby, Yorkshire. This was where my pilot selected his engineer, from thereon, we were fully crewed. Went on to four engine training, did the right exercises, then went from there to squadron. We were put to Driffield where 462 was, 466 was rather, beg your pardon, and in the time of pre-training operations, 462 came from out of the desert and reformed at Driffield. Ah, by the time we got operational, our first operation was with 466 and then, the time we come to our second operation, 462 was formed. Australian, yes, these were Australian squadrons by the way, and when we got through our second operation, 462 were ready formed up and started and we did our second op on their inauguration on the squadron. From there on, we did our operations. We did twenty-three in all on 462. And they were then posted down to Foulsham in Norfolk, on RCM work (Radio Counter Measures) which was in 100 Group. As we had only seven to do, they put us back on the 466, it wasn't worth sending us down there to do seven operations. They switched us back to 466, and there we completed our tour, which in January 1945. Now, the nitty gritty bit is, I ended up going into hospital halfway through my tour, which put me behind my crew. So, it eventuated that I had one trip to do at the time when my crew had done the last trip which was Hanover one the 5th of January. From there, I was placed on a battle order the next night with a crew strange to me by the name of Flight Lieutenant Stewart. And it was a hair raiser, [laughter] things like we were just set course, and one shouts to the other 'Throw the cigarettes up then, I threw them up last night!' Now, our pilot’d had gone beserk if we'd have smoked on an aircraft. With hundred octane petrol about, not good is it? Not good for life. However,[background noise] I managed to get through that operation [background noise] I went on these then I had to report to ACRC Catterick (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were being made redundant to be put on a ground staff job. Thus, what we did to the day I was demobbed.
CB: So, just going back now, to the HCU.
CD: Yes.
CB: When you're at the HCU, how did the programme go to create a crew that was operational?
CD: We did the right designated exercises to do, so many affiliations with the fighter, at night and day, to resemble an operation. Now, coming back to my initiation at squadron, we were on a cross country, a daylight cross country, which took us the last [pause] part of the er, cross country. We took a leg up to Belfast. We turn off at Belfast down to Fleetwood, near Blackpool. Well, we got to Belfast the while, the flight engineer said 'We're going down to the Elsan, Snowy' That was the pilot's nickname, Snowy. Okay, so we get down there and all of a sudden four engines cut. [laughter] 'Jock [?], where the hell are you?' [laughter] 'Down at the Elsan], Snowy', 'For Christ's sake, get back here soon! Sooner than that' he says. [laughter] We were icing up, because there were icicles on my gun that night outside, and everybody was getting to stations of bail out [background laughter]. We are now over the Irish Sea, heading towards Fleetwood, and Jock rushed back quick as he could and changed over and all the four engines picked up, just like that. In that time, all four engines had cut and we'd lost 5000 feet, fell like a tree. Everything righted itself. The explanation was for the engineer was he thought, he thought that the dials indicators were frozen. He said he checked them before he left his post but they were showing still fuel in the tanks but it wasn't so. [laughter] However, all was fair, we managed to get back to base, and that was the start of operations for you. That was a lift that, wasn't it?
CB: Now, were you mid-upper or were you tail-gunner?
CD: Rear. I was tail.
CB: Right, so did you come to choose that yourself?
CD: Well -
CB: How did you decide which position to be in?
CD: I favoured the dr- rear to be honest, and, we don't come on to operations. We are now, our second operation, the first on 462, was the flying bomb site at a place called Waddon [?] just the side of Dunkirk. And we did that one Friday evening and daylight. Succeeded with that, got to, I think, number seven. We went, we were designated to Kiel, U-boat pens , that was a night trip, very bad weather round the target area. But coming back we somehow had a fracture of the oil pressure. We're coming back over the North Sea and the pilot realises that he's got one wheel down and one up. The whole of the distance across the North Sea, he was up and down up and down with the good wheel hoping for something to happen. After about an hour, it succeeded. It dropped the good wheel and they both went back together and that was solved, just like that. That was Kiel. Now, we're coming now into September, we went to a place called Neuss in the Ruhr - N E U double S. On leaving the target, a hazy target as well because there were plenty of fires. Dead astern of me was this 1-1-0 or 2-1-0 it didn't matter, literally identical but for a small [inaudible] unrecognisable one from the other. Oh, I butted on here because, going back to my training, the instructor would always say to you 'traverse your turret'. Now after, between there and becoming operational, I sat sometimes and thought a lot. Now, if I'm round there, he could be coming from there, I can't see him. So, I decided in my mind, I'm just gonna sit there, and look. You pick things up and you cover a bigger area than you would by doing this. Because, by doing that, he could be there, it only takes seconds. You wouldn't know anything about it. So that's what I, I kicked that one out of the window and I always sat dead astern, looking dead astern, and looking for everything that's coming from those quarters, because that's where it comes from. And coming back to this, where I sighted this 1-1-0, 2-1-0, whatever, if I'd have done what my instructor had told me, I probably wouldn't be here now. To the point that I saw him, and I kept my eyes on him, and I had already informed the pilot 'prepare to corkscrew' it's gonna be port because he was dead astern of us and they're at our height [?]. So I let him get nearer, and then I gave the order to corkscrew which was to port. Now, there's one advantage there by going to port, it helped the pilot who was sitting on the port side, as he goes down to come back up, he can see going down and he can see going back up. Didn't fire, I always held fire because on your ammunition belt, every fifth bullet was -
TL: Tracer.
CD: Tracer. And with the speed of the guns firing eight hundred rounds a minute, that tracer becomes a red line and it immediately gives your position away. And that's one thing you should not do, give yourself away. [phone rings] You, you er, you er, [background noise] [pause] yes, you must not give your position away. I'm there to defend the aircraft, I don't attack, I only attack with bombs, so therefore, you do not [phone pings] put yourself in that situation by what they call firing in anger. I didn't believe in it and I never ever would but I never did it. And I think on those, on those terms, puts us on the right side of success. You getting through?
CB: This was in the night, was it?
CD: Eh?
CB: This was in the night this 1-1-0, 2-1-0 were coming at you.
CD: Yeah, at night, yeah. But in the day light totally different. They can see you, you can see them.
CB: Exactly.
CD: You adopt a different attitude then.
CB: Do you think he'd seen you?
CD: Hum?
CB: Do you think he had seen you?
CD: Oh yes, without a doubt. He had probably honed onto us. He was going that fast, it was this [pause] a matter of seconds, eight seconds, and it was all over. He never fired, by the way. So it just shows you how things happen so quick and once we did that, to start down on the corkscrew, it went, Dennis ran right us and said 'There he goes' I said 'I know Dennis I've been following him all the way along.' As we went down on the corkscrew, he went over the top of us. Now, my pilot comes up and we're in a bubble of corkscrew, I won't, I won't say the complete statement but he said 'Let's go back up and see where he is' I says 'You stop down here'.
TL: Or words to that effect.
CD: Plus a few more syllables. [laughter] Deathly hush, deathly hush because I chewed him. [laughter] And I, I'm now saying to myself, 'What have I said?' Sat in that turret thinking ‘I'm really heading for it now’. Not a word was said and between there and getting back to base, I made up my mind, if he doesn't say anything, then I won't. Let it just calm away. That's just what happened. Nothing was said. I think, I think, in a nutshell, he knew I was right. Well, I know I was right, because we were told in training, back in training, a pilot is always the captain of the aircraft but in a situation where you're under attack, he takes orders from you. That's why I did it, that's why I said it. But, having said that, I still, I still blinkering [inaudible], what am I heading for [laughter] because I could really have been brought upon the coals about this. But no, it petered out.
BD: You dropped your bombs.
CD: Yeah.
CB: What do you think was in his mind?
CD: Well, being a naughty, I think he being a bit of a daredevil. Or, he was making a joke of it. But it was the wrong time of day to make a joke! [laughter]
CB: So what other incidents did you have that were-
BD: What about when, when erm, chap shot the mid-upper, nearly shot you?
CD: Yes, I'm going back to pre-operation training-
CB: Right.
CD: At Driffield. After a daylight operation, beg your pardon, a daylight wide cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington Bay, do some air-to-sea firing at nought feet. He's shooting the foam to get deflection. He said, my mid-upper said, 'Do you want me to fire first?' I said 'Yes, okay Dennis' so he fired his five hundred off, he said 'I've finished now' and I went to go traverse round onto the beam to start mine, and I heard this zoom, and there's an on and off oxygen dial just slightly above my head to the left that hit that and went somewhere in the turret [laughter]. What was it? It was a cooked round from one of Dennis's guns. When the guns finished firing, they should always stop in the recoil position so they're clear of a round. So every time a breechblock goes forward, it takes a round with it up the spout of the gun. Hence, what they call a cooked round. The bullets in the barrel, the heat of the barrel sets it off. That's what happened. I did not fire one shot [background laughter]. It was straight back to base, to get inquiries on it. The gun, the gun was faulty. It er, it should have stayed at the recoil position but it just did not. Hence, the cooked round.
CB: So of the thirty operations you did, how many were in the dark at night, and how many were daylight? Roughly?
CD: Twenty-three daylight and seven night, I did.
CB: Other way around?
CD: No beg your pardon, that's wrong.
BD: It's the other way round.
CD: Twenty-three on 462, seven on 466. No, I did fifteen on each. Fifteen daylights, fifteen nights. At one stretch there I did ten in nine days I think it was.
CB: And how often did you have to use your guns?
CD: I didn't. I say, I did not fire in anger. I made my mind up on that one. This is the trouble with, I think, I may be wrong, but I think that by firing away willy nilly at something they got a hold on you. You see that tracer? Why expose yourself?
CB: What was the purpose of the tracer?
CD: If you were guidance. Give you, give you a guide to what you were shooting at. And, I would never, ever fire in anger. And I think, in my mind, I think that's where we lost quite a few aircraft. Not saying I'm right, but I would think it inclinates that way.
CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit?
CD: How many?
CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit by flack or fighter?
CD: Varied. I, there was one instance at a place called Bochum this was on November the fourth, fifth, where I saw one of ours over the target. It was on fire from wingtip to wingtip and it came to pass in the aftermath and later years that it turned out to be Joe Herman and with the descriptions that I know of now, that resembles Joe Herman's aircraft. The one where he finally went out last but it was blown out. The plane then blew up. I never saw the explosion, but I saw it from wingtip to wingtip. On our course, it wasn't spiralling out of control, it was still going along you know. But I can't keep looking all, too long, you've gotta look after yourself. So it was a question of just that and concentrate on your own, you know, it's, and that's what happened. It blew up. And it blew Joe out of the aircraft without a parachute. And, he went down, down, down, grabbing at anything possible. And he finally grabbed something and it was the legs of his mid-upper gunner on his chute. They went down together and they were talking to one another on the way down but he said 'Just prior to hitting the ground, I'll release myself' which is what he did, and he broke his leg doing it. Vivash [?] came out of it alright. And, er, but the others had already bailed out, they were the last two to go and Harry Nott the flight engineer was, he he was asked, told to put the fires out, the small one in the fuselage. Well, he did that but then the whole kaboosh was alight, wing tip to wing tip. So he bailed out and he hid in the forest for five days, eating anything he could put his hand to. But he decided to cross the Rhone [?] and that's where he was caught. He was made prisoner of war and the other three, four, Vivash and Joe heard gunfire. It came to pass over latter years but quite recently in this day that the, the blokes were shot by Gestapo. That was, one bloke was Underwood he was the bomb aimer, Wilson, someone else and, how this has all come about now whereby I've got young enthusiasts of 462 and 466 that have taken me up in the last two years back to Driffield and has encouraged me to go with them and tell them all the things that I've been telling you now. And Paul Nott was the great-nephew of Harry Nott the engineer on Joe Herman's crew. Now, Paul, as an enthusiast he is, he's a private pilot himself. He had this painting done by someone in Shrewsbury. He flew up and collected it. Went over to Aces High in Wendover and had it framed. And now he's got it hung in his office at Ascot. In my plane he's put above it between two searchlights because I told him I saw that plane on fire. It could onl- the description that he gave was identical to what I saw it could be no other. And that's how it's now become we're close friends with the Australians, Tiana Adair the lady. Her father was a pilot I think he was, and all these things of years gone by have all come together with someone being a relative of someone. And this is what has happened. I went, only this April on Anzac day (April the 25th) and we went to Driffield Gardens and we had the memorial which we dedicated in 1993 and Joe, Harry Arnes and myself, he's a prominent air gunner and he was on his second tour. Incidentally at Driffield he was on his second tour and I've met him twice since and last year we laid the wreath at the Gardens memorial and he came this year again but he had to get away quickly because he was going the next day to Drongen in Belgium to another parade. So, things went well. So the point, yes, it renewed our old way of living as regard being air crew in World War Two.
CB: So what was your pattern of living? What was the pattern that you went through? You got up in the morning.
CD: Yes.
CB: What happened?
CD: You went to, you went to your section and did a DI on your, on your turn (daily inspection). You cleaned your, you cleaned the Perspex with special Perspex polish to cut out all spots from the engine you get exhaust oil splashes the like and believe you me if you got any like that you think well that's an aircraft that one and that spot of oil on the air on the Perspex. So it was down to you to keep your turret clean. It's your vision, you rely on it. So-
CB: What about the guns?
CD: Yes.
CB: What about the guns? How did you clean those?
CD: You clean those with what they call four by two.
CB: Wooding?
CD: Yes, a cloth, like a flannel. You had a pull through. We cleared the flannels. Yes.
CB: So after the DI, then what?
CD: Well, you went back to section. And then if the battle orders come out, you look up and saw upon the jar the DROs and you destined. Report to briefing at so-and-so time. From there on things worked.
CB: What's a DRO?
CD: Daily routine orders.
CB: Right.
CD: Sorry.
CB: Okay.
CD: And each section line pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, went to their respective section, did a flight plan after briefing. And the gunners, engineers just sat and wait and report to parachute rooms at such-and-such a time. From there on it was on the, the bus to the perimeter track to dispersal point got up your aircraft. In my case, set my guns to fire. There's a fire and safe on each gun so you had to put it on fire, from there on hold it there.
CB: 'Cause you got four 303s you didn't have the retro fitter point fives [?]
CD: Yes I had round a minute they fire. So you got three thousand two hundred a minute. But you'd never fire it for a minute, just short sharp bursts. Yes, so-
CB: So what time would you normally be going on a raid? Did it vary a lot?
CD: Anytime. Any time of day, yes. Daylights. When we, when the, [pause] when the [pause] erm, the army was for-, going forward in France, we were always bombing the French ports because that was the last of the resistance from the guards, the German army, and they were really dug in, they were very hard to get out, suss out. And [background noise] to do a daylight, early morning, you were up at one o'clock, two o'clock. You were called by someone in the guard room came round your billet woke you up. From there on breakfast, briefing, the [inaudible], airborne, drop your load and back you come. Now, as I say, that varied, as my log book shows. Any time of day, any time of night. And I might add, every time we came back and entered the debriefing room, there was always that man stood there by the, by the tea urn [laughter] and the biscuits. And the station padre, no matter what time of day or night, he was always there. Something I noticed, it always sticks in my mind, how dedicated that man was. Yeah.
CB: How did the crews feel about that? How did the crews feel?
CD: Well about like, about the same as me I think. Such dedication, this, this is what went through all aircrew as well. You know, you had to do that to survive.
CB: What was your crew like?
CD: Very good, very good. My, especially my navigator, he was quite exceptional. And Tom, the wireless op, yes, good man. Lost him quite young, he was, he was the daddy of the crew. We were twenties and he was thirty-one. And he died when he was forty-two, back in '54. Terry and I and the bomber, we went to his funeral in London. Yes. And pilot, Les, he came over on two occasions. He was married to a New Zealand girl. He got married, lived in Australia, and his home town of Cowgill [?] Cowgill [?], yes. And she wanted to go back home, she couldn't stand the heat. This he did, [background noise] and when we went and met him on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, my son-in-law, daughter, two sons and two grandsons put us on an air ticket and we had two weeks in Brisbane with her cousin, the other two weeks in North Island New Zealand with Les my pilot and his wife. But sadly since then, they've both passed on, and my wife's cousin. And at that stage, we're now left with one two three four five. In turn, they've all died off to the point now that where there is only two of us. That's Derry, my navigator and myself.
CB: As a crew, what did you do when you weren't flying?
CD: My first and foremost job was and I did it every day like a nut, I used to write to her, yeah.
BD: Her?
CD: Every day. Can you imagine that? I think I should put it on a rubber stamp because it's the same old things I would say [laughter].
CB: We're talking about Barbara here.
BD: Yes.
CB: And what a lucky lady she was. [laughter]
CD: Yeah, well there you go you see.
CB: We're just going to stop for a cup of tea now.
CD: Okay.
CB: And pick it up in a minute. [Beep]
[At 50:20 there is a break and the recording seems to start again on another day]
CB: Right, my name is Chris Brockbank, listeners, and we're now on the 7th of July and we're with Charlie Darby and Barbara Darby and Tony Lee their son-in-law. And we're just going to pick up on where we finished up last time really which was the end of the war. And then we'll pick up on some other items. So, Charlie, we came to the point where the operations finished, what happened next? You'd done your thirty.
CD: After leave.
CB: Okay, so how much leave did they give you?
CD: Oh, there was about six weeks.
CB: Right. Yep. And then what?
CD: We then had a telegram to report to Catterick on ACRC [background noise] (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were going to be made redundant, they would issue us with a ground job. And, that was it. I went in on to a course called aircraft finishing which was a coating of paints and so forth, putting on [inaudible?] on aircraft. I went on a course down to Locking in near Weston-Super-Mare for that. And along came the end of the war. And from there on I just went from pillar to post, station to station, and things were never, did never happen as regards that course. So as I've told you earlier, we were just a person not needed.
CB: How did you feel about that?
CD: Well, depressing.
CB: Was all, were all the crew members together?
CD: No, no, we all went respective ways. My pilot is now already on his way home, all’s finished with him as far as that was concerned. The re-, Derry, the navigator, went to Morton in Marsh as navigation instructor. My other gunner, he went down to Wales-
CB: What was his name?
CD: On the bombing site-
CB: What was his name?
CD: Dennis.
CB: Dennis.
CD: And in the end, he turns up marrying a Welsh girl and that's where he stayed. And that's where he died, in Wales. Don, similar aspect, but then he went on the, the er Elizabeth Line.
CB: Was he the bomb aimer?
CD: No, he was the flight engineer.
CB: Right.
CD: [background noise] He went as a steward on the Queen Elizabeth and something else. Arthur, the bomb aimer, he went on a bombing site. He was sol- a practice bombing site. He was sole charge of that, somewhere up in the Midlands, and that just about covers it.
CB: And the signaller-
CD: The wireless op-
CB: Wireless op, yeah-
CD: I never did know what he went in to. And then, as I said before, shortly after that he died, not many years after this.
CB: He was the one who died - he was the grandpa of the crew and died at forty-two?
CD: Yes that's correct, yes.
CB: Right. Now, your rank when you were flying most of the time was flight sergeant?
CD: No sergeant.
CB: Sergeant.
CD: Sergeant.
CB: When did you become flight sergeant?
CD: About, it came in about a year's time, a step up.
CB: Okay. And then you became a warrant officer, when was that?
CD: Yes. That warrant officer, that was between '46 and seven. Immediately I got it, immediately they took it away. That sort of time.
CB: And put you back to what?
CD: Sergeant, basic sergeant.
CB: And what happened to your pay?
CD: Still the same.
CB: You still get flying pay?
CD: No, no. The rank of whatever.
CB: But the flying pay stopped when you stopped flying did it?
CD: So I. Yes. I think so.
CB: How much did you get paid? Do you remember?
CD: I think it's something like fifteen shillings a day. Something like that.
CB: And then the flying pay. How much?
CD: [Pause] Tough to say.
CB: Okay, doesn't matter. Now, going back to the early days-
CD: Adding to that, mind you-
CB: Yeah?
CD: We had a donater by the name of [pause] he was, er-
BD: Nuffield?
CD: Pardon?
BD: Nuffield.
CD: That's right, Lord Nuffield. He gave money to operational aircrew and you received that every leave you went on while operating. To the, to the tune of fifty shillings, something like that, every six weeks. And that fund is a trust fund still running today. Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting him once on the golf course up here at Flackwell Heath. Yeah, anyway that's another point.
CB: After the war?
CD: After the? No. No, during the war.
CB: Oh.
CD: It was on my first leave in '43. Amazing isn't it?
CB: Yeah.
CD: Then were we? I was on a ground job, yes, but it didn't materialise as I thought it was going to do. Like Dennis, Arthur, they had a distinct job of doing something on a bombing range. Well, that didn't happen as far as I was concerned. It just didn't have an end to it. I was in the end just doing silly jobs. You can't describe really.
CB: So how did they - when did they demob you? And what was the process?
CD: They demobbed me in '47, May '47. I had to go to Lytham St Anne’s near Blackpool where I was issued with civvy clothes and came home on leave, the something about leave, and then that stopped. In other words, go and get a job.
CB: So what did you do?
CD: From there, I went into Hoovers. Hoovers Limited. It was like engineering. In the time I was there in twenty years my, my bit of fire service experience before I joined up came to light again as they had a fire crew within the works and I was able to join that. Which is what I did.
CB: That was as an extra? Or full time?
CD: That was during the work time. Any fire on the building, you went to it at the same time the local fire engine was coming up. Yes. We were paid a, extra and they used us funnily enough to collect the wages every week. Down in the town, down the bank because we were insured as firemen so that allowed them to insure - to use that same insurance for us to go down the bank and collect the money. Every Friday, I had to wear a mackintosh. Along, along, a - with weather like this or even hotter, I had to go and pedal into work with my mate 'What the hell you got that mac for?' I says 'It might rain, you know?' I dare not tell him the secret was I had to wear a poacher's jacket underneath which held all the paper money. And we used to go down to the bank, the man used to taxi us, conveniently had his business right outside the bank where he drove out of and he came out. We could see him coming, we went out the door as he pulled up by the pavement and we go on in one movement and all way. It was all done. And people working next to me never ever knew what I was doing.
BD: Did I?
CD: I think I told you whilst I shouldn't have done.
BD: Ooh God.
CD: Yeah. [background noise] The money I've carried was nobody’s business.
CB: So, you worked there twenty years?
CD: Yes.
CB: So that gets us into the later 60s. What did you-
CD: ‘67.
CB: ‘67, what did you do then?
CD: I still kept in business when back to BroomWade where I did the tank work. I did precision grinding there. And then I moved to a small business in Beaconsfield, Oppermans, did work for Martin Baker. I told him [inaudible] for he had yet to see. And then from there, I went on franchise work, from the bakery, the local bakery. And he made me redundant. From there, I decided to set up myself, then I went painting, decorating. I went on a course created by Margaret Thatcher to encourage people to do that sort of thing. And I was tax-free for a year, wasn't I? I think.
BD: Forty pound a week.
CD: Something like that. And after a year, it stopped. But then I was, I'd established a little bit of a business, enough to keep me going. And this is what I did to the end of my working days. I was working right up to seventy-five, even longer I think.
BD: And now you've stopped.
CD: Even longer. And that was it. And now we're at this stage and I'm still working.
CB: Quite right. [laughter]
CD: They say when you retire, you'll be able to play bowls, yes [laughter] no way.
CB: Let's go fast backwards to when you joined.
CD: Yes.
CB: So, when you joined, where was it, and what type of people were there who joined with you?
CD: What, people with me?
CB: Yeah. To the RAF.
CD: Well, we were only there a fortnight.
CB: Yep.
CD: At St John's Wood. So you didn't get a lot of time to get personalised. Bit more introductory, check you out on your health. You had to see the dentist, he was the other side of Hyde Park [laughter] it's true.
BD: It must have been a big job for this.
CD: And did a fortnight there at St John's Wood, then went to Bridlington, ITW (Initial Training Wing).
CB: So, what sort of people were with you, were they all Brits? Were they people from abroad?
CD: Yes, all Brits.
CB: Okay. And what sort of backgrounds? Were they technical type people or office based or what were they?
CD: I wouldn't know to be honest.
CB: Right. So when you got to -
CD: Pretty general like me.
CB: Okay.
CD: Workers in the day.
CB: Yeah. And at Bridlington, then what? What were they like there? What sort of people?
CD: Well, as I say, a bit strict on the instructional side. But they have to be, don't they, to deploy discipline? Early morning start, 06:30 parade, it was very, very civilised. We paraded down by the Spa Hotel which was our mess deck, in other words. The ball- dance hall floor ballroom was the mess. And the theatre side of it was used for Morse code and semaphore flagging, flag and signals. If the weather was fine, would they use the beach. You stood at one end, and he stood the other, about a mile away, and you did your exercises there. Small arms fire, shop frontage people that have sold up or what and they've taken it over because they took over all the, all the boarding places for holidays. That were taken over for us to be housed in. And each course was sixty strong, you kept that sixty all the way through. And that was eight weeks there, seven day leave. Next place was Bridgnorth, number three EAGS. You did a bit of squarebashing there.
CB: So EAGS was gunnery school?
CD: Elementary Air Gunnery School.
CB: Air gunnery school. And what was the elementary training? Was that with shotguns or what was it?
CD: Yes, shotguns. You didn't get to the big stuff 'til later.
CB: So shotguns and clay pigeons?
CD: Clay pigeons, yes. We did quite a lot of that, especially at the next station, AGS. That was the one in Scotland, Castle Kennedy. And that's where you went for your rigorous- The main subject to think about was aircraft recognition. Because, if you didn't know your aircraft, you could be shooting at one of your own. So you had to, you had to know the characteristics of all aircraft and when you sat in the classroom, they would put up on the screen a flash of a sighting of an aircraft no matter what distance, not close up, never close up, and, a hundredth part of a second and you had to write down on a sheet of paper what it was. And you were told afterwards so that was a vital subject. It was before, it was placed before, learning the Morse code. You had to know your aircraft. It happened so many times, people had been shooting their own. Not by me! [laughter] Success at the end, having passed, as you saw in my log book, eighty-one point five percent out of one hundred. I finished third of the sixty. The remarks were above average as you saw.
CB: Yeah. Now, did some of the course of sixty not get through?
CD: Some, well, they, I don't know what they did, they just, they're not required for aircrew.
CB: That's what I mean, they weren't all selected for aircrew because they couldn't see or shoot. Was it?
CD: No, no. You went for that and from the word go.
CB: Right.
CD: Their testing found you out.
CB: That's what I mean. Yes.
CD: Yes. Sorry.
CB: Yeah. So, what I meant was, it was a very high standard-
CD: Yes.
CB: [Background noise] And some of the people didn't pass so they went to other jobs.
CD: Yes, for whatever, ground job, it’d be anyway. But one, one day, at the AGS I was called before the gunnery leader. I thought 'What the hell does he want?' Referring back to our last interview, I mentioned about firing at drogues, didn't I?
CB: Absolutely.
CD: And they recorded your hits by the colour of the paint on the tip of the bullet. Now, I was called before him and he said 'I've called you in,' he said 'because you've got an exceedingly amount of extra bullet marks.' I said, he said, 'What's your answer to that?' I said 'Well' quick thinking, I said 'Well, it can only be one thing, I'm must be nearer the drogue than I should have been.' And I said 'I'm not in control of that, that's the pilot's job.' 'Good answer,' he says and it ended like that. Now, I get pulled up, it doesn't make sense to me, I get pulled up for having too many hits. [laughter] Does that make sense? No. But that's what happened, that's what passed. He accepted what I said, but he had to, I had no other answer.
CB: What sort of range was the drogue being towed at from the aircraft you were in?
CD: Well, about one hundred yards I suppose, maybe a little bit more. It was always above you. The martinet was the one in front of you, it was a long tow rope for obvious reasons. [laughter] I'd be shooting the martinet down! [laughter] Yes, that's how it worked and the pilot of your plane, he did that. So you got more movement to make more deflection so it made it harder to hit the drogue.
CB: So, could you just describe what is deflection shooting?
CD: Well, deflection shooting is, you have two moving targets, the object and yourself. So, you've got to lay it off in front of the actual movement of the object. You never aim straight at it for obvious reasons. It's that. So you had to be in front of it and it goes into it. Now, the most common attack on an aircraft by a fighter is the curve of pursuit, what they call the curve of pursuit attack. From, from the b- er, the quarter, it comes in like that now-
CB: In a curve.
CD: You have to lay off your aiming point in the front of it, always. That is deflection.
CB: Right.
CD: And a good idea of that registering up there is doing a lot of clay pigeon shooting. Because, when they shoot those clays out, you've got to be in front of it, although you're stood still, your arms are moving. You've got to fire in front of it. There's no good aiming dead on it. You must - that's allowing the speed of the object and the speed of your bullet to be there at the same time. And that's how you register your hits. That's my term of deflection.
CB: So after you'd been at the AGS and passed that, you then went to the OTU?
CD: Malton in Marsh, after about a month's leave was a, a little [background noise] an extra for what you've done. We reported there, and after I suppose about two weeks we were all assembled on this big piece of green, some people went in hangars, and that's [background noise] where you selected your crew. Always the pilot, he was always the one that approached because he's the leader of the aircraft. And I say, he came, Les, the pilot, Derry, and Tom they were three officers. They came and approached us fellows who were stood all as one and Les, the pilot, as I said earlier, he went to every section and checked on the pass marks and the remarks of any individual and it turned - and it came to pass, he was looking for me because I'd got my name on there, everyone got their name on there. And Dennis, [background noise] because he'd been with me from day one, and Arthur the bomb aimer and that's where I met him and we were pretty close together there and it made it easy for Les. Well, he literally asked us all three stood together, if you get what I mean? Flight engineer comes into the, into the quota when we go on to four engines. Because on one engine, you didn't need a flight engineer. So, that was made easy by him, by doing what he did.
BD: Sorry.
CB: So Les had done an initial selection of his navigator -
CD: The crew, correct.
CB: And bomb aimer.
CD: Yes.
CB: When he came to you, he was an Australian.
CD: Yes.
CB: But, when you were in the hangar, he checked on the scores, you said, but he didn't know where the people came from, or did he?
CD: Well, yes, it would be English on your papers.
CB: So-
CD: Your service number would show that anyway. An Australian Air Force number was different to us.
CB: Because at that stage, they were, were they, Royal Australian Air Force, whereas originally, they joined the RAF?
CD: No, no they still come in as R double A F.
CB: They did?
CD: Yes. Yes. They came here with their Air Force number from Australia where they trained. Yes. Dennis, my other gunner, he came in with his ATC number. That started with 301, seven figures. Mine was 189, seven figures. I used to pull his leg, I says 'With a number like that, you want to get some in' [laughter] Yes. Anyway, I couldn't run that one too long.
CB: Just expanding a bit on the OTU before we have a break.
CD: Yes?
CB: You've now got the crew.
CD: Yes.
CB: Les has. When you started training, each of you is doing something different, so what were you doing as the gunner?
