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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/759/17786/BCruickshankGCruickshankGv3.1.pdf
728703bdda7927598c8967bdddcdd767
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
Cruickshank, Gordon
G Cruickshank
Description
An account of the resource
76 items. Concerns the life and wartime career of Flight Lieutenant Gordon Cruickshank DFM who joined the Royal Air Force in 1938. After training as an air gunner he flew 52 operations on Manchester and Lancaster with 50, 560 and 44 Squadrons. Collection consists of a 1956 memoir with original photographs donated separately, a memoir of his life on squadron from December 1941, his logbooks. a further notebook with memoir, playing cards annotated with his operations, official documents, lucky mascots, medals and badges, dog tags, memorabilia, crew procedures, as well as photographs of aircraft, targets and people.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Linda Hinman and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-04-28
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Cruickshank, G
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[page break]
1
Both my Mother [sic] and Father [sic] were married twice, my Mother [sic] a widow with eight children – and my Father [sic] a widower with three – the oldest George being killed in action during the 1914/18 war.
When my Mother [sic] met Father [sic], who was [smudged] Scottish [/smudged], stationed then at the Verne Portland Dorset, with the Army - they married, and had three more children, I was the middle one – now the youngest, the other dying when aged about 2 years.
Born at Portland November 25th 1918, my life was hard – during my school days I had gardening to do – then go out and sell to people localy [sic], on leaving school my first job was to help my brother-in-law with his window cleaning – later I got myself a shop assistants job in Weymouth, some 5 miles away cycling everyday – my pocket money was 2/- [?] per week.
It was late 1935 when I applied to join the Army – 4th Queens Own Hussars and January 2nd 1936 I was sworn in – and was to be stationed at Warbury Barracks Aldershot, after 6 months foot drill – and 9 month [sic] horse riding I became a trained trooper.
After my Fathers [sic] death – my Mother [sic] claimed me out on compassionate grounds being the only son in England at that period, my other brothers in the Royal Navy overseas
My life soon changed, and during the crisis of 1938 I rejoined the services – this time the R.A.F.
[page break]
2
After completing my training to become a Group II Balloon operator A.C I later after a short trade test became L.A.C. the war was on, we were busy putting the Balloons up around London – later I was posted to Felixstowe.
Having then being made Corporal, but keen on more action I applied for airgunnery [sic] – and in 1941 was accepted – being posted to Evanton Scotland for the Airgunnery {sic] course, after 4 weeks – not forgetting my 7 hrs flying time I became a Sgt Airgunner – my pay of 6d aday [sic] more than I had been getting as a Corporal.
My next station was 11 O.T.U. Abingdon – when my flying hrs increased by 5 hrs and became fully trained, and now ready for operations – but where?
It was December of 41 when my posting came through!! 50 Sqdn, then stationed at Swinderby – Near [sic] Lincoln, Having [sic] packed my kit – said my farewells to my friends, we, that is those who were also going to the same Station [sic] – Ginger Dacey, Colin Gray – Vic Greenwood, Smithy who was going to Binbrook.
Very late when we arrived at Swinderby – 8 miles to Lincoln, 8 miles to Newark, blimey what a dump!!
[page break]
3
We had been sent for crewing up on the Manchesters, but 50 Sqdn still had Hampdens – and still had for 3 more months after {smudged] arrival [/smudged].
Things got very boring waiting around, and more so depressing when detailed for bearers of one of our fellow aircrew who had been killed & was to be buried nearby at Bassingham
Then the Manchesters started arriving, Colin Gray & myself were crewed up with Norman Goldsmith D.F.C, Terry Tuerum [sic] was nav, later he flew with Gibson on the now famous damn [sic] raids, after a few hours of flying together we were ready for operations – and my grand total was now 32 hrs.
On the 15.4.42 my first operation – St Nazaire Height 800FT 4 [one indecipherable word] for gardening, time 6.15 very quite [sic] nothing unusual, 4 more days later – another gardening raid Ameland, 22.4.42 Gardening [sic] Kiel Bay Ht 1,000 3 [one indecipherable word]. On 24.4.42 Manchester L5786 – Second pilot Leslie Manser, who later won the V.C.
We set off for our first bombing operation target Rostok [sic], [encircled] 14 [/encircled] 250 inc[en]d[iary] bombs Ht 5000 ft.
[page break]
4
Good raid and plenty of Rostok [sic] hit – time 7.45.
This was most of the crews last trip – Colin & myself needed a new pilot ex [sic], would we be with Leslie Manser? no, we were to be crewed with Roy Calvert, Alan Conner, Lew Austin, Bert Branch ex.
It was 2 months later before we came operational – this time Lancasters, but first let me tell you of Leslie Manser, one of the greats – who gave his life without question.
On May 30th of 42 the crew lists up, a buss [sic] around it being a large raid – it was the first 1,000 bomber raid, and the target – Cologne.
Unfortunately Les, Jack Mills, Ben Naylor, and others got caught by enemy searchlights on approaching the target area – then it happened, hell let loose, when hit by intense & accurate anti aircrafts fire, the rear gunner wounded, they pressed on in great difficulties to bomb there [sic] objective – still cault [sic] in the searchlights & flak, when fire broke out, after awhile [sic] this was mastered with efforts of all – but it had left its mark.
A badly burnt wing & the engines
[page break]
5
Failing the Manchester began loosing [sic] height, Less [sic] held on & give orders for his crew to bail out at a very low height 1,000 ft.
Desdained [sic] the alternative of parachuting to safety himself – held on for all to get safely out, but to [sic] late for himself it plunged to earth and burst into flames with a man of great courage and strength
Flying Officer Leslie Manser was awarded the V.C. Posthumously [sic].
And the crew – well all but one , came back to England via the underground in “aprox” 21 days and today are still alive & kicking
[page break]
6
The boys of 50 Sqdn were a grand lot – who kept changing as the lose’s [sic] increased – Such men as Micky Martin, Spam Spafford – Toby [one indecipherable word], Dan Shannon, Boy Wonder Everett, Roy Beattle Oxly, Trevor Roper, Dave Abercrombie King Cole & a host of others.
Time, when not on flying – consists of bar drinking – cards, tossing the coins, or [one indecipherable word] playing – but the raids still kept coming, Frankfurt – Bremen, Wolholmshaven [sic], Essen, Wismar!!
Then Low [sic] level training, not forgetting Beatle Oxley’s remark at briefing, now lads remember don’t [sic] go mingling with the traffic in the streets when you goover [sic] the towns or Cities [sic]
It was now 17-10.42 [sic] briefing over, the daylight exspected [sic] on – a low level raid on Le Creucot [sic], 94 Lancasters[sic], to be led by Wing Commander Gibson – good quite [sic] raid, time 10 hrs 20 mins.
[page break]
7
Shortly afterwards another low-level Daylight [sic] this time Milan (Italy)
After crossing France at tree tops we started to climb for crossing over the Alps – this was a lovely sight – once over we started coming down for a low-level attack on Milan – we did drop our fire bombs at a very low height with great success afterwards shooting up a train & gun post with great success – but not a fighter in sight.
Time 9hrs 20 mins.
Around this period we were busy bombing Wismar, Genoa and I cannot recall ever bombing over [smudged] 10,000 [/smudged] FT – sometimes after droping [sic] the bombs putting the nose down and heading home at tree top level to dodge radar, I didn’t [smudged] mind [/smudged] this for flying rear and being around 14 Stone [sic] couldn’t get in the rear with full flying cloths [sic] – so hence I used the top parts – flying boots & a blanket around my legs this way I felt much freeor [sic]- and happier!!
My friend [smudged] Dacey was [/smudged] posted missing, Ken Smith, Vic Greenwood, to my dismay were killed in action.
[page break]
8
It was November 5th of 42 when I received a postagram
My Warmest [sic] congratulations on the award of your Distinguished Flying Medal
Signed H.T. Harris
A.C.C. Bomber Command.
It was on November 9th 1942 when I looked up the crew list & saw our crew were on.
So making my way out to our Aircraft[sic] – “S” for sugar & Give [sic] my turret and Brownings the once over – a short NFT with the crew and later atending [sic[ briefing.
The Target Hamburg with 100 Lancasters of Bomber Command.
It was dusk when we climbed aboard, Skipper Roy ran up the engines – I closed the fuselage door, climbed back to my turret, got in and closed doors, pluged [sic] in intercom – connected oxygen, reported rear gunner OK Skipper.
We set off for the runway in use & given the all clear – engines cleared, and steady increasing speed we were on our way for a perfect
[page break]
9
take off.
3,000 ft oxygen on – and after pin pointing we set course for enemy territory, once over the sea – Crooky, here Skipper!! OK? to test guns, all clear for shipping Nav – nothing around here Skipper!! OK Crooky test your guns, with a couple of bursts reported back OK Skipper guns OK.
From then on one keen look out for fighters – enemy coast ahead Skipper, OK bomb aimer, sharp look out now everyone.
It was not long before we approached the target area – which was 7/10 cloud, things seemed quite [sic], this was broken by the nav, target on your right Skipper – new course, bomb aimer getting ready up front, OK Skipper all set – plenty of searchlights about must be Hamburg below!!
OK Skipper bomb doors open – Left[sic] – Left [sic] Steady [sic], but that was it, hell let loose, - where am I upside down or the right way up
God I dont [sic] know – but I do know
[page break]
10
thiers [sic] a hell of lot of holes in us.
And an intense smell of cordite around – no intercom & both turret and guns out of action, all I could do was to hold on and pray – which I did.
Those boys on the ground certainly had us for target practice – and I was still looking for fighters – why I dont [sic] know, it was some 2 hrs before a knock on the rear door – Alan with a note come up front.
Say what a mess – holes back, left & centre I wondered how we made it, Alan said Roy’s wounded and the Nav also Lew, badly wounded, we learnt later he had been killed instantly.
Real cold now – [smudged] no [/smudged] windows in and I was nursing Lew not knowing he was dead
Then word we were well over the North Sea – then a sudden up lift, whats [sic] that – bombs away? [smudged] Blimey [/smudged] dont [sic] say we went through all that lot with a full bomb load – afraid we did Chum
Shall be damned glad to have my two feet again on firm ground
[page break]
11
Good old England soon [smudged] came [/smudged] up – no wireless or nothing, but with flying a [smudged] triangle [/smudged] up poped [sic] searchlights showing us the way for a crash landing.
O.K. lads here we go – crash positions, this is it – down – down – down to a perfect crash landing – good show Roy, what a crew.
After my leave found me stationed at Westcott an O.T.U., there I met Bob Weathershall, George Cleary, Rory Calhoun, Patteson, & a grand lot from another group – Bob was later crewed with Sqdn /Ldr Frazer [sic] Barron [smudged] DSO [/smudged] DFC DFM but I heard all got killed in a head on crash with another bomber over Paris.
Soon I was iching [sic] to be back – and late 43 found myself crewed with Flying Officer Flynns [sic] crew – a new crew who had never been on ops before lacking a mid upper gunner – we were posted to 44 Sqdn under Nettleton V.C.
He went missing on one of Italian raids
[page break]
12
Our new C.O. came, Wing commander Bows [sic]
Had Pat Dorhill in 44 Sqdn here for his [one indecipherable word] now with B.O.A.C.
[one indecipherable word] crew were fated in the first raid “Cassel” approaching enemy coast – when Nav shouts out, Sorry Skipper I cannot coup [sic], Pilot to Crooky whats [sic] the gen!! well Skipper how much off route – and our timing! I’ll check, well off route & running late, best to turn round Skipper – drop our bombs in the sea make our way back the best we can, we did, Nav was court martialed [sic] L M F on records and reduced to the ranks.
We had a succesful [sic] raid on Dusseldorf = another Berlin, and the next Berlin a near repeat of the first
My Warrant Officer through – about [smudged] the [/smudged] first airgunner W/O in the RAF unheard of before,
Terry said – sorry Crooke I am taking a complete new crew, felt sorry at the time – but learnt later he went missing on his 19th trip.
My good wife was relieved.
[page break]
13
Heard Roy Calvert was returning to ops – I’ll give him a ring, OK Crooke I’ll fix you up, and a few days later we were at 630 Sqdn East Kirkby – Alan Conner too, three of the regulars
Titch Freeman, Moody ex [sic] made up the crew.
Operations began rolling in Berlin – Schweinfurt, Stuttgart, Clermont Ferrand, Stuttgart Frankfurt – Berlin & Essen.
Then Briefing [sic] for Nurberg, on approaching enemy coast reported dozens of aircraft being shot down – your [sic] seeing things Crooke, but I knew different!! they did next morning when told about 144 [smudged] Lancs [/smudged] had been downed – us and another crew were only ones back from our lot, we lose [?] 10 aircraft
Sorry Crookes – but I’ll never forgive them. The losses were getting to [sic] high for my liking – wont [sic] be sorry to see my last trip – which was getting near now – so I was keeping my fingers crossed.
[page break]
14
After Toulouse-Montraudan, Danzig – Paris & Brunswick, this raid we were shot up by a night fighter – right action & timing we got away with slight damage and my 50th raid.
Had heard that Terry Taerum , Trevor Roper ex [sic] Gibson VC s crew had gone down on a raid on the Dortmund Ems Canal, Micky Martin & crew returning only out of 4 from 617 Sqdn
One of our crews had tried to take off without success – after leaving the ground plunged to the ground the rear turret breaking off and the rest blowing to pieces over a large Area [sic] – and the rear gunner the only one alive – later I learnt on returning off a raid – the pilot ordered bail out lads your [sic] over England, on going for his chute found it in complete ribbons – the other gunner said never mind we’ll go together with {smudged] [two indecipherable words] [/smudged] – but on pulling the cord the sudden jerk he let go & fell to his death below.
[page break]
15
Munich was always known to be a hard target to hit – [smudged] Cheshire [/smudged] said, give me one sqdn of PFF and 5 Group I’ll show you it can be –
He did 24.4.44 when we were briefed for Munich – we were in the last raid.
And on approaching the target – which was well ablaze now, we had our own run in and just released our bombs when caught by searchlights & four enemy night fighters, with good evasive action we downed one & damaged another down & down we went – say Skipper we dont [sic] want to be mixed up in these fires below, or the people [smudged] either [/smudged], dont [sic] think we’ll be welcomed [sic] guest right now
O.K Nav give me a course for home – soon we was clear of Munich and on the way once again for home – a very good raid, Lenord [sic] Cheshire awarded V.C. after that raid.
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
G Cruickshank Memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Describes life with family from 1918. Joined Army – 4th Queen's Own Hussars on 2nd January 1936. Joined RAF 1938 and trained as balloon operator then applied as air gunner, arriving at RAF Swinderby in December 1941. Took part in 50 Squadron operations to St Nazaire, Rostock and Cologne. Mentions Leslie Manser V.C. Took part in daylight operation on Le Creusot then Milan, Wismar and Genoa. Mentions postagram re DFM - from A.T. Harris, Bomber Command. Took part in “S” Sugar on Hamburg and on the 24th April 1944, operation on Munich. Many mentions of his crew and colleagues.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
G Cruickshank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942
1944
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Judy Hodgson
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
15 page handwritten exercise book
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCruickshankGCruickshankGv3
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Dorset
England--Portland
England--Hampshire
England--Aldershot
England--Suffolk
England--Felixstowe
France
France--Saint-Nazaire
France--Paris
France--Clermont-Ferrand
France--Toulouse
Germany
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Rostock
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Wismar
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Munich
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Italy
Italy--Milan
Italy--Genoa
Poland
Poland--Gdańsk
Scotland
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
England--Berkshire
England--Buckinghamshire
France--Le Creusot
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-04-15
1942-04-24
1942-05-30
1942-10-17
1942-11-05
1942-11-09
1944-04-24
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
44 Squadron
50 Squadron
617 Squadron
630 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Augsburg (17 April 1942)
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Manchester
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
RAF Abingdon
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Evanton
RAF Swinderby
RAF Westcott
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/509/17746/MDobleRG3030256-151117-01.1.jpg
60a7de8b43683aaf6bd64b54cb656fb8
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
Doble, Ronald George
R G Doble
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Doble, RG
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Ronald George Doble (3030256 Royal Air Force) his log book, service documents and photographs. George Doble served as a wireless operator / air gunner with 97 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Andrew St.Denis
Sergeant Ronald Doble – 3030256. Was born in London and initially served in the Air Training Corp, No,336 Squadron before joining the RAF aged 18, towards the end of WWII. Starting training for Radio Operator and Air Gunner, but switching to focus on Gunnery, this was on Wellington’s at Morton-in-Marsh. Completing training at No.1660 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Swinderby and then No.1653 HCU at RAF Lindholme, both in Lancaster’s the war in Europe had finished. Joining No.97 Squadron at RAF Hemswell, flying in Lincoln’s he flew as a rear gunner and took part in equipment tests such as Rebecca/Eureka, Radio Navigation equipment. After leaving the RAF Ronald entered an apprenticeship as a panel neater, building body’s for Talbots and Sunbeams at Rootes Group.
Factual ‘CV’
20 August 1945 – 9 November 1945: No 2 Air Gunnery School at RAF Dalcross – Aircraft: Wellington.
10 November 1945 - 1 November 1946: 21 Operational Training Unit at Moreton-in-Marsh – Aircraft: Unknown.
1 November 1946 – 9 November 1946: 1660 HCU at RAF Swinderby – Aircraft: Lancaster.
10 November 1946 – 26 March 1947: 1653 HCU at RAF Lindholme – Aircraft: Lancaster.
27 March 1947 – 1 July 1947: 97 Squadron at RAF Hemswell, Lincolnshire – Aircraft: Lincoln.
Biography
Born in Hammersmith, London to a working-class family, Ronald George Doble recounts his service in the RAF before leaving in 1947. Doble left school, aged thirteen, to work behind a guillotine cutting metal. Upon witnessing the bombing of London during the Second World War, Doble joined the fire watchers, tasked with dealing with the fallout of oil bombs before making the choice to join the RAF, beginning at the Air Training corps. Soon after he was sent to Grove court air crew receiving centre. Here he recalls a memory of a group of him and his new friends playing around with a mess tin which flew through the window and fall onto a flight sergeant with fifty men on parade. Doble was then sent to Yatesbury, where he was picked up as a wireless operator air gunner, undergoing a nine-month course.
Finding that there was no longer any use for his position, Doble went to Clapham, London where he took an educational course in preparation for taking the aptitude test at RAF Regiment Locking. Upon passing the test, he was posted to the Initial Training Wing at Bridgenorth. Once completing training at Bridgenorth, Doble was moved to Dalcross Air Gunnery school before proceeding to move to Moreton-in-Marsh, 21 operational training unit, then to the 1965 HCU and then finally ending up in Hemswell in Lincolnshire. However, when he and other gunners began to be de-ranked, they made the decision to leave the RAF and chose to continue an apprenticeship in Filey, making Sunbeams, Talbots, and Humbers Bodies. Within this job, Doble would get lead poisoning before being left without a job and finishing his career as a panel beater on car repairs in Haddenham.
This collection including an oral interview, with reference to stories ranging from attempting to carry a piano out of a building during a bomb attack and getting stuck and running out of oxygen whilst attempting to do a drogue firing. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/8411 There are also multiple photographs detailing the different services he was part of and the men he served with, as well as some of the aircrafts he flew. One such photograph shows Doble as well as other RAF airmen being introduced to King George VI and his family with an ‘x’ added by a fellow airman to show Doble amongst the men. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/17743 The collection includes an article about a Bomb Aimer and Navigator who refused to fly, destroying their maps in the process. Despite being allowed to fly after this event, they did so again and was ultimately charged with Lack of Moral Fibre. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/17746 Finally, Doble’s log and service and release book shows his service across his entire career as well as the aircrafts he flew in each place, something which he explores within his oral interview. Upon his release, Doble was described as an ‘extremely capable and efficient worker… of a very pleasant and cheerful nature’, and once again his interview serves to reflect the type of man he was and still is. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/17747
Amy Johnson
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
THEY REFUSED TO FLY
Sadly, two of our Lancaster crew refused to fly, and both were charged with Lack of Moral Fibre, known as LMF.
Soon after arriving at Mildenhall in December 1943 in December 1943 we reported to the 15 Squadron Adjutant. He said “Your training is over, you are here to fly against the enemy” and he added “If any of you have any doubts now is the time to speak up” and as we departed from his office he handed each of us a Bible, Was I being prepared for a Final Posting, I wondered?
Throughout my time on the Squadron I kept a day-to-day diary of all “Happenings” and one entry reads “Feb. 14th. Had a crew bust-up, be a miracle if the crew is not soon split up”. However, my young pilot did his 'second dickey' trip to Leipzig, date Feb. 19th, and 79 aircraft were missing that night.
Feb. 20th. We were on the Battle Order for Stuttgart with 624 aircraft, and others were doing a 'spoof' on Munich. We carried out our NFT, ate the the pre-flying meal, and attended the Main Briefing. With this over, we got the kit from the lockers, climbed into the crew bus, chatted with the ground crew, got into the kite, and did the pre-flight checks. We started up, taxied around the perimeter, and awaited at our take -off position.
Then suddenly, on the Intercom, two voices, Bomb Aimer and Navigator, announced “We have destroyed our maps and we refuse to fly.”
We returned to our dispersal and found the WingCo awaiting us; each of us was questioned and the B/A and the Nav were immediately confined to the Guard Room whilst the remainder of us went back to our billets. The next morning all our names appeared in the Battle Order again, and the B/A and Nav. Were released from the guard Room and given another chance to fly.
All appeared normal as we did our NFT, at our pre-flight meal and attended Briefing. The target was again Stuttgart.
We arrived at our take-off position with Lancs in front and Lancs behind, all waiting for the Green, when over the intercom came those words again “We have destroyed our maps.”
J.H. Our rear gunner and myself were escorts to the B/A and the Nav. every day as they awaited a Court Martial, charged with LMF. Our young pilot, he and this crew were killed over Berlin on March 24th.
Our Engineer, together with his crew, were all killed whilst taking-off with a bomb load. J.H. our rear gunner (also an AGA member) survived two tours, (one with 7 Sqdn. PFF) became a Gunnery Leader and was awarded the DFM. I was transferred to our sister Squadron, 622. (Bernard Dye).
NORTON CAMP, SHEFFIELD
I fell foul of the Signals Officer after being caught riding a bike with a WAAF on the crossbar – at least she thought it was the crossbar, I was told I was a good I was a good Wireless Op. but I needed 'sharpening up', so I was posted to Norton Camp, Sheffield. This place was essentially a punishment camp, but it was never called by that name; to be punished you had to be charged. Norton Camp was a 'course' and was so entered on your Records. Posted there with me was 'Sleepy' Collins, so called because he was said to
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
They Refused to Fly
Description
An account of the resource
An article about a navigator and a bomb aimer who destroyed their maps on two occasions. They were charged with Lack of Moral Fibre.
A second article titled 'Norton Camp, Sheffield' is about a punishment camp where the writer was sent after cycling with a WAAF on his crossbar.
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Bernard Dye
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One typewritten sheet
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eng
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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MDobleRG3030256-151117-01
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Sheffield
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Munich
Germany
England--Yorkshire
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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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Frances Grundy
15 Squadron
622 Squadron
7 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Distinguished Flying Medal
flight engineer
guard room
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military discipline
navigator
Pathfinders
RAF Mildenhall
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1261/17134/AMacKenzieR190509.2.mp3
f7d7acace3df88a532160a3413108e88
Dublin Core
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Title
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MacKenzie, Roddy
R MacKenzie
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Roddy MacKenzie about his father, Ronald MacKenzie who served in 166 Squadron with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He is the author of 'Bomber Command: Churchill's Greatest Triumph' Pen and Sword, 2022.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Roddy MacKenzie and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-05-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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MacKenzie, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: What is today? The 9th.
RM: It is. So —
DE: The day after VE Day.
RM: Yeah. So, my name is Dan Ellin from the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m here today to interview Roddy Mackenzie. It’s the 9th of May and we’re in Canwick, in Lincoln. So, Roddy could you tell me a little bit about your father’s service in Bomber Command please.
DE: Yes. My dad is Roland W Mackenzie, DFC and he flew thirty four combat sorties in World War Two with 1 Bomber Group, Squadron 166, based in Kirmington which is now the Humberside International Airport. He flew all thirty four combat sorties from that base and he was the pilot of Lancaster L for Love and his flights were from April to August of 1944. Now, I was born and raised in Calgary in Canada. I was born in 1948, three years after the war and I was born in a city that was really starting to move ahead in incredibly optimistic and major ways and I was raised in an environment in Calgary where we knew virtually nothing about the war. My Grade Twelve textbook at Queen Elizabeth High School was published in 1938. I got the trophy as the best person in Social Studies but the war was never really addressed as I was growing up and my dad spoke virtually never about the war so it was mainly a mystery. But I had three situations with my father. We were not emotionally connecting. He did have anger issues and unfortunately he also had perfectionism issues which were not helpful to me as an adult because burdened with this idea of perfectionism I steered away from areas that had high probability of failure. In other words perfectionism gave rise to a fear of failure. In recent years I’m discovering that a lot of people I’ve known also had a dad in Bomber Command and had exactly the same experience as I did. They can’t emotionally connect with their son. They have anger issues and they have perfectionism issues and that this is quite widespread. Now, my dad’s younger brother they were ten years apart, flew a Spitfire with Fighter Command and in the last year of, I’m sorry the last month of my uncle Bruce’s life which was January, June, June of 2017 I had four major meetings with my uncle because he knew he was dying. I wanted to learn everything I could possibly learn about my dad before the war. My uncle welcomed that opportunity to really search his memory from times past and also his love for his eldest brother. His children welcomed it as well because it really gave my uncle more of a sense of purpose and it was a really good experience for him as well as for me. And ultimately although he was ten years younger than my dad I got quite the picture of a very happy, a very humorous, a very generous person who did a lot of nice things. He was a young banker at that time in the Great Depression up in the Peace River District which for me as an urban Calgarian he might just as well have been at the North Pole. I mean, it was so isolated. Dad has often said to me those were his happiest years with the Royal Bank of Canada. Up north. But my uncle painted this picture that was just not consistent with my personal experiences with my dad and so in that I’m a lawyer I was forming the view that something extraordinary had happened in Europe while he was overseas. I have virtually nothing in the way of documentation. My dad died in 1991 and in his will he very clearly gave to me all of his war memorabilia including the model aeroplanes he had made of every plane he ever flew and they were all in correct size to one another. But I had an uncooperative stepmother and she simply ignored all of that. Worse still she discovered that my dad and my mum had written to each other quite a bit while dad was overseas. I had thought my parents didn’t even meet until he returned home from the war in January of ’45. It turns out they had been good friends for years prior to the war and they wrote to each other all the time during the war and the loss of that correspondence is just, I think a criminal tragedy of terrible proportions. It would have given me the clearest possible understanding of my dad’s evolution and his relationship with his wife, my mother. The other problem that our family experienced is that when I was about three years old my mother was struck with Polio which was an epidemic in Canada at that time in the early 1950s. So she was removed from Calgary, sent up to Edmonton, put in that dreadful iron lung at the University Hospital and was gone for quite a while. I was looked after by housekeepers when my dad was working. So now I have a father who I’m of the view was totally traumatised by Bomber Command, a mother who was totally traumatised by being completely paralysed by Polio living in a city which at that time was not good with anybody who was disabled. They were referred to as cripples. People really thought they should be kept out of sight, out of mind. It was a very unpleasant situation and neither of my parents got any kind of psychological help, any kind of emotional assistance of any kind whatsoever and ultimately I feel developed quite a strong dislike for one another. So I was raised by these two people in this situation that was emotionally a desert and where anger issues trained one not to ask much in the way of questions about anything that was in any way sensitive and that definitely included the war. Virtually nothing was said about the war. The one thing though that was interesting in Calgary at the time was Lancasters. The major city between Calgary and Edmonton is Red Deer and at the entrance to Red Deer there was a Lancaster I always looked forward to seeing as we’d go up to Edmonton to see my mother. And then in 1960 a Lancaster appeared in Nanton about an hour south of Calgary and also we had a Lancaster that flew in to Calgary which then spent thirty years on a spire right outside the main terminal of the Calgary International Airport such that it formed almost like a traffic circle. You had to go around the Lancaster to get in and out of Calgary’s airport terminal. So these Lancasters made quite an impression on me. They were obviously regarded as being very very important. The most powerful experience I ever had with my dad was quite a number of years after my mum had died, she died in 1970. In about 1985 my dad and I were driving alone from Calgary to Lethbridge and at that time Lethbridge was Alberta’s third largest city. My mother’s sister and her family lived in Lethbridge so we went there fairly often and I always looked forward to seeing this Lancaster that simply sat by the side of the road in Nanton. So we stopped there in 1985. I’m not sure we’d ever stopped before but we actually stopped and at that time I was a thirty seven year old lawyer living in Vancouver and raising, with my wife two young children. But I just happened to be in Alberta, happened to be with my dad and the two of us happened to be alone which was extremely unusual and there we were on our way to Lethbridge. So we stopped at this Lancaster. Now, the Lancaster Society in Nanton, it’s gone on to become the Canadian Bomber Command Museum etcetera with Carlsberg was not created until 1986. So this was a year before and the plane was simply sitting there. I proudly announced to the three or four people who were milling around looking at it that my dad flew one of these in Bomber Command and two of the men looked up in interest and one of them said to my dad, ‘Is that true?’ And they exchanged a few words and then this man said, ‘I’ve got the keys to the Lancaster. I’ll open it up and you and your son can spend as much time in there as you want.’ So we climbed in to this Lancaster and what makes it unique or one of very very few is it still had its World War Two interior configuration. A lot of Lancasters got reconfigured after the war for other purposes post-war but this one had the original World War Two configuration. So there we are inside this Lancaster. My dad made a few brief comments about where people sat and in particular where he, as pilot, sat. A few brief comments about flying the plane but he really didn’t say very much. Mainly we just sat there and I’m not sure how long we sat there. It could have been fifteen minutes. It could have been fifty minutes. We were there until my father suddenly said, ‘Time to leave.’ So out we go. One of those gentlemen was still there and we did the thank you’s, the goodbyes and we were back into the car and off to Lethbridge at which point as we were leaving Nanton my father started talking. It was in a very low, measured tone. He was strictly looking at the road. I don’t think we ever made eye contact and I simply sat there. Now, I tend to be the one that talks a lot. He tends to be very taciturn but in this situation for whatever reason I didn’t say a word, didn’t ask for any clarification on anything. I just simply sat there and my dad talked for the duration of the drive which I suspect was close to an hour and essentially he talked about flying Lancasters, and how you got one of those Lancasters into the target, how you managed to actually hit the target and how you managed to get yourself out again without getting killed. He’d had an extraordinary amount of experience flying. He was with the Royal Bank of Canada and of course Canada in all of its wars only fights with volunteers. For World War Two we had about nine and a half million people and so many people volunteered that we actually ended up putting one point two million who were accepted into our armed forces. One point two million volunteers and a lot of these were in the Air Force. My dad volunteered in late 1941 and I believe was accepted by the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942. So he began his training but he was a thirty year old and he seemed to have a real gift for flying planes so he got the Gold Medal and was kept in Canada to train others to fly planes for an extended period. Another person that was there was actually James Middleton. The grandfather of the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William’s wife was stationed in Calgary actually. James Middleton. And he was doing exactly the same thing. He was teaching people how to fly. My father told me that his greatest admiration within the Air Force in that war was for people who were instructing others how to fly. He said it was, he thought far more dangerous than anything that ever happened to him over Germany. In November of ’43 the Royal Canadian Air Force decided to send my dad over to England and by that point he had a staggering number of hours. I believe it was over a thousand and they started training him on the big heavy bombers. And then in the beginning of April 1944 he found himself in Kirmington as a member of 166 Squadron which interestingly is the Royal Air Force’s original bomber squadron. It was created in April 1918 only three weeks after the Air Force itself came into existence. So 166 was the original bomber squadron. It was in 1 Bomber Group and it was based in Kirmington in what we now call North Lincolnshire and it was abandoned for about thirty years after the war but ultimately re-emerged as Humberside International Airport. So the runway that my dad used for every sortie in World War Two is being used on a steady basis especially by KLM going to Amsterdam. So he arrived and flew his thirty four sorties with 166 squadron and got the Distinguished Flying Cross, the DFC for his work as a pilot and it’s a very glowing report on him. It also refers to him as being deputy flight commander. I don’t know what that is but it’s in the DFC citation and they talked about his tremendous ability to keep people’s morale up in that base. Which is interesting because I didn’t know that part of him when he was raising me but it was very consistent with what my Uncle Bruce had been telling me about him prior to the war. Squadron 166 had nine hundred and forty four young men killed. Nine hundred and forty four men killed. Average age twenty three. My dad when he arrived in England was thirty. When he flew his first combat mission he was thirty three. But the average age of those dead was twenty three and of those a hundred and thirty three were Canadians and approximately sixty five were Australians. My dad was part of the twenty eight percent that got out of that in one piece. The problem is he didn’t get out of it in one piece and something that I’m very very critical of is the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force and their use of that dreadful concept lack of moral fibre. And it’s particularly annoying now that I discover that the United States Army 8th Air Force and even the Royal Australian Air Force were actually much more enlightened on that issue than the RAF or the RCAF. With the RAF and RCAF essentially if you were starting to fall apart you were simply out and it was LMF. The others had rest homes. They had psychological care. They had a number of things but this LMF was, I think a horrible thing and I think we’re really paying for it with the next couple of generations of people that returned from Bomber Command. My work in doing a book on what Bomber Command accomplished has been drawing a lot of attention in Canada. Particularly the Sir Winston Churchill Society, the Royal Commonwealth Society and the Royal Canadian Air Force at its ninety fifth anniversary where I became the guest of honour and the feature speaker and my remarks had a profound effect on all present at that dinner on the 30th of March 2019. So I’m now one of the newest members as of January 2019 of the Australian Bomber Command Association and as of April 2019 of the New Zealand Bomber Command Association. My RCAF paper has struck a major nerve cord in both of those nations and I’m learning a lot from them about Bomber Command. Now, Australia had twenty thousand fliers in Bomber Command and they now have the concept of the Bomber Command family which they say are the children, the grandchildren and the great grandchildren of Bomber Command aircrew. The Bomber Command Australia family is two hundred and fifty thousand Australians and these people have been angry about Australia’s reaction to Bomber Command and they have carried out a complete paradigm shift in how Australia regards Bomber Command. The first Sunday in June is now Bomber Command Sunday in Australia and New Zealand. It’s now, I’m told become the third biggest military event of the whole year in Australia. I think July 2017 one of the issues of the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the great newspapers of Australia the headline was essentially Bomber Command aircrew were not shameful. They were among our greatest heroes. And I think that captured the complete paradigm shift in Australia. A paradigm shift has not happened so far in Canada. Now in Canada one out of every four Canadians killed in World War Two was killed in Bomber Command and yet my experience, I was born in 1948 is that pretty much anybody younger than I am has literally never even heard of Bomber Command. Its absolutely unknown and most people who are older than I am in Canada what they know about Bomber Command is wrong. There’s been some spectacular sensationalist negative assertions about Bomber Command that were completely rebutted by credible sources but nobody seems to remember the reason of the rebuttles. They only remember the scandalous assertions. Two of the biggest, one was January of 1992 which thankfully was six months after my dad had died the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, national TV network and the National Film Board hit their all-time low of irresponsible journalism and broadcast, I believe it was on the 19th of January 1992 an episode of the, “Valour and the Horror,” about Bomber Command in which Brian Mckenna who was the producer of this travesty more or less said that Bomber Command spent the war bombing innocent civilians in cities of little or no military value and Bomber Command’s contribution to the war was minimal if any. Well, it created a huge stir at the time and it really shocked a lot of people. It totally shocked me. Bomber Command aircrew formed a class action to sue both the CBC and the National Film Board but the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the action saying they did not think Bomber Command aircrew constituted a class action. Well, if they’re not a class then they really have no action at all because for individuals what damages to that particular individual suffered it had to be a class action. And yet in March of 2019 that same appeal court ruled that Uber drivers get to be a class action but in 1992 Bomber Command aircrew did not. The Senate of Canada however did take a full look at this, a full examination and they said that that journalists are entitled to their point of view and should be able to express it. But in looking closely at what this documentary says there is nothing to support what they are saying. The whole situation was just an absolute travesty but nobody remembers the Senate’s full report. Everybody remembers that scandalous TV show. And likewise in 2007 I was in Ottawa and the National War Museum had just opened a Bomber Command exhibit in which they call Bomber Command aircrew war criminals. While I was in Ottawa I saw it as a headline in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. So the first thing the next morning I was down there as soon as the place opened to see this exhibit and I got in to a very spirited discussion with museum staff members because I was absolutely furious. There was no truth to what they were saying. They were the worst imaginable defamatory statements and did they want the grandchildren of my dad to think that he was war criminal? It was infuriating. Now, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation happened to have a TV crew for other reasons there at the time and so they asked if I would like to speak to their television network and I welcomed the opportunity. Made my full speech. My understanding is they did broadcast it and my memory is people had mentioned that to me afterwards but I’m uncertain. I hope they broadcast it and I hope it influenced people. What I do know is I was one of quite a number of Canadians that were totally outraged so the war museum completely changed its presentation and I’m told two or three people lost their jobs. I hope that’s true. But again, most people just remember those incredible headlines. Bomber Command aircrew being war criminals. Nobody remembers how anything got sorted out thereafter. But what bothers me the most is I don’t think anybody has really properly focussed on what Bomber Command actually accomplished and that’s what bothers me the most. As I said one out of every four Canadians killed in World War Two were killed in Bomber Command but I think they were killed doing something that was incredibly important. In World War One we make a big fuss now that the last of the World War One veterans are dead, we make a big fuss nowadays about the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Militarily it was expertly carried out and every element of the Canadian Army for the only time in Canada’s history all fought together and it was a decisive Canadian victory and we took the Ridge. It turns out that taking the Ridge really didn’t make much of a difference one way or the other. The Germans said the battle was just a minor footnote but we had as many casualties in five days taking Vimy Ridge as we had fatalities in five years in Bomber Command and my submission is Vimy Ridge accomplished not much of anything other than to give us a sense of self confidence whereas Bomber Command I feel was decisive to the Allied victory in World War Two. But now I’m discovering that there is a great deal of difficulty getting accurate information on exactly what they accomplished because so much of what is written about Bomber Command is either criticising them or just heart-warming reminiscences of particular people in Bomber Command aircrew. Nobody is really focussing from what I can see on what they actually accomplished. Now it’s difficult to know exactly what they accomplished because even though photographs were taken by each aircraft as they were leaving bombing sights those photographs didn’t do a whole lot more than prove that the plane was actually at the bombing site and not unloading its bombs in the middle of the North Sea and then just heading home again because what could they actually tell you? And so increasingly I’m of the view that the people that have the most accurate knowledge of what Bomber Command accomplished are the Germans. And they have had a lot to say about Bomber Command. Most of their leading generals have said that Bomber Command was decisive to them losing the war. That losing control of the air and the endless bombing depriving them of their means of making war was decisive in World War Two. And the one person that has the most to say of course is Albert Speer because Albert Speer was the munitions minister that had to keep quickly rebuilding all of these places that were bombed. He was the one that was busily trying to move all the factories that were bombed in the countryside places which created all kinds of other issues of transporting stuff and people etcetera etcetera. But he was in very very deeply in this whole situation and what he said was Germany’s failure to defeat Bomber Command was Germany’s greatest lost battle of the whole war. The strategic bombing offensive did more damage to the German war effort than losing every battle in Russia including the surrender of Stalingrad because bombing continuously damaged with ever increasing ferocity and then ultimately destroyed Germany’s ability to produce the means necessary to make war. That’s Speer. Rommel is possibly the most famous of the generals and after D-day Rommel said to his superiors, ‘If you can’t stop the bombing we can’t win the war.’ And the other major German leaders also talked about the devastating, absolutely devastating impact of Bomber Command. It also condemned close to two million people many of whom could have been at the various fronts but nobody ever knew where Bomber Command was going to strike next. So they had to man these anti-aircraft guns all over Germany and maybe Bomber Command would only come to a particular place once or twice in the entire year and other than that these people are paralysed there but they can’t leave because they have to be there if Bomber Command does show up. And also probably the most valuable gun that Germany had in World War Two was the, I think eighty millimetre dual purpose anti-aircraft, anti-tank gun. That was their most useful gun in the war according to Albert Speer. They had forty thousand of them. They had to pull twenty thousand of those guns back from their Fronts and particularly the Russian front in order to shoot down Bomber Command aircraft. They did manage to destroy nine thousand Bomber Command aircraft. We lost nine thousand at any rate. Well, pulling those guns away from the fronts and especially the Russian Front really seriously hurt because those guns were the only ones that penetrated Russian tanks and yet fifty percent of them had to be brought back into Germany. Nine hundred thousand soldiers were manning these guns all over Germany when they all could have been fighting on the Fronts if they weren’t forced. And also just a fraction of those that were fighting Bomber Command could have actually destroyed Bomber Command if Bomber Command had restricted itself to a small number of clearly defined targets. It’s the fact that Bomber Command was bombing all over the place that paralysed the nation. And they say with the skilled and unskilled workers to keep rebuilding everything, with the soldiers that were doing various things in these cities to deal with Bomber Command bombing and then the nine hundred thousand that were locked in to the anti-aircraft equipment two million people were paralysed. Also, Lord Trenchard, Hugh Trenchard, the person that is called the father of the Royal Air Force says the number one role of any Air Force is to put the other air Fronts on the defence. Well in the early years of the war the Germans had a lot of easy victories all over Western Europe with the Luftwaffe in the air busily bombing everything and then the Armies just moving in and taking over. But Bomber Command forced the Luftwaffe off the offence and into an unsuccessful defence, forced the production of endless fighters when what they really wanted was bombers, forced everyone into producing pilots that could fly fighter planes etcetera. The Luftwaffe was withdrawn in large part from all three fronts, the Mediterranean, the Western and the Russian Fronts to cope with Bomber Command and that was absolutely enormous. Bomber Command also had a huge impact at sea. Whereas the Royal Navy sunk three of the seventeen major ships of the German Navy Bomber Command sunk eight and could have sunk two more except they were withdrawn by the Admiralty of the Royal Navy just before they did so. Bomber Command according to Albert Speer wiped out about three thousand U-boats in their bases and made the production of U-boats extraordinarily difficult. So the other area where Bomber Command was incredibly helpful was the helping the Armies. Very very helpful with the Canadian and British Armies in Normandy. Very helpful with getting the Americans across the Rhine River and very very helpful with the Russians at Dresden. Yalta of a dying franklin Roosevelt, a depressed Winston Churchill and a jubilant Joseph Stalin was only about four or five days before they bombed Dresden. Stalin asked point blank for the bombing of Dresden. It was a major marshalling yard. It was a major communication centre. The Deputy Supreme Commander of the Soviet Forces, Anatov had said they had to destroy those communications and Stalin did not want the Russian Army which was already hopelessly overextended, extremely vulnerable, lost in the swamp of a city the way in which Canada was in Ortona in Italy which we call Canada’s Stalingrad. Where we were fighting those Germans building by building and room by room. It’s called [unclear]. So Bomber Command bombed Dresden for the Soviet Red Army. Now, after the bombing of Dresden just two days later on the 17th of February 1945 the Associated Press of the United States which had incredible respect among Americans as being incredibly accurate started to speculate that Dresden looked like terror bombing. Immediately the most respected person in the entire United States Armed Forces, General George C Marshall issued a personal statement. Dresden was a military target and the bombing was requested by Joseph Stalin. There was not a word about Dresden from that day forward in America even though they had about five hundred and thirty bombers participating with our seven hundred and sixty odd bombers in the bombing of Dresden. But what we got in Britain was dead silence until Churchill issued a very unfortunate signal which he later reputed on the 25th of March. So the Americans instantly quashed any criticism of Dresden and we allowed Dresden to fester into something that bears no connection with reality. Two of the biggest lies the Nazi Germans told in World War Two concerned Dresden. The morning after the bombing the local authorities in Dresden signalled to Berlin that about twenty thousand people had been killed. The Americans, the United States Air Force, in their 1953 report says that there were fifty thousand war workers in about a hundred and twenty war related plants in Dresden. Also, a huge number of German soldiers in Dresden at the time of the bombing because that’s where they were marshalling them to defend themselves from the Red Army. Anyway, the signal to Berlin was that about twenty thousand were killed. Goebbels simply added a zero and said two hundred thousand were killed. All he did was add a zero. And I was one of the many that believed that outrageous lie until February of 2015 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the real number was less than twenty five thousand and she could hardly believe the west would actually swallow a Nazi lie of that magnitude. Well, I was one of those people that swallowed that lie of that magnitude. It got me wondering just how much else about Bomber Command that I was told wasn’t true. I think of Mark Twain. Mark Twain says, “It’s not what you don’t know that’s going to hurt you. It’s what you do know that aint so.” And overwhelmingly what Canadians know about Bomber Command aint so. The second lie that they told, Goebbels told was that it was just a quaint medieval town with beautiful architecture but no military value. In fact, as I say it had fifty thousand war workers, it had about a hundred and twenty factories and other places that produced war material. It was a major marshalling yard of great importance for Germany’s defence of the homeland against the Red Army and it was a major communication centre. But those two absolutely appalling German lies on who was killed and the military value of the city are still believed today and all of this is very very very disturbing. So getting back to my dad he comes back to a Canada where an awful lot was not properly understood about Bomber Command, where Churchill’s appalling failure to even mention Bomber Command in his VE Day speech kind of opened the works for all kinds of people publishing books saying the most sensationalist things imaginable all of which gave a really erroneous, erroneous impression of Bomber Command. Now, Churchill did to some extent come to his senses by 1951 when he was doing his histories of the Second World War and he does conclude there in “Volume Five, the Closing the Ring,” Churchill does in that book say, “But it would be wrong to end without paying our tribute of respect and admiration to the officers and men who fought and died in the fearful battle of the air the like of which had never before been known or even with any precision imagined. The moral test to which the crew of a bomber were subjected reached the extreme limits of human valour and sacrifice. Here chance was carried to its most extreme and violent degree above all else. They never flinched or failed. It is to their devotion that in no small measure we owe our victory. Let us give them our salute.” And I think that is so true but that is not what is happening. Bomber Command has been badly defamed. It is not understood. My submission is Churchill was vital to Bomber Command and Bomber Command was vital to victory in World War Two. My father was part of all that but it was never really discussed after the war and it wasn’t until 2017, my dad had died in 1991, 2017 somehow on my computer I penetrated a wall in the Royal Air Force and like magic all this information came flowing forward about my father. Right from the day he was born in Westfield, Nova Scotia in 1912. All this information came flowing forward and it gave me the two things I needed to know. I needed to know Kirmington, that’s the Air Force base he flew from and I needed to know the squadron that was 166 Squadron and 1 Bomber Group. So in the summer of ’17 I showed up at Kirmington, I saw things there and they had a guest book for 166 Squadron. They’d stopped having their annual reunions in 2014 which was a tragedy for me but I took pictures of the pages because they left a lot of email addresses and I emailed everybody and people started contacting me. Then in the spring of 2018 CTV, the other national television network in Canada, the private network, Canadian Television network wanted me to come to the Prince Harry’s wedding in Windsor to explain that CTV was not just covering the marriage of some celebrities, they were covering a marriage that was part of the constitutional monarchy which was the basis of both the law and the governance of Canada. And of course, Queen Elizabeth is the Queen of Canada. So there I was in Windsor to comment on this wedding and to make these speeches about the constitutional importance of the event but my half month got completely hijacked by the Royal Air Force and I found myself being introduced to all manner of people and seeing all manner of things. And that led to my being summoned back to the United Kingdom in August of 2017, I’m sorry 2018 to participate with my sons as the official representatives of Canada at the ceremonies honouring 166 Squadron. Ceremonies that were taken sufficiently seriously that the Royal Air Force was represented by Air Marshall Sir Christopher Coville and Air Vice Marshall Paul Robinson and they were extremely interesting people for me to meet. And Air Vice Marshall Paul Robinson has evolved into a major part of my life and is the key reason that I am now back in the United Kingdom for a month researching Bomber Command because I feel I must write a book about what Bomber Command accomplished and how our failure of remembrance is wrong and how these aircrew, a hundred and twenty five thousand air crew, eighty thousand of which became casualties, fifty seven, fifty five thousand seven hundred and some odd were killed are some of the greatest heroes in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the four countries that constituted Bomber Command. That the truth needs to be told about this and I feel a strong compelling thing to do that. My concluding remarks are what I have learned from 2017 has caused me to have a complete paradigm shift on my father, on his life and what he had to cope with etcetera. He and so many of his colleagues, these people were men of extraordinary character, bravery, determination and what they did was absolutely essential to our winning the war. They need to be remembered with gratitude. Thank you.