CD: Doing the exercises that was required. You saw in my log book, exercise one 'till three, whatever. Yes.
CB: So did they -
CD: Air-to-air, air-to-sea firing, pretty well the same as the other stations.
CB: Yeah.
CD: We were still on learning Morse and we were getting taught the essential aim of oxygen, why it's so specially needed. We were shown the proof of that by six of us getting into an oxygen chamber, compression chamber, the instructor outside looking through the port hole. And one of you not wearing the oxygen, the other five wearing it. Now the instructor would say this is the proof of what that oxygen does or if you haven't got it, it does it the other way. And we will show you now. And the man that hadn't put the mask on is now getting a bit dreary like. He said to the one sat next to him go to his pocket, take out his pay book. He looked down, he didn't, he didn't know he had taken that that log book. Afterwards, when they put him back on oxygen, and he'd come to his senses, and the fellow said 'Did you see him take anything from your pocket?' and he said ‘no’. That's, that drove it home, so essential that oxygen was. Now, [door creaks] talking on the oxygen side, we, especially at night, we always had oxygen on from the ground and going up. Normally, you can leave oxygen off up to ten thousand feet, but rather than make the contrast high up we did it at ground level. But you were okay without oxygen up to ten thousand feet, so they told us. But especially on operations you had it on, it comes on automatic anyway on four engines. With the, with the Wellington, you had this, this situation of get putting the oxygen on yourself, i.e. before getting into the turret there was a circle in, up here on the oxygen line and that had a cotton reel pushed in to close it off when not needed. [laughter] And that cotton reel is tied on a piece of string and you pulled the cotton reel up away and it just dangled and you then got the flow of oxygen. Then in the turret, you got on off tell tale. But one night, we were on a cross country and after about quarter of an hour I'm, I'm feeling, I'm a bit, I'm a bit drunk - a drunkenness had appeared you know? Light headed. And it suddenly dawned on me I hadn't pulled that cotton reel out before I got in the turret. Honest. I'll letcha go. So when he opened the door and pulled out I came round. None of the others ever knew, I just didn't bother to tell them, would have felt ashamed to. [laughter] And one, there was one exercise we had it was called a bull's eye. It involved, it was on Bristol and Derry, we had been together now what, a week I suppose, green horns, and it came to pass we got there and it was all over Derry was about quarter of an hour late. And that worried him stiff. ‘Derry boy’, the nav leader said to him 'Go and have a good drink, Derry, don't worry about it.' And from there on, Derry used to have his half a pint because he never drank before he met us. He was a lay preacher, he'd been a lay preacher for fifty years after that [laughter] but he liked his drop of sherry. [laughter] So I bought him a bottle when we left. And yes that was it, we were too late for the bull's eye. And then from there, we're going on up into the Yorkshire area now. We had to do a f- two weeks at a place called Acaster Malbis about three miles outside York. It wasn't an aerodrome it was just a plain battle course training. They took you out in the day, live it rough. One night we went out, we had the choice, we stopped at a farm, we had the choice: sleeping in the barn or under the far wall. It was a nice hot day, like one last week, not as hot as that but it was a hot day, so we proposed, [laughter] we proposed to lay under the brick wall with our ground sheets. [unclear] in the barn, went down the pub, had a couple of drinks, came back, slept under the wall, woke up the next morning, oh that bloody great cob horse stood over the top of us [laughter], oh dear. The things that went on. Did that a fortnight, then we went down the road, not far, to a place called Riccall 1658 HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit) and that's where we picked up with our, Les had a choice of flight engineer. Which is what he did. Got together, now we're now fully at strength, seven personnel starting on four engine aircrafts. Going through all the courses again, exercises, cross countries, day and night, fighter affiliation, mock attacks. Used to do that with cine camera, twenty-five feet cine camera. And then, as I say, cross country. We did, we did one and it took us up, I told you before I think, it took us up to Belfast, and the next leg back was to Fleetwood and from Fleetwood over to base, straight across. And we got to Belfast, Jock, the engineer says 'I'm go down to the Elsan, Snowy.' Okay, we barely got down there before all four engines cut. We were at freezing alt - we were icing up, had icicles that long on my guns. Daylight, cloudless sky, yeah, eighteen thousand feet, icing up. He just about gets down to the Elsan to do his necessary and they cut. All four engine cut. 'Jock where the [pause] are you?' 'I'm down in the Elsan, Snowy.' 'Well for Christ's sake get back here quick as you can' [laughter] Back goes Jock [inaudible]. He switches his tanks over and then all four had picked up just like that. But, in the meantime, we had dropped five thousand feet. Fell like a tree. Twenty-five tonne of aircraft, won't stay there, will it? [laughter] So, we were all prepared to ditch because we were over now over the Irish Sea but it didn't have to happen. Eventually got back. [background noise] On another occasion, we did a cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington, Bridlington Bay and fire air-to-sea. From Bridlington to base it's probably about twelve miles, so, nothing, just- And Dennis fired his five hundred first, he said 'I'm finished now', I said 'Okay' and I went to swing round to, to port beam, port quarter rather, and I heard this zutt. I looked up there and there was the mark, the bullet's gone I don't know where. Left me in a state of [laughter] 'What's up?' they said, I said 'For Christ's sake, something’s gone wrong here.' And it came to pass on me that Dennis, one of his guns was faulty [background noise] it stayed in the forward position. When going forward, it takes a round on the face of the breechblock into the, into the [background noise]
TL: Barrel.
CD: Barrel [laughter] into the barrel, hence, the heat of the barrel ignited the detonator the pull it [?]. Should I have gone onto the beam a fraction earlier it could have been - we marked it on getting back to base, it could have been anyone there. It was there, you see. Because it went round with the turret, it [pause].
CB: So on that -
CD: That was the obvious conclusion of it.
CB: Right.
CD: And it was called, commonly called, a cooked round.
CB: Right. So when you landed, the ground crew then-
CD: Well, we were notified then what had happened, and little doubt had then to recti- probably the recoil spring on a rod, it was a long rod like that, and the recoil spring was over it. It's probably that that snapped at the. You see, a browning [?] gun can fire eight hundred rounds a minute, for a solid minute which you never did fire a solid minute. But that was the rate of of shot. So it [unclear] the mechanism, it's amazing how it works at that rate of knots. And well you can think of many things I suppose, it's probably more technical than what I can think it can be to suggest yes that did it. But no, no-one came back to us so we assumed its righted itself in their knowledge.
CB: I think we'll take a pause there, because you've done well and we'll start another track in a minute.
CD: Yeah my tongue tells me that.
[Beep, background noise]
CB: Right, we're restarting after our tea break. And what I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to talk about a raid. So, how did you prepare the raid and, the sortie, how did it work?
CD: Well, you were first brought up on battle order, then you knew you'd got to go and do so-and-so so-and-so, then the respect of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers. After briefing, which we all went to, after briefing, they went to their respective sections and did their flight plan. Other people like the flight engineer and gunners you just sat and waited because you had nothing to do until you get to the aircraft and then you prime your guns ready to fire in action if any. You went for operational meal, then to briefing, then to respective sections and wait for take off time. In that time, ground staff are loading up with bomb, required bomb load, to each aircraft. You go to parachute room, collect your chute, empty your pockets and wait for the liberty bus to take you to your respective aircraft. Get aboard, do your pre-flight checks, pilot so-forth, gunners, breach your guns up, put them on to fire, when you press the slot to put them on safety, you get airborne and you put them back on to fire, and you were ready for any action, if any. Some occasions, it was a straightforward flight, on other occasions completely opposite. Lone situations and situations you can see from other aircraft but you never ever know what is the problem but you saw it happen, you know what I mean? I.E. the one about the Lancaster. Coming off from the target, a gas incursion. It was flying very strangely, it was veering here and there which gave it the impression there was something wrong with the works. I.E. the rudder for instance, I don't know, it's pure guesswork. There was no smoke, no flame, this this was the foxing part of it all. Anyway, it suddenly went up and over onto its back, and went down into a dive, and in that time, four parachutes came out, unfurled. And went further down and not much further it just disintegrated [?] no explosion whatsoever. It just, just fell apart. Now on the chutes, shown so, it guess the ultimate. On another occasion, the one on Bochum, where I saw Joe Herman's plane, that was alight from wingtip to wingtip. It was still on course, still able to go, it was below us, but still with us, and I had to take my eyes off him because I've got to look after my aircraft, our aircraft, so there wasn't much chance to sit and gaze. So therefore, I never saw the explosion which happened. Three, four, four of the crew have already bailed out. This is in the aftermath, it's all in the squadron book. Harry Nott, the uncle, the fellow I know and recently Paul Nott, his great nephew, who lives in Hartford, he's one of the enthusiasts of the squadron, young enthusiasts, and it tells you what really happened when Joe went for his chute. The plane exploded. It blew him out the aircraft, and he just floating down, grabbing at anything that he could put his hands to. Suddenly, he grabbed this fella, his mid-upper I think it was, he grabbed his legs, and they both went down together on the chute. They arranged it, prior to hitting the ground, that he would release himself from his legs to lessen any dead fall. And they did that, but in that throw, he broke his leg, Joe, the pilot. Anyway, he got, he got the piece of the parachute and Vivash had got an injury to his ankle. He rips some of the parachute up, and wrapped it round his foot but then they decided they'd got to give themselves up, he couldn't try to escape with a broken - he broke a bone up here as well as one in his leg, so they were forced to give themselves up. They heard gunfire and it came to pass that, they found it out since the war, one of, one of the, it must have been a farmer, he had a horse and cart with one of the crew on it. He was injured. I think it was the bomb aimer, it wasn't the bloke called Underwood, Australian. And in the presence of I think there was an army bloke, a German army bloke, and up came a Gestapo. And he didn't mince his words whatever, he just pulled out his gun and shot Underwood. That is the glowing report from the farmer with the horse and cart. They, those two, heard gunfire so went seems the match what really happened. Yeah, there's four of them who were eventually in one cemetery from that particular instance, incident. [pause] Others, there was one after we'd finished our operations. One was coming in at Driffield one foggy morning in April '45. It was on the circuit over at Kirkburn Grange which was a farm right on the circuit of Driffield. He went round and he asked permission again because it was thick fog and they requested him to go to Carnaby just up the road, ten miles up the road, to a crash landing site. He said 'Well, I'll give it another try.' He did. At this farm, there were cops of about three hundred yards, and narrow too, about three hundred yards long, and he hit that, ploughed right through it. Right by the farm house. And the present farmer in '83 was the son then. He was five years old and he didn't know a thing. That plane exploded, what, just at, about fifty yards from the house. We went over there on the '83 reunion, in a cab [?] of cader [?] cars and the squadron leader Riverton [?] he went with us and he took the Halifax book and presented it to the farmer. He wondered what was happening I think. Coming there was [?] about six or seven car loads of us. [Laughter] Anyway, we went to the site and I took a photograph of it from memory out of the book. And I wasn't far out. I leaned over the hedge of the ploughed field and I took that photograph and it was as I say as near as I could get it. But I've loaned the book out to someone with that photograph in it and I can't think who. No, that won't have gone [?]. If he'd have taken the orders right, and accepted from the control tower go to Carnaby things would have been different. But no, he wanted to do it again. Inexperienced pilot apparently, and he got people on there with DFCs, people on their second tour no doubt. [background noise] It just blew into pieces. [pause] I told you the one -
CB: Any other trips you remember when you were doing the bombing of Northern France for the flying bombs?
CD: Yes. What?
CB: What height were you and what sort of experience did you have with those?
CD: Well, that was only our second one you see and I [laughter] erm [pause] there was - it didn't happen in our squadron, but we got to know that one of the aircraft on that raid, one of the crew, must have been the engineer I would think, he's the only one who seemed to walk about, and he lifted the, the inspection panel to look and see the bombs go. It - he unscrewed the panel, got down on his knees and looked down through and a piece of shrapnel hit him in the throat. The thing, hard luck story there to the point, you're going about two hundred miles an hour and something comes up through a hole about that big, and hits you in the throat. It, now, that was the crew, it wasn't on our squadron but we got to know about it. There's another incident you see I would never ever have known about it other than getting it from our people. And [pause] that's encouraging [?]. One of those two days that we did, went there consecutively, I forget which one it was but turning, we had to turn round onto the target. And I looked round to see where we're going and this block barrage it was like that just a solid black wall of flack. At our height, dead heights, and I said to myself 'Christ we've got to go through that?' Only we did, somehow. I have said to Les the pilot afterwards he said 'I just climbed above it.' Well I didn't know that at the time you see, still had flack going around you at various heights but this block barrage, well it was just like looking at that screen. It was a massive black wall of flack bursts. I don't know how many guns had to do that, probably about fifty rapid firing. I don't know, pure guesswork. But, that was an incident and I, I don't know whether that was the same one when I saw that Lancaster do what it did because we went there two days running, yes. Seventy years ago it's tough to remember what day it was so. That was that incident. [Pause] er.
CB: Which did you prefer, flying at night or flying in the day?
CD: Well, safety wise, well obviously day light. Because when these turning points as I was saying in that Bockholme one that Bockholme bay was seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft. And you all, you're all converging on Aufitnez [?]. You're all coming at different angles so, I had it written down here. [pages turning] [pause] First turning point whereby all aircraft were coming in at all angles to turn off onto the next heading. [cough] Incidentally, all navigation lights are turned off so you're in a complete darkness which helps towards a hazard. Within our crew, we found an idea to help to overcome this. Derry, our navigator, would call up and notify us, the gunners in brackets, ten minutes before turning point and ten minutes after the turning point. This about covers the time it takes [cough] seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft to pass through. We, you could do a raid of a thousand bombers in a quarter of an hour over the target. So that ten minutes each side of that turning point served a good purpose. [background noise] But there was this raid where I saw two aircraft collide at the first turning point, Orford Ness .
CB: And what happened to them?
CD: Well, they just hit one another and that was the end of the story. Just a vivid blue flash.
CB: Oh was it?
CD: And a black pall of smoke to follow.
CB: You couldn't see-
CD: Joe Her- incidentally, Joe Herman saw that same one. That happened just off the North, from Orford Ness in the North Sea. Yeah.
CB: So you didn't see them before they collided, just the explosion 'cause it was in the dark?
CD: No no no it was just above us too.
CB: Was it?
CD: So you wouldn't see it above us.
CB: No.
CD: No, you couldn't help but see it. Just a blue flash.
CB: Yeah. So if we go forward a bit, you've now completed the sortie and you've landed. What happened next?
CD: [background noise] You go to debriefing. First person you saw, and always saw every time no matter what day or night was the Padre, the Station Padre. He was stood there just inside the door with the tea urn and the biscuits. And welcomed us back. And then we went and sat in our crew at one table, crews at another table, [background noise] and you systematically interviewed and told what you saw, [cough] things happened. The navigator was always logged in so as, right that aircraft went down at so many degrees east or whatever. And the others gave their remarks and that was it. You went down to the mess had a return meal, no matter what time of the morning or night. From there to bed.
CB: Was it as standard meal, you always got something?
CD: Egg, bacon and chips. [laughter] Yeah, egg, bacon and chips.
CB: Okay.
CD: Some used to craftily get in there and get a meal and weren't on operation. They, they sussed that one out. So the WAAF behind the co- the hot plate, had a list of all the crews that were in operation and they used to ask you your name and if you weren't on there she didn't give you a meal, which is fair enough. How other way are you going to defeat it? And that's not all they did, tried to do, they did until they found it out. Yeah.
CB: So you've had your debrief, you've gone to bed, how long were you allowed to rest or sleep for before you had to do something else?
CD: We, you just got up and if it was too late a day to go and do a daily inspection then you didn't do it. You were probably on battle orders again the next night. I'll give you an instance, [background noise] they were very, the discipline to help the individual himself rather than not break his morale, they let discipline slide a bit. Whereby there was none of this saluting when you passed an officer and all that, as it was in training. I remember once in training at AGS, Dennis and I were walking up to the section and there were two officers coming down the drive. I says 'We'd better sling them one up, Dennis.' 'Oh, bugger him' he says, 'Bugger him' he says. I went up and he didn't. He got seven days [laughter]. 'That's alright for you.' I says, 'All you had to do, Dennis, was that.' Anyway, we came back to twelve noon again, and then, simple as that. That's strict discipline, that, you see and that, that didn't occur in- I'll give you the instance why. We had a billet inspection by Wing Commander Shannon, Dave Shannon, and we're all stood at the end of the bed, waiting for him and his entourage to come in and inspect, and Bob Elliott, the Canadian, he was in that far corner and he's still in his bed, he'd been on ops the night before. So immediately Shannon went straight over to him you see and he woke him up. [laughter] Elliott went like that on his poliasse, paliasse rather, 'What're you doing on that bed?' he said, 'I was on ops last night, sir', Oh well, alright, well get up and sweep this bit of bed fluff up.' [laughter] That's all that happened. Now, if he'd have done it the army way, he'd have blown the bloke to hell, wouldn't he? So they never, they never inclined to go down that road. In the army, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground. You know that. He'd have been in the glasses. But no, he just laid him back there 'I was on ops last night, sir.' 'Well alright, get on and sweep this bed fluff up.' I was stood down the other end, yeah, heard it all. That, that was the sort of discipline on the squadron.
CB: 'Cause we're talking about-
CD: We had to be at a level otherwise you'd have broke, you'd have broken up-
CB: Yep.
CD: You know what it is.
CB: Yeah.
CD: I don't have to tell you, do I?
CB: So, the accommodation is an H-Block.
CD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield.
CD: Yes.
CB: So that’s real comfort, relatively.
CD: Yes.
CB: Then you go to Foulsham, when did you get there?
CD: I remember, Nissen hut, wasn't it? I've got an old photograph of it in that other book, pimpernel book.
CB: Was that, what was the condition of that like? Comfort?
CD: Well Nissen hut, you had that all the way up in your training. [pause] I had a tortoiseshell stove and a mirror on the hut [laughter]. I always picked the bed away, yes, picked the bed away from there because they would all sit along the edge of your bed near the fire. [laughter] So I kept well away. But, oh, I had an incident at Bridgnorth. There was this farmer bloke, he was a farmer really, all Gloucestershire boy, you know. And he'd been out and had a few and he came back I was, I was half asleep I just got into bed. I hadn't been out. I never ever went out anyway, I was always religiously learning up, swotting up all the time. Plus, the letter writing, it all takes your evening up, doesn't it? So, I got into a habit. I never ever went out. Anyway, this night he comes back a bit worse for wear and I think he had a bit of encouragement from others and [background noise] he came and tipped my bed up. What does one do? I got straight up and hit him one. Only hit him once, honest to God, yeah, yeah. 'Oh uh buh' [?] he went, I thought 'Yeah.' I had every right, didn't I? And he had my left. [laughter] That was one of the incidents.
CB: What was the food like in general?
CD: Pretty good. Yes. Pretty good. Another, another incident there at Bridgnorth, you remember that advert, Chad? It was a head looking over a wall and a long nose hanging over the wall. Well, our, our instructor was a bloke called Firth, and he was, he was Jewish and he'd got just one of those conks you know [laughter] and in the ablutions up over the taps was: 'Beware, Corporal Cashew watching you' and that he was Corporal Cash, beware Corporal Cash is watching you pissing [[laughter]. Nobody was ever pulled up, what could they do about it?
CB: Banter.
CD: Another instance, going back off a weekend leave to Locking [?], Weston-Super-Mare, we always used to-
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Charlie Darby
Description
An account of the resource
Charlie Darby joined the Royal Air Force in September 1943 and recounts in great detail, his training as an air gunner/wireless operator on Wellingtons and Ansons at RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Castle Kennedy, RAF Acaster Malbis and RAF Riccall. He explains how he crewed up at 21 Operational Training Unit, RAF Morton in the Marsh, before being posted to RAF Driffield with 466 Squadron, where he served as a rear gunner. He recounts operational experiences, including an operation to Bochum. He discusses discipline and living conditions. At the end of the war he was transferred to ground work and moved between a number of stations before being demobbed in 1947. He worked for Hoover and other companies before setting up his own engineering business. He recalls what happened to his crew after the war and his participation in the unveiling of a memorial in Driffield Gardens in 1993.
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
2015-07-07
Contributor
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Bethany Ellin
Heather Hughes
Format
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01:57:04 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADarbyC150630
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--Yorkshire
Germany--Bochum
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Atlantic Ocean--Irish Sea
England--Orford Ness
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.
100 Group
1658 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
memorial
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Carnaby
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Riccall
sanitation
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/150/1567/LBellinghamPF1397635v1.2.pdf
1fbc8b7942f76eed3db897aeedc910f4
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
Bellingham, Peter
Peter F Bellingham
Peter Bellingham
P F Bellingham
P Bellingham
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer Peter Frederick Bellingham (b. 1923, 1391638 Royal Air Force), a photograph and his log book. Peter Bellingham trained in South Africa as a bomb aimer and flew 30 Special Operations Executive operations in Halifaxes and Stirlings with 138 Squadron from RAF Tempsford.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Bellingham and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bellingham, PF
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
Peter Bellingham’s observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training and operational career of bomb aimer Peter Bellingham from 10 March 1943 to 21 February 1946. After training in South Africa he flew Halifaxes and Stirlings with 138 Squadron, taking part in 30 night operations over Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway. These were special operations involving the dropping of containers, packages and pigeons to agents, outcome logged either as ‘Joy’ or ‘No joy’. His pilots on operations were Strathearn and Flight Lieutenant Moffat. Landed with FIDO once, did a Cook’s tour over the Netherlands and Germany before becoming an instructor. Aircraft flown included: Oxford, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Halifax and Warwick.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBellinghamPF1397635v1
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-07-03
1944-07-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-09
1944-07-10
1944-07-11
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-09-28
1944-09-29
1944-09-30
1944-10-01
1944-10-04
1944-10-05
1944-10-15
1944-10-16
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1944-11-07
1944-11-08
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-24
1944-12-25
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-02-25
1945-02-26
1945-02-27
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-06-19
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
South Africa
England--Bedfordshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
South Africa--Port Elizabeth
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.
11 OTU
138 Squadron
1657 HCU
17 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
animal
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
Cook’s tour
FIDO
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Manby
RAF Oakley
RAF Silverstone
RAF Tempsford
RAF Turweston
RAF Westcott
RAF Woodbridge
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1572/LColeC1605385v1.2.pdf
146cc1c3261e10e2ec1fd6bc26ecd692
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
Cole, Colin
C Cole
Colin Cole
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains two oral history interviews his, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs.
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. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-27
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, C
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
Colin Cole's navigator's, air bomber's, air gunner's and flight engineer's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s and flight engineer’s flying log book for Warrant Officer Colin Cole from 5 August 1943 to 23 September 1946. Detailing training schedule and operations flown. Served at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Mona, RAF Barrow in Furness, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Woodhall Spa, RAF Digri (Bengal) and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown were Anson, Proctor, Dominie, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and Lincoln. He carried out a total of ten daylight and one night-time operations with 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa as a wireless operator on the following targets in Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Poland: Bergen, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Hamburg, Ijmuiden, Lützow, Oslo Fjord, Rotterdam, Tirpitz Tromsø, Urft Dam and Viesleble [sic] (actually Bielefeld) viaduct. <span>His pilots on operations were </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}">Flight Lieutenant Leavitt and Flight Lieutenant Price. </span>Annotations include bombing the Tirpitz and an attack by an enemy jet aircraft. Operation Exodus and Cook’s tour flights are included, as is a tour of India in 1946.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LColeC1605385v1
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
Pakistan
Norway
Pakistan
Poland
Wales
England--Cumbria
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
Wales--Anglesey
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Oslofjorden
Germany--Bielefeld
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Schleiden (Kreis)
Pakistan--Digri
Netherlands--Ijmuiden
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Oslo
Norway--Tromsø
Pakistan--Digri
Poland--Świnoujście
Germany--Urft Dam
Netherlands
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-11-12
1944-11-13
1944-12-08
1944-12-11
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-12
1945-02-14
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-04-09
1945-04-13
1945-05-08
1945-05-10
1945-05-15
1945-09-27
1945-09-29
14 OTU
1661 HCU
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Me 262
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Guzzle
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Mona
RAF Scampton
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
submarine
Tiger force
Tirpitz
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/116/1664/LMillingE656624v1.2.pdf
5b83c5391137a31be69a332248348ee1
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
Milling, Edward
E Milling
Description
An account of the resource
20 Items. The collection concerns Sergeant Edward Milling DFM (656624 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and four photographs. Edward Milling was a navigator with 103 and 166 Squadrons at RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Kirmington. He was killed 27/28 September 1943 when his Lancaster crashed in Germany while on an operation to Hannover. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bren Bridges and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive Staff.<br /><br />Additional information on Edward Milling is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/116227/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Milling, E
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
Edward Milling's observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Remscheid
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Turin
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1943-03-04
1943-03-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-26
1943-07-08
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-12
1943-07-13
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-07-31
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-30
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-09-03
1943-09-04
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMillingE656624v1
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Log book for Sergeant Edward Milling from 16 August 1942 to 27 September 1943. Navigator Sergeant E Milling was stationed with 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds, and 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington, where he flew Lancasters. The log book details 27 operations over Germany and Italy: Berlin, Bochum, Cologne, Dortmund, Duisberg, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Hannover, Krefeld, Leverkusen, Mannheim, Mönchengladbach, Mulheim, Munich, Nuremberg, Peenemünde, Remscheid, Turin, Wuppertal. His pilot on operations was Warrant Officer Chesterton. The final three entries are made by the commanding officer reporting that Sergeant Milling's aircraft failed to return from Hannover. Stamped “DEATH PRESUMED”.
103 Squadron
1656 HCU
166 Squadron
30 OTU
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Heavy Conversion Unit
killed in action
Lancaster
missing in action
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Hixon
RAF Kirmington
RAF Lindholme
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/1931/LYoungJ1569980v1.1.pdf
fb760915619d3e45c356c32067e67b27
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
Young, John
J Young
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Sergeant John Young (1569980, Royal Canadian Air Force), his logbook and 11 photographs of aircrew groups and Halifax aircraft. John Young was a flight engineer on 432 Squadron based at RAF East Moor, part of 6 Group. The collection shows a number of aircrew groups which include him as well as ground and air shots of his Halifax Mk 3 with Ferdinand II nose art.
The collection was donated by John Young and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-02
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Young, J
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.
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
John Youngs’ flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Air Force flying log book for Sergeant John Young, flight engineer, covering the period 28 June 1944 to 6 January 1945, detailing training, and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF St Athan, RAF Eastmoor. Aircraft flown in were the Halifax III, V & VII. He flew 30 operations, 13 night time and 17 daylight with 432 Squadron. Targets were le Havre, Dortmund, Wanne-Eickel, Osnabruck, Kiel, Boulogne, Calais, Bottrop, Stekrade-Holten, Duisberg, Essen, Homberg, Cologne, Hannover, Oberhausen, Dusseldorf, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Julich, Munster, Opladen, Troisdorf, Hanau, Magdeberg. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Stedman. The log book has a photo after the last operation which shows seven aircrew under an aircraft. Captioned ‘Back Row: L to R: Self; ‘Cam’ (Mid Upper); Earl Fox (Bomb Aimer); Lloyd Gapes (Navigator) Front Row: L to R: ‘Buzz’ (Tail Gunner); J Hartley) W/Op; Les Steadman (Pilot)’.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LYoungJ1569980v1
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.
France
Great Britain
Germany
Wales
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Yorkshire
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Calais
France--Le Havre
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Homburg (Saarland)
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Troisdorf
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-09-09
1944-09-10
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-09-30
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-21
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1944-10-25
1944-10-28
1944-10-30
1944-10-31
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-06
1944-11-16
1944-11-18
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1944-12-31
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1664 HCU
432 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Halifax Mk 7
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Dishforth
RAF East Moor
RAF St Athan
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/1932/PYoungJ1728.2.jpg
ca14344a1eccb212189a907b8ef15c9d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/1932/AYoungJ170630.1.mp3
313a939331ccee9e37b4e29ffc166265
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
Young, John
J Young
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Sergeant John Young (1569980, Royal Canadian Air Force), his logbook and 11 photographs of aircrew groups and Halifax aircraft. John Young was a flight engineer on 432 Squadron based at RAF East Moor, part of 6 Group. The collection shows a number of aircrew groups which include him as well as ground and air shots of his Halifax Mk 3 with Ferdinand II nose art.
The collection was donated by John Young and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-02
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Young, J
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
JS: Ok. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is John Young. The interview is taking place at Mr Young’s home in North Berwick, East Lothian on the 30th of June 2017. John, could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
JY: Yes. Well, before I joined the RAF I was, I was working on the railway as a, as a locomotive fireman. That’s in the days of the steam trains. And before that I was at school. And, well, all through the business of the war I was a schoolboy [pause] But do you want to go further back or is there no point?
JS: No. That’s fine. So where did you live then?
JY: Well I lived here in North Berwick. In — I lived up in the other end of town in North Berwick. In the council houses. And I left, I left school when I was sixteen and I went [pause] I went to work for the local electrician. A builder — electrician. Well that was until all his men were called up. So, that left the big boss, myself and the typist [laughs] So, that being not very good I decided to have a go at the railway. So, I went and I joined the railway and went as a cleaner. Just wiping with things which, in those days, it wasn’t very much. And from a cleaner you automatically were graduated to a fireman and from fireman to driver. Those were the steps you made and I stayed in the force, in the railway doing a bit of cleaning and a large amount of firing until my, until I volunteered for the air force at seventeen and a quarter. And then they shoved me off. Said, ‘Well go home. We’ll call you.’ And so, at eighteen and a quarter I got the first, first notification — ‘Please report to St John’s Wood.’ So, that’s when I went. I was there for about four weeks. Four weeks or six weeks. I can’t remember. And then I was posted down to Newquay, Cornwall. This was in April ’43. April ’43. And I was down in Newquay for three months. And then I was posted to the Isle of Sheppey in Eastchurch — no. Is it Sheppey? The Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary? Yes.
JS: Yeah.