DE: Thank you, Roddy. Well, I had a list of things and I’ve ticked them all. Could you talk a little bit more about the conversation you had with your father in the car? What sort of things did he tell you about?
RM: Well, I understood from what he was telling me that perfectionism was essential to survival when you’re in the process of bombing heavily defended German targets. That the slightest error generally tended to mean death and so therefore you had to do things essentially perfectly and even then of course there was a high risk you were going to be killed. But he told me that Lancasters were remarkable aircraft and if a person knew enough about how to fly them which evidently took a tremendous amount of physical strength and sometimes the flight engineer had to actually assist in the flying just because of the enormous strength it took to move some of the levers that needed to be moved, especially in evasive actions that the Lancaster was an absolutely extraordinary aircraft for doing that. He explained how the night fighters functioned and where they came from and how they tried to be invisible until you were dead and they liked shooting pilots because that was a good way of shooting down the aircraft at the same time. He talked about their guns. Those incredible anti-aircraft, anti-tank guns that were incredibly effective. It was extremely difficult once you got locked into the cones of the spotlights. The floodlights that they had. But corkscrew manoeuvres of various types could save the day if you were incredibly lucky. He talked about the extreme difficulty of actually hitting the target and sometimes you had to fly over more than once. In his citation for the DFC what they say in this this citation is, “This Canadian officer has now completed thirty four faultless attacks on enemy targets ranging from Germany to occupied Europe. He has consistently shown himself to be a pilot of great skill and has displayed high leadership qualities of courage and has been determined to press home his attack regardless of the opposition and has always been successful. His tenacity of purpose was magnificently displayed on his last sortie in August 1944 when on proceeding to the target an engine failed. He made no less than three runs over the target despite heavy flak to ensure that his bombs fell in the target area.” They go on to say, “On the ground as deputy flight commander he has shown willingness and enthusiasm which had been an inspiration to the whole squadron. For his determination and devotion to duty he is strongly recommended for the award of the DFC.” So he was explaining how all of this had to be perfect and he also explained this lack of moral fibre which he thought was part of the insanity of the Royal Air Force High Command most of whom had never actually flown in Bomber Command situations so they had no idea what was being experienced in these horrendous casualties of Bomber Command aircrew. He said that once a young pilot on one of his first sorties got out of that Lancaster totally traumatised, totally shaken to the core and the next night virtually at gunpoint he was put back into the cockpit of a Lancaster. The insanity was just overwhelming and of course for huge flights they flew in tight formation. This youngster completely lost his nerve, pulled forward his joystick, the Lancaster shot upwards and ripped out the belly of the one on top of it and in the ensuing chaos six Lancasters crashed because the Royal Air Force High Command had this insane policy of lack of moral fibre. He also talked about approaching the targets. The long flights into Germany. Some of these places were a long way away. It was freezing cold in the Lancaster except for the navigator who was sitting next to the heater and was at risk of being burned. He talked about how difficult it was to get out of a Lancaster if you are being shot down. He talked about how you had to be aware of all the other planes that you were flying with, of these night fighters, of the flak, of the guns. He had enormous respect for those 88 centimetre, millimetre anti-aircraft, anti-tank, he said those guns were incredibly effective. And how difficult it was to get into that target, to have your perfect timing and to make darned sure those bombs fell exactly where they were supposed to fall and not anywhere else. He talked about the incredible pressure that was on people within an aircrew and the camaraderie and he was one of those that agreed with Canada. A huge conflict between Canada and the United Kingdom and Bomber Command is Canada felt very strongly every person in that aircrew should be a commissioned officer. It was ridiculous that half of them were non-commissioned, and they were treated totally differently back at base and my father felt that very very strongly. That everything about that was wrong. He essentially said you had to keep total focus. You couldn’t let anything distract you because there were so many things happening at once you had to rely so heavily on the other people within your aircraft for what they saw, for how they described it in order to take evasive actions that would actually work and how the entire exercise was absolutely extraordinary. A nightmare that was virtually unimaginable.
DE: Thank you. I’m just struck. You just mentioned that that Canada was very keen on all aircrew being officers. So there was obviously strong support for the Royal Canadian Air Force and Bomber Command during the war. When, when did that support ebb away in your opinion?
RM: Well, that’s a really good question of how support fell away and by who and by where. Part of the problem was after the war we seemed to have this culture of not talking about the war very much. Canada is an unusual country because it’s both French and English and this country almost split in half in the First World War on the whole issue when conscription came up in World War One. They had a referendum where English Canadians were about ninety percent in favour and French Canadians were about ninety percent opposed and it was catastrophic. Our Prime Minister in World War Two, William Lyon Mackenzie King was really determined that was not going to happen a second time. Now, if somebody was conscripted they never had to leave Canada. They were actually called zombies but in both wars they did have to get into some element of conscription towards the end of the war to at least free up volunteers that were doing things in Canada to get them over to the front. But it raises a very very important point that isn’t well understood and that is William Lyon Mackenzie King, the longest serving Canadian Prime Minister first got elected Prime Minister in 1921, was out of office for five years during the Great Depression so he never had to take responsibility for it and then resigned in November of 1948 after becoming very sick at a Commonwealth Conference in London where King George the 6th, Nehru, Smuts, Jan Smuts from South Africa and other people came to his bedside to say their farewells. Mackenzie King had known Churchill since 1900 when they had more or less equivalent positions in their respective governments. So he had known Churchill for forty years before Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940. They were born just three weeks apart so these men were essentially exactly the same age. They were both great leaders in their own way but Mackenzie King was a virtually invisible leader whereas Churchill was the exact reverse. He loved the limelight. He loved the spotlight. So they functioned well together in that regard. But Mackenzie King entered the Second World War absolutely determined this was not going to be a rerun of the First World War and slaughters over battles like Vimy Ridge. That this was not going to happen. And he recognised the only way we could avoid a rerun of World War One is we had to take control of the air. Mackenzie King was absolutely definite we had to take control of the air and his theory was the only way we’re going to take control of the air is by having the world’s finest aircrew. And so in December of 1939 Australia, Canada, Britain and New Zealand signed an agreement in Ottawa creating the Commonwealth Air Training Plan which trained about a hundred and thirty one thousand of the world’s finest aircrew. The United Kingdom put fifty four million dollars in to that and also about a hundred and sixty million dollars in used equipment that was used for training purposes. Australia which only had about five and a half million people put in sixty eight million and New Zealand which probably only had about a million people put in forty five million dollars. Canada with nine and a half million people put in one point six billion dollars into that training programme to create the world’s finest aircrew and it was very much that way in the war itself as well. Canada’s support of the Bomber Command was rock solid. From January 1st 1943, we got our own bomber group. Bomber Group 6 but the majority of Canadians were flying in the other squadrons like my dad. They were all seconded by the Royal Canadian Air Force to the Royal Air Force. Now, two things happened after the war. The first one is of course that Mackenzie King resigned in November of 1948 and was dead in July of 1950. But he never was one to rally the flag much anyway. He never made speeches people could remember except maybe his most famous speech because it was the most decisive issue in Canada and that was the possibility of conscription. Mackenzie King’s position on conscription was conscription if necessary but not necessarily conscription. And that was probably the most famous speech he ever made but it held the whole country together. But he died and he was replaced by Louis St Laurent from Quebec City, a French Canadian and the French had a very different attitude towards the war. And then he was defeated by 1957 by John Diefenbaker, the first Prime Minister of Canada that was neither English nor French but he was regarded by the establishment as very outsider. Heavily heavily criticized. He may be the only honorary member of Bomber Command Association. He was definitely that. But then after that we got into Pearson who got the Nobel Peace Prize and then we got into Trudeau who amalgamated the armed forces and virtually destroyed them in the process. So other than Diefenbaker right from the end of the war there was nobody in Canada to speak up for Bomber Command. And in 1968 they actually amalgamated the Army, the Navy and the Air Force into one unit. We’re the only Navy in the world that didn’t even have the word Navy in its name. So there was never anyone to kind of speak up for Bomber Command. It was never talked about much and then we get this scandalous CBC and National Film Board January 1992 deal which just ripped Bomber Command to shreds. But we didn’t have any national leader that really spoke up for it and it just sort of fell into the mists of confusion and misinformation.
DE: Thanks. I mean, you said about your father’s role in, as an instructor and you’ve hinted at the importance of Canada to aircrew training. What happened to all the heritage? I mean there are hundreds of old airfields where training took place. Are they, are they not remembered or are they not memorialised?
RM: Most of them just went into total disrepair. Just got completely grown over. The whole situation in Nanton, Alberta it’s a little tiny town of three thousand people it is almost unique. Everything just sort of, just somehow ceased to exist. There was no effort really to maintain anything other than the fact that the Lancaster somehow had a very distinctive hold on the Canadian population. And now the city of Toronto last Fall has given its Lancaster to the city of Victoria in British Columbia and I’m in continuous communication with the people there who are rebuilding it. British Columbia finally has a Lancaster again after decades. The Lancaster has been the one reminder of the war that resonates very very powerfully with Canadians. But virtually everything else just simply evaporated. I mean our National Bomber Command should not be in Nanton, Alberta. It should be on Wellington Street in Ottawa across from the Parliament Buildings. That’s where it should be. Our remembrance is terrible. Now, to its credit the government of Canada at least on its website, if anybody ever actually looks at the website, the Governor, this is what Canada says on the internet. The heading is, “Canadians in Bomber Command.” Canada states, “The efforts of the approximately fifty thousand Canadians who served with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force in Bomber Command operations over occupied Europe was one of our country’s most significant contributions during the Second World War. The men who served in Bomber Command faced some of the most difficult odds of anyone fighting in the war. For much of the conflict the regular duration for a tour of duty was thirty combat sorties. The risk was so high however that almost half of all aircrew never made it to the end of their tour. Despite the heavy losses Bomber Command was able to maintain a steady stream of aircraft flying over U-boat bases, docks, railways and industrial cities in Germany as well as enemy targets in occupied Europe.” That’s what the government of Canada says.
DE: That’s pretty good I think.
RM: But nobody knows they say that on the internet but even I was astonished when I saw it there. And then the Canada Bomber Command Memorial says, “The bomber offensive mounted by the Commonwealth countries during the Second World War,’ notice they’re actually focussed on the Commonwealth countries and whatever monuments you do find in Canada it’s always talking about the Commonwealth countries has been described as, “The most gruelling and continuous operation of war ever waged. It lasted for some two thousand days. Bomber Command until the tide turned offered the only weapon capable of waging war against Hitler’s European fortress and then it concludes saying Bomber Command’s successes were purchased at a terrible cost. Of the volunteers who flew,” over fifty five thousand were Canadian err, “Fifty five thousand were killed and almost eleven thousand of these were Canadians.” And that’s in Nanton, Alberta. So yeah, the official statement of the government of Canada actually catches people by surprise. I’ve done a number of major speeches now in the last few months in Canada and every time I read that everyone is very surprised. But essentially our government since the war have not been supportive of the military. Most of them are totally focussed on electoral situations in Quebec. Quebec does not like being reminded of the war. And we have just been sitting ducks for things such as that documentary and that War Museum. I think in a single sentence my friend, Brother Maximus said, ‘Regarding Bomber Command Canadians have become a people who are forgetful, ungrateful and easily deceived.’ And I think that’s precisely what’s happened.
DE: Ok. I think Roddy unless you have anything else to add we’ll leave that there. That was just over an hour. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Roddy MacKenzie
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-05-09
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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AMacKenzieR190509
Type
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Sound
Format
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01:01:31 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Roddy MacKenzie’s father, Roland, joined the Canadian Royal Air Force in 1942. He trained as a pilot and worked as an instructor in Canada before being posted to RAF Kirmington, where he joined 166 Squadron and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for completing thirty-four operations between April and August 1944. Born in 1948, Roddy grew up with little knowledge of his father’s wartime role. He describes a rare encounter in 1985 when, after sitting in a Lancaster together, Roland opened up about his time as a pilot. He conveyed his respect for flight instructors, the difficulties aircrew faced during operations, and the dangerous consequences that lack of moral fibre caused. In 2017, Roddy met with his uncle to learn more about his father, who died in 1991. Upon hearing a pre-war description that was inconsistent with his own experiences, he postulates that Roland had been traumatised by his service in Bomber Command, thereby explaining Roddy’s struggle to connect with his father. Roddy expresses his opinion regarding the mistreatment of Bomber Command in Canada, compares this to remembrance in Australia, and cites the negative media portrayals that have tainted national memory. He suggests that as discussions are either heavily critical or romanticised, society lacks an understanding of Bomber Command’s contribution to the outcome of the war. In 2018, Roddy visited RAF Kirmington to attended a ceremony to honour 166 Squadron as the official representative for Canada, which introduced several new contacts that allowed him to conduct further research.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Coverage
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Second generation
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Canada
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
2017
1991
2018
Language
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eng
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
166 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Distinguished Flying Cross
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military service conditions
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Kirmington
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16333/BNealeETHNealeETHv05.1.pdf
07b6eb465958c09077bc90e5a2dbdde9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Neale, Ted
E T H Neale
Description
An account of the resource
123 items. The collection concerns Edward Thomas Henry Neale (b. 1922, 1395951 Royal Air Force) who served as a navigator with 37 Squadron in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy. The collection contains his training notebooks from South Africa as well as propaganda leaflets dropped by the allies in the Mediterranean theatre.
The collection also contains a photograph album, navigation logs and target photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alison Neale and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-31
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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Neale, ETH
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[note]
[page break]
HILARY SALMON
Producer of BOMBER CREW BBC Programme
NEALE. MR. MRS.
NUMBERS FOR BRIGGS & STRATTON
[redacted]
[page break]
ACA SECRETARY RAY TAGLI
HON SEC Biggin Hill WING ACR
[redacted]
heures HOCINE
[redacted]
[page break]
September 1940
It was the sound of the bomb that started it all off. I had left the Woolwich Polytechnic in SE LONDON to take up a apprenticeship as a toolmaker in the Woolwich Arsenal. Prior to starting the apprenticeship I spent a few weeks in the NEW FUZE Factory, a large factory employed in producing every kind of fuze, using small delicate automatic machines up to massive heavyweights for the large shell fuzes. The whole factory reeked of the cutting oils used in these machines and the oil was everywhere. It was almost five o’clock on Saturday 7th September 1940, we were all lining up ready to knock off, the air raid siren had gone but we had heard it all before, since we had heard it on night shift previously and being made to evacuate the factory we climbed up on to the surface air raid shelters, covered ourselves in tarpaulins and watched
[page break]
the searchlights waving about, sometimes they caught an aircraft, probably enemy, since they started firing the guns at it but seemed always to be well off target and the plane would go serenely on its way to the accompaniment of loud cheers. This time was a lot different. Always just before 5 o’clock our official time, someone would produce an illicit key, open the clock door & advance the hands a few minutes & off we would go, since the Woolwich Arsenal employed tens of thousands of people, all coming out of the four gates on to the Plumstead Road at the same time, this would give us a advantage. It is quite probable that all the others had the same idea. But then we heard this succession of loud crump noises coming ever nearer, someone more knowledgeable shouted “bombs” and a rush was made to the nearest
[page break]
surface shelter, resulting in about a dozen bodies jammed in the entrance, the bombs marched on passing us by on the other side of the road, the last one hitting a air raid shelter, killing the all, including my cousin husband, a small forge was hitting scattering burning coals all over the car park, setting some alight. We were told to get away. I had about a four mile bicycle ride to my house, as I cycled along the bombs were dropping, guns were firing, shrapnel was whizzing down, fighter planes were zooming & firing their guns, parachutes were coming down. It was hectic. I was passing the Royal Artillery barracks, when some soldiers called to me to take shelter from the shrapnel which was raining down, as well as the clips
[page break]
from the fighter ammunition, these soldiers had been evacuated from DUNKIRK so they were war wise, we stood in the doorway of the barracks for a while watching events, until it calmed down a bit then I got on my bike and pedalled off home, passing the ack-ack guns on the Woolwich Common. All the way home the road was full of ambulances and civilian cars and trucks towing auxiliary fire [deleted] trucks [/deleted] tenders or pumps all heading for the scene.
Reporting back to work the next day there was no New Fuze factory, it was just line upon line of burnt out machines. On the next day I went & volunteered for AIRCREW DUTIES.
Working in the Woolwich Arsenal, I was in a reserved occupation and they wouldn’t release me. In early 1942
[page break]
I got my release, the form said released for PILOT DUTIES only. I was inducted into No 1 ACRC at Earls Court, measured for my two uniforms, had a couple of weeks of eye training, popped home a few times, not far away by bus or train. Then on to Initial Training wing at SCARBOROUGH, staying in the Grand HOTEL, bags of bull, polishing the lino, black leading the grates, marching drill session on the Promenade curiously watched by holiday makers, it was AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY TIME, up to the castle for CLAY PIGEON SHOOTING after a couple of months I was moved on to KINGSTOWN AIRFIELD at CARLISLE for GRADING COURSE ON TIGER MOTHS I had made friends with a chap called RIBBANS. We used a satellite field at KIRKPATRICK in SCOTLAND. the planes flew daily from Carlisle with a cadet as passenger, the other cadets went by
[page break]
road. One day one of the Tigers didn’t arrive, it transpired that the wings had fallen off the Tiger & RIBBANS and his instructor both bought it. Some of the moths had notices on the instrument panel warning that it should not be used for aerobatics, whether that was the cause we never found out. A group of cadets were waiting our turn to fly when we saw this Tiger coming in to land, we then saw another Tiger almost on top of it, as the lower one landed the top one landed on top of it, flipped over on its back and the lower one dug in and finished up vertically. The pilot of one was the chief flying instructor the other was the deputy flight commander. I thought that I was quite competent and soloed at 9 1/2 hrs with no problem, although I witnessed quite a few that nosed in or tried to land at 50 feet, the Tigers didn’t seem to suffer too much damage
[page break]
as all the occupants seemed to walk away. We were under the control of the Scottish Aviation company, the members who were concerned with the catering arrangement were obviously on the fiddle because the food was vile., the caterers were the SILVER GREY company who had a restaurant in the main street, a pal of mine GEORGE WARREN took a SCOTCH PIE that he had been served with and slapped it on the table of the person who was supposed to be the C.O. (he was a civilian), opened it and revealed that it was GREEN with mould. Their idea of a meal was to give you one sardine on a finger of bread cut four to the slice. It got so bad that we were reduced to creating a commotion at the head of the queue while those toward the back reached round under the counter and grabbed what we could. George and I stayed together for over a year going overseas together, training together
[page break]
then parting when he came back to England and on to HALIFAX aircraft, he went down on the TIRPITZ, it was reported to me that he was last seen trying to get his wounded wireless operator out of the aircraft while others baled out, he didn’t survive. From Carlisle we were posted to HEATON PARK in MANCHESTER where we joined thousands of others, we were assembled at a BANDSTAND and lists were read out as to our future, the P.N.B had just been pit into operation (PILOT, NAV, BOMB/AIM) since the airforce was gearing up for the big offensive against GERMANY. I was read out as being a NAVIGATOR and could have obtained my release from the AIR FORCE & gone back to my Reserved Occupation since I had been released for PILOT duties only, however apart from the rotten food I had made some good mates, I decided to stay
[page break]
on. The lectures at Heaton park were conducted by some real old sweats, one I really remember would go to the head of the class and say “Whats it today, armaments or Eskimo NELL, you could be stupid if you [deleted] didn’t [/deleted] wasn’t able to predict the outcome, I didn’t count bu the version that he told had about forty five verses, I remember the gist of the story but just about remember about a “-“ great Wheel, then it was IVAN SKAVINSKY SKAVAR and so many others. Whilst there we went out a side gate to a Pub called the POST OFFICE, it was on the PRESTON RD, we engaged in drinking contests with the women who congregated there,
[page break]
one
Thoughts in 2000
This talk of birds (women) on the front line prompted a thought which turned into a dream. I was navigating my old MK 10 Wimpey from Foggia in Italy to PARDUBICE oil refinery in CZECHOSLOVAKIA, a trip of eight hours, started off on GEE, which run out of Puff shortly, then on to D.R. It was one of the blackest of nights, with a ceiling of 10,000 ft we couldn’t get above cloud, so no star shots, bags of flak to starboard some poor sod has wandered over VIENNA, press on, E.T.A. coming up, air to air firing, someone going down in flames, 50 years later the old Wimpy is found in the bottom of a lake, the old NAV leader was still aboard. Shufty flares down, then some target markers just off to
[page break]
starboard, more over and drop the bombs, not a lot to see, then turn for home, droning on for a couple of hours, feeling fairly secure it was our usual practice for the rear gunner to be relieved by the wireless operator and come forward to stand in the Astro dome beside my position, flailing himself with his arms to warm himself, and then the old Wimpy would fill with the smoke of the W/Ops fag as he lit up, in spite of the old kite being full of holes & fumes.
But this was so different, I saw beside me this lovely young bird, same age as me, about 21, and it wasn’t cigarette smoke it was CHANEL NO 5 which she had picked up in CAIRO in the way up from 0.T.U. I gave her a flask top of lukewarm coffee and it seemed quite natural
[page break]
3/. Make for the bed, which the Vickers company & BARNES WALLIS in particular had provided, the TUBUNIC AMPOULE of MORPHIA became an aphrodisiac, and then an awful WHUMP!!, the old Wimp went all over the sky, it appears that it was by kind permission of the HERMAN GOERING PANZER GRENADIERS flak batteries, we had wandered over LINZ or GRAZ, the old Wimpy droned on as though she was used to this on a regular basis. Where did the bird go, what would she have done, we had more than 100 holes, some quite big.
You may ask what prompted this, today I received a letter from JAN MAHR of HUSOVA, MIROSLAV in the CZECH REPUBLIC requesting information about the crew members who I saw go to their deaths that day
[page break]
25-55
in 1944 and who lay forgotten by their own country, among others until a excavation took place in 1990 – 1991, by a CZECH team, existing relatives were taken out to the crash site and attended the burial of their heroes military funeral, another ironic twist here, Lillicrap was the regular navigator on that crew, but missed that “op” through illness, he joined up with another crew but got the chop a fortnight later! We had got together in England 1942, boat to S.A. together, to Palestine together for O.T.U. up to ITALY, joined the squadron together, & then!!
[page break]
written in 2002.
Will someone in about 50 years review the case of 2ND W.W aircrew and their treatment in particular, the litigious lawyers have got the “shot at Dawn” affair livened up, to whose advantage. can post traumatic stress be involved, I’m thinking of those that fired the rifles. Horrors & cruelly in wars come to be accepted, but when it comes form your own side it must be condemned. My father came out of the 1ST W.W aged 20 he’d been employed in the R.A.S.C driving ammunition wagons to the trenches (horse drawn) on supply routes targeted by the enemy, he was badly gassed and on becoming a civvy he was unemployed & unemployable for many years from the gassing. He received no benefits from the government who had proclaimed “A LAND FIT FOR HEROES.” and succumbed to his illness at the age of
[page break]
2/ 53 years, it took him a long time to die slowly.
Coming up to the 2nd WW and beyond, perhaps my experiences may shed a little light, shot at dawn didn’t figure, I was aircrew, and an almost effective deterrent was used against, [inserted] us [/inserted] I almost said cowardice, but it wasn’t that, the deterrent was L.M.F. or Lack of Moral fibre in which the poor fellow was stripped of rank (our lowest was SGT) given the lowest job G.D. and his pay book stamped large L.M.F, so wherever he went they knew, then everyone knew. So perhaps a little personal experience may help. Arriving in the back of a lorry at a vineyard & wine grove just outside FOGGIA, nothing idyllic in that we saw a collection of old beaten up ridge tents which we later found to have been all through the
[page break]
desert warfare for years, they showed their age, underneath the tents had been dug out about 2 foot so that we could just about stand up in the middle. We were told to find [inserted] an [/inserted] empty one and it was three to a tent. The empty ones were the ones where the crews had got the chop, very seldom did anyone finish a tour (40 ops us not 30 as the blighty boys). We were 205 GRP heavy bomber squadron consisting of six Wellington squadrons, one British Lib sqdn 2 SAAF Lib squdadron and one HALIFAX Sqdn as p.ff. I was in 37 sqdn and with our sister squadron 70 were on a single strip P>S>P runway at TORTORELA which we shared with the Flying Fortresses of the 99 Bomb group 15 A FORCE (USAAF) situated on the far side of the runway.
[page break]
[circled 3.] It was within a day or so of arriving that my pilot ALEC HART. (QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA) went off to MILAN on his second dicky trip (to get a taste of hostile activity and learn a few ropes, he was with a SAAF crew in a MK X Wimpy the trip being either their ultimate or penultimate trip (39th or 40th). the fact that he never came back was because of a collision over the target, he is buried near MILAN. The very next day I was listed to fly with a crew that had arrived with with us on the squadron, since their NAVIGATOR had gone sick. The pilot of this aircraft was a Canadian ART SCHLOTE who had trained in Canada with my pilot but who had come back safely from his experience trip. This trip proved quite hairy when the photo flash started to set its own fuze & had to be
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jettisoned with resultant pandemonium, no picture[ illegible] a poor start, shortly I was back with my own crew, piloted by a SAAF who had come down over enemy territory & had walked back with quite a story to tell. Over the time of my tour I was used as an odd bod, flying with new crews (very dangerous) but being assigned to this SAAF who became Flight Commander and was only allowed to fly once a fortnight. I was given the job of collecting bods from a holding centre outside of NAPLES while awaiting courts martial or summary of evidence, they having gone absent without leave & been captured in NAPLES.
A call would be made to the control tower, to enqire the time of the next Foggia Ferry, an old Flying Fortress which had been deactivated and used as a mail plane & transport all
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[circled 4] around Foggia area, my pilot would take me in his old V* Woody Ford to the taxi track, along would roll the old Fortress, a squeal of brakes, door open and off we would go to Pomigliano airport. Thumb a ride down the AUTOSTRADA to PORTICI, present a piece of paper to the guard house & collect my prisoner and back track to Foggia, sometimes all the ferries had gone so we had to sleep on the floor of the NAAFI until morning, then off. I was given a revolver but of course no bullets, but they caused no trouble. The first prisoner was a F/sgt wireless operator who had done a tour in the desert & was half way through his second tour when he became an odd bod, had a couple of shaky does, and ran away. I believe he became LMF. The next one had a rather sad tale to tell,
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[circled 5] he had been ground staff in the desert and along with 3 friends decided to volunteer as air gunners, expecting to be posted back to Blighty for training, but training grounds had been opened in the Middle east so they didn’t get home, in fact they came to our group, and one by one they got the chop, until just this one was left so away he went & was captured again in Naples.
Another rear gunner baled out in the Adriatic, lost, but another saga took a bit longer to unfold. I was signed to fly with a full odd bod crew, [inserted] we were over the [illegible] [/inserted] nothing untoward until the rear gunner reported flames from the port engine going past his turret, this was followed by the shut down of the engine & the usual feathering whereupon the old Wimp started to sink, bomb doors
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[circled 6] open, jettison toggle operated, and then gently back to base, land successfully back at base, next morning we were called as a crew to report to GROUPIE when he gave us a tremendous dressing down, we should be court martialled etc, we had the cheek to ask [inserted] why [/inserted] we should carry on with no bombs, but he insisted that we should have carried on even without bombs, perhaps we should have chucked the elsan at them but we didn’t dare suggest that, subsequent events shed a little light on this episode. Flying with this pilot once again we were approaching the target PLOESTI, reckoned to be second only to BERLIN in defences since it was HITLERS only natural oil.
Due to go forward to stand beside the pilot to record time of bombing A/C heading, height & make observations
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[circled 7] regarding the target & anything else [inserted] worth [/inserted] reporting, when I found I couldn’t open the door, it was only on a ball catch, but I pulled so hard I broke the leather loop which acted as the handle. I reported this on intercom & asked the Bomb aimer to come & kick the door open at the same time the pilot reported that he had the control right over still couldn’t get the port wing up to fly straight & level, this [inserted] had [/inserted] caused the Geodetic frame to twist & lock the door, since I was standing beside the gauges that registered the state of the petrol tanks I pushed the buttons to read & saw that the port tanks were full & the starboard tanks were well down. I shot back to the main beam to turn on the petrol balance cocks then told the pilot to ensure that the balance cock beside his
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[circled 8] seat was on, by now the B/A had kicked the door open & we took up our positions, then we were over the target and we were coned, I never believed in jinking or altering height to lose searchlights, they were faster than we were & were radar controlled so the pilot agreed with me just put the nose down for maximum speed got up to about 300 mph and finished up just above the tops of the refinery towers, somewhere on the way we had dropped our bombs but we didn’t get a photo. I later learned that this pilot had aborted on another raid & on another occasion had not appeared for take off & had been found hiding in a field. The wing commander O/C was detailed by Groupie to take the aircraft over, which he did, but the Wimpy finished up in a ditch, that C.O. had left the squadron by the next morning.
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TO QASTINA
77 OUT
Palestine
This episode started on a concrete apron at 77 O.T.U at Qastina just a short distance from Jerusalem in Palestine, it was mid March 1944, Qastina was a Wellington O.T.U using IC models. A mixed crowd of aircrew were assembled on a concrete apron and ordered to sort ourselves into crews, this apparently being standard R.A.F procedure. We had segregated ourselves into our various trades since in many cases we had trained in our various trades & knew one another. As it turned out, in the main it was left to the navigators to do the picking. My first choice was a short chubby bomb aimer, who never ever managed to get his forage cap on straight, this wasn’t the reason that I picked him, but was because we had been at the same air schools in South Africa and he was a wonderful piano player and had livened up
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[circled 2] all our parties with his playing, he came from Kingston U.K and had started a career in his local newspaper before volunteering. I noted a rather skinny looking Australian, standing alone, & made an approach, he agreed to join us, it turned out that [inserted] he [/inserted] came from a family of pineapple growers in Queenstown. That made three of five & next was the Air gunner who came from Wallington in Surrey and had started in a bank, he had trained in Rhodesia, he resembled a bloodhound in looks, his name was appropriately enough “CANNON” Last but not least was the W/operator who had trained in England, and had been born in Dover Castle where his father who was a soldier had been stationed, he was always known as Mac & had started out as a boy
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[circled 3] soldier & had transferred to the R.A.F, he had made his home in Streatham in S.E. London. We soon settled in to a good routine flying around the Eastern Med, where we were informed that all radio aid were to be treated as suspect, evidence of this came when we took a bearing on a beacon at Cairo which we could see away beyond our port wing tip, but the loop bearing from the W/op was miles out. We had a pretty good two months at O.T.U., and unlike the stories that we had heard about tragedies at O.T.U in England we suffered no losses from our twelve crews. it came close when one of the pilots who always displayed the [illegible] that he wanted to be a fighter pilot, dive bombed the ALLENBY bridge in Cairo which we had been given as a simulated target, he
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[circled 4] dived so violently that on pull out he stripped a lot of fabric from the wings and had to make an emergency landing for repair. Later when we reached the squadron he was our first casualty, failing to return from his first op. From OUT we were sent on leave [inserted] by train [/inserted] to Alexandria, which we quite enjoyed then on to CAIRO awaiting posting, we were picked up by a USAAF Dakota & after a stop at BRINDISI for fuel we landed up at PORTICI, a dirty old multi storey warehouse. Looking West we could see the bay of NAPLES, (didn’t seem all that romantic) to the east was Vesuvius to the north (about 100 YDS) was a military prison otherwise known as a glasshouse in military parlance, with which I made acquaintance later on, & to the south was Sorrento which was our rest camp. The only advantage that we had over the blighty boys, although they had the fleshpots of
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London for compensation.
The local population were in a sorry state, they appeared to be almost peasants, and the war had made their situation much worse. The children lined up all day to share out our swill bins they were so hungry, they were welcome to it since once again the RAF food was terrible, in three & a half years overseas I never once had fresh meat, except when in South Africa when the South African airforce did our catering or any of the times when I was able to eat in mess halls run by the Americans.
Whilst awaiting posting my Pilot Alec Hart & his Canadian pal that he had trained with in CANADA decided to head north for a look at ROME, I decided to tag along. To the Autostrada quite near thumbs up at the ready we were soon picked up by an open backed six wheel G.M.C
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truck courtesy of the U.S ARMY, introduced ourselves to this large black fellow sitting there, who introduced himself as JESSE OWEN the Olympic athlete who had won six gold medals at the BERLIN OLYMPICS which had upset HITLER that he refused to shake hands with him at the medal ceremony. Driving on NORTH we passed CASSINO which had been totally obliterated, covered in contiguous holes made by bombs & shells, arriving in the centre of ROME we looked around at all the sights, and also set our sights on some food. we got thrown off various chow lines, we weren’t in the right air force, we eventually made it in a big communal hall, kitted out with serried ranks of beds, fully loaded with blankets & pillows, moved on & stayed a very unsettled night in a bug ridden hotel, scrounged more food & hitched our way back to Portici
see 5 & 6 MARCH
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see 31st JANUARY
we hadn’t been missed. Then on to trucks for the ride to our squadrons. We’re 205 SQD stationed around the town of FOGGIA two squadrons were on Foggia main airfield, numbers 104 & 40, just out of town was a single strip P.S.P (Pierced Steel Plank) runway at TORTORELLA which held 37 & 70 SQDN & at REGINA a few miles away was 142 + 150. Our destination was to be 37 SQN.
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September 7th [deleted] or 14th [/deleted] 1940 Saturday
There it was & there I was. I was a rising eighteen year old student from the engineering course at the Woolwich Polytechnic, and there was the Woolwich Arsenal waiting to wrap me into an engineering apprenticeship in the Gun & carriage toolroom. The Woolwich Arsenal was a huge munitions factory, it extended over 3 miles along the South Bank of the Thames & was over a mile wide, it had been in existence [sic] for very many years, indeed the production of gun barrels had first taken place there. It had its own gas & electricity plants, its own iron & steel & brass foundries & produced everything from 16 inch naval guns, weighing in at over 130 tons, to minute watch mechanisms used in some fuzes, it also had what was known as the Danger Buildings which produced explosives & cartridge factories producing over two million bullets a week. In fact you could call this a prime target for bombing which the Germans were demonstrating their remarkable
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efficiency at so doing, on the continent of Europe & of course we were at war with Germany. In 1940 I joined the Woolwich Arsenal working in the NEW FUZE factory, whilst awaiting transfer to a tool-room to start my apprenticeship. This as the name implies was a factory producing machined components for assembly elsewhere into complete fuzes. The machines ranged from monster bar & chucking automatic ACME – GRIDLEYS, through man operated capstans
& other machines, down to small automatic not much bigger than sewing machines, set on tables and working quietly away. The place was liberally coated in various cutting liquids, including special cutting oils & the smell was decidedly oily. The factory employed a few hundred people, and this being a Saturday we finished work early at 5 o’clock, we worked week about, alternating day & night shift, we were lining up at the clocking station
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to put our cards into the time clock, stamp it by pressing down a handle & replacing the card in the “out” rack. We weren’t all that perturbed by the warning air raid siren since we’d heard them many times, in fact one the night shift you were made to leave the factory & go to your designated air raid shelter, in may case it was known as a surface shelter, a brick built affair with a thick concrete top & a baffled blast wall at the entrance. At night it was our usual practice to climb on the top of the shelter, lay down & cover up with a tarpaulin sheet & watch the searchlights search out the intruders, we would cheer like mad when the lights caught the planes & groan when they lost them we also saw the anti-aircraft shell bursts which always seemed to be well off target.
Shortly after the siren started up, we heard this loud explosion followed
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in sequence by others, getting louder, we also were hearing aircraft engines droning away. someone then shouted “bombs”, when a mad rush started for the nearest shelter, we all finished up jammed in the doorway as the bombs continued on. The “stick” of bombs continued along the road beside the factory where the surface shelters were lined up, one bomb overshot us & blew up a small forge which scattered hot coals over the car park, the coals burnt through the cloth tops of the cars & set them on fire, whilst the last bomb hit an underground shelter, killing all the occupants, including my cousin’s husband. Fires were raging all around, people were walking around covered in blood mostly from shards of glass which had come from the windows of multi storied buildings. There was no panic but there was no
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immediate relief, we were totally unprepared for this. Someone took the authority to tell us to get away home so I got on my bike and pedalled like mad along the Plumstead Road to Woolwich town centre where I turned left onto the road to Eltham my home. All the time the bombs were dropping, our fighters were attacking the bombers, shrapnel from the ack-ack was raining down, cartridge clips were bouncing on the road, aircraft were coming down & I seemed to see parachutes everywhere I looked. I was pedalling past the military barracks when I was called in to the shelter by the soldiers, it appeared that they were survivors from DUNKIRK, had seen it all before. During a lull I pressed on towards home, the roads were full of emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire appliance towed by
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civilian vehicles, fire engines, all in a constant stream heading toward Woolwich. Arriving home, much to the families [sic] relief we could see the fires & all the smoke. it appeared that this raid signalled the start of the blitz.
I went back to the Woolwich Arsenal to see what was going on, and what my instruction would be, I found the New Fuze factory completely burnt out, a start was being made to remove all the machinery for renovation, all the skilled adult workers were being recruited to join the shadow munitions factories which had been set up around the country and [inserted] also [/inserted] join what was known as the Flying Column to go to places around the country to impart their skills to those people recruited to man those factories. I was told to report to the GUN & carriage tool room. I had
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a look around the relics of my destroyed work place & was happy that I hadn’t made it to my particular shelter on the Warning siren. I was fairly convinced that the type of shelter was not all that clever, since a near miss by a bomb would collapse the brick walls & the concrete roof would come down in one massive chunk and flatten anyone who was inside. This unfortunately happened in this event. After a few days I got a start in the GUN & CARRIAGE toolroom, manufacturing jigs & fixtures, big heavy stamping and forging tools and also press tools for the multitude of factories comprising the Woolwich Arsenal with the capacity to manufacture everything from 16” Naval guns weighing about 130 Tons all the way down to minute components for timing for fuses
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In the interim I had been to the local recruiting office & volunteered to be trained as a pilot. I was told that my job was considered a reserved occupation and I would have to apply to be released, over time & not being called I wrote letters to the Air Minister complaining that I hadn’t been called, and I was writing some quite insulting letters. I left it to my mother to post the letters, she told me much later that she hadn’t posted the letters on reading them she felt that they would result in my being shot. Just over a year later I was called to report to No 1 ACRC at LORDS CRICKET GROUND at St JOHNS WOOD NORTH LONDON. this was in February 1942.
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Bombs. they’re Bombs [inserted] Someone shouted [/inserted]. The loud bangs continued to get louder as about 50 people made a dash for the air – raid shelter, just ten yards away, we just jammed together in the doorway while the march of the bombs continued & marched close by, the nearest one landed & exploded on a small building housing a small forge which scattered hot coals over the car park setting the cars alight, the last bomb landing on an air raid shelter, killing all those inside including the husband of my cousin. [inserted] It was 6 o’clock 7 Sept 1940 [/inserted] We had been lining up on “THE CLOCK’ waiting to clock off our shift in the NEW FUZE factory a large factory machining components for fuzes, from large shells down to watch like mechanisms & components for torpedos [sic]. The factory was inside the fourth gate of the Woolwich Arsenal a massively complex armaments factory
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with three miles of [inserted] south side [/inserted] Thames river waterfront & over a mile wide, it had four large gates spaced out along the Plumstead Road. and had employed over 70,000 people at one time
I was employed as a machine hand while waiting to start an apprenticeship in toolmaking at the Gun & Carriage toolroom situated up near the Main gate (No 1)
[deleted] The New Fuze factory was situated just inside the Fourth gate. [/deleted]
It was two minutes to five, just about time to open the door of the clock & advance the hands to 5 o’clock & then punch our cards & off, this being a fairly regular practice. We worked week about, day & night shift & when the siren went whilst we were on night shift, we were ordered to our air raid shelters. Over time, since nothing happened we climbed on the top of the
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shelter, covered with an old tarpaulin and watched as the searchlights groped the sky for the enemy intruders, the guns would fire away, it became almost a joke as we saw the searchlights catch the plane for an instant & then lose it, while the shell bursts from the anti-aircraft guns seemed to be not at all close. rather different to the experiences I had some years later.
However, after the bombing we were told to go home and since most of us were on bicycles we made our way post – haste, I cycled along the Plumstead road, turning on to the road to Eltham, my home at Beresford Square. By this time the R.AF fighters were among the bombers and firing was incessant, aircraft were smoking and coming down, many parachutes were descending, anti – aircraft guns were firing with thunderous roars
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bombs were falling, shrapnel from A-A shells was raining down as were bullet cases & clips. As I reached the Artillery barracks in Mill Hill I was shouted at by soldiers to join them in the doorway of a barrack block, it transpired that they had returned from Dunkirk. After a while there was a lull & I got on my bike and made my way home. In this [inserted] short time the road was nose to tail with emergency vehicles heading down to Woolwich. Ambulances, fire engines, Air raid precaution vehicles, mobile water pumps manned by civvys & towed by large cars, the effort was tremendous. I reported back to work the next day but the New Fuze factory was no more it was razed to the ground with twisted girders & burnt out machines mute evidence of what had been a very highly productive factory. Within a few days I was called to start my
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apprenticeship, and shortly after volunteered to join the R.AF. as aircrew.
I am prompted to write this letter by the article which mentioned the bombing of the Arsenal on page 6, the letters page of your APRIL 14th publication.
I have often [deleted] asked [/deleted] [inserted] wondered [/inserted] whether the bombs that fell that day at 5 o’clock on 7th September 1940 were the first of the daily blitzes on London as no other explosions were heard. and I think that the air-raid sirens hadn’t sounded.
[underlined] Yours [/underlined]
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Left Blackpool (thank God) on a dark & damp winters day, arrived at a dark and damp dockside, confronted by this monster of iron and steel, named SS. Strathmore, without any ceremony we filed up the gang plank, to be met by a flight sergeant who was giving out orders, as we boarded, he looked me in he eye and shouted, you, you are to guard the water tight doors on “H” deck, I didn’t know whether I was to stop any one from pinching them, or report whether they were there, or should they be open or shut or should I take any action in the event of an emergency. He motioned to a doorway and said, down there. proceeding down the stairways, which were lettered by the alphabet, I got well down, thinking if I have to any further I will be outside the ship &
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will have to start swimming. Arriving eventually [inserted] at H deck [/inserted] I cast around and not knowing what water tight doors should look like, I found a door & stood by it, it didn’t look out of the ordinary, just a big door, nut no one was looking so I sat down & waited farther orders. I didn’t take too long, although it seemed like ages, being all alone, when I heard a rumbling noise and realised that the ships engines were running and we were probably under way. I was eventually relieved, probably the same day, and went on deck, there was no sign of land, I hadn’t heard any bands playing a farewell lament, it would be years before I got another glimpse of Blighty.
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[circled 1] At NAV School in S.A. flying in the Anson, wind up undercart 48 winds up or down. One day an episode occurred that would seem almost impossible with few aircraft (after all it wasn’t a thousand bomber raid) one Anson settled itself briefly on top of another Anson, both flying on the same heading, they parted and returned to base with little damage, This precipitated an all round safety review of everything, including parachutes. On opening the button down flap on the chute it was found that the 2 release wires, attached to the “D” handle, used to deploy the chute, which were threaded through the steel pillars which were used to hold the four flaps covering
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[circled 2] the canopy & its lines, had been bent right round, making it impossible to release the chute, obviously we had MALANITES an organisation run by a D MALAN who were sympathisers of HITLER and anyi British, they were the “Osewa Brandwag,” on the camp.
The other occasion that I had a brush with them when we going by train from PORT ELIZABETH to Durban, we were on a single track and on reaching BLOMFONTAIN we had to wait for 8 hours for a train coming down the line to reach us where double track had been laid for us to pass. All our course of about 30 bods made our way into town, it being the beer brewing capital of S.A, with many different brews on offer. I was with my mate LOFTY WINTERBOURNE
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[circled 4] received a blow to my left eye, some of our mates rallied round and we went to the train & looked for some one with a ripped shirt, fortunately for them we didn’t find them, by this time I had a lovely black eye, but after a few beers we went on our way. During the night, on one of our train journeys across S.A. one of the fellows walked along the corridor to the toilet, opened the wrong door – fell off the train, he finished up walking along the track following the train in only his short shirt, his name was Watson, he had been named Wiley Watson after an old time Music Hall turn, Happy days, he had to walk until he came to some habitation which was far between up on the high veldt, however he eventually caught up with us.
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[notes]
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Turning off this tree lined typically Italian road onto a dirt track we arrived at TORTORELLA the present home of 37 Sqdn. You couldn’t say that we were impressed, it looked like a deserted tip. If it had a redeeming feature you could say it was the olive trees at least they looked olive, not many signs of life otherwise, no welcoming crowd, & no brass band. just clapped out old tents, showing their age after 3 years in North Africa ebbing and flowing with the tide of battle, to say they sagged was an understatement. They were the standard ridge tent, perched over a hole dug into the ground to give enough room to stand up. entrance was by sliding down the slope created by the feet traversing the entrance coming or going. After a while the the entering had contrived to deepen the slide & distribute the muck evenly over the
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bottom of the living space floor, making the makeshift beds look like sunken beds & seriously reducing the head room inside, you had two options, you either lifted the tent a foot or so or excavate the floor. The tent had a trench dug around 3 sides to catch the rain before it encroached on your salubrosity [sic] inside, there were other trenches dug at random all over the site which were there for “AIRMEN FOR THE USE” of if anyone took exception & started the war going again in our area. These trenches contained water, (rain) & diesel oil which spilled from the 45 gallon drums of diesel oil which had been purloined and decanted while balanced across these trenches, no one was silly enough to attempt to syphon [sic] by mouth, so they
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were laid on their side & rolled back & forth to start or stop the flow, spillage obviously are unavoidable & all this in spite of dire warnings against nicking the diesel because of shortages. I might point out that this was Italy in JUNE & JULY, freezing cold & raining buckets. But then we were short of replacement clothes, food was vile, no tyres for the Wing. We were assembled by the ADJ to be informed that the cupboard was bare and that if we wanted anything at all we must make our own arrangements or go without. We had chucked the local farmer out of his house for our mess, so he had moved into a barn, which when you approached it, displayed an enormous bed, I don’t know if the goats & chickens used the bed but they, including the donkey wandered around in the barn. Bartering cigarettes or soap would get fresh eggs
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or if you indicated the need for a chicken the farmers eight year old daughter would catch it, wring its neck & hand it to you warm & you cant get fresher than that.
But to go back before the beginning for some of our history. During 1942 due to the invasion of N. Africa by the Americans there was a distinct shortage of troop ships so loads of U/T aircrew couldn’t get to South Africa for further training from ITU so we were moved around like dominos, although in the main we went on block by flights. Heaton Park (MANCHESTER) BRIDGNORTH (SHROPSHIRE) WHITLEY BAY (NORTHUM for a Guards commando course) eventually we made BLACKPOOL to await (the BOAT) our crowd had been issued with tropical Kit so we were sure that we would be going to cold Canada, so sure in fact this I bought a pair of ice skates from a hard up
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Canadian, I trailed them all around the hot countries without once seeing ice, brought them back to England & sold them at a handsome profit. (about 2 QUID which was handsome in those days) In Blackpool we landed up with the Blackpool landladies who were starving us to death while flogging our rations on the blackmarket in collusion with the RAF NCO in charge & the NAAFI wallah. I could give you her name but she would still be alive, she was too wicked to die. I was in the ATTIC with a blanket (one laid over a wire spring thing which passed as a mattress & a straw filled canvas pillow. I queried why the doors were so big, it was because she had to have enough room for all the notices that were there telling you what you couldn’t shouldent [sic] or mustent [sic] do. Her idea of the main meal were a small portion of
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reconstituted Cheese dried egg on two soldiers of toast.
We always went straight out after her dinners for fish & chips & peas, it was as well that we didn’t stop there long, our money would have run out & we would have starved to death. The day came when we were told to parade with all our kit bags, we had three including our flying kit, given a pot of black paint & paint brushes & told to paint a code on each kit bag, I had been given the letters & numbers AG – AG E7P in gloss paint, then not at all sorry to leave Blackpool we departed, we had been cold most of the time, even in bed. Off we went to Liverpool docks, assembled at the dock side & marched aboard, as we stepped aboard we were given various duties. I was told to go “H” deck & guard the watertight doors. I thought that rather odd especially when I saw
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them, I couldn’t imagine anyone pinching them, they were all bolted up. As I stood there pondering there was a loud throbbing & the S.S. STRATHMORE took off for South Africa. I didn’t get the opportunity to stand at the rail & wave goodbye to England, there were certainly no families or brass bands, or so I was told. just a few disinterested dockers, muching [sic] about with bits of rope. they’d seen it all before. I eventually got upstairs and it was just sea everywhere & it was very grey as I remember. Rumour had it that we were heading south to join a convoy, but after a few hours we were heading north, nothing unusual, plans are always being altered, & so our first night at sea. We had been allocated our accommodation on “H” deck, if had been “J” deck we would have been underneath the boat (ship) We had a table stretching out from the side of the ship with fixed
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form either side, this pattern was repeated about 12 times to form our own mess deck. Over the top of our table were steel fixings for our hammocks & that was it. We had a large tea-pot & large trays which were taken up about 4 flights of steps, along a covered deck down in to the galley where whoever was duty erk collected the food. We rocked our way along, the rocking becoming pronounced, we had a battleship various cruisers & a number of destroyers which kept haring off into the distance like greyhounds, getting buryed [sic] in water as they tore about, the battleship all but disappeared at times as we got further south & the weather got really harsh. By this time 98% of the forces people on board, about 6,000 altogether were violently seasick, also 98% had diarrhea [sic], caused by their gluttoning [sic] out on tinned fruit
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& cadburys chocolate which the ship had victual up in Canada The toilets on the mess deck were permanently occupied with people who couldn’t make up their mind, both ends of their bodies heaving alternately We still had to go to the galley for grub & fetch back these big trays with pre cooked fried eggs, & rashers of bacon, pre cooked about six hours before, swimming in fat and carried across a open deck, those fellows feeling brave enough to leave their place on the bog took one look & returned. In spite of all this mess we were still required on inspection to have the tea-pot and trays clean & shiny. Up on open deck we watched the massive waves pitch the ships about. We identified our nearest companion as the CAPETOWN CASTLE the biggest ship in the convoy at any one time you could see daylight under the hull
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as she rode the waves. You heard our screws roar as they came out of the water, then plopped back in again. We seemed to sail in all directions, the expert among us suggesting that we were evading submarines, the destroyer raced in & out & bangs were heard, depth charges were suggested as the cause. Some wiseacre thought he had seen the lights on the NEW YORK skyscrapers, but that wasn’t believed. We got a message that DEANA DURBIN the film star had been killed on one of the London underground escalators but that proved false. As the days passed all fresh food ran out & we were given hardtack biscuits, these almost walked off the table they were so full of weevils. We held the biscuit over a candle when the weevils would retreat to the other side, a quick flip over & the weevils were incinerated, a quick bang on the table and off they came, I can’t remember that we
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ate them it was one way of passing the time. Slowly the weather improved & the sun started to shine & it got hotter & hotter. Tennants lager beer was readily available & off course some over imbibed & collapsed to the deck where the sun burnt them as they lay I saw the consequences, the blister covered the whole of their back, they finished up under arrest, self inflicted injury is severely punished. It was rumoured that some had died of sun stroke & been buried at sea during the night & so we sailed into Freetown harbour, massive landlocked harbour which took all our ships & many others. The bum-boats, dug out canoes came alongside trying to sell fresh fruit but they were about 30 ft down & we had been forbidden to deal with them. The local fishermen came out in their single man dug out canoes, they appeared to push off from the beach
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& let the tide take them out & come back in with the tide when it turned, those in the know on the boat were tossing silver coins over & the fishermen watched them until they hit the water, they would roll out of their canoes, and dive after them, we could see the coins turning & glinting, they never failed to collect them, they had this remarkable ability to roll back into their canoes so effortlessly, of course some on board were covering farthings & halfpennies with silver paper from their cigarette packets, which these fellows still dived for, coming up from the dive & shouting, you Bastard, Glasgow tanner. There was one of the fishermen who had on a flat topped [illegible] painted red, who slowly inched past the ship loudly singing old army ditties at the top of his voice as he drifted along between the anchored convoy. He knew all the words, particularly of Bless – em – all – Bless – em – all, except that he substituted the “F” word for BLESS, much to the embarrassment of the officers & their ladies & nurses etcetera who were lining the open upper decks which we were not allowed near. We were soon on our way again we had a crossing the line ceremony (EQUATOR) with Father Neptune and all received their crossing the line certificate. Eventually we rounded CAPE TOWN which we saw in the distance, my mate George took a picture of Table Mountain far away & then we were positioning the convoy in line astern to enter DURBAN HARBOUR which we entered via a lock-gate, all the time
listening to the lovely voice of a lady, standing on the dockside, singing through a megaphone, all
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popular songs of the day. She was the MAYORESS OF DURBAN who was given secure information of the arrival of ships, also of their departure It was all very impressive. She was born in WOOLWICH where her parents had at one time owned the KENTISH INDEPENDENT, a local newspaper. We disembarked very soon & were greeted by ladies of the Womens Voluntary services who plyed [sic] us with all kinds of goodies including fresh fruit of every description which we hadn’t had for years. & so we came to CLAREWOOD RACECOURSE in DURBAN, massive transit camp, reached by a short railway journey, full of soldiers sailors & airmen all in transit to all directions. After a week or so which we spent swimming in the Indian Ocean with shoals of Dolphins swimming around us or taking the train along the coast to Isipingo or on to AMANZIMTOTI where we took a rowing boat up a small river, we rowed until the boat
Dublin Core
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Title
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Ted Neales' memoir
1999 Diary
Description
An account of the resource
Memoirs of Ted Neale (written in a non-contemporary diary), recounting his experiences of an air raid on Woolwich, travelling to South Africa for aircrew training and taking part in bombing operations from Italy. Some anecdotes are repeated. This item has been redacted in order to protect the privacy of third parties.
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Ted Neale
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One printed diary with handwritten notes
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eng
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Text
Text. Memoir
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BNealeETHNealeETHv05
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Pending review
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Frank Batten
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Italy
South Africa
England--London
Temporal Coverage
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1940-09-07
1942-02
1944-03
Absent Without Leave
bombing
lack of moral fibre
searchlight
shelter
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/227/16287/BCharltonRCharltonRv1.2.pdf
42c6e194348507b29908f54c2491c476
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Charlton, Raymond
Raymond Charlton
Ray Charlton
R Charlton
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Raymond "Ray" Charlton (1815764 and 201593 Royal Air Force) and a memoir. He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with Squadron 57, from RAF East Kirkby.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-05
2016-07-20
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Charlton, R
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] RAMBLINGS OF MY MEMORIES. [/Underlined]
Ray Charlton
[copy of a photograph of two bombers in flight over land]
[page break]
Accepted for Aircrew training August 1942.
Called up July 1943.
Two weeks St, Johns Wood, Jabbed etc.. and kited [sic] out then on to Paignton.
Caught out of bounds by my Sergeant Meek, exercising his dog accompanied by his wife. He said if you are caught say I sent you in, if not, good luck. When the sentry challenged me, I knocked the torch out of his hand and raced to my bed, only removing my shoes. Pulling the bedclothes up to my chin thus avoided detection. Flight Sergeant McTaggart on parade next morning asked for the culprit to step forward but I had agreed with the rest of my room mates if only verbal threats no way, but if general punishment I would confess. After a time of blustering and threatening he dismissed parade to get on with lectures. Even Sergeant Meek remarked, “Cool devil.”
In 1945 when on Officer Cadet Training Unit RAF. Grantham I boarded the train for a week end pass, who else joined my carriage although dozens were empty, Warrant Officer Mc, Taggart I with my white flash in my cap gave no recognition but he started off by saying “Don’t I know you”, I smiled and replied Yes, Paignton. He then said “oh yes there was one mystery I never solved, who did attack the sentry. I admitted my guilt. He replied quote “I would have placed you at the bottom of the list of suspects. (Goes to show.)
Having failed the mid term examination of the Pilot. Navigator. Bombaimer course by I/ %, a board chaired by an Air Commodore and four other senior officers interviewed me. The Education Officer pleaded for me to be accepted but the answer was No, having passed a similar examination in the Air Training Corp. The chairman then asked me to what do you attribute your failure to which I replied, Women and Song Sir. When I realised what I had said I awaited with horror his reaction. Coolly he said, “What no Wine” and I replied “Not on half a crown a day Sir. I was then dismissed the meeting saying I would be remustered.
Off to the island of Sheppy. Tested and accepted to be trained as a Flight Engineer.
Posted to Usworth near Washington Co Durham. At the half way atage the whole camp changed over with Bridlington.
At Bridlington I fell ill with tonsillitis. We were living in council houses the whole street had been commandeered. Missing the exams with my own intake I had to wait for the next intake sitting two weeks after my discharge from hospital.
The next posting was St. Athans [sic] South Wales.
Only one funny experience but two minor ones.
The first involved a Canadian who was training with us. Queuing in the N.A.A.F.I. produced a roll of bank notes. My thoughts were, you idiot. An hour after lights out Military Police entered our billet ordering us to stay in bed. They drew the blackout curtains and then switched on the lights. A search commenced and I asked the corporal standing near to me what they were searching for. Eventually he said money. My mind flew to the queue in the N.A.A.F.I. and another Bod whose eyes almost popped out of his head I suggested the next billet to ours and my bed space. Yes, they found the missing £80 in his locker. Next morning the Station Commander had me wheeled into his office and asked me to explain. After telling him my story he asked me to advise the Canadian how to bank the money and draw it out as and when he needed it. The lucky fellow had that amount per month from his father.
One day, two of, us were detailed to conduct an American Colonel around the airfield and point out the types of aircraft. Usually there was housed more varieties of aircraft than most dromes, including a M.E. 109. Towards the end of the inspection he asked if we had a Flying Fortress. Actually we were near to one parked very close to a Sterling so I replied “Oh yes Sir, we park it under the wind of the Stirling to keep it dry. I thought I was about to be court marshalled [sic] but after a while he smiled and thanked us both.
The third incident was a spot check F.F.I. (Freedom From Infection). We (150) were ordered into a large room, lined the walls and be ready for such an examination. When the Doctor arrived we dropped our trousers and underpants and with a pencil in his hand he proceeded to inspect by lifting the parts. One fellow drew attention to himself and when ordered to clearly
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state what he had said, pronounced “It has been in some funny places, but never on a perch before. Yes he was charged Contrary to good order and Military discipline.
Then to Swinderby Lincolnshire, to join a crew. Great skill was used to fit you up with a crew. Pilots were listed alphabetically and so too were we Engineers. Baker and Charlton were both third down. The aircraft to be flown were Stirlings whereas we had trained for Lancasters so a conversion course to start with. We were detailed to carry out a 3 hour 45 minute training trip with a test pilot, navigator, and engineer. Only a test pilot was available to he said he would check the three of us and it was obvious he was not in a good mood. The aircraft we were to fly was out doing Circuits and bumps so we sat at the end of the runway awaiting its final bump.
The ground crew, when it landed carried out a check and invited us to take it over. As Flight Engineer I had to sign the form F700 when satisfied after starting up the engines. Duly starting up the four engines I was unhappy with the last one, the starboard outer. Cutting all engines we all climbed out and I reported to the mechanic I was unsure whether it, was the engine or the instrument, so the engine mechanics and an instrument mechanic rechecked and again invited us back.
Remember this was only my third or fourth trip, so a novice really. Back we all climbed and proceeded to restart the engines. The same oddity showed again in the last one, the starboard outer. Out we climbed again and the engine and the instrument were rechecked and declared OK
In again we climb and the ground staff Sergeant took over and clearly indicated I was a sprog and he wanted his crew on another kite.
The test pilot asked me before we started up if I would agree to start up the offending engine first then if OK the others. I agreed but upon restart sensed the same trouble. The test pilot then asked me if the ground staff sergeant came with us would I then sign to which I could not argue. When I asked the sergeant he declined with a flow of expletives. When asked by the Test Pilot for his answer I told him that with a stream of expletives he had not the time where upon I was ordered to put him on a charge. Well, me a sprog sergeant, him an old sweat. I did so and handed him over to another Admin Sergeant.
My Pilot and I had to see the Station Commander. As my pilot said, he could only give moral support it was my baby.
The Station Commander informed us he had ordered a complete ground crew from another aerodrome to come over and strip the engine down and with a sneer said if they find nothing wrong you will be charged with L.M.F. (Lack of moral fibre) in other words Cowardice.
Some hours later we were again summoned to “God” sorry the Station Commander and he greeted us “Oh sit down fellows and I sensed I was off the hook. He held up the report, which was three or four foolscap sheets and said I will only read out the final paragraph. It read, If this aircraft had flown for more than 20 minutes it would have blown up. Apparently there was an oil blockage. The circuits and bumps only lasted 12 to 15 minutes.
The Station Commander turned to me and said, I bet that takes a load off your mind to which I replied, Well it vindicates my observations but Sir, you threatened me with a court martial what about the ground [underlined] staff [/underlined] Sergeant. He replied, he has already been posted which is a black mark. To this ‘day I still feel he should have been charged, all eight of us would have killed [sic] had I not stood firm. Much later the crew admitted my esteem had risen because those six had been together some time before I joined them when converting from 2 to 4 engines.
We then moved to convert to Lancasters at Syerston.
THEN OFF TO A SQUADRON No. 630 East Kirkby Line,s. [sic]
September 22 1944. I still have vivid memories of our first trip Kaiselautern. Our instructions were to fly in at 4000ft. The target was marshalling yards.
As we approached the sky was full of what looked like fountain sprays of many colours. This was created by Jerry inserting an excessive proportion of tracer bullets in the beltings. It was the light antiaircraft guns for reason of our height. The heavy fire was a mass of sparkling red spots. I was fascinated by the colour show and innocently asked the pilot what it was where upon he replied Flak
October 11 Th 1944. Wacherem Dykes.
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A daylight raid to relieve a unit of soldiers cut off when the Germans flooded the area by breaching the dykes. Shortly afterwards on leave I met an old colleague with a damaged little finger shattered by a bullet which had bounced off a mills bomb slung across his chest. When I asked him where it happened I told him I was in one of the Lancasters that had helped to get them out. DUCKS were used while we kept the Germans occupied and all he said was “Rather you than me
Incredible when you think they had only hard rations and being sniped at every time they moved, living with pigs at the farmhouse which was the only land above water for nearly a week.
During November 1944 a trial was made for formation flying using seven aircraft. Naturally our pilot was picked and on one occasion over the Wash area a Trainer Lancaster formatted upon us. When the Wing Commander called for a starboard turn I pressed my speaker button and called Straight Ahead. A voice of you know who said “announce yourself who cancelled my order”. After explaining, he ordered me to use our Vari pistol.
Needless to say I had taken a note of the aircraft number and markings. We were later told he had been suitably dealt with.
On another formation exercise briefing the Wing Commander announced Leicester to be the oblique turn point. I must have exclaimed louder than I thought and he said “Why, do you live there’ I concurred Producing an ariel map of Leicester he asked me to point out my home which I did His comment was “Well we cannot get that close but how about Humberstone Park On an oblique turn we would break formation and fly line astern. We cleared by a few, say 50 feet the line of trees on the East side, dipped lower over the park and pulled up to clear the trees on the West side. Mothers and their prams scattered. We continued without climbing up Uppingham Road which leads to Humberstone Road at about 100 feet. Banking around Lewis’s tower I, from my seat had to raise my head to see it. Then the pilot yelled out “Christ Leicester is in a hole”. He had to haul the stick back into his stomach in order to climb towards Uppingham and then to re-formate. On one raid our return whilst still over German held land daylight broke and our instructions were to fly low when we soon found ourselves over a German Army Barrack and they were being paraded. Naturally the two or three Lancasters also with us, opened up firing their front guns. We joked about the thoughts of the R S M On another similar occasion daylight came after crossing the front line and in an area with no buildings visible in any direction when suddenly we were aware of a solitary, very obviously a French man on an upright bicycle. To start with he waved, then he gave us the V sign. The pilot commented that was the rude way and pulled up the nose of the aircraft. Needless to say at 2/300 feet our slipstream hit him. His cycle skidded across the road and he was rolled across finishing up in the ditch. When he stood up with just his head and shoulders showing he shook his fist and I turned to the pilot and remarked “ I am glad I cannot lip read French.
Another raid, the target was a pocket of resistance on the Atlantic coast. It was a moonlit night and a 4000 lbs. bomb fell on to a mansion built into the cliff side, believed to be the H.Q. The blast blew the building outwards into space then returned to the original site appearing to be still intact and at that instant just crumbled completely.
Landing one day after a training trip with a blustery crosswind. Unknown to all the Wireless Operator had failed to wind in the trailing ariel. As we came in the final approach the Control Caravan Operator whose head was in the look out dome on the roof, suddenly left the caravan and dashed across the grass and flung himself down in a trench already there for emergencies . Bannister would not have kept up with him. Had he stayed he would have been beheaded when the ariel removed the dome.
Upon another night raid just after attacking the target a Fighter turned to attack us. We dodged into a convenient layer of clouds and continued in between these layers until we reached the English coast. The Debriefing Officer asked us if we had been on a different trip to the rest because they had been mauled all the way back to the Channel.
Another trip to raise eyebrows. After the Bombaimer called bombs away he corrected himself to say one 1000 lbs. bomb remained Our height was around 14,000 feet. On the return leg we dropped, as instructed to 6,000 feet when over France, when suddenly a bang occurred and we realised the bomb had fallen onto the bomb doors. Apparently the release hook
4
[page break]
had been frozen. Shining my torch, to my horror I realised it was primed when falling. The Pilot asked if I thought it would be safe to land with it but I pointed out when we landed the bomb would slide up and strike the bulkhead It would not have been a pretty sight. What to do we all called out. Being reluctant to travel to a safe dropping area in the North Sea we searched the channel below us, saw no shipping and opened the bomb doors then reclosed them. When we landed back at base all crews were asked, “who dropped the bomb in the Channel. One never or rarely, told untruths so we admitted it. It appeared there was a two man fishing, boat, mind you only French ones who were nearly Swamped and came to the English coast to complain. No action was taken aganst us.
After the introduction of the 10 ton bomb to 617 Squadron it was ordered that in the event of early recalls no, repeat no bombs to be discarded in the North Sea because the Lancasters carrying the 10 tonners were not altered apart from the bomb doors. Pilots and Engineers had to initial the order_Naturally it was not long before such a recall. The Pilot actually asked the Navigator for a new course to the dropping zone but I ‘felt obliged to remind him of the new order. That night we were No 2 to land
These landing numbers were always known before take off. No 1 called up when we approached base, the girl on control tower duty made the initial response and then over the air came the Wing Commander’s distinctive voice saying “now watch it No 1 you will be heavier so come in faster and telling us to keep clear until No 1 was down. Upon landing some way down the runway (about 1/5 way) we watched him plough through the fence at the end of-the runway, across one then two and then the third field. The Wing Commander merely turned his attention to us and said quote “You saw what happened to No 1 be more careful.
We approached and landed almost on the beginning of the runway but we were still travelling at 105 m p h as we approached the other end. The Pilot shouted, “Brace Yourselves” and braked the starboard wheel and opened up the port engines, doing a 90-degree turn. When stepping out I requested the ground crew to check the under carriage. They did this while we slept and found it to be OK The very next day after a short training trip we landed, returned to our dispersal point where the ground crew without instructions rechecked the under carriage and found a metal crack in the oleo leg.
Talking of the Ground Crew, we had a Corporal, an Edinburgh man for Engines and an L.A.C. named Enderby from Market Harborough for Airframes. On return from every operation one of them greeted us no matter what the hour. The petrol load always gave an indication of the duration. We all considered it an honour to be so greeted. I always gave them my report when I put my feet on Terra Firma, and when not flying I spent a lot of time with them acting as labourer and naturally paying for tea and wads ‘when the wagon came round.
After one trip base was reported, naturally in code whilst returning that fog blanketed Lincolnshire and we were diverted to Tarratt [sic] Rushden, a Halifax’ drome. (It was common practice to recieve messages but Taboo to transmit). I told the mechanic assigned to our aircraft, Nothing to report and to await my arrival next morning before Topping up the engines. When I arrived he boldly announced he had already done it. I was displeased but could find no problems so signed the Form 700.
Once in the air the Starboard inner behaved oddly by surging. The pilot said Feather it if you feel like it but I decided to watch it and trust. Upon return to base I asked our engine mechanic to check, informing him of the odd, behaviour and could give no reason for it. He soon found out then [sic] he opened up the engine covers. The idiot had topped up in that one engine Oil in the Coolant and Coolant in the Oil. I was so livid I went to see the Wing Commander myself and requested action to be taken against the Mechanic at Tartan [sic] Rushden. Naturally his name was on my form. They assured me he had been so dealt with.
On one trip when well on the return journey I became suspicious of the volume of petrol in No 2 Tanks. The pilot said check it through and having recalculated what should have been in I ran them dry and found them to be 100 gallons short. Our landing number that night was in the 40’s. The number indicated the minutes to add after receiving the usual coded E.T.R. (Estimated Time of Return) sent out by No 1. I said to the Pilot either we land at some other drome near the South coast or make a straight line back to Base. He decided on the latter. I recalculated the petrol position every
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five minutes or so and when near to Base asked for an Emergency Landing. Thy squeezed us in and as we were on Approach I patted Tom the Pilot on his shoulder and said “No Heroics One Landing No Overshoot.” They shot a measured quantity of petrol into the tanks and then Dipstick checked and found 16 gallons in each tank was the landing figure. Phew, how close can one get. A big Stink went up as expected but as I and the other Flt. Engineers said they had told us to no longer Dipstick check ourselves and no instruments could be trusted.
After that the instruments were all put into good condition and kept that way.
I and the rest of the crew agreed that the 1,000 bomber raids were the most dangerous, fortunately we only went on two.
On the first one the aircraft directly above us opened his bomb doors and released his bombs. The 4,000 Lbs. bomb actually passed between our Starboard wing and Tail unit. The string of 1,000 Lbs. bombs fell ahead of us but it was the Cookie to watch. On the 4th July 1993 I met a person who had seen a photgraph taken by another aircraft, the bomb was clearly shown.
One hairy trip, Politz the target, Soon after take off when we were over the North Sea most of the. Pilot’s instrument panel failed for no explainable reason. The only one left was the Climb and Dive but the Altimeter was U/S. The secondary panel on the Navigator’s table was still working but the readings had always been slightly out but were used by the navigator as a guide.
We all agreed to press on and it went reasonably well considering. We made serious attempts at map reading but the cloud was 9/10th thick so only occasion [sic] sightings. The navigator using Dead reckoning plodded on. When the time arrived that we should be over or near the target we realised when we did see the markers we were some 50 miles north.
My heart stood still when we turned towards the target, the sky from a low level to a height greater than ourselves was a mass of Flak (Red spots) I think I can safely say I was most apprehensive, the worst I ever felt but said nothing. Maybe we all felt the same way. As we did our final turn to fly in on the bombing run believe it or not the whole of the show (flak) was like an archway and we flew under this arch.
Upon return to base we had not received a single flak hole whereas the majority of the other planes were literally Pepper pots. The planned bombing run had taken them across the arch but because we were on another heading having been off course our luck was holding.
We were given permission to make a courtesy call at an Australian Squadron with four of our crew being Aussies. When asking for permission to land the Control Tower casually replied “Fly low over runway in use” At about 6/700 feet we did so and realised the runway was full of Bods. The Control Tower called us calling “Fly Lower over runway in use,” so we dropped to around 100 feet and the fellows on the ground looked up, waved and made other gestures. The pilot dipped the nose sharply and by george didn’t they scatter, we then circled and landed.
Apparently the Gunners had been clearing their guns whilst taxying on the runway and the bullets had caused a puncture so they were ordered to clear up the problem.
One day we landed at Waddington Station on one of our training trips, I cannot recall the reason but as we approached the drome a rain storm covering half the field was in full swing. Half the Circuit was in sunshine but the vital half was in blinding rain and do not forget we did not have windscreen wipers.
Anyway we made it down and then were instructed to await a vehicle, which would direct us. A small 5 cwt open van appeared with an illuminated sign mounted above the driver showing “Follow Me” We did and eventually to our horror realised we must be travelling at around 60 mph. Suddenly he changed the sign to –STOP- No way could we or even dare to do, so I flashed the Search Light fitted underneath and he took the message and kept rolling until we felt safe enough to brake.
The driver in such an open van must have been wet through so hence his hurry.
Another trip with its funny yet hairy experience was when the Weathermen and told us a Front stretched from the South of England, right across the Continent. Go under it across the Channel and over it on the Continent. Under it meant 7080 feet crossing the Channel and we found it impossible to climb over it in Germany. The cloud was the dangerous one (I forget the name). Anyway we made it through. Being lighter on the return trip we managed to fly over then came the channel bit. The choppy sea and being hemmed in below the
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Cloud at 70/80 feet the aircraft shook and even with George in and the pilot helping it was some feat to keep her out of the drink. (75% of the crews out that night were airsick but funnily one of us were. We cleared the coast around Kent on correct course and still under the cloud when the navigator called out I do not wish to worry you but there is a hill looming ahead at 600 feet. No way dare we climb into the cloud so I suggested angling the Searchlight at 45% and hope the beam hit the land giving us time to lift over the hill. Shortly the pilot’ and I noticed two little lights similar to animals eyes caught in a car head light. It moved to the right, then to the left followed by turning over and over. The pilot and I queried what it was then dismissed it as an oddity. Upon arriving back at base during debriefing the Wing Commander asked all crews present if they had travelled up the A 29 (I think that was the road). Upon checking the flying map with the road map we realised it was us whereupon the Wing Commander came over to us and read a report from the Kent Police. A complaint from a motorist, stating “I was driving down the road when I saw a very bright light, I first moved to the left and then to the right and realising I could not get around it I drove through the hedge and rolled down the embankment. The C.O.s reply was “Forced to fly low because of adverse conditions,” and it was forgotten.
I have mentioned before landing sequence. The numbers were given out in order of Seniority and experience so the more trips you did the lower your number, so naturally on our last trip we were No. 1. which we had been our privilege on several other occasions. During our return the Navigator estimated our return to base time and this was radioed in code which would be then transmitted to the rest of the two squadrons from base. With a twinkle in his eyes the pilot asked the navigator for the course to base. I believe we were at 10,000 feet or thereabouts. Setting the aircraft in a slow descent we set forth and when some 50 odd miles away he called up base and received the reply “No 1. Permission to land,” and they switched on the landing lights. We called out “No 1 Upwind” Control tower answered OK. No 1 but we cannot see you, flash your lights. We called out No 1 Cross wind. OK. replied control; we still cannot see you flash your lights again. Flashing we replied. Again taking no action. Steadily we were dropping our height and the pilot asked me for 5% Flaps which I did Calling control he called No 1. Up Wind, to which they acknowledged and said again We still cannot see you Flash your lights. Lights flashing we answered still taking no action. Then with the runway straight ahead of us we applied full flaps, wheels down and called No 1
Funnels. A good landing and went into briefing well ahead of our E.T.R. The Wing Commander was there to greet us and even smiled when he said you Devils, you did not do a circuit but have one with me, and as per his usual greetings for all end of tour flights a crate of beer two bottles each, with a mug of hot sweet tea it was a strange but welcoming mixture.
I must record this eerie experience. No idea of the date as also goes for many of the operational trip incidents.., Johnny the bombaimer upon waking up sat up in his bed and called out, “We have had it on our next trip, I have just had a dream of being shot down.” This registered on my mind and it recalled my own dream. They do say we all dream but it takes a reminder to recall it. In my dream I could see trouble in the form of a night fighter but it took evading action. The dream was like a film of the events that took place. I pointed out on the maps the position on the English and French coast lines before the navigator drew his route in. Across France and Germany I could see all the roads, railway lines, rivers, canals and forest areas. The target, even the pattern of the fires etc., were as real as the dream. The return journey was the dream unfolding. According to Johnny the outward journey was almost identical to his dream but he had not spotted the fighter so we Bought it, as was the term for being shot down. It was not unknown that in most instances of taking avoiding action the fighter pilot turned his attention to unsuspecting targets. Over a target they could spot and trail you while your eyesight was less keen due to searchlights, fires and flares.
It was usual on every night operation to be issued with two tablets to every one. These were to keep one fully alert. I only used one tablet once. We were not compelled to
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take them. A funny side of these tablets occurred. We were on the perimeter road awaiting our turn on to the runway for take off. The rear gunner, due to his restricted area and exposure always took his tablets as we turned onto the runway, replacing his gloves before engine run up. As we were running up the engines a signal was given cancelling the trip. Poor Mike was unable to sleep all night whilst we all snored merrily around him.
Following another trip I as per usual went to see the aircraft, which I had, handed over to the ground staff saying “Nothing to Report.” Upon approaching I noticed an interested group of people looking up to the Port wing. When at the aircraft I realised the Engineering Officer was among the crowd. He came over to me and said “Your pilot must have landed as light as a feather because take a look.” There was a hole both sides of the outer Engine casing ‘and one hole only in the inner engine casing. It was only then I realised what whatever caused it finished up in the tyre. The wheel was removed and a new one’ fitted. When the original one was deflated an incendiary bullet not completely burned out was removed. It had penetrated the rubber casing almost travelling completely through, When I told the engineering. Officer it had been one of the worst landings we had endured, even the rear gunner complained he found it incredible. Some 40 years later at a reunion a member of the association spoke to me, Starting off “I remember you; You were the bullet in the tyre Flight Engineer.” I could not remember the gentleman in question but he reintroduced himself as the Engineering Officer.
Leave in those days was a regular occurrence for aircrew. For us it was Five weeks on station, nine days leave. Upon the start of one leave I took my then girlfriend to the cinema. The Odeon in Rutland Street. After the supporting film the Pathe’ News was shown. The announcer started off by saying “The other night our Bombers were out” and the screen was showing a typical target photo, when I must have exclaimed loudly ‘Gosh Munich.” The announcer continued “and the target was Munich.” Dozens of people turned to look in amazement at me. The hardest part was explaining to the girlfriend because I had on a previous leave and by letter convinced her I was still on training.
One very foul weather day with fog, ice, snow, you name it, it was outside, we Flight Engineers were all sitting around in our office. (Each trade had its own office). The telephone rang and when answered the message was “War On” meaning an Operation that night. Details would come later, number of aircraft which pilot, petrol load, etc.. The assembled contained those of us well on with our tour and new arrivals. One of the new arrivals, yet to be Blooded said “What, even in this weather” where upon a near completed bod replied “We fly even when birds are grounded.” The Leader hearing this called out “In the line book please_” We never knew what happened to all the sixpences that such lines cost. Some good cause we hope.
On the return journey of one raid the silence was broken when the mid-upper gunner called out “Oh you Sod.” The pilot rebuked him by saying “No comments on the R T. to which the gunner replied “My bloody heel is on fire” The pilot ordered me to “Sort him out,” because I was apart from being the Fight Engineer was also the First Aider. I made my way back, not easy in flying gear and struggling by the navigator. After plugging myself into the intercom I removed the Gunners right boot to find his electrically heated suit had short-circuited at the join of the heel. After ‘applying a first aid dressing to the burn, nasty looking and smelly, I made the wiring safe to the heel but when I put back his socks and boot told him he would have a warm leg but his foot may get a little, cool. I had not long been back at my post when he again called out “It aint half drafty around my head. The pilot, a little testily said to me “Go and sort him out for goodness sake. When the mid-upper gunner explained to me his problem, I put my hand on the Perspex of his dome and at the back of –his head in line with the nape of his neck was a hole. I instantly knew it was a bullet hole but I was not prepared to tell him so and just said it was the seal of the turret. Turn sideways and move your head about unless we have trouble, meaning a fighter attack. The pilot insisted upon knowing the truth when I returned and would not be fobbed
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off so I wrote it down and using my torch on the paper using the sign SHH. Upon landing the Mid-upper jumped out and started to relate his trouble about the seal to the ground [underlined] staff [/underlined] whereupon I reminded him it was my responsibility to liase [sic] with the mechanics. Unbeknown to me the Bombaimer heard me say to the mechanic it was a bullet hole and would require a new turret. He clambered into the crew bus and said they ought to go by the hospital to have the midupper’s head X-rayed because he was that thick the bullet could still be in his head. (We were always nice to each other). Upon checking the next day the bullet had apparently entered from behind his head and left the other side. Everyone wondered how on earth it missed him until I came up with the theory that when he called out “Oh you sod” he must have leaned down to touch his foot.
This story, even my own family thought it was a line shoot (a fairy story) until 38 years later that gunner, Monty Blythe of Loughborough made contact for the first time after parting and related the same story apart from the first three words. O Y S. My late wife Margaret alive at that time sat listening in disbelief and admitted his story was almost word for word whereupon I told her I knew the family thought I had polished up the story whereas it was how it all happened.
One take off proved eventful. It was the practice to take off at one minute intervals. The control tower controlling the whole event. Eventually it was our turn, remembering on maximum effort two squadrons, 24 aircraft each was 48 to 50 minutes from first to last. Engines on full power, the brakes off and rolling. Once airborne we saw the aircraft ahead of us stall and fall out of the sky. By now we would be something like 1,500 to 2,000 feet up when the other hit the deck and exploded I suppose we would be in the region of 2,500 to 3,000 feet. Knowing on board, like us he had a Cookie (4,000 lbs.) bomb we held our breaths. Normally 4,000 feet was the safe height to drop such animals. Anyway it flung us about and the pilot announced he had no control. Neither the control column or the rudder bar had any effect, we were rolling about as if we were drunk but miraculously the nose kept pointing up although no instruments told us so we realised, at least I did, we were climbing be it slowly. Eventually control was regained and none of could say how long that period lasted but we registered 5,000 feet and then made all haste to get to the correct height and course. Upon return we learned that the crashed aircraft had landed on a remote farmhouse raising it to a heap of rubble. Therein lies a fantastic story. The farmer’s wife, just before the incident told her husband of her need to visit the Privy. As was the custom “it” was at the bottom of the garden quite some distance from the house. The husband lit the hurricane lamp and accompanied her. Whilst so ensconced they admitted later, heard this terrible noise, the privy shook and dust was everywhere but the building still stood. When they eventually opened the door they realised the house was no longer there. The Station Commander had a caravan on camp similar to “Monty’s “ famous type taken around for them to use, water and electricity being connected to it. The locals in the village of East Kirkby knew nothing of this until I mentioned it to them some 8 or 9 years ago. Apparently the news was suppressed.
The pilot Tommy Baker was in his way a character. When we were training on Stirling Aircraft the landing instructions were to “Wheel it in” meaning land on the two main wheels then let the tail wheel drop when losing speed. He declared it should be possible to “Three point” land it. HE DID.
Likewise when converting to Lancasters it was instructed that a “Three Point” (Stall type) landing be used. He insisted a Wheel in should be possible. Naturally he did it but what a hair raiser [sic]. The natural airlift
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under power kept the aircraft in the air. It literally had to be driven into the ground. Once he had done it thankfully the urge left him.
On one trip we kept we kept seeing aircraft shot down and the navigator duly logged them. We were certain they were casualties but upon return every other crew were certain they were the special shells the Germans used which behaved as if they were an aircraft even to the explosion as they hit the ground. Anyway the number we recorded tallied with the losses (either 17 or 19) and the next day a Mosquito aircraft of the photo unit actually filmed them in the areas we had logged.
October 6th 1994 [sic] Target Bremen
Recalling that last incident of being the only crew to report such brings another “Us only.” Crossing the North Sea homeward bound the water was rough and looked cold and forbidding when I suddenly saw a small light just for an instant then it was gone. The navigator duly logged it and a coded message was sent out indicating a possible dinghy in the drink. No other crew saw it and neither did we see it again. It was gratifying to be told later that two men had been picked upon the vicinity given in our report, ‘by an air sea rescue team.
One night the Bombaimer let out a shout at the same time as a bang occurred on the aircraft. We all knew it was a piece of shrapnel. The bombaimer said he had been hit so being First Aider I took hold of the collar of his battle dress and pulled him from his position in the nose to the top of the two steps at my feet. Tearing open his battle dress and his shirt all of the buttons flew off. I felt his chest and checked for damage. What I did see surprised me, a deep purple bruising about 7 or 8 inches across. Apparently just one piece of shrapnel had struck him upon his parachute harness high up on his left of his chest. I handed him two safety pins and told him to get on with his job. (On the crew photograph it is possible to see the barrel of his’ whistle is partly flattened).
Sometime in October or November 1944 we were asleep one morning following being on Ops the night before when our billet was entered by military and civilian police. After the search we demanded to know the reason and they admitted they were looking for traces of a piglet in and outside of the billets. Eventually they found evidence of bones and an Australian was questioned and he admitted to it. Back home he lived in the Bush and said he fancied a piglet which were in the field the other side of the fence of the perimeter near to our billets. Duly brought up before the Boston magistrate, the Chairman of the bench reminded him that years ago he would have been deported for such an offence to which the accused replied “Why was it rescinded M’Lord. Even the bench according to information had to smile. The bench then asked him if he would be prepared to pay for the piglet and when he agreed, the farmer stated his price, monies were handed over, had shakes and case dismissed.’
During bombing practice one night over the Wash, using 10 lbs. bombs and dropping one on each run on different headings. All went well until one bomb failed to release. Upon landing we reported to the ground [underlined] staff [/underlined] that one bomb remained but when they checked no bomb was found. Next morning a report came in of a female found dead having been struck on the head whilst walking home. That same night another aircraft also practice bombing at the same time reported a non release bomb and too found it missing. The poor lady was most unlucky when you think of the odds against.
When practising escape by parachute, a fuselage was mounted on a wooden frame with ‘slides placed below the hatches. The drill was go out head first of your respective hatch and down the chute. Poor Tom Baker, 14 Stone did not tuck his head down quick enough and became jammed by his neck and shins in the hatch opening. Only by pressing upwards, having scrambled up the chute to assist those pulling him above could we free him.
One rare occasion when we were resting and the majority were flying the return was
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around 5-30 am. The roar just above the nisson [sic] hut was deafening but to amazement a ground staff instrument Sergeant who shared our billet slept through it all, yet 15 to 20 minutes later a tiny ringing noise of his alarm clock resting on his kit bag roused him. He simply sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes and when he saw we were awake casually said “Good morning chaps.” He was surprised when we told him of the return of the boys. He was so used to it he was not disturbed.
I have mentioned only a little about the crew. It consisted of Four Australians and Three British in fact English. The Pilot, Navigator, Bombaimer and Wireless Operator were the Australians. The two Gunners and I, the Flight Engineer were English. Of the seven of us the Wireless Operator was the one to cause concern. The Mid-upper Gunner, a professional boxer certainly was a character but the wireless operator was a drinker and was given the title of Soaky. The problem, if that is what some called it corrected itself in an unusual way.
One evening when not flying there was dance in the Village Hall. Quite out of character Tommy the wireless operator asked me to accompany him to the dance and with some reluctance I agreed. After three or four dances of which I took the floor I realised Tommy had not done so and when I questioned him why his reply much to my surprise was that he had not been introduced to any of the females. An Aussie to say that left me speechless. I with my usual devilishment [sic] noticed three W.A.A.F’S standing unattached in the corner of the floor. Selecting one in my mind I crossed the floor and asked her to accompany me because my Wireless operator wished to be introduced. I escorted her to meet Tommy and said, Quote” Meet Tommy, Tommy meet, You tell him your name” to which she replied “Dorothy.” There you are Dorothy meet Tommy, and left them together. Several days passed and they would be seen walking along the camp roads, one on either side. About three weeks’ lapsed before they walked along the pathway but still not even holding hands. About a week later I met her by chance and I asked her how the friendship was progressing to which she replied, alright I suppose but he wants me to actually go into a’ public house. I tried to tell her they were not all dens of iniquity but she added, you see I do not drink. I advised her it would be a good idea to accept the invitation and to ask for a shandy or a lemon dash. This she did and believe it or not after a short time Tommy began to appear a normal human being with open white eyes instead of red edged slits. After one operation we lined up in the mess for flying breakfast. After every trip we were given Eggs, Bacon and usually one of sausage or beans or liver. Just ahead of me in the queue one fancy. My first lunch was steak, chips and peas with a poached egg on the steak. Cooks privilege. Fellow said to another in front of him “You might straiten your tie in the mess. The bod in question did what most of us would do, hold the knot in the left hand finger and thumb, and ensure it’s central position and with the right hand hold the tie to tighten if necessary. The fellow held the knot but failed to find the tie piece until he looked inside his battle dress blouse. A piece of shrapnel had severed the two points of his collar and the tie just below the knot. He just fainted and the fellow behind him in the queue pulled his limp body out of the line up saying “Do not hold up the queue.” He did come around but I cannot recall whether or not he faced any breakfast. Instead of coming to my home with the other three Aussies to celebrate my 21st birthday he went to Sheffield during our end of tour leave and I learned later he married his Dorothy. That was April 1945. In February 1989 I had dinner with them in their, Adelaide home together with the navigator and his English wife also Dorothy When leaving, walking with the hostess to the gate I asked her if she ever thought of the Village Hall at East Kirby [sic]. With a smile she said, “How could I ever forget it.” I, when it came to meal time was asked for my choice and was told, Not from the menu, what do you
To put matters in perspective after our end of tour leave I only met three of the boys again, the pilot, navigator, and the bombaimer, and only for two or three day and with the
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war over with Germany the Aussie Boys were sent home not meeting again for 35 years.
After 21 trips we lost our mid-upper gunner. He broke his wrist when he fell off the wing. We soon found another a Southampton fellow who was without a crew having been in hospital with cartilage’ trouble. He too was ’28 years old whereas we other six were one was 19 I was 20 and the others were 21 years old so he was known as Dad. When I was sent to the Isle of Sheppey, Sheerness, to remuster a friend being marched out of the camp as I was being marched in called out to me to tell me to volunteer for the first item on the Sergeant’s list on the morning parade. This I did when the Sergeant said, “I want a volunteer. He with amazement said you do not even know what it is, and then proceeded to tell me to report to the cookhouse to a W.A.A.F Corporal. Upon doing so I was asked if I could cook and answered in the negative. With a wry smile she explained the square of ovens and how to utilise them saying if you do not measure up you will be in the kitchen on chores. When the first load of food came in for cooking I went to take the dish whereupon she reprimanded me saying just tell them which oven to put it in and then later to fetch it out and place it in the hot plates. I never had to touch a thing, only detail others. Of course I had to remember where everything was and when I expected it to be cooked. Somehow everything turned out good and duly impressed the little corporal, yes about 5 feet 1 or 2 inches. I had the job for the week. We fed something like 5,000 mouths and supplied 5 alternatives on the menu.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Ray Charlton Memoir
Description
An account of the resource
A twelve-page type written memoir by Ray Charlton, entitled 'Ramblings of my Memories'. It begins with his acceptance for aircrew in August 1942, continues with his call up in July 1943, and then a training period until joining a crew as Flight Engineer, flying Stirlings. Following a conversion course, he was posted to 630 Squadron at East Kirkby, flying Lancasters. There follow many anecdotes relating to his time at East Kirkby until the end of the war in Europe, when the Australian members of his crew were sent home.
Creator
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Ray Charlton
Language
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eng
Type
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Text. Memoir
Text
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File #15626: “BCharltonRCharltonRv1.pdf”
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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One 12-page typewritten document
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Eileen Reddish
Steve Christian
David Bloomfield
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
630 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bombing
control caravan
control tower
flight engineer
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military service conditions
RAF East Kirkby
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
service vehicle
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/340/11808/BThomasWKThomasWKv1.2.pdf
e5b0b8afc7063253cd39405680e94d56
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Thomas, Ken
William Kenneth Thomas
William K Thomas
William Thomas
W K Thomas
W Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with William Kenneth 'Ken' Thomas DFC (1022415 and 186493 Royal Air Force), two photographs and a memoir. Flight Lieutenant Ken Thomas flew operations as a pilot with 622 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ken Thomas and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-04-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Thomas, WK
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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If you can't take a joke ........
by William Kenneth Thomas DFC
I was born in Liverpool on 19th December 1921. I have a sister namely Evelyn Gwyneth born 15th October 1920. My father and mother moved from Liverpool to Beaumaris in 1924 approximately and purchased a well established chemist business in 40 Castle Street. At that time the population of the town was approximately 3000 and there were two chemist shops.
I attended the Beaumaris Council School, both infants and seniors. Whilst at Primary School in Beaumaris, I spent quite a lot of time in the summer months on the boats and the sea shore. I also did a fair amount of swimming, and although there was a public swimming baths in Beaumaris, I preferred the end of the pier. I often swam across the Menai Straits which was very dangerous particularly at low tide when the current was flowing at some 12 14 knots. I was on occasions carried under the pier and was badly cut on the barnacles. I also did rowing, sailing and fishing, and used to know the Straits fairly well.
The end of the pier was also one of my favourite places for catching crabs and prawns. I got into a terrible state with mud and grime. I remember on one occasion being there when my mother and a very posh friend of hers, namely, Mrs Sircus waiting at the pier wall, dressed up and ready to take the small ferry boat, which in those days plied from Beaumaris to Bangor. Of course, I wanted to go with them, although I was filthy dirty with mud and had no shoes. Exactly what happened next, I do not remember, although I do recall the incident very well, and no doubt caused my mother some considerable embarrassment.
I was a poor scholar and frequently in trouble as I got in with a bad crowd, who were generally very poor and appeared jealous of my living conditions in comparison with their own. I was therefore involved in numerous affrays and mischievous pranks. I only just managed to pass the required standards for entry into the Beaumaris Grammar School as a fee paying pupil, and continued to be in trouble as I seldom did my homework, and spent many long hours playing football and cricket.
The headmaster of the Beaumaris Grammar School was a man called Frank Jones. He was a real tyrant, and was most unpopular and hated by both staff and pupils because of his general attitude. He walked in a very stupid manner, and I called him "Here's my head, my arse is
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coming!" I was always in his black books, and whenever anything went wrong, I was usually there. I disobeyed many of his rules, such as not kicking or playing football in the school yard, not wearing school uniform cap and blazer etc., throwing fireworks, snowballs, and so on. I smashed one window in the memorial hall as there was a stone in the snowball
I played a lot of football and cricket and was in the school's first eleven. I was also a strong swimmer. I carried off many prizes at local and school swimming galas.
I must just mention that in the early days all the rubbish in Beaumaris was tipped in a place called the Point. This is now a boat builders' yard, but it used to be infested with rats. Anyone could go there and catch and kill as many rats as possible and obtain a shilling a tail at Beaumaris Town Hall. Since I had a good dog, a Springer spaniel called Glen; I often went there and made a few bob. Sometimes my friend and I would take a few rats home and let them go in the yard and let the dogs chase them. Most of the money we got was spent in the liberal club on billiards and snooker.
Having failed at school in Beaumaris, my father made arrangements for my education to be continued at Friars School in Bangor, and this was where I met my first girlfriend namely Eve Bock. I used to see her every day, as we were both catching the same bus to school in Bangor each morning…More about this will be mentioned later.
I once again failed to pass the matriculation examination, and by this time, it was plain to see that the Second World War was fast approaching. Since I was 17 plus, I would be obliged to register for military service. I was completely undecided what I was going to do and finally decided to go into the Merchant Navy as a cadet. This all came about after a long discussion with a friend of my father's Captain Morris Jones who was a member of the Beaumaris Lodge of Freemasons. He was incidentally later killed in action out in the Middle East. I was measured up for my Cadet uniform and had passed all the necessary medical and educational standards required. However, by this time, the war had started, and numerous ships were being sunk by submarines. My mother decided that this was not a good idea and stopped me going. I then informed her of the seriousness of the situation, which she didn't seem to quite understand, and I finally persuaded her to let me go into the RAF on the Ground Staff, with the condition that I was not to fly! I duly passed the medical and educational standards required in Caernarvon, and since I was still under `calling up' age, was able to choose the ground course I required, that was, Flight Mechanic.
I was finally called up just after the evacuation on Dunkirk, and had to report to Padgate in Lancashire, where I spent three weeks
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confined to camp until I was conversant with RAF Regulations, and able to conduct myself as an airman. l was then transferred to Blackpool south Shore, where I was in private billets for two weeks and we were thinking we were going to have a very nice war!