JY: Off Kent coast. And I was there for about a month just doing jack all really. I was waiting for a posting which was then given to me and I went up to a bomb dump in [pause] oh, in Lincolnshire. And I was there for about, oh, a month or two. And — and from there I was posted back to Eastchurch and I was asked what — what I wanted to do. So I said I’d prefer to be a flight engineer or a wireless op. So they said, ‘Fine.’ So, they, they sent me to — I was next posted to an ITW in Durham county. I forget the name of the place. And I was there for six weeks and then I was posted down to St Athan’s in South Wales where I was six months there learning the ins and outs of various aircraft. But, in point of view, we would, we were told that we would be either flying in Lancasters or Halifaxes and make your now choice now. Make your choice anyway. So, I preferred Halifaxes. So, on, on our now graduation we were, we were assigned to our different groups which required engineers. Now, the thing is the Canadian Air Force were not training engineers as such. They had a few but there wasn’t many. Now, we all got separated off and I was posted up to Dishforth which was a Heavy Conversion Unit and it was there I was, I was put in a hall. I was put in a, well a big — big hall like place and there were, were as many pilots as there were, as there were engineers. And the officer said, ‘Well there you are. Get mixed up. Take who you fancy as your pilot.’ [laughs] And then they comes and they were given the same chance. So, he says, ‘No one’s going to help you.’ So, he said, ‘Goodbye.’ [unclear] So, we flooded around and we met and ultimately, I picked this little sergeant. Well, little — he was the same height as me but he was fair haired and his name was Leslie Steadman. And I said — he said, as I remember right, he came up to me. He said, ‘Are you being crewed up with anyone?’ I said, ‘No. As a matter of fact I haven’t started.’ He said, ‘Well. I’m Les Steadman.’ He said, ‘I kind of likes the looks of you,’ [laughs] — looks. Anyway, he said, ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘How are you on hydraulics?’ I said, ‘Not bad.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Thank God for that because I don’t know the first thing about them.’ And he said — there was something else. But anyway, he said, ‘The rest of my crew,’ he said, ‘Are – well they are skulking around somewhere but,’ he said, ‘I’ll get them and I’ll introduce you to them.’ And I said, ‘Well, before you do,’ I said, ‘Where have you come from? I mean air force wise.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘Up in the Moray Firth,’ he said. ‘Flying Whitleys.’ ‘Oh God’ [laughs] I says, ‘You’ll be glad to get off them.’ [laughs]. So, he said, ultimately, we came to — we, we talked about the technicalities of the air frames and that and he says, ‘Well it seems to me you’re going to be a blessing in disguise,’ he says. So, he says, ‘I’ll tell you what. After tea I’ll get the crew.’ And we [rattling of packet] we [pause] that’s them. Well, there’s a bigger one. Aye. There’s Flying Officer Fox. He’s the bomb aimer. He’s the first one. And there’s flying officer, oh no, he’s the, Gates is the navigator. Flying Officer Fox is the bomb aimer. And Warrant Officer Hartley is the wireless operator and Sergeant Campbell is the mid upper gunner and Sergeant Busby is the rear gunner. And there’s myself. So, so that was my introduction. So, we all had our photograph taken by the company, the squadron photographer. And what’s [pause] right, well Sergeant Steadman, Flying Officer Gates, Flying Officer Fox were all from Ontario. Warrant Officer Hartley, he was from British Columbia and he was from, he comes from the back woods literally. But he was English. He was taken out to Canada when he was two years old. Sergeant Campbell. He was, he was the oldest one and he was, he was Southern Irish and was — had gone out as a young man to Canada. And Busby — he was, oh, he was a farmer from Saskatchewan. And Young me was a locomotive fireman. So, so that was that. So we, we all got our [unclear]. Gradually, we, we sort of knit together. Well I was, I knitted in to the rest of them because the rest of them were a crew. And then — well there was a series of— by the, the squadron [pause] damn it. [pause] The pilot and myself — we were taken to our — an aircraft. A spare aircraft. And the OC, the flight and the screen engineer who was a fellow who had done a tour of ops and was experienced would come with us. So, the pair of us would go with experienced people and we would go down in an aircraft and the logbook tells me we went. We had a wing commander and a squadron leader, a flight lieutenant and one or two POs were taking turns. And gradually the screened engineer showed me what I was supposed to do. And one of the things was you were supposed to get the engines started. You and the pilot. And behind the pilot was a little cubbyhole with a mass of instruments. They were all engine, engine-type instruments. You know, oil pressure, fuel pressure. Air pressure. Oxygen. Cylinder head temperature. Things like that. And you were given a log sheet and you had to fill this out every twenty minutes of flying time and — it was either twenty minutes or half an hour. And gradually we, well, we, we satisfied him, the screened fellas that we knew enough that we were sure that we were, we were prepared to be loosed off on our own. And, well, it — after that it was a case of bombing exercises, fighter affiliation exercises with a Spitfire diving on the camera guns for the gunners. And, well, this we had. And my circuits and landings, circuits and landings and circuits until you were bloody well fed up with them [laughs] but that made the pilot, he got it. And the engineer — he kept it, he got it. Well, towards the end of our Conversion Unit they said we’ll go on a couple of ops and see what it is. So, he said, ‘But it will be safe for you. You leave the airfield and you’ll fly out over the North Sea and you’ll go towards Holland and at a point twenty miles off the coast you’ll turn and come back.’ He said, ‘Just get the learning.’
JS: Yeah.
JY: So, we had a couple of those. A couple of those are things we did and then we got posted. No. [pause] Then we got posted to the squadron. Yes. And we got posted to the squadron and we were — that was —the picture there was taken at the squadron. That was there. And we were — went through the same [presence?] again of having a screened pilot and engineer go up with two of us. And they said well you’re good. We were sent on various test runs. Tests. Mostly circling the whole island, you know. The whole. That was cross country’s. And then we got the first operation and the first operation was, I think [pause] a radar bullseye. That’s what they called this photographic. Oh yeah. Le Havre. Le Havre we went to twice. Dortmund [unclear] Osnabruck. These are all Ruhr targets. And Kiel was our first, first night fighter, night flight and I’m telling you they flung everything at us that they had. It just seemed we were going through flak and then there was, as we were going to come on it he said, ‘Watch it Les, ‘he said, ‘A night fighter. Prepare to corkscrew port.’ And he said, ‘Corkscrew port. Corkscrew port. Go.’ And a corkscrew [unclear] was when they were fling it around and fling it down, the aeroplane and it rolls at the bottom and comes up on the other side. Well that’s a corkscrew. And Christ [laughs] I thought, Oh Jesus. And we, we flew over the target area, dropped the bombs and out in to the other side and then you’d have more fighters come for you. Course the fighters wouldn’t come where the flak was. They cut you before and after. And, anyway, we, and that was, that was the point there, the point when we started the flight they said you travel at one thousand feet over the, over the sea until you get to the Danish coast and then climb to get to your bombing height over here. Well, he said. Well he said, the idea about this was so that the German radar can’t dip down below a thousand feet. So ,there’s only one thing about it. The pilots get a bit twitchy about that ‘cause if an engine cuts on you you’re down in the sea before you can say Jack Robinson and anyway that’s how it started off. The Danish coast — climbed up. We got attacked by this night fighter and luckily he didn’t — he waited too long to press the button but allowing the gunner — gave him the correction and we made the bombing height, came around and down and I thought phew and come along, come back over the North Sea and the [fighter?], what I saw of it, I thought the first time, the first time I go on a night sweep I’m going to get up outside and I’m going go out on the first bus that comes for North Berwick [laughs] So, but anyway we we had several targets at Calais for ops. For [turning pages] Yes. Yes, we had, we had [pause] what do you call them? Buzz bomb sites and they was [pause — pages turning] There was, the next thing there was Duisburg. And Duisburg — that’s another Ruhr target. And Essen. Homburg. Cologne. Hanover. Cologne again. That’s a series of targets. Oberhausen. Duseldorf. Bochum. Gelsenkirchen. Hurlach. Munster and Opladen. Tresdorf. Cologne, Duisburg. Hanover, Magdeburg. And that completes our thirty. Thirty trips. And that’s before we go up in the [pause]
JS: That’s great. How did you — you said you fitted in with the rest of your crew?
JY: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: Because they were already a crew together.
JY: Yeah.
JS: How were they as a crew?
JY: Oh. Well these two stuck together more or less, you know. Being officers. And the sergeant and the warrant officer and the rest of us were [pause]] I forget who [pause] — I was, I was billeted in a room with four guys. There was a Jewish gunner on the far end of the room and another fella. I don’t know who he was. He was in another crew. So was the Jewish chap. And there was myself and the wireless op with the other two. And the two gunners were in another room. And the sergeant — I don’t know where he was. I don’t know. I don’t know. And of course, they were in the officer’s mess, you know. So, I found it — they were very easy to get along with, you know. And I don’t know with the officers. I — incidentally, I said, after I came out of the air force I went back to the railway. I stuck it for about ten months and then I said, ‘I don’t like this. My hands are getting dirty,’ [laughs] so, I signed up for another five years. So I signed. This time I chose the signals and I I I was [pause] I passed that alright but anyway they had all goofed off to Canada, you see, by that time. And the wireless op and myself — we corresponded. Well, now and again. And the at the end of my five years I came out and I worked for the [paused] oh I worked for the radar. For the [pause] radar. Oh Jesus. Well, it was a little, it was a little and I was working on this. Anyway, the four of us worked on this mobile radar at various army units and we used to — and we had a civilian driver. We were civvies then and we’d go around and we’d pick the things up and hoist the balloon and track it. Until one day Jimmy Oliver, one of the blokes, he says, ‘Here,’ he says, ‘Look at this Jock.’ And I said, ‘What is it?’ He says, ‘They want blokes to build a dam out in BC.’ A dam. ‘Yes. Look at the money they’re getting.’ I said, ‘What do you say we try for it?’ ‘Right. You’re on.’ So, it took us about six months to get, to get permission to land and we went across in, on an old Greek tub. Or a boat. And it was, it was, it landed at — oh what’s the name of the place? In Quebec. Oh yeah — Quebec City. And from there we we were just shunted off and the immigration people took our particulars and what trades we were and, by the way, said, ‘How much money do you have?’ ‘Two hundred dollars.’ He said, ‘That’s not going to last you for very long.’ [laughs] So, we split up and Jim and I we went to Montreal. This would be 1954 and we were six weeks. Six weeks. No. Not exactly. What would that be? It was four weeks before we and we were living in a rooming house in Montreal and there was about ten blokes in it. And there was a couple of Swiss guys, and a French guy and two or three Brits. And anyway, we were [pause] Jesus — oh God. [pause] Anyway, we went around the rounds of the RCA, Canadian Marconi and GE. GE and places like that. And, ‘Don’t call us. We’ll call you.’ Fair enough. So we — and suddenly there was a phone call. [unclear] We went to this place not far from our digs. A great big factory. And it was Northern Electric. So, we thought, Northern Electric, it sounds all right. And we went around and we were real, we were real upbeat you know, you don’t have any [unclear] get us down. [unclear] the guy says, ‘It depends what you do,’ he says, ‘What do you do?’ I says, ‘Well we’re radar. Radar and radio.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘That sounds interesting,’ he says, ‘But just a minute,’ he says, ‘I’m only a personnel,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.’ He says, ‘I’ll get Mr Young [laughs] down from the sixth floor and he’ll —’ So Mr Young came down along with another chaps and he was a fistful of pencils and a bundle of paper. ‘Right.’ He says, ‘Jim. You go with that fella to that room and you, you — my namesake,’ he says, ‘Come into this room.’ He says, ‘Alright. He says, what’s [Holmes?] law?’ [laughs] I couldn’t tell him. I was floored. I was [laughs] ‘Alright,’ he says, ‘Forget it.’ He says, ‘Draw me a one valve amplifier.’ Oh [chchchch] Right. Now, he says, ‘Draw me a forward part of a super head receiver. ‘ So, I did that. I said, ‘Alright?’ He says, well various other things. ‘Well’ he says, ‘I find you alright,’ he says, ‘When can you start work?’ ‘Tomorrow?’ [laughs] He says, ‘No. Monday. Monday,’ he says. Monday. So, we were there about oh I don’t know about four or five months and we got taken into the bowling team. You know this pin. Bowling pin. Oh, they were good to us, you know. And anyway another phone call comes from Canadian Marconi. So, he said, ‘Are you guys still interested in us?’ ‘Well, that depends what you pay.’ You know. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘Well how much are you earning just now?’ We said, ‘Fifty five dollars a week.’ ‘Oh God,’ he says, ‘We can pay more than that,’ he says. So, he says, ‘Get yourselves up,’ to some district of Montreal, he says, ‘And bring your buddy.’ So, we said, ‘Right,’ so the pair of us scoot up there and well, to cut it short, he says, ‘Do you have briefcase by the way?’ ‘Briefcase?’ [laughs] ‘No. I’ve never had a briefcase in my life.’ And he says, ‘Well take my tip. Invest in one.’ He says, ‘Here’s two hundred dollars,’ he says, ‘That should get you a briefcase and the price of a flying ticket from Montreal to St John’s Newfoundland.’ Newfoundland. Oh Jeez. And he says, ‘That’s where one of our sites is.’ He says we will have, once you have a three months course at St Johns, at the company buildings, you know and he says then you’ll be posted off to various parts, you see. And in the meantime, we met up with this other bloke. He was a Londoner. So that was, that was a Londoner, a Geordie — that was Jim Oliver, the guy that came out with me and myself. And, well the Londoner went to — where was it he went? He went to Goose Bay up in Labrador and I went to the other end of the island at Stephenville and Jim went to North Bay. Went to North Bay. And that was still on the island. I forgot the name of the place. Ans anyway, we were all split up and we were, while we was there I was, when I was on this course at St Marie de Beauce in Quebec and I got into — we used to, when dinner time came the three of us would plump ourselves at a table and the waitress would come up. The waitress. We were billeted in the officer’s mess you see. So we were — ‘Letter for you,’ there, ‘letter for you’ there from the mail. So we were reading our letters and finally three women came up to the table and says to us, ‘You know, we’re getting a bit sick and tired of you guys.’ Yeah. ‘You’ve not come and introduced yourselves so we’re coming to introduce ourselves.’ Well one was a schoolteacher. One was an ASO [unclear] which was an adjutant of this radar, this small radar establishment and one was a nursing sister. And — well we all got talking together and gradually the school teacher and I became very very [pause] close. And eventually we married, you know after I was [unclear] I was married — I married her and we’ve got — then I was she was, she was posted. Well, she was at this station and that’s where she taught and I was sent down to Stephenville. And there come a time when I went over. I went over and [pause] Rhoda. Rhoda was her name. Rhoda Stewart. ‘How about coming down to see my parents?’ So, ‘Ok. Sure.’ So the upshot was we went to Halifax because they were down in lower Nova Scotia and we went up to Halifax and I bought her a ring there for her finger. So, this was after months, you know. And so, we was, we were married eventually and then we split again and when Easter time she came over to Newfoundland to be beside me. And we had a big trailer parked in a trailer park and there we started our married life. And we, we started our married life. And in the meantime I had written away to Atomic Energy in Ontario and because Newfoundland was a nice place but, you know, it’s kind of rough and ready. And so I wrote and after six months I got a letter saying, in effect — come on. You’re hired. You know. After that. That was after they sent [pause] oh no they sent a message to Liverpool CID and the CID sent a searcher up to North Berwick and the guys who, and Ben Miller, who was Jan’s first husband, he was a post office engineer and it was a time of the [golf at Govan?] and that’s where — he was up a pole, you know, screwing things around and this guy in civvies and a trilby hat says, ‘Are you Mr Miller. He said, ‘Aye. Who wants to know?’ You know. He says, ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I’ll introduce myself. I’m Detective Constable [unclear]. Do you know a Jim Young?’ and he said, ‘Christ’ — what have I done now? ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Just a minute. I’m coming down.’ And he says, ‘Aye I know him.’ ‘Well what’s he like?’ He said, so, he explained who he was. He was from the Liverpool CID who had a message from the RCMP who were, who were checking up on me. He says, ‘He’s applied for a job with Canadian Atomic Energy.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Jeez,’ he says, ‘That’s interesting,’ he says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I know him very well. He was best man at my wedding.’ And he said they jawed about a bit. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Fine, fine. Alright. So long as you’re satisfied with him that’s alright. Fair enough.’ Shake hands. And I got, it was after that I got ok’d. So, we packed all our gear in a train and chugged off. Away to Montreal from Nova Scotia and then swapped trains and got on the Trans Pacific one to get to a place called Deep River Ontario. That’s where they had the town site for the staff to live in and they said there’ll be a house ready for you. Well a house. It was actually, it was a shack. Well it was wooden, you know. It was two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. So, and anyway Rhoda came with a dog. A dog. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. He was a poodle. A poodle. A French poodle. Anyway, it was a medium sized one and he was, he was a good dog. But [pause] so, I spent about twenty eight years of my life with Atomic Energy and then I retired from there and stayed in Deep River. And by this time my wife had gone into hospital with a complaint which I didn’t know at the time but it was multiple sclerosis and she — it wasn’t long before I knew about it and gradually it forced her into a wheelchair. And as it was her brain remained absolutely spot on and she could speak but the rest of herself she was absolutely immobile. And she was like that in a hospital in Toronto for, let me see, eight years. And I got a transfer from the research establishment up in Deep River, up in the pines down to Toronto which was their, well it was a [unclear] it’s a stuff where they build. Build machines. Refuelling machines for reactors.
JS: Yeah.
JY: And they had three up on the shores of Lake Huron which we used to go up to. But anyway, but anyway, Rhoda eventually died in ‘83 and after that I wasn’t interested in Toronto as such so I applied to my former branch head, you know. So I said, ‘Any chance you can get me back to it?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ’No.’ he says, but,’ he says, ‘I know another branch head who is willing to take you.’ So, I said ok. So, I got all my stuff bundled into my car and drove up to the, to the [pause] Christ. I can’t. Drove up to the point see. And I got in no problem. Turns up and I got a house. I got a three bedroomed house [laughs] just myself. And shower, so and so, kitchen, bathroom, living room and in the town area and it was, it was just a residential hacked out of the bush and I stuck it there until ‘94. ‘95. No ‘93. And I came, my father was getting on so I came across here and I fell in with Jan and we were married and [pause] where was I? My mum and dad, they — dad died in 1988. I had to come across to go to his funeral. So I went back and I went. While I was across at [pause] I forget — for Jan. And she was moving house and by this time her husband was dead. In ‘91. ‘91. And he was, well he was ‘91 and he was, he was sixty five and shortly thereafter we were married and we were, we had a house down there. Down the Forth Street. And then we came up and we got this one and I’ve been here since ‘2004.
JY: Yeah.
JY: 2004.
JS: Yeah. That’s great. Can I, can I just take you back a wee bit to something interesting you said earlier? You said that when you were in the air force you got the choice what would like to fly in? Would you like to fly in Lancasters or Halifax.
JY: Yeah.
JS: Why did you choose the Halifax? Was it — it was the choice you had.
JY: Yes. It was a choice. We had to. They split us. The course was — basically it wasn’t, it was before that as I remember it because each aircraft was totally different so you either went the Lanc route or the Halifax route. So, I chose the Halifax. Because we went [laughs] we went, they dressed us up in full flying gear and stuffed in a Lanc. Outside. And it was a sunny day and it was beaming. Christ. And I had a look. I said, ‘By Jeez,’ I said, ‘If I have to get out of this thing in a full suit and in a hurry there’s no way I’m going to get to a forward escape hatch packed in the back. Oh no. And the Halifax was different. You go straight up above and you had to deek around the mid upper turret but the rest of the fact was a straight run and up to the escape hatch. There’ s a door and — or you could go in the pilot’s get out, [laughs] put your foot on the pilots knee [laughs] and get out if he hadn’t already gone. And the bomb aimers they had a hatch in the floor. That was for three guys. Well, that’s why we had to choose the different — ‘cause the fuel systems, the hydraulics and all these wiring systems — they were all different. Just totally different. And you had to. Is there anything else.
JS: No. As a Bomber Command veteran how do you think you were treated after the war?
JY: It’s hard to say. I was, as far as the war was, I was thankful to get through a tour of ops, you know. And I think we were just, we were just so damned glad to get out of the air force, you know and shove it behind us. Come to think of it they didn’t do to much for us except giving you some money at the end. Demob money. And the rest of it — you were, ‘Alright. Get outside and get yourself a job.’ You know. Aye. No, I didn’t think too much about it because I already had a job to go to and I floated from one job to another.
JS: Yeah.
JY: But some of the others I’ve since read about, you know, over the years they had a hard time. A real hard time. And I’m fortunate. I never went the alcy way, you know. I never was much of a drinker. So. Yeah [pause] No.
JS: That’s great. That’s been really brilliant.
JY: What?
JS: That’s been really, really good. Thank you very much.
JY: You’re welcome.
JS: I’ll just stop this.
JY: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Young
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-30
Format
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01:04:49 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AYoungJ170630, PYoungJ1728
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
After John volunteered for the Royal Air Force, he reported to St John’s Wood before being posted to Newquay in April 1943. He was sent to RAF Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey with a short time in Lincolnshire. He chose to be a flight engineer or wireless operator. John was posted to an Initial Training Wing in Durham, followed by RAF St Athan, learning about different aircraft. He chose Halifaxes over Lancasters. John was posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit, RAF Dishforth, where he crewed up and learned his role as a flight engineer. He was posted to 432 Squadron where they did various test runs before completing 30 operations, many of which were to the Ruhr Valley.
John returned briefly to his former job before signing up for another five years in Signals. He then emigrated to Canada before eventually returning to Scotland.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Newquay
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Creator
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James Sheach
432 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Dishforth
RAF East Moor
RAF Eastchurch
RAF St Athan
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/159/1978/Harry Parkins.2.jpg
2ee64fe434b0c0b51fee806b8dd0fdc2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/159/1978/AParkinsHW150605.1.mp3
de326ae070fd9023083e750133402e80
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
Parkins, Harry
H W Parkins
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. Two oral history interviews with Harry Parkins (891679 Royal Air Force), his logbook, identity card and one photograph. Harry Parkins was a flight engineer with 630 Squadron and 576 Squadron and flew 30 night time and 17 daylight operations from RAF Fiskerton and RAF East Kirkby.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Parkins and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: Harry, could you tell me a little bit about your early life?
HP: Yes, when I lived in London, I lived near Mare Street, Hackney and at the bottom of our street there was a building where they, actually they were faking antique furniture, and I got talking to the son of the owner, he said we’d like someone to come in and get tea and cakes for the workers to save them going out so I said OK I can do that on, after school hours and at the weekends whenever they were working and the owner was called a Mr Chiswell and he told me that the White Horse Inn was where Dick Turpin used to come when the police were after him and he’d gallop in through the door and down and there was a tunnel that, that went all over London, a secret tunnel and he said and that’s why they couldn’t catch him, and he took me down and showed me the tunnel which was quite creepy really, and I got on famous [sic] with Mr Chiswell, and he had a son that was in charge of the French polishing side of the furniture cos they didn’t have sprays in those days and I learnt quite a lot about French polishing and what they did with the furniture, and they gave me a piece of wire with some nuts, all different size nuts threaded round it, and my job was to run it up and down on the edges of the chairs to make them look old, and down the legs, which was interesting, and they had a little drill where they used to drill worm holes as well, it was marvellous what they could do.
An, an incident that they told me about was, a very rich family had gone on holiday and their son had had a rave up party in the big house and wrecked some of the furniture, and they got to know about Mr Chiswell and they sent their man with some of the chairs for him to bring back up to normal, and he used to get the cloth from theatres where those big curtains used to go across, they were never washed or anything and eventually they had moth holes and he used to buy these to replace the [slight laugh] chair covers and I used to go and watch the carvers who were very marvellous at carving the intricate things on the chairs that they did in those days and he said this man came with a wheelbarrow with these chairs on and Mr Chiswell said ‘OK leave them with me, come back in, probably a week and we’ll have them all ready for you’ so off he goes, and when they were ready Mr Chiswell liked these chairs, I think they were Baxondale or some famous chairs, that he decided to have a set made for himself, and when this fella came back for them he told the young man working in the shop that he had to go away on business so when the man came for the chairs, make sure he took them from downstairs, not upstairs, so when the fella came the young man forgot which was which [laughs] and he took him upstairs so they were loaded and off the fella went, well when Mr Chiswell came back he said ‘where’s my chairs gone?’ and the lad said ‘I thought that was the ones that belonged to the family’, he said ‘no, you’ll have to go round and tell them that you made a mistake and we want those chairs back and they can have the originals’, but they refused, the son refused to let them come back so he was landed with the real genuine antiques, so that was interesting, and then just round the corner there used to be, I don’t know if it’s still there, a big church, and my family were into going to Sunday school and the teacher there, she said to me, ‘one day you’re gonna [sic] have to start work or be called up, what do you intend to do?’ so I said well I’m very good at drawing and printing, so she said ‘my uncle has got an engineering firm near Kings Cross, she said when you’re ready I’ll put a word in for you’. Well in between that, my family moved because the council were going to knock all these houses down and build flats there so we moved near to Bethnal Green. There used be, a fella that sold everything, if you’ve ever watched, that show on the television, Arkwright? With all the stuff he had in the shop,
DE: Open all Hours?
HP: Open all Hours, it was very similar to that and he had a shop, which was really a house converted and all the stuff that was in there were pots and pans, paint, paint brushes, you name it, he’d got everything, and he used to go out where places were bombed and buy all the stock that had been damaged, and he, I got the job there after school hours again which was from about five o’clock up to ten o’clock every night ‘cause [sic] they were open as late as that, and he was teaching me how to sell this stuff and how to sort it out, and if there were saucepans, they would always be a set but some had chips on them because in those days they were all enamel, so the worst ones were put here, the next lot there, and those that were fairly good were the best ones so they all had different prices and I had to learn that [slight laugh] and how to do all this, and it was the same with cups and saucers, the same thing and I got very good at doing all this and when I used to go there, especially on a Saturday, he’d give me an an apron with two pockets, give me a few pounds in the pockets and he’d disappear out the back sorting things out and I was serving customers and taking the money and giving them change, so I felt really good doing this, and then the war was on and the German bombers decided to bomb the docks, well Bethnal Green is not far from the docks so they were shooting howitzer guns on wheels up and down the street firing them and you could hear the shrapnel coming down on the roof, and Bill said to me, ‘I think we better pack up’ he said, ‘because you need to get home especially with the bombing’ so I said ‘OK’ and I started bringing all the stuff in and he, he seemed to vanish, and a policemen come along and said ‘what you doing son?’ and I said ‘I’m taking all this stuff in to the back, can’t leave them outside’ so he said ‘you leave that be and get off home’, he said ‘where’s the boss?’, I said ‘I think he’s out the back making a cup of tea’, he said ‘well don’t forget as soon as he comes up tell him you want your cash and you’re going home’ so I thought OK and I carried on doing this, where the stairs were, he used to hang big galvanised baths, on hooks, I, I thought, well I got everything inside and I thought I wanted my money and get off home, and as I walked down to the back one of these baths was down and I was walking on top of it, on top of the bottom going down to the bottom to see if he was in the kitchen making tea but he wasn’t there anywhere and I thought where on earth’s he gone? And I kept shouting up the stairs, going up the stairs in to all the rooms, couldn’t find him and as I was coming down I saw this bath moving, he’d got underneath the bath [laughing] he didn’t know what to say to me, he said ‘here’s your cash, you go home son’. That was the funniest thing that happened to me.
And then of course it was nearly time I was going to get called up, so the Sunday school teacher said ‘I’ve made you an appointment to be at my Uncle who owns this business’, engineering business it was, so he said ‘I’ll tell you where it is’, I got on my bike and rode down to Kings Cross, found the street where the place was and this fella interviewed me and he said ‘I like you’, he said ‘you seem to be able to write fairly decently’, he says ‘so we could teach you draftmanship and engineering but first of all you’ll go on the tools’, which was a capstan operated machine where you are doing this sort of thing and I was making Morse code tappers, and I was getting on well with this and the bombing was still going on, and my father was a bit worried me going all that way, so he said ‘look after yourself and if anything happens you get off home quick or get down to the air raid shelter’, well the, the foreman, I found out was in charge of the other lads that were on these machines were all Barnados homes boys, so he used to swear and curse and god knows what at the, I felt sorry for them, ‘cause [sic] they couldn’t complain, at least they got a job. And then one day it was bank holiday and the foreman came up to me and he said ‘you realise you have to work all through the bank holiday?’, I said ‘no, I didn’t know that’ I said ‘I thought it was only a five day week’ so he said, ‘ you be here on bank holiday Monday’, well when I got home my dad was a great union man, he said ‘No way are you going in on bank holiday Monday’, so I said ‘well I’ll probably get the sack or put in prison or something’ [laughs] I didn’t know what would happen to me. Anyways, he stopped me from going and we went down into Epping Forrest while he went into the pub and he had a drink and we had a meal and played around and then came home. When I went in on the Tuesday, all hell had broke loose, I was going end up in jail because nobody was on my particular machine and the person they put on it did something wrong, the belts came down and stopped all the work going on, but anyways I got over that and then [short pause] I was riding into work one Monday morning, half way along Kings Cross road a policemen and an air raid warden came up to me and they said ‘where the hell do you think you’re biking to son?’, I said ‘Islington engineering’ and they said ‘well you bloody well go back home because it’s not there anymore’, it’d been blown up, been bombed so I went back home, just messed around, didn’t do anything particular, and usually I was always in for my evening meal after my father, this time I was in before him and he looked at me and he said ‘how is it you are in at this time? Have you got the sack?’ I said ‘No, firm’s been bombed’ so he said to me ‘I could see [emphasis] this happening, what you been doing? have you found another job?’ I said ‘no, I’ve just been messing around’, ‘Right, tomorrow morning after the air raid warning all clear goes, you are getting on your bike and you don’t come home until you’ve got a job’, and that’s how they were in those days.