I was then posted to Bridgnorth Shropshire for further training i.e. square bashing, rifle drill, inoculations, guard duties etc. I was there for approximately 3 months during which time Coventry had received its heaviest raid of the war. We could see exactly what was going on and hear and visualise all that was happening over the skyline, because Bridgnorth Camp was situated some distance from the town on the top of a very steep hill. I also remember carrying our kitbags all the way from the station to the camp, and when we got there, the billets had not been prepared for us. Therefore, we had to set to preparing and cleaning the huts, cleaning the floor and stove, and setting up our beds for the night. We were all by this time muttering a few hash words, but we had to take it, and as we went on, we found that the discipline in this camp was very strict by comparison with what we had experienced previously. The instructors and the people in charge of the various intakes were extremely crude and corrupt. One sergeant instructor immediately informed us that they called him `Slim the Bastard', and that if we crossed him, he would show us `what a real bastard was like.' For instance, on one particular day, we had three inoculations one after the other followed by rifle drill on the square. Several of the people on parade either fainted or fell down, and were merely carried away to sick quarters to recover.
From Bridgnorth, I went to No7 S of TT (No 7 School of Technical Training) at Hednesford which was situated on Cannock Chase and very high up in the hills. Consequently, it was a very cold camp. My course here lasted about three to four months. Again, there was very strict discipline and since the school had some four brass and silver bands, we had to form up and march back and forth to and from our work and technical school daily. Apart from the school we had to do guard duties, fire and air raid drills, and also gas precautions and action to be taken in the event of an attack. These duties were all done in the evening after school hours. As you can see, there was very little time for recreation and we didn't manage to get out very much. During my stay, an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out on the camp, and this further complicated matters.
However, I finally passed out as a Flight Mechanic – AC1 (Aircraftsman First class) but knew comparatively little about my trade. I was immediately posted to Penrhos Bombing School near Pwlleli in North Wales along with a number of other people on my course. Penrhos was a small grass airfield and was really too small for the types of aircraft operating there i.e. Whitleys, Blenheims, Fairey Battles and Ansons. These aircraft were used for the training of navigators and straight air
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gunners and were kept pretty busy. I was looking after the only Whitley fitted with radial `Tiger' engines and experienced considerable trouble keeping it airworthy. There were constant problems with the engine ignition systems mainly due to the exposure of the plug leads which allowed a certain amount of moisture to seep in, causing engines to cut out or lose power. This, on such a small grass airfield, described in many instances by pilots as `like landing on a saucer' proved to be very dangerous and there were numerous accidents. It was quite common to see five or six accidents daily, due to aircraft either overshooting or undershooting the airfield. Some of these were, of course, fatal and aircraft could be seen burnt out around the airfield perimeter.
I [inserted] t [/inserted] eventually became apparent that this airfield was unfit for the purpose for which it was being used, and much of the flying was eventually transferred to a new aerodrome that had just been opened near Caernarvon, namely Llandurog. Here there were proper runways and hard standing, and we finally did all our night flying from here. This meant frequent travelling in open wagons and of course it was very cold and uncomfortable in wintertime. We were obliged to exist on such occasions on pilchards, sandwiches and cocoa for many of our meals, and were glad of these. There was only one really bad accident in the whole time I can remember flying from Llandurog. It involved a couple of Whitleys which were both trying to land at the same time. One landed on top of the other causing the deaths of about sixteen personnel on board. It was, of course caused by carelessness on the parts of the pilots of the aircraft and also the people controlling the aircraft from the control tower.
I used to get very depressed with life at Penrhos, although I did do some [deleted] night [/deleted] flying on flight tests, and often flew to our maintenance depot at Hell's Mouth . [deleted] This again [/deleted] [inserted] Hells Mouth [/inserted] , was [inserted] also [/inserted] very precariously positioned, which [inserted] & also on cross country frlights with training navigator & gunners [/inserted] accounted for many accidents during landings. [inserted] & take offs [/inserted]
In view of the situation, I was frequently at home [inserted] in Beaumaris [/inserted] at weekends, and [deleted]of course [/deleted] [inserted] was often [/inserted] missing from my flight duties [deleted] and [/deleted] [inserted] I [/inserted] [deleted] i [/deleted] t was [inserted] therefore [/inserted] only a matter of time before I would have been caught. I used to break out of the camp at the back of my billet, and climb over the barbed wire entanglements in order to catch the local bus to Caernarvon and Bangor. Of course, this meant I had to get back [inserted] again [/inserted] very early on the following Monday morning and my father had to drive me to Menai Bridge, where I caught a [deleted] small [/deleted] [inserted] local [/inserted] train on a single track line to a place called Avonwen and then on to Pwlleli. The problem then was getting back into the camp without being seen and before roll call. Fortunately, for me, we had a good sergeant in charge of our flight, Sgt. Hudson, and I [deleted] got [/deleted] [inserted] managed to get [/inserted] away with it on all occasions.
In order to prevent trouble in the future, I decided to attend night school. I had a very good education officer, and managed to achieve the required standard of education very quickly. I finally had an interview
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with the camp commanding officer Group captain Williamson, and after an aircrew medical examination, was recommended for a Pilot/Navigator [inserted] /Air Gunner [/inserted] course. I was then posted to London ACRC (Air Crew Receiving Centre) where I was given a white flash for display in my forage cap. I stayed in flats in London in a place called Avenue close, St John's Wood, and had to attend various centres for tests in maths and Signals particularly Morse Code. The Morse test was carried out at Lord's Cricket Ground. We had to pass out at 12 words per minute. Fortunately, sitting close at hand were a couple of wireless operator air gunners who were in the course of remustering to Pilot/Navigators. We, naturally, got all our information from them, and so passed the course comfortably.
From London ACRC, I was posted to No 4 ITW (Initial training Wing) at Paignton for 14 weeks. Here we had more instruction on mathematics, signals, meteorology, navigation, airmanship, air force law, armaments, aircraft and ship recognition, and of course square bashing and drill. All the hotels in Paignton had by this time been taken over by the RAF, and I was billeted in the Ramleh hotel right on the sea front. The Palace hotel was close by and this was our mess. All lectures and instruction were arranged daily at a very smart country house outside Paignton off the main Torquay Road. No transport was laid on, and we therefore had to fall in and march to attention at 140 paces to the minute, which was quite a fast pace, for quite a long distance. I had to work very hard to keep up with this course as the pass marks on each subject were very high. In subjects such as Morse Code and Aircraft Recognition it was 100%. I was very lucky to get some help at weekends with my studies from a Beaumaris acquaintance, namely Hugh Williams, who happened to have been a headmaster in Manchester prior to the war and had been called up and commissioned in the RAF. He was instructing on Maths and Navigation at an ITW in Torquay where he lived with his family. Our final test in Signals was unique in many respects as [inserted] we [/inserted] were all assembled on the Paignton seafront and had to read an Aldis lamp signal flashed to us from Torbay (Hope's Nose peninsula) a distance of some six to seven miles.
During our time in Paignton and Torquay, we had frequent visits from the Luftwaffe fighters, mainly Messerschmidt 109, and Fokkerwolf 190 fighter aircraft, which roared in from the sea on many occasions and dropped their bombs and strafed the sea front and retired. However, all in all, we had a fairly pleasant time in Paignton. I missed the athletic display put on in Torquay for the visit of King George V1 by Air Commodore Critchley. The reason for this was that I got very badly sunburnt, and managed to get out of this very well. Everybody thought it was a waste of time anyway, and we were browned off in more ways than one, for having to go and prepare for this event.
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On completion of the course, I was made up to Leading Aircraftsman, and had the coveted propeller badge on my uniform sleeve.
From Paignton, I was posted to Desford near Leicester to do my [inserted] Flying [/inserted] Grading School. This was to see if I was suitable for Pilot/ Navigator/Bomb Aimer. In order to pass as a pilot, I had to go solo by day and also solol by night. [inserted] T [/inserted] His course was completed in the allotted 12 hours and again, I had no real problems, but many [deleted] people [/deleted] [inserted] students [/inserted] were then sorted out. [inserted] as they failed to achieve the required standard. [/inserted]
[inserted] All details of my flying at Desford were lost as I had no log book at that time. This was unfortunate as I particularly wanted to know the exact times I required to be “solo” day & night. [/inserted]
I then went to Heaton Park, Manchester [inserted] & slept [/inserted] under canvas to await my posting as trainee pilot to Canada. This was also the time of Gwyneth and John's wedding. John was heading for the Middle East, and they decided on the spur of the moment to marry. Under the circumstances, I was unable to attend the wedding. I only stayed in Manchester for some three or four weeks, during which time, I got engaged to Eve Bock. She was also living in the [inserted] symbol [/inserted] Manchester area, as she had not at that time been called up for the WAAF.
During my stay at Heaton Park, the Station Warrant Officer who was a bit of a bully , was thrown into the lake and almost drowned. Nobody had much sympathy for him, and I believe he was later removed from office and absolved of all responsibility for airmen, as clearly we were on the verge of rioting. I finally left Manchester late at night by train for Greenock, Clyde Scotland and was taken out to a liner, namely the Thomas H Barrie, by a steamer known to me from my days on the Menai Straits as the St Seriol, which pre war, was a pleasure steamer plying from Liverpool to Menai Bridge during the summer season.
I sailed in a large American convoy, which zig zagged its way across the Atlantic in August 1942, and after fourteen days at sea during which one boat was sunk and another set on [deleted] fore [/deleted] [inserted] fire [/inserted] , the convoy arrived in New York. The journey had been fairly unpleasant as we had very little to do and my bunk was situated near to one of the vents from the engine room and it was very hot and uncomfortable. However the food was good and there was plenty of it. Most of the lads had stomach trouble due to the richness of the food which we were not used to. I had severe diarrhoea but I didn't stop eating. There was a large 14 inch gun at the back of the boat on a special platform and this was firing from time to time. It was manned by naval personnel who were also dropping depth charges because of the submarine menace. I can well remember going through the Newfoundland fog bank off the coast of the USA and waking up in the morning on the outside deck soaking wet and very cold. I had little choice but to sleep [inserted] outside [/inserted] most of the time on deck due to the heat from the engine room. On arrival in New York, we saw the liner Queen Mary which was used at that time as a troop ship. She was speeding back to the United Kingdom full of troops and without a convoy.
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We entrained for Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, and stopped at a place called Bangor Maine on the way north. We were allowed to get off the train, and this was the first experience I had of spending American dollars. The journey took about 24 hours to complete and was reasonably comfortable. We had plenty to eat and the seats were large and roomy.
Moncton was a very large holding unit, and all RAF aircrew personnel going in and out of Canada had to pass through there. I was only in Moncton for about four weeks and was then posted to Stanley, Nova Scotia No 17 elementary Flying training School ( Royal Canadian Air Force) where all instructors were civilian bush pilots. Here we flew Fleet Finch bi planes which were fitted with a Kinner 5 R radial engine. The machine was roughly twice the size of a Tiger Moth and used for initial training purposes. It was, I think, a very good aircraft on which to commence flying. The instructors were also very good at their jobs. They were conversant with the aircraft and knew the territory over which we were flying. Seldom did they have to refer to any maps, although these were always taken on our flights. Apart from day and night flying, and aerobatics, we had to attend Ground School, and covered Navigation, airmanship, Aircraft Recognition, Meteorology, and Armaments. [inserted] & Signals [/inserted] Altogether, I did some 76.55 hours flying at this station. There were no serious accidents, apart from the occasional ground loop to which these machines were subject in [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] cross wind. [inserted] The remedy to counteract this was a very quick & positive pressure on the rudder bar – to stop the swing to the right - which was a characteristic of this aircraft.
My next posting was to No 8 Service Flying Training School at Lakeburn, New Brunswick, another Royal Canadian Air Force station. This was a fairly large aerodrome, and in those days used by civilian aircraft on regular routes throughout Canada. All Staff in our area were Royal Canadian Air Force, and our unit was separate from the civilian sector. Incidentally, our training was carried out under the Empire [inserted] Air [/inserted] Training Scheme. (Later the name was changed to Commonwealth Air Training Scheme) and there was a large notice board to this effect at the camp entrance.
I started my training here on Harvard 2 aircraft, but only did some [symbol ] 2hrs 30 [deleted] m [/deleted] [inserted] hrs [/inserted] on these before changing over to the Anson twin engmed aircraft. I flew some 270 hours in total before getting my wings, instrument rating etc.
Again it was , hard work, and I had to attend some of the extra instruction [deleted] exercises [/deleted] [inserted] classes [/inserted] in the evening [inserted] s [/inserted]when I wasn't flying. We had no flying accidents during my time here, although the winter was very harsh and the aircraft difficult to control when landing on ice and snow, particularly in any cross winds. Naturally, we had a `Wings Parade' at the
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end of the course. My `wings' were presented by the C.O., namely, Group Captain Hubbard, and I was promoted to Sergeant Pilot.
The `wings' presentation was the subject of a telegram home, as I felt I had achieved a positive result of which I was duly proud. Many of my school friends had failed the pilot's course in the early stages, and I don't believe they expected me to pass, in view of the results I had obtained at school.
I returned to 31 PD Moncton to await my posting back to the UK, and was fortunate to meet two old school friends from Beaumaris Grammar School, namely David Prewer and Clifford Roberts. David Prewer was a sergeant bomb aimer, and Clifford Roberts was commissioned as a wireless operator/air gunner. Both were on operations late in 1944 and David Prewer was killed in action. Clifford Roberts bailed out over France and was taken prisoner of war.
I returned to the United Kingdom on a very fast liner called the Louis Pasteur. We had no escort and were not troubled by submarine activity en [inserted] – [/inserted] route. However, again it was a very uncomfortable few days at sea, and during this time we had to sleep in hammocks and were squashed into one of the lower deck compartments. Had anything happened while we were in transit, we would not have got out. We had no fresh water on board for washing etc. and sanitary arrangements were very primitive. Going to the latrines was a dangerous business since these were merely long troughs with the sea water rushing through, and any careless movement would have been disastrous.
We duly arrived in Liverpool after about seven days out of Halifax which was really good going. The customs people checked all our kit and [deleted] other [/deleted] baggage for cameras and other contraband, and several airmen had to pay up or get their goods confiscated. There were no concessions made even in those days.
From Liverpool, we went on to Harrogate by train, and were billeted in the town centre in the Majestic Hotel. My intake was settled mostly on the top floor, and we were a mixed batch of pilots, navigators and bomb aimers. There were no lifts in operation and the main staircase had been boarded up to prevent wear and tear and other damages. We were given further tests, and one which I particularly remember was to check on our night vision capacity. Mine was assessed as being above average and this was noted in my log book. We were also given further inoculations and vaccinations, and after one particular dose, I was taken ill and removed to the sick bay. There I remained for two or three days recovering. Upon discharge, I had noticed some suppurating sores occurring on my nose and mouth area. Nevertheless, the M.O. still discharged me, but by evening time, I was re admitted with impetigo.
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This meant isolation for some three weeks, and then of course a period of sick leave.
On returning home, I contacted Eve Bock who was by this time a WAAF sergeant, and based in Lewes in the south of England. I went down to see her, but obviously she had found another boyfriend. I decided almost immediately to retrieve my engagement ring. [inserted] & [/inserted] I finally returned home to Beaumaris really sad and fed up. After this, I had several more girlfriends but nothing serious until I arrived at Shepherd's Grove on a Heavy Conversion course on Stirlings. I was home on leave when I met Mary. More will be said about this at a later stage.
My first posting in the United Kingdom was to South Cerney near Cirencester, Gloucestershire to an A.F.U (Advanced Flying Unit). Since South Cerney was the `parent' unit, we were almost immediately transferred to satellite units namely Tetbury and Southrop, to do our day flying and night flying respectively. Owing to the blackouts, night flying was very difficult, and we depended on occults and pundits for determining our position when on navigational exercises. ‘Occults’ were green lights flashing a single Morse [delete] character [/deleted] [inserted] characteric and denoted an aerodrome [/inserted] , and ‘pundits' were red lights flashing a two letter character [inserted] [ indecipherable word ] [/inserted] These were changed periodically to confuse the enemy, and all details of these were given [inserted] to us [/inserted] during pre flight briefings. In the event of any air raids in our vicinity, all aerodrome lights were switched off, and when flying we had to stop all transmissions, and fly from pundit to pundit until the raid was over and the all clear given.
In the event of any emergency when flying in Training command, the code word [inserted] for aircraft in difficulties [/inserted] was "Darky” as opposed to the international "Mayday" code used by operational squadrons. All these things had to be fully explained to [deleted] all [/deleted] aircrew taking part in such exercises, and this information was given usually in pre flight briefings.
The next stage of my training took me to Cranage in Cheshire where I completed a [inserted ' [/inserted]Beam Approach [inserted] ' [/inserted] course which we had to use in extremely bad visibility, conditions where we could not see the surrounding territory [inserted] or airfield [/inserted] . This was quite a difficult procedure, and we found it almost impossible to follow when flying heavy four engined aircraft because of the frequent large course changes which were necessary to carry out the landing procedures. We therefore used a different, system namely QGH, which was a `talk you down' control through [deleted] the [/deleted] cloud, and your aircraft headings [inserted] & height [/inserted] were all given by the ground controller. A similar system is still in use today. [inserted] Another procedure in foggy conditions was called “Fido” comparatively few airfields were equipped with this system. [/inserted]
Upon finishing at AFU, I went to Upper Heyford near Banbury - No 16 OTU (Operational Training Unit) on Wellingtons. Here we had to pick a crew of five people out of numerous aircrew milling around. This
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included a navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, air gunner, mid upper gunner, and rear gunner. [inserted] My flight engineer was chosen at Heavy Conversion Unit they were only employed on 4 engined A/C. [/inserted]
Flying the Wellington, which was classed as a twin engined medium sized bomber, was very different from what I had been used to. [inserted] As it looked very big and of course far more sophisticated from previous aircraft flown to date. [/inserted] Fortunately most of the people I chose as my crew proved reliable and [deleted] very big and of course far more sophisticated [/deleted] efficient, or at least they did at this stage. Further on, in [inserted] training on [/inserted] the different courses, some weaknesses did develop, and more will be said about this later. First of all, Upper Heyford closed down as a Bomber command [inserted] OTU [/inserted] [deleted] OUT [/deleted] and we were all transferred or posted to No 84 OTU at Desborough, Northants again on Wellingtons. This aircraft, [deleted] as already stated [/deleted] was far more complicated to fly because of [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] its [/inserted] size and extra instrumentation. We did many cross country flights particularly at night, some lasting six hours or more, and under some terrible weather conditions. Consequently, there were many accidents occurring in OTUs throughout the country. Many of these flights consisted of [deleted] a [/deleted] simulated attack [inserted] s [/inserted] on various towns and [inserted] chosen [/inserted] targets throughout the country, and usually fighter affiliation and [inserted] machine [/inserted] gun firing exercises were included in these flights. Firing the guns at night particularly, is quite an experience at first as we had tracer bullets mixed in with ordinary rounds of ammunition and the idea of this is self explanatory as it enables the gunners to [deleted] fix [/deleted] [insert] set [/insert] their sights on a particular [symbol] target. [insert] and see exactly where their bullets were going [/inserted] However, when first experienced one got the distinct impression that the aircraft's bullets [inserted] when fire in the [indecipherable word] areas [/inserted] were coming straight in at us, in our aircraft [inserted] which was extremely frightening [/inserted] . However, we all completed this course satisfactorily and went on to fly Stirlings Mark I and Mark III at Stradishall in Suffolk, and; [inserted] then [/inserted] on to its satellite at Shepherd's Grove, near Bury St Edmunds. This aircraft was [inserted] again [/inserted] huge by comparison with the Wellington and was classed as a heavy 4 engined bomber, with a particularly bad reputation: Numerous aircrews were killed flying the Stirling which suffered from all sorts of problems. Operationally they were almost useless because of their limited height approximately 12 14,000 maximum with a full bomb [inserted] if you were lucky [/inserted] . The undercarriage and flaps were operated electrically, and the undercarriage particularly [inserted , [/inserted] was in two tiers making the pilot's cockpit position [inserted] when on the ground [/inserted] some 2 [deleted] 6 [/deleted] [inserted] 0 [/inserted] ft above ground level [inserted] . [/inserted] Added to this, the braking system was inefficient and during circuits and bumps many aircraft ran off the runway due to lack of brake pressure. The undercarriage was weak, as already stated, because it was in two tiers, and in a cross wind, it was easily damaged and I [deleted] f [/deleted] [inserted] t [/inserted] often collapsed. [inserted] with catastrophic results. [/inserted]
Towards the end of the Stirling course, I was obliged to take a full medical examination. This happened [inserted] to all aircrew [/inserted] every six months to ensure that [deleted] aircrew [/deleted] we [deleted] e [/deleted] [inserted] were [/inserted] in good physical condition. [deleted] On this occasion [/deleted] , [deleted] I [/deleted] [inserted] I [/inserted] t was [deleted] found [/deleted] [inserted] discovered [/inserted] that my blood pressure was. too high [inserted] & [/inserted] I was immediately sent to hospital in Ely. I was kept under observation [inserted] there [/inserted] for some two to three weeks during which time several tests were carried out, as they thought I might have a
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[inserted] ** [/inserted] kidney problem. However, nothing was discovered and I was then sent down to London to No 1 Central Medical Board where I was seen by about eight doctors. Once again nothing could be found, and I was posted [inserted] on completion of the course [/inserted] [deleted] back [/deleted] to No 3 LFS (Lancaster Finishing School) at Feltwell in Norfolk. During this time, my crew had all been on leave and had been enjoying themselves. We were lucky in one way, as we missed [inserted] our previous [/inserted] [deleted] a [/deleted] posting on Stirlings to Algiers, and were really quite pleased about this. [inserted] We were not keen on the Stirling because of its operational performance & other major problems taking off & landing due to weak undercarriage & poor brakes etc. [/inserted]
However, I still had to complete [deleted] my [/deleted] [inserted] the [/inserted] Heavy Conversion Course on the Stirling and was obliged to do a night exercise which was a simulated night attack on Bristol. This was called a `Bulls Eye' and during the exercise, it was customary to have on board a screen navigator and also a screen pilot. It was [inserted] therefore [/inserted] very important we all pulled together as an efficient crew. Unfortunately, due to a navigational error, our navigator, by the [deleted] m [/deleted] =name of Jack O' Toole, got us to the target too early, [inserted] and In stead of getting me to do a dog leg in order to waste some time, he took us straight to the target, which was enough to fail him on this particular [deleted] course [/deleted] [inserted] exercise. [/inserted]
While stationed at Shepherd's Grave, Jack Gambell and I decided to purchase an old Morris 8 Saloon for £50 at a garage in Bury St Edmunds. The car really was `clapped ' and [deleted] s [/deleted] had a hole in the roof [deleted] of [/deleted] [inserted] on [/inserted] the right hand front corner, and when it rained your legs got wet. It also consumed a large amount of engine oil. [inserted] and this was an indication of pending expensive repairs [/inserted] I taught Jack to drive on this car; and he took it home on his first leave from HC unit. Really speaking, the car served its purpose very well as Shepherd's Grove was way out in the sticks. [inserted] and we needed some transport. [/inserted]
The next car I bought was a Triumph Dolomite [inserted] ( [/inserted] Open Tourer [inserted] ) [/inserted]. This was in Littleport. I paid £50 for it from the next door neighbour of Mrs Leicester where we went quite regularly for a slap up meal. She always had plenty of eggs on the menu and made good Yorkshire puddings. Many of our Australian and New Zealand crews [inserted] also [/inserted] met here. The first time I took the Dolomite out, it caught fire [deleted] . [/deleted] I got the wiring behind the dash panel renewed on the camp [inserted] at Mildenhall [/inserted] by a corporal from the MT section. I took this car back to Coventry several times, [inserted] and [/inserted] On one particularly cold winter's day, I was just outside Daventry on my way to [inserted] Coventry [/inserted] to see Mary, when coming towards me on the wrong side of the road was a huge Scammell truck. Apparently, the driver was having difficulty getting up the hill [inserted] in the slippery conditions [/inserted] and had [deleted] chosen [/deleted] [inserted] decided [/inserted] to to try the right hand side [inserted] of the road [/inserted] . I couldn't stop because of the ice and snow on the road, and didn't want to hit the lorry, so chose to turn into the left hand hedge and a deep ditch! The car turned over and I was left upside down in the ditch. Fortunately, I was unhurt and my car was pulled out and put back on its wheels and I drove on my way. I didn't even take the offending vehicle's registration number. However, I found
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that the steering was damaged, due to bent track rods and had difficulty getting to Coventry where it was easily repaired.
I took this car with me to Feltwell and Mildenhall, but in the meantime, I had acquired a Hillman Minx, which was being sold cheap on the squadron by a F/Lt Parker. I must mention that second hand cars on the squadron were plentiful, and it was customary when crews were shot down and killed, for these vehicles to be auctioned off on the station. The Hillman saloon proved to be the best car I had purchased to date, and in it I covered a few thousand miles. I remember deciding to paint it blue while on leave in Coventry, but after hand painting it, it started to rain. What a mess! Mary's father finally got it resprayed for £20 in grey and it looked quite presentable. I kept it until the end of the war.
The Triumph Dolomite was not used much in Mildenhall as I had two cars, and one night my two gunners stole it. They drove to Littleport where the steering broke and it was finally left on the side of the road for several weeks. I finally arranged for it to be towed back by the army. The towing vehicle was a Matilda tank, and by the time it reached our base, it was a complete wreck and ready for the scrap heap.
I duly finished my heavy bomber conversion Stirling course at 1657 Shepherd's Grove on Ist September 1944. We all went through to a Lanc finishing School at Feltwell on 14th September 1944 and I did some 12 hours 50 minutes Conversion Course on Lancasters. We found the Lancaster comparatively easy after the Stirling.
On completion of the Lancaster course, I was posted to No 622 Squadron at Mildenhall, where I completed further exercises in fighter affiliation, air firing and bombing before going on to actual operations. I started full operations on 23rd September 1944.
The first trip I made was a flight with F/Lt Orton to Duisburg in the Ruhr. This procedure was followed on all operational squadrons as it was felt that the pilot required some actual operational experience before taking a complete crew over Germany. It must be mentioned that F/Lt Orton did not do many more sorties after this, and was shot down and killed along with his crew.
I did several more flying exercises in Mildenhall consisting of cross country flights, loaded climbs with full bomb load, fighter affiliation etc., before taking my complete crew over Germany. It was during these exercises that my navigator Sergeant Jack O'Toole was assessed to be incapable of navigating with the accuracy required for operations, and was `washed out.' I was therefore without a navigator for some time.
I was very lucky in Mildenhall to quickly find another suitable navigator, namely Sam Berry, as most of the spare people were doubtful
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characters, who had either come off operations because of illness, or because of other navigational discrepancies. Sam Berry was a Flight/Lieutenant and was of Indian descent. He had been taken off operations because of being ill, and had at one time been suspected of having tuberculosis. During the time he was in hospital, his original crew who were Canadian, had been shot down and killed. He was a Fl/Lt when I met him and I was a Fl/ Sergeant, but I was in charge of my aircraft, so he was obliged to carry out my orders.
Sam flew eleven operations with me before being seriously wounded on a trip to Homberg in the Ruhr on the 8th November 1944. we were flying in aircraft `L' Love. This was the nearest I got to being shot down, although we had various damage [inserted] s [/inserted] on all flights over Germany, mainly due to the accuracy of their anti aircraft fire. The Germans knew that we would normally be flying in at heights between 18 20,000 feet, and they would put up what we would call a `box barrage' between these heights , and obviously they had to hit something or somebody. As a matter of interest, I will describe what really happened on this particular visit to Homberg.
I remember remarking to Jack Gambell, my bomb aimer, that there was a very dark cloud over to our starboard side, and of course, he immediately replied that this was our target and that we would be turning right into it in exactly one minute. He was, of course, right, because the next thing I knew was a big bang and we were on fire caused by a direct hit on the starboard inner engine and aircraft fuselage. Sammy, who was sitting directly behind me at his navigating table, was of course hit in the back by shrapnel. By the time Bill Ralph had got to him, it was after we had cleared the target and he was bleeding [inserted] and [/inserted] in a bad way. My starboard inner engine [inserted] had been [/inserted] [deleted] was [/deleted] on fire. [inserted] And in [/inserted] [deleted] In [/deleted] addition, my windscreen in front of me was smashed, and in the panic, I gave instructions to my engineer to feather the starboard inner engine and stand by. Bill Ralph, my flight engineer, feathered the wrong engine, and consequently we were obliged to fly as accurately as possible over the target area on the remaining good engines, and this proved to be very difficult with an aircraft that was fully loaded with bombs and flight crew. However, we managed after losing about 2000 feet in height, and began to assess the damage. As already mentioned, my windscreen had been completely shattered, and the glass had fallen down and cut my face a little bit, but it was not serious. My mid upper gunner had suffered similar injuries in his turret. Fortunately, we all played our part in getting out of this serious situation, and Bill Ralph who had experience in first aid, managed to get Sammy to the bed which was available a mid ships. Sam was awarded an immediate D.F.C. and I was assured that mine would come later.
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My first priority was to keep the aircraft flying and try to get Sammy comfortable. It was not possible, however, to stop his bleeding, and my next consideration had to be to get down as quickly as possible on to an aerodrome on the English coast. I chose Woodbridge emergency aerodrome situated on the east coast, and [deleted] o [/deleted] after considerable difficulty [inserted] in [/inserted] getting the undercarriage down and locked, I made a reasonably good landing, despite having a further two engines pack up on the approach. Fire engines and ambulances were awaiting our arrival as we had called the station up in advance and Sammy was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment. We were all examined by the station medical officer and were all back in Mildenhall soon afterwards. My aircraft was written off, and I was obliged to fly the Lancaster that picked us up, back to base. This procedure was always adopted on our squadron whenever air crews had been involved in such actions or flying accidents, in order to restore their confidence. I was later informed that I could not have reached my home base, had I decided to remain with my original aircraft.
I didn't get my DFC until after I had left the Squadron in Mildenhall, although I had been told unofficially that I was to get the award [inserted] . [/inserted] [deleted] and could wear the ribband [sic] [/deleted] . This information was given to me by the Squadron adjutant, who contacted me at Chipping Warden, and was also confirmed by Sammy my old navigator, who had by this time returned to Mildenhall after his hospitalisation, and was working at the base headquarters. [deleted] Also n [/deleted] [inserted] N [/inserted] ormally, it would have been presented by the King, but at this time he was very ill and the medal was sent by registered post with a personal letter with his signature. I also received a letter of congratulation from the Beaumaris Town Clerk and Town Council.
I went on with my crew to complete our tour of 33 operations, which finished on 22nd February 1945. I did not fly with Sammy again after the eleventh operation and had to fly with many spare navigators who were floating around the squadron, and this was not very easy as some of them were pretty awful. One in particular Fl/Sgt McKay got me lost over Germany on a trip to Leipzig and we got back very late and had been given up as `missing' on operations. [deleted] Fl/ [/deleted] McKay proved to be a complete nervous wreck and mentally unstable. Whatever happened to him afterwards, I could not say, but I believe he was assessed as LMF (Lack of moral fibre)
I must say at that time, I had no regrets about bombing Germany, as they were bombing us and I just wanted to return the compliment.
Flying conditions over the continent, particularly during the winter, were the cause of many flying accidents and frequently many crews did not find their target. They were initially obliged to depend on D.R. Navigation (dead reckoning). The inaccuracy of aircraft instruments and in many instances lack of flying experience….. [inserted] also took their toll. [/inserted]
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[page break]
[arrow headed line down left hand side of page]
Finding the target depended on evading the enemy fighter [inserted] s [/inserted], and ack ack anti aircraft barrages and searchlights which were particularly fierce in the Ruhr and around all the main towns and cities. As mentioned, navigation depended on D.R navigation initially, and later on new equipment such as radar [inserted] – [/inserted] GEE, G.H and [deleted] H25 and also [/deleted] [inserted] H2S increased accuracy [/inserted] …… Target marking was also important as Jerry often jammed radar and radio equipment. Added to this when flying through a cold frontsome [sic] of the flying instruments ie pilot head, although electronically heated, froze solid and this meant that we had no airspeed indicator or altimeter, and the ice that built up on the leading edges of the wings and on the [inserted] airscrews [/inserted] ………..used to come adrift and crash against the fuselage, which was very disconcerting, and when experienced for the first time, the noise was frightening. [inserted] T [/inserted] [deleted] t [/deleted] owards the end of the war, the main bombing force was assisted by Pathfinders, a specially trained force who marked the target in various ways, again depending on the prevailing weather as sometimes we bombed through cloud and with the GH equipment, we …:[inserted] were able [/inserted] [deleted] with this equipment [/deleted] to bomb to within 50 yards which was considered to be a direct hit.
There were occasions when bombs got iced up on the bomb racks due to the cold, and these dropped into the bomb bay when we descended to a lower altitude, usually after leaving th target. The ruling was that in an emergency bombs would be dropped "safe" in certain areas ie the Wash and the Channel but we had to drop all our load in or on enemy territory. We would not land with a bomb rolling about in the bomb bay, and in such cases where we were concerned, a secondary target was chosen on the return route.
Prior to any raid, day or night, there were many regulations and procedures to be followed. First of all security on the bomber stations was strict, but even so, it often happened that the people ` [deleted] dwn [/deleted] [inserted] down in [/inserted] the village' knew what was going on. Battle orders were drawn up usually each morning upon receipt of instructions from Bmber [sic] Command Headquarters. These indicated the names of crews affected, the target to be attacked numbers of aircraft taking part. All arrangements for bomb load, rations, fuelling aircraft and briefings of aircrew members, were given to the various sections pilots, navigators bomb aimers, gunners were briefed by their section leaders, and a general final briefing was given by the squadron C.O. and senior staff. A little later, after this general briefing, we were taken out with all our kit to our individual aircraft to carry' out further checks and await take off time. Radio silence was strictly adhered to, and orders to take off were given by means of Aldis lamp or signal cartridge from the control tower. A limited amount of time was taken for take off and taxiing and all aircraft were checked
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[page break]
and lined up ready for departure. Timing was , of course, all important as all aircraft had t [sic] bomb and clear the target spot on time and on the appointed compass heading to avoid collisions. We usually bombed from 18000 to 20000feet and reduced height by 8000 immediately after releasing our bombs.
I would mention that to ensure we all bombed our target, every aircraft carried a camera in the nose, and a photo flash in the tail portion. When the bomb doors were opened over the target area and the bombs released, the photo flash would be released at the same time, and a photograph taken of the target area. The photographs were scrutinised by our Intelligence Department on our return to base and if anyone had not been to the target, they wanted to know why! This was really a .......method to ensure that we all did our job.
On completion of my operational tour (33 operations), all of my crew were posted as screen instructors to various OTUs in 3 Group. My wireless operator, Fred Charlesworth and myself were posted to Chipping Warden, and I was awarded my DFC on leaving the station. Prior to going there, I did an instructors' course at Silverstone to get me acquaint [inserted] again [/inserted] with [deleted] t [/deleted] Wellington aircraft on which we were instructing. My time in chipping Warden was very restricted and I did very few trips. The war in Europe ended, and many aircrew were then made redundant. I was not asked, but was posted on a Tiger Moth course at Birmingham Airport. I was not very pleased about this. However, whilst on holiday in Beaumaris, I met Lady Megan Lloyd George at a garden party and would mention here, that my father knew her pretty well. When I explained my situation, she promised to do her best to get me into Transport Command. Shortly afterwards, I had a posting, not to Transport command, but to Ferry Command, which was the next best thing, and I did a short course on airspeed Oxfords at [deleted] Boscombe [/deleted] [inserted] Aston [/inserted] Down.
I was then posted to No 5 Ferry pool at Silloth. I flew many different types of aircraft, most of them twin engined and four engined types. On the twin engined aircraft, we carried no crew, but on the four-engined aircraft, we always carried a flight engineer. We were supplied with crystal [inserted] s [/inserted] for the radio transmitter unit and had to tune this equipment ourselves.This was quite an interesting job as we flew all the different types of aircraft arriving on our station. Most of these were taken to the north of Scotland or to Ireland to be put in storage. We were given no instruction on the aircraft we flew. [deleted] We [/deleted] [inserted] But [/inserted] were given a little blue book containing details of all types of aircraft and were obliged to study the respective performance figures prior to take off. Surprisingly, we had only one fatal accident the whole time I was with this unit.
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[page break]
I was demobbed in August 1946, and completed a course for a `B' flying licence, as I intended to do some civilian flying. However, pilots were very plentiful in those days after the war, and there were problems finding a suitable job. Also, there was my high blood pressure which always came to the fore during the regular six monthly medical examinations, so I decided to seek work elsewhere.
First of all, I made a bad mistake and joined the Coventry Police force, serving as a police constable for some twelve months. During this time, I got married, and found the money in those days very tight. I earned £5.00 per week plus a boot allowance, and had to work on shifts. I finally handed in my resignation after twelve months. Again, I experienced considerable difficulty in finding suitable work, as I had no real qualifications apart from flying aircraft.
I finally got work in the Standard Motor Company in Canley. I had no wages for the first year as I was a student. I then went on to Service Reception, and was eventually allocated a territory as a service representative. This territory included the whole of the Midlands, South Wales as afar as Aberystwyth and right across to the Wash and East Anglia. This job entailed being away from home quite a lot. However, there were other advantages, such as having a car which was change [inserted] d [/inserted]. frequently every 10,000 miles, and of course, all the maintenance, insurance and running costs were paid for by the company.
Eventually, I had the opportunity of going abroad, which was a step forward, and an increase in status and salary, so I jumped at this. My first trip abroad was for three months, and included most countries in Europe and North Africa plus a visit to the oil wells of the Middle East which were at that time operating the Standard Vanguard. On my return,a great deal of service reorganisation and company changes were taking place, and I was posted on a permanent basis with my family to Brussels in the 1950s. This again, meant a great deal of time being spent away from home, and although Brussels was a very good centre, the job, to say the least was a little bit inconvenient, and threw a lot of extra work on my wife Mary.
After three years, I was again recalled to the United Kingdom [inserted] because of reorganisation [/inserted] and given the territory comprising Spain, Portugal, all of North Africa, as far as Angola and the Belgian Congo, and the Mediterranean countries as far south as Egypt. These changes of territory were taking place the whole time I was with British Leyland, and I finally ended up with a territory comprising the whole of Asia, Australasia, south America, central America and the Caribbean. This meant going round the world practically every time I did a trip. For this, I was promoted to Service Executive, and awarded an increase in salary for the extra responsibility and inconvenience involved. However, it meant a lot more work for Mary and
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[page break
the children. With all the problems it caused at home, the move was not really worth it, but work was difficult in those days.
I finally finished up at Land Rover at Solihull. I had by that time completed 33 years service with the company which was then known as British Leyland. The final crunch came when I had reported sick with prostate gland trouble. I was instructed by the company to get the operation completed quickly and they would pay all my expenses. This I did, but the company did not want to pay, and I finally had to foot the costs myself. I was in BUPA, but because I had previously had similar problems, they refused to accept the expenses involved.
I felt that the company had let me down, and even the trade union to which I belonged was useless. I felt that nobody had appreciated my effort s over the past years and I got out as quickly as I could. I did manage to buy my company car - a Dolomite Sprint at a special price. Apart from that the company paid nothing and the pension in those days was extremely poor by today's standards.
I would also mention that life during my working days in the motor trade was extremely precarious, as the unions were always going on strike and fighting for better conditions and better wages, but the quality of the final product was poor, and often disgusting. As a consequence, our sales, in overseas markets in particular, suffered. This deterioration became more noticeable in later years. The people in top management were most incompetent, and got their jobs not because of what they knew, but because of who they knew.
During my whole service with Standard Motor Company, Land Rover, and British Leyland, I can only remember going on strike once, and I vowed I would not do it again regardless of the consequences. It was a waste of time and money.
On retirement, Mary and I went to live in Portugal. We had a nice little two bedroomed villa situated some 3 km from Tavira, in a kind of cul de sac. We had all facilities including a swimming pool measuring some 8 x 4 metres. Most of the neighbours were English, and we got on with them all very well. We carried out various modifications during our time there including converting the top floor into a self contained flat with full facilities and capable of accommodating 3 4 people. This flatlet opened on to a flat tiled roof and overlooked the swimming pool. We were very happy living there although we did find the medical expenses there. high, and had always feared the day when we might need to pay for expensive medical treatment and hospitalisation.
We were very happy, until Mary became very ill with lung cancer and on her return to the UK, died after only two weeks in Walsgrave Hospital where she was receiving treatment. Unfortunately, she had a bad fall in the hospital ward just prior to her death and smashed all her front
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teeth, and was badly bruised. I often wonder how much this fall affected her life span, and sometimes wish that I had complained more to the hospital authorities.
However, Mary had been a heavy smoker all her life. She would not go to see the doctor because I do believe she knew what he was going to say. Being sick in Portugal was very costly, and I am sure she was avoiding medical attention over there because of the conditions and expenses involved. Being back in the UK would have improved her chances of survival, but I feel that she had left it too late to do anything about her problem.
When Mary died, my real life seemed to end and can never be the same again. She was wonderful, always so kind and considerate, not only to me but to everybody she met. Everybody I have spoken to held her in very high esteem. I feel that my life is over now and if it wasn't for my children and grandchildren, I don't think my life would be worth living. They have all been truly wonderful.
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WKT Memoirs revised Feb 2005
Dublin Core
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Title
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If you can't take a joke...
Description
An account of the resource
A detailed account of Ken Thomas's life from his early years at school, through his ground crew technical training followed by his aircrew training, operational tour, short post war service and his civilian career, he revised the account in 2005.
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Ken Thomas
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2005-02
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19 typewritten pages
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eng
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BThomasWKthomasWKv10001 to 10019
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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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Pending review
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Peter Bradbury
David Bloomfield
16 OTU
1657 HCU
622 Squadron
84 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
Anson
Battle
Blenheim
briefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight mechanic
Flying Training School
Fw 190
Gee
ground crew
H2S
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Me 109
mechanics engine
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
perception of bombing war
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Cranage
RAF Desborough
RAF Feltwell
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Hednesford
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Paignton
RAF Penrhos
RAF Shepherds Grove
RAF Silloth
RAF Silverstone
RAF South Cerney
RAF Stradishall
RAF Torquay
RAF Upper Heyford
sanitation
Stirling
strafing
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1206/11779/PWilsonJS1601.2.jpg
747bd879cd48f91749b7814008d33422
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1206/11779/AWilsonJS160630.1.mp3
7e2477216099e63b9b0e50063ace01f3
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Title
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Wilson, James Stanley
J S Wilson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with James Wilson (1924, 1821217 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 626 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-06-30
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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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Wilson, JS
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JF: Hey there, I’m John Fisher and I’m talking with Mr. Stanley Wilson, who is ninety one and a half he tells me, and he lives in Wolverhampton. He’s originally Scottish as you’ll soon find out and he was in 626 Squadron having volunteered for the RAF when he was eighteen in around November 1942. Stanley, you had a rather rough initiation, didn’t you, with your first operation? What happened?
JSW: Yes, that’s quite correct. The first operation of course was unfortunately on Berlin and as we flew over the enemy territory, we were engaged by Fw 190. Information from the gunner, the rear gunner, pilot went to do a corkscrew and at that particular time we were hit by some shells. One came through my windscreen and through my seat, fortunately I wasn’t there at the time, having gone into a dive, of course I left my seat and finished up on the roof of the cockpit. After various corkscrews and assistance from the pilot, we evaded the, eventually evaded the fighters although severely damaged although no damage was done to the [unclear], elevator or anything so we pursued, carried on to the target. No more attacks were made that night. We arrived safely.
JF: What were your feelings when you, here you are, you’re a flight engineer, having just done three months in a flight engineer’s course, this is your first operation, what did you feel about that? As soon as you got over Berlin, there you are, being attacked?
JSW: It was frightening, because we had no idea what happens on an operation and all these things like fairy lights and flares, flashing round about, you wouldn’t realise these were anti-aircraft shells exploding.
JF: You were [unclear] green, they didn’t tell you too much.
JSW: They told us nothing, despite the fact that the pilot had been on a Second Dickey trip, he couldn’t explain much because the trip he was on was fairly quiet. So what we did see over the target was really frightening. Unbelievable you wonder how you can fly through all these flak, the anti-aircraft shells exploding and suchlike, but you can hear the shrapnel hitting the aircraft and bits and pieces where it explodes. What do you do? You carry on and hope for the best.
JF: So, how did you get back to base then?
JSW: Oh, no problem get back to base, fortunately there was no damage done to the aircraft as far as flying was concerned so we did do the ride back, safely, shaken and wondered what, is this what we are in for the future?
JF: So, you really thought, is this every night?
JSW: Yeah, this was expected, this was our initiation, do you get this every night?
JF: Oh dear, how old were you then? You weren’t very old, were you?
JSW: I’d just turned nineteen.
JF: God!
JSW: And my birthday was the first of January, first of November and that flight was somewhere in December, so, I can’t remember, I think it was the 24th, Christmas Eve.
JF: Oh dear! And base then was?
JSW: We were based at Wickenby at that particular time.
JF: Yeah. And of course this is in 626 Squadron.
JSW: This was 626 Squadron.
JF: Yeah.
JSW: Wickenby of course is something like ten miles outside Lincoln.
JF: On your second night, what happened? Stanley is consulting his logbook [laughs]. It’s a long time ago, it’s difficult to remember, isn’t it?
JSW: It is at all. [laughs] The second operation again was Berlin and quite a trip that time, entirely different to the first one even over the target, it was well lit up by searchlights and flares dropped from above, to enable the fighters to operate that night instead of anti-aircraft fire so although we could see the fighters flying about, we didn’t have any attacks and made a fairly safe journey back home. Did ever hope that at the end of that, all the other trips would be the same.
JF: Did you know why the fighters didn’t attack anybody or?
JSW: Oh, we could see the fighters attacking, yes, we could see them, we could see also see aircraft being shot down, we could also see the odd parachute coming out of the aircraft. And you could also see all the aircraft blowing up.
JF: Had you any experience of parachuting?
JSW: Never, never even taught how to parachute out.
JF: So you wouldn’t even know.
JSW: Well, we knew what to do, get out quickly and pull the cord.
JF: [laughs] So, you really no idea what that experience is?
JSW: [unclear] no idea at all what it’s like to parachute.
JF: So, did you very quickly become experienced of operations?
JSW: You soon get into the way of it, but up most in your mind. Is this my time tonight? Well I’ll be going back home tonight, there is always that thought in your mind, when you take off, by saying cheerio, so the thought is always there because at that particular time, roughly five weeks was the expected time on a Squadron. Well, when somebody tells you that the losses are fairly heavy that particular time, you begin to worry, you say, when will it happen?
JF: What about your parents, did they?
JSW: Unfortunately my parents didn’t know I was flying until they read it in the paper about the first operation and then of course then it was extreme worry all the time. Unfortunately I think that was one of the reasons that they both died before I was demobbed.
JF: Just worry.
JSW: Worry, yeah.
JF: So, do you remind the identification on your plane at all? What that was?
JSW: I can remember the number, only because it’s in my logbook.
JF: [laughs] and what is it?
JSW: This was a DV 171 K2. That was on that particular occasion. But of course, because of the damage to some of the aircraft, we never knew [unclear] was going and as being a new crew to the station you took all the old summer past sell-by date, the older ones until you were there for and did a few operations, that was when you were allocated, you know, one of the newer aircraft.
JF: Ah, and did you get one of those?
JSW: Oh yes, we did eventually, oh, yes, yes.
JF: So, how many operations did you do?
JSW: I did, we did thirty.
JF: You did thirty.
JSW: Yeah.
JF: Yeah, that’s good. And have you ever kept in touch with any of the rest of the crew?
JSW: Oh yes, the pilot and the navigator were Scottish and we used to meet once a year when I went back from Scotland we spent a day out, wives and the husbands, we spent just reminiscing.
JF: And what were their names?
JSW: The pilot was Jimmy Stewart
JF: As it would be [laughs]
JSW: And the navigator was Bill Meir. Jimmy Stewart came from Elgin and Bill Meir came from Motherall. I came from Coatbridge so we were all
JF: Yes, you’re not far away from each other.
JSW: Yes, we were not far away from each other. The rear gunner had a farm down in Taunton, Somerset, we did meet him very, very occasionally, kept in touch the mid upper gunner, Lane Smith, until he died on the Isle of Man a few years ago. I can’t say anymore of the rest because the bomb aimer lived in London and I think, emigrated to South Africa. The wireless operator, because we had problems with our original wireless operator, we finished up with spare [unclear] so we didn’t get to know them very well. And two of them were Australians, so they went back to Australia, so really it was the mid upper rear gunner, navigator, pilot and myself that kept in touch.
JF: Now, you were at the sort of, at the front end of the D-Day operations, weren’t you?
JSW: Yes.
JF: Tell us a bit about what you did and where you went.