So next morning, my Mum packed me up a little lunch and said cheerio to me and I went down one of the longest roads, actually I think it’s near where they put this Olympic business in London, and, all along this terrific long road there was all different industries, all the way along, so I thought all I can do is stop at the first one and go right the way to the end, I knocked doors, ‘how old are you son?’, ‘18’, ‘no, we can’t take you on’, this happened all the way right to the end, right to the end, I just sat on the curb stone more or less in tears that I hadn’t got a job, and ate my sandwiches, I didn’t have a drink so I thought I’ll start down the other side of the road, the same all the way along until the huge firm of transport and I looked through the gates and I thought well surely they can do with a van boy or something like that, but I couldn’t get in so I went a bit further and there was a little door, I pushed this door and it came open and there were some stairs going up so I thought I’ll go up the stairs, went up the stairs and there was a nice young lady there and she said ‘hello, what can I do for you son?’ And I told her more or less what I’ve told you and I was nearly in tears and she said ‘sit down and have a cup of tea’, so I sat down and she said, ‘what would you like to do’ and I said ‘anything as long as it’s a job because I can’t go home until I got a job’ [laughter] she said ‘really?’ I said ‘yeah my dad is very strict’ so she said ‘well we want an invoice clerk’, she said ‘so we need someone straight away, would that be alright?’ Well I didn’t even know what an invoice was [laughs] so I told her this so she said ‘well I’ll get an invoice out, I’ll write it out and I’ll show you what you have to do and you copy what I’ve done’, so I did this, copied what she’d put out and she said ‘Ooh you do write good, well done, can you wait until quarter past five?’ well it was five o’clock then so I said ‘yes, why?’ she said ‘well, I’ll give you a chance to see the manager’, she said ‘and when you go in, the first thing he’s going to say is would you write your name and address and he’ll look at it and then he’ll ask you have you any idea of writing out invoices and you can say yes can’t you? [laughs] So this is what happened and at the end of it he said right well we need someone straight away when can you start?, I said ‘tomorrow morning’, he said ‘Good, if you can get here at six o’clock in the morning, that’ll be just after the air raid warning said the all clear’, he said ‘you’ve got yourself a job’, and my dad had always taught me how much, what are we going to get paid so I said ‘well you’ve mentioned all these things but you haven’t said what I’ll get paid’, so he said ‘well it’ll be thirteen shillings a week, is that OK?, Monday till Friday, no Saturday’ so I said ‘yes that’ll be fine’ because I was only getting eleven shillings learning to be an engineer so that was all settled, and I got on well there and I got on well with some of the lads, and after a while one of the foremen happened to come into the office and he said ‘we need someone down on the bay’, so the manager said ‘why?’, he said ‘well we lost two people, they’ve been called up so we need someone to write out the delivery notes for the lorry drivers’, so on this side there was the lorry drivers from, east end, north, west, where drivers got stuff from the other side that come from up north on the big lorries that were opened in the night time and they wanted their deliveries all written out ready to shoot off when they came in, so the manager said ‘well this lad’s good at writing’, so he said ‘good, follow me’ and he took me down the bay and showed me all what I wanted to do, so I said ‘does that make any difference to my pay?’ so he said ‘yes, I think so, what do you get at the moment?’ I said ‘thirteen shillings a week’, he said ‘we’ll make that up to two pound, would that be Ok?’ [laughs] so I said ‘marvellous’ and that was the start of that, so I was working on the bay and in the office and then as lads were being called up, they had women coming in doing the trucking from the night shift to the day shift and they were getting all mixed up with the East End, the West End and where to put the goods, so I said to this foreman ‘if you get me some big cards, like they have on the underground I could write what these places were for each bay’, so he said ‘you think you could do that?’, I said ‘yes, easy’ so he got me all these big cards so I was doing some of that at home and my Dad said ‘are you getting overtime?’ [laughs] I said ‘no!’ [continues laughing] Dad said ‘when you see the foreman ask him what over time you getting’ so I cheekily asked him ‘do I get any overtime for doing all this?’, he said ‘certainly, haven’t we told you?’, I said ‘no’ he said ‘right, when you go to clock out, don’t clock out, bring me your card and I will enter so many hours each day for you’ so it ended up I was getting three pound fifteen a week which was more than my dad was earning as a scaffolder.
And then some of the girls used to come in late, which was booed [sic] upon. So I said, well, I do a bit of watch making in my spare time, I’m trying to teach myself how to repair watches and clocks so he said ‘Good’, he took me to this girl, I think she was a foreigner, and she couldn’t get in early, so he said ‘well you are going to get the sack so, what’s your problem, your real problem?’ she said ‘my alarm clocks broken’ so he said ‘would you bring it tomorrow, give it to this lad, he’ll take it home and he’ll mend it’, so I thought I hope I can mend it [laughs] and I mended this clock anyways and from then on she was never late. And this got to the manager of the place, and he called me in one day and said ‘I understand you can mend clocks, what about pendulum clock’? I said ‘yeah, I think so, as long as I can get the bits from somewhere’ so he said ‘right, I’ll send a van round with this clock’ [laughs] it was a great big clock ‘to your house’ so I took it in, had a look at it and I found there wasn’t really anything broken it was just clogged up with muck, only needed a real good clean and an oil and it worked perfect, so I kept it a few days so to make it seem as so it was a hard job [laughs] and when I went back I said ‘your clocks OK for your van driver to come and pick it up’, which he did, took it into his office and he says ‘set it up’, so I set it up and it was working perfect, so he said ‘what do you think I ought to pay you?’, well I had no idea what it’s worth so I said ‘maybe about a fiver’ and he said ‘there’s a tenner son, thank you’. And that was really good.
And then after I think about a year or eighteen months, one of the lads I got really friendly with, we used to be having our lunch ‘cause [sic] they had soup at the canteen, we were talking about the war and what was going to happen, both the same age, and I said ‘we are going to get called up any minute now’, so he said ‘what do you want to go in for?’ he said ‘because if you volunteer you near enough get what you want but if you are called up you end up in the army’ and I said ‘ooh I don’t want to go in the army’ ‘cause me [sic] Dad’s told about me stories of being in the army so he said ‘what about the navy?’ so I said ‘ooh I don’t know, I can only swim across the canal’ [laughs] I never tried any further, so I said ‘I know’, I said, ‘I think it is safer in the air than on the ground, I said ‘I reckon I’ll volunteer for the RAF’ he said ‘that’s a good idea, when we finish lunch we’ll go down the road and both volunteer’ and that’s what we did, and I ended up getting in the air force but he didn’t because he had something wrong with his down below and it wouldn’t except him but when we went through the medical and came out again I said ‘I’ve passed all OK’ and he said ‘so have I’, and his name was John Smith and I never saw him again, so I don’t know what happened to him.
But I ended up a week later being called up, I was, up to, where was it, where London Zoo is, and on the right hand side there was super flats where film stars used to stay, and that had been commandeered by the air force and we were billeted in them and it was fabulous, I thought this is good in the air force [slight laugh]. We had all the inoculations and all that done and the square bashing and at the time in the paper and on the radio there used to be a fella called Alvar Lidell and he used to sing out ‘This is Alvar Lidell bringing you news’, and in the paper it said this is “Alvar Lidell in the air force stamping out on the playground” and he was there when I was there, but I never actually met him, and I suppose we were there for about a month, six weeks or something learning all the things you had to do, then we were posted down to Saint Athan’s, and that’s where they said you can either be a gunner and I said ‘No way’, you go before some group captains interviewing you and one of them said ‘it’s got down here you can mend clocks, is that right?’ I said ‘yes, and watches’ so he said ‘well that sounds like a bit of engineering, so maybe a flight engineer will be Ok for you’, well I didn’t exactly [emphasis] know what it was but I said ‘yes, that’s far better than a gunner’, and I got all the training on a Stirling bomber and from there when you passed out we went to a conversion unit where you were supposed to meet your crew, well your crew were, flyers who had been on twin engine bombers and converting onto four engine bombers, well the idea was you went into the bar, and there was a big area there where you mingled with some of these bomber crews, and they didn’t like the idea of having an engineer coming onto their crew so the first thing they would ask you is how many flying, flying hours have you got, well you had none, so you didn’t know if you would be sick or anything, so I cottoned on to this so what I did, is I kept going to other pilots that were flying and said ‘could I have a lift’, and I got about 25 hours in, so when I went into this mixture, a fella came up to me and said ‘I heard you talking’, he said ‘you sound like us’, so I said ‘what do you mean, I sound like you?’ [laughs] he said, ‘well we are Australian, New Zealand crew and’ he said ‘you sound like an Australian, where do you come from?’ so I said ‘Hackney’, he said ‘Ackney [emphasis], A? Ackney?’ I said ‘yes’ he said ‘where’s that?’ I said ‘in London’ so he said ‘what’s your name, mate? I said ‘Harry’ he said ‘Hackney Harry, that sounds good, I’ll take you to meet the crew’, and they were all sat round drinking pints and introduced me to them all, introduced me to the pilot and he said ‘what you drinking, Harry?’ and I never drank at all, so I said ‘I don’t drink’ so the rear gunner who’s Australian, who, the one who’d picked me up, he said ‘you better have something Harry or else you’ll get chucked out before you’ve even joined’ [laughs] so I said ‘I’ll have whatever you’re drinking’, they were drinking black and tan, which was a pint of half Guinness and half mild, so that was OK. The mid-upper gunner said ‘do you want a fag?’ I said ‘I don’t smoke’ so the navigator said ‘what the bloody hell do you do on Sundays?’ [laughs] and that broke the ice and I was in with the crew.
So we did a few cross countries on Stirling’s, then they said we were being converted onto Lancasters, and that was good because the Stirling was considered the flying submarine and the Lancs could get up higher. So we did a couple of cross countries on the Lancaster and then we were sent to East Kirkby to be on the proper squadron, well when we got there, I said to the engineering officer, I said ‘I’ve been trained all this time on Stirling’s which is all electric, Lancaster’s are all hydraulic and I don’t feel 100 percent to go on ops’, ‘Leave it with me’ he said, and nothing happened for a few days and it was bank holiday Monday so, we were all lined up at the bus stop to go to Boston, it was our first day out to Boston, have some beers out there, and then, oh before that, this drinking business, the rear gunner said to me ‘our pilot has never been drunk in all the time we’ve known him so when, if you don’t drink and you don’t want to get drunk do what the pilot does’ so I said ‘OK’ and the pilot said ‘Cheers Harry’ [makes a sound of drinking] and he was nearly to the bottom of the glass, well I tried [drinking sound], I was only a finger nail down, by the time I had got through the pint I was more or less drunk [laughs]. Anyways going back to this, at the squadron, a group captain’s car came round and his man got out and he said ‘is there a Sergeant Parkins anywhere along here?’ I said ‘yes sir’, he said ‘come over here’, I said ‘I was just going into Boston, he said ‘you’re not, the group captain wants a word with you’ so I had to get in the car and he drove round the airdrome and nobody said a word and then all of the sudden the group captain said ‘I hear you wanted a bit more training on the Lancaster’s, is that right?’ I said ‘yes sir’ he said ‘good, I’m taking you down to briefing, he said ‘you are on ops tonight’, I said ‘but my crew are not ready’, he said ‘well this crew is and they’ve lost their engineer, he’s gone lack of moral fibre disappeared so they said ‘you’re on briefing with him’, and his name was Pilot Officer Jackson, so I met him and he said we are flying off at a certain time and he said ‘this is John, Bill, Jack whatever, the crew’ and off we went on ops. It was a French target, luckily we got there, got back OK and I felt chuffed because I’d done one more than the crew. The captain was supposed to do one to become a captain before the crew, well I’d beaten the pilot, so I felt, I felt really good, daft as it sound. But then the next couple of nights we were on ops again, my pilot was gonna [sic] do his, what they call the first sticky and this Pilot Officer Jackson came up to me and he said ‘the crew liked you, would you like to come with us again?’ and I thought that’s two I have in front so I said ‘Yes’ [emphasis], that’s a bit crazy, so I went off, got back OK and my pilot got back OK so then a few days after we were on ops again, Pilot Officer Jackson came over to me and he said, ‘you’re an experienced flight engineer on bomber command now, are you coming back with me?’ so I said ‘oh I don’t know, I like my crew, Australian and New Zealanders and they like me so I said ‘no, I’ll go with my own crew tonight’, so off we both go, he never came back so how lucky was three to me, and three has always been lucky, I was born on the third of October, I lived at 13 Churchill Walk, and it was the only house in all the street where a bomb had dropped in the next street and all the windows were shattered except ours, number thirteen, so I’ve always felt three and thirteen have been lucky to me. So that was the beginning of my bombing career and I ended up doing thirty six at East Kirkby, including a mid-air collision.
DE: Really?
HP: Yep. Where bomber pilots were coming back off ops, they should follow the circuit of another airdrome round, the circuit, not shoot straight across, well this particular pilot decided, we’d come back from Stuttgart, all safe and sound and he come shooting across, he took the H2S cupola off and the tail wheel off, and there was such a thunder to us, and I said ‘that was hell of a slip stream’ and it made the crew laugh and in all the fear we had it took it away and the other one went in and blew up, all got killed and we managed to land with sparks flying up all over the place.
DE: Did the rear gunner come forward for the landing?
HP: No, he stayed in his seat screaming blue murder, ‘I’m gonna catch fire’ and that’s where the saying was where the gunner shouted out ‘what colours blood skip?’ ‘cause [sic] he’d done it in his pants [laughing]. That’s seven days survivors leave.
DE: Is that what happened is it?
HP: Yes, and then after that as I say we carried on, we did, I think it was the fifth or the sixth op, was to go to Munich but we were briefed different to the other crew which were going to Munich, we were told to stay behind, we stayed behind and the squadron leader said, ‘well we’re keeping you behind because when you taxi round and we want you to stop the engines and have that little drop of fuel put in because if you’re lucky to get back, you’ll have to land down south because you wouldn’t have enough fuel to get back to East Kirkby so we said ‘why?’ he said ‘because you are not going straight to Munich, you’re going right down over the alps, right down to Italy, turning round and coming back up to fool the Germans. Well we did this, and luckily we were safe. On the way back the rear gunner shouted out ‘Harry’, he said ‘you know we are on leave tomorrow’, you got seven days leave, every six weeks if you were lucky, so I said ‘yeah, it seems a shame’ he said ‘work out the fuel’, ‘cause [sic] I was in charge of that, he said ‘see if we can get back to East Kirkby’ so I said ‘Ok’, and I worked it all out, no computers, and I said ‘if it’s a nice morning, a nice sunny morning, I think we’ll be OK’, and all the crew shouted ‘Go for it, Harry!’ so we did, and when we got to east Kirkby, it was a perfect morning , we went straight in to land and right at the end of the runway all the engines chopped. That took ten hours twenty five minutes, the longest op ever done in a Lancaster; we earned the record for that. So we had to go for briefing, and he was a bitch of a squadron leader, no, ‘well done lads you got back alive’, ‘who the bloody hell told you to come back here’, ‘who worked it out?’, ‘Harry’, he said ‘right mate, you are on a charge for causing probably damage to the air craft’, which it didn’t and damage to the men on board if it had crashed so I said ‘Oh’, he turned round to the crew and said ‘you’re not getting away with it neither’ he said ‘you are all on a bloody charge for being such stupid idiots’ just as he said that the group captain walked in, and he said ‘did I hear a plane landing?’ ‘cause [sic] nobody was supposed to be landing, so this squadron leader said ‘these bloody idiots here’ so he said ‘why, what, what you been doing lads?’ so we said ‘we’ve just got back from Munich via Italy’ and he said ‘really? and you got back safely?’, went round, shook our hands and the rear gunner said ‘we should be on seven days leave today’, he said ‘well done, go on leave’ and we never heard another word.
DE: Had the whole squadron done that route then?
HP: Yeah, so we were the only ones who landed back at East Kirkby
DE: Did you have to be extra careful with revs and working out wind speed?
HP: Oh yeah, yeah it was all interesting stuff, we had a lot to all make out but that was good. And then you finished your ops, it usually was thirty, but the crew had done thirty four, I’d done thirty-six so they said ‘right, you’ve finished, you can go on training other people now’ and the pilot was awarded the DFC for crew co-operation and the crew did not like that one bit, because we should’ve got something, we were doing the same job, but that’s how it worked, and then I was put back onto Stirling’s. When I got to this Stirling, I forget where it is, it’s all in my log back, when I got back to teaching on Stirling, I went to the pilot’s office, because you had to get a pilot who was trained in training pilots as well and he said ‘what’s your name and rank and everything?, what have you done?’, ‘well done’ shook me hand and he said ‘you’ve got two choices’, he said ‘we’ve got one pilot here that sticks rigidly to the rules, and we’ve got another one who’s come what may, happy go lucky’, so he said ‘who do you want to join?’, so I thought about it, I said ‘I’ll go with the happy go lucky’, he put his hand out and said ‘well done mate’, so I was with him, so we had to go and train a pilot and engineer on Stirling’s then, and it was getting near dusk, we’d done a few circuits but this pilot weren’t [sic] very good at all, so the pilot said to me ‘I think that this pilot is a bit jittery because I’m sat next to him’, so he said ‘I’m getting out, he says ‘you’re volunteering to stay in’ [laughs] I said ‘oh, thank you very much’ he said but ‘drum into him, the pilot, that if he’s got full flaps down, and the wheels down and locked, there is no way in this world he can overshoot’, well I knew all that so when I went up to the pilot, I said ‘you’ll be Ok but remember what we’ve just said’, so he said ‘OK’, we took off, we were just coming round the circuit, what happens, an engine goes, so feathered the engine and I said ‘not to worry, you can land just as easy on the three, no problem’, as I said that the flight engineer was rolling about on the floor shouting ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die’, I thought ‘God’, whipped his mask off, so the rest of the crew didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying and I said ‘have you checked the wheels?’, ‘cause [sic] you had to check the electrics, so if it was a red light you’d have to give it a couple of turns that side, a couple of turns that side, say to the pilot ‘wheels down and locked’ and go right down to the rear wheel and do the same for that and shout out to the pilot ‘All OK, all wheels down and locked, go ahead and land’, then I heard a roar of the engines as I was walking up, he’d already told all the crew ‘brace, brace, brace’, because he’d decided to overshoot with the wheels down and locked and the flaps down so we crashed at Wigsley Woods?, do you know that, here?
DE: Vaguely, yes
HP: So I had momentarily been sort of knocked out and when I’d come to, I could feel we were on the ground and the plane had caught fire so I went to the door and jumped, I didn’t know if we were really in the air or not, but anyways the army were doing manoeuvres in Wigsley Woods and saw all what happened, came round, got us in their trucks, took us straight down to St. Georges Hospital in Lincoln, and I can remember being put on a stretcher ‘cause I couldn’t get up straight and seeing these bare entrance to St. Georges’ where the wind was blowing through ‘cause there was no windows or anything and going in to be examined, all the rest of the crew had just slight bruises, nothing really wrong with them, they thought I’d broke my back so they decided to lay me on boards and keep me that way for a few days, the whole time time I think I was in there was ten days. Then they put me in X-Ray and found I had just bruised my spine, not really done bad damage, so I was let out and another seven days survivor’s leave. I shall never forget that survivor’s leave, that second one because when I got to London, I was in civvies, got on the bus to Hackney, and a young woman got on the bus and I sat down and she looked at me and shouted ‘typical of these young scroungers not letting anybody have their seat’, so I got up and let her have the seat, I could have said something but I didn’t, but that was it. And then I had one of the pilots come up to me, and he, went back of course to do the training and one of the pilots come up to me and he said ‘it’s nearly the war’s over now’ he said ‘my engineers gone and disappeared, lack of moral fibre’ he said ‘so I don’t want to end up not being in the war, what would I tell my grandchildren if I got married and had any’ he said ‘would you fly with me?, on some more ops?’ I said ‘no fear, I’ve done mine’ so he pleaded with me, really pleaded so I said ‘OK then I’ll go with you’, so I went with him and ended up at Fiskerton and did three more bombing ops, the last one being Berchtesgaden, and, Hitler wasn’t there and on the way back is was, today like it is now, very clear, you couldn’t see any fighter pilots after you or anything so I got down ‘cause I was interested in H2S, do you know what that is?
DE: The ground radar?
HP: Yeah, you’ve got a screen and you can pick up things on the ground, and I was trying to teach myself how to do this and all of a sudden I thought something’s wrong and I looked round and the pilot had feathered one of the engines for no reason, the starboard outer and I knew there was nothing wrong, but I knew by sound that something had happened so I looked at the pilot and said ‘what the bloody hell are you doing, there’s nothing wrong with that engine?’ and he said ‘Ooo’ and he went like that and he feathered the second engine, so we were flying on two port engines and I said ‘you’re going bloody mad, you are’ and he was really mad because I was looking at the radar instead of looking at the engine, I said to him ‘I know by the sound, I’ve done so many bombing trips that I can tell by the sound if anything’s wrong’ so he said ‘oh bugger you’ and he went like that to unfeather but then he went and feathered the port engine so we were on one outer engine from twenty thousand feet we were down to seven, and I said ‘I think you’ve gone crazy’ I said, so he said ‘all right, you know it all you do it’ so I thought ‘what on earth can I do?’ so I said ‘OK, all the crew listen up’, I said ‘make sure you know where your parachutes are ‘cause we might have to bail out’, then I thought ‘what else can I do?’, switch of all your electrics, which I did ‘cause [sic] the port inner did the generator, so we couldn’t unfeather, so I was thinking to myself this is marvellous, you go through thirty nine ops and then this happens, what would they do if we crashed and found nothing was wrong, if we weren’t killed, we’d all end up in jail so I thought about it and thought ‘I know’, if you have a car and it’s a cold morning and you try to start it up and it don’t start you go ‘ooo ooo ooo ooo’ [makes sound as if trying to start a car] and in the end you run the battery down so you’re stuck but if you leave it for about five minutes just try it again it clicks over, so I said ‘right’ to the pilot ‘go into a slight dive’ he said ‘you bloody fool we’re at seven thousand feet already going into a dive’ I said ‘look you told me to get on with it so do what I’ve told you, go into a slight dive’ so he went into a slight dive and after a few minutes I thought right I’ll just try the port inner, try to unfeather the engine and it just started to tick round, not properly but going into the dive made the propellers go round and the engine started up, from that we got the generator working, I got all the other engines going and we never dared mention that to anybody till after, years after.
DE: I don’t blame you, how far away from home were you?
HP: Well we was [sic] halfway, we would’ve landed in Germany, and this Andrew Panton I told him about that as I was telling you and that’s when he said he was really interested.
DE: You’ve mentioned a couple of times other engineers that you took over from, who had gone LMF, can you tell me a little bit more about that?
HP: Yes, we never actually ever got finding these engineers at all [sic] but we did have a wireless operator who was similar to that, he disappeared, but they caught him, brought him back and that was terrible because we were all called out onto the square and this engine.., this wireless operator was put on like a trestle, stood there and the group captain called out that this man had disappeared, gone lack of moral fibre and I’m ordering him to have his stripes taken off, of course they were all loosened beforehand, and two squadron leaders came up, one on either side and ripped his strips completely off and then he wasn’t taken down, and I don’t know what really happened but I heard about a year later that he was put in the RAF regiment and went abroad on the ground, but it was terrible to see that happening, because, you could get frightened and scared and didn’t want to do it anymore and to have that done to you was terrible, but I think after the war ended they scraped doing that because it was too frightening, not only for the fella himself but also those people watching it being done, like watching someone being hanged.
DE: So you didn’t have any qualms taking over from that flight engineer who had gone missing then?
HP: Not really, [slight laugh] you could say that I was stupid, I were [sic] young and into it all, I did it all before I was twenty [pauses] when you see some of the lads today it makes you wonder.
DE: It does indeed yes, so was that the trip where you ended up on one engine for a while was that your last operation?
HP: Yes
DE: So what happened to you then?
HP: Well as I say, I met my wife on VE day which was a few days after that, so I decided I didn’t want to leave the air force, to keep into Lincolnshire but on actual VE day when it did come, I said to the crew, ‘I’m going into town because everybody will be celebrating’, and my second crew were all English and the rear gunner there said ‘I’ll come with you’, as we went along Monks Road there was so many pubs along there in those days that everybody was dragging us in, ‘have a pint with us, well done’, time we got into Lincoln we were just about kaylied and that’s when I stood at the Stonebow just thinking, I wondered what my Mum and Dad are doing in London, and there was two girls stood at the side, and an American officer came by and he said ‘we won the war for you’ and that annoyed me and there was a flag, you know these big streamers, one of the ends of it was hanging down as though it had fell down and I pulled it and the whole lot came down so I went up behind this American officer, I always had a pin in my lapel, I pulled this pin out and went behind him and pinned it on his uniform tail, because everybody was laughing at him and joking at him and he thought it was because he’d won the war for us [laughing] and one of these girls said to me ‘fancy doing that to our lovely Americans’, I said ‘well he deserved it, he didn’t win the war, it was all of us’ and I got talking to them and that’s when I met my wife, I said, I suppose it was about eleven o’clock then and they said ‘we’ve got to go now’ the two of them, so this particular one I said ‘can I walk you home’, she said ‘if you like’ [laughs] so I walked her home and that was funny because she lived on Grafton Street from Monks road, when we got to her door she said ‘Good night’ and she lifted the window up, I said ‘what’s the matter with the door?’, she said ‘we’re not supposed to be out’ [laughs] and they crawled in and I made a date to see her again and that was the start of us getting together, yeah, [pauses] that’s funny.
DE: So did you stay in the RAF then?
HP: Yes, first of all after VE day they decided that we were dropping food to the Dutch, I thought we were going to be civvies straight away but no we were on a mission to drop food to the Dutch, we did six of those and then I thought that’s it we’re off, then they said ‘no, you’re going out to Italy’ and I thought ‘what on earth are we going out to Italy for?’ but they didn’t say anything else and I said ‘ah well I’m going into’, it was VJ day then I think, ‘I’m going in to town, meet Mavis’ and again all these pubs, people were outside rejoicing, ‘come in and have a pint’, she worked in Lotus and Delta shoe shop at that time and when I got there, the manager was at the door, I said ‘is Mavis there?’ and he said ‘you’re drunk, bugger off’ [laughs], so I didn’t see her so I waited around for when the shop shut, I went there, walked her home, I had my bike, always had a bike with me, walked her home and her father came to the door and he said ‘you should be at camp’, I said ‘why the war is all over now’, I said ‘there’s no worries’, he said ‘you better ride on’ and as I say I was a bit drunk, and do you know the end of Monks Road going down to Fiskerton, it was a moonlight night, I got to the top on my bike I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna [sic] go down there and go round that bend, no hands [laughing] so I tried it, the next thing I remember was a big air men coming up to me, he says ‘excuse me sir’, ‘cause I was a warrant officer then, he said ‘did a van hit you or a car hit you?’ I said ‘no’, I said ‘I was biking down this hill’, I didn’t tell him I was going no hands [laughing], and ‘I must of fell off’ so he said ‘well where’s your bike?’ so I said ‘well it must be here somewhere’ and we looked all around and couldn’t see the bike at all, then I worked it out in my mind that what would have happened if I had going round, the bike would’ve gone that way and I went that way and it was over the hedge so picked it up and he said ‘where have you got to go back to?’ I said ‘ to Fiskerton’, he said ‘well I’m on that place’ he said ‘I’ll ride back with you and make sure you get there OK’ and he did, got me right to me hut and off he went and to this day I don’t know who he was or his name. When I got in, I had at the top end, the little room at the top and the crew were down the side, I got there and I just plonked myself on the bed, like that, just was nodding off and a navigator came in he said ‘where the hell have you been?’ he said ‘you know we are going to Italy’ I said ‘come off it, what are we going to Italy for?’ he said ‘well we’ve had briefing and we’ve been kitted out with KD equipment’, I said ‘What’s KD?’ well that’s khaki you know all the shorts and all that and I was still in me blue, and he said ‘we’re taking off in an hour’, so I said ‘you’re having me on’, he said ‘I’m not, ask the rest of the crew’, and they were all in the KD ready, so we went out to the aircraft, got in, on the way to Pomigliano. When we got there, we had to go, get off, and had briefing, and we went in for this briefing and the squadron leader spotted me straight away, he come up, ‘what the bloody hell you dressed like that for?’, I said ‘well I didn’t get a chance to go for my KD’, he says ‘you bloody fool’, he said ‘you’ll scorch’, so to get away from that I said ‘I’ve got an uncle in Italy’, he says ‘so what’, I said ‘well I’ll, I’d like to ring the nearest camp to here and see if he happens to be there’, he said ‘you bloody fool, there’s no phone’s here, there’s only the field telephone’ so I said ‘well, could I use that?’, so he had sympathy then and said ‘OK, I’ll let you have it by woe be told if you are having me on’ so he called the sergeant over and he said ‘get the field telephone and get through to which is the first camp nearest to us’, which actually was where we were bringing the troops back from, ‘so guard room’ so I picked the telephone up and said ‘is that the guard room?’ ‘Yes’, I said ‘you don’t happen to have a sergeant, quarter marshal sergeant or anybody of the name of Lenny Parkins?’, ‘speaking’, I said ‘what is that you Len’ he said why, who’s that?’ I said its ‘Harry, your nephew’; he said ‘where are ya?’ I said, I said, ‘I’m in Italy’, he said ‘why?’, I said ‘I’m in the RAF’, with that the squadron leader ripped the phone from me and said ‘if you are bloody having me on’ he said ‘is that right?’, he said ‘are you Len Parkins?’, he said ‘yes, I’m the Quarter Master Sargent Len parkins’ he said ‘I give up’ [laughing] and he put me back to me uncle and I briefly told him that how old I was and I was in the air force and he said ‘ I can’t believe it’ cause the last time he saw me, I was about that high, so he said ‘we’ll have to come and get you’ so I said ‘what do you mean?, ‘I better have a word with the squadron leader’, so I handed the squadron leader the phone ‘my uncle wants to have a word with you’ so it appeared that he wanted permission to come and pick me up and go and celebrate with him, VJ day the second this was, so the squadron leader said ‘OK, as long as you’re back here within three days’ so he said ‘that’ll be fine’, so that night, I forget what time it was but he came along with four of the biggest army blokes I had ever seen and all sergeants and he was in charge of them in this big van, and he looked at me and said ‘typical Parkins, what the bloody hell you dressed like that for?’, and I told him the story that I told you, so he said ‘you can’t go around like that’ he said ‘back to our store’ and he took me to the army store and I got kitted out with warrant officer in the army, so he said ‘right, we’re all kitted up now, we are going out, back to our camp’, which was the army camp, and he said ‘we’ve got a couple of things to do, we’ll sit you in the tent, then we’ll take you and we’ll celebrate’, so they did, and it was a place called Torre Annunziata where he took me, and it was like a little village with a big tavern, taverna there and there were some dancing girls, dancing round and that and me uncle sat down on a chair, there were chairs all around and there was a fairly elderly woman sat there and he could speak Italian by that time and he was chatting to her, and he said ‘what’s going on?’ and she said ‘they are picking out the best dancing girl and that’s my daughter there’ and he said ‘oh that’s interesting’ and he brought her a drink and it turned out that she was a famous film star later on in her life, can’t think of her name off hand, an Italian film star [pauses], no its gone out of my mind who she was, but we’d been introduced to her as a young girl dancer. And then the army bloke said ‘what do you want to drink, Harry?’ so I said ‘I’m used to black and tan now’, he said ‘you silly bugger, [laughs] you can’t get that out here, you’ll have to have something else, you’ll have to have a whiskey or gin or something like that’ I said ‘oh I can’t take that’ so one of them said ‘what about vermouth?’ well I had never heard of it, well I forget what you call it in English, it’s like a red wine so I said’ OK, I’ll have a pint of that’ [laughter] and they didn’t have glasses, where they had beer bottles they put a wire round it and tightened it very tight and then heated it and that broke off clean and then they just rubbed it on the stones to make it a bit smoother and that was filled up with this wine and when they said ‘cheers’ and we drinking it like beer and we ended up drunk as a newt with my uncle, sat on the fountain saying how we’ve found each other both alive. It was marvellous, so, I didn’t remember much after that but apparently they took me back to the army camp and there was a row of tents, right the way along with windows which were like strips of canvas down, and when I woke up in the morning, it must have been about ten o’clock the next day and I looked up and I saw what I thought were bars and I thought I was in prison [laughs] and I could hear talking outside, and there was two Italian prisoners of war, and actually they were sweeping up, but when I saw their sticks, it looked as though they had rifles and I thought I’m gonna [sic] be interrogated and you are always taught just give your name and number, don’t tell them anything else so I just sat there, I couldn’t see where my clothes were and I looked out and where they were sweeping, they went round the tent, so I thought right I’m escaping and I run like, stark naked, [laughs] I run like mad, right to the end of this, all these tents where there was a guard room and somebody came out and stopped me, with the rifles, took me inside and they started interrogating me, and I thought these are Germans disguised, ‘cause they tell you they used to do that and I wouldn’t say a word other than my name and number, word got round that they had captured either a spy or something but my uncle eventually heard about this, and of course he came chasing up to the guard room and saying all that had happened, so I got dressed [laughing]. And went, took me somewhere else to have a drink but I didn’t feel like having any drinks, and took me back to the camp, the RAF camp, and of course they looked at me being that in army with all my gear on, ‘how on earth had I changed into that’ and I had to explain that I was RAF and except that I had came out in my blue, and it was time then to pick up these soldiers and we used to pick up about twenty of them, and they had to sort of sit or lay all along the floor of the plane, and I’m always the last one in to check everything, I had to walk, actually walk on them, it was horrible really, and we did six of those and the last one, my uncle was one of the people coming back and he was getting married, when he got home and he said ‘where can I put all this stuff?’ and he’d got loads of stuff over the kit bag he was supposed to have, I think he had about five kit bags, gin, whiskey, rum, everything so I thought yeah why, let him have it all on the inside, outside of the aircraft in the bomb bay and I took some of it in with me, and didn’t say anything to the pilot. When we got back to Britain, the pilot said ‘I hope you lads didn’t bring anything back you’re not supposed to have because we might be inspected by the customs’ I thought ‘God, we’re gonna [sic] end up in jail’ but luckily, they just waved us on, and at the end my uncle had one of his army blokes in England, he’d got a truck and quickly loaded, loaded all this wedding stuff on this truck so we lucky again there but in between that, I had, I think it was the third time, we had the soldiers with the kit bags all loaded on, and an army officer came up to me and he said ‘who’s in charge of loading the aircraft?’ so I said ‘I am sir’ so he said ‘would you get all those kit bags off’, he said ‘over there is my yacht’ he said ‘ I’ve just taken all the measurements and it’ll just fit in there’, I said ‘you got to be joking’, he said ‘I’m not joking, warrant officer’ I said ‘well I’m not joking neither, no way is that yacht going on this aircraft’ and I said ‘none of those kit bags for the soldiers’, ‘cause they were all ordinary rank, ‘none of that is coming off’ so he said, ‘whose the pilot of this plane?’, so I rushed up to my pilot, quickly told him what was happening, so I said ‘he’s there’, so I took him up to the pilot and he said, ‘I’ve just had a word with your warrant officer and he’s refused to take my yacht with you’ so he said ‘well I’m afraid sir, he’s in charge, there’s nothing I can do’, so he came back to me and said ‘what’s your rank and number?’, he said ‘you are going to be on a charge when you get back to England and your feet won’t touch the ground, you’ll be out of the air force completely’, so I said ‘fair enough, do as you wish, I couldn’t care less’, well he was on our plane obviously so he said ‘I want the best seat on the plane as well’ so I said ‘ well there’s no seats on the plane’ I said ‘there’s the pilot, the navigator and the gunners, unless you want to be in the tail gunner?’ I said ‘I think he wouldn’t mind moving out’ he said ‘no fear, he said ‘I want a proper seat. Well the only other seat is the Elsan so I got all the soldiers on and put him on the Elsan, when we took off it, ‘cause it stunk like nobody’s business I said to the pilot ‘waggle the wings a bit’ and he did so it splashed all over him [laughs] I thought that’ll teach him, well I never heard anymore.