JSW: Well, at that particular time, D-Day, we were on this special duty squadron, which was formed by number 1 Group and the purpose then was to mark the targets visually on moonlight nights only along the coast to disrupt the transport of troops, equipment etcetera. [unclear] camp, camps where the tanks were all spread out, offices where the senior officers were, so this was our contribution then to disrupt the transport of all the goods about along the coast, which stretched from the North of the Channel, from Calais right down to the Normandy beaches.
JF: They were totally different to bombing over Berlin I take it?
JSW: Oh, that was entirely different because we were only, at that particular time, this special duty squadron that was formed, we did nothing but drop flares. We went in at low level, visually mark the targets and then contacted the main Pathfinder force to mark the targets. We marked them with a certain coloured flares and informed the master bomber then to mark the target that we had already marked.
JF: And were there any really, really major targets that you were able to identify?
JSW: One in particular which is a book written about [unclear] Marne, which we marked properly but unfortunately there was a lack of communication between the master bomber and the rest of the Pathfinder force, there was a mix up there so that was one in particular.
JF: And what was you were marking, what was, tell us a bit about what it was?
JSW: Sorry?
JF: What was it you were marking?
JSW: Well, it could be if we take, let’s get this, Lyon. We marked motor works, was ammunition dumps, Reims ammunition dumps, Coburg gun positions
JF: This was fairly important.
JSW: These, yeah, these were all selected of course. Maintenon ammunition dumps, railway [unclear]
JF: Were you getting any resistance when you [unclear] cause you had to do low flying, did you?
JSW: Resistance, we had ground fire, quite a lot of ground fire and of course severe damage too. On many occasions we suffered. Can you stop that for a bit, I just.
JF: Stanley has some photographs here which is showing the bomb doors and the damage done to the bomb doors and also to the fuselage. How did that happen?
JSW: Well, we were struck by obviously ground fire which exploded the ammunition and blew out all the gunner’s ammunition and set the flares on fire. The aircraft went on fire, we were only at two thousand feet.
JF: How did you feel there cause although you were up in the
JSW: Well, we were smoked by, we were covered in smoke and suchlike and the instruction was, the pilot instructed the wireless operator and the mid upper gunner to, the pilot to make sure, and he said he would climb and enable us to bail out if it were necessary because at two thousand feet we couldn’t, so he got up to eight thousand feet and went into a dive, bomb doors open, the flames were put out by not just for the fire extinguisher by, also by the diving.
JF: So that was another lucky escape.
JSW: That was a lucky escape, so, that was it, we take home, come home.
JF: Yes, cause there was nothing you could do at that point.
JSW: We had already marked the target, that was no more because all our flares had gone and fired at an aircraft and that was it so we come home. But the target was successfully marked. Then we made our way home and had our cup of coffee [laughs]
JF: That was a relief.
JSW: Yes.
JF: Mainly because how did you get coffee [laughs]?
JSW: Ah, well, you see, this is it, when you go through your debriefing, the WAAFs are there with their coffee and the [unclear] is there with the rum, which you distilled with an eye dropper [laughs] and then we always had a debriefing after each raid. No matter where you went, you were always debriefed, very carefully and suchlike. But then we went back here and had your flying meal.
JF: And what did you do between tours, you know? You went on a pub occasionally on your weekends off when you got?
JSW: There was no such thing as weekends off, there were no such things as days off unless the weather was such that there was no flying. There was always something to do if there were ops, if you were free of ops on a particular night you may get the time off which if you are at Wickenby you are going to Lincoln and when we were at [unclear] we were into Grimsby. What do you do when you are going there? You look for the nearest pub you look for and also at some [unclear] where you can get something to eat and enjoy yourself, make the most of it because you never know when you will be back again.
JF: No, there’s no point. And what about comradeship on [unclear]?
JSW: Well, of course, six of us, we had problems with the wireless operator, the first wireless operator after the third operation disappeared from the squadron.
JF: Do you know why that was?
JSW: Yes, he lost his nerve, LMF. We then had a second operator, he lasted one raid, he [unclear] LMF. Then we had spare operators after that, we were very good. John [unclear] was an early man but he was an excellent wireless operator and another one was an Australian, he finished his tour with us, he’d only a few operations to do, he finished his tour with us and we had an Australian, [unclear], who was very good and he finished his operations with us. And then with the third one, and for the life [unclear] I can’t remember his second name was Johnny, he finished his tour with us. And then that was it.
JF: Was it something you said? [laughs]
JSW: [laughs] And, but the rest of us, the six of us stuck together, we went everywhere together. We didn’t know many other people, we were so close, even when we travelled, we travelled north and the train, Jimmy, Bill and I, obviously went to Edinburgh and then separated when we got there. But despite the fact that these two were officers first class, I travelled first class with them [unclear] then CO.
JF: That was quite a privilege.
JSW: Well, I’ll tell you. Yeah, that was it. So, we were very, very close together right until the day we parted. Because you aline each other, you’re dependent when you’re flying you’re so dependent on each other and we trusted each other, that was the most important thing, the trust. Jimmy was a good pilot, but we were all good.
JF: Was there a lot of banter?
JSW: No banter while we were flying,
JF: No.
JSW: It was silence. No, no, that was one thing, it was installed on us, there was no talk, unless it was necessary. Jimmy and I sitting next to each other, we did a lot of signs, if there was any problems we didn’t want to disrupt the [unclear] we knew what was wrong and we could.
JF: As flight engineer, what were your duties there on the plane?
JSW: Everything except fly the plane [laughs]. Well, what would you say, start up, everything that the pilot didn’t do, what the second pilot used to do, you could say anything except fly the plane although I was taught, Jimmy taught me how to fly the plane and did fly it on many occasions but not on operations. That was just as a safeguard if anything happened to him. At least we made people to fly home, not to land but to fly home and bail out. Things like that.
JF: So you never actually had to bail out at all.
JSW: Oh no, we were very fortunate, we always got back, well, yeah, we always got back home eventually.
JF: And did you, were you able to contact your parents then to say, hey, we’re home or?
JSW: Oh no, no, there was no, there was no telephone.
JF: Tell us, you could, telegrams
JSW: Well, first of all, in those days, my parents hadn’t their telephone, not many people had, but how do you contact them and send them a telegram? I didn’t want to do that because if the telegram boy comes to the door, they’re thinking of something else, they could hear on the radio, forty aircraft missing last night, they think, well, you know.
JF: Yeah, how did you feel then when you heard that sort of things because?
JSW: I’m afraid you get used to it and really, if you see the, so and so hasn’t come back from the squadron, you just say, oh dear, bad luck or else. That’s it, I’m afraid that’s the feeling you get. You know, you accept death as a normality. Terrible.
JF: Yeah, and when you are up in the air, over Berlin or somewhere, are you slightly sort of numbed or?
JSW: Oh no, no, no, because you’re concentrating on.
JF: Yeah.
JSW: Everybody’s watching.
JF: Yeah.
JSW: You’re on the lookout for everything, you’re watching for fighters.
JF: You’re detached from it really.
JSW: [unclear]
JF: Yeah.
JSW: You’re so busy, you’re watching for the enemy, you’re also watching your instruments, watching that everything’s alright. You have no time to think of anything about danger here.
JF: So, as the war ended, what were you doing then?
JSW: Oh, when I finished my tour, you’re sent on a, you’re given six months what they called screening but at the time I finished which was back in, I think it was August, September ’44, they had enough aircrew so they decided that those who had finished their tour may have to go to Japan but if necessary, and if necessary they would be trained as such but then we were sent to, most of the air crew was sent up to our receiving centre in Scotland and assessed, tried to give you another job, a ground job, because I was a flight engineer they thought they’d sent me on a mechanics course
JF: [unclear]
JSW: Which I finished up at Cosford. Well, that was eventually, but I didn’t know where I was going, I went home on leave and fortunately they forgot all about me and I was home on leave for two months and I got a telegram telling me to report to Digby, which is outside Lincoln. And for some time I worked in an engineer’s office sending reports into Bomber Command about the aircraft that were fit for flying etcetera etcetera. Then months later they decided I should go on a mechanics course, which I went to Cosford and spent doing my mechanics course I knew more about the aircraft than the engines that worked some of the [unclear] [laughs] and then I was posted to Suffolk, Graveley where there was a Lancaster squadron and I was in the office until I was demobbed.
JF: And what year was that?
JSW: I was demobbed in January ’47.
JF: And did you go back to your old job then or what did you do?
JSW: Oh yes, I returned to, because I was [unclear] my friend as an engineer and I volunteered, when I volunteered, part of the deal was they would take me back and I went back to my old company from the Air Force, that was in 1947, I became a foreman in 1948 and I decided I didn’t want cause I [unclear] my hands and stuff like that and I went on to the management.
JF: Just remind us what this company is.
JSW: It was Murray and Paterson, who were an engineering company. Manufacturing all, again steel works plant equipment.
JF: Yeah. And where was that based?
JSW: That was based in Coatbridge, my hometown. So, and I remained with them until 1952 and then I joined Harvard and Wolfs. And that was the engineering department in Wolfs, which slightly different, ship building. I started there as an inspector and but then in two years I was a foreman and then I became a superintendent in the engineering division. [unclear] three or four years after I joined them. And then I was headhunted to a company in Sheffield in 1961, I joined a company in Sheffield as [unclear] manager and remained with them until I, with the company until I retired in 1988, finishing off as an engineering technical director.
JF: Do you ever go back to the war and what happened and do you talk to people about it?
JSW: Yes, my daughter is connected with the education of children. I’ve been asked to go back and speak about the war time, living in the war and war service, I’ve done on several occasions at one or two of the schools.
JF: And the children, what sort of questions do they ask?
JSW: They are mostly interested in, of course children today you got to explain the difference in aircraft, some of them [unclear] and they think it’s police shells flying in the aircraft and you got to explain it to them, it’s very difficult to get them to understand that. Then you try to tell them about blackout and you explain it to them, it’s just like being in your bedroom and no lights on, and they can’t understand how you can walk about like that. It’s very difficult to get the children to understand. The older ones those I have spoken to those who were on [unclear] and they asked more questions about how does one feel about the killing of people and that type of, they’re more interested in killing of people.
JF: And what do you tell them?
JSW: Well, it’s, all I could say to them was we had to do that because if we hadn’t done what we did do, I wouldn’t be able to stand here speaking to them in a free manner. We would have been very restricted in our [unclear] and they accept that.
JF: Cause it is very difficult for children to understand that, doesn’t it? When I was a youngster nobody talked about the war. We didn’t hear anything about til years later.
JSW: Well that’s quite correct, because I can tell you this that when you research the subject my two daughters were, well the youngest one is twenty five, and the oldest one, the other one was thirty one, didn’t know I had been flying, until they were at that age. I’ve never spoken about it.
JF: I can understand it, my mother never spoke.
JSW: Never, never raised it and the people I worked with didn’t know. In fact, when I retired when I was 64, I said, some of the directors there didn’t even know I’d been in the Air Force. I’d never spoken about it then.
JF: Why didn’t you talk about it?
JSW: Well, it’s difficult to see, you feel
JF: Do you shut it out of your mind or?
JSW: You try to shut it out of your mind because for years afterwards I couldn’t sleep. I had nightmares, the thoughts and the things that happened and the more you think about it, the worse it becomes and then you start thinking about the killing of people, was it worth it? And of course, the feeling from the public after the war because of Churchill, the way he treated Bomber Harris and never referred to the bombing etcetera, despite the fact that he was the one who instructed us what to do, people were anti and that’s why one of the reasons why I never spoke about it because you would just create rouse and suchlike and that’s why at this moment of time I’ve been asked to speak at one or two of the Churchill’s things, whether the women ventureship, I refused to do it because I know some of them are anti bomber, they become involved in any discussion.
JF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I suppose they can’t comprehend what the alternative would have been.
JSW: No, that’s the difficulty. Yeah.
JF: Yeah. How do you feel today? Should youngsters be told about all this thing, I know you [unclear]?
JSW: Yes, I do, I think youngsters should be told all about it but not the blood and guts of the thing, the reasons for it, I, this is something I hate to see on television, they won’t concentrate and show you dead bodies and sorts like, I said I think that’s totally unnecessary. Bu they should realise why we had these things, why we had to fight them,
JF: Would you do it again?
JSW: Yes, I would. Because, when you ask people would you do it again, well, you got to put the situation, if the situation was exactly the same, I would do it again.
JF: Stanley, thank you very much for your thoughts.
JSW: Pleasure.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with James Stanley Wilson
Creator
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John Fisher
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-30
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWilsonJS160630, PWilsonJS1601
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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00:30:53 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James Stanley Wilson remembers serving as a flight engineer on 626 Squadron during the war. Tells of his baptism of fire on his first operation to Berlin, when his aircraft was targeted by enemy fighters. Mentions marking targets on D-Day. Talks about comradeship among the crew members.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
France--Lyon
France--Reims
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944
1 Group
626 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
coping mechanism
fear
flight engineer
Fw 190
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Wickenby
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1187/11760/PWatsonJ1501.2.jpg
5e82adc2824b4bab6c98c732b381cc02
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1187/11760/AWatsonJR180202.1.mp3
f81235f23e0bc02c8249edb6f60394e4
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
Watson, John Robert
J R Watson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with warrant Officer John 'Jack' Watson DFM (b. 1923 Royal Air Force) his log book and photographs. He flew three turs of operations as a flight engineer with 12 and 156 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Watson, JR
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Right. My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 2nd of February 2018 and we’re in Eastbourne talking with John Watson, Jack Watson DFM about his times in the RAF and before and after. So, Jack what are your earliest recollections of life?
JW: It’s quite a strange one really. I had to go to Great Ormond Street when I was about three years old to have my tonsils out. And my father was in bus work all his life. He, he was in the First World War driving an ambulance. The [pause] I forget the name of the unit now but I’ve got a picture of him somewhere with his, standing by his ambulance. And he was at this time driving for a company called Fairways. They used to drive down to Worthing from London daily. And he came to collect me and my mum in his coach and I can remember the cab was just half the, the bonnet was just outside. He sat me on the bonnet, put his arm around me and drove off [laughs] And in the back of the coach was a little pedal car he’d bought for me. And the other recollection, I can remember that quite plainly the other recollection we were living in Acton although I was born in Putney at my grandmother’s house. All the family were born there except my dad but I can remember the R101. I was out in the street in Brouncker Road in Acton.
CB: The airship.
JW: And watched the R101 go over. And I can still marvel at the size of it because it wasn’t all that high and of course it went on to crash in France didn’t it?
CB: It did. Yeah.
JW: And, but then my father was the manager, manager of a coach company running coaches from High Wycombe to Oxford Circus to High Wycombe and Guildford. And when Mandelson’s grandfather Morrison decided he would nationalise because London was full of one man buses he’d nationalise it all. In those days it was a bit cut throat but they did. They put a coach to Guildford in front of my father’s coach. One behind it. And of course customer loyalty only goes so far. They see a coach comes along. And of course they ran him off the road. But they gave my father a job as a chief inspector at Dorking. We moved down there for two years. And after that we went to, he moved, took him to a bigger garage at Guildford which is where he stayed through the war. And then while we was, it was I’d just left school and I heard about the Air Defence of Great Britain Corps which was the forerunner of the ATC and they were at Brooklands Aerodrome. And I told my father that I wanted to join it and there was, I think that he could see the fact that the war was coming on. I think the war had just started actually. Yeah. And he’d seen what went on in the war, he didn’t want his son — we had arguments galore. Eventually he relented and I used to cycle over to Brooklands, about a twelve mile run on a Sunday morning and joined the ATC , the Air Defence of Great Britain Corps. And it was very much, me a working class boy in amongst, there were a lot of well-educated young men there and I must admit I felt a little bit out of place. But anyhow I stuck it out. But then of course they formed the ATC and I was able to transfer to Guildford. And I wanted to join the Air Force badly. I wanted to fly. I mean I’ve, as I said, I wanted to do my bit and save the world but that’s a lot of nonsense. I [laughs] I wanted to fly. And I, again because I was serving an apprenticeship my father, ‘No. You’re not going to join the Air Force. You’re not going to.’ I kept nagging nagging nagging. In the finish he said, ‘If Mr Biddle,’ who was the one of three brothers who owned the printing company where I was apprenticed, ‘If he says you can break your apprenticeship I’ll agree.’ ‘Fine.’ So immediately I went and saw Mr Biddle. I said, ‘Look, my father has given me permission to break my apprenticeship but I need your authority as well.’ Well, of course I forgot that dad being in charge of transport when his buses were late he used to phone around to the different companies so that the men didn’t lose money and they’d known each for some time. Of course it came that neither of them would give me permission [laughs] So the following Saturday at the top of Guildford High Street was an RAF Recruiting Office. I walked in there and joined up and then went back and said to dad, ‘I’ve joined the Air Force.’ I think if they’d have realised it they could have but I don’t think they, I presented them with a fait accompli. Anyhow, I then got about a week later to go to Abingdon for an interview. And I walked into this office and there was a whole range of high ranking Air Force officers sitting around and in front of them was a huge table with a map on it. They asked me very, and funnily enough they said, ‘Why do you want to? Why do you want to join in the Air Force?’ I said, ‘Well, firstly I want to fly and the other thing is I want to get my own back because in Guildford although it wasn’t badly bombed there was one night a bomber went over. A German bomber and just, I think there was a searchlight at Stag Hill by the Cathedral. He got caught in that and he just dropped his bombs. They came down and one of them hit the house next door. In a terrace. One fell opposite. And I was sleeping in that room downstairs but it was the curtains had been pulled across. It was rather like a bit of a bay and the curtains were back a bit but the bomb going off of course blew all the glass and shattered it and shredded the curtains which saved me. So anyhow I, they started asking questions and then one of them said, ‘Can you find Turkey on that map?’ Well, you know it’s a big place Turkey, isn’t it? And there’s a piece of Turkey below the Dardanelles. That’s the only bit I could find. I suppose it was nerves really. And anyhow, he said, ‘Any more?’ I said, ‘No.’ Anyhow, they said, ‘We think you’ll be better off as ground crew.’ So I went out and I thought, right. Ground crew. Wireless operator. I can transfer straight to air crew. So I went in and I sat in front of this corporal and he asked me some questions. He said, ‘Do you know the Morse Code?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah.’ But the rotten so and so bent down and picked up a Morse Code key and said, ‘Right. Take this down.’ [laughs] And of course the only thing I knew about Morse Code was how to spell it. So he said, ‘I think we’ll put you in as a flight mechanic.’ So which is what I went in to and I was called up in September or August. August of ’42. Went to Blackpool. Oh, Penarth first and although you considered yourself fit they gave us your kit you never had the strength to lift it. You dragged it back to your billet, got changed, put your kit into a little suitcase with your name and address on. Sent it off home. And then we started doing the square bashing in Blackpool. Well, the first morning we all lined up and we started a run to go to from Blackpool north to Bispham. Five mile run. I met them half way back. And I thought this is ridiculous. So the next morning as we used to start off there were some steps up to some public toilets. So the next morning I’d got a penny in my hand. And they all ran and I ran up because I’d sussed this out. You stood on the lavatory seat and looked through the little window and you could see them coming back. As they came back I came down joined then on the back and then I was fit enough to do all the exercises that they were going through. And this, I got away with this morning after morning and, but I just could not see the point. I’ve never been a runner or a sportsman of any kind and I certainly wasn’t at that stage. But the little Irishman sergeant we had in charge of our squad had got his stripe, his third stripe on the strength of the way he’d turned out his previous squad. So he had something to prove and he was a bit of a martinet. But when it was raining, I don’t know whether you know Blackpool.
CB: Yeah.
JW: But there’s the three promenades. He used to take us on to one of them and he’d lecture us on women. Quite an interesting character. But he didn’t ask us to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. When we went on the, so it was Stanley Park in Blackpool on the assault courses we were all in PT kit. He was in full uniform and he went with us and he ran the whole way there and back. I forget his name now but he was a real character. We went from there. When we left there we were put on a train. We had to go to Manchester and change. We weren’t allowed to take the kit bag and all the back pack off and we were, but when we changed there we then got on another train which took us to Wendover because we were going to Halton. And when they marched us from Wendover up to the camp with a kit bag on the back it was nothing. We were that, it really got us fit. And while we were there the, there was a chap there he’d been a drummer in a band and he said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve found a set of drums,’ he said ‘We can form a drum corps to march the people down to the workshops and back.’ So he said, ‘You’re excused other duties,’ like Home Guard type duties. So that was it. It was going to be a get out of that. We wouldn’t have to go out at night. So we joined up and we had a practice room in one of the cook houses. And of course you gave a load of seventeen eighteen year olds a set of drums it, it was half an hour before he could make himself heard [laughs] And anyhow, he did. He did make us into a reasonable drum, we used to play these drum tunes. March them down to the workshops. March them back at lunchtime. Of course the advantage was you were at the lead so you were the first one in the cookhouse for your meal. And we used to go to Battle of Britain weeks where they used to go around the towns with an RAF, an RAF band. We weren’t allowed to play with the band. He used to the drumming with the band but we used to do, when they had a break we’d do our bit for the raising money for Spitfires. And while I was on the course for the fitter, for the air training mechanics course suddenly a notice went up on the board they were looking for flight engineers because obviously they were trying to take people off the squadron. They didn’t want to take too many because they were depleting their ground staff but equally the ground crews were watching what was coming back and thought well I don’t want any of that. So they were, except they would lower the standards like they did it didn’t affect me in that way and I applied. Went to Euston. And the night before we went to Euston a crowd of us went out and we went to see Lou Preager at the Hammersmith Palais and we got knocking back beers and stuff. The next morning we go for a young, there was a young flight lieutenant and I stripped off, I got on the scales he said, ‘Get back on them scales.’ I was only nine stone. Then we come to the dreaded holding the mercury up and after, after the night before I was [pause] and suddenly I was halfway through. I suddenly, and he looked around whether by accident or not I don’t know so I was able to take another breath and hold it up again and ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘You’ve passed.’ And I had to go back on the fitter’s course and passed all that before going down to St Athan for the flight engineer’s course and passed that with, with I think about seventy five percent. It was quite a, I was quite pleased with that result. And then we went up to Lindholme. Oh the first thing was the, when we finished our course for a week they sent us up to Ringway. Ringway. Where they were building the Lancs. To show us what was going on. And it was incredible. They took us all to Pointon. We all got off these coaches and we were met by all these girls. We all paired off and I met a fair headed one. I’ll never forget her name. Yvonne. She taught me more in that week about the facts of life and I thought well this is better than sliced bread [laughs] And so yeah the obvious happened. And I should have kept in touch. Her father was a manager of a printing company in Manchester. But I don’t know whether it was we didn’t think it was a proposition for somebody going into aircrew to get involved in a serious relationship. But anyhow we left there and we were sent back to St Athan. Then we, from there a couple of days later we went up to Lindholme and got all our flying kit and everything and then because I was going down to Faldingworth which was south there was only me and another chap going south. The rest, all the other people. So we had to go to Faldingworth with all the kit and then make our way from there back which was a nightmare. But anyhow we had a week’s leave and got back to Faldingworth and all shoved in a big hangar because my crew had been a Wellington crew. They hadn’t been on ops at all but of course they needed a mid-upper gunner and a flight engineer. I walked in and I was just wandering aimlessly about. I hadn’t got a clue what I was looking for and this wireless operator come up and he said to me, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’re looking for a flight engineer,’ He said, ‘What’s your name?’ I said ‘John.’ ‘Right, Jack.’ And I became Jack. All the Air Force life and all my working life. And it’s only the family that call me John. And anyhow I was introduced to the crew. And it was, it was quite a strange thing really because we all took to each other straight away. The pilot was, he was a month, he was only nineteen anyway. I mean, we was all only nineteen. He was a month younger than me. And the first thing, we got to Faldingworth was two days later he said to me, ‘We’re going up on fighter affil, on familiarisation tomorrow. Only me and you.’ So we picked up the screened pilot and walked out to the aircraft [pause] and I looked and I said, ‘I’m trained on Lancasters. This is a Halifax.’ I said, ‘Not only don’t I know anything about this it’s the first time I’ve seen one.’ I said, ‘Where’s the screened, the screened engineer?’ ‘Oh, we haven’t got one. You’ll be alright. You’ll be ok. Just the three of us.’ Well, we took off and we were flying at about four thousand feet and he said, he called me up, ‘Engineer, I want you to change the fuel tanks,’ he said, ‘Listen carefully.’ I said, ‘Well, first of all where are they? The controls.’ ‘Under one of the rest beds in the fuselage.’ Because the Lancaster and the Halifax are two totally different aircraft. So he said, ‘Under the rest bed,’ he said, ‘There’s two levers each side,’ he said, ‘Now, listen carefully. Turn off the lever on number one on the port side. Turn off the number one on the starboard side. Turn on the number two on the port side. Turn on the number two on the starboard side.’ Well, something didn’t sound right there. But anyhow I thought well I’d better follow what he says. I don’t know how the system works. So I turned off the number one. By the time I’d got across to the other side the aircraft did a nose dive. I carried on and set the tanks and then it picked it up. Well, of course he told me he should have turned off number one turned on number two. He told me the wrong way. He apologised very profusely. I said, I said, ‘Apology would have been a bit late wouldn’t it if we’d been two thousand feet lower?’ And he couldn’t, he couldn’t have been more contrite. And as I say I cut the fuel but it soon picked up. Anyhow, from then on I never ever had a screened engineer go with me. I was always on, but when we landed I went to stores and got the manual for the Halifax. And I spent the whole, I never even go for any meal. I spent all that afternoon, all night going through that manual. The next morning when we went out to the Halifax again I knew what I wanted to know about it. But it was a stupid thing he did. And I should have had a screened engineer with me. Especially being a, a —
CB: A complete rookie.
JW: Complete. Yeah. I mean to, I can’t imagine what I was thinking to even agree to go. Because in the flight of the Lancaster you sit alongside the pilot. In a Halifax you sit with your back to the pilot. So the whole thing was completely different. But anyhow we got away with it. My guardian angel was sitting on my shoulder. But we, we went from there to, we got a posting to 12 Squadron at Wickenby. And it’s only about five miles so it was a crew bus to go, and as we drove in two Lancs were on the side of the perimeter track. One screwed into the back of the other. As they were taxiing around apparently one stopped, one didn’t. But luckily nobody got hurt from it. And then they took us to our billet. And I can see it now. Walked in the billet and it was as the crew had left. The beds were unmade. Sheets just drawn. And I looked over to the bed that I’d picked and it was the pilot’s name. Sergeant Twitching. And years later a chap, you’ve heard of Currie, the pilot who wrote one of the books, he phoned me up because I’d phoned him up about something else previous and he said, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I’ve been asked to write something about strange happenings to people who were flying.’ And I told him how I’d joined and I said to him, I said the, I never forgot the name of that man, Sergeant Twitching. He said, ‘What an unfortunate name for a bomber boy.’ And when I went years after the war, I’m digressing a bit I went to Lincoln Cathedral and saw the volume and I asked them if they could open that book at this man’s name. I said I felt as though I needed to make some sort of tribute to him. And they were all killed. I think it was either Leipzig or Stuttgart. One of those. And anyhow we started off. Went on our first op and when we were, you were convinced that going from what the instructor’s told you that you were never going to make your first op. And it was at Brunswick on the 17th of January ’44. And we took off and as we took off nothing happened. We got our, we were going past I think Hanover and I looked down and the whole of the cloud, it was all cloud but it was all lit up with the searchlights shining through and I called up and I said, ‘Bill there’s a Lanc down on the right hand, on the starboard side there,’ I said, ‘He’s about three thousand feet below us.’ ‘Oh, that’s good,’ He said, ‘They’ll be watching him and they won’t see us.’ And I thought, cor what a man. What a pilot. You know, we’re alright here. We went to Brunswick. Got back without any problems at all. And we did, it was the next thing was on the second trip was to Berlin. An eight and a half hour trip. We called up at Wickenby on the way back when we was coming for to permission to land and they said yeah ok. We were in the circuit and there was low cloud. As we broke cloud, it’s unbelievable to think they talk about near misses, Another Lanc alongside of us on our port side broke cloud at the same time with about six feet between the wing tips. And our pilot, we went that way, he went that way. So, you know. Anyhow, we carried on and landed. And Bill called out, and he said, oh. ‘Clear of runway.’ And there was a few minutes silence and then a voice said, ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ And we had landed at Ludford Magna.
CB: Oh right.
JW: Which was an adjoining. In that sort of taking that evasive action thinking we were joining the circuit again we weren’t. Anyhow, they kept us for about four hours then before the let us fly back to, to Wickenby. And the next thing was that we did a trip to Stuttgart. And we had the most fantastic mid-upper gunner and he didn’t have a brain he had a computer. We were going in to, on the bombing run and he suddenly said , ‘Dive port, Go.’ Bill just went. And as we did I watched tracer go over the top of the aircraft. And we got, we got the, it dipped, it broke away and didn’t make another attack. We got back ok and our wireless operator said, ‘We owe our lives to Appy and Bill.’ And we, because we were so close a crew we didn’t have engineer and pilot it was Bill and Appy and Ollie. I was Watty. That’s how. But it worked for us because we all knew each other’s, as soon as we spoke we knew who it was talking. And we got back and the next thing we had was a raid, we were walking down to briefing and I was on my own and there was a spattering of [pause] this was in February, there was a spattering of snow on the ground. I was walking down to the briefing room on my own funnily enough. I don’t know why but I just, going through some trees and I suddenly stopped in my tracks. And it was the most strange feeling. I knew that if we didn’t leave Wickenby we wouldn’t survive. It was the most strange feeling. We went in and again the target was Stuttgart. And we got there and back without any problems. But two mornings later we were called into the flight commanders office and he’d got us all around standing in a row in front of him. I can see him now. He said, ‘You’ve got two options,’ he said, ‘You’re going to either volunteer for the Pathfinder force or we’ll send you.’ [laughs] Now, having experienced that strange feeling two nights previously that was the answer for me. The two navigators weren’t, the bomb aimer and the navigator weren’t all that keen but they decided to go along with it and we didn’t fly any more ops from there. We were sent down to Warboys for the Pathfinder Training Unit. And it was going to be straight, the bomb aimer was going to become the second navigator. The flight engineer was going to be the bomb aimer and also I had to learn some navigation. So we did all these necessary courses. About nine days I think we were there. Nine, ten days something like that. And we went in to see the navigation officer and he said to me, ‘Ask me some questions.’ I had to learn to take an astro shot with a sextant. I did that. And he said to me, ‘What’s the difference between a planet and a star?’ As, yeah a planet and a star. And I thought I don’t know. All I could think, going through my mind was, “Twinkle twinkle little star,” and I thought what an idiot. And I said to him, and I thought this is going to get [pause] I said, ‘A star twinkles.’ He said, ‘That’s correct. A planet is a steady light.’ And I thought it was [laughs] and I didn’t let him know that it was the nursery rhyme that got me out of trouble but it did. Anyhow, when was, we’d done all the courses we had to do the practice bombing with the triangle and the fuel and and you had to get to within about a yard of that. We did. But of course at two thousand feet having got it and hit it we then, this is, we was doing a bit of low level flying we came across a field and there was a load of sheep. Well they nearly beat us. As the aircraft suddenly came, all these sheep suddenly [unclear] from shock. But one of the instructions when, when they said after we’d finished when I was sitting chatting to one of them and he said what squadron are you going to?’ I said, ‘156.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The rebel squadron.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘They’ll fly ‘til the cows come home but,’ he said, ‘Lectures or anything like that they can never get them in to them.’ He said, ‘As soon as there’s a stand down they’re off. And it was like that. It was like that. It was. They were all really, years later a friend of mine, I was sitting chatting to him he was, he was the same as the rear gunner. He flew with about ten different crews. One of the bravest men I knew as a rear gunner and I said to him, ‘How did you manage to do all that with all those different — ?’ He said, ‘All the crews on 156 were good.’ And they were. And the number of them who got killed because they didn’t finish when they could have done. Just went on like we did. You know. And but anyhow [pause] he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘They can’t seem to do anything [unclear],’ he said, ‘But they’ll fly night and day,’ he said, ‘All week.’ But anyhow at that point they, because they’d transferred 156 from Warboys to Upwood, and Upwood which was to be a, in to a Warboys and we got to Warboys just as they changed. But we did quite a few. We never did any more Berlin trips. The first one we did from Upwood was to Essen and the next one, our thirteenth trip and it was, it was only a little sometime later that I realised this, we were flying in M-Mother. Thirteenth. That was the alphabet. Our thirteenth trip. It was Nuremberg [pause] and we noticed we were giving off contrails so we decided to lose height until we found a height where it wasn’t affecting us. But a lot of crews just carried on. I mean it’s not surprising that so many of them got caught. Some probably didn’t have a chance to, there was another crew of course Tony Hiscock was the skipper and he was, he was talking to me. He said. ‘Yeah, we had those contrails. We just, when the rear gunner told me we was leaving them,’ he said, ‘We just changed height until we realised we were stopping.’ But we never saw anything on that trip other than other than other aircraft going down which our gunners were reporting to us. But it was — oh, hello love. This is my daughter Suzanne.
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Getting out of them.
JW: Yeah. And we, we had some [pause] a couple of trips where we were, on one trip we were coned.
CB: With searchlights.
JW: Searchlights. And I was actually on the bombing run. I was, ‘Left. Left. Steady.’ And suddenly the lights caught us. But Bill never hesitated. We were at eighteen thousand feet and he just went down in a dive and of course I shot up into the front turret. I was fixed. I couldn’t move with the gravity. He pulled out at six thousand feet and I come crashing down over the bombsight again. And ten minutes but he got us out of us. He got us out of the, out of the, those searchlights. And we then finished up,. We bombed. We went around again and bombed at twelve thousand feet. But it was another one we did was to Lens, and this was the night when the flying bombs were coming over. The V-1s. We could see all these lights coming below us and hadn’t a clue what they were but it was not ‘til we got back the next day but it was, it was in France. But going down we were going down at, going through at seven thousand feet. We came on the target so quick.
[recording paused]
CB: Right.
JW: As we were going I was giving him the instructions. Suddenly —
CB: As the bomb aimer at that time.
JW: As the bomb aimer.
CB: Yeah.
JW: Suddenly realised that we got on the target before we realised it and I said to him, ‘Dummy run, Bill. Go around again.’ But it was, it was years later before I realised what had happened. Came back. Coming on to the target and I could see all these black shapes going past me in the corner of my eye. Anyhow, that time I got the target on the marker. The target markers. Dropped the bombs and when I looked I thought to myself [unclear] the operational record books, one of the sheets I’ve got and when I looked I realised he didn’t go around again he did a u-turn and we were flying into the bomber stream. And I thought strange. How did we do that? Then I looked. In that turn he lost two thousand feet. We bombed from five thousand feet. Everybody else was coming over at seven but how we flew through all that lot. All the bombs going. I don’t know. But [pause] I’m just trying to find it. As I say it was the number of times. Three times at least on the bomb aiming run I called dummy run.
CB: We’ll just stop again. Hang on.
[recording paused]
CB: You bombed at five thousand feet.
JW: Yeah.
CB: And everybody else did it at seven.
JW: Yeah.
CB: Which was what you were briefed to do.
JW: Yeah.
CB: So this is part of your lucky escape —
JW: It is. Yeah.
CB: Series, isn’t it? Extraordinary.
JW: But, as I say on at least three occasions on the German trips I called dummy run, and not once did I hear one murmur of dissent from any of the crew. You read reports from people, ‘Oh, get rid of it,’ you know. But none of our crew did that. We had complete faith and trust in each other. But, yeah on at least three occasions we did a, we did a dummy run to go around. On one occasion when we were at Wickenby and I think that this is when we came to be on Pathfinders, because Hamish Mahaddie used to go around picking crews and he must have looked at this particular order and it was this. On debriefing it said we were six minutes early so we put the flaps down and did dog legs to lose six minutes. And this was on Stuttgart. I mean [laughs] but it was, we were told to get there and our pilot he always said there was a lot of talk about some of the crews were throwing their bombs in and either banking and then so that they didn’t actually fly over the target. And I know that when that happened Bill said, ‘What the hell’s the point of going all that way without going over and doing it properly?’ But he was, he was a fantastic pilot. He was a fantastic. He was the only man I have ever known apart from people like Alex [pause] Grimshaw? What was his name? The test pilot at Ringway. He did —
CB: Oh, Henshaw.
JW: Henshaw.
CB: Yeah.
JW: Well, I think he did it. He did a rate four turn on a —
CB: On a Lancaster.
JW: On a Lancaster.
CB: Crikey.
JW: And he did it to come up, we were on fighter affiliation and we were being attacked by a Spitfire but instead of doing the normal corkscrew he did this rate four. We came up behind the Spitfire. And unbelievably —
CB: In the Lancaster.
JW: Unbelievably the Spitfire pilot complained and he called, our CO called Bill in and he said, ‘You’ve got to stick to the rules.’ And he had, I think he had a grin on his face as he was saying it. Bill said if that had been a Messerschmitt we could have shot it down. Yeah. But he, and it was the most I can see it now. You’re standing there and you are horizontal but you’re not falling. Yeah. But he was, he was, we loved him. And when, when I looked to see that I think that report as I say going around to Hamish Mahaddie I think that he read that and thought well we need crews who are going to be there on time and this is what, this is what we’ve been looking for.
CB: Yeah. Extraordinary experiences. Yes.
JW: The, but then of course when we got to, I did one spare bod trip. I got caught. I think it was the flight commander. Wing Commander Scott. He was a New Zealander. His engineer went sick and two SPs came down and saw me. Engineer. Right. I had to fly with him. It was to Stuttgart again. But on the run in did the bomb aiming, came out of the target and I looked at the inspections bit and the cookie had held up.
CB: Oh.
JW: So I said to him, ‘Skip, go around again. We’ve got the cookie.’ Well, our own pilot would have been natural enough just to go round but what he called me. He was questioning my sanity as well apart from insulting my mother and father but you didn’t take any notice of that. So I said, ‘I’ll go around and try and release it manually.’ And there used to be a little flap above the cookie that you could pull back. A little slide and release the bolt that held it. And I’d got a, made a little sort of little light there. I was just, I suddenly saw the bolt start to shudder and pulled my hand back just as this thing shot across. He pulled the toggle on the instrument panel and dropped the carrier, the lot. Didn’t look to see where we were. He just opened the bomb doors. And he started weaving as we took off and he was still weaving until we landed. Oh, he was complete nerves. And —
Other 1: Gosh.
JW: Yeah. Wing Commander Scott. He was posted shortly after that. But I made sure I didn’t do any more of those. There was one occasion when they, knew they, what they were looking for a flight engineer. So I went up in the loft and [laughs] ‘Flight Sergeant Watson here?’ ‘No. He’s gone out. He’s gone into Peterborough.’ ‘Oh alright.’ And I was up in the loft like this. I lifted it up just to listen [laughs] because we had arranged we weren’t flying. I was going out. But I wasn’t going to do another, and I’d already done halfway through my third tour so I was well away to saying no. But the other —
CB: Would you class him as a dangerous pilot then?
JW: Who?
CB: Because of his nerves.
JW: Well, I didn’t. I didn’t have any confidence in him. I wasn’t, I wasn’t frightened at all but I thought to myself, no. I didn’t like flying with a strange crew anyway. None of us did. But that’s what made me admire my friend in Southampton. He was, the number of times he went with strange crews. But we’d done that lot and I thought well half way through a third tour because we finished a second tour, we was all in the Red Lion in Ramsey, and we were all celebrating and Bill came in and it was, there were never enough seats and we were all sitting around on the floor with pints of beer. And he said, Bill said, ‘How about carrying on?’ ‘Yes.’ So the next morning he said, ‘Don’t forget,’ he said, ‘We’re going to carry on.’ ‘Oh alright.’ But we wouldn’t have let him flown with anybody else anyway. So that was the mid-upper gunner, the wireless operator, myself and Bill. As I say the two navs packed up and we had a range of rear gunners after he’d done forty one trips. And we finished the third tour and he pulled the same stroke again. So we was in a [laughs] we was on, the last trip was the master bomber trip to [pause] Munster. And it was a day like this. Really beautiful sunshine and we were just lying round and we got, this is a twenty second trip with these two Canadian navigators and there was an anti-aircraft gun. Obviously you could tell who the master bomber gunner was because brilliant daylight. Not a cloud in the sky. And the shell went off alongside of us. And I said to Bill [unclear] we went down five hundred feet and they put a shell in the same place. So when he did that we went back up. And they put one where we were. And this went on. It was [laughs] it was ridiculous really. But anyhow we got away with it but when, when we were sort of circling around doing, Bill was directing the raid one of the navigators came out from behind the curtain. He took one look. We were surrounded by shell bursts. And he said, ‘Jeez, let’s get out of here.’ And Bill said, it was the only time I ever heard him raise his voice, ‘Get back inside.’ And he scuttled back in behind the curtain. I mean, navigators never came out and if you came out like that and you see. Because it is a bit of a shock seeing those shell bursts. The first daylight we did got to the target and you could have walked on the shell bursts there was that many. And I thought we can never fly through that. But we did. Got away with it.
CB: How many times did you actually get hit by flak?
JW: About four times I think. Five times. But none of us ever got a scratch.
CB: What sort of damage did the aircraft —
JW: Holes in the bomb, in the bomb bay doors and some in the fuselage, but not enough to [pause] There was one that we did get hit and I think it took a bit out of the engine. It was on the raid Trossy St Maximin when Bazalgette got his VC. It was on that raid. It was such a heavily defended target. It was a bomb bay, V-1 bomb dump and as we went in we dropped. I think we just dropped the bombs. There was suddenly this hell of a bang. A tremendous noise and we just went into a dive and I thought we’d been hit but anyhow, I looked. We had a clear blister on the nose of our Lancs. You could put you head in and I could look through and I could see that the, both engines, all four engines were still in sync so there was obviously nothing wrong with them. So I called up and said, ‘Engines are ok. I’ll check Bill.’ I went up and he was ok as it turned out but he’d just, when that and they knew they’d got the range he just went into a dive but that took a piece out the side of one of the engines. But the engines still worked.
Other 1: Extraordinary.
JW: We didn’t even know there was anything wrong with it. But that was, going back to the Nuremberg raid when we landed we landed at Marham and on the way back as we left the target I noticed one of the oil instruments wasn’t working. Now, that could mean you’ve lost power. Anyhow, the engine, I didn’t say anything because I kept a check on it and noticed that there was no, the engine was not giving any reports of any failures so it was obviously the instrument that was at fault. So when we landed the next morning when we were going to take off again and the number of Lancs at Marham was unbelievable. It was just everywhere and it was a grass drome as well, the [pause] I said to Bill, ‘There’s no point in reporting this fault because they’ll never get anybody to —’ I said, ‘I’ll go out and check the oil to make sure there’s no lost oil.’ Because sitting on the engine that’s been going for eight hours I was covered in oil when I got back. Sitting on the engine dipping the tank. And it was, there was no loss of oil so I said to Bill, ‘No. There’s no point. We can take, we’ll never get away if we report that.’ And we took off. Got back and reported it when we got back. But the other thing was we had to take up on the flight from Upwood, we were going up on a night flying test and we were asked to take up a senior RAF [pause] I forget what rank he was now. Quite a high rank. Anyhow, suddenly one the port inners started. The starboard inner started playing up and I couldn’t control the pitch of the propellers so I said to Bill, ‘We need to feather it.’ He said, ‘Ok.’ When we landed he said, ‘What’s wrong?’ Now, I can’t tell you the name now but it was one of three things it could have been inside the nose, the hub of the propeller and there was one main one and I said, and one thing that they taught you when you went on Pathfinders, you’ve got to think quick and you’ve got to act. You can’t dither. You make a decision. Right or wrong you make a decision. And that way. And I said to Bill, oh it’s the so and so. So when we landed chiefy come around. The sergeant in charge of the ground crew and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Why is the engine feathered, skip?’ Bill said, well because this [laughs] he named the part that was broken. And the chiefy looked at him in amazement and said, ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, ‘How do you know that?’ And I could have wanted the ground to open up. ‘Because my engineer told me.’ But luckily I was right. I got it right. And it was at [pause] we had to abort one. We got they gave us the trip because we got within fifty miles of the target. We had boost surge. We just could not cure it. And when we got back I said, ‘I think there’s something wrong with the camshaft.’ Ha ha ha — that was the laugh I got from the engineering officer. But they couldn’t find it either. So they sent the engine back to Derby and they found a cracked valve which was obviously after the cam shaft.
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo so you can have a bit of your coffee.
JW: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: On the Munster trip. Yeah.
JW: Yeah. We got —
CB: Yeah.
JW: Back from there. Landed. And we were walking back to debriefing and one of the rear gunners saw another crew came running up. He said, A signal’s come through to say that Cleland’s crew are to be taken off operations immediately and not allowed to fly on any more ops.’ We never knew why. Because we didn’t have one abortive trip. We’d always bombed the target. Everything. And yet the only thing I could think was that we’d been flying for fifteen months without any break.
CB: That’s extraordinary.
JW: And I think they thought that we were [pause] and I’ve often thought that they saved our lives. The next trip could have been.
Other 1: Easily.
JW: The one that we would have — [pause]
CB: How did you feel about that?
JW: Well, we were choked because we knew they were going to split the crew up. But we thought we might be able to carry on as a crew for a little while but within a week they posted us all off. They sent me as an instructor to a Wellington OTU. A flight engineer. They don’t fly flight engineers on Wellingtons. And that was really a case of I was there for a little while. Then they decided to post me to a Maintenance Unit. 56 MU. Except it should have been 58 MU. 58 MU was at Coventry. About twenty miles away. 56 MU was at Inverness. So I went all the way up to Inverness and I had an aircrew sergeant with me. He’d never done any ops because the war had finished as he finished training. He was going with me and he lived in Edinburgh and so he said, ‘Right. We can go to Edinburgh.’ We had three days in Edinburgh where he lived. Went off up to Inverness and we got out from the station and I can see it now. As we went through Perth and that area. Beautiful scenery because by this, it was an overnight trip. Anyhow, we found, couldn’t find what we were looking for. We couldn’t find the unit at all. We suddenly spotted an airman and I said to him, called him over and I said, ‘Tell me where — ’ ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘It’s in a garage down here.’ Which is what it was. A garage. And he said, and he said to me, ‘Watch the station warrant officer,’ he said, ‘He’s a bit of a martinet. He’ll find something for you to do.’ Anyway, we had to report to him so he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re closing down.’ He said, ‘I don’t know why they sent you here.’ Somebody had misread [laughs] Anyhow, he said, well he said, ‘I’ll put you in charge of the police for a week.’ Well, they had about a half dozen coppers there. RAF police. And I walked in. I said to them, ‘What are you all doing here?’ Well, they said ‘There’s nothing to do.’ So I said, ‘Right, you three have three days off. You three cover the whole lot. Three days later you go on three days leave.’ They thought I was the best thing since sliced bread [laughs] But we got back from there and as I say I got to this other MU and it was at [pause] on the mainline.
CB: Near Coventry was it?