DE: Well that’s not where I’d choose to sit anyway.
HP: No, but there was another fella, he was Australian, he said ‘is there any chance that when you come into England you’ll go past the white cliffs of Dover?’ I said ‘yeah we go right over that, why?’, he said ‘well, I volunteered to help with the war, come to England’, he said ‘but on the way we got torpedoed and I ended up in a Japanese prisoner of war camp which’ he says ‘which was horrible’ he said ‘but that another mate and I managed to escape and we got to some English soldiers who took us into their camp and they said ‘well if you want to get to England we’ll have to take you to the docks somewhere and we’ll get you on the boat’ which they did and he said ‘and damn me and we got torpedoed again’ he said they ended up in the sea, fighting for my life and got picked up by life boats and eventually got to France and he said ‘and from there I managed to get to British air field where they were bringing back the troops and he said that was a trip to Italy and he said ‘here I am’ and I felt really sorry for him, I said ‘well when we come up to the cliffs of Dover, I’ll let you sit in my seat because I sit next to the pilot’ so when it was time, I called him up from where he was laying down and I said ‘there you are, there you can see the cliffs, the cliffs of Dover’ and he just cried his eyes out, really cried, to think that he eventually he’d got there and of course all the war was over, [pause] but that’s a few of the stories.
DE: That’s wonderful, thank you very much. So what did you do when you left the RAF?
HP: I didn’t know what to do exactly, so I looked in the Echo, ‘cause I was living with Mavis at her mum’s in Grafton Street, they always had the Echo and I saw a couple of adverts, one was for a sales man for Carabonham typewriters, not to sell the typewriters but to sell the carbon paper that they used to have, and that was an interview in town, the other interview was to, do you remember the chicken factory that used to be in Lincoln? Right down by the water side, a long walk right down, I got an interview for there and the other one was an interview, have you heard of Newnes? N, E, W, N, E, S publishers? Very famous publishers at the time, they were eventually taken over by the mirror group and then sold out again to some other big publishing company, I can’t remember their name off hand, so first of all I thought I’d go to the typewriter people, went to there and it was in an office just near where, I’ve forgotten what it was, near Marks and Spencer’s, up the stairs, went into there, there was about four or five other people there. Eventually I was called in, the man was sat at his desk and he said ‘put your hat on the coat hanger’, I said ‘I don’t wear a hat’ so he said ‘well if you work for us you have to wear a hat’ I said ‘oh’, I said ‘well I’ve worn a hat all this time in the air force, I don’t want to be wearing a hat again’ so he said ‘anyways give us a brief history’ which I did and he said ‘well if you wait outside we’ll let you know if you can come for a second interview and that’ll be the final interview’ so I said ‘OK’, well they interviewed the others and they all disappeared, there was only me there, so he came out and he said ‘yes, we’d like to have a further interview with you but we’d like to see you with a rain coat and a hat when you come next time so I said ‘oh,’ so I just said ‘oh and I walked away and ‘said I’d be there for the second interview’ well the next day was an interview with the chicken people, well walking down that long stretch of road, the stink of these chickens got worse and worse, I thought I could never work with that smell and I turned round and came back, so before this other interview, it was at Bradford for Newnes, the publishers, I thought well I’ll go back to this Carabonham people, went through and he said I notice you haven’t got an hat, I said ‘no, I haven’t got around to buying one and what is the exact position?’ he said ‘well you’ll be selling these carbon papers to various people that use typewriters, the pay will be seven pounds a week plus one percent commission and you make your own way around Lincolnshire, so I said ‘well thank you very much, I’m not interested, I earnt more than that in the RAF’ and walked out and when I got home my father in law was mad at me and my mother in law that I hadn’t got a job, well actually I had a month to go before I was officially finished with the RAF, so I said I’d go for this Bradford one and I hitch hiked, all the way to Bradford, got in for the interview and I saw a marvellous sales man who was the boss there and he said ‘what we want is a person who can sell publications that are in ten volumes, and it’s called pictorial knowledge’ he said ‘lots of people think its and encyclopaedia, it isn’t, its everything that an encyclopaedia could do but in pictures’, and he said ‘I got a specimen here which is what a sales man would use’, and he went through some of these pictures and what it did and what it said, and he said ‘contributors are Enid Blyton, have you heard of her?’ I said ‘oh yes I have heard of Enid Blyton, she’s famous’, there was, a fella who died not so long ago, Sir Edmond Hilary, he’s contributed to this and many other famous people and he said ‘there’s ten volumes to the set, and we would like a sales man who could go and sell these to parents to help their children with their education’, which sounded really good, so he said ‘would you be interested in that’ I said ‘yeah I think so, what is the wages?’, ‘well this is how we pay our people, for every set of encyclopaedias you sell’, not encyclopaedias, ‘pictorial knowledge’s you sell, ten volumes, we would give you a commission’, and I think it was about three pound fifteen, something like that, he said ‘most of our people, the minimum sales is about four a week’ so he says ‘that’s above the normal wage that you’d get if you went into a job’, so I thought well I’ve got a month of RAF pay still so I said ‘yes I’ll have a go’, that was it, so he issued me with a folder that opened out with the backs of ten volumes and also this small one where you showed all these pictures and what it did, right from five year olds to about fifteen year olds, so he said ‘there you are you are on your way, in Lincoln there’s a pub called the Saracens Head’, which was on the go then, he said ‘you’ll meet our supervisor whose name’s John’ whatever it was, he said ‘and he’ll take you out and give you a spin on what we do’, so I said ‘good’, he said ‘but before you go’, and he’d got a sheet of paper like that, with all names, of all occupations, he said ‘we sell these books, either by cash or by subscription, and subscription is a pound deposit and a pound a month’, so he said ‘that’s fairly easy for the average householder, but if they are in any of these occupations you can’t sell them other than cash only’, so I said looking down, I said ‘there’s no one left’, he said ‘you’ll find somebody’, so that was that, so I got home, hitch hiked again home, got home and told them what I was going to do and my father in law went [laughs] barmy.He said, ‘that’s not for you, commission only, I’ve never heard of such a thing, its extortionate’, mother in law was the same, Mavis didn’t say much at all, well I said ‘I’ve got a month to try it out’, so off I went, next day to meet this so called supervisor, I waited over an hour and a half, before someone came in with a briefcase, I thought, I wonder if this is him, I went up to him, I said ‘are you so and so with Newnes publishing?’ he said ‘yes’ he said ‘I’m bloody fed up with the job altogether’, he said ‘I’m leaving today so you are on your own’, I said ‘oh thanks very much’ and out he walked and that was it, so I had to figure out what to do, how to find where people lived with children because I didn’t want to be knocking on everyone’s door and gradually I worked out a system of getting names of people with children by going down a street, so if you can imagine that’s a street, people on that side, and people on that side, I’d go to the first one, knock on the door, go round the back door, often find it was an old dear who didn’t have any children, did she know of anybody along that way with children and I’d write it down, did she know the names, and possibly get four or five names which was good, then I’d say ‘I’ve lost my list so could you tell me the ones on the other side’ and often they could, a couple of doors along, then I’d go past those that I’d got, into the middle and do the same there, and then I figured out it was a bit daft going to the first house, this was after a while of doing it, that if I went to the middle house, I could get this way, that way, this way, and that way, and I ended up going round Sincil Bank, really poor sort of houses along there, and got a few names along there and that night I said ‘right I’m off out, see what I can do’, I knocked at the first house, got a spiel on how to get in and when I got in, I said ‘it’s in connection with Newnes the publishers’, ‘bloody encyclopaedia’s, bugger off’ and I got shut out the door, the next one wasn’t really interested at all, the third one, again three, always lucky to me, the fella said ‘come in, what’s it all about?’, and I told him and I went through the spiel that this manager had showed me and he said ‘yes we are very interested, we’ve only got one daughter and we’ll bring her out’ and I showed her this specimen for her to look through and she said ‘ooo Dad, can I have these?’ and she sold it for me, and they went in for the pound a month so that was good. Years later I saw this couple, in the town, I said ‘how did you get on?’ they said ‘the girl did wonderful, she’s at the high school, she’s getting on very well, all thanks to you’, it made me feel good, and anyways I did this and I thought where would be the most children, and that was off Boultham Park, can’t forget where that big housing estate, and I spent about two hours a day and ended up with about five hundred names of people with children and I did quite well, I started to getting four and five sets sold, doing well, and then Newnes got on to me and they said ‘if the people pay for three months that could never been counselled in your name but if they didn’t pay in the first three months, you’ve lost that sale and you’ve got to replace it, so I thought well how can I be confident that people were keeping up their payments, and I was in the Halifax at the time and the account in there and they were onto me about paying debits and credits and all that, but I didn’t know much about, but I got them to explain it to me and I said ‘what do you do?’ And they said ‘well you have a form and you fill it in and to pay whatever you want each month’, so I said ‘can I have a handful of those’ and they gave me a handful, so when I sold, I didn’t sell on the basis of a pound a month, I said to them ‘well you pay an initial deposit that gets you all ten books straight away so I’ll leave it to you, what would you like to pay as a deposit?’, some would say two pound, some would say what do you suggest?, I say ‘anything from five pound upwards’, so that got a lot of payments in and I said ‘do you happen to belong to the Halifax?, because if you do, save you trying to remember the date when you got to send off you can do it’ and I got them all signing up, so I didn’t get many bad payers at all, but you had to work your brain to figure out all these things and what to do, and then I was told that the manager of Lincoln branch was being promoted and going to a bigger branch which was in Leeds, near to Bradford area so they would be looking out for a manger for Nottingham, well I used to send all my stuff to Nottingham, so I went into Nottingham to see if I could have a word with the manager before he left but he’d already gone and the girl there said, well she was doing all the collecting payments, putting them down in the book and banking them and all that, so she said, ‘we’ve got some interviewees, that the other manager who’s gone should have been interviewing’, so I said ‘well I could interview them’, so I sat in the managers desk and I interviewed these people and I got a couple started and I got a note from head office to say, ‘we’re very pleased with what you did there, that was unexpected so we’ve promoted you to manager, a thousand a year plus expenses’, which was marvellous, so I used to have to go into Nottingham every day, and catch the train, ‘cause they used to have that train where it’s all the market place now, I used to chain me bike up to the gate, ‘cause I’d had an engine put on for when I used to go outside of Lincoln, I used to go to Boston on this little mini bike, Gainsborough, I used to do ever so well in Gainsborough, the big estate that that [sic] they built there, and one day when I was going round collecting names, a police car come up, came up to me and said ‘would you step over here sir’ so I stepped over there for him and he said ‘we’ve had complaints that you’re trying to get names of children’, and at the moment there was all this scare about children and weirdos, so he said ‘what exactly are you doing?’ so I explained it to him and I said ‘I’ve actually got me briefcase on me bike’ so he said ‘what do you mean?’, I said ‘well my briefcase has got me gear in when I go to these people to sell them Newnes’ pictorial knowledge’, so I said ‘do you live nearby?’ he said ‘why?’, I said ‘well have you got any children?’ he said, ‘yeah, two’, so I said, ‘well could I come and see you and I could explain exactly what I do?’ so he said ‘yeah that’s a good idea, and that’ll save you going into custody’, and he told me where he lived and after I finished doing a few more names, I thought I better not do many more so I went round to his house, he, he and his wife were there, went through the whole spiel, and I said ‘what do you think?, would you be interested?’, he said ‘yes I would’, he said ‘I reckon I could learn a lot out of those books’ so I signed him up, got his deposit and I said ‘you don’t happen to know any other people that might be interested?’ and he give me about a dozen names of people and everyone [emphasis] bought.
HP: Smashing yeah. And then another time I was going to Woodhall Spa, ‘cause I heard it was very rich people round there and I thought I could do some names round there then, so I got on me bike and chained it up, do you know that bridge which just before you get to,
DE: On the way into Woodhall? Yes.
HP: Chained my bike up there and walked in, and the first little housing estate I went in, well it wasn’t an estate it was a street, I went into a woman was giving me, me names and I never really told her what it was for, I just said it was to do with Enid Blyton, doing some research, so she said ‘come in, have a cup of tea’ she said ‘my husband’s a postman, he’ll be coming in shortly’ so I said ‘OK’ went in and had a cup of tea with her and she said ‘what really are you doing?’, then I said ‘well, I’ll be honest with you, seeing as you give me a cup of tea’ and I told her about it and she said ‘I think my husband will be all for this, could you come back at 5 o’clock?’ so I said ‘yes, that’ll be OK’ so I just went to, I think there was a little bar somewhere, where I could have a cup of tea, waited till quarter past five and went back and he was all for it, went straight into it, said he’ll pay a fiver deposit and he’d give me the names of everybody who he thought went to the same school as her and he said you should do well, and he gave me the names of those big houses where those driveways go down and I thought ‘God, I don’t know how I’m going to do here’. The first house I knocked on, a woman said ‘would you wait in the hallway, I’ll have to see the lady of the house’, so I said ‘why, who are you?’ she said ‘I’m the maid’ and I thought good God I’m trying to sell to people like that!
HP: She showed me into what she called the drawing room or the library, they got hundreds of books all around and I thought I’m not going to do any good here, and then the wife came out and said ‘what’s this all about?’, and I said ‘I understand you’ve got a young girl at such and such a school’ I said ‘I’m nothing to do with the school, I’m from Newnes publishers’ so she said ‘my husband will be interested in publishers’ so she said ‘I’ll go and get him’, he came in, sat down and I went through all the spiel and he said ‘that’s marvellous’ he said ‘I’ve called the daughter in and she can have a look at your specimen, if she’s interested we’re interested’, and it was a sale straight away, and I said there’s a method of paying which is on subscription where you can pay monthly or you can pay out right, and I think it was fifteen guineas if you paid outright, that’s fifteen pound, so he said ‘right, I’ll write you a cheque straight out for fifteen pound’, I said ‘well, I’m ever so sorry but Newnes wont except cheques, it would have to be cash or subscription’, he said ‘oh well’ and he went into a drawer, in the drawing room this was, pulled it out and there were stacks of twenty pound notes, piled it all out and that meant I had, fifteen pound, I had to give him some change, he said ‘you can keep the change’, [slight laugh] it were lovely. And every one of these houses that this fella had given me I got a sale, in one night I got seven sales from there, I was over the moon, I couldn’t go wrong at all.
DE: I think we better wind it up now; it’s been marvellous talking to you,
HP: I better say we had a son, a daughter and a son and then a little boy of six, well he had a virus that hit inside of his brain and he died, and it was terrible, Mavis’ never really been the same since, he would be about forty or so now, and it was hard for me to carry on doing this and in the end I said ‘I’d have to give it up’, and I gave it up and the next job I went for was Dymo tape writers, you know them?, they print out these tools, and it was with a director who was a manger of gothic electrical, have you ever hear of them?, well that was made into a home now, ‘cause that all, that faded away, and I was interviewed by this managing director and he said ‘yes we’ll very interested to you but you’ll have to wait for the Dymo manager came along ‘cause we would be doing it on behalf of Dymo through gothic’, so I said ‘OK’ he said ‘can you come back the next day?’ so I said ‘yes’ and this was in the afternoon, and I went in and when I explained what I’d been doing the Dymo bloke was over the moon, he said ‘yes we can take you on’, he said ‘it won’t be on any commission, it’ll, commission only, you’ll get a salary and you’ll get a commission but that would be up to the manager of Gothic’, he said ‘so I’ll leave you to him’ and off he went, so I said ‘well what is this salary and commission?’ he said ‘well the most we would pay you is seven pounds a week, I said ‘good God, I’ve been on more than twenty, twenty five, sometimes up to forty or fifty pound in a week’, he said ‘well I’m sorry but that’s the best we can do, he said ‘but we’ll give you one percent commission on all the machines that you sell, is that OK?’ I said ‘well I’ll say yes, and I’ll see how it goes because I’ve got to have a higher wage of some sort than that but if the commission brings me up then fair enough’.
Well when I went home they all wanted me to stay near home and it was only round the corner from Brant Road where we lived so I took the job on, so the first thing I did, was went all along every shop and business from outside of Bracebridge, right the way along that road into town explaining what Dymo was and I’d got an idea of getting a book with pictures on with different things that you could attach the Dymo label too, like electrical, you can put it on the meters, and put it on the switchboards and all sorts, so that was easy and another one was shoe shop where they could put it on the shoes and the price on the outside and then estate agents, it would look nice with a gold edge with gold lettering of the houses and the prices, that was dead easy selling them and I could also say to them and I could put your name as the manager on the door in gold letters which was really good and the first week I earned eighteen pound in commission so with my seven pounds,
DE: You were doing all right?
HP: Well the manager, the director of Gothic he nearly fell off his chair [laughs]. All on my own transport which was me little mini motor on the bike, well he said ‘I don’t know what to say’ he said ‘I can only pay you the wage this week and we’ll see how you go the next week’, and I thought ‘this sounds dodgy’, when I went in for my pay the next week, I had earnt nearly as much again, so he said ‘there’s your pay packet’ and I opened it up there and then and that just says seven pounds, he said ‘now I have to pay you your commission separate’ so I didn’t mind as long as he paid it, but that went on for a year, and I found with Dymo that if I went into place where they could sell the Dymo, I went to town for them to sell it with one that I’d sold myself I’d give it to them as their first sale and that went down really well because I’d got an order for not just one tool but several with the different types of tools they did, put in their shelves and that and so that went, went on really well until Dymo cottoned on to what I was doing because I was opening up shops to sell in Lincoln, in Gainsborough, in Spalding, which they could they get themselves so they took it over, and they took that away from me so all I could sell was to just ordinary shops not to sell for them to re-sell so that fell through and the manager director didn’t like that all and said ‘no we’ll have nothing more to do with it’ so as I say it all fell through and he said ‘we want a salesman because we’re losing one of our salesmen on electrical’ so I knew a bit about electrical but not all the intricate things that electrical dealt at a wholesaler so he said ‘and this would mean you probably could have a car’ so I said ‘when do I know about this?’, he said ‘well you’ll have to go to Birmingham and see the directors and owners there’, so I had to go there by train, got there and went before these directors and they were very interested in what I was doing in selling Dymo and also selling the books as well, they couldn’t get over that I could earn that amount of money so one of them said, ‘this is to do with selling Kenwood’ you know what Kenwood food,
DE: yes the Kenwood food processors and things?
HP: So I said ‘that sounds interesting, not to do with the electrical itself’ so they said ‘well in a way its electrical, we’ve just got the agency from Kenwood, so we’ve got full scale all around Lincolnshire’ so I said ‘well that sounds good’, so I said ‘well the main thing is I’ve got to earn a decent salary’ well my boss had offered me twelve pound a week from the seven so I didn’t tell them this and they didn’t know that from what I was talking to them about and they said ‘well initially we’ll give you twenty pound a week plus commission plus a car with all expenses’, so I was in.
HP: And I did that until Kenwood fell through, ‘cause Kenwood fell through because the boss of Kenwood, he did, he got this running right the way through worldwide even to Australia and him and his wife had got all the shares and he went to Australia to do a bit more business and it was in the Daily Mirror, when he got off the plane, there was these dolly girls all round and he’d got his arm round these dolly girls and his wife didn’t like that and she pulled all her shares out, they got a divorce, so that all fell through, then Kenwood just went through any shops, anywhere, not wholesalers so I lost that job so the director said ‘well you’ve been a good sales men with us’ he said ‘so, would you be prepared to be a sales man on electrical, on all the electrical stuff’ so I said ‘well I want a job, yes’ so I said ‘as long as I keep the car and expenses’, well head office said ‘yes’ and I got that job. Well that was funny ‘cause a lot of the people that I’d sold Kenwood to were people that were electrical shops, they would have them in the shops and selling them, and the first one I went to was funny because that was in Sleaford and it was a fella who every time I went in with Kenwood he said ‘you know where the kitchen is Harry, put the kettle on and we’ll have a chat’, about Kenwood and could he have a Kenwood girl in to do demonstrations which I organised as well and I said ‘I’m not on Kenwood anymore, I’ve lost that job because of certain things’ and I said ‘I’m on everything electrical now so I’m going to try and get an order off you for anything electrical’ so he said ‘well we’re have a cup of tea with the wife first because she run the shop’, so I looked round the shop what they had and we had this cup of tea and I got my order book out and I said ‘what is it that you mainly want at the moment?’, he said ‘I don’t think there is anything we really want’ I said ‘well I see you sell bulbs’ he said ‘no we don’t sell bulbs’, well I said ‘you’ve got boxes of them and there’s empty places there’, so his wife said ‘we don’t call them bulbs in Lincolnshire Harry, we call them’, what was it she said she called them, not bulbs, what do you call an electric light bulb?
DE: I would’ve called it a light bulb
HP: Light bulb that was it she said ‘we call them light bulbs we don’t call them bulbs’ she said ‘you want to be in Lincolnshire selling, Spalding selling bulbs!’, so I said ‘OK’ where we were in the kitchen he had these stacks of cables I know now, but then I said ‘I see you sell wire’, he said ‘we don’t’, I said ‘well what’s that?’ he said ‘that’s cable you silly bugger’, I said ‘well I’ve got a lot to learn’, he said ‘well I’ll tell you what to do’, he said ‘when you go back into Lincoln, go to BICC, because they are the wholesaler for cable and they’ll give you a card with all the cables that they sell all pinned to this card and you can write what they are then when you go round next time, he said ‘you know what they are, until you get to know them yourself’ he said ‘you say to them well I’ve got this card, which is the cable you want most of’ [slight laugh] and that’s how I started and I did well on that as well.
DE: Smashing, you’ve had a very wide and varied life haven’t you? and now you are sort of a professional interviewee
HP: [laughing] yeah, it’s been a good life, and I’m ninety, I shall be ninety one this year in October
DE: Well I think you’ve answered all my questions and many more
HP: Well I could tell you a lot more on the bombing trips
DE: Well I think perhaps we’ll have to come back and we can do this again if that’s all right?
HP: You’re welcome.
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 Harry Parkins. One
Description
An account of the resource
Before the war, Harry Parkins worked in furniture restoration in Hackney, before later selling bomb-damaged goods in Bethnal Green, working for an engineering firm in Islington until it was bombed and finally as an invoice and warehousing clerk before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He trained as a flight engineer and flew on three operations with Pilot Officer Jackson before his own crew became operational at RAF East Kirkby. He survived a mid-air collision and later crashed in a Stirling whilst an instructor, at a Heavy Conversion Unit. He then returned to operations at RAF Fiskerton. In one incident, his pilot feathered three engines of his Lancaster on the return from bombing Berchtesgaden. He also discusses lack of moral fibre, his experiences of Victory in Europe Day and Victory over Japan Day celebrations in Lincoln and travelling to Pomigliano d’Arco to bring soldiers back from Italy. Post-war he was a salesman, selling ‘Newnes Pictorial Knowledge’, type-writers, appliances and electrical spares.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Emma Bonson
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:52:21 audio recording
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.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AParkinsH150605
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Germany
Italy
England--London
England--Lincolnshire
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-05-08
1945
aircrew
bombing
crash
crewing up
fear
flight engineer
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
mid-air collision
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
sanitation
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/159/1992/LParkinsH1891679v1.2.pdf
276900754f39dfa9ed3aa80a655cd108
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
Parkins, Harry
H W Parkins
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. Two oral history interviews with Harry Parkins (891679 Royal Air Force), his logbook, identity card and one photograph. Harry Parkins was a flight engineer with 630 Squadron and 576 Squadron and flew 30 night time and 17 daylight operations from RAF Fiskerton and RAF East Kirkby.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Parkins and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Harry Parkins' flight engineer log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LParkinsH1891679v1
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
Belgium--Antwerp
Belgium--Kortrijk
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Suffolk
France--Mimoyecques
France--Grandcamp-Maisy
France--Creil
France--Amiens
France--Annecy
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
France--Caen
France--Chalindrey
France--Châtellerault
France--Donges
France--Étampes (Essonne)
France--Givors
France--Joigny
France--Nevers
France--Paris
France--Pommeréval
France--Saumur
France--Tours
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Munich
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wesseling
Germany
France
Belgium
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-05-09
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-04
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-25
1945-04-29
1945-04-30
1945-05-02
1945-05-03
1945-05-05
1945-05-11
1945-05-26
1945-09-12
1945-09-29
1945-10-01
1945-10-10
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training and operational career Sergeant Harry Parkins from 20 December 1943 to March 1954. He flew in Stirling, Lancaster, Anson, C-47, Lancastrian, Valetta, Lincoln. Harry Parkins flew 47 operations - 30 night operations and 17 daylight operations - with 630 Squadron and 576 Squadron, including six for operation Manna, plus five for operation Dodge. Includes details on bombing on targets in France, Germany and Belgium: Paris-Juvisy, Paris-La Chapelle, Brunswick, Munich, Annecy. Burg Leopold, Amiens, Kiel, Antwerp, St Valery, Saumer, Maisy, Caen, Balleroy, Etampes, Beauvoir, Wesseling, Pommereval, Mimoyecques, Chalindrey, Nevers, Thiverny, Courtrai, Donges, Givors, Stuttgart, Cahagnes, Joigny, Trossy St Maximin, St Leu, Chattellerault. His pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Jackson, Flying Officer Lennon and Pilot Officer Fry.
148 Squadron
1657 HCU
199 Squadron
50 Squadron
576 Squadron
630 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
mid-air collision
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Scampton
RAF Shawbury
RAF Stradishall
RAF Sturgate
RAF Syerston
RAF Upwood
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-3
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/135/2210/AAndersonG161122.1.mp3
03ac4949566b3044c9098c0739cca874
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
Anderson, George
G Anderson
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with George Anderson (1592437 Royal Air Force).
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by George Anderson and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Anderson, G
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean McCartney. The interviewee is George Anderson. The interview is taking place at Mr Anderson’s home in Murwillumbah, Northern New South Wales on the 22nd of November 2016. Ok George. Let’s start at the beginning, 1925.
GA: Yeah.
JM: You were born in —
GA: Hartlepool.
JM: Hartlepool. Hartlepool.
GA: County Durham.
JM: County Durham.
GA: England.
JM: In England. Yes. And did you spend, is that where you lived then for the next few —
GA: I lived in Holden Colliery.
JM: Right.
GA: And I was there until I went in to the forces.
JM: Right. And that, what, what —
GA: That was in —
JM: 19 —
GA: 1943.
JM: ’43.
GA: Yeah.
JM: And what, was that the air force in —
GA: I volunteered for aircrew.
JM: Aircrew.
GA: I went before I was eighteen and I volunteered. Went to County, Durham which is the capital of the county and I came back and told my mother I’d volunteered and she said, ‘You can’t go. You’re not eighteen.’ I said, ‘I volunteered for aircrew and they’ve taken me.’ So that was it.
JM: Right.
GA: And of course I went April or something late. You know, they called me up later.
JM: Right.
GA: I had a three day test. I’ve forgotten the name of the town I had to go to for medicals, everything. And that was it.
JM: Right. And that was 1943.
GA: Yes. And then I went to ACRC. Air Crew Recruiting Centre at Lord’s.
JM: Goodness.
GA: The cricket ground.
JM: Yeah.
GA: And that’s where we did our drill. I was there, I was there an extended period because we were doing drill with rifles and I fell over. The bloke in front of me fell and I fell over him. Damaged my right arm. It was twisted. And I was there a few weeks longer in hospital and having treatment. And then went on to oh I thought I’d written that down. I can’t remember where I went to next.