JW: No. This was, it started with an N. Not Northampton. Anyhow, I called up. Phoned up the unit and said, ‘Is there any transport to, out to unit?’ She said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘On the station.’ She said, ‘On the up or down line?’ She said, ‘Well come out,’ she wouldn’t have known that which part.’ She said, ‘Look to your left. Can you see a black building about four hundred yards?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘That’s us.’ And it was where they made the lawnmowers. They made, well it wasn’t making them then but as we used to have to go in private billets as we were going down to them their lot was coming away and it was just a track. But all on bikes of course. But yeah that was quite a, and what I had to do there it was the Queen Mary’s there. The long low loaders. And I had to work out the next week how many were going to be off and with what fault. And I thought bloody silly. How the hell can anybody work that out? But it quite surprising. It worked. The system they’d got. So that so many would be off with flat tyres. So many would be off with this. And I had all these sheets that I had to fill in with all the, one for each of the loader. A lot of them were a way out in different places on locations. But then from there they sent me to Skellingthorpe and there it was, it was ridiculous. It was as though they’d forgotten you. In fact, you were just milling around. I did take over the, they couldn’t find anybody to take the sergeant’s mess over and I knew that you can’t run a pub which was what it was and lose money. And I discovered that they were getting five pounds to go to the NAAFI at Waddington to stock up from the [pause] So I said to the, saw the officer in charge of the mess and I said to him, ‘Can I have twenty pounds?’ ‘Twenty pound. What do you want twenty pound for?’ I said, ‘Well, people want to buy toothpaste.’ I said, ‘There’s none of that in there or domestic things.’ So got in the van, went over to Waddington and I spent this money and I thought the ration was Players cigarettes and I thought no. They’re going to be Churchills. So I bought a load of Churchill fags. When I got back I said to them, I said, ‘Sorry lads. The ration’s Churchill fags but I have managed to buy some Players. But I had to pay over the odds for them.’ [laughs] I made a fortune. I came home. After a week I came home. I had managed to pay somebody to look after the mess bar for me, and I came home with a suitcase with a little attache̕ case with two bottles of whisky and two bottles of rum in it and, oh yeah I made quite a bit out of that. In fact one night one of the ground staff, he’d been in the Air Force years and years. Before the war. He came in. He’d been in to Lincoln and he was, well he’d had quite a skinful. And he coolly asked for a pint and he held it up. He said, ‘That’s off. That’s cloudy.’ So I said, ‘Oh, ok sir. I’ll get you another one out of a different barrel.’ ‘Ah that’s better.’ So when the, the officer in charge of the mess came in the next morning I said to him, it was the, he was a warrant officer ground staff and I said to him, ‘Warrant officer,’ so and so, ‘He’s complained and said that barrel’s off.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We can’t have that, he said. We’ll write it off.’ But it was half full. I think there was about nine gallons in it. And the next night I knew there was nothing wrong with it. The same warrant officer came in. He was sober this time. Poured him a pint from the same one. Now, that’s lovely,’ he said, ‘That’s great.’ So I had nine gallons and I had three days of my demob leave on that barrel with some of the mates I’d met. Oh dear. Yes. It was, it was quite a, but because of the way it went I decided to come home on leave. I was milling around. I went and saw my governor and I said to him, ‘Can I come back to work?’ So, ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘You can come back.’ So I went back to work. And got paid for it. Not a lot but it was because it was only apprentice’s wage and, but about a fortnight one of my mates phoned up and he said, ‘Come back quick he said. They’re sending everybody home.’ So I went back, got demobbed to come home. But I had a couple of, a couple of near squeaks with the CO there. But the mess was just a hut and the bar was a cabinet which stood about that high. About that wide. And 12 o’clock at night I’m in there with a couple of other sergeants and we got bass sitting on our knees and the orderly officer walked in. ‘I said, ‘Do you want a drink, sir.’ Silly thing to say wasn’t it? I was under open arrest and in front of the CO the next morning. But I went round and managed to say, ‘You saw the bar was locked, the cupboard was all locked up, didn’t you?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ Well, because it was all locked up I got away with it. But another time I went home on I used to go on the pay parade on Thursday, special pay parade and go home. And I used to catch the quarter past ten from Lincoln because pay parade was about, no it was a bit later than that. The pay parade was at 9 o’clock. I had time to get paid because it was only a short pay parade, walk into Lincoln and get the train down to Kings Cross and then across to Waterloo and home. Now, I did this this particular week and then on this particular Thursday I’d just got in and a telegram arrived at the door. “Report back to base camp immediately.” I thought that’s funny. So I phoned up one of my mates there and I said, ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Oh, you’re in dead trouble. You were the witnessing officer at pay parade.’ He said, ‘Half the camp stayed for food that they weren’t prepared for. The other half went home and left the pay, the witnessing the officer with the money with all that money he didn’t know what to do with.’ Anyhow, I got back. I went round and I reported, saw the RTO at Guildford station. Reported to him and told him that I was allowed to go back and I’d, I said, ‘I’ve only just got home.’ This was the Friday of course. The day after. And got —
[doorbell and knocking]
[recording paused]
CB: We’re talking about the pay parade. The fact you’d gone home.
JW: Yeah. I got back. I got back on Friday night. Reported to the orderly officer and was put under open arrest. The next morning we went in to see the CO and he said, ‘You went home on Thursday, Watson.’ And he was a wing commander ground staff. Been in the Air Force about forty years. I said, ‘No sir,’ I said, ‘I went home on Friday morning.’ ‘Why did you go on the pay parade on Thursday then?’ I said, ‘Well, I knew that I wanted to get away on Friday, sir.’ He said, ‘But didn’t you read the DROs?’ Well, I knew that it was a crime not to read them but looking through the King’s Rules and Regulations the night before I discovered that it’s not a crime if you read them and forget them. So I said, ‘I did read them, sir.’ I said, ‘And it went right out of my mind.’ I said, ‘I just forgot it completely.’ And of course he went through and he said, ‘Watson, I know you went home on Thursday.’ ‘No. Sir.’ I said, ‘I left here and,’ I told him the times. ‘I caught the train down to — ’ and because I was in a billet which was just on the edge of camp, had my own room there nobody could see me leave. And I said, ‘I caught that train just after ten. I got to Guildford,’ I said, ‘And the telegram arrived as I got home,’ I said, ‘I turned straight around and came back,’ I said. ‘In fact, I reported to the — ’ Anyhow, we went on and he said, asked me another. In the finish he said, ‘Right. Watson, you stay here. Everybody else go out.’ And he said to me, ‘Watson, I know you’re lying.’ He said, ‘I know you went home on Thursday but,’ he said, ‘I can’t prove it.’ He said, ‘But you’re not going to get away with it.’ He said, ‘You’re going to do three weeks of orderly officer.’ He said, ‘If you go out of camp I will know.’ And I knew he would do as well. I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry sir but,’ I said, ‘You’re wrong. I did go home on Friday.’ [laughs] But it was complete bluff. If he’d have said to me, ‘Swear on the bible,’ I don’t know what I would have done. But, yeah. I did discover that, you know. You can read. If you can’t, if you don’t read them it’s a crime. But read —
Other 1: And forget.
JW: And forget. You can’t, you know the loss of memory, it’s [laughs] but, and I got away with it. But he never held it against me because he gave me quite a good report when I left. He signed my release book. The next —
CB: But you did have to do the orderly officer.
JW: I did, yeah. Religiously did and the funny, it was quite funny really because I went in the mess one night and they’d just had a delivery come in. I said, ‘You got any Guinness?’ They said, ‘Yeah. We got a crate in today.’ ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll buy the lot.’ ‘You can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Yes I can.’ And of course as a warrant officer and he’s a sergeant he’s not going to argue is he? I bought the lot. And then a chap came in. He played football for one of the Division One teams. Blackburn Rovers was it? And he sat down. I said to him, ‘Do you want a Guinness?’ ‘Oh yes please.’ So we sat there and but he was as wide a boys as me. He had got hold of you know the Lindholme dinghies that they used to drop the crew in? They had, they had the big main dinghy and then either side you had four flotation units. Two that side. They used to drop it so that it would spread and drift down to the crews that were ditched. He’d got hold of one of these and we sold it off. We even had the dinghy. I don’t know where he got it from but he got the dinghy. But our nerve failed us when we tried to get rid of that because we didn’t realise that all the surplus was going to be sold off after the war otherwise we’d have sold that and all. But —
CB: Who were the people who wanted to buy these things?
JW: All people in the camp.
CB: Oh right.
JW: Yeah. Other sergeants and other aircrew. And there I finished up there with twenty three German prisoners of war under my charge.
CB: On the airfield.
JW: Yeah. And they were quite clever. They used to make light bulbs and put ships and, and cliffs and lights inside the bulb. I don’t know how they did it. Built it up with the cliffs and the lighthouses in there and a little ship. Fantastic. And one of them made it, I bought it off him. It was a crocodile and in front was a little bird. And as you pulled it along the crocodile opens up and came like that and as it did the bird shot forward. I should have had enough sense to realise it was a money maker. I bought it for one of my friend’s little kiddies.
Other 1: Dear.
CB: What was their role? What did they do as prisoners?
JW: Cleaning and doing odd jobs you know around the camp. The American. The, their sergeant in charge of them he’d been, spent time in America and he spoke, spoke like an American. And I shall never forget he said to me we were talking one day and he was quite an educated chap and he must have been about a year or so older than me and he said, ‘I can’t understand the swear words,’ He said, ‘You talk about using the F word. F table,’ he said, ‘You know. It’s ridiculous.’ And I said to him, ‘Yeah. I agree with you.’ You know. He was always saying about language. The way it’s used. But, but he was, he was quite educated and he spoke without any German accent at all, and he was a [pause] I know that one of them one night somebody had taken some stuff out of the mess. And I just warned them. I said, ‘I don’t know which one of you it is but you’re in dead trouble if it happens again.’ It didn’t happen again. They did, they learned their lesson. But no it’s, as I say when it came to getting demobbed I was so disillusioned with the discipline and everything else that, and I knew I’d got an apprenticeship when we were on the, at Faldingworth taxiing round. Because aircraft were going off the end Faldingworth was a mud bath. If an aircraft went off the edge it would go down in to the mud to its axles and it would take days to get it out. So what they did they were fining crews a half a crown each which was half a day’s pay. So as we were taxiing around on the perimeter track I’m watching the wheel. I suddenly looked up and we were coming up against, it was, it turned out to be the engineering officer. He’d parked on the perimeter track and gone into one of the huts. And of course by then I said to Bill, but you can’t stop a thirty ton aircraft and the outside prop and it was one of those Hillman Tilts with the framework and the canvas and the outside was going over. It went right through all the canvas and ripped it and I thought I hope no one is in there. There wasn’t fortunately but Bill was on, he was pulled up for it. And I said to him, I said, ‘Tell them I was the one that was at fault,’ I said, ‘You couldn’t see from your side anyway and he shouldn’t have been parked there.’ ‘No.’ he said, ‘I’m the skipper. It’s my fault.’ And he got a mild reprimand. But that was the sort of bloke he was, you know. And as I say but it was [pause] we would have, well we’d have done anything for him really. We certainly wouldn’t have let him fly with anybody else if it had meant we had to carry on flying. Which is the reason we carried on. And it was years that we couldn’t find him after the war. Years later we tried to find him. And then my Appy, the mid-upper gunner phoned me up one day and he said, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I’ve been told that Bill lives at a place called Hilmarton near Calne in Wiltshire. So I said, ‘Well, the next time I go down to see my sister I’ll go down that way. Well, Hilmarton is, it’s, it’s a funny little place. You go through and there’s just a little turning to the church. I didn’t realise we go down that turning. There’s a school and then houses, part of the village. I went into the pub and I said, ‘Do you know anybody called Cleland?’ I said, ‘He was, he was with BOAC.’ ‘No.’ Turns out, Bill said, ‘I don’t know how they didn’t know that,’ he said, because Frances, his daughter used to go and help out in the bar.’ Anyhow, I went into the little garage on the main road and they didn’t know. But they said, ‘I’ll tell you what, he said. In the little bungalow next door but one there’s a chap there. He knows everybody in the village,’ he said, ‘He can probably tell you.’ Knocked on his door. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘He lives just around the back here. The other side of the church.’ So we drove around and I knocked on the door and Bill’s wife answered and I said, ‘Does Bill Cleland live here?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Is he in?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘I said will you tell him his flight engineer’s here.’ She went in. He was, he was going, supposed to be going out to a meeting. But he said we’ll go and have some lunch. He was so pleased. And of course from then on we kept in touch and, but he’d gone on to, he’d been seconded. In fact we were both demobbed the same day. I met up at Uxbridge. And he’d been seconded to BOAC. He’d actually, he got the King’s, yeah the Kings Commendation while he was with, or the Queen I can’t remember which one it was. He got it for his efforts in flying. Because I know he said to me, he said, ‘You just sit there. Press the button. It takes you to that point. Press another button it takes you to the next point. ‘He said. Oh that’s when he told me he met the wing commander that I flew with as he was. He met him in Canada. He said, ‘We were both going through,’ He said, ‘I know that he recognised me. ‘He said he was a, he wasn’t a nice bloke at all. When they were on the squadron when you looked to see in 156 there was a little number of people who were doing all the master bomber trips. Who had been the master bombers and the, we eventually got on to them but, and Bill went in one day and he said they were all pilots because you had a room each of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, engineers, wireless operators, air gunners and he said to this wing commander, he said ‘Is it fair that Cocky’s doing all the master bombing?’ He said, ‘Can somebody else take a turn?’ And I think he thought Bill was saying he ought to do it. He wasn’t. He was saying look, you know, some of the others can do it because it’s amazing that the same few were doing them and a lot of them were on dodgy mostly French trips. And anyhow he said, ‘Everybody out.’ He said, ‘Bill, not you.’ He said, ‘I’ll decide who does the master bombers, and their deputies not you.’ and Bill, ‘I wasn’t suggesting that.’ ‘Shut up. Get out.’ He said, ‘I know he recognised me but,’ he said, ‘He completely ignored me.’ And he didn’t do any master bombers himself because it wasn’t a very nice job to do. You know. You’re putting yourself, sticking your head over the parapet. But if you were briefed to do it. We did a couple of deputies and I know one of them we was doing it was on Frankfurt, we was the deputy master bomber. Daylight raid. And our mid-upper gunner suddenly spotted an aircraft in trouble above us. He called up to our skipper and we went up alongside of him. It used to be, it turned out to be one of our own. And they’d been hit by flak in the bomb bay and the engineer’s leg was hanging off and [unclear] hole in the bottom of the fuselage. The mid-upper gunner got out of his turret and stepped straight through the hole. They found his parachute, handed it in when they landed back so obviously, he was, he was obviously killed. The mid-upper err the engineer had been a medical orderly in the previous so he was able to show them to put morphine into him to stop the pain. He got the CGM for that. And after the war another one of the, of our Association lives in Southampton his father was killed on 156 but he collided with another aircraft. And he went, this pilot was in a home alongside them and they came in, knew him. They went to see him and he mentioned that and he said, ‘Yeah. I remember that when he came up alongside of us.’ He mentioned the fact that our, we went up alongside of him. We were the master, deputy master bombers.
CB: Could you describe what, how the master bomber, what his role is and how it works please?
JW: He, he was very often either he or the deputy would do the marking. They’d decide that first. Usually the master bomber would do the, he had a special like we did. You had an eight man crew if you were a deputy or a master. He would then go and mark the target having originally, you would have supporters dropping flares to illuminate the target providing of course down to the weather. And then that would light up, the master bomber would then go in low and find out the target, mark the target and then he’d circle around and he’d watch the way the bombs were falling. And if they were falling short he’d tell them to overshoot the markers and he’d call in the deputy visual centrerers which were following through the raid to keep those markers backed up. And we had backers up and visual centrerers, and he’d call them up and tell them where to drop the, if his markers were a bit off and then he’d direct the raid and tell main force. He called main force up, overshoot to the markers by two seconds to stop the creep back because you always got creep back. People always dropped their bombs short. As one, as Bill used to say, ‘If you’re going over for God’s sake do it properly.’ And you were there the whole of the raid.
[doorbell and knocking]
CB: Just stopping a mo.
[recording paused]
JW: He could, the bomb aimers were pretty good at it and the bombsight we had was really good. And he would then call up [pause] We had backers up, visual centrerers, backers up that would drop flares too because obviously they would gradually go out.
Other 1: Yes.
JW: You know, so he’d call up these people. Their bomb aimers were also good and they would be then bombing on, dropping their flares on the original flares. But if they were slightly off the master bomber would then tell main force. Sometimes they’d put a dummy one up about ten miles away but he’d tell them to ignore that and then he would call them up and say, ‘Overshoot by two seconds,’ to stop as I said the creep back. You always got the creep back. The newer crews used to be at the back of the [unclear] through the raid.
CB: Of the stream. The back of the stream.
JW: Always dropped their bombs short and you could see. You could see that by the way they were falling. So he would tell and they would adjust that and keep the raid going. When we went to the one at Munster, when we got there they was bombing and Bill really called it up and really coated the life out of them. Called them all sorts of things. Concentrate on where the bombers were going and brought the raid back to make it a successful raid.
CB: Why was there bombing creep?
JW: Probably inexperience of the bomb aimers. Nervousness. Perhaps when they were coming along they suddenly, I think it was a natural reaction that they dropped. They got the bombsight coming up to the target and if they think that it’s there but you had to get that, it was a [pause] The gradual was like a red cross on plastic about four inches by two inches that looked.
CB: On the bomb sight.
JW: On the bomb sight as you looked through that and that arrow had to go straight the way through and if it was, this was why sometimes you get thrown off course by slipstream or different things and if, if that happened I used to call dummy run. And then go around the target and come back again. As I say I think that happened about three times and this was on German raids but it was so concentrated and you were oblivious of everything that was going.
Other 1: Yes.
JW: It was quite incredible really. You know. But if you’re not concentrating that much it’s easy enough to press the bomb tit.
CB: So as the bomb aimer you effectively are in control in the last how long? Two minutes or —
JW: Yeah.
CB: Something like that.
JW: Yeah.
CB: And the master bomber you said goes down to make his mark.
JW: Sometimes they would go down. Sometimes they would bomb from the same height.
CB: Right. But then to control the raid.
JW: They’d fly around.
CB: They’d fly above it, would they?
JW: Yeah.
CB: Fly over above everybody else.
JW: They’d fly, they’re coming back at the same height, and they’re usually on the edge of the target and circling around.
CB: Right.
JW: And I mean it was a pretty dangerous job because there was quite a lot of master bombers got shot down because obviously they could pick them up on radar. They’ve got one aircraft going around and around and around.
Other 1: Yes.
CB: Now the master bomber marked in red did he?
JW: It depended. Mainly in red.
CB: And the follow ups would mark in green.
JW: Green. Yeah.
CB: Any other colours?
JW: Yeah. The reds and greens. Sometimes red and greens. Reds. But I don’t think there was any other colours.
CB: So how far back would the green be for doing the marking because this was for the re-energising of the marking wasn’t it?
JW: Well, the master bomber would call that up when he see the, if he sees his flares beginning to fade.
CB: Yeah.
JW: He’d call up and some of them were briefed to go in anyway.
CB: Yeah.
JW: But he would, he would control it from that.
CB: Now, when you did call dummy run what was the actual procedure for getting out and then rejoining the bomber stream?
JW: You just went. We just carried on. Bill, Bill would pull the, close the bomb bay doors. Go on, circle around and come back and join the bomber stream and then do another run on the —
CB: Would it be a standard procedure? You’d always turn left or always turn right or what would it be?
JW: I don’t know. I think we always turn left.
CB: Right. And you’d go out how far because the bomber stream’s quite wide?
JW: I couldn’t tell you that. I don’t know. That would be up to the pilot.
CB: I’m thinking on seconds. So, a minute or — to get out of the stream.
JW: Well, it’s difficult to measure or think about the time. We’d just do it until we get back in.
CB: Yeah.
JW: I don’t think it took that long.
CB: Because you can’t see the other aircraft.
JW: Oh no. occasionally you would see them if you come up. On one occasion I I looked out. I was down in the nose of the aircraft looking and I suddenly see this face in front of me. And I was looking at the rear gunner of another Lancaster. I called Bill up and we were so close to him it was, I could see him. See his face.
CB: What was his reaction?
JW: I don’t know.
CB: He didn’t wave?
JW: No [laughs]
CB: Hello mum.
JW: I think he was clenching his buttocks [laughs]
CB: Can we just go back to, because you’re a flight engineer but you’re effectively changed to do bombing.
JW: Yes.
CB: Because you’re trained as supplementary.
JW: Yeah.
CB: To a bomber, bomb aimer. Your lying prone and you’ve got your head straight down effectively with the bomb sight and the the —
JW: You’re oblivious to everything else.
CB: Yes. And you’ve got the blister that you’re lying in effectively. You’ve got your head in.
JW: Yeah. No. You only put that in afterwards.
CB: Right. So what is, what’s the pattern and what are you seeing and how do you react to what you see because you’re looking at the inferno?
JW: Yeah. You’re looking at, you’re looking at the marker, the indicators, target indicators.
CB: Right.
JW: And you’re getting your cross going through that, those markers and you’re concentrating on that, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady. Right. Steady,’ until you get that cross on there and then you press the button. Bombs gone.
CB: So, on your run in you’ve got two minutes effectively when you’re as it were in charge. The navigator is giving you the drift is he? How do you, how do you —
JW: It’s purely and simply, you either, the way the aircraft’s flying. The pilot is just keeping it if he knows you’re steady he’s going to keep that line.
CB: He knows what the drift is.
JW: Yeah.
CB: So —
JW: But you’re telling him that.
CB: Right.
JW: But when we went to, we went and did a raid on Nantes in France we did five. Five dummy runs.
CB: Did you really?
JW: Yeah. Because it was so difficult to see with cloud and everything else. And I think that’s in there.
CB: Is this daylight? Or —
JW: Night flight. Night.
CB: Night. Yeah.
JW: It would be.
CB: What I was trying to get at was there’s the, what you might call the professional aspect of this, of lining up and then calling, ‘Bombs gone.’
JW: Yeah.
CB: But what’s your feeling as you look down into this. Are you busy concentrating on the markers —
JW: You’re oblivious of everything else. I used to be concentrating so much that I didn’t even realise what was going on outside.
CB: So in practical terms there’s a huge barrage of flak bursting all around. Above, below and the side. You’re oblivious to that are you?
JW: Yeah. Yeah. If you’re doing your job properly. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JW: Yes. And this is my, perhaps the feedback if suddenly a shell bursts near somebody and get rid of the bombs but —
CB: Because the navigators are actually sitting in a cubicle with a blanket hanging down so they can’t see anything.
JW: No.
CB: That’s what you meant earlier isn’t it?
JW: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So it’s a bit of a shock to them to see what’s happening around them.
JW: Our other two navigators never came out. And it was the last trip that we were fated to do although we didn’t know it at the time when this, this Canadian navigator came out. I mean it’s a bit of a shock if you’ve not seen anything and then you see the shell bursts around you and know that one of those too close is curtains. I suppose yeah it did shake you.
CB: What was the main difference between flying daylight and flying in the night?
JW: Well, flying at night you couldn’t see other aircraft normally. Daylight you can see what’s going on. You can see the shell bursts. You can see fighters coming in. I know that my friend in, on his, it was on his last raid at Hamburg and he watched one of our aircraft go down. Funnily enough his brother lives in, when he’d seen that picture in the paper he got in touch with the paper and said, ‘My brother was on 156.’
CB: Really?
JW: ‘Can you give me that man’s name?’
CB: Yeah.
JW: They said no. They gave me his number. But he watched him go down and they were then attacked by a German jet fighter. And he said he watched it come in. He’d never seen anything move so quick in all his life. He was, the jet fighter opened up with cannons, It shot bits of the tailplane off and never touched Rupert.
CB: That’s the tail gunner.
JW: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Extraordinary. So you had a huge variety of raids that you went on. The normal standard was thirty ops and then when you get on to Pathfinders what is the, what is a tour?
JW: When you went on Pathfinders, because of the extended training that you’d had you had to do two tours straight off.
CB: Right.
JW: And because on main force it was thirty trips then you had six months rest and sometimes they called you back sometimes they didn’t. You did another twenty. But on Pathfinders you had to do forty five. But like all of it they were the goalposts. You see I did fifty [pause] fifty two I think to do my two tours because they suddenly brought in a points system. You got five points for a German trip, three points for a French trip and then you had to do [pause] you had to get a hundred and fifty points to finish your first tour. So if it was all French trips it would be more than if it was all French err all German trips. But the, yeah it was, I know there was joke going around about it. If you get shot down over France is it only three fifths dead? Which is, some wag came out with that.
CB: In your case you got the DFM. When did you get that?
JW: It was first promulgated I think in November ’44. I got it in February. 1st of February when I was first noticed it, first notified.
CB: Yeah. ’45. And what about the rest of the crew? What did they get?
JW: The pilot got the DSO and the DFC.
CB: The DSO. At the same time?
JW: No. Different times. DSO, DFC. The two navigators both got the DFC. [pause] The mid-upper gunner got the DFM and the Belgian Croix de Guerre.
CB: Yeah.
JW: I got the DFM and the Croix de Guerre err the Legion of Honour.
CB: Did you get the Croix de Guerre as well?
JW: No.
CB: Oh, right.
JW: And, and of course the Pathfinder award. We all got the Pathfinder award.
CB: Yes. When did that come out?
JW: After you had, when we finished on the squadron.
CB: Right. And as well as getting the scroll what did you get as far as the medal part? There is, there is a, you get a separate badge for Pathfinder.
JW: Yeah. You got that. When you’d done six marker trips you got the temporary award of the Pathfinder badge. You were allowed to wear it on your, you weren’t allowed to wear it on your battledress.
CB: No.
JW: Because if you got shot down and they could see even the holes where [pause] that was your lot.
CB: Yeah.
JW: So, but that’s, as I say that’s the Pathfinder badge. That’s, after the war people were wearing it and some of the jumped up people in the offices said in the higher ranks, ‘You can’t wear that. You can’t wear that anymore.’ But Bennett was a lot cleverer than they thought because when he promulgated it it was promulgated as an award. Not as a badge. It’s an actual award. So they couldn’t stop them wearing it.
CB: This is Air Marshall Bennett.
JW: Yeah.
CB: The CO CNC Pathfinders.
JW: Yeah.
CB: Did you meet him many times?
JW: I never met him. You met him if you went, if you applied for a commission. Then you met him. But I wasn’t interested in a commission. A, it meant a drop in pay for six months and I didn’t fancy that [laughs]
CB: And then you changed messes.
JW: Yeah.
CB: You had to change messes.
JW: Yeah.
CB: We’ve talked a lot about the action but what about in the time off? What did you do then? Did you, did you go out as a crew?
JW: With the —
CB: Socially.
JW: The mid-upper gunner, the wireless operator, myself from the time we met we used to go. We were never out of each other’s company. We even arranged our leave passes. They lived in Newcastle. I lived in Guildford. But we managed to get our leave passes that worked when you, when you looked at it it went from Burradon which was just outside Newcastle to Guildford. So we’d get, when we had leave every six weeks we’d go to Newcastle for three days. We’d get out at Newcastle and say, ‘Oh, we’re going on to Burradon later.’ So you kept your ticket. When we got to, going back there after three days we’d go back to Guildford. We’d get down to Kings Cross and of course you’ve got, you’ve got to go over to Waterloo to get to Guildford. But we used to buy a ticket from Waterloo. It was only about a shilling. Something like that. And so we used to be able to go three days in one place. Three days in the other and —
CB: Overnight travel.
JW: Yeah [laughs] it was, but we used to, all used to go and so our leave was together. Going out we’d be out as a crew. We’d usually meet girls as well. So the only time we were apart is when you were in one corner they were in another [laughs] But we used to go out. We used to go out and drink. You never used, sometimes you did get a bit tipsy. You never went out to get drunk which is what seems to be the norm today. But you went out, you got drunk but because of what you were drinking. You didn’t sit there swilling it to get as much down you as you could.
CB: No. But was the social aspect of life on a squadron partly an antidote to the experiences of raids?
JW: Well, it’s, it’s like I say you used to go out every night you could. We were getting around about seven guineas a week I think at that time which was a lot of money. Beer at a penny err a shilling a pint you know. And —
Other 1: Chris.
CB: Right. We’ll turn off a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Seven guineas a week.
JW: Yeah. That’s what I was getting then.
CB: And beer was a shilling a pint.
JW: A shilling a pint. Yeah. But it was, some days you’d have do in the mess. Perhaps a dance or something like that but mainly we used to go out if we could. I know when I spoke about the discipline on 156, they decided, they had a group captain Airey there who was a station commander and he’d lost three court martials in a row. So that meant he had to be posted but they put in charge a man for discip. A disciplinarian. A man called Menaul. Menaul. And group captain Airey, he was an elderly man but he used to go out on ops occasionally and, but Menaul, I don’t think he ever did. One thing he did do I found out afterwards was when they were bringing prisoners of war back he’d do those trips all right. But on one occasion there was the mid-upper, Bert, Appy, Bert and myself and the rear gunner of another squadron, another crew. A chap called Ron Smith and we going up to Ramsey. To the camp. To the aerodrome. The first entrance you got to was the officer’s entrance what went past the station commanders house. And then you went on another couple of hundred yards to come to the main gate. But this particular night we’d been down, we weren’t drunk we’d been and had a couple of pints each. We decided to go in through the officer’s entrance and we were quite a way along it and suddenly a car pulled up behind us and a voice yelled out, ‘Airmen.’ We knew at once who it was so we scarpered. I went over a fence. The other, I don’t know where the other two went. And then the car, he was looking around. He couldn’t see anybody because it was dark. And the car drove off and then I heard a voice say, ‘Where the bloody hell has he gone to?’ And of course I was on the other side of the fence and walked up and frightened the life out of them. But then we carried on walking and we had to go past the airmen’s billets because this was a peacetime ‘drome so it was all brick buildings. But every time a car came in the main gate we were in open ground. So we had to go down on the flat. We knew what was going to happen. The next morning he had all the squadron into this room and bearing in mind his, his war record was I think one tour as a fighter pilot towards the end of the war and he insulted, he called us all the names under the sun. Now, at this time we’d got something like sixty trips in between each. Appy was fuming. But everybody on the unit knew who the people were except him. Even the adjutant knew. And two of Appy’s mates are sitting on either side of him holding him down. And if we’d have owned up God knows what he would have done. But he couldn’t do the whole squadron so, but do you know what? After the war that man, somebody was writing a book about [pause] I’ve not been able to find a copy of it. I had a copy but I leant it to somebody and I never had it back. It was, they were talking about the airfields in Lincolnshire and round in Cambridgeshire and he had, they’d, they’d interviewed him and he said in there that on that occasion we had gone up to his front door, frightened his wife, urinated against his front door. I wanted the book back because I was going to take the author something about, for libel. Slander. Whatever it is. But anyhow I never got the book back so I could never see it. But they’d actually quoted him verbatim in there. Saying that we’d frightened the wife, his wife and daughter and urinated against his front door. Now, what idiot could do that sort of thing? But that’s in the book. So if he had known who we were, this was written after the war our names would have been there.
CB: Extraordinary.
JW: But funnily enough a friend of mine who was on the squadron with me he lived in Brighton and he lived near Hamish Mahaddie and he went to see Hamish and he was talking about Menaul to Hamish. ‘Don’t talk to me about that — ’ so and so, he said. So he was not only liked, disliked by the rank and file he was utterly disliked by his peers.
CB: There are occasions when very, when senior officers, group captains did fly.
JW: Yeah.
CB: And that’s how they got them in the prison camps.
JW: Yeah.
CB: In some cases. So under what circumstances would they do it, and what would they do?
JW: It was up to them. They decided what they’d do, where they’d go and what they —
CB: And would they be the pilot, the captain or would they just be there for the ride?
JW: If they took over the crew they were the captain. But if they went as the supernumery the pilot is always the captain.
CB: Yes.
JW: Even if he’s a sergeant and he’s got flight lieutenants in his crew he is still the captain.
CB: Yeah. So these people would be flying as the pilot normally would they? The group captains.
JW: No. Not necessarily. They’d go along, you know.
CB: Just to get the experience.
JW: Yeah. Just to get to [pause] but I know that Group Captain Airey went on at least two or three. They weren’t supposed to so it was done surreptitiously.
CB: Might have been a good defence in the court martial.
JW: Yeah [laughs]
CB: What would you say was your most memorable recollection of being in the RAF in the war?
JW: Just the odd occasion when, to get away with as many trips as we did you had to fly a lot of trips where there was nothing happening. There was no, you know, you got away with it. You dropped your bombs you got back, and [pause] But of the probably eight or nine instances when we were attacked by fighters or got hit by flak [unclear] [pause] Probably the time when I looked up and see that bloody aircraft above us with his bomb doors open.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. You talked about the Nuremberg raid a lot of which was in bright moonlight. What did you see in terms of aircraft exploding?
JW: Well, we were, it was our second trip on the Pathfinder squadron so we were acting as supporters, which meant we were right at the front of the — with the master bomber.
CB: Right.
JW: And we were following three Mosquitoes that were doing a spoof raid up to Hamburg I think. Somewhere up there. And we were right behind them so we think we got that through before they realised where the raid was going to go. So what was happening was behind us. I mean the gunners were calling out and saying that they could see aircraft going down but where we were we, we thought it was dangerous because I think the last two hundred miles was a straight leg, straight down to Nuremberg and there were searchlights nearly all the way down there, but so, from our point of view being at the front of the wave of bombers meant that the fighters only took off when they were behind us before they realised where we were going.
CB: Yeah.
JW: And when we got down to come back, lower down in Germany by that time they were down on the floor refuelling. So probably that’s the reason why we got through again.
CB: What was your understanding of the term scarecrow?
JW: Well, they said they were sending up these huge it was like a big dustbin if you like coming up, and they were explaining but in actual fact what they never told us was though they must have known about it was upward firing, the up firing guns and we didn’t know about them. they weren’t, we weren’t told about it.
CB: The Schrage Musik.
JW: Yeah. It was [pause] I know on one occasion on, it was, I think it was on the Nuremberg raid, our mid-upper gunner told me this there was a, the wireless operator had Fishpond. What was called Fishpond. It was an offshoot of H2S and it would pick up fighters.
CB: Trailing behind you.
JW: But the fighter, the fighter disappeared when it got within a hundred and fifty feet, and the wireless operator and the mid-upper gunner were, he was telling him where it was. That he could see it. And then suddenly it disappeared and then Appy said that as we were flying along another Lanc alongside of us, and it used to go over about that sort of speed as you were going over. As it got underneath us it suddenly blew up. And what we think was that that fighter was beneath us firing at us and this other Lanc came in underneath and got blown up instead of us. That’s what, that’s what our mid-upper was thinking, you know. That’s what he thought. He said, it was the fact it disappeared from the Fishpond meant it was within a closer range to come off where it wasn’t showing up and he said this other Lanc, it was, it used to be ok, you used to see it going very slowly underneath you but as it did, as it went underneath suddenly it went up.
CB: Did you feel the blast?
JW: No. No. I don’t know what sort of, you know, I didn’t see the aircraft going under us.
CB: No.
JW: But him being the mid-upper gunner he was, he was up at the top. He could see quite a lot.
CB: You talked about the wing commander who flew in a weave. To what extent were you aware of LMF?
JW: I don’t know of anybody who was accused of it. All I know is that any aircrew never condemned anybody as LMF. It was only some little jumped up merchant in an office sitting behind a desk who’d never even seen a gun let along had one fired who decided this. But I can understand at the top stating it, because they said that if it was easy enough to just pack up the threat of LMF was [pause] but the way they treated them when they were. I mean people had done two or three trips. But not everybody’s the same, and some people just couldn’t. You know, it’s quite, it was quite terrifying really at times. Obviously. I don’t know what we’d have done if it, we were lucky enough not to get hit but, but even so you were quite aware of the fact that you could easily get killed if, you know. You put it out of your mind but you knew really deep down that that was, that was an option. You’ll have to excuse me.
CB: Yeah. We’ll stop for a mo.
[recording paused]
JW: Well —
CB: Now, you you also relied on the ground crew and you talked about the chiefy earlier. What was the relationship between the aircrew and the groundcrew?
JW: Well, that was, well funnily enough I don’t know any of their names. because we had [pages turning]
CB: The ground crew would often look after two aircraft.
JW: That is in, that picture is in quite a few places. And that’s the ground crew. I tried to find out the names of them and I couldn’t. I hoped somebody would be able to find them by publishing it but they couldn’t.
CB: And how did the, how did you get on or did you not talk to them much?
JW: Oh you, we didn’t socialise with them. As I said we didn’t socialise with anybody except our own crew.
CB: Quite.
JW: And it was only the three of us.
CB: Who did it. Yes. But the officers would tend to socialise separately from the airmen wouldn’t they?
JW: Yeah.
CB: Anyway.
JW: Anyhow, there’s [pause] When we were getting dressed we’d get our flying kit on.
CB: Yeah.
JW: We used to sing [pause] it was, I forget the artist who sing it. “My mother done told me when I was in knee pants.” [laughs] We used to sing that as we were getting ready.
CB: And then when you got to the aircraft what rituals were there there? Like watering the rear wheel.
JW: No. We never did that. I don’t think there were any. We used to, I know that with all the checks that we used to have to make, about seventy checks but all the ones outside I never used to let the ground crew see me doing them because I always thought they would think I wasn’t trusting them. So I used to walk round and you could, you could check them yourself without which let them see that you trusted them to do their checks as well. The ones inside the aircraft of course were ok.
Other 1: Was there a very close relationship between the ground crew and the flying crew?
JW: Not as close as you would think.
Other 1: Because there’s a huge amount of reliance or —
JW: Oh yeah. You trusted them completely.
Other 1: You’d have to.
JW: Yeah. I’ll tell you what though. One thing that was happening when we, we were going. A we were taking, got around, suddenly Bill said, ‘We’ve got no brake pressure.’ So he said, ‘Do we need it in the air?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well we can carry on then.’ I said, ‘Yeah’ You don’t use your brakes in the air do you? So the only thing we had to be careful of was taxiing around behind other aircraft. And we took off and when was it that [pause] it meant that when we got back they wouldn’t let us land there. They sent us over to Woodbridge. But on another occasion we were on the short runway and this is when I, you heard say, Bill flew the aircraft by feel as well. On the short runway and there was something wrong with the speed.
CB: Airspeed indicator. Yeah.
JW: Because it was showing a completely different reading on the, on the instrument to what was and he could feel that according to the reading you could take but he didn’t, he flew it without and by the feel and when he felt it could take off on the short runway and I knew that the airspeed cover had been taken off because I’d checked that myself.
CB: Yeah.
JW: And I said to him, ‘There might be an insect in there or something.’ Anyhow, I said, ‘Right. We’ll go through all the checks. Every check that we normally do inside.’ And one of them just in front of the door at the back was it was about that size. A rubber thing with a hole in and there used to be plugs put in that. So you had to check to make sure the plugs were out and I knew that if one was out they’d both be out. The only way I could check it was to sit with the door open and reach along the side of the fuselage and I could just reach it. I knew I could. So what I did I put my parachute on because I realised I could get sucked out. I had Bert hanging on my legs in the fuselage. Opened the door. And when I told Ed Straw who used to fly the Lanc that we’ve got now he said, ‘You bloody idiot,’ he said, ‘You could have been killed. If you’d have got sucked out,’ he said, ‘The tailplane would have hit you.’ I said, ‘I know. That’s why I — ’ Anyhow, I did try that and went on and did all the rest but I couldn’t see the other side. I said to Bill. I don’t know what I was going to do. He didn’t say anything so I thought good. But yeah it was quite funny really.
CB: And the result was?
JW: It was, it was, it was as I knew it would be. The plug wasn’t in there. But this was at ten thousand feet over Guildford.
CB: Oh right [laughs]
JW: And I thought if I fall out I could go home.
CB: Go home. Yeah. Ideal. Yeah. Did people fly with lucky charms?
JW: Yeah. I think they did. I used to have a white scarf I used to carry with me. A silk scarf. Because you couldn’t wear your tie because if you came down in the water it could shrink and choke you. But —
Other 1: Yes.
CB: And did you have any weapon on you?
JW: They issued us just after D-Day. They issued us all with revolvers.
CB: 38s.
JW: Yeah. The aircrew NCOs could only wear, they had to carry them in camp. But officers had to carry them at all times because they thought that the Germans might drop parachutists on to the aerodromes
CB: Oh.
JW: And, but the other thing that I had was a six inch bowie knife. I had them both tucked in me, in me flying boots because I always thought, it never occurred to me if we got shot down that I’d get killed. Didn’t occur to me that. And I thought, and afterwards we used to go on these three day weeks and I thought, I looked, we went out on a trip on the Rhine and I thought, you thought you were going to get across. You can’t bloody swim and you were going to get across there. What sort of daydream were you in? I mean it goes on forever. The width of it. Doesn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
Other 1: It does.
CB: When the war finished did you do any Cook’s Tours?
JW: No. No. We’d been slung off. We were taken off. In April posted away from the unit and never got near an aircraft after that. Oh. I went up. I went up once with, when I was posted, first posted to the Wellington OTU. And they wanted you to go up and they wanted somebody, you need somebody sitting in the tail of a Wellington. I said, ‘I’ll go with you.’ With the pilot and the navigator. We came down and had a look around over where I lived. But —
CB: Not in Germany.
JW: No.
CB: Where did you meet your wife?
JW: Oh, this was, we were working. Both working in the same firm. Works outing actually. We went. They took us all down for Brighton for the day. Two coaches. And we went in to, I didn’t even know she was working there, went in to lunch and suddenly this girl looked around and she had the most beautiful blue eyes. And I thought cor, you lovely blue eyes. Anyhow, I didn’t expect to ever see her again. But in those days the coaches used to go and park somewhere, then they’d come along the front, creep along very slowly and you picked your bus, your coach out and got on as it was going along. And when I got on she was sitting on the front seat. I said, ‘Anybody sitting with you?’ ‘No.’ It was a right curt. I thought I’ll sit down anyway. Got chatting and halfway back we stopped at a pub and had a drink. A couple of drinks. And we got the bottom of Waterloo Road, the factory was. We stopped outside there. We all got off the coach. And she said, ‘You’re not leaving me here on my own are you?’ I said, ‘No. Where do you live?’ She lived just around the corner from the Elephant and Castle. Anyhow, she said, ‘Come and have a cup of tea.’ So I was in there when all the family came back. They’d all been at the pub at the top of the road. Met the family. That was quite strange because when it comes time to say cheerio she went down and presented her sister and her husband had the bottom flat and they had the flat above. And I shall never forget, I said to her, ‘Can I kiss you goodnight?’ She said, ‘I’d have hit you if you hadn’t.’ [laughs] By this time although she was very curt to start with by this time we’d sort of got some rapport and I arranged to meet her again in a week. But when I got outside there was a rail strike on and so I couldn’t get back to Guildford but I was staying with my grandmother at Putney. I got outside and I thought bloody hell how the hell do I get to Putney? All I’d got in my pocket was a half a crown. And I hadn’t got a clue where I was. Anyhow, I walked up to the main road and I see a taxi. I hailed him. He said, ‘I’ve finished mate.’ I said, ‘Oh I’m in trouble, trouble here,’ I said, ‘I’m trying to get back to Putney and I don’t know where it is,’ I said, ‘I’ve only got a half — ’ ‘Get in,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you to Putney Bridge which was, I knew where I was then. And he did. And it was ever so good of him. But then we went out and then later on we decided to get married.
CB: When did you get married?
JW: In September the 1st on 1956.
CB: What was the company you were working for then?
JW: It was Cockayne and Company.
CB: Who?
JW: Cockayne’s.
CB: Oh Cockayne.
JW: C O C K A Y N E. The chap who owned it used to drive around. He used to have a chauffeur with a Rolls Royce and his chauffeur wore a peak cap, gaters, polished gaters. And occasionally he would come around. At Christmas usually he would come around and say hello to everybody. I forget his name now. But they had a factory in Eastleigh in Southampton. And we went down once to play football with them. A football match. Clever they were. Treated us all to a bloody great lunch. And then their team arrived didn’t it? We were playing football on a full stomach.
CB: Different people. Yes. Gamesmanship they call it.
JW: Yeah. Yeah. We were married for [pause] She died in 2013.
CB: Oh dear. Was she younger than you or —
JW: She was five years younger than me.
CB: Well, Jack Watson. A really interesting conversation. Thank you so much.
JW: I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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 Robert Watson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWatsonJR180202, PWatsonJR1501
Format
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02:04:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
John Robert Watson joined RAF Bomber Command in 1943, volunteering after he witnessed his next-door neighbour's house being destroyed by a bomb. Against his father's wishes, John joined Bomber Command initially as a wireless operator, before transferring to a flight engineer course. Travelling to RAF Ouston, John flew in Lancasters and Halifaxes. His first operation took place on the 17th of January 1944, which he believed he would not survive. His second operation was to Berlin and featured another close call, in which he almost crashed into another Lancaster. He remembers his crew fondly, stating that they did well throughout the war because they trusted one another so much. Joining the Pathfinders force, John travelled from RAF Wickenby to RAF Warboys, changing crews and being put through extra training. Completing over 40 operations John recalls several operations, including one over Nuremberg which featured another close call. John was then moved again and became a flight instructor for Wellingtons. He also gives information regarding his crew, being a flight instructor, his scariest moment whilst flying, the impact of lack of morale fibre, and master bombers' role. He also gives several humorous stories of his time at RAF stations and his run-ins with higher-ranking service members. During his service as a Pathfinder, John received the Distinguished Flying Medal, the Legion of Honour and the Pathfinder badge. When he was demobilized, he became disillusioned with discipline within the RAF and continued his apprenticeship, meeting and marrying his wife in 1956 and living with her until she passed away in 2013.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Northumberland
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-01-17
1956
Contributor
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Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
fear
flight engineer
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Master Bomber
mid-air collision
military ethos
Pathfinders
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Ouston
RAF Warboys
RAF Wickenby
recruitment
searchlight
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1181/11753/PWagnerHW1701.2.jpg
6a7763552d25d2c08c9178b97a3f8dee
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1181/11753/AWagnerHW170719.1.mp3
7846d95153b605a6327ce0831d9d70b6
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
Wagner, Henry Wolfe
H W Wagner
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. Two oral history interviews with Sergeant Henry Wolfe Wagner (1923 - 2020, 1604744 Royal Air Force), his memoirs, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 51 Squadron from RAF Snaith and became a prisoner of war. He was demobbed in 1946 and returned to education where he remained until his retirement.
The collection was catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
2016-05-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Wagner, HW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 19th of July 2017. Through a misunderstanding I’ve come along to help with an int — to do another interview. But today the original interview from May last year has arrived. So what we’re going to do now is to just put in some extra items for Henry Wagner and let’s hope that that will be useful. We were talking about being in Stalag Luft 7 and the German reaction to glider pilots. So, what was that?
HW: Yeah. Anyway, the chap in charge of our hut was, his surname was Nettle. So, you can guess what his nickname was. Stinger he was called. Anyway, one morning we, towards the end we didn’t know what the Germans were going to do with prisoners. We were worried about how they were going to, would they be all exterminated? Knowing the German record in that sort we just didn’t know. Anyway, when Stinger came back from a meeting one morning he came into the hut and he said, he had a funny way of speaking by the way. He put in the letter H where it shouldn’t be and left it out where it should be. Anyway, he says, ‘Right,’ he says, ‘Silence.’ So, everybody was quiet, ‘Right,’ he says, ‘Everybody in this hut is to parade outside in ten minutes time to march down to the stores to draw picks and shovels to dig their own graves.’ Well, there was, ‘Oh,’ we thought, ‘Oh. It’s come to that has it?’ So, he let it go for about ten seconds and then a smile spread over his face. Oh, it’s only old Stinger and his jokes again [laughs] And they talk about the Long March from, from Bankau to Lukenwalde. It wasn’t a march at all. We were there. There was no military precision. We just dragged ourselves along through the snow. Bitterly cold. You could rake your fingernails down the side of your face and you wouldn’t feel a thing. So, you had your shoulders hunched and you just shuffled along through the snow like that with the German guards with Alsatians beside you of course. And there was no marching. I’ve got a video tape, that’s right, which I can’t play now but that’s beside the point, of a reconstruction of the, what they call the Long March. But it’s all, it’s all people that are young, healthy, clean. They’re not dragging themselves along through the snow. They’re walking at a fairly brisk pace. It’s all, it’s all [pause] it’s all Pantomime really. I’ve never bothered looking at the thing again, I never will because it was no portrayal of what they call the Long March. There was no marching about it. And in the barns at night. I mean these people had dormitories. They knew where they were going to stop. They knew how far they were going to walk. We never knew how far we were going to walk until we stopped for the night. They were mostly in barns. There might be food available. There probably would be a sort of a soup made on their field kitchens. And you just laid down on the floor. So, that was, the Long March was, well it’s all described in the, in there. If you read through you’ll —
CB: Sure.
HW: You’ll see what I thought of it.
CB: And what was the menu normally?
HW: Pardon?
CB: What was the menu? What did they serve you to eat?
HW: Oh. What? On the march?
CB: Yes.
HW: The so-called march. You got a bit of bread in the morning. In the evening a bit, a little bit of margarine quite often. And a brew of the stuff that they called tea. You got nothing through the day until the evening. It was usually, well a soup made with some sort of a herb. I think they were mostly swede tops and bits of swede and things like that. The lads called it after a popular tune at the time. The lads nicknamed it Whispering Grass. And that was it. Otherwise you drank water. So, there was a thin time.
CB: What happened to those prisoners who failed to keep up?
HW: I think the Germans gave continual warning, ‘Anybody falling out will be shot.’ But I don’t think that ever happened. They were just left lying in the snow and they would have died from over exposure and just given up.
CB: What about your, on your feet. What shoes or boots did you have?
HW: I had my flying boots which were bad to walk in because they were lambswool lined. They were loose fitting. I tied them. I tore a bit of wire off of a, off a fence as we were passing by and wound those around just to keep them on my feet.
CB: And what was your destination?
HW: Our destination. Oh, actual walking was a town called Goldberg. And we were promised that when we got there train transport would be provided to Luckenwalde, near Berlin. Which was duly how it turned out. They got that right.
CB: And what sort of transport was it?
HW: What sort of what?
CB: Was it trucks? Rail? Just cattle trucks was it?
HW: Oh yeah. Cattle trucks. Forty men to a truck. It said, they were, they’d been looted from the French railways and it said on the, painted on the side of each one, “Quarant homme. Huit chevaux.” Forty men. Eight horses. So they put us in. Probably more than forty men. You couldn’t all lie down at the same time. There was straw on the floor. A big bucket in one corner which if you needed a pee that’s where you went. Of course, lying down and trying to get a bit of sleep anywhere near that bucket it wasn’t, it wasn’t a favourite place [laughs] One German guard in the, in the truck with us with a rifle of course. But the German guards you see at this stage they were all the fighting men had been moved to the Russian Front and so on and the combat areas all around Europe. They were like our Home Guard really. They were oldish chaps. They didn’t want any hassle and we, we played along. They didn’t give us any hassle. We didn’t give them any hassle.
CB: So, how many days were you walking?
HW: Well, occasionally we stopped for a whole day in some farmyard. It’s all in, I can’t remember off hand. Somewhere about three weeks, I think.
CB: Oh. Right. And then on the train.
HW: That was only — maybe two. Maybe two days.
CB: Going back to your earlier comment. In the prison camp, the reason you were all concerned about being shot, the joke wasn’t very helpful, was because with Stalag Luft 3 and the Great Escape.
HW: Yes.
CB: Then the Germans shot fifty, didn’t they? So, but the other point was you mentioned about glider pilots. So, the reaction of the Germans to glider pilots. What was that? A confusion.
HW: Oh, they accepted them the same as they accepted them as airmen. They didn’t accept them as fighting men. Although of course when they landed their glider they didn’t just sit there and do nothing. They were fighting men from then on.
CB: Yeah. So, these pilots had been captured where? Where would they have been captured?
HW: What? The glider pilots? Arnhem. Arnhem, and around about there.
CB: Right. Ok.
HW: Crete, some of them had been captured at.
CB: Ok. I’ll stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: So you were shot down and there was a sequence that occurred.
HW: Yes. Yes.
CB: So, what was the first you knew about there being an attack?
HW: A warning from the, from the mid-upper gunner. Corkscrew port. Err corkscrew starboard go.’ Now, are you familiar with the corkscrew movement?
CB: Yes.
HW: When an aircraft is coming down on you like that and you’re — he’s coming, you’re both going the same direction he can sit tight and take good steady aim where he was. So, the thing to do when you came under attack from a fighter was not to turn away from him and go in the same direction but turn towards him so you were closing. The two aircraft were closing at some five hundred miles an hour. So he had no time whatever to take careful aim. In fact, if there was a corkscrew and you were moving upwards it was forcing him to go upwards as well. And he couldn’t get at the bomber flying down below. So it was this corkscrew manoeuvre that was the good one. If a Messerschmitt 110 pilot had time to take aim then he was nicely placed. But if he’d been detected and a corkscrew movement by the bar was immediately started he was on a loser. So, that was their favourite method of attack. The other method of attack if it was by a Junkers 88 which had a cannon sticking upwards in the roof was to come along underneath the bomber, point his cannon upwards at the fuselage or petrol tanks or wherever and just let rip. Because he was flying at the same speed as the bomber so he could take careful aim.
CB: That’s using schrage music.
HW: Yeah. We, we had, there was a downward looking radar that we had to detect this but unfortunately the Germans were homing on to that, transmissions of that radar. It was helping find a target, in fact. So, this downward looking radar called Fishpond was, was soon, was soon given up.
CB: So, on this, on this occasion how did the attack proceed?
HW: The first attack he was sitting in a nice — he should have known. He should have been able to take our plane. He came down, opened fire but missed. There were no hits. So, he carried on downwards. Came along underneath and up to his original position for a similar attack from a similar sort of position. This time our gunners knew what was going on and started the corkscrew manoeuvre as soon as he started to dive. But he was able to get in sufficient shots with his cannons and machine guns to perforate one of the petrol tanks in the, in the starboard wing. That was all, if they had time they preferred to attack from the starboard side because any pilot learning to fly always sits in the right hand err left hand seat. So pilots had the war, even in modern times they find it easier to look out to their left hand side rather than look right across the fuselage to the other side. So, the [pause] well that’s about it. As I said the petrol tanks were set on fire. One petrol tank anyway was set on fire and it was, oh the pilot, the engineer said, ‘Wilf, we’re on fire.’ And I looked up from down in the nose and I could see a roaring mass of flame where burning petrol was coming flooding in through the wing roots into the fuselage. And that was also where the oxygen bottles were stored. And if they’d got really, when they got really hot they would have gone off like bombs anyway. The pilot just took one look and gave the order to evacuate the aircraft. There was obviously nothing, there was no way that fire was going to be put out so he had no hesitation. On the first attack I’d kept my parachute pack on. On to the parachute harness. So I didn’t have to scrabble around to try and find that and then clip it on. It was on there and ready for when the second attack came. So, that’s it.
CB: So, the parachute you wore on the front or behind you?
HW: Oh, on the front. Two. Two clips on the front.
CB: Right.
HW: On the chest parachute.
CB: So, on the fighter’s second run he was successful and punctured tanks on which side?
HW: On the, on the starboard. Or right hand side if you want. In the wing root.
CB: And when the pilot realised what was going on what did he then do? He called —
HW: Oh, he just said, oh, he looked up, ‘Abandon aircraft.’ There was no hesitation. Not, ‘Well, I wonder if we can get that put out.’ No. There was, as I said there was no way that fire was going to be put out. So, that’s how it went.
CB: So, when you get the order to abandon aircraft what was the sequence that you went through?
HW: I, I was already standing up so my seat had folded over on springs. Folded itself against the wall. Kicked away the legs of the navigation table and that collapsed leaving an open space about, about four feet by three feet I should say. It’s a big trapdoor on the floor. I bent down, turned the handle of the trap door, raised the trap door and when I got above the vertical you could lift it off its hinges. Turn it diagonally, drop it through the hole and then follow it. Facing backwards of course out of the slipstream.
CB: Right. So, that’s straight through the floor and then the idea — what did the rest, what were the rest of the crew supposed to do?
HW: The bomb aimer should have been next. He was, it was all sort of — we’d been well trained at abandoning aircraft. There was no — they were all our drills. There was no pushing and shoving, ‘Get out of my way.’ ‘Let me go first.’ ‘Hurry up.’ ‘Get a move on.’ No. There was none of that sort of. It all fell in to place like that. So, the bomb aimer would have been next. The wireless operator would have been third. The, the mid-upper gunner he would have had to extract himself from his turret which he was very closely held in, hemmed in by machine guns, ammunition belts and heaven knows what. He would have had a job to. It would have taken him time to get out of there, locate his parachute, put it on to his, on the hooks on his chest. The same applied to the rear gunner. He couldn’t keep his parachute in the turret because there wasn’t room for it. He kept it in the fuselage just outside the turret. So, he had to open the turret doors, extricate himself from all the equipment inside the turret, reach for his parachute, put it on, make his way to the main exit door on the port side, open the door. You see, it all took time. Time was getting. They hadn’t the time to do it.
CB: Right. So, in the practicality, the actuality I should say of this you got out as soon as you were told to do so.
HW: Yes.
CB: What happened to the rest of the crew?
HW: Well, presumably trying to extricate themselves but I hadn’t been long out of there, only a few seconds before there was an explosion. And I think a petrol tank with just vapour inside exploded when the flames got to it. Or else the main spar had been so weakened by the fire that under the weight of the engines the wing just fell off and the aircraft would have gone in to a spiral like that. Trapping those inside. They’d never have made their way to an escape hatch then.
CB: So, you didn’t see any other parachutes?
HW: No. There weren’t any other. So, they must have, they must have gone down. Nobody was injured I don’t think. But they must have gone down in this knowing quite well they’d no chance of getting out and that they were going to be killed when it hit the ground.
CB: What height were you flying that day?
HW: When we were attacked we were flying at fifteen thousand.
CB: Did you normally fly within a band or what was the —
HW: Well, on the way to the target, oh and on the way home again you never flew at the same height like that. It was always slightly on the climb, a little bit level, down a bit, up a bit. Down. Down. Down. Down. Up. And like that so that the Germans couldn’t, if they knew we were going to be flying at fifteen thousand they’d have had all their anti-aircraft shells fused for fifteen thousand.
CB: Was there a popular height that you would fly?
HW: Pardon?
CB: Was there a certain height that was more popular that you would fly?
HW: No. No. They were graduated from, bombing height was normally eighteen thousand to twenty thousand. Lancasters could get a little bit higher. Lancasters could probably get up to twenty one. But Halifaxes, well they could struggle up to twenty one but usually not above twenty.
CB: So, at the time you had already dropped. What was your target? You’d already dropped your bombs.
HW: What was that?
CB: What was your target that day? Duisburg.
HW: The armament works at Duisburg.
CB: Right.
HW: I mean, and quite often if you didn’t hit the actual armament works, a lot of bombs did no doubt but if if they were falling in around about within say four or five hundred yards they were going to be destroying railway lines, power stations, the worker’s, the worker’s hospitals, the worker’s homes. They were going to spread chaos around about setting the whole thing on fire. Letting the fire carry on and do the explosives. Scatter them and the flammable material about and the incendiaries we carried set it on fire. So —
CB: So, what was the combination of ordnance that you carried?
HW: Oh, it varied. Once, once we had a two or probably more than once, you’ll see what our bomb load was on, on the report of the operations that our aircraft carried out. You’ll see the bomb load. A mixture of the two thousand pounder. Maybe two one thousand pounders and some incendiaries. Or maybe eight five hundred pounders and some incendiaries. Sometimes a thirty kilogram incendiary device. Phosphorous bomb. Sometimes it was the ordinary five pound incendiary. Just ones that burst in to flames when they hit the ground. It varied from time to time. But you could see by the —
CB: Yeah. Now, the Cookie was a four thousand pound drum. What was in it?
HW: A Cookie?
CB: Yeah. What was in a Cookie?
HW: Just, just explosive.
CB: One single blast bomb was it?
HW: Hmmn?
CB: One single explosive.
HW: Yes. Yeah.
CB: Not combination of things.
HW: No. No. No.
CB: Ok. Just stop there a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: So, in, in how did the crew gel? In the air and socially.
HW: Oh, absolutely. There was no suspicion of anybody not being quite up to the mark. Everybody performed their job perfectly as far as I’m aware. On the ground sometimes we went [unclear] to go together, to hire a bicycle go off to a village pub and have quite a few beers there and sometimes I’d be with one. Sometimes two or three of us would go together. Sometimes the whole crew will go. We had got station bicycles and headed for the nearest pub.
CB: In some cases people got a bit nervous about what they were doing. How did you see the reaction of your crew before take-off?
HW: What? You mean about dropping bombs and killing civilians? Well, their attitude was, well they asked for it and they got it. I remember hearing Air Marshal Harris on the radio once when, when he’d got Bomber Command built up the way he wanted. The strength that he wanted. He had said originally, ‘Give me four thousand aircraft and I can finish the war.’ Well, that wasn’t on. They couldn’t. There were too many other demands for equipment. But he soldiered on until, there came a time when you remember the thousand bomber raids on Cologne for instance? When he’d got enough he’d got enough. And he said on the, on the radio, and he had a very Churchillian way of talking. He said, ‘People say that you can never win a war by bombing alone. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried before. And we shall see. I have the men. I have the aircraft. I have the equipment for the navigators to get the aircraft to the right space. The Germans started this business of area bombing in London. Now, they are going to get a taste of their own medicine. Hot and strong. And they won’t like it.’ So it gave new heart to Bomber Command. Right. We finished dropping bombs on open countryside. Now, each bomb is going to do some damage. We’ve got the equipment. We’ve got the gear. We’ve got the organisation. From now on we’re all going forward. And as I say the Germans asked for — they started the business of area bombing so they hadn’t really got any grounds for complaints.
CB: It was a dangerous task going on operations.
HW: Yes.
CB: How did the crew react to that?
HW: Some, some hundred thousand men flew with Bomber Command. And I’ll give you it in very round figures there and fifty six thousand were killed. So, your chances of coming through were less than, less than fifty fifty. And moreover when you’d done your thirty, thirty trips was a tour, when you’d done your thirty you were as they said rested. But in fact you weren’t rested at all. You went to Operational Training Units and to assist with the training of other pilots who were just getting ready to go on operations. So quite a lot were killed in that sort of —
CB: Yeah.
HW: In that sort of activity as well. And then to go back for another. Another twenty. A second tour was twenty. When you’d done that lot, if you’d, very few done it — when you’d done it then they couldn’t make you do any more. You’d fulfilled your obligations.
CB: What knowledge, experience or hearsay did you have about people lacking moral fibre. LMF?
HW: I never came across any of it at all. I can understand that maybe for some people the mental stress was just too much and they couldn’t take any more. I don’t believe they chickened out of their own free will. They just felt that they could not do it anymore. And so I don’t look upon those as cowards. I look upon those who were prepared to give it their best shot but they couldn’t cope with it.
CB: Now, the RAF took a pretty stern line on that.
HW: Pardon?
CB: The RAF took a very stern line.
HW: Oh yes. They didn’t take the same point of view as I’ve just been explaining. They were sent to ordinary Air Force camps. Not necessarily operational. And they were put on the dirtiest jobs of cleaning latrines and wash houses. All that sort of thing. The Air Force regrettably looked upon them as cowards. I don’t think there were all that many of them.
CB: Right. What would you say was the most memorable experience you had in the war?
HW: Well, just getting shot down I think. They were all memorable. The getting shot down, the aircraft on fire, the parachute jump. All these sort of things. The Long March. They all added up to a pretty unpleasant time.
CB: As you said just now you were the sole survivor of the seven crew in the aircraft because the others just didn’t get out. How did you feel about that?
HW: That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
CB: And after that, in Prisoner of War camp to what extent did people discuss their experiences?
HW: Most people told you as much as I’ve been telling you. They seemed to, seemed to be the same sort of thing in most crews. They tell you what happened. Not complaining mostly but tell you what happened. And that was the way it was.
CB: In Stalag Luft 7, did the Germans come and interrogate you after you arrived ever?
HW: No. That was all done at Frankfurt. At Oberursel. They got all the information and that was it. You were just sent to a prison camp. You were just a prisoner.
CB: And what was the procedure they followed in interrogating?
HW: The procedure?
CB: When you were being interrogated what were, how did they do it? What was the procedure?
HW: Oh, when I arrived at Oberursel I was put in a solitary cell. All, all arrivals there were placed in solitary cells. A very narrow cell where the windows were barred. You couldn’t see out. They were frosted glass. There was a bed with a bit of a mattress on it. Not very well stuffed. A blanket. And that was, when you wanted to go to the toilet you had to pull a handle near the door and like a signal arm outside in the corridor fell down with a clang. And the German guards in the corridor came along. And you’d say, ‘Toilet.’ And he’d take you along to the toilet which was at the end of the corridor. Outside that toilet there was a box on the wall with sheets of paper which you had to have to take with you as you went in. I thought — I took two, they were a bit on the small side. I took two sheets of paper. And the German said, ‘Nein. Nein, he says, ‘Ein. Ein.’ So, I had to put one back. And you got escorted back to your cell. And you got your tea in the morning. And a bit of bread. The soup at mid-day and that was very much it.
CB: So, what was the first bit of interrogation they did?
HW: Oh, yeah. I got taken, after about, I’d say two days maybe it was absolutely solitary. It was to break you down a bit, I think. Got taken. A guard took me along to another part of the prison and where the interrogation took place. I was put in an office where there was a German. A major I think he probably was. Wearing a black uniform anyway. It smelt richly of cigar smoke in there. A very comfortable office. I was sat in a chair in front of his desk. And he could speak, of course perfect English. Obviously he had to do that, didn’t he? And he said, ‘There are some things I would like to know about you, Sergeant Wagner,’ he says. ‘Firstly,’ he says, ‘You have no identity tags.’ I said, ‘No. Before we came last evening I had to wear them around my neck on a piece of string but the string broke. So I left them behind me and I thought I’ll put new string on when I get back home.’ ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘Yes’ He says, ‘What squadron were you?’ ‘You know, sir, I can’t tell you things like that. The Geneva Conventions says that I must tell you my name, rank and service number.’ So, ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘It would be a big help to me,’ he said, ‘ If I could believe you, you see,’ he said. ‘We have a man here who has no identity tags and he will not say, he will not say what squadron he belongs to. He says he has been wandering about in Germany for six days. Six days without any food?’ He says, ‘I must think more about this.’ And I was sent back to the cell again. Left for another two days and got called up to his office. And he says, ‘Ah, sergeant. Sergeant Wagner,’ he says, ‘I have had some information. Some more information has reached me,’ he said. ‘I have had a crew in from 51 Squadron who say, I asked them, have any member — and they tell me their squadron,’ he said, ‘They tell me what squadron. You did not tell me what squadron,’ he said, ‘They tell me what. I say has any other crew been missing from your squadron lately? And they gave me the name. They say, ‘Yes. The crew of Warrant Officer Bates.’ ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘And a sergeant was, sergeant, the navigator was Sergeant Wagner.’ He says, ‘Things are beginning to fall into place now,’ he says. He said, ‘You were wandering about for six days without food? What did you drink?’ I said, ‘Well, water out of cattle troughs mostly.’ And he said, ‘What was your bomb load on the night you were —?’ I said, ‘Firstly, sir, you know I can’t tell you that. Secondly, I didn’t know what the bomb load because it was of no interest to me.’ And thirdly he says, ‘What height were you flying?’ I said, ‘We were never on the same level. Sometimes we were going up. Sometimes we were going down. Sometimes we’d be level a bit,’ I said, ‘I can’t remember all the different.’ So, that seemed to satisfy him. He realised that I couldn’t really be expected to remember all that. So, in the end he was still smoking a cigar by the way and it was, he realised I think, well, I’ve got all I can get out of this chap. He’s not being deliberately obstructive. I can’t expect him to remember these things. There’s no point making things more difficult for him. Because getting towards the end of the war they realised they wanted, they didn’t want to raise their heads above the parapet. They wanted to keep a low profile. If he’d been guilty of any, I should say illegal activities then he would have been made to pay the penalty afterwards. So, we parted on reasonable terms shall we say. I went back to my cell. Left there for another three or four days and then got moved by train to, to [pause] moved by this to Wetzlar, that’s right. It was a transit camp. Everybody went there and they were sorted in to batches according to which prison camp in Germany they went to. And when my batch came up after about after three or four days then off I went by train over to, over to Bankau.
CB: So the plane landed where?
HW: The plane?
CB: Where did your plane land?
HW: It crashed in Holland. Just close, just the British had been occupying that area for just a few days. The Germans had just been kicked out. The, so the crew were all buried by, by the Dutch people and, but on my parachute I drifted back across the River Maas and landed behind German lines. In the back garden of a house in a village.
CB: Did you?
HW: It’s all in there.
CB: Yeah. Did you have any detail of where the plane actually crashed?
HW: No. No. It wasn’t until after the war that I went back there because I was in a Dutch twinning club. And I went over there one year and got in touch with the Dutch farmer whose land it had crashed on. And he gave me a big piece of — a big piece of the fuselage of our aircraft. A big piece of metal sheeting which I brought back to England and which is now in our aircraft museum over here at Wisbech.
CB: Did the Germans recover the aircraft or did they just leave them in the field?
HW: Well, the Germans weren’t there when it crashed.
CB: No. No. I just wondered if in general —
HW: Oh. In general.
CB: You knew whether they had left.
HW: No. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t be bothered. If it skated along on the surface.
CB: Yeah.
HW: Came down and was in reasonable condition of course they salvaged it and examined it and tested it and all that sort of thing. But it had gone in. It had gone in deep.
CB: Yes. If it was vertical.
HW: Some that we’ve dug up in this vicinity they, well one over near Downham Market it had crashed between, between two water courses. And we got in touch with the Water Board and they said, ‘You can go down to sixteen feet and no further or you’ll upset the water table.’ So, you have to get permission from the Ministry first that there’s no explosives on board.
CB: Yeah.
HW: So, then you have to get the landowners permission. And if he says no of course you can’t go on his land and dig it up if he says, ‘No. You can’t come on here.’
CB: No.
HW: So, quite often it’s been a matter of just waiting.
[recording paused]
CB: So, after the war did people have interest in you being a POW?
HW: No. No. No. Not really. No interest whatever. In fact, it’s the same with a lot of people. My daughter has three sons and none of them ever showed the slightest interest in war time or my flying career or war time or anything of that sort. They’ve never seen any of these documents I’ve got here. They just show, haven’t shown any interest. My son, on the other hand, he was always interested in flying. He was, he joined the Air Training Corps. Wanted to go into the Air Force as a pilot. He was accepted for officer training. But for aircrew training he failed the medical. They said, ‘No. You’ve got a weak right eye,’ So they said, ‘We can give you other careers.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘Pilot. I’m not interested in anything else.’ So, he resigned from the Air Force and took on, went into Air Traffic Control. And that’s where he worked all his life. Down at Air Traffic Control down at Southampton.
CB: Yeah.
HW: But he retired last about two months ago now and he’s, he’ll finish off his, the contract that he got, house that he’s got that he rents down at, down at Bishops Waltham. He’ll finish off that contract and then he’s going to buy a house up at Thetford. So —
CB: Right.
HW: And my daughter has just, she’s sold her house at Milton Keynes. They’ve moved up to Dersingham so they won’t be far away. So, but my son took up — he was interested. When I took up the hang gliding of course.
CB: At ninety.
HW: He perked his ears up.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
HW: And I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘If you’re interested,’ I said, ‘I’ll pay for your training. You can come over with me when I go over hang gliding. You can take your elementary certificate and then your club pilot certificate,’ he said. I said. So that’s what he did. So, he’s got as well as his he took his own private pilot’s licence just to, just to prove to himself he could do it. And then he’s, so he’s a qualified hang glider pilot. Same as I. But of course I don’t carry on. They won’t let me go hang gliding now.
CB: No. For your ninetieth birthday what did you do?
HW: I gathered my daughter and her children, sons and my son and his wife and we had an evening over at the Rising Sun pub. No. Not the Rising Sun. The Locomotive pub in Wisbech. And drinks were on me and we had a very happy evening all gathered together there. And we — I’ve forgot what I was going to say now.
CB: Didn’t you go on — did you do a parachute drop?
HW: Pardon?
CB: Did you do a parachute drop?
HW: No. I wanted to do. A friend of mine whose wife has MS, he said, ‘Would you do a standard parachute jump for MS funds?’ I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not very keen, Dick because, well quite honestly I can’t stand this business of going around asking people for money and asking people to sponsor.’ He said, ‘I’ll take of all that,’ he said. ‘Leave all that to me.’ He said, ‘Would you do it?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ll do it alright.’ So, I got in touch with the appropriate, appropriate Association and they said, ‘Well, yes, they said, you’re going to have to have a doctor’s certificate of fitness.’ I said, ‘I’ll get that alright.’ So, when I went to my doctor he said, ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘You know you have a slight heart murmur.’ I said, ‘Yes. I’ve had that for years and years.’ He said, he said, ‘I’m not sure about this,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll consult with a colleague of mine who is a heart surgeon and I will ask his advice. See what he thinks. So, and I will let you know.’ So, I went back a week later. ‘My colleague said he does not advise this.’ Mind they were just watching their own backs. I mean if they’d said yes and if there had been trouble, then they would have been in trouble. So, and I don’t blame them for watching their backs in these compensation days. So, I said to Dick, ‘Well, no. I can’t do it, Dick. They won’t let me. I’ll tell you what I will do though. I’ll do a bunjee jump.’ So, he said — ‘And you can, if you can get people to sponsor me for that, ok. You carry on.’ So, I got in touch with the bunjee people, ‘Do I need a medical?’ They said, ‘No. How old are you?’ I said, ‘Ninety.’ ‘Do you take any drugs?’ ‘No.’ ‘Have you had any heart trouble?’ ‘No. Not really. No.’ ‘That’ll be ok then.’ So, so I went. So, I did the bunjee jump and I’d do another one if I had a chance. I enjoyed that.’
CB: What was it, what was it, what did you feel when you did it?
HW: What? While I was going on? Oh, enjoying it. They don’t let you go down like that which would be a bit tame. They swing the jib from side to side. They swing you back and forth like that. So, it’s not a just a straight drop. Yeah. I enjoyed that. I’d like another one of those. But if another, if another, if they come back to Wisbech again and I see, I see, I get the chance I’ll give it another go.
CB: There’s a notion amongst flight —
HW: Hmmn?
CB: There’s a notion amongst flying people that they don’t want to jump out of an aeroplane if they can help it. Do you think having had to get out when the plane was going down that gave you a different perspective?
HW: No. No. It was a case of stay here and die or go. So the obvious answer was go.
CB: But doing it again you would have a choice?
HW: If I had. Yeah. I’d be quite happy knowing what the drill is. Know I’ve got to drop a certain distance before pulling the, before pulling the cord. And, yeah I’d be quite happy to do an ordinary solo jump but of course they won’t let me now.
CB: No. No. Henry Wagner thank you very much for the rematch.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Henry Wolfe Wagner. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-19
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWagenrHW170719, PWagnerHW1701
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:53:56 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Henry’s aircraft was shot down when the fuel tank exploded on the starboard wing and came down in Holland. Henry was the only member of the crew to bail out. Their target had been the armament works in Duisburg. Henry drifted across the River Maas behind German lines and was taken prisoner. He was interrogated at Oberursel, near Frankfurt, and moved to a transit camp at Wetzlar before being sent by train to Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau.
Henry describes The Long March from Bankau to Luckenwalde, the cold, the guards and lack of food. They walked for some three weeks to Goldberg and then spent two days in cattle trucks going to Luckenwalde. Anyone who fell was left at the roadside to die of exposure.
Henry refers to the large number of aircrew who lost their lives in Bomber Command and one of Air Marshal Harris’s speeches on the radio.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Spatial Coverage
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Netherlands
Europe--Meuse River
Poland
Poland--Tychowo
Germany--Luckenwalde
Germany
Temporal Coverage
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1945
Requires
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Henry explains the high attrition rate of Bomber Command and the RAF’s concept of men with a ‘lack of moral fibre’ which he disagrees with. Henry describes the ‘corkscrew movement’, ‘schrage music’ and why the ‘Fishpond’ radar had to be discontinued. He talks of the range of different ordinance they may be required to carry.
Evacuation was never easy from the aircraft, particularly when there was damage to its infrastructure, and there were difficulties removing some of the crew safely. However, due to many drills to this procedure they left the plane in an orderly and pre-arranged fashion. There was also the added complication of any parachute malfunction, fire from other plane enemy/friendly, and anti-aircraft fire from the ground on top of any problems arising from the landing. Landing in an area already ablaze with the very bombs that you were there to drop was also a real concern.
When Henry had to bail out of his Halifax, they aircraft landed in Holland and was buried too deeply to be salvaged.
He describes his journey though Oberursel, Frankfurt to Stalag 7 Bankau, and the march they had to make because the Germans wanted to keep the POWs away from the oncoming Russians. He explains how the POWs survived their time in captivity, particularly after the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft 3 where fifty were killed. Towards the conclusion of the war, the POWs worried that they too were going to be killed like those of Stalag Luft 3.
The march from Bankau to Luckenwalde took place in the winter of 1944/45. The POWs never knew how far they would be marching each day, what they would be given to eat or where they would sleep. Henry calls modern reconstructions of the march ‘pantomimes’ as they bear little resemblance to the truth. The German guards would threaten to shoot anyone who failed to keep pace with the group, but Henry cannot recall this occurring. Rather those men who fell behind were left to die from exposure to the cold.
The interview concludes with Henry’s post-war life in teaching, his family and what he became involved with once he retired.
Claire Campbell
aircrew
bale out
bombing
Dulag Luft
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
navigator
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
sanitation
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1168/11734/ATruemanKW150921.1.mp3
edf12796de7e798fe79b59731bc9cbd0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Trueman, Kenneth William
K W Trueman
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Trueman (b. 1922, 1217929, 1455835 Royal Air Force). He flew operatoinsa as a navigator with 640 Squadron until his aircraft MZ855, was shot down near the village of Laloux in Belgium after an Operation to Russleheim 13 August 1944. The Pilot Flying Officer Dennis Barr and the rear gunner Sergeant Basil Orrick were killed and the gunner Sergeant Alfred Broddle was taken prisoner. The other four members of the crew, including Ken, escaped and were given shelter by the resistance until they were smuggled out and back to the UK in February 1945.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Trueman, KW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: Right. I’m sitting in Solihull talking with Ken Trueman about his experiences in the war and my name is Chris Brockbank. And we’re going to talk about all aspects of his experiences including when he was shot down more than once and what happened as a result of that. So, Ken if you’d like to start with your earliest life and how life progressed, please?
KT: Well, I had just an elementary school education. I was one of the first that they accepted for aircrew who didn’t have further education. And I went down to Bedford and got my number and everything like that and then waited for them to call me up.
CB: So you were born in Birmingham.
KT: Yeah.
CB: So you went to an elementary school there.
KT: Yes. I went to —
CB: And what age did you leave school?
KT: Fourteen.
CB: And then what did you do?
KT: I was a carpenter. Trained as a carpenter until I was eighteen. I need not have gone into the forces because I was in a reserved occupation. And my foreman said, ‘Well, you can’t go unless I sack you.’ And so that was the only time I’ve ever had the sack. And he sacked me and then I was able to go and volunteer. Which I did at Dale End in Birmingham. And then some weeks later I was called to Bedford. And I got first taste of service life which unfortunately was, it was snowing like mad. They got us up at 5 o’clock. We had to shave in cold water with a little blue light. And then we waited three quarters of an hour in the snow to get in the dining room. And when I got in the dining room the cup and the knife, fork and spoon I had to open my hand to get. And we all sat there in our overcoats and steaming. Steam coming up it was. That was my first, service life if you like. But then they sent me home on indefinite leave and I was, as I say I was there until the, ‘til the end of 1941 when I was called up to London and I had six weeks with a rifle.
CB: What else did you do other than with the rifle?
KT: Oh, it was, it was mainly getting our inject, medicals, vaccinations. We [laughs] we were in the flats at the [unclear] Court, but we had our food at the London Zoo [laughs] And then we, of course we were kitted out then as well. And then from there we were posted to Torquay. And that took three months. And on my first leave I got married.
CB: This is 1941.
KT: No. That’s 1942.
CB: ’42. Okay.
KT: Yeah. I got married in June, the 6th 1942 and I did my first operation on June the 6th 1944. And that was D-Day.
CB: Okay. So after you’d finished at Torquay where did you go? What happened then?
KT: Pardon?
CB: What happened after Torquay?
KT: Well, then as I say I went to Desford for this twelve hour selection board. Twelve hours flying Tiger Moths. And from there we, we went to Heaton Park and we were under canvas for eleven weeks. And from there we went to South Africa on a ten knot convoy that took five weeks from leaving Liverpool to arriving at Durban. And so we went right north first of all. We must have been near land because land birds was landing on the deck. And then we came down around the Cape to Durban. And that’s where I started the advanced navigation course. I don’t know how long that took but I then moved up, just up the road to Collondale to do the, start the flying in Ansons.
CB: Just taking you back you said you had only basic education.
KT: Mmmn.
CB: While you were being, working as a carpenter what did you do as far as your education was concerned?
KT: In what way?
CB: Well, did you go to night school or what did you do?
KT: No. No. But the RAF did pay for a course in maths and English while I, after I’d got my number. And that was the only —
CB: In the Birmingham Technical College was it?
KT: No. No. My, one of my teachers at my school did it for two of us. Two of us. And the other lad unfortunately failed miserably his, they, I mean you have tests all the time and he failed and they made him a flight engineer which was a very short course, you know. And he was killed on one of his first or second raids he was on. And I was still, I was still training.
CB: So, when you finished the maths and English that coincided with your actual call up but then you’d already been graded had you? PNB. Pilot, navigator, bomber.
KT: No.
CB: Is that how you —
KT: No. You were a pilot under training. Pilot UT.
CB: Yeah.
KT: Until you had the selection course.
CB: Okay.
KT: It was at the end of the selection course when you were told whether you were going to be a pilot or a navigator.
CB: Okay.
KT: And had I not failed the night vision test I would have been a pilot. But as it happened I was very grateful for it.
CB: Why?
KT: Pardon?
CB: Why?
KT: Well, if you think about a pilot in a bomber. He takes off. And immediately he comes under the control of the navigator. All the way to the target. Unless of course they’re, they’re fired upon with a fighter when the gunners take over and direct the pilot. Then when they enter the target the bomb aimer takes over and he guides the pilot. As soon as the bombs have dropped it comes back to the navigator. So, all the pilot is, is a taxi driver [laughs] And I’m lucky because I’ve got something to do. We had to fix a new course every six minutes. And I could do it in four minutes so I had two minutes every, I had two minutes rest every six minutes.
CB: How did you do the fixes?
KT: With a Gee box. Have you heard of it?
CB: I know it. I’ve used it. Yeah.
KT: And we also had H2S.
CB: So, H2S was a radar. So did you use that all the trip or was it only used intermittently?
KT: Oh, only used as and when. So long as you had got Gee I, I didn’t want H2S. Gee box was my, my game. But of course it was, it was jammed as soon as you got to the French coast.
CB: And H2S. Why did you not want to use that?
KT: In my mind it was, I think, something. I don’t know. I did use it but I liked the Gee box better and of course as I, I said they jammed. As soon as you got to the French coast it was jammed. But half an hour before you got to the target you took out a, I don’t know what you’d call it. Something. Take it out, put a new one in and you got Gee then for ten minutes. And so you can imagine having Gee box for ten minutes, the fixes you got. And that put you right for the target then.
CB: Is that because that particular one was using a different frequency? That’s why you put the —
KT: I don’t know. The boffin boys —
CB: Right.
KT: All I know is I took this thing out, put this new one in and I got Gee then for ten minutes.
CB: Then what?
KT: It took Jerry ten minutes to —
CB: Right. For him to jam it.
KT: Yeah.
CB: Right.
KT: And then of course on the way back I just gave him a course for home and just checked up every fifteen minutes rather than every six minutes.
CB: So, that’s leapt ahead to action but you’re, we’re still perhaps back in South Africa. How did the training go? Who were the instructors?
KT: Oh, there was RAF and South African. People that had been on ops and they were instructors. And of course they were bored to tears. They wanted to get back on ops.
CB: Did they?
KT: Yeah. But I’ll tell you a funny story. When you finished your training in South Africa. Got my wing, you know. Half wing.
CB: Yeah.
KT: And you were sent to a place called Retreat in Cape Town. Well, it’s not in Cape Town. There’s a train that runs from Cape Town to Simon’s Town.
CB: Yeah.
KT: Simon’s Town is where the South African fleet is. So, you’ve got this train that runs and halfway is Retreat. And the RAF had got a rest and recuperation and you were there for a week. And then I was posted to India. And after a week we were marched to the docks and immediately marched off again. And we said, you know, ‘What’s going on?’ And they said, ‘We’ve got too many. You’ll go next week.’ And the next week we were marched on to the docks and marched off again. And the next week we were marched on to them, marched off again. And the next week we were marched on. Four times we were marched on to the docks and marched off again. But the fifth week there was, there was only fifty of us so we said, ‘Oh, we will be going this time.’ And sure enough we sailed on Friday the 13th on the Athlone Castle. Now, I, I, service life suited me down to the ground. And if you’re on a, if you’re on a British troop ship if you take your mug to the galley any time of day or night, they’ll fill it full of tea. And so at 6 o’clock on Friday the 13th I took my mug, got my tea, went and sat on the stern and It was a lovely day. And smoked a cigarette. One of the crew came along and we started chatting and during the conversation I said, ‘Oh, by the way when do we get to Bombay?’ And he said, ‘We’re not going to Bombay.’ So, I said, ‘Well, we’re posted to Bombay.’ He said, ‘Well, this boat’s not going to Bombay. It’s going to New York.’ So, I put down my cup and rushed, nearly got myself court martialled, into the CO‘s bedroom and woke him up. And he was a Colonel Blimp, you know, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’ I said, ‘Excuse me, sir.’ I said, ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ And he said, ‘Of course. We’re going to Bombay.’ I said, ‘I’ve just had a word with a member of the crew and he assures me we’re going to New York.’ ‘Get out. Get out,’ he said, ‘Get my clothes. Get out.’ So I got out quickly. I mean, I didn’t realise what I’d done. Rushing into the CO‘s bedroom and waking him up. But anyway two hours later he called us all to the Blue Room which had become the sergeant’s mess and he said there’d been a mistake made. We are in fact going to New York. So, that was my first cruise. Two weeks. He said, now, even in those days, that would be 1943 the ships had fridges, you know. And he said, ‘The fridges are full of chicken, beef, lamb, pork. The chefs are going to go mad and we’ve got some West African Rifles who have agreed to be your servants if you pay them.’ So there we were. Sergeants, being waited on for two weeks.
Other: Lovely.
CB: Was the ship largely empty, was it?
KT: No. No. It was, there was fifty of us. There was, I don’t know how many West African Rifles. Somebody must have known something. They were going back home on leave so why put them on that boat? And there was quite a few American. But we had to pay for it because at night, when you were in the bunk you could crack the bugs. And we were bitten all over, you know. Because the boat was going to be deloused.
CB: Was going to be but hadn’t been.
KT: That’s right.
Other: [unclear]
KT: It was going to New York to be de-loused.
CB: Oh I see. Oh right. What a nightmare. I’m going to stop you there just for a moment.
[recording paused]
CB: Right. Okay. So we’re recording again having had a previous break.
KT: Okay.
CB: But we’ve got as far as the Athlone Castle going to New York.
KT: When we arrived at America they just didn’t know what to do with us. And so they, we didn’t land in New York. We had to get over the side, down a rope ladder onto a lighter boat and they took us up the East River to Fort Slocum. Which was an American base on an island in the East River. And we were there for three weeks.
CB: What did you do there?
KT: Well, we got our pass at 10 o’clock in the morning and we used to get on the train. It was twenty five miles into New York and it took twenty five minutes. In those days. And then we had, we were then allowed out ‘til 23:59 the following day. So, we then got, as soon as we got to New York we found a hotel and we spent the rest of the day in New York. Two days in New York.
CB: Okay. So after that then what?
KT: Well, then we came back on the Louis Pasteur. The French boat. To Southampton. And I was posted to Llandwrog for advanced flying training.
CB: This is in North Wales.
KT: Yeah. And the weather was so bad we did the same run eight times. From chicken [unclear] to Fishguard to Pembroke. All over the sea because the weather was so bad.
CB: What aeroplane were you flying in then?
KT: Ansons.
CB: Right.
KT: Ansons. Yeah. From Llandwrog then we went to Lossiemouth and we had, we were there December, January and February. Very cold but lovely.
CB: This was the OTU?
KT: The OTU. Yeah. Yes.
CB: So how did you, when you got to the OTU what happened as soon as you arrived?
KT: Well, after we’d been there a few days we were all let out into the ballroom or whatever you call it and we just wandered around. And I saw a fellow coming up and I said, ‘I’m looking for a pilot,’ and he said, ‘I’m looking for a navigator.’ And that was the nucleus of our crew. And then the next day we — oh no, the same afternoon, there were two of us wandering about then. We saw a wireless operator and said, ‘We’re looking for a wireless operator,’ and he said, ‘Well, I’ve got a friend who’s a bomb aimer. He’s an Australian.’ So then we got a wireless operator and a bomb aimer. So there was four of us then. And then we, we found two of the smallest gunners I’ve ever seen. They only looked like little boys. But they were Canadian and they agreed to be our gunners. So, there was our six. But after a couple of flights they came to us and said would we mind if they left us? And they went to an all, all Canadian crew. So we said okay. And we had to wait a couple of days for two gunners to arrive and they became our gunners. Alf Broddle and Lefty. That’s it, he was Basil but we called him Lefty Orrick. Unfortunately he was one of them that got killed in the [pause] But I only escaped, you said something about escaping three times. I think what — you were talking to David were you?
CB: Well, can I come back to that? Because, absolutely. Yes.
KT: Only, I think what he means we were ambushed three times by Germans while I was on the run. I only, but of course we had a narrow escape. I think we’re over running the tale. A week before [drink being poured] Thank you. A week before I was shot down we, we went to bomb Caen. Now, our troops were held up at Caen and they wanted us to bomb the German lines which was only seven eighths of a mile from our own line so accuracy was the — so instead of the Pathfinders dropping flares our artillery fired coloured shells where they wanted us to drop the bombs. Now, these coloured shells didn’t last as long as our flares did. So they said, ‘If you’re going up on the run in and the lights go out, go through the target, don’t drop your bombs and come back but keep your bombs because we’re getting short of them.’ So, what we had to do because, because as we went up the lights went down. So we went through. Then we had to fly up north to get rid of the petrol because we couldn’t land with a full bomb load on. The all up weight was too much. And the petrol. So you had to get rid of the petrol and you couldn’t go over the sea and jettison the petrol out of a Halifax. You had to use it up. So we flew up to Scotland and back again. And we landed at Boscombe Down which was an experimental and it had a manual flare instead of an electric flare path. And the pilot was told to undershoot the landing tee. They put a coloured landing tee to show you where to come in. And so he undershot it [laughs] But too much really because I was getting up from my position to get into the rest position and I looked through the window just in time to see a telegraph pole which we took with us. Then we hit the railway van and then we took the telegraph pole on the other side. We just crashed then. And the plane of course was written off. It was. The fuselage was broken in three places. The four engines were torn out. The bombs had scattered everywhere. Two had become alive [laughs] and, and the next morning they found an American Grumman Martlet about a hundred yards away that had done exactly the same thing. And so that was a week before we, you know. A week or ten days. I’m not sure. I’m not quite sure. But that was Molescroft Maggie. That was our favourite plane. We did nineteen trips in Molescroft Maggie. And we called it Molescroft Maggie because she was M for Mother and our dispersal at Lossiemouth was very close to the village of Molescroft, so she became Molescroft Maggie.
CB: It’s interesting how these things arise isn’t it? So, come back to that. So, we’ve done the OTU.
KT: Yeah.
CB: And you changed crew during the HCU.
KT: Changed.
CB: OTU. The two gunners.
KT: Oh yes.
CB: That’s why you were —
KT: They only did two cross-country’s with us.
CB: Right. Okay.
KT: And then we had the new two.
CB: Okay. So when are we talking about then? What, what was the date of that? Near enough.
KT: It was nineteen [pause] it was, it was December. December ’43. January ’44 and February ’44.
CB: Okay. Then you go to Marston Moor.
KT: Marston Moor.
CB: For the HCU. So, you went straight there did you?
KT: Yes.
CB: Starting in March ’44.
KT: In between we did a commando course for three weeks at Driffield but I can’t remember whether it was before or after —
CB: Okay.
KT: Marston Moor. And at Marston Moor then we picked up our seventh crew member.
CB: Yeah. The engineer.
KT: Yeah.
CB: Why did you do a commando course?
KT: That was in the scheme of things. They did these sort of things. Well, it was [laughs] the idea was you did this commando course and at the end of it they put you in a bus and took you fifty miles away and dropped you off and you’ve got to make your own way back.
CB: Escape and evasion.
KT: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
KT: And some of the things that [laughs] they’d pinch bicycles. They pinched cars. They pinched horses. But I had a brilliant idea because they dropped us on a pub car park. So we went into the pub. And every everybody, oh you know, ‘Have a drink.’ And I said, ‘Well, I noticed on the main road there’s a transport café. Anybody going down there?’ And a man said, ‘Yeah. I’m going down there in about five minutes.’ And so, let me see there was, our crew had been split up into two. I’d got, I don’t know, I’d got, I’d got two or three of the crew with me. And so we got in his car and we drove down to the main road and went into this transport café. And I asked about. ‘Anybody going near Driffield.’ And one of the lorry drivers said yes. Yeah. So we got in and we had a lift back. And I said, ‘Now look,’ I said, ‘You mustn’t stop outside the gate. Drive a bit further on and we’ll get out.’ So we got out and then we went to the back of the camp. Climbed over the fence, slept in our own beds. Got up the next morning, came back, walked in as if we’d [laughs]. But that’s the idea you see.
CB: Nobody sussed it.
KT: Pardon?
CB: Nobody sussed what you were doing.
KT: Oh No. No. No. No. So, that’s how we got back.
CB: So HCU.
KT: Pardon?
CB: So you get to the HCU. You got to the HCU and picked up the navigator err the engineer I mean to say because you’re the navigator.
KT: At Marston Moor.
CB: At Marston Moor. Yes.
KT: And then we transferred to —
CB: So at the HCU what did you do most of the time?
KT: Oh, we went on cross-country’s. You did so many day cross-country’s and so many night cross-country’s. And the pilot of course, he was under the instruction of the pilot he was taking over from and was transferring from two engines to four engines. For me it was just straightforward because although we were, they were a bit faster, I still, I still, my navigation was just the same.
CB: Did you have Gee already?
KT: Oh yeah.
CB: When you were at the OCU.
KT: Yes.
CB: OTU.
KT: Yes. Gee all the time.
CB: Yeah. Okay. And what about fighter affiliation? Did you do much of that?
KT: Oh, no. We did that at Lossiemouth.
CB: Right. Once you got to the, oh you did that. Right. Okay.
KT: Yeah. We were —
CB: When you were at the OTU.
KT: Yes. At Lossiemouth. When we came back. We always dropped an eleven pound smoke bomb and we were attacked by fighters. And you know the method?
CB: So, what was the method of the fighter affiliation experience?
KT: Well, I don’t, I wondered if you knew what it was.
CB: I don’t know, I don’t know how it worked.
KT: It was the corkscrew.
CB: Right. So, I know the corkscrew but would you describe it?
KT: Well, the, one of the gunners would say, ‘Corkscrew starboard go,’ and the pilot would then start and you see if you could, if he could see a fighter and start to corkscrew he couldn’t shoot you down. So that was why the gunner’s had, obviously had to keep their eyes open. But we were one of the first to be shot down by the German fighter that had a gun pointing up.
CB: The schräge musik.
KT: Pardon?
CB: The schräge musik. Yeah. The upward firing cannon.
KT: Yeah. We must have been one of the first.
CB: Where did, where did the, where did it hit you?
KT: Oh, the first shell cut a hole inside of the aircraft. No problems. The second shell went through the starboard outer. The starboard outer engine and set it on fire. And then there was a lull of a few, oh about a minute I would think. It was a long time. And the fourth shell took away the bomb, bomb bay I would think. But the fourth, the fourth shell went through one of the petrol tanks and then it was shhhh. One minute it was dark and the next minute it was just like daylight. And the pilot must have put the automatic pilot in which was somehow got, it wasn’t flying straight and level. It was flying in a circle. So, we all came down more or less in the same place.
CB: How do you know? How did you know that it was a schräge musik operation? Did you see the other fighter?
KT: No. No. I was under the impression. When I got back to England we were debriefed and the intelligence officer said, ‘You were shot down by light anti-aircraft on the railway that was directed by your H2S.’ And that was another thing I didn’t like the H2S for [laughs] But it seemed, it’s quite obvious that when we, when we worked it out it was, it was a night fighter.
CB: And did they talk about Scarecrow?
KT: Scarecrow. No.
CB: Are you familiar with the scarecrow? That was the way of describing, explaining how this was working. A high powered shell explosion.
KT: [unclear]
CB: They perhaps didn’t start using it at that stage.
KT: Oh we never had any —
CB: No. Because it wasn’t. It was because of the schräge music but —
KT: No. We never had that. We never had any training on parachutes.
CB: Oh right.
KT: We were just given a parachute. Told how to clip it on. Jump out, count to three, pull.
CB: Right.
KT: That was it.
CB: Okay. So, just going a bit earlier than that. When you joined the squadron what happened then? So, you got a new aeroplane?