JM: That’s ok. Right. So the, lets — you did schooling though before obviously you went into your, right, before you enlisted. So, which school did you go to?
GA: Oh I went to, I was just elementary and I finished school at fourteen and worked in a grocery store. My parents couldn’t afford to. You had to pay to go to High School in those days and they couldn’t afford to. So I finished school at fourteen.
JM: That’s right. Because I presume that was crossing over part of the Depression years.
GA: Yes. Yes. Oh heck, the Depression. I remember that. You got a penny a week to spend and that was it.
JM: Very tough.
GA: Yes.
JM: Yes. And when you then went to this next lot of training was that for what were you doing, were you doing?
GA: Radio, at Initial Training Wing, ITW.
JM: Yeah.
GA: And then after that it was Radio School.
JM: Radio School. And —
GA: Radio School. I was there for a long time. Radio School.
JM: So did you do wireless operator training?
GA: Yes. Yes.
JM: Right.
GA: Yeah. Yeah. Well you started off I think you had to pass out at twenty six words a minute and actually we, they got to thirty two which is navy, merchant navy speeds. And I managed to pass all that. If you failed you were put on RT, return training, you know, put back three weeks. And if you failed that — out. So I managed to get through that alright.
JM: Good. Good. And where did you go? Was that, after that was then Number 2 OAFU?
GA: Observer Flying Unit. And that was over near [unclear] I’m sorry I’ve got it in my logbook there.
JM: That’s ok. Do you want me to — ?
GA: Do you want me to go and get it?
JM: Yeah. Ok. We’ll just pause while you get it. Are you alright there?
GA: Yeah. Great [unclear]
[recording paused]
JM: Picking up now we found that you were at the EWS, Madley Wireless School in Herefordshire which is where you got your twenty six words a minute.
GA: Yes.
JM: And from there, as we’ve just seen the next posting was in Milham in Cumberland for the Elementary Flying Training School.
GA: Yes.
JM: So there, that was more training there, and you went on to Avro Ansons there by the looks of this. And then after that you went to Number 10.
GA: OTU.
JM: OTU.
GA: Operational Training Unit.
JM: In, in Berkshire in January 1945.
GA: That was in Wellingtons as well.
JM: And you met Ron Pile, a navigator.
GA: Yes.
JM: And you then all became a bit of a crew then for a little while?
GA: Yeah. Yeeah. Mixed up and you know, you found a bomb aimer and somebody said, ‘Oh yeah, I know a bloke that will do this,’ so we became the crew.
JM: Right. And then that crew, you transferred to Stanton.
GA: Stanton Harcourt.
JM: Harcourt. Ok.
GA: What was that? I can’t remember.
[pause]
GA: Was that heavy conversion?
[pause]
GA: Heavy Conversion Unit, 1668.
JM: Yes. That’s right.
GA: Lancasters, yeah.
JM: Yeah.
GA: We had a skipper there who’d been, he’d been shot down earlier. We were his second crew.
JM: And you started training on high level bombing runs?
GA: Yeah.
JM: At this, in your time there.
GA: Yeah. We were, I mentioned we were up in Scotland when the skipper went back to the elsan, you know, the toilet, put his mask on and went back and the bomb aimer took over. We had no engineer then. We hadn’t got him then. And he got the artificial horizon and the wings mixed up and we went into a spin dive.
JM: Spin dive.
GA: We were up over twenty thousand. And the skipper had to pull himself down over there trying to help. I knew nothing really. The skipper finally got us out at about three thousand feet.
JM: That was in —
GA: That was at Heavy Con. I’ll have it somewhere in here. Yeah. We did, on those Heavy Cons we did cross countries. We did bullseyes and we had a bullseye at Green Park. I remember getting mixed, we got mixed, we got mixed up with the flight of the aircraft going out on the bombing raid. That was another incident. We did a, I did a diversion as well, 5th of the 4th. Did fighter affiliation. Lots of circuits and bumps. Yes.
JM: Right.
GA: I haven’t looked at this for a long time.
JM: Well there you go.
GA: I found it the other day when they asked me some.
JM: Right. And so then —
GA: So from Heavy Con I went to 101 Squadron, Ludford Magna.
JM: Yeah.
GA: And that was about April. April ’45. And from there I did the Manna raid on Rotterdam.
JM: Right.
GA: Rotterdam.
JM: Rotterdam.
GA: Yeah.
JM: And what do you remember of that?
GA: Low level. Very low level. I remember throwing chocolate out to some kids on the rooftop. And I remember Tony the tail gunner said, ‘I want to shoot those bastards.’ And the skipper said, this was the Germans, they still had their guns, you know. We had a pact, more or less with the Germans at the time. And he said, ‘I want to shoot them.’ The skipper said, ‘You’ll not or they’ll have us.’ Had three, three Irishmen in the crew.
JM: Right.
GA: Fighters. And, well we just, the food was in sandbags really. It was just, went over low level over race courses or wherever, or football fields and just opened the bomb doors and swoosh. There were no parachutes.
JM: No. Possibly well you were pretty low level so hopefully —
GA: Oh yes
JM: So —
GA: But very low, housetops. We were supposed to be at five hundred. We used to fly on these and we’d fly with a friend, you know. Try and get as close as possible to them. Amazing.
JM: So —
GA: Does that make any sense?
JM: Yes. So after your Manna raid then did you do any other? Did you then do any other bombing raids after that?
GA: No.
JM: No. No.
GA: I did just [unclear] formation. [unclear] I can’t remember what that was. [unclear]. No. I didn’t do any. I didn’t do a bombing raid.
JM: Right.
GA: As I say I was briefed for Berchtesgaden which was the last one that 101 did and we didn’t go because a good crew came back off leave and they were put in our place and we didn’t go.
JM: Right.
GA: Maybe that’s why I’m here today.
JM: It could well be.
GA: I did bombing, bombing, bombing. They were just, we did practice bombing all the time as well as the bombing. Bad storm. All the equipment out to sea. [unclear] We, I did, oh yes — that was something. We were doing bomb disposals, and we had two engines went u/s. Gee was u/s. That’s unserviceable.
JM: Yeah.
GA: And we had fourteen, fourteen five hundred pounds bombs on. We were getting rid of bombs in Cardigan Bay in Wales. Probably in there. And we had two engines went u/s. I got rid of them by using a nail file on the fuses, got rid of twelve or fourteen. Anyway, we’d two left and the skipper suddenly shouted, ‘George, send an SOS,’ which I did. And then he suddenly said, ‘George, cancel that, I’ve got the engine. Another.’ We’d lost the third engine. He said, ‘Cancel that. I’ve got the second engine going, so we were back to two engines. And we pulled back over the Welsh hills below their level. It was getting dark and should have only been about an hour and twenty minutes. The flight was four hours twenty minutes and when we got back to base, Bardney, they didn’t have Bardney, I don’t know, one of them, and the skipper said, oh they got, he got a message from RT. You couldn’t, RT was radio transmission was only ten miles so that we were within ten miles of base before he was able to talk to base. And he said, they said. ‘Divert to the east coast. There’s a long runway, you’ll get in there.’ And the skipper said, ‘Sorry, I haven’t got enough fuel for that. I’m coming into base.’ We landed. We got to the end of the runway and the other engine caught fire and of course we were out, running like hell anyway. That was [pause] yeah. We had two hang ups, a fire, fuel was low. That was A Flight, 189 Squadron. That was it. And then after that we went [pause] I think, oh we went to Bari on the coast of Italy and we picked up the soldiers who had been fighting there. I think twenty or twenty four soldiers and all their kits bags and everything, and they were packed into the fuselage. The first thing we gave them was a spew bag [laughs] of course. A lot of them used them. And we, we did that via Bardney, Operation Dodge that was.
JM: And that, that was in 19 —
GA: 1945. And that was September.
JM: September 1945.
GA: September ’45.
JM: Right.
GA: On the squadron. Oh the August ’45 was when we had the trouble with the engines and the time dropping bombs. Dropping, empty, you know finished bombs. Diffused bombs. Bari. Dodge from Bari to, direct, there was an eight hour trip.
JM: That was to Italy.
GA: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
GA: And then Bari to Bardney, seven hour thirty. I think I did two of them. Dodge to Bari, that was again, that was October, and then we were there five days and then Bari to base. Manston and Tuddenham, eight hours ten minutes.
JM: So you were actually were five days at Bari base?
GA: In Bari. Yes. Yeah.
JM: Right.
GA: I don’t know why we were. Weather or something. The navigator, Ron Pile, his brother was over the opposite side of Italy and he went off because of the weather. We’d been, we were, the flight was scrubbed to get back to England. And he went off to see his brother who was over on the west coast. And of course we got word to take off so we had to get another navigator. He got back home and got away with it. We were eight days. On the 21st was our first flight to Bari and that was the 21st and on the 29th we came back. On one of those occasions Ron skipped it. And when we got back home they told him, ‘Off you go. You’re on leave.’ Based at Bardney. Based Tuddenham. And I think that was when, that was when the last flight, October 23rd, I flew to Tuddenham. We flew and left the aircraft there. That was finished, no longer.
JM: No longer.
GA: No longer flying. We were grounded.
JM: Right. So then that [pause] but you weren’t actually discharged at that point?
GA: Oh no.
JM: You went on and —
GA: I did stores. Went in to stores. So —
JM: Whereabouts was that?
GA: It’s in there, it’ll be in there somewhere, sorry.
JM: Hold on. I’ll just check.
GA: Sorry.
JM: No. That’s ok [pause] Woolsington in Northumberland.
GA: Yes. Yeah. That was, I wasn’t far from home, that’s right.
JM: Right, right. And then after that you got moved up to Montrose?
GA: Yes.
JM: Right.
GA: I was a warrant officer, I think.
JM: Right.
GA: By then.
JM: So, that was all in August. And in 1947 you finally, at that stage you’d moved to Kirkham.
GA: Yeah.
JM: And Group 54. And you were finally released in ’47.
GA: Yeah. Married in ’47. I had about three or four of my air crew there as well, at my wedding. Our wedding.
JM: Yeah. That’s good.
GA: Sixty nine years ago.
JM: Yes. A long time. A long time. And then, and then I see from these notes that you, then you were working with your father. He bought a business.
GA: Yes. He bought a business.
JM: And you were working with him.
GA: Working for him. Then in ’49 I bought a small business in Sunderland. Retail.
JM: Retail business.
GA: Business.
JM: Yeah.
GA: There was still rationing then, of course in England.
JM: Absolutely.
GA: And I was there until 19, it was right outside the pit. The coal mine, you know, across the road was the coal mines in Southwick, Sunderland.
JM: Right.
GA: And I was there. My navigator came over and stayed with us and talked all about Australia. He’d come out here. He was from London but came out to Australia and talked about migrating. Kept on and on and on —
JM: And what was your navigator’s name?
GA: Ron Pile.
JM: Oh that’s Ron Pile again. Yes. Yes.
GA: Betty’s uncle who lived in Murwillumbah was, had come over to England and he came himself.
JM: So was Betty, she was English —
GA: She lived in Horden. We lived behind the park.
JM: Yeah, that’s right, but you said her uncle. So, what, one of her father’s or mother’s brothers had migrated, had they?
GA: He’d migrated.
JM: Right.
GA: And he came and he talked about Australia. Wonderful place. And we signed up. Went and got the papers.
JM: Became a ten pound pom.
GA: Three months we were given. Couldn’t sell the business in that time.
JM: No.
GA: So we had cousins, ‘Would you sell the business?’ And that was it. We were gone. And we had, our daughter was eleven and our son was nine and that was it. We decided we were going.
JM: Going.
GA: And we sailed from England on our wedding anniversary, 19th of July 1959.
JM: Right.
GA: That was it. The best thing that ever happened.
JM: Yeah.
GA: Came straight to Murwillumbah.
JM: Well I was going to say that was the Murwillumbah connection, because of Betty’s uncle being here.
GA: Yes.
JM: Right. Right.
GA: The original sponsor was Betty’s cousin. The daughter of my uncle.
JM: Yeah.
GA: But they went to Keir Lucas who was a prominent member of an accountants’ in town. Went for a [unclear] test and he was president of Rotary and he said, ‘Let us take over. We’ve got a ship coming out on the 19th of July. All Rotary sponsored.’ So that was it and we were just shew, shew.
JM: Connections as they say, connections.
GA: It wasn’t a favour or anything. It was just he wanted somebody to do for, you know for Rotary.
JM: Yeah.
GA: They wanted more people from England on this ship and Rotary were sponsoring everybody.
JM: Excellent.
GA: And we had a, we got on board and we met, anyway, I’ve forgot her name. She lives here. Rose Boyd. She was coming back after a holiday in England. She got on, she was on board the same ship but she was paying her way. Well [pause] so she was a cane farmer’s wife. He had a cane farm here in Murwillumbah and of course Betty got to know her. We were six, six weeks on board.
JM: Yes. It was a slight —
GA: We sailed so that we arrived in Brisbane for their anniversary. For their hundred in ‘59 they were, that was their hundred birthday of Brisbane.
JM: Right.
GA: And of course we were delayed in Adelaide, Not Adelaide. Perth. We met English people in Perth. In Sydney met Ron. Five of us on the, no, seven of us on the beach at Bondi. August 25th. Nobody else, mid-winter and there we were.
JM: Sunning yourself.
GA: Enjoying it.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
GA: Amazing.
JM: Amazing. Yeah. So when the boat came did you — you docked in Perth.
GA: Perth.
JM: And then did you continue on the boat round?
GA: Yeah.
JM: Oh ok. Right.
GA: Right around.
JM: Right. And so you docked in Sydney as well did you, did you say?
GA: Melbourne.
JM: Melbourne and Sydney.
GA: Sydney. And then up to Brisbane.
JM: And then to Brisbane.
GA: Delayed in Sydney so that we that arrived for the hundredth anniversary.
JM: Right. Ok.
GA: In Brisbane.
JM: And so from then on —
GA: And Rotary met us in Brisbane.
JM: And then to here, right. It’s unusual that. It must have been because Rotary were organising it.
GA: Yeah.
JM: That it happened that way because that wasn’t the normal sort of.
GA: No.
JM: A lot of people tended go in to Melbourne and get offloaded in Melbourne and came —
GA: Yeah. Yeah.
JM: If they were coming to New South Wales they were on trains from Melbourne up to Sydney.
GA: Yeah.
JM: So that was —
GA: It was all organised through Rotary.
JM: Rotary. Yeah. That’s very interesting. So you got into Murwillumbah in, what?
GA: August.
JM: Late August.
GA: Yeah.
JM: Late August 1959 and you’ve been here ever since.
GA: This cousin lived in River Street and that banana festival which has just been. They drove us, came round to, Betty said, ‘I want to live there,’ pointed to the houses, in. They said, ‘Oh no. This is snob hill.’ Next door was the Withies who owned the saw mill. There was the manager of the, or something or other, doctor, solicitors. It was expensive housing. Two years later, February 1962 I knew somebody who said, ‘Yeah. My mother’s just died and the house is for sale.’ And that was it. I said, ‘Right. We’ll have it.’ It was an old dilapidated house and I was a do it yourself man.
JM: You did it up and yes, marvellous. Magnificent view as you come. Magnificent view. So what did you do, did you do when you, what sort of, did you get into retailing again here or — ?
GA: Yes, the chap that was president of Rotary. They brought us down. He gave me a job. He was the radio and wireless man, and television man in Queen Street, Murwillumbah, gave me a job. I was there a few weeks. And then another Rotarian took me on I was in a grocery shop for a few weeks. And then another Rotarian [unclear] studios. They took me as a, and taught me photography. And that was, I’ll tell you in a minute his name, and I was there for two years. I was photographing for the, for him, for weddings and so forth and also for the newspaper. So I was travelling up to [unclear] and Southport getting these photos of celebrities. And then bringing them back, develop the film and getting them into the newspaper by 5 o’clock, had to be develop and printed, 5 o’clock was the deadline. And I did that for three years. And I did a little bit of photography on my own as well. And then I went into the advertising side, side of the newspaper. And then became advertising manager. And then went and had a heart attack and retired and that was it.
JM: So, I presume that you became a member of Rotary?
GA: No. No.
JM: You didn’t? Oh. Ok.
GA: I was a member of Lions.
JM: Lions, right.
GA: I joined that in 1970.
JM: Right.
GA: And I was a member until 2010.
JM: Right.
GA: Forty years. And although I travelled, as you can see, I travelled the world. No matter where we went I went to a Lions meeting. Never missed meetings. You know, it was always. That was me.
JM: Yes.
GA: And I was always active, active. I stayed active. As you can see, all these tapestries. I did that in my spare time.
JM: You did the tapestries.
GA: All of them.
JM: Goodness me.
GA: I didn’t watch television. I listened and I did my tapestries. I’ve got one now I’m trying to finish.
JM: Yes, amazing.
GA: Chairs. Cushions.
JM: Cushions.
GA: You know.
JM: What lead you to tapestry?
GA: When I had the heart attack.
JM: Right.
GA: Betty was doing tapestry and I was in hospital and they brought this tapestry in. That was it.
JM: That’s it.
GA: I had to do something.
JM: Had to do something because —
GA: I’m a doer.
JM: You’re a doer and you couldn’t just be lying there in bed.
GA: No. No.
JM: Doing nothing.
GA: Which is what I do now. I do nothing now.
JM: I don’t know that that’s such a bad thing in some respects given where you’re at now but —
GA: I’ve got to have this all the time now.
JM: Right.
GA: For my ticker.
JM: Ticker, yeah.
GA: It flares up.
JM: Yeah.
GA: Well, I guess I’m lucky.
JM: Yeah. And did you, I’m guessing that the decision to come to Australia was not one that you’ve ever regretted?
GA: No way. Best thing that ever happened. And the children are, as I say Brenda was eleven and Barry was nine on the day we went to Bondi Beach. He wanted to go to Bondi Beach. He was nine year old. Our daughter lives in [pause] near Tamworth, Manilla, near Tamworth.
JM: Right.
GA: And our son lives at Hastings Point.
JM: Oh ok. So that’s not too far away.
GA: It was a beach house. Brought a block of land, yeah. Frank Cook, the President of Rotary that brought us down and gave us me first job, he said, ‘George, there’s a block of land next door to me. Well, next door but one and it’s going for a hundred and thirty pounds. I suggest you buy it.’ We did. And then in ’79 we bought a house that had got to be moved from Kingston. We bought that and it was cut in two and moved on to the block. We gave that to our son about ten years ago. And this is our daughters so —
JM: Right. Yeah.
GA: Two happy kids.
JM: Yes.
GA: They love the country.
JM: Love the country, yes.
GA: Our daughter went on to the uni and was in the department. I don’t know. One of the departments. Our son, on top of the world and he became a photographer.
JM: So followed in your steps there, initial steps I suppose you might say into the photography side of things, yeah.
GA: Yeah.
JM: And what contact did you maintain? You mentioned that you’d seen Ron Pile.
GA: Yes.
JM: A couple of times.
GA: Brought my second bomb aimer Ken Heaton. They were over there in England and we saw them. [unclear] near Blackpool. We saw them each time we went over. It was good.
JM: Sorry, that was Ken.
GA: Ken Heaton.
JM: Heaton.
GA: He was the bomb aimer. He died about ten years ago.
JM: Right.
GA: I still kept in contact with his wife. I’ve got the name of him there.
JM: Yeah.
GA: You know, I contact her especially at Christmas.
JM: And so it sounds as though all of your crew were, were English?
GA: Yes.
JM: There were no ringings on any of your crew.
GA: No. Irish. Three Irish.
JM: Apart from the Irish but, you know.
GA: Tony. I used to visit Tony when we went over and then when he died I visited his wife. Lofty was our mid-upper. Lost contact with him. Our first bomb aimer, he was, after the war in Europe finished he went back to the west coast of Ireland where he lived. And that was it. He was a policeman. My engineer, he was a pilot. Larry. I lost contact with him. We just, you know. He was a Geordie but we didn’t. He was ok but we didn’t keep in contact.
JM: Contact. No. No.
GA: But the navigator who was the first one I met and crewed up with, you know we met and we decided to be in the same crew. He’s dead now. He had Alzheimer’s.
JM: And which, that wasn’t Ron was it?
GA: That was Ron Pile.
JM: That was Ron.
GA: He lived in Sydney.
JM: Right.
GA: He lived in Sydney.
JM: In Sydney. Yeah.
GA: He was up here once or twice.
JM: And what — just sort of backtracking a little bit. What would you say would perhaps be one of your best memories of your leave or something like that during your postings? Is there any particular event stands out when you were on leave at any time? Anything particularly that —
GA: I think whenever I went on leave — Betty was a nurse in Sunderland Royal Infirmary.
JM: Right.
GA: And of course there was always, I’d get home and she’d be on duty. So I’d go along [whistle] and they’d give Betty the message that, you know, ‘George is out the front,’ of the nurse’s quarters. She’d say, ‘Sorry I’m not off for another two hours.’ You know. And that was it. I mean being at home and trying to be at home together was difficult.
JM: Very difficult.
GA: Because there was always casualties there. And later on, of course when the prisoners of war were coming back from Germany and that, the wounded, she was very busy.
JM: So she nursed a lot of those chaps.
GA: Yes. Yes. And of course I remember the work in England before. I remember the bombing, you know. We were bombed. That was before I joined up. The north east of course got a hammering. I just know that I always had problems going home on leave wondering if Betty would be there or not. You know, if she was working that was it.
JM: Yeah.
GA: You’d have to get a bus. No transport. Later I had, my dad had a van, a little Ford van. I used to borrow that when I was stationed at Newcastle. Travelled down to see her and, you know.
JM: And, in terms of squadron reunions were there any?
GA: No.
JM: No real squadron reunions.
GA: No. No.
JM: At any time. Or anything like that?
GA: No.
JM: And I guess.
GA: Well —
JM: Once you were out of here of course there wasn’t any.
GA: There were squadron reunions you know but I didn’t get. I couldn’t get to them. You know.
JM: That was what, before you came, emigrated or after?
GA: Before.
JM: Obviously you know it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be until in much later in life that you would have been able to get back to any of the —
GA: I was in the Air Training Corps and in the RAF Association but I can’t remember ever being notified of reunions.
JM: Right.
GA: I mean, now I get the Air Mail or Reveille and it’s in there all the time, you know. Reunions.
JM: Yeah.
GA: But I can’t remember or recollect any at the time.
JM: So obviously in terms of out here in, you know, Northern New South Wales there really wouldn’t have been any Bomber Command connections.
GA: There is one up in Surfers Paradise.
JM: Surfers Paradise, right.
GA: But I haven’t managed to get to it.
JM: Right. Right.
GA: No.
JM: That’s all good. And what [pause] what other memories stand out for you from the war period. Anything in particular or just, anything?
GA: No. I’m sorry I’m, I’m just —
JM: No. That’s alright. It’s just, I guess so much of the time was so difficult really. I mean that’s part of the thing.
GA: Yeah, I remember that we always, as a crew, we did everything together.
JM: Yes.
GA: We were, you know, seven of us.
JM: Yeah.
GA: That was it, didn’t give a bugger about anybody else. We, when we went out the aircraft we had, we had bicycles and I think the skipper had a motorbike. We’d have a rope from the motorbike and he’d be, he’d tow us out to the aircraft. We, of course the skipper got promoted to flying officer and we went, in the hut, you were always there, six of you together. Nobody else mattered.
JM: Well, that was.
GA: I mean, that was over the year we were like that. We would go out in the evening. I can’t remember how we got out. Bus or something. All went together, stayed together, went to the pubs together. I used to drink then. And that was it. We were so close. I remember one occasion Tony said, ‘Come here,’ and he got up on to my shoulders to stand beside the traffic lights and he was going dah dah de dah. You can believe it. But that’s —
JM: A bit of a humorous there by the sounds of it.
GA: Yes. Yes. We were pretty, yeah, good.
JM: Pretty good. That’s right.
GA: A good crew.
JM: A good crew.
GA: Yeah.
JM: And of course that’s very much contrasted by all the times you’ve had in Murwillumbah and a very different lifestyle. Very different opportunities.
GA: Yes. Well, I’ve been in different organisations. I was in the Lodge, a Mason, Lions. Now I’m in Legacy. I look after old ladies. They’re all younger than me. All wives of ex-servicemen. Go to [Provost] with Betty. [unclear] That’s my biggest worry.
JM: That’s right. Well that’s all.
GA: Is that enough?
JM: That’s good. Yes.
GA: That’s enough?
JM: That’s enough. Thank you, George. That’s magnificent.
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Interview with George Anderson
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AAndersonG161122
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2016-11-22
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00:49:33 audio recording
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Sound
Description
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George Anderson was born in County Durham and worked in a grocery shop before he joined the Royal Air Force in 1943. He flew operations as a wireless operator at the end of the war, with 101 Squadron from RAF Ludford Magna. In 1959 George and his family began a new life in Australia.
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Lincolnshire
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1945
10 OTU
101 Squadron
1668 HCU
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Ludford Magna
sanitation
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/105/2223/PAmbroseBG1618.2.jpg
08822ee693f7c9b8469d8499f4ed0e5b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/105/2223/AAmbroseBG160629.1.mp3
1a62c9696c9bb6097db0beeb806bb242
Dublin Core
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Title
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Ambrose, Basil
B G Ambrose
Basil G Ambrose
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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2016-06-29
Description
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18 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Basil George Ambrose (1923 – 2016, 1604870 Royal Air Force), his log book, a page from his service book and 15 photographs. Basil Ambrose was a flight engineer flying Lancasters with 467 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force from RAF Waddington between September 1944 and March 1945 and with 617 Squadron from RAF Woodhall Spa.
The collection was been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Basil Ambrose and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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Ambrose, BG
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IBCC Digital Archive
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6 March 1942: Joined RAF as a trainee turner
Posted to RAF Sealand, qualified turner
Posted to RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer training
5 July – 8 September 1944: RAF Swinderby, 1660 HBCU, flying Stirling aircraft
8 September 1944: Promoted to Sergeant
22 – 26 September 1944: RAF Syerston, Lancaster Finishing School, flying Lancaster aircraft
29 September 1944 – 23 March 1945: RAF Waddington, 467 (RAAF) Squadron, flying Lancaster aircraft
Commissioned, promoted to Pilot Officer
November 1945 Promoted to Flying Officer
22 April 1945 – 9 January 1946: RAF Woodhall Spa, 617 Squadron, flying Lancaster aircraft
11 January 1946 – 15 April 1946: Detached with 617 Sqn to Digri, India Command
28 May – 1 July 1946: 617 Squadron RAF Binbrook
October 1946: 1604870 Flying Officer B.G. Ambrose released from Service
<p>Basil George Ambrose was born on 24<sup>th</sup> June 1923 in Derby Street, Reading, the youngest of five children. He attended Wilson Road School near Reading’s football Ground. In 1937, when he was just 14 years old, he left school and took up employment as an apprentice turner at the Pulsometer. He was paid five shillings a week, half of which he had to give back to pay for his indenture training.</p>
<p>Although engineering was a reserve occupation, on 6<sup>th</sup> March 1942, he was able to join the RAF as a trainee turner. On completion of training, he passed out as a Leading Aircraftsman and was posted to RAF Sealand. Whilst there, he applied, and was accepted, for Flight Engineer training at St Athan.</p>
<p>His first ever flight was memorable in that he took the opportunity to join an old family friend (a test pilot at St Athan) who was taking a Beaufighter up for an air test. While airbourne over the Bristol Channel he witnessed a long line of merchant ships, all nose to tail as far as the eye could see, the ships were readying for the for the D Day landings.</p>
<p>On 7the June 1944, he completed his Flight Engineer training and joined the HBCU at RAF Swinderby, before moving on to the Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston. In September 1944, Sergeant Ambrose and his crew, now fully trained, joined 467 Squadron (RAAF) at RAF Waddington. </p>
<p>On just his second operational flight, tasked with destroying enemy field guns in Holland, his aircraft had to drop below the cloud base at just 4000 feet. Almost immediately, the aircraft alongside them was hit by ack-ack and went down in flames. Basil’s aircraft returned safely, but the mission ended in failure.</p>
<p>Just over a fortnight later, his first ever night operation proved even more eventful, one they were all very fortunate to survive. En-route to Brunswick, a fire in the cabin set alight the blackout curtains surrounding the pilot and navigator. Basil had to use two extinguishers to put out the fire. The events caused significant delay and at their estimated time of arrival on target, they were still approximately 40 miles away. By the time they got there all the other aircraft had gone through and were on their way home. Basil’s aircraft was now completely alone over the target and although they were able to drop their bombs successfully, the aircraft was illuminated by a whole cone of search lights from the ground, plus an enemy fighter aircraft was fast coming in from the port side. The skipper took evasive action by immediately putting the aircraft into a 5000 feet dive and Basil found himself pinned to the cabin ceiling by the ‘G’ force; conversely when the aircraft pulled out of the dive, he was forced down to the cabin floor. The evasive manoeuvre was repeated one more time before they managed to lose the searchlights and the fighter. The trip home was conducted at low level without further alarm. In all, Basil and his crew went on to record thirty operations together. </p>
<p>After 467 Squadron, Basil was commissioned as a Pilot Officer and was posted to 617 Squadron in April 1945. He was never to fly operationally again although with 617 Squadron he served for a brief period in Digri, India. Basil reached the rank of Flying Officer and was demobbed in 1948.</p>
<p>Basil returned to the Pulsometer and finally qualified as a turner. After a short period working in Birmingham, he settled in Reading with his wife Jean and two children. He continued to work in engineering, eventually moving into the engineering safety field. He retired from his final position of Chief Safety Advisor for Greater London Council in 1981.<a href="https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/war-veteran-still-swing-90-4802178"></a></p>
Chris Cann
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today we are in Tilehurst, near Reading, and the date is 29th of June 2016 and we are talking to Basil George Ambrose of 267 Squadron about his experiences in the war and we’ve also got here together with us Christine Parkes, his daughter. So Basil, what are the earliest recollections you have on life and tell us from there?
BA: First may I correct you?
CB: Yes—
BA: 617 Squadron —
CB: oh 617 Squadron —
CP: And 467, and 467.
BA: I was in — I’ll carry on then —
CB: Yes. OK. 617. Fire.
BA: We‘ll start with my birth—
CB: Yes, yeah, yeah —
BA: in Derby Street, Reading,
CB: Yes —
BA: on 24th of the sixth 1923. Well, you’ve got all that haven’t you? Sorry. And I was fifth, if you like, but my father was married twice. He had, he was a fine man who’d seen the war and had a wife that became [unclear]. She had four children with him. Horace was the eldest, no beg pardon, Doris was the eldest, Horace was next and they were both born in 1910, one at the beginning and one at the end. And Graham was next. She was, er, no — anyway Bernard was the last and it was 1915. But my father was brought back from the trenches [unclear]. He was in the Royal Ordinance, no, Royal Army Service Corps. So he was surprised in other words and he was sent home to put his family together when his wife left the children. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, I suppose. But anyway, he did a very, very good job of putting them together. He left them in charge of his mother, who was a very strict disciplinarian, and they saw the war through. But of course, he had to find somebody [unclear] to love and look after his children, which was my mum, and I was born in 1923. And the first memories I have in Waverley Road is of a doctor calling for, I don’t know for what reason. And we had seven Alsatians in a very nice wooden kennel, if you like, big, big kennel, and you could go in there and I grabbed the Doctor following me (Doctor Milne was our doctor for many, many, years) and diving in there was seven Alsatian puppies and they were all over me. So that was one of my best memories. And my other memory is, the garden was surrounded with cages of rabbits, rats, chickens [unclear]. It was, what you’d call it? A menagerie and most of them liked by the older children. I was too young to appreciate it. I suppose I can think, I was about, I must have been about the age of four when we moved to Waverley Road, in West Reading. In a big five-bedroom house, which was very, very suitable for a lot of jokes and pranks. I can even remember climbing on the roof out of the attic ‘cause my younger brother Gerald, who was the only other child of my mother, he was about four years younger than me and, can we stop for a second? And yes we had lots of fun there. I remember we were in an attic, Gerald and I, and we shared the same bed. I had an uncle who was looked after by my mother, her brother in fact, her eldest brother, and he used to work at the AEC in Southall and caught a very early train. So he used to get up very early and go to bed when he came home to ‒ and always had his curry [laugh]. [background noises] The er — Yes, so, I’m lost.
CB: Caught his train.
BA: Yes, yes. Very early train up to [Ealing]. The story is, my brother Gerald came running along the passageway to the end bedroom where I was, I suppose, and Uncle Harry came out, because he, having woken up having worked all night, and slapped Gerald across the face, which was not very good really. But anyway, these are snippets of memories, I suppose. And the other thing that is my brother Horace was a real prankster. We had a, my mother had a, er, Mongol, Mongolian, do you’d call it?
CP: Mongol.
BA: Mongol sister. She was a very, very, nice person. She used to nurse me and look after me but Horace took advantage of her. He used to invite friends in and then go and get a kitchen knife and give it to her and say ‘go and fight them’ you see and she knew exactly. She would be going in the room saying ‘Nicky, nicky, nicky’ [slight laugh] and mainly they were his friends of course and they would jump out of the window, on the ground floor of course. The memories come flooding back. The other thing is, my eldest brother had a very, very nice bicycle, a racing bike, which he gave to me when he went in the Navy. ‘Cause my Dad decided that it was going to be too much for my Mum to look after four of them, me and when Gerald was coming along I think that was the trigger that caused the break-up of the family. So, where are we now? Yes, the garden was walled all the way round. There was a greenhouse at the bottom with a storage room next door to it. There was an alleyway that went right round the back of the houses in Beecham Road. We could get over that wall into this alleyway, although we didn’t have a right of way. Everybody else did. Because we were at the end, we were not on the right of way. And I used to hop over and go into Beecham Road that way. The other thing I remember are the things that Dad made for me. He made me a beautiful pedal car and other things like that, he was very good. He was the stage manager at The Palace Theatre, Reading, by the way, and was there from 1906, away from the war of course, the Great War, and he used to get complimentary tickets which he could swap with people like the Reading Football Ground. They had given him a season ticket which I could use on occasions.
CB: So, where did you go to school?
BA: Wilson Road, Wilson Road School, which was right by the football ground. The top of Wilson Road came out by the football ground and then it was up Wantage Hill to the top of Waverley Road, left to Prospect Park and right to our house, 137.
CB: What age did you leave school?
BA: Fourteen. Fourteen. I wasn’t very good. A sickly boy, I think. I had, what do you call it? Bronchial catarrh. I suppose I was kept at home on more than one occasion. And the other thing I remember is having a friend, Dick Chandler, whose father had a post office at the bottom of Norcot Road and the Oxford Road. Quite a busy post office and grocery shop as well, and he was able to tell me what to do for [laugh] getting out (well I didn’t get the buckshee) to go in and tell the lady, Miss Bacon (a nice little lady with a tiny little shop opposite the school), ‘Tell her you put a penny in the chewing gum machine and you couldn’t get anything out’. So she used to give you — she gave me [emphasis] this chewing gum, but of course it was found out, obviously I got caught, and I had to pay for it, go and apologise. Fair enough. I don’t think it crossed my mind [laugh] the way I misled her, I suppose. And the other occasion was my brother Horace had a very, very good catapult which he allowed me to borrow one day so I take it to school and I was showing off, I suppose I was boasting really. Dick said ‘let me have a go with it’. Just coming out of school. I said ‘No, no. We’ll get into trouble’. Sure enough he managed to persuade me. He got himself a stone and fired it over towards the [unclear] back gardens and I heard a crash, and obviously a window being broken. Probably it wouldn’t have been found out but for the fact the caretaker’s house was right by the playground and he’d seen us do it. We were — So we had six each, six strokes of the cane. We had the catapult confiscated. I paid for the window. It was any amount of punishment. My dad was a bit furious about this, thought it had gone over the top. I should have been punished but within reason, which was justifiable, I suppose.
CB: You left school at fourteen. What did you do then?
BA: I went to the Pulsometer. I got a job, an apprenticeship, as a turner. That was 1937 and you had to pay, pay for this, these indentures, and the only thing I could do was pay half crown a week. I got five shillings a week pay and I paid half a crown a week for the indentures. It was a good training, very good training. I went — And it was very beneficial to me in the finish because when I was called up (and this is jumping the gun, sorry, let me go back). I did try to get in to the ‒ I went to get into the Navy and they said ‘You’re too young.’ then I was told by the firm I was in a reserved occupation. I was quite useful to them really because I’d already got about, how many years’ experience? Two and a half years’, three years’ probably experience, in training. It was good training. [Pause] Oh yes, yes, yes, when you had the call up everybody had to do it, at the age of eighteen? And they saw I was in a reserve occupation and wouldn’t be able to go and the officer, he was an RAF officer, who was interviewing, he said ‘Well you can,’ he said, ‘come in in your own trade and then remuster when you’re there to what you want to do’. Which was a great benefit to me because I went in May ’42? (I can’t read it.) Yes, it was May ’42 when I went in. I’m jumping a bit like a frog.
CB: It’s OK.
BA: One of the first persons I met at Cardigan, Cardigan [coughs] where new recruits had to go first of all and get the uniforms [unclear]
CB: Was it Cardington?
BA: Cardington. Yep.
CB: Right
BA: Well, the first person I should meet, because you had to go and get your hair cut, was Johnny Good, my barber —
CB: [laugh] —
BA: from Tilehurst and, er, [slight laugh] ‘cause you get sent back immediately on the next parade by the sergeant ‘go and get your hair cut’. Well this would go on several times but Johnny just said ‘Don’t take any notice of him, you’re alright’ he said to me and I didn’t, and it was perfectly all right. But anyway, [pause] so where am I?
CB: So, you’re at Cardington and you’re getting kitted out and getting your hair cut.
BA: Yes, I suppose yes, and then going on to do the square bashing at Skegness was the first place and then to Weeton, in-between Preston and Blackpool, and there as a turner, a trainee turner, and I took a trade test and passed out with flying colours and the only person who did it like that was another man from the Pulsometer. Which made me feel it was one of the best training schemes there was and although he wasn’t an apprentice like I was, he was a, what they call a shop boy, much the same, he did exactly the same as I did really. But it was good training. Started off very small, drilling, and working your way up to big machines, and then, as I say, when war was declared I became an instructor for the dilutees [emphasis] that came in. People were needed for the trades during the war. Pulsometer made a lot of pumps. Still going by the way, still there, Sigmund Pulsometer Pumps. Still around. [pause]
CB: So, you’ve just done your trade training —
BA: Oh yes —
CB: and that’s all on the ground, so then what?
BA: I passed out as a LAC [emphasis].
CB: Ah!
BA: Ah! And so instead of getting two shillings a day I was getting six and six a day. I always allowed my mum a shilling a day allowance —
CB: Yep.
BA: always right the way through. I can’t remember when I stopped it. I think when I got my commission she said I would need it, all my money. I think she turned it down. Anyway, so now I’m trained as a turner. Oh yes, I was posted to Sealand. Because you have to then, of course, have to apply for aircrew and I can’t quite remember quite how I did that but I did it and I had to, I think I did work one machine at Sealand (which was near Chester by the way). It was a very, very pleasant time there, very, very pleasant. Nice river, salmon leap all those sort of things.
CB: So from Sealand, having applied for aircrew, where did they send you?
BA: Well I, first of all, went back ‒ oh I’m missing the other bit out. I first of all went back to ACRC in Regents Park from Sealand, and this is the only time I’d be wearing a white flash. I can’t really remember that bit. Anyway, I must have done and there were, of course, all these people coming in, new recruits, and I was an experienced airman by then. Er — what happened? Oh yes, square bashing again, that was Bridlington [unclear]. So, Bridlington.
CB: Yep. It was an ITW? Initial Training Wing, was it?
BA: Well, I suppose so, but they wouldn’t know that I’d already been —
CB: No, obviously —
BA: trained at Skegness and done square bashing, but there of course was a Sergeant Steele, Flight Sergeant Steele. Blond hair, blond moustache, oh a fine looking chap he was. Not all that tall but a real first class airman. And I was fairly tall myself, not curved like I am now, and I was always their marker? Right marker?
CB: Right marker. Yeah.
BA. So everybody dressed on me. And our squad was right at the back. I don’t know how many squads there were, quite a lot, and I, we were doing the guard march, which you have to do right a bit, then left a bit, always face the front. And the girls were on the pavement right by where we were marching and everyone was far away from us, so I was chatting to the girls and forgot to turn right instead of left a bit [laughs] and so my squad was the only squad going that way and everybody else ‒[laughs]. He called me out to the front. Never, never get called to the front because once they know your name you are for it [laugh]. And every demonstration he wanted, he always called my name. I always had to go out and do it. I was not bad, I couldn’t have been that bad otherwise he wouldn’t have used me as an example. But it was a big, big error, a big mistake. What else? And of course, from there, as I say, to Weeton. At that time they took off the reserved occupation of the police force and the policemen poured into there. I remember these wooden huts, quite nice huts there were really, quite comfortable. I’d be lying awake at night listening to these policemen tell their stories and they were pretty vivid. A lot of them were Metropolitan policemen. And all sorts of things I’d never heard before in my life I heard there. And then from there down to St Athan I suppose. I can’t think of anything else. I went all the way down there [sound of shuffling papers].
CB: Do you want to stop for a mo’?
BA: Thank you.
CB: Now, we were just talking about St Athan. You went to St Athan for your flight engineer training?
BA: Yes.
CB: So what did you do there?
BA: All manner, hydraulics, pneumatics, all of the things I was a bit weak on I suppose, but yes general maintenance of the engines, and we went all over the engines. In fact I went to Woodford in, er, Manchester?
CB: Yep, where they built the Lancasters —
BA: And I had a week there I think. Yes
CB: That’s alright. So how long were you doing your training at St Athan?
AB: Until, until about D Day because the thing that makes me recall this is the fact that a friend of the family’s, Stan Abbot. Stan Abbot. He’d been in the RAF for many, many years. He was a, flight engineer, not a flight engineer, flying officer, no, no, that’s not right —
CP: Don’t worry, we’ll come back.
BA: Tut, terrible, terrible. Anyway he was a test pilot at St Athan, because they maintained aircraft as well there. He was going to take a Beaufighter up to test it and said would I like to go up with him, which I did [laugh], much to my chagrin, because I was stood behind his seat and he would throw this Beaufighter all over the sky. I could feel the G forces forcing me down on the seat. And then whilst we were doing this it was over the Bristol Channel, I had a chance to see, there was a line of ships, merchant ships [cough] nose to tail, all the way as far as you could see towards the Bristol Channel, right up — [unclear] it was the Bristol Channel. And right up as far as you could see the other way as well. So I realised that something was on but didn’t know what. [Pause]. Anyway, that was my first experience of flight, realising that something was going to go on soon, and what happened then? I was posted to ‒
CB: Is that when you went to the HCU at Swinderby, straight after that, or did they send you somewhere else?
BA: Somewhere else. Did I go somewhere else? That was right. Yes, that’s right. You go in as a second engineer. And you spent some time ‒ it’s in the log book, isn’t it? Spend some time, with different crews and that’s when I say that Shirley [?] asked me if I’d join them [unclear] can’t see it, and then yes 5 LFS Syerston yes, the next one, and that’s when I got ‒ still not got a pilot’s licence. That’s the squadron. I thought we had a few weeks. That is [emphasis] it. Does that look familiar? LFS? Lancaster —
CB: Lancaster Finishing School. Right, so you went to Syerston, to the Lancaster Finishing School before you—
BA: Where did I go for the —
CB: HCU? Did you go to the HCU first?
BA: Swinderby. Yep, Syerston and Swinderby. Yep. Ok, 1660 HCU.
CB: OK.
BA: OK [unclear]
CB: Right, so you are now part of the crew because of the HCU. What happened at the HCU? What did you tend to do when you were at the HCU Basil?
BA: This was the, did I say Stirlings?
CB: Yeah.
BA: Did I say Stirlings [papers shuffling]
CP: Do you want a break?
CB: We’ll have a break while you’re following that.
BA: Fred Ward in the bed next to me.
CB: This is the HCU.
BA: Yes HCU, and he was already an engineer so he had been there some time and I was the second engineer. And, they’d obviously, they’d obviously got some trouble with the undercarriage and he was winding it down and there was a pilot error so I understand, and he was killed. He was killed. As I say, he was in the bed next to me and we used to chat together. I remember that he’d told me he’d been up to Lincoln to get some photographs taken. I’ve got one in the album somewhere ‒
CP: Here, don’t worry now —
Ba: Anyway, yes, so his name was Fred —
CB: Fred Ward. This is Stirlings, we’re talking about.
BA: Yes, yes, That’s right. So he was killed at Swinderby and —
CB: Because the pilot made a mistake.
BA: Yes, I think so. I’m not sure that anyone else got killed. It was only because he was winding up the undercarriage I think. Not sure. Anyway, I go into Lincoln and find the photographer who’d taken these pictures. So, I collected them. I get his address, home address, and take them to his family, which I did and they were extremely grateful. They gave me one of the pictures. It’s in the album somewhere. Yes, so very sad that was. Made me hate the Stirling, hated it, but it was supposed to have been one of the best aircraft going except in fact, so they say, is that the wingspan was reduced by a hundred feet to get it in the hangar.
CB: Not a hundred feet but reduced yes, reduced to a hundred feet.
BA: And it spoilt it, I think.
CB: Yes, it couldn’t get any height.
BA: It was good at towing gliders, I think.
CB: Absolutely.
BA: So where am I?
CB: We’re at the HCU.
BA: Did we go somewhere else? No? Yes, we had to pick up the Lancasters didn’t we?
CB: That’s when you went to the Lancaster Conversion Unit. No, Lancaster ‒
BA: LFS.
CB: The Lancaster Flying School.
BA: Yes, OK. That was at Syerston. The first thing I saw there was a Lancaster in the Trent with the engines [unclear]. Must have overshot or didn’t take off properly. Yes, so then we go to Waddington as a crew. Yeah, and I was pleased [emphasis] that the first operation we had was in support of the British Army, which was going up towards Brussels and were being held up by guns on the, by the Walcheren. We were sent to breach the dykes and very successfully. There’s a book by Paul Crooks. Which I’ve got two, I’ve got two of his books. He was a Dutchman. They are Dutch, aren’t they? And he said that they never blamed the crews, never blamed the crews. But we flooded these islands successfully, but it didn’t put the guns out of action because all the guns were on high ground —
CB: Yeah, right —
BA: and so we were sent the following day to go for the guns. So that was our first two raids and both daylight raids and that made me realise that daylight raids were not going to be a sinecure. The pilot was — we flew in formation, I believe. Don’t know why, I’m sure. But the pilot said it was hard work. We got there and the cloud base was lower than forecast. We were supposed not to go below four thousand feet but we dropped down. The cloud base under four thousand feet and almost immediately the plane alongside us was hit by ack-ack and went down in flames. I can’t remember the name of the engineer but I did know him. Anyway, we lost a plane almost immediately it came in sight. But we did have a go at the guns, I think it was unsuccessfully. We could have done [unclear], much better, much easier but the pilots wouldn’t have it. [Cough] We’d not done a very successful job. We didn’t go back there again. The next one was of course was our first night raid, Brunswick, and that one is, as I say, the one we should never [emphasis] ever have survived. First night raid, Brunswick. We had a fire in the G circuit, which caught all the curtains around the navigator and round the plot. The blackout curtains, it caught those alight and I had a go at it with the first, nearest extinguisher and that didn’t put it out. [Cough] Started to get it under control but the bomb aimer was stood by with his extinguisher and gave it to me and we successfully — he had another one eventually but I managed to get it out, before it got any worse. But anyway, it was a very useful aid to the navigator. We lost the G circuit. It was, well, a fairly quiet ride from there on [coughs] excuse me.
CB: Why, why was it a raid you shouldn’t have gone on?
BA: Well, [unclear] at the estimated time of arrival, or estimated time at the target, ETA, [coughs] the navigator said ‘Can anybody see any green TIs?’ And I said — I’m the only one probably looking to the port side because the pilot was looking ahead like this and I was looking across in front of him. And I could see these TIs going down some forty odd miles way and I could see them going down. So he said, ‘That’s it, that’s it, go for it!’ and the pilot immediately turned round and headed for it and of course by the time we’d got there the whole force had gone through —
CB: Oh.
BA: and we were over target, totally on our own. Wonderful picture we got, the bomb aimer got because simultaneously ‒ oh, before that, the skipper said ‘No ack-ack, watch out for fighters’. He thought they wouldn’t fire ack-ack if their own fighters were there. And simultaneously the bomb aimer said ‘Bombs away. Bombs gone. Bombs gone’. The gunner at the rear, rear gunner reported a fighter coming in from the port side to the rear. And the searchlights. The major searchlight. What do you call it? Anyway, the main searchlight came on and immediately picked us up. No two ways about it. Bang, straight on to us and then there was an absolute cone of searchlights all around, all on us and the skipper puts the nose down and I understand this is the only, and the classical, way of getting rid of searchlights is to dive. But he said ‘no’ he said ‘I lost control’ (laughs). Sense of humour. Anyway, we dive about five thousand feet, I suppose, and I’m pinned to the roof. I am supposed to help if he is in trouble. If he can’t manage it on his own I’m supposed to try and assist him in some way or other and I can’t. I’m pinned to the ceiling, pinned to the roof of the cabin. And then when he managed, he manages to pull it out and start going, climbing again I’m pinned to the floor [laughs]. Can’t get off the floor. Absolutely pinned —
CB: because it pulls out the G, yeah.
I never felt so useless in all my life. Anyway, we do this a second time, and by that time I think we’d lost the searchlights, and the fighter. We did another, dropped about three thousand feet, and then we went back home at about a thousand, five-hundred feet thereabouts, I’m not sure. Quite on our own. Then on the way, quite clearly we were flying alongside an autobahn and there was, the gunner spots, what he thinks, is an official car, big car with outriders, outside outriders, and they wanted the skipper to let him have a go at him and he said ‘No, no, we’re going home’ and sure enough we did. We were a bit late, but not too late.
CB: T I is target indicator.
BA: Yes.
CB: Yes.
BA: That’s the green ones. Well, you could have reds, greens, and yellows.
CB: Right.
On this occasion they were supposed to be green for bombing. But I understand that the bomb aimer was commended for his photographs. They really saw what happened over Brunswick, which I believe was very, very successful. The only time I ever felt sorry for the Germans was the fact that you could see everything, everything was clearly picked up, close to you. You could see the firemen up the ladders using their hoses. I thought ‘Poor devils’. What did they do to cop this? Whether they did or not I don’t know. Don’t know what side it was. If you were bombing a particular part of town because of railway, or the sidings, whatever. I don’t think it’s in the book, is it? But it was the one raid I think we should never, ever, have come home. If anyone was going to get shot down, it should have been us. No two ways about it. From there on we had a good mixture of raids. We did thirty altogether.
CB: Right. And this is with 467 Squadron? Yeah. Ok. So, thirty ops took you to when? The end of the war?
BA: No, no —
CB: No.
BA: No, no, because we went over to 617 Squadron by the end of the war —
CB: After that. OK, well we’ll pick up on that in a minute. So, then what? After you’d finished the ops, what did you do?
BA: Well the navigator wanted to go with them. No, that’s right, the skipper stopped me — I don’t know when — he stopped me and said ‘Do you want to go to 617 Squadron?’ So I said ‘Yes. If you’re going, yes I’ll go with you’. But the only ones who could go were the rear gunner, (they didn’t curry with the upper gunners nor wireless ops because you had your VHF so, there was the rear gunner, the bomb aimer, navigator, pilot, engineer. Six.
CB: Right.
BA: Anyway. So we go fairly quickly to Woodhall Spa. Was it Woodhall Spa? Yes. Straight away. I go in, I got a commission before that, didn’t I? ‘Cause the pilot got awarded the DFC and I think, yeah, I did instruction. I had to go and do some instruction, things like that, they watchedg me do it, lecture I suppose you’d call it. It was rather convenient because at that time and it was looking like the end of the war was there and people were looking to go as far as they could. [unclear] The Australian Squadron was no better place to go but Australia. [Unclear] I’m dreading the telegraph about this. [Unclear] I used it to advise some of them about getting to Australia, migrating to Australia, which some of them did I think successfully.
CB: When did you come out of the RAF?
BA: October ’46.
CB: Right.
BA: I had to be on reserve for 6 months I think, to April I think it was. So April ’47 I was clear of the RAF. They could call me back any time, day or night within 6 months.
CB: So what rank had you reached as an officer. Were you still a pilot officer or had you got to flight lieutenant?
BA: I was a flying officer by then because that was an automatic promotion I would think, from PO to FO.
CB: Yes, because you were experienced. Ok. So the war ends, you were demobbed. Then what?
BA: Yeah, the war ends. No, when we finished the operations the only ones in the crew of the Aussies were the bomb aimer, the skipper, not the navigator because he’d had a baby at home he’d never seen. So, he wanted to go straight home, which he did. Yes so we go to ‒ how we did it I don’t know. You had to be — you had to have had a tour of operations before you could be accepted by 617 Squadron and we’d done that. So then when we go there, in March, no before that. Anyway, we go to Woodhall Spa and you had to get your bomb aimers exam. Get down to a hundred, a hundred yards before you’re put on ops. Well then of course the end of the war came. No, no, before that we were put on ops twice, but both were cancelled. I suppose because, er, timings were getting short, over run. So they were cancelled. We never flew, much to my disappointment. I’m sure we were going to carry a 10 ton bomb on the same aircraft on both occasions. [cough] It didn’t happen. So I was a bit disappointed. But then the end of the war. The pilots, all the Aussies go and I’m left. The rear gunner’s in a different place to me. I’m in Petwood Hotel, Room 110. That was great. With the little cinema in the woods. Golf course all round. I wasn’t able to play golf at that time. [cough] Yes, so, I’m a spare engineer. I’m [unclear] and then this pilot, this New Zealand pilot, came to the station, Squadron Leader Saxeby, Saxelby. New Zealander. Very experienced I think, especially in digging the tunnel. He was waiting to get in the tunnel when it was discovered. This is at Stalagluft 3B?
CB: Yes, 3B
BA: He never told us anything about this. It was a friend of his that told one of the crew and then, of course, we all began to know about it. Anyway, he never told us that but this chap, Castagnola (it’s in the book), he was a real character, he had a harelip, but he was a good pilot, flying officer. He was on some on the last raids of 617 Squadron. He was on the Berchtesgaden one. Anyway, he asked me if I’d go up as a flight engineer with him and Squadron Leader Saxelby. So I said ‘Yes, I would, and pleased to do it’ and we did a couple of circuits and bumps. He got us to go to the offices, what do you call them, yes offices, flights, flight rooms. Anyway, alongside the hangar there were these rooms.
CB: The crew rooms.
BA: The what?
CB: The crew rooms.
BA: Yes, so I drop in there and Squadron Leader Saxelby said ‘Are you sure you want to go with me?’ I said ‘Yes, of course’ and I think that endeared me to him and so I was the first member of his crew at 617 Squadron. And he, Saxelby, he was B Flight Commander. He actually commanded the aircraft, the Squadron, and I think he flew in Canberras and all sorts of things. In fact, he flew many, many, aircraft (not with me). We went to ‒The Tiger Force was being formed to go to the Far East. Kuala Lumpur we were due to go to, and presumably support the British army there against the Japanese but then of course, the atomic bomb was dropped before we even left. So, we still went but we still went to Digri in India instead. And, as I say, Saxelby was in charge of B Flight and Squadron Leader Ward [?] and Somerby [?], the Canadian Fauquier was the Wing Commander. Fauquier, French Canadian I think he was. He was the Commander of the Squadron. I was following Tait, and then Fauquier, I think. [unclear]
CB: So, that was the end of the war.
BA: Yes, so we go to India. We did a fly past, a victory fly past, because VJ day was over there. As I say, the war had stopped before we got there with the atomic bombs and — sorry [unclear]
CB: It’s OK, we’ve got good background there. So when you left the RAF what did you do?
BA: Oh, I went straight back to getting my indentures at the Pulsometer. I hadn’t completed them and the Government had introduced a scheme where, you could get them if you did four and a half years, not the seven years that the indentures required ‒. So, in any case, I’d had some good experience in the RAF at that time and they did promise to give me a better job than just a turner. Mind you, I was on one of the best lathes. Strangely enough [laughs], I was making parts for aircraft. Turning in parts for aircraft but it was mainly a spindle machine and that was a very skilled job, if you like.
CB: So how did you progress in the —
BA: So then, I’d asked them ‘If I could I do something better?’ because I didn’t want to stay in the workshop, working on the machine, and they said ‘yes, yes, they would’ but when the time came when I finished my apprenticeship I asked them again and they said ‘oh yes, we’ll do something’ but I thought yes this’ll go on and on and on so I just walked out, gave my notice to leave, and I went to Cooks in Reading, who installed milking machines in barns and things like that. Quite an experience but very, very useful. Alfa Laval, I think. Yeah, Alfa Laval Milking Machines. Oh yes, my Dad had a friend called Hughie Graham, whose brother had the land on Silverstone Racecourse. He was farming that and he wanted, oh yeah, he had also this firm, Modern Conveyors at Adderbury. [unclear] Yes, it was Adderbury, and they wanted somebody to erect their dryers which were dual [?] combustion dryers but they were making them. So I had, first of all, down here at Percier-Pratt [?], one drier up there, [unclear] anyway, so next one was Birmingham, Birmingham Industrial Plastics. They wanted four and then another five, so I was there some long time actually, building these industrial driers, big things. In fact they probably caused me to stop smoking [unclear] ‘cause I’d already stopped. I couldn’t get cigarettes so I was trying a pipe. Anyway, somebody caught me [slight laugh] so the pipe goes [unclear] so I smashed two or three pipes so it wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth doing.
CB: How long did you stay there?
BA: Birmingham? A long time.
CB: No, how long did you stay with Modern Conveyors?
BA: Ah, David was born. We were in a caravan on Colt’s farm.
CP: 1950.
BA: Yes, 1950 and it was when Jean was pregnant with Christine and she said ‘I want to go home, I want to go home’ so we came back to Reading. We were able to bring all we owned. The caravan was parked on the bottom of ‒ Langley side, Langley Hill area, at the bottom of my Dad’s garden. The electricity board had a plot next to us so I could get right down and put the caravan at the bottom.
CB: So, what did you do as your next job?
CP: It was AWRE.
BA: [unclear] Not immediately. That’s right. What happened then? British Estates Services. I think it was the mayor of Reading had this business down here on the Bath Road. Still there, I think, opposite [unclear] somewhere there, or maybe the garage there. Anyway, I went there as a machinist.
CB: What was that called?
BA: British Industrial Estates.
CB: Right OK and then eventually you went to AWRE.
BA: Well, what happened: We were coming up to Christmas and one of the men working in the shop —you were repairing machines, engines, and things like that for earth moving equipment, yes earth moving equipment — and he went to the store and said he was short of a long, long or short, pole I don’t know what. And they accused him of cutting one to fit and then coming to get another and they sacked him and he had four kids, and he was sacked. [unclear] before Christmas. They wouldn’t give him any Christmas pay so they asked me if I’d go and speak to the management and I did. But they were hard nuts. They just said ‘You can all go, if you like’ so we did, we did. And much to my pride, everybody did exactly what they said they would and supported me.
CB: And left.
BA: They all left. And nicest thing I could see was advertisements in the papers for weeks and weeks and weeks from British Industrial Estates trying to get mechanics. Anyway, oh yes, I came home and Mum was crestfallen. ‘It’s Christmas’, she said ‘It’s Christmas’ [unclear]. And then Denis Baldwin [?} he was the postmaster or something or other down here in Reading where they sorted all the parcels at Christmas time, and of course they wanted extra people at Christmas time, and he asked me if I’d go there for a week or so and it was very interesting that. There were these big chutes coming into the station and all the parcels being brought out to be sorted. Anyway, yes, so that was an experience, if you like. What then, oh yes, knowing I was coming back to Reading, Aldermaston was just beginning and I’d written sometime before, made an application, and I think they did a security check, a very, very vigorous one, you could say. It it was going on and on and I thought ‘probably nothing will come out of this’ but just as I finished the post office job, I had a letter from AWRE to go for an interview so I was taken on as an RE mechanic. And what did I do first of all? Industrial Chemistry Group, which was dealing ‒ no that wasn’t the first, was it?
CB: Don’t worry. I think we’ve done really well. So, thank you very much. I don’t want to wear you out.
BA: And I got an extremely good pension.
CB: Chief Safety Adviser for Greater London Council?
BA: Yes. It was there I got into safety, first of all at Aldermaston. A friend of mine was in electrical and strangely enough his name was the same as the ex-factory inspector who came to Aldermaston as their safety advisor. They called them officers in those days. He was electrical advisor and I’d already worked with him and he said would if I’d like to go over and join them as their mechanical safety advisor. Which I said ‘yeah, I would’ I think I got promotion to that. I never, ever got Tech one grade and I wanted to go ‒ there was a job advertised down here in, Winforth [?], Whitworth [?] in the West Country? A Tech one there and I applied for it but didn’t get it.
CB: What year did you retire?
BA: ’81. February ’81. That’s right ‘cause Dad died a year later. Yes, I was fifty-seven, but it was stupid, really stupid. This is Maggie Thatcher’s fault, well I suppose. The Conservative Party wanted to get in the Council, lead the Council for their next election and they said they would cut down three thousand staff and they couldn’t get three thousand staff to go so they asked if anyone wanted to retire. And when I saw what I could get — I was in a department that dealt with all these things — and they told me I’d get around sixty to sixty-two thousand lump sum and all sorts of things. It was a real golden handshake, if you like, so I applied for it and my boss, who was controller of manpower, [unclear] he said ‘Why do you want to leave me?’ I said ‘I don’t want to leave you but I can’t, cannot refuse to take this.’ So, it was left at that and then it was about eleven months later and he asked me to stop behind after a meeting and said ‘Do you still want to go?’ and I said ‘of course if I can’. ‘Well’ he said ‘You can because I’m going as well!’
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AAmbroseBG160629
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Basil Ambrose
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Description
An account of the resource
Basil Ambrose was born in Reading. He left school at fourteen and became an apprentice turner. He joined the Royal Air Force in May 1942 and trained as a turner before transferring to aircrew as a flight engineer. He trained at RAF St Athan, and completed thirty operations on Lancasters with 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. In 1945 he was posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa. He left the RAF in October 1946, and returned to his apprenticeship. He retired as Chief Safety Adviser for Greater London Council in 1981.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1945
1946
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
Germany--Braunschweig
Netherlands--Walcheren
Germany
Netherlands
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:11:15 audio recording
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-29
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Christine Kavanagh
Chris Cann
1660 HCU
467 Squadron
617 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
Beaufighter
bombing
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
promotion
RAF Bridlington
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
Stirling
target indicator
target photograph
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/160/2368/LTolleyFS1152777v1.1.pdf
c7db9254cabe25a1f53d8d80eb6653ce
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
Tolley, Frank
F S Tolley
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Frank Stanley Tolley (b. 1921, 1152777 Royal Air Force), his log book and four photographs. Frank Tolley was a Lancaster bomb aimer with 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern. He completed 22 daylight and night time operations before the end of the war in Europe and also flew on Operation Manna, Operation Dodge and Cook's tours.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Frank Tolley and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tolley, FS
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
Frank Tolley's Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Tolley's log book covers the period 29 December 1943 to 27 August 1945 and details his training schedule and operations flown. He served at RAF Fingal, RAF Malton, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Sandtoft and RAF Kelstern. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Bollingbroke, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He carried out 22 daylight and night time operations with 625 Squadron to the following targets in Germany: Bremen, Bremen rail bridge, Chemnitz, Cleve, Dessau aircraft factories, Dortmund, Dresden, Hamburg, Hanau, Hannover, Heligoland, Kassel aircraft factories, Lutzkendorf, Mannheim docks, Misberg oil refineries, Nordhausen, Nuremberg and Wiesbaden. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Russell and Pilot Officer Windrim. He also took part in Operation Manna supply drops to The Hague and Rotterdam, Operation Dodge and Cook’s tours.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LTolleyFS1152777v1
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.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Gloucestershire
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Flensburg
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Wiesbaden
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Ontario
Netherlands--Hague
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-03-02
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-12
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-19
1945-03-23
1945-03-25
1945-03-27
1945-03-31
1945-04-03
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-29
1945-04-30
1945-05-03
1945-06-25
1945-06-28
1945-08-28
1667 HCU
21 OTU
625 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
Bolingbroke
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Glatton
RAF Kelstern
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Sandtoft
RCAF Fingal
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2380/LAndersonAA428289v1.2.pdf
357f3a160f67920aa88d481a2db49408
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
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
Andy Anderson's flying log book for pilots (incomplete)
Description
An account of the resource
Incomplete pilots flying log book for A A Anderson covering the period from 19 April 1944 to 31 May 1945. Detailing his training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Bitteswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Metheringham, RAF Warboys and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown were, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. The total number of operation shown are 23, 14 night with 106 Squadron and nine night with 83 Squadron. Targets were, Rheydt, Dortmund, Karlsruhe, Kaiserlautern, Brunswick, Bergen, Dusseldorf, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Harburg, Trondheim, Munich, Horten Harbour, Danzig harbour, Bohlen, Lutzkendorf, Wurzburg, Molbis, Cham, Komotau and two Operation Exodus to Rheine. His first or second pilots on operations was Flying Officer Sayeau.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
37 photocopied pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAndersonAA428289v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-09-19
1944-09-20
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-08
1945-05-10
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Poland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Steinfurt (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdańsk
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
29 OTU
83 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2381/LWoodC1451225v1.1.pdf
216ec66745b3d4c0ff1f52309fe0300c
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
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
Colin Wood's Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training, operational career and and post war flying of Colin Wood from 8 July 1943 to 7 February 1946. He trained in Canada and in Great Britain and was stationed at RAF Metheringham, RAF Coningsby and RAF Full Sutton. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Stirling X, Lancaster I and III, Lancastrian, Dominie. He flew 25 night operations with 106 and 83 Squadrons to targets in Germany, Norway, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia: Bergen, Bohlen-Leipzig, Brunswick, Cham, Danzig, Dortmund-Ems canal, Dusseldorf, Harburg, Horten harbour, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Komatau, Lutzkendorf-Leipzig, Molbis-Leipzig, Munich, Trondheim and Wurtzberg, His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Anderson. Colin Wood also flew operation Exodus to Rheine and two operation Dodge to Bari. Additional remarks include corkscrew training, H2S, and stowaway Olive on cross country flight. Post-war 231 Squadron.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWoodC1451225v1
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 Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Norway
Poland
Scotland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Würzburg
Italy--Bari
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdańsk
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Czech Republic
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Manitoba
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-16
1944-12-17
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-10
1945-05-31
1945-09-13
1945-09-15
1945-09-29
1945-10-01
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
29 OTU
83 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
Dominie
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lancastrian
navigator
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF West Freugh
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/109/2425/LGreenLC1318527v.1.pdf
b5e686d98ddbb0320085b55c6d541553
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
Green, Leonard
Len Green
L C Green
Description
An account of the resource
Twelve items. The collection relates to the service of Warrant Officer Leonard C Green (1318527 Royal Air Force) and consists of his log book, correspondence, a newspaper cuttings, four photographs and a foreign languages phrase book. Leonard Green flew Lancasters with 50 and 61 Squadrons from RAF Skellingthorpe and completed 19 daylight and night time operations.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark Boother 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
2016-06-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Green, LC
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
Leonard Green’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGreenLC1318527v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator's air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Leonard Green, wireless operator, covering the period from 15 December 1942 to 20 January 1946. He was stationed at RAF Manby, RAF Wigtown, RAF Bitteswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Swinderby, RAF Syerston, RAF Skellingthorpe and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Manchester and Lancaster. He flew a total of 23 operations, 13 night with 50 Squadron and 3 day and 7 night with 61 Squadron. He also flew operations Exodus with 61 Squadron and Dodge to Bari, Italy with 83 Squadron. Targets were, Hannover, Dusseldorf, Modane, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Bohlen, Gravenhorst, Dortmund-Emms Canal, Lutzkendorf, Wurzburg, Bremen, Wesel, Nordhausen and Molbis. His pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Lundy and Flight Lieutenant Phillips. The log book also contains many newspaper clippings relating to the targets attacked, aircraft flown in and events of the war and post war. It also contains pictures of the crew positions of Navigator, Bomb Aimer and Wireless Operator.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Scotland
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Modane
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Italy--Bari
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Germany--Böhlen
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1943-10-18
1943-11-03
1943-11-10
1943-11-11
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1943-12-02
1943-12-03
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1943-12-29
1943-12-30
1944-01-02
1944-01-03
1944-01-14
1944-01-15
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-24
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-06
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-26
1945-05-06
1945-05-12
1945-05-14
1945-07-17
1945-09-09
1945-10-16
1945-10-20
1945-12-14
1945-12-20
1660 HCU
29 OTU
50 Squadron
61 Squadron
83 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing up
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Manchester
military service conditions
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
Proctor
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Manby
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigtown
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2445/LAllenDJ1880966v1.1.pdf
9e5a668d1c670d39cf4e1ba2b8204224
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Derrick Allen's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAllenDJ1880966v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s and flight engineer’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Derrick Allen air gunner, covering the period from 11 February 1944 to 25 April 1945. Detailing training and operations flown. He was stationed at London, RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Pembrey, RAF Silverstone, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Waddington, RAF Strubby, RAF Blyton, RAF Cardington, RAF St. Athan and RAF Spanhoe. Aircraft flown were, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and C-47. He flew a total of 19 operations with 467 Squadron, 6 daylight and 13 night, his aircraft was shot down on his ninth operation to Dusseldorf, when Pilot and Rear Gunner were killed, he abandoned aircraft. Targets were, Kaiserslautern, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Walcheren, Brunswick, Homberg, Dusseldorf, Ladbergen, Politz, Dresden, Chemnitz, Dortmund-Emms Canal, Sassnitz, Harburg, Essen, Komotau and Tonsberg. His pilots on operations were pilot Officer Landridge, Flight Lieutenant Evans and Flying Officer Rodinson.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Sassnitz
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Norway--Tønsberg
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-11
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-30
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-11
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
1654 HCU
17 OTU
467 Squadron
619 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
C-47
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Operational Training Unit
RAF Blyton
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Cardington
RAF Pembrey
RAF Silverstone
RAF Spanhoe
RAF St Athan
RAF Strubby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
shot down
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/119/2485/MThomasWH152984-150721-01.1.pdf
6e05ffb1f503d2bba606b04b23c36c98
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
WILLIAM HEDLEY THOMAS (AGE 93)
My first interest in the RAF came in 1938 while I was a pupil at Redruth Grammar School in Cornwall, when a flight of the Air Defence Cadet Corps was formed there and I became a member. I am sure its formation occurred because Mr Weatherall our Headmaster had been a fighter pilot in the First World War which really instIlled interest in those of us aged 16 and above. I remained a member of ADCC until August 1939 when I left school for employment.
When the Air Training Corps was formed in 1941 I joined the flight which was formed in Redruth where we had the usual instruction in Morse code, and navigation, shooting and of course drill (dreaded drill). We were fortunate to have visits to RAF Portreath aerodrome and that is where I had my first flight, in a Miles Magister. It was great!
I volunteered and was accepted for aircrew training in August 1941 and placed on deferred service and continued as a member of the ATC, reaching for the dizzy height of Sergeant! While awaiting my call-up to the RAF I had to register for National Service but informed the officials that I was already a member of the RAF and gave them my service number. Two or three weeks later I had call-up papers from the Army! I called the registration office and they said no problem we will sort it. However after another week I had a forceful letter from the Army telling me to report to depot or other, by such and such a date or they come and fetch me! Panic!
Fortunately we had a family friend who was an Army officer in the First World War and he contacted the Army on the phone using language I was not then used to and I heard no more!
So eventually, in February 1942 I was called up by the RAF and went to the aircrew reception centre in London. I reported, as so many had done, to Lord’s cricket ground for registration. We were provided with a uniform (which was tailored to fit) and received the first batch of injections. We were billeted in what had been serviced apartments in Prince Albert Road, quite close to Regents Park zoo. Here we had various lectures, a lot of drill and endured an extremely cold London.
Then came our posting to Initial Training Wing at a very much warmer Aberystwyth in West Wales. Here we received training in navigation, Morse code and RAF Law besides large doses of more drill, physical training and sports.
I enjoyed the course at ITW very much, especially as I knew it was the beginning of flying training. As I said earlier the weather at Aberystwth was warm and we rarely needed to wear greatcoats (which we did in London) and by June, when the course ended, it was a really warm summer. I learned that I had passed the course ended, it was a really warm summer. I learned that I had passed the course and was promoted to the exalted rank of L A C (more pay too!).
I was then posted to Sywell in Northamptonshire to begin training as a pilot. Unfortunately I failed the course because my landings were deemed dangerous and I was unable to go solo. Mind you, I did not get on very well with my instructor who was over 6 feet tall, as against my 5 foot six and as he sat in the front cockpit what chance had I of seeing straight ahead? No contest!
From Sywell I was posted in July 1942 to Heaton Park, Manchester, which was a holding unit for potential aircrew awaiting the decision as to my future training, along with quite a number of others. We were then sent to Hastings, another holding unit, where we were billeted in a large block of flats (Marine Court) right on the seafront. We were only at Hastings for about three weeks because one afternoon at about 4 PM on our return from the sports afternoon, a German aircraft on a hit-and run sortie dropped a smallish bomb on one end of the building. Fortunately no-one was injured, however it caused perhaps the fastest reaction I have ever experienced. By 4 AM the next morning
[page break]
we were getting on a train (with a day’s dry rations) and we were taken to Harrogate to yet another holding unit!!
I enjoyed Harrogate very much where we received the usual few lectures and drill and bags and bags of sport. Harrogate was a great posting, especially as there were lots of young ladies there who were the clerical staff of the General Post Office who had been evacuated there from London!
I was eventually brought out of my reverie by a posting back to Heaton Park with a few dozen other bods, where we were informed as to our future training which for me was as a navigator/bomb aimer. This we were given to understand, would not be in Great Britain but overseas, as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme.
It was in late November 1942 that King George the Sixth sent me to Canada, aboard the Queen Elizabeth, to train as a navigator/bomb aimer, thus enabling the rest of the country to get on with the war. To my delight, I was informed that I would not have to pay my own fare.
The memories of that voyage are still with me. I remember approaching the liner on a small tender and being showered with toilet rolls which were thrown by the disembarking aircrew who had returned to the UK sporting their wings. Not to be outdone, we advised them to hang on to the toilet rolls, as there was a shortage of that commodity in our war-torn homeland.
Once aboard, I was given a job as a kind of security guard (along with 20 or 30 others) to prevent smoking in any place other than the cabins. I remember pointing out to Edward G Robinson that such a rule existed, when I spotted him and a large cigar waiting for the Lift. He promptly took a deep puff on the cigar, stepped into the lift and said with a smile, “Is that so. Bud?”
We had quite a large number of well-known people (including Douglas Fairbanks) on board and to our delight, they provided several evenings of entertainment for us during the crossing. The meals were very good and it was a special treat for us to be served with white bread after eating since 1939, the sandy brown standard wartime loaf.
We took several days on the voyage since we were sailing unaccompanied a long way south before turning and travelling up the Eastern seaboard of the United States. We were informed that the detour had taken place because a U-boat pack had been detected in mid Atlantic. Good intelligence and communication obviously saved us and I understand that Lord Haw-Haw had reported us as sunk on two occasions. We sailed into New York harbour and docked adjacent to the Queen Mary and the Ile-de-France, the latter lying on her side after suffering a major fire some time earlier.
Whilst most of those on board were allowed to disembark, I found myself appointed as a member of the baggage party. About 30 of we unfortunates were given the task of unloading the rest of the RAF contingent kit bags. As a result, at the end of the day we were still aboard but were delights that that evening to be served with the most terrific meal which we considered to be a just reward for our hard labours as baggage handlers.
The next morning we disembarked and after being transported by coach to Grand Central Station, we caught a train that would transport us to Moncton in Canada. But all did not go smoothly, because en route, we were involved in a train crash. The crash was on the Gaspie Peninsula, at the mouth of the St Lawrence River when a freight train, with a huge cargo of logs crashed into us while we were waiting at a small country station. Fortunately we, the RAF contingent, only sustained a few cuts and bruises.
[page break]
Mainly because of the steel constructions of the trains in Canada we were lucky indeed. Further luck for four of us who got invited by the daughters of a nearby farming family to have some breakfast. We accepted and trudged across two large snowbound fields to the farmhouse. Just as we finished, breakfast, we were told that a relief train had arrived at the station to take us on to our destination Moncton. We missed it! However we boarded the next train and we were met in Moncton by an NCO, a sergeant I think, who told us off and then we boarded transport to the camp. It was pointed out to us that the rest of the party had to march there so we were lucky again!
Moncton, on the eastern seaboard of Canada, was another holding unit where we awaited posting to the start of our real training. However we were at Moncton for Christmas 1942 and also over the New Year in Arctic like whether with plenty of snow. A case of infectious disease, scarlet fever I think, caused member of the hut I was in to be in quarantine for some weeks until finally our posting arrived.
In February 1943 I was posted to number six bombing and gunnery school at Mountain View, Ontario where we practiced gunnery in Bolingbrokes, the Canadian version of the Blenheim, as well as on the gunnery range. We then turned out attention to flying in Ansons and practised dropping practice bombs. This seems to have taken quite a while really because it was the end of March 1943 before we left Mountain View for Number 8 Air Observer School at Ancienne Lorette, Quebec, to begin navigational training.
The navigation course at number eight air observer school at Ancienne Lorette, lasted from early April 1943 to early August 1943 and as well as air day and night navigation trips averaging around three hours each, we did a lot of classroom work including a navigation exercises, meteorology, signalling, aircraft recognition and armament together with a lot of practice work in the air and on the ground on astro-navigation.
At the end of the course I learned that I had passed and took my place on the passing out parade to receive my Observer brevet and also I was delighted to find out that I had been granted a commission.
We were then, after three weeks leave which I spent with my uncle and his family in Toronto, posted to Number 1 General Reconnaissance School at Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of St Lawrence River, where for three weeks we were to carry out navigation trips over the sea using what is termed dead reckoning navigation, by star or sun shots, taking bearings from radio transmissions to find our position. We learned how to identify all the naval ships of the world, quite a task. I found this course both challenging and interesting and I was glad to hear that I had received a pass which I hoped would lead me to be a navigator on coastal command when I returned to the UK.
At the end of the course at the beginning of October 1943 we were posted again to Moncton to wait before being shipped back to Great Britain. This did not happen until December 1943 when I returned on the Aquitainia, quite a nice ship but not so well appointed as the Queen Elizabeth. We landed back at Gourock and travelled down to Harrogate.
Harrogate was still a holding unit and there was quite a large number of aircrew gathering there from training in Canada and South Africa, eagerly awaiting postings to operational training units. In my case along with others from course in Canada, it was to be another three months before we got such a posting. I, of course, wanted to be sent to Coastal Command, which is what our extended training had been for, but it was not until early in April 1944 that we were told that we were to go to Wigtown in Scotland. On enquiry we were told that this was an advanced training unit for bomb aimers. We tried to argue that
[page break]
surely all the training in Canada that we had received ought to be for carrying out duties as navigators in one of the RAF commands. We were told that there no chance whatsoever of this and off to Wigtown we went. You can imagine there was quite a lot of disgruntled bods there but we decided that we must grin and bear it. We were told to remove our coveted and hard earner observer brevet and replace them with the B brevet and this produced a lot of very upset and in disgruntled people; so much so that caused a visit from an officer from HQ in London (an Air Commodore I think) to come up to Wigtown to meet us. He informed us that our C.O. had told him that we were refusing to fly, which in fact was totally untrue as we were continuing with our flights. As a result, the Air Commodore contacted London and an official ruling was made and we were told we could continue to wear (with pride I might say) our Observer Brevets. So, we completed the course and were granted 2 to 3 weeks leave and were instructed to report from there to number eight operational training unit at Castle Donington {which is now East Midlands Airport).
We arrived at the O.T.U. late in May 1944 and were crewed up, not being directed as to who would fly with who, but quietly talking to each other and trying to decide who you thought would be someone to trust your life with. I think I was fortunate in my choice as we all seem to get on from the start and it proved to the case when we continued to fly together later in the operations. However before we became members of the squadron there was more training to be done. First of all by the crew of six (there was no flight engineer in the crew at OTU) flying in the Vickers Wellington, learning all about our duties in an operational bomber. We were at Castle Donington from 27 May 1944 until 14 July 1944 and then we transferred to 1667 heavy conversion unit at RAF Sandtoft, learning the skills needed for coping in a four engine aircraft – in this case the Handley Page Halifax and there we were joined by the seventh member of our crew, the flight engineer.
We left RAF Sandtoft on 1 September 1944 and moved to number one Lancaster finishing school at RAF Hemswell. This proved quite a short course of about three weeks and we were then posted to join 166 squadron at RAF Kimmington on 26 September 1944, as members of C flight. This flight was being assembled to be made into another squadron, 153. This was duly achieved and some four operations were flown by the squadron from Kimmington before, on 15 October 1944, 153 squadron moved to RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire, flying their acquired 18 aircraft there, while the ground staff travelled in a fleet of buses accompanied by a group of 3 ton lorries loaded with personal baggage. Our crew had the pleasure of being in the first of the 153 squadron aircraft to land at Scampton from Kimmington [sic] and had an unusual sight of an empty aerodrome: that is no aircraft on the ground, with a small number of ground crews standing by at dispersals to receive the aircraft.
Scampton was a station that was built before World War II and accommodation was in solid built buildings with tarmac laid roads and pavements; no mud to squelch through. Bruce Potter (the pilot) and I were allocated a room within the officers mess itself, but some of the others had to live in the previous married quarters which meant a shortish walk to the mess for meals and so forth.
On 19 October 1944, 153 squadron carried out its first operation from Scampton – 15 aircraft attacking Stuttgart. Our crew’s operations did not start until 31 October 1944 against Cologne. We carried on operations against various targets including the much written about town of Dresden on 13 February 1945, until 8 March 1945, we on takeoff for Kassel, our skipper Bruce Potter fainted at the controls. We were well down the runway with our tail up and it was the first rate action of our flight engineer Gordon Woolley, who managed to haul the control column back; cut the engines and bring the aircraft to a halt after it had executed a flat spin. The skipper was taken off to sickbay and the rest of us gathered outside the aircraft where the squadron commander, Wing Commander Powley, invited us to fly that night with another pilot. We firmly
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declined his invitation. We were then sent home on three weeks leave and on our return found that our skipper had left the station. He had gone to hospital I think. He never returned.
The remainder of the crew (six of us), completed the remaining three operations to complete our 29 operations with another pilot. Flight Lieutenant Williams, an Australian. Our last operation was on 9 April 1945 and on 10 April that same year we were sent home on leave, never again to meet up as a crew.
There is a list of our targets at the end of this article, together with the duration of each and I must say that we were a very lucky crew. Perhaps it was due to a little black cat which I wore pinned to my battledress. It was sent to me by an “anonymous admirer”. During all our trips we never experienced a single attack from an enemy fighter or received any substantial flak from German anti-aircraft fire. Jack Boyle was a first-class and diligent navigator and kept us on track and on time for every trip. We did have to abort on a trip to Politz on 8 February 1945 when one engine packed up and then another started losing power, but we were able to return safely to base. Another time, on 18 November 1944 while returning from bombing Wanne Eicline, our instruments packed up. It was a filthy night of wind and rain and there was a diversion for us to land at another aerodrome as RAF Scampton was fogbound. The crew decided that it would not be a good thing to try and land at strange aerodrome and we therefore diverted to the special diversion aerodrome at Woodbridge in Suffolk, where the runways were extremely long and wide. Bruce our skipper and Gordon the flight engineer were able to effect a temporary repair the next morning and we were then able to return to Scampton.
My leave on completion of the tour of operations was quite extensive as the great Western Railway managed to lose my kit bag with all my flying kit during my return to Scampton. I was sent home to recover it, something I was unable to do and so eventually, in July 1945 (after being home nearly 3 months) I was recalled to Scampton. I was informed that I was to train as an equipment officer and sent for training to RAF Bicester. This course lasted about six weeks and I was then posted as a fully fledged equipment officer to 35 maintenance unit at Heywood near Manchester. Within a week I was sent to RAF Strubby in Lincolnshire which no longer an operational station, to arrange to clear it of all its equipment. There was only a skeleton staff there and these were gradually posted away, leaving only about 30 other ranks (mainly equipment personnel) and myself, together with another ex-aircrew equipment (Flying Officer Frank Wilkes) who had been sent from Heywood to assist me.
It was a massive task of transferring the wanted equipment to appropriate maintenance units throughout the UK, however I never saw the end of the task and neither did Flying Officer Wilkes, as our times for release from the RAF occurred at the same time and so in July 1946 we left for Civvy Street and I returned to my job with the Cornwall County Council.
I lost contact with the crew but many years later through a letter which I had published in the RAFA magazine I made contact with Jack Boyle our navigator who was at that time living in Blackpool. However, Jack was in rather poor health. We were able to swap phone calls and letters for about 12 months before sadly, he died. Some years later I was fortunate enough to make contact with Harry Hambrook our rear gunner who lives in Harrogate. I’m glad to say that we keep in contact and are able to meet up each year at our squadron reunions.
I moved to Morpeth in Northumberland 20 years ago and on joining the Northumbria branch of the Aircrew Association, I met Mr Bill Foote from Alnmouth who had been a pilot flying Halifaxes with 77 squadron in Yorkshire. It was some little
[page break]
while before Bill and I discovered that we were both on the Queen Elizabeth voyage to Canada in November 1942. Now we both meet up with two or three others on a regular basis for lunch.
Another coincidence occurred after I joined the 153 Squadron Association about 12 years ago and met two associate member who had uncles in the crew of Pilot Officer Gibbins, the pilot in 153 Squadron at Scampton who shared a room with my skipper Bruce Potter and I. “Gibby” and I became great friends and were companions on sorties to Lincoln on days when we were on stand down from flying duties, to carry out “beer testing” in Lincoln’s many pubs! Unfortunately “Gibby’s” aircraft was lost on a daylight raid on Essen on 11 March 1945. Sad to say there were no survivors. These two members of the Squadron Association have been to Germany and visited Reichswald Forest war cemetery in Kleve, where their uncles are buried. I meet up each year with those two members, Ernie and Dave at our Squadron Association reunion which is held in Lincoln.
I must confess that I was quite disappointed at not being able to fly as a pilot (in a Spitfire in fighter command of course!) However, completing our tour of operations on bomber command and being one of “Bomber” Harris’s Boys was something I look back on with pride. I also give thanks for not being wounded or being one of the 55,573 airmen who were killed in action.
Much has been written by historians who have decried the efforts of bomber command and have called its head “Butcher Bomber Harris”, saying that he was targeting the civilian population of German cities. I can in no way agree with them as there was always some industry in each of the cities targeted. Dresden is often referred to as being a civilian target; not so, because it had armament factories including Zeiss Ikon, which provided a supply of precision instruments to the German forces. It was also an important communication centre with considerable concentration of troops within the city.
Our crew took part in the Dresden raid on the 13th and 14 February 1945, unloading our bomb load of a 4000lb “cookie” and lots of incendiaries on the city when I pressed the bomb key. Should I count myself as a murderer for doing that? Some people in this country seem to think so but most of them were not alive at the time and so did not have to endure the bombing of our cities by the German air force.
[underlined] W.H. Thomas [/underlined]
Bill Thomas
11/07/15
I AGREE WITH THE INTERVIEW
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LIST OF OPERATIONS
DATE DESTINATION DURATION
11/10/44 Fort Frederick Heindrik 3.20
31/10/44 Cologne 5.20
02/11/44 Dusseldorf 5.20
04/11/44 Bochum 5.20
09/11/44 Wanne Eicline 4.55
16/11/44 Duren 4.30
18/11/44 Wanne Eicline 5.35
04/12/44 Karlsrhue [sic] 4.30
13/12/44 Essen 6.05
17/12/44 Ulm 7.50
28/12/44 Bonn 5.40
29/12/44 Buer 6.20
31/12/44 Osterfeld 5.50
02/01/45 Nurnberg 8.40
05/01/45 Royan 7.30
07/01/45 Munich 9.25
14/01/45 Merseburg (Leuna) 8.35
28/01/45 Zuffenhausen 7.15
03/02/45 Bottrop 6.10
04/02/45 Gardening – Heligo Bight 4.45
08/02/45 Aborted – Politz 2.50
13/02/45 Dresden 10.20
14/02/45 Gardening – Keil Bay 6.15
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20/02/45 Dortmund 6.25
22/02/45 Duisberg 5.50
23/02/45 Phorzheim 8.05
07/03/45 Dessau 10.00
08/03/45 Ground Loop – Kassel
03/04/45 Nordhausen 6.30
04/04/45 Lutzkendorf 8.10
09/04/45 Keil 5.55
Total Hours Night 185.45
Day 19.25
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
Bill Thomas memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MThomasWH152984-150721-01
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bill Thomas
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
2015-07-11
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight typewritten pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
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.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Scotland
Wales
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dresden
Wales--Aberystwyth
New Brunswick--Moncton
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
New Brunswick
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Ontario
Ontario--Belleville
Description
An account of the resource
He describes his first interest in the RAF, in 1938. He joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps, and later in 1941 the Air Training Corps. He was called up by the RAF in February 1942, and proceeded through initial training and the Initial Training Wing at Aberystwyth. Here he was promoted to leading aircraftsman. Having failed his pilots course, he was subsequently sent to Moncton Canada in late November 1942. Following a number of postings including bombing and gunnery school and navigation he was shipped home on the Aquitania back to the UK in December 1943. In early 1944 he was posted to Wigtown to train as a bomb aimer. He reported to 28 Operational Training Unit in late May 1944 where he crewed up. After flying in Wellingtons he passed through the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Sandtoft and the Lancaster Fininshing School at RAF Hemswell. He joined 166 Squadron, his flight forming 153 Squadron, which moved to Scampton, and on 31st October 1944 carried out his first operation on Cologne. He continued on operations including the attack on Dresden on 13th February 1945. On completion of his tour he trained as an equipment officer. He was released by the RAF in July 1946 and returned to his job with Cornwall County Council, He eventually moved to Morpeth in Northumberland and maintained his links with the 153 Squadron Association.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Karl Williams
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
153 Squadron
166 Squadron
1667 HCU
28 OTU
aircrew
Anson
Bolingbroke
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
incendiary device
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Scampton
RAF Strubby
RAF Wigtown
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2493/LCaseyJ2219470v1.1.pdf
620c98aafe151a45e5c4968e353df57d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Casey, John
J Casey
John Casey
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Collection contains an oral history interview with Sergeant John Casey (- 2016, 2217470, Royal Air Force), an escape map, logbook, service documentation, a wallet and photographs. John Casey served as an air gunner on 61 Squadron in 1944-45.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Casey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-10
2015-11-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Casey, J
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
John Casey's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers flying log book for Sergeant John Casey from 26 February 1944 to 8 October 1945. Detailing training schedule and operations flown. Served at 7 Air Gunnery School followed by training at 29 Operational Training Unit on Wellington, 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit on Stirling and No 5 Lancaster Finishing School. Aircraft flown were Anson, Martinet, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. He carried out a total of 22 daylight and night-time operations with 61 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe as an air gunner on the following targets in Germany, Netherlands, and Norway: Bergen, Bohlen, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Dresden, Flushing, Giessen, Heilbronn, Leuna, Lutzkendorf, Mittelland Canal, Munich, Nordhausen, Nuremberg, Politz, Rositz, Tønsberg and Würzburg. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Bain. The log book records a Cook's tour and Operation Dodge flights. Also contained is a newspaper cutting on the history of 61 Squadron and two pages of calculations.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LCaseyJ2219470v1
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-10-19
1944-10-20
1944-10-23
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-16
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-04
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
1945-05-16
1945-09-13
1945-09-15
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Giessen (Hesse)
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Würzburg
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Tønsberg
England--Lincolnshire
1654 HCU
29 OTU
61 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Martinet
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Coningsby
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
training
Wellington