KT: Oh well, yes. Now. Now. We then started [laughs] we got, we got, you’d got to do three cross-country day and three cross-country night and on one of the cross-country’s it was up in Scotland and they routed you very close to Scapa Flow who then started firing at you. Far enough away but giving you some idea of what anti-aircraft flak was like. And the night one was at Portsmouth. They did exactly the same thing. And, mind you we’d only done, let me see, I’d done, I think we’d got four. Four of each to do and we’d done about two of each when the pilot and I were walking across the base one day and we heard, ‘Pilots and navigators to the briefing room.’ That is the start of a raid. And then it said, ‘Sergeant Trueman and Sergeant Barr to the briefing room.’ So we thought well that’s funny, you know. So off we toddled to the briefing and there was an officer outside. And I said something like. ‘Ah’, he said, ‘You’re going tonight.’ I said, ‘But we’ve still got, we’ve still got some cross-country’s to do.’ ‘Ahh no,’ he said, ‘It’s an easy one tonight,’ he said, ‘So everybody’s going.’ And so when we saw the target it was at a place called Maisy. And it was right on the French coast. Just by Cherbourg. In fact, we were over enemy territory for six minutes. Just across the Cherbourg Peninsula. And the intelligence officer, in the briefing said, ‘There is one anti-aircraft gun in the area. That’s all.’ And that anti-aircraft put a shell right underneath us but not close enough to hit us. But the noise. And you’ve heard of people having cold feet. My feet were like two blocks of ice. And I said, ‘That’s me finished. I’m not coming again, I’ve had enough,’ [laughs] Anyway, I sat down and had a cup of tea and we started to come back up and we looked out there at all the little boats coming across. We could see them in the — when we got back to base we said, ‘The invasion’s on isn’t it?’ They didn’t know at the base that it was on. That’s how good the —
CB: Security.
KT: But then it was — we did five. Five trips in, in seven days. We went on the 5th and the 6th, 6th and the 7th, 9th and the 10th, 12th and 13th. So, from the 5th to the 14th we did five trips.
CB: Is this day time flying or night?
KT: Oh no. No. We did, we did twelve daylights. Thirteen night flights. Of course a lot of these are buzz bomb sites. Which I think you could really say were quite an easy because I mean you weren’t over the enemy territory for very long. They were just in Northern France you see. You know the buzz bombs.
CB: Absolutely. The V-1s. Yes.
KT: Yeah.
CB: So what success did you have in hitting those because it was quite a small target?
KT: Well, I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t know, I. All I did, all my job was to get them there and then the bomb aimer took over and he had to have a photograph. So, we always got the target. So long as you’d got a target to photograph you were okay. But actually what damage? The only one I know was, well two I know. They sent us, they sent just our squadron, 90, after a viaduct. Why they wanted to blow it. You know, a lovely viaduct. And what happened? It was a daylight and quite low and when, you couldn’t see where it had been after nineteen bombs had hit it. But the other one was a daylight raid. Villiers Bocage. Now there they were, the intelligence thought Rommel was there but they knew that the 12th Panzer division were in amongst the houses. So, they sent sixteen err six hundred bombers in daylight. Fairly low. About two to three thousand feet and we were luckily one of the first ones. We dropped our bombs, turned around and there we saw all these bombers coming, not towards us but to go because they took us up. And after, after three hundred had bombed the master bomber said, ‘Don’t drop any more bombs. There’s nothing left.’
CB: No.
KT: They never saw the 12th Panzer Division. So it must have been successful.
CB: Yeah. Fascinating.
KT: But the fourth raid we went on was, I mean I’m talking of seventy odd years ago and it’s still [pause] It was a place called Amiens. And we were coned by searchlights. Three. Three planes were coned. And my pilot he was marvellous. The second the lights came on he put the nose of the plane down and full power and dived down from sixteen thousand feet. Just dived out of the sky. And we were too fast. Too fast for them. They couldn’t get the lights down quick enough. And I thought, I thought when he pulls out of this the wings are going to fall off but they didn’t. But there we were then two thousand feet. It should have been sixteen thousand feet and we’ve got to come around then in to bomb. And all the bombs coming down. But anyway, we, we got our target indicator and that was that.
CB: So you thanked your lucky stars you hadn’t been hit by the people above.
KT: Well, yes. Quite a few people did. That happened to quite a few people.
CB: Did it?
KT: Yeah.
CB: Now, when you — two points. I’ll come back to initial briefing. But when you landed, the debriefing. What was the process then?
KT: When I landed?
CB: You’d done the raid. You’d done the raid. You’ve landed. You’re collected by the crew bus and go to the intelligence man.
KT: Yeah.
CB: To debrief you. How did that go?
KT: Well, you got out of the plane. Your bus came along and picked you up, took you into the briefing room and you sat around the table with one of the intelligence officers and you more or less went through the flight with him. Pointing out where heavy flak was. Which I had recorded. And any anything, anything that was a bit out of the ordinary was down in my log. And then you left there and went into the dining room and had bacon and egg.
CB: A great thing. Did the, because you’re the navigator you have to log the incidents. Did the other crew pass you incidents?
KT: Oh yes.
CB: To log.
KT: Yes.
CB: How did they do that?
KT: Intercom.
CB: Right. No. No. But how? Did they introduce it by just saying we’ve just done —
KT: Well, no. They, they’d just say it. The rear gunner would say there’s heavy flak on the starboard side. And I would note where we were and put it down.
CB: Right.
KT: They could always check back through my log. Just about where —
CB: Okay.
KT: With the time you see.
CB: Right. So fast backwards now. You said earlier that you and the pilot had been called for a briefing.
KT: Ah. Yes.
CB: So could you talk us through please.
KT: Yes.
CB: The briefing process and who and who wasn’t involved.
KT: Well, yes. Well, that is the pilot and the rear gunner. We go into the briefing room and there’s a big board and it said this is the target for tonight. And the intelligence officer will give you any information that they’d got. Where there’s heavy flak or where you are likely to get night fighters. Or you’re going over a mountain. Anything like that. Then you’d leave there. The pilot goes to his section. I go to my section. And then we’d go through and make a log of the raid. And then —
CB: That’s your plan for the raid is it?
KT: No. No.
CB: When you say the log for the raid —
KT: No. We made a route for the raid.
CB: Yeah.
KT: Oh no. We do two more after that.
CB: Yeah. Okay. Keep going.
KT: And you don’t tell the other crew. Only the pilot and the rear gunner the navigator.
CB: The navigator.
KT: Know.
CB: Yeah.
KT: Until about, just before we go into the main briefing. And then it’s, they know then. And then you come out of there and you go and have bacon and egg. You come out at the end. You go into the parachute section. Pick up your parachute. And that’s when my stomach used to go down in to my boots. Always, when, when I got into the bus to go out to the plane and then when you got out to the plane there was always an hour before you took off. And then the ground staff used to take, take your money off you because we used to play pitch and toss and they were better at it then we were. [laughs] You know pitch and toss, do you? Well, they put a ring and then so many yards and you’d toss a penny. And the one whose penny is near the middle of the ring has the first throw. All the heads it takes out until there was nothing left. And then you do it all over again. But they were much better at it than us. And then half an hour before we took off I used to get into the plane and the wireless operator used to give me the latest winds and I used to then work out the main log. You see a bomber doesn’t take off and go up like that. A bomber, fully loaded climbs very, very slowly and so he’s attacked by all the wind. So what you do, you take an average of all the winds at the various sites and you set a course using that wind. And then as soon as you take off after six minutes you take a fix and you find out whether you’re on course or off course. And you keep doing that.
CB: Okay. Just to clarify there. You’re talking there about different winds. So, what sort of levels would you expect there to be different winds at.
KT: Oh —
CB: Because the ground level wind is always different.
KT: It depends on what, it depends on whether it’s a high pressure system or a low pressure or how bad the storm is. Or whatever. It’s always different. And of course if they’ve got the winds wrong [laughs] Of course we had to get our winds on a plane flying out recording the wind velocity. It’s nothing like it is now.
CB: Okay. So could you describe how you measured the wind velocity? How did you do that?
KT: Well, it’s speed and direction. You know, the intelligence would give you the winds coming from the north. It was degrees. It wouldn’t say just north. It would be in degrees.
CB: So you’d be steering. You’d be steering a particular course on the basis of the briefing and then you would take an assessment.
KT: Well, yeah.
CB: As to where you had actually got to. Is that —
KT: If they said the wind is coming from this direction. So, you’d use that, but after a bit you’d find that instead of being blown over there you were over there so the wind read was coming from this way. It was easy when you know what you’re doing.
CB: Sure. okay. So you take off and it takes a long time to go up.
KT: Oh yes.
CB: You’re not going straight out to the North Sea are you? So what are you doing?
KT: Well, no. We, they used to bring us all together over Reading. And the people of Reading got fed up with it. Night after night, all these bombers coming together and then — but it depended where the, just where the target was.
CB: What speed were you cruising at?
KT: Oh, we cruised about, about a hundred and sixty.
CB: So, when your pilot put the nose down on the incident you were talking about. How fast do you think —
KT: Oh, I haven’t got the foggiest.
CB: Do you think you were going?
KT: I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t know. It was just, it only lasted a few minutes. I mean I didn’t check what speed we were doing. I was just waiting for the wings to fall off. Yeah.
CB: So, can we just go back now to what you mentioned earlier. Your, you were shot down on which raid? The twenty-fifth?
KT: Yes.
CB: Right. So what happened there?
KT: Pardon?
CB: What happened?
KT: Well,—
CB: Which part of the run were you? Before dropping?
KT: Pardon?
CB: Before the dropping of the bombs or afterwards?
KT: Oh no. We’d dropped the bombs.
CB: Right.
KT: It was uncanny because we were hardly off course at all. I mean you were always off course. You always had to correct. Correct. But we just sailed through. Dropped our bombs sixteen thousand feet.
CB: Excuse me. Where was the target?
KT: Oh, the target was at Rüsselsheim. It was the Opel Motor Works.
CB: Right.
KT: They were making the V-2 rocket there.
CB: Right.
KT: We did our two minutes off the target, two minutes to port and then a course for home. And I don’t know how long it was afterwards but they brought us down from sixteen thousand feet to six thousand feet in a fairly sharp dive to fool the night fighters. And we, as I say, we just, we’d just more or less levelled out when we were hit by the first two shells. And I mean although they were, I mean if we’d have been hit by the flak, the anti-aircraft we wouldn’t have been here now. But they were smaller shells and that’s why I think it was the fighter. Not the —
CB: Not anti-aircraft fire.
KT: No.
CB: Flak.
KT: But the noise. There was no end of explosions. It was unbelievable. And I didn’t hear the order to bale out. I was busy working out where we were. And the first out, I realised. I mean, I knew it was just like daylight and the plane was on fire. I mean, it was quite obvious we were going to have to bale out. But I didn’t hear the order to bale out. The first thing I knew was a tap on my shoulder. The bomb aimer was giving me my parachute which I put on. I sat on the escape hatch. He took the escape hatch out and dropped it. I don’t know who got that out. He jumped out and then I jumped out afterwards.
CB: Where was the escape hatch on the Halifax?
KT: Right at the, [pause] you know the wings.
CB: Near the nose or in the middle? Near the nose or in the middle?
KT: No. It was towards the nose. But there were two. There was the door and then of course the rear gunner could either swivel his turret around and back out or come out in to the fuselage. I don’t know. All I know is that I had all the luck in the world. When I jumped out I could see a series of, and don’t forget it only took a few seconds. Well, not very long to get down from six thousand feet. And I saw a ring of fires. Little bonfires and I wondered what was going on. I knew I was drifting. I knew I was going backwards but I hadn’t any idea how to turn myself around. And I thought, well when my feet hit the ground the next thing that was going to hit the ground was my head. But I needn’t have worried because my feet touched the ground and then my parachute caught up a tree and I eventually finished up my head was about a foot off the ground and as I lay there with, I hadn’t got a breath. A man came along and he said, ‘Camarade.’ And I looked up at him and I said, ‘I’m English.’ ‘Angleterre,’ he said. He picked me up and kissed me on both cheeks. And I had fallen into the field where they were expecting supplies.
CB: SOE.
KT: Couldn’t have been more luckier than that could you?
CB: Right. So then what?
KT: Well, then it was a question of walking from one house to another and we just walked for hours. It was 1 o’clock in the morning when I got down. At 5 o’clock I’d been to about three houses because they’d already got one of my crew there. I finished up in the loft of a cottage that was all, you know boarded out and very comfortable and I just laid down and went to sleep. And they woke me up. That was 5 o’clock and they woke me up at 8 o’clock and took me downstairs. And they gave me a bowl of water with about that much water in it to have a wash with. And then they gave me my breakfast which consisted of a piece of bacon without any lean on at all. Just. And an egg that had been put in the pan and taken out. That was my breakfast. Then, then the fun began. The baker came to see me. The vicar came to see me. The policeman came to see me. The postman came to see me. All sorts of people came to see me and every time they came I had to have a little, like a thimble full of white. And I didn’t drink in those days. But oh no, you can. And by 12 o’clock I could hardly stand up.
CB: This was Advocaat was it?
KT: Pardon?
CB: This was Advocaat?
KT: No. It was —
Other: White wine was it?
KT: Pardon?
Other: Was it white wine?
KT: No. It was white spirit.
Other: Oh.
KT: No. It was, I don’t know what it was but oh. Then they took me outside and that was even worse then when the sun came up. But they took me across the garden. Oh. The door suddenly burst open. Three men came in. I thought this is the Gestapo, you know. But it turned out they were the Maquis and they said, ‘Come on,’ with the guns. Outside we went. Had to go down the garden. Down a path to the end of a country lane where there was a lorry and in the lorry were two of my crew. All the rest were Maquis people and they were the recognised army then. They’d got their uniforms on. It was a band with the colours on. And we drove through the streets of Ciney. And it was a tipper lorry really so I could look over the side. And there were the German officers walking up the road with their girlfriends on their arm. I thought this is amazing. And these men were, got their guns and they didn’t take, they didn’t [laughs] Anyway, we got to our first camp which was a group of gypsies had formed a Maquis group and strangely enough they’d captured the German station master. And he walked about freely. He didn’t want to be, he was quite happy to be with them. He was a civilian mind you so, but he’d been captured and as I say he was quite happy to. Oh dear. We had a party then. Everybody had to sing. Then they found us a little tent with some straw and the four of us, the three of us went to sleep in there. And at 2 o’clock in the morning they woke us up and they took us then to our, the camp that was going to be the group. The Chief, who we knew as Chief Tom had been educated at Winchester College so he spoke perfect English. And his brother-in-law was a, they used to come over to Scotland shooting the deer prior to the war starting. So there were — that’s how we started then. And we used to cut down telegraph poles. Anything to upset the Germans. But not to kill any because if we killed any they took it out on the villagers and the villagers fed us. So, we had to be — because we were in the woods you see. The Ardennes. You know the Ardennes?
CB: Absolutely. Yes.
KT: So —
CB: So when you were there then — how long were you with them?
KT: Well, I’d got. We [pause] let me see. First of all we went out we went out on a raid to blow up a train and unfortunately — see they weren’t trained at all. They had no, they were all young lads and men that had had formed this Maquis group because they didn’t want to be sent to Germany for working, you know. So there was no discipline. And the man in charge, we’d all gone in to the signal box I think it was. The stupidest thing. And we then saw seven Germans coming along so we got out of the signal box and it was in there that the lines were down here and the banks went up and we got on top of the banks and the Germans started firing at us. And then we made a quick retreat. That was the first time we — but the second time we wanted to move camp. So we wanted to steal a lorry to put our, what cooking utensils we’d got. And we set up our Bren. We had a Bren gun. Well, I had a Sten gun and two hundred rounds and a grenade which I kept in my pocket. And as I walked it rubbed. Rubbed the skin off. Anyway, I never used it. But a lorry, two lorries came along. We stopped them and there was about forty Germans in there. [laughs] So, we were in trouble. The bullets started to fly but there again we were on a bank. The bullets were going over the top and we were down here. They couldn’t hit us unless you put your head up which we didn’t. And after, oh a quite long time everything went quiet. And we got a New Zealand lad named Till . By this time we’d collected other, you know, other, other RAF. He said to the man next to him, ‘What’s happening?’ And they had a word which they used quite often. Kaput. You could use this word on everything and this man said, ‘The Germans kaput.’ What he meant was, ‘Germans kaput. Keep down.’ But Till thought he meant they’d capitulated and he stood up. And the bullets just cut him down to ribbons. So, we had to get out. So we wandered around for two or three days in to the woods. Our group had been split up. Eventually we, we found one of the Belgian lads and he said, ‘We’re going to go to a place just outside [Maison?] where they’ve got a farm. We’re going there.’ So, we went to this farm. They were using the farm as an orphanage and we were in the cow shed which had luckily been cleaned out. And so there were twenty four of us. Or rather twenty of us. Four were in the house. They were ill so, and we were woken up one morning at 6 o’clock. It was a, it was the [pause] let me see it would be, it would be the 10th. It was the 10th of September. 6 o’clock we were woken up. ‘Shhh,’ and we looked out and let me, if this, this is the farm and the cow shed was up here. There was a road here. And the Germans were going around like that. They were going. If they’d have come this way they’d have caught us all but as they were going that way.
CB: They went around the far side of the farm.
KT: We got out. We ran across this field here . And we were halfway across the field before they realised and started firing. And, you know, if there’s bullets at the back of you it’s amazing how quick you can run.
CB: And you’re all the aircrew because the Maquis are not with you now, are they?
KT: No. Oh yes. Oh no, it was all aircrew. That included the complete crew of a Flying Fortress. No. There would be two or three Belgian men. Mainly aircrew. And of course once we got to the top and started to go down the other side they couldn’t fire at us any more. So we ran down the hill. And there was a river I suppose it would be, about as wide as this garden and twenty bods jumped in. Three strokes and on the other side. And we were in the woods then and we were okay. And I remember sitting on a log. Soaking wet. Hadn’t had a cup of tea. Hadn’t had any breakfast. Thinking, you know, this is freezing cold although it was August err September.
CB: 1944.
KT: 1944. If you’re soaking wet all your tobacco’s wet. And about 12 o’clock, after six hours in the woods then the, one of the Belgian lads said, ‘I’m going into the village to see if I can find out.’ And I think went about 12 o’clock. Two hours later we heard a tank coming into the woods. Prior to that the shells had been going that way. Then shells coming this way. Then shells going that way. So, we knew that there was a, an American tank column close by. And as I say, 2 o’clock we heard this tank coming in to the woods and we thought well, you know, we’ve had enough now, walking about [unclear]. And it turned out to be an American jeep without a silencer. Two Americans. They gave us all Cognac and cigarettes and you can imagine the effect. Cognac and cigarettes on somebody that’s hadn’t had anything to eat. Anyway, two more, two more jeeps arrived and we all got into the jeeps. Took us into the village and we were behind the American lines then. And then our problems started.
CB: Really?
KT: Well, we’d got to get to Paris for the, to the Hotel Maurice. Or Maurice they called it. That’s where the escapees were. And, but everything was going this way and we wanted to go that way [laughs] but eventually we got to a place where there was six American lorries going back. Directly back to Paris. And we each got in one of these lorries. Four of us. And two days. It took us two days. Wonderful. We used to wake up in the morning and I slept on the back of the lorry in his fold up bed. He slept in the cab across the seats. The driver. A lovely fella, I never. And he got plenty of cigarettes and he’d got plenty of food. He’d got a little primer stove. We made coffee. We cooked bacon. The Germans knew, the Americans knew about food. I mean the bacon was in tins. It was loaded with lard you know so that it was easy to fry. And at lunchtime we had corned beef hash. We lived like lords for two days. And we got back to this hotel. And you can imagine I hadn’t had my clothes off for five weeks and I didn’t smell very good at all. And my clothes. But the first thing we wanted was a shower. We couldn’t have one. They hadn’t got any water. [laughs] They’d just got enough water to cook with. So we couldn’t even have a wash. But what they did they took all our clothes off us and gave us an American suntan. They call their, their, it’s like khaki. So I had a shirt and a pair of trousers. Some underwear. I had to keep my own boots on though. And the next day we flew back from Orly Airport to London. We arrived at 12 o’clock at night at Hendon and they put us through customs [laughs]. I mean it’s true.
CB: Fancy running customs in the war.
KT: It’s true. We had to go through customs. We’d been missing for five weeks. Had to go through customs. Then we got into the dining room and we were offered cold sausage and mash. And we told them what to do with it. So that was it. So then I wanted to phone. So I went into the ballroom of this, we were at the Central Hotel at Marylebone. Went into the ballroom where there was one phone and the queue went right around [laughs] So I didn’t bother. The next day we went for debriefing and that was it.
CB: So they took you somewhere else for debriefing did they?
KT: Yeah. Yes. I don’t know where it was.
CB: And there, did they send you back to Leconfield or did you go home?
KT: No. No. No. No, I immediately went on indefinite leave.
CB: Right.
KT: Which only lasted ten days. And as I say then I had a problem then because I had this letter to say I was a pilot officer. But when I got to Morecambe I had to wait until the papers come through. But by that time I’d left and gone to Nairn and I had to wait at Nairn.
CB: So, just to —
KT: Pardon?
CB: Just to clarify that. Why did they send you to Morecambe? What happened there?
KT: It was just a place to, I don’t know. They, somewhere to go. I mean we didn’t do anything. And then we didn’t do anything at, at Nairn. And eventually they sent us from Nairn on leave again. But I had my pass made out to London. And so when I, I got off at Birmingham. The next day I went down, down to London. To Bush House. I walked in to Bush House and was immediately thrown out by a warrant officer. And I walked back in and I said, ‘Before you can say anything I’m a commissioned officer and I want my papers.’ Oh. That altered things. And they rushed me through and got my papers and gave me my coupons. You wouldn’t know anything about coupons. Clothing coupons. And sent me back home and I went to, I got my uniform made. Well, yeah I got my uniform at one of the big shops in Birmingham and from there, let me see. Where did I go to from there? [pause] Oh, I went to Fauld at Burton on Trent. Or did I? It’s getting a bit vague now. But anyway I eventually finished up at Halfpenny Green at Wolverhampton as an instructor. And I was able to live at home from there. I used to go in like every morning. It was like office work.
CB: So, why didn’t they send you back to the squadron? Was there a policy?
KT: Well, I wouldn’t be able to fly over Germany because I was an escapee. And they, so that was my ops finished. I eventually got another [pause] a letter to say that I was due to go back on ops but that would have been in Japan or something like that. But of course they dropped the atomic bombs before that could happen.
CB: Just to get the chronological order here. When you came back from Paris — when are we talking about? Are we talking about before Christmas ’44 or after Christmas or when?
KT: No. I came back —
CB: Because you were shot down in September.
KT: On the 13th of September.
CB: Yeah. So how long before you came back from Paris?
KT: Well, I, I got behind the American lines on the 10th. It took two days to get to Paris. Then the third day. So we’re talking about the 13th or 14th and I came —
CB: Of October or November?
KT: Pardon?
CB: October or November.
KT: No. September.
CB: Yeah. But you were shot down on the 13th of September.
KT: No. 13th of August.
CB: Oh. The 13th of August. Right. Okay. Yeah.
KT: So, it was —
CB: So, you got back on the —
KT: Yeah. I was back and they sent me home on leave from there.
CB: Okay.
KT: From London.
CB: Yeah.
KT: That was my ops finished you see.
CB: Yeah. So at Halfpenny Green you were dealing, you were training navigators.
KT: That’s right.
CB: Or something else.
KT: Yeah. We marked their, we marked their logs.
CB: And how long did you do that for?
KT: About twelve months I think.
CB: Right. Okay. So, you mentioned earlier flying in a Dakota. How did that come about?
KT: I flew back from Orly Airport in a Dakota.
CB: Right. But you weren’t operational on Dakotas.
KT: Oh no. No.
CB: Okay.
KT: No.
CB: Okay. Right. So from Halfpenny Green we’re now talking about — that’s in ’44.
KT: Yeah.
CB: So, the war in Japan was over in August ’45.
KT: Yeah.
CB: How much longer were you in the RAF?
KT: Oh dear. I did [pause] Halfpenny Green then closed down. And I had the job of posting all the ground crew. Oh [laughs] what a job that was. Some of them had been there all during the war. Lived at home. Didn’t want to be posted anywhere. Because they, people used to, I used to get the information that such and such a camp wanted a sergeant and I used to send a sergeant there. Post him there.
CB: A ground crew sergeant.
KT: Pardon?
CB: A ground crew sergeant.
KT: All ground crew.
CB: Yeah.
KT: Yeah. All ground. I hadn’t anything to do with aircrew. Not posting aircrew. I’m just trying to think where else I was [pause] Because I left. Oh, I know what it was. I finished up, I I was posted to Sutton Coldfield which was a, I think it was 41 Group. It was a stores. And what did I do there? Oh that’s right. I was promoted to flight lieutenant and put in charge of the EVT. Educational Vocational Training. And that’s what I did. It was my job then to find jobs for, or courses rather for WAAFs and anybody. I mean, find WAAFs a cookery course or a sewing course or something like that. And I was there for six months. And from there I was given my marching orders at Wembley Park.
CB: When was that?
KT: That was in ’46.
CB: What time?
KT: Pardon?
CB: What time of year?
KT: Oh, I couldn’t tell you.
CB: Roughly.
KT: I haven’t got the foggiest idea now. I can’t tell you. I should think it would be summer somewhere.
CB: Yeah. Okay. Shall we have a break because you’ve done brilliantly. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Well, I’ve got some cake for you in the car.
KT: Pardon?
CB: Do you like cake?
KT: Oh no. I won’t have anything to eat. No.
CB: Okay.
KT: That would spoil my tea.
CB: We just thought you might like some Victoria sponge you see. So —
[recording paused]
KT: Promoted to squadron leader but it meant my commission was a wartime commission.
CB: VR.
KT: But I could have had a permanent commission. I was called in to the adjutant‘s office and offered this rank of squadron leader. But it meant I would be posted to Hong Kong. Well, I had been in the forces six, six years. We’d got a young daughter by this time and I didn’t think it was fair that I should, I’d be posted again so I turned it down. Unfortunately, what he didn’t tell me was that had I have gone my wife could have come over after about six months. Whether she would have wanted to I don’t know. She wasn’t that type really. So I, by and large I think I did the right thing, you know. But I loved the RAF. If you took to it you had a good time. If you didn’t like it you didn’t have a very good time because some people just couldn’t take it, you know.
CB: So people who couldn’t take it.
KT: They were always in trouble.
CB: Right.
KT: But they wouldn’t get on very far, you know.
CB: But what about LMF?
KT: LMF.
CB: Did you get any of that?
KT: Lack of moral fibre.
CB: Yes.
KT: We only had one. Don’t forget I was only on the squadron sixty eight days and in that time I did twenty five. We set off on twenty seven. But —
CB: Trips. Yeah. So, did you know about or you only had one did you say?
KT: Yeah.
CB: Circumstance you knew about. What was that?
KT: He just —
CB: Was it on your squadron?
KT: Yeah. He, he turned back. He’d set off on a raid. He’d come back for various reasons and, you know they soon realised that he’d —
CB: Was this the pilot or the navigator?
KT: He was the pilot.
CB: So what did they do to him?
KT: Well, they had, they had a station where they sent them to. I don’t know. I don’t know.
CB: Was he commissioned or an NCO?
KT: Oh yeah. I think. Yeah.
CB: Because they had the habit of parading people in front of the squadron. The station.
KT: No. They didn’t do that. They didn’t do that in this case.
CB: What affect did that have? His removal. On the rest of the crews?
KT: Well, it didn’t. It didn’t make any difference by, you know, after a time you get, you get hardened to it I think. You don’t think about it. You don’t think it’s you. Ever going to happen to you.
CB: As a crew then how did you get on together?
KT: Oh, we were marvellous. Only one [pause] let me see. There was one. Only one of us didn’t smoke. All the rest smoked. And so because of that we didn’t smoke in the plane. Lots of crews smoked. We didn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair anyway on the, our wireless operator didn’t. He didn’t smoke so —
CB: But it was actually forbidden to smoke in the plane but people still did. Is that right?
KT: Oh yes. I’m sure they did. We had one funny at Lossiemouth. We were going out on the cross-country and suddenly the pilot said, ‘My flying instructor’s coming with us today.’ And then my navigator instructor, he said, ‘I’m coming with you today.’ I never thought anything. But as we were on the way back he said, ‘Give me, give us a course for Stornoway.’ And so I said, you know, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The wireless has broken down and we’re not to fly back without the wireless.’ I said, well I said, ‘We can see the base.’ [laughs’ I said, ‘We can almost see Lossiemouth from here.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘We’re going to stay at Stornoway.’ They wanted the night out you see [laughs] So, we landed at Stornoway and [laughs] I don’t know.
CB: And when you were, as a crew you were all in the same Nissen hut were you?
KT: Yeah. Oh yes. We —
CB: So what was that like?
KT: Pardon?
CB: What was that like?
KT: Oh, it was marvellous. We were a good crew because we, strangely enough not one of us used bad language. Now, that’s amazing. As I say six of us smoked but we wouldn’t smoke in the plane. And we got on well. We were all, we were six good friends. You’ll have to excuse me.
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Okay.
KT: Ordered to bale out. I was the second one.
CB: The second one out of the aircraft.
KT: Yeah. My escape hatch.
CB: Yeah.
KT: I presume the wireless operator would go out of the same one. Now, the others would go out of the entrance of the side of the plane.
CB: Right.
KT: I know that the flight, the flight engineer handed the parachute to the pilot. He said he handed it to the pilot. And I can only presume that the pilot went down the plane to see if everybody was — this is the sort of man he was. I’m only presuming this. I don’t know. And he found the rear gunner was either injured or trapped in his turret but they both went down with the plane. They were both killed and that’s the only thing I could — we had plenty of time to get out.
CB: But he was struggling, you think, to release the rear gunner.
KT: Yeah. I don’t know. As I say because I can remember the plane going around in the circle. I could see light. So, he had plenty of time to get out. It doesn’t take long to get out of an aircraft.
CB: So, did the plane then blow up or did it gradually go down?
KT: I don’t know. I never found out.
CB: You didn’t see it.
KT: I never found out. I went back to Ciney. We were, I did a lot of caravanning after the war. My wife and I were very very keen on it and we were coming back from Italy and I said to her, I said, ‘You know, if we went out of our way just a little bit and went a day early we could go to where I was shot down.’ And so that’s what we did. But we couldn’t find anybody interested in. Nobody knew anything about the Maquis at all. And I was just, this was at the Council House there. And I was just about to leave when one of the older men came and said, ‘If you come back here tomorrow at 10 o’clock,’ he said, ‘I’ll put you in touch with the Baron, Baron [ de Boert?] who was the second in command. I found out that the Chief Tom had died and his wife. His wife incidentally was the liaison officer between the Maquis and Britain. But they’d both died. But the Baron was still alive and so we went back to the Council Offices the next day and this man got him on the phone. The Baron. And he said, ‘Oh, come along and see me.’ So, we went. We went and had a day with the Baron. And then I went back again on [pause] with the, with the Lottery. Hero. They called it “Heroes Return.” They paid for me and my partner then. My wife had died. And we went back and the Baron had died. But his wife was there. So, we spent another day. But I went to see where my two lads, I still call them lads now, are buried. They’re buried at a little place called Hotton, near Marche. Very very, you know, quiet — they look after the war graves.
CB: Is it in a War Graves Cemetery?
KT: Pardon?
CB: Was it a War Graves Cemetery?
KT: Yeah. And while I was over at —
CB: How is it spelled? Hotton.
KT: I went to see the grave of my grandfather who was killed on the Somme during the First World War.
CB: So what were the ages of your crew?
KT: Well —
CB: The signaller was how old? Ezra.
KT: Well, Dennis Barr was twenty two. Bernie Harken was thirty two. Bill Ezra was thirty. The two gunners were nineteen. And the —
CB: Engineer.
KT: The flight engineer was twenty.
CB: So, he was Goddard?
KT: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. What’s his first name?
KT: [laughs]
CB: Doesn’t matter.
KT: It’ll come to me.
CB: Yeah. Okay. So the rear gunner was the chap who was killed.
KT: And the pilot.
CB: And the pilot. Yeah. And Broddle —
KT: Pardon?
CB: Broddle was the rear gunner. Broddle it says here.
KT: Yes. No. It was another one.
CB: What was his name?
KT: No. They’ve got it wrong. Alf Broddle was the mid-upper gunner.
CB: Oh right.
KT: And Orrick was the rear gunner
CB: What was his first name? Orrick, B.
KT: Basil
CB: Basil. And Goddard was A.
KT: Arthur.
CB: Arthur.
KT: That’s it.
CB: Okay. Just some quick things. You were married early on and it must have been a bit of a strain being away from your wife. How did you deal with that? Were you able to see her much?
KT: No.
CB: She was in Birmingham was she?
KT: Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, naturally I missed her. And I was always glad to get home on leave. But, I don’t know, somehow I never thought of being, about being killed or anything like that. It never struck me.
CB: Well, how did she feel about the whole experience?
KT: Well, she, she was like of other girls then. Their husband or sweethearts were in the forces and that was it. They got on with it, you know. For them it was a question of coupons and rations and I never had anything like that. I didn’t know anything about rationing.
CB: No.
KT: Coupons.
CB: No. So what did she do in the war? Did she have to work in armaments or what did she do?
KT: Well, she worked for her father in [pause] they had a factory. He owned a factory that did the hardening, tempering and plating for the Air Force —
CB: And how many other of the crew were married?
KT: None.
CB: Right.
KT: I was the only one.
CB: After the war Ken, what did you do?
KT: Oh, after the war I started up on my own as a carpenter. Well, maintenance work really. And I did that until I got some sense. In other words I realised that people just didn’t pay. In those days if you did a job for anybody you did the work and you sent them a bill. And at the end of the month you sent them a statement. At the end of the second month you sent them a second statement. At the end of the third month — and this is how it went on. Eventually you had to go around and sometimes they’d give you something. And I realised I was flogging a dead horse so I got myself a job as a, for one of my customers. He’d got five shops and he wanted somebody to do the maintenance work at the shops. And so he offered me a job which I couldn’t refuse. And provided me with a little van. And that went on for a couple of years. Three. Three or four years until he, he got very fond of the ladies. And his wife set a private detective on him. I realised that the firm was going to come to a nasty end so I got myself a job as a rep. And eventually I finished up as the area manager for a plant hire company. And I worked for them until I retired.
CB: When did, when did you become a rep? When?
[pause]
KT: Let me see. I did ten years on my own. Seven. So ’46, ’56. About ’63.
CB: Good. Thank you very much. Well we’ve covered a very wide range. I’d just like to thank you.
KT: Yeah.
CB: Very much. For everything you’ve done there.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Kenneth William Trueman
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ATruemanKW150921
Format
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01:42:40 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Kenneth William Trueman volunteered for the RAF and was called up in 1941. After training in South Africa, he served as a navigator with 640 Squadron and speaks of his preference for the Gee navigation aid rather than H2S. His operations included bombing the site of V-1s. He describes how on his twenty-fifth operation his plane was one of the first to be shot down by a German night fighter with a gun pointing upwards (also known as schräge musik). He baled out and he and four of his crew were rescued by the Maquis resistance forces and he tells of going on raids with them and evading German forces. He was repatriated by American forces and then served as an instructor. After the war he returned to carpentry. He later visited the area of his crash and met with a surviving Maquis leader and also visited the War Graves Cemetary where his other two crew members are buried.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
South Africa
United States
England--Yorkshire
New York (State)--New York
New York (State)
France--Ardennes
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942-06-06
1943
1944-06-06
1944-06-05
1944
640 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
crewing up
evading
final resting place
Gee
H2S
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Leconfield
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Lossiemouth
Resistance
shot down
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1164/11723/PTownsendE1702.2.jpg
b0cd1f61cd602bfb21b82eb825bc19a9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1164/11723/ATownsendE170207.1.mp3
bbb09ec8afc98352b2c5d648196cd2c0
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
Townsend, Ernest
E Townsend
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ernest Townsend (1925 -2020, 1812237 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Townsend, E
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CJ: This is Chris Johnson and I’m interviewing Ernest Townsend today for the International Bomber Command Centres digital archive. We’re at Ernest’s home in Sittingbourne, in Kent and it’s Tuesday the 7th February 2017. Thank you very much, Ernest, for agreeing to talk to me today. Also present at the interview are Ernest’s wife June and daughter June. So thanks very much for chatting to us today, perhaps we could start with your early life, would you like to tell us where and when you were born and what Mum and Dad did?
ET: Yes certainly. I was born in Marylebone, London, er, we lived in Chelsea, and then after a while, we moved to Wandsworth. And then I went to school, er, Eltringham Street School and that was the only school I ever went to.
CJ: And what did your Dad do, was he working?
ET: My Dad was working as a milk roundsman, but he had this – well I admit he was ill – he had this feeling that if he didn’t go to work, if he went sick, he’d get the sack. So what used to happen sometimes, which I used to dread, I wasn’t all that old, I must have been about eleven, twelve, [background noises] my Mum used to wake me up and say ‘your Dad’s ill, er, you’re needed, you’re needed today, would you meet him’, and I – you don’t know in London, I don’t s’pose – ‘meet, meet your Dad, he wants you to help him’. So I used to get up and go all the way over to Everidges, about three miles, on me own, that was about four o’clock in the morning and then we used to, I [emphasis] used to drop the milk off outside the doors and he was a horse and cart job, yeah.
CJ: And didn’t he have some illness because of a problem during the war? First war?
ET: I think he mainly, yeah, his illness was, in the first war he was a Marine, but him and his friend got posted on to er, I think it was a trawler, I think, but he got, he got sunk anyway and he was, he was in the water for three, three days and I think that didn’t do him a lot of good. But I loved me Mum and I loved me Dad.
CJ: And what about school, what did you, what were you good at there?
ET: Oh I was alright at school, yeah, er, but it wasn’t a top-class school. This chap always used to come in front of me first, James his name was and I used to be second and I couldn’t, I could not [emphasis] beat him, don’t matter what I done, so I kept trying but that was how it was. Nah, I thought I was alright, very intelligent. And then the, the war came, and in the end I went and volunteered.
CJ: So did you have a job after leaving school? Before –
ET: Yeah.
CJ: You went to the RAF?
ET: Oh yeah, I had a job as a butcher’s boy and that was up, I don’t, that was in Shepherds Market and that’s got a reputation, nah, better not say what the reputation is, but it’s not very nice, the girls there. Anyway [pause] it was er, I worked there and then I wanted to go in the Air Force so I went and volunteered.
CJ: So why did you volunteer for the Air Force rather than one of the other services?
ET: Because that’s what I wanted to do, I wanted to fly. Yeah [pause], I thought it was special really and I got, I got called up and I was asked to attend St John’s Wood, er, you know where that is don’t you?
CJ: Yes.
ET: And I was there a few weeks and then I went to, er, where had I gone to [pause], I can’t remember where I went to really.
CJ: So, was St John’s Wood the initial training?
ET: Er, St John’s Wood, not really, they just held you there for a while, while they posted you. And they posted me to, everybody got posted somewhere different, ‘s’, began with ‘s’, it did, it’s [pause] anyway.
CJ: So Ernest, before you joined up, I think you were in the Air Training Corps? Was that correct?
ET: I was in the Air Training Corps, yes. Er, the reason I was in the Air Training Corps, they were having a competition and, what’s his name, Blackwood, he was a Scottish international footballer, he heard of my reputation so he wanted me to play for the team, because they were having a competition in London. And of course, I played and [emphasis] we won. The whole of London! Yeah. Yeah, I s’pose my life was based on bloody football.
CJ: [Laughs] so did the Air Training Corps lead you to joining up in the RAF rather than another service?
ET: Oh yeah, you go up and have your interview up there, where was it, up in Euston I think it was, where I went and, yeah, strict. You have, you have interviews and lot of things you have, but I passed, so it was alright.
CJ: So then you said you went to St John’s Wood
ET: [coughing]
CJ: And then after that, I think you said it was Stratford-on-Avon?
ET: Yeah, I went to er, Stratford-on-Avon ITU. Stratford-on-Avon.
CJ: And so what were you doing there?
ET: Whatever people – it’s like school really, you was tuning yourself up to get better education really, that’s what it was.
CJ: So was this initial training?
ET: Yes
CJ: Umm hmm. So what did that consist of?
ET: Well, Mathematics and English and lots of things, write out something, some type of story or something like that. It was, it was interesting.
CJ: And where were you posted to after that, do you remember?
ET: Yeah, I went to Worcester, I was gonna be a pilot. We went down there and started flying Tiger Moths, but I was unlucky. The bloke who was my test, well I s’pose he was a test pilot, he was like that [pause], but he used to sit in it and just about get in the doing and I couldn’t see nothing! That was the worst of it and when we used to – alright getting up but when I come down to land, I was leaning right over, right out, oh my gawd, right over, leaning right over, yes, so [laughs] that’s what happened.
CJ: So he was so big that he was in the seat in front of you and you couldn’t see past him, is that it?
ET: I’ll prove the point, he went off for a few days and a young bloke who’d been Battle of Britain bloke, really young, small bloke, and he was there, I was right as rain. Yeah, so, we done, you do twelve of those, twelve flights. Anyway, after that I, where’d I go?
CJ: So what, so you weren’t qualified as a pilot, you didn’t pass out as a pilot?
ET: I didn’t pass out as a pilot, no, but then, er, where’d I go? Worcester? [pause] No.
CJ: So you said you were in Worcester, erm, and then were did you go after that? That was after the flying training?
ET: Yeah, I got a feeling I went up to, er, Manchester. Oh no, have I missed one out? Don’t know. No I don’t think so. I went up to Manchester.
CJ: So had you been selected as a bomb aimer then, how did that happen?
ET: Once I got up to, once I got up to there and er, just waiting to be posted somewhere else, and I got posted to the Isle of Man.
CJ: Umm hmm.
ET: That’s where you kind of train, the final training and they judge you then, that’s when I got picked as a bomb aimer there.
CJ: So how did you come to be selected as bomb aimer, did you have a particular skill they were looking for or did they just say you, you and you?
ET: Right, a particular skill. I did, I was really good at things like that, yeah, and you got, you become a sergeant, yeah, and then you came back again and went to OTU. And when you’re in the OTU, you went in a great big hanger, huge, and er, you had pilot, the pilots were in more or less one corner, navigators the other side, bomb aimers there and then they just walk away and say, ‘sort yourselves out and make crews out of you lot, will ya’. And I done well, I had this er, Australian bloke Bluey Lacuda, he was a wonderful bloke, Bluey Lacuda. Why was he Bluey? Because he had ginger hair [laughter], yeah. Yeah, he was a good bloke, he was a good pilot, yeah.
CJ: So how did, Bluey and the rest of you, pick the rest of the crew? You had to make a crew of seven, is that right?
ET: Yeah, first of all what he picked, he picked Jock Simpson, he was a Scotsman come from Dundee, and then those two picked me and then we picked, I think, I forget who we picked then.
CJ: Was it the gunners?
ET: No, before that, they had the –
CJ: Engineer?
ET: Yeah, there was the engineer and then there was also the, the person who was the –
CJ: Wireless operator?
ET: Yes, seven people in the crew, yeah.
CJ: And so did you train as a crew there or did you go somewhere else?
ET: Er, we went, trained, yeah, we did train there I think, yeah. Yeah, we trained there.
CJ: And this was Moreton in the Marsh, you said?
ET: Yeah.
CJ: And how did it come about for you to be posted to a squadron once you’d completed the training?
ET: I don’t know who told, who posted us there, but we went there. We could have gone, nah, I think they gave us the option, you could go to 50 or 61, because there was two of those on that airfield, so we went to 61. No, my pilot was a wonderful bloke. Only a little bloke but he was a good pilot. I mean, he said to me, ‘you’ve got the knack of flying, you better have a few practice flights’, and I did. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah. I should, I should have been a pilot.
CJ: And what was the Lancaster like to fly?
ET: Er, once you got it in the air [laughter], it was alright, but I took off the first time and I went there, and I went there, and I went there, and old Bluey said, ‘put your foot down, the left foot down on that metal bar will you please and get back’, [laughter] and we got back again and we got in the air and he took over [laughter].
CJ: And how long was it then, before you went on your first operation?
ET: About, oh, about two months I reckon. Yeah, I think the first one we went to was Cologne, but on one occasion, we got a hit coming back and old Bluey said, ‘I don’t know whether we’ll get back to Skellingthorpe, do you?’ I said, ‘I know we won’t, but I do know somewhere we can go’. We went down to Kent, so we landed there. Big, long runway.
CJ: Was that Manston?
ET: Yeah, yes, that was it.
CJ: So what condition was the aircraft in then when you landed?
ET: Er, two engines had gone, well they could repair them I s’pose, but they was gone. He could’ve, I reckon he might’ve got up there, I don’t know, it wasn’t worth taking the chance if we could land there at Manston, yeah.
CJ: And do you remember any other particular raids that you went on?
ET: Er, went to Hamburg – nasty. Alright, we’re saying how we caught it all alight, but er, no they gave us a hammering, they did. No, a lot of them gave us a hammering, and I was in the front.
CJ: So what was it like when you were on an operation then, for a bomb aimer, do you want to talk us through it? From, like, how you found out where you were going and how you prepared for it?
ET: Yeah, we met usually in the morning or afternoon, and they told you where you were gonna go, and er, told you quite a lot about the town you’re gonna go to, or the place you’re gonna go to, and that was it. Then, alright I never went to Berlin, but I know a bloke who did, a crew who did, they bailed out over Berlin, and this one bloke, I knew him, he was in another plane and he bailed out. He got to the ground, he didn’t see his mates in the crew, but they got hold of him, all the people like, people in London, and they were gonna hang him to a lamp-post. And he said a policeman came along with a gun and herded the people out and just arrested me, type of thing, so he saved his life. Yeah, but don’t care what you say, we was all afraid.
CJ: Mm. So then you found out, in the afternoon, where you were going, how was it decided what bomb load you carried?
ET: Er, I used to talk to the person who was the, who did I say, before?
CJ: The armourer?
ET: Yeah. We used to have a chat and we’d decide. Mostly it’s fourteen thousand, yeah, so -
CJ: What, there were different bomb loads, different mixtures of bombs that you carried?
ET: Oh yeah, yeah, there were different types. We used to work it out.
CJ: So you usually carried what, a four thousand pound cookie? A big one?
ET: Yeah
CJ: And –
ET: Ten, we used to carry ten. Ten one thousand pounders, yeah. I’ll tell you what I didn’t like though, really, one of the – I did know him – he was flying, I think he was an air gunner, he was flying this other plane and we were going on this raid, I forget which raid it was. And he just said, ‘oh no, I’m not going’, and he just stepped down. He said ‘I’m not going’, I said, ‘you are, get in’, he said ‘I’m not going’, and he wouldn’t go! So I said, ‘fair enough, you can go LMF then’, lack of moral fibre. Yeah, so that’s what happened to him, and I didn’t like that ‘cause they was all volunteers. Yeah.
CJ: So how many operations did you go on?
ET: Eleven. No, it’s a matter of luck. Luck, luck, luck.
CJ: And after the eleventh then, how come you didn’t do any more after that?
ET: Because the war stopped, it stopped. When was it, that it stopped. We was, er, they told old Bluey, ‘you’re gonna go over to Australia, taking your crew with you, because the war is still on out there, against those’. So we was getting all ready to go, and we was all ready to go, and they dropped the atom bomb, didn’t they, and that was the end of that.
CJ: So what was life like on the base, what was the food like and what did you get up to when you were between operations?
ET: Kicking a ball about [laughter], no, I thought I was good at football but I had a rude awakening. Old Jock Simpson, a Scotsman, we were kicking the ball about and he come over, he took over, he was a bloody good player, he was. He said he played for Dundee [laughter], he was good, yeah. Me and him didn’t get on though.
CJ: And did you socialise much with the other crews, or did you –
ET: Oh yeah –
CJ: - keep to yourselves?
ET: Oh no, they had WAAFs there [laughter], yeah, oh yeah.
CJ: So how much time did you have? I suppose it depended on the weather, the time between the operations?
ET: Yeah, that’s how it was really.
CJ: Umm hmm.
ET: Time between the operations, yeah.
CJ: So then the war ended, the bomb was dropped –
ET: When was it, when did the war end, was it the eighth of April, or – yeah, that’s when it stopped.
CJ: So were you demobbed straight after that?
ET: No
CJ: Or did you stay in the Air Force for a while?
ET: No I stayed in the Air Force. I didn’t get demobbed ‘til eighty-seven.
CJ: Forty-seven.
ET: Forty-seven, yeah.
CJ: So what were you doing then after, between the end of the war and up to forty-seven?
ET: I was going round all the radar stations, taking them on the range and showing them how to fire a rifle. Then I went round Norfolk, went all the way round to – first of all to the Isle of Wight, but then I came back to this place down here.
CJ: Somewhere in Kent is it, Lid –
ET: Datling.
CJ: Datling, Maidstone, ok. Sorry, I think I missed a bit out because we went off on another track. Can I just come back to the bit about where you’re going on an operation, and you’ve found out where you’re going, and you’ve been told what your bomb load would be. Can you tell me how you went on from there, to actually going on the raid and how your job, er –
ET: My job –
CJ: – was carried out on the operation.
ET: To check everything, if it was loaded properly but er, always used to be alright.
CJ: So, you checked with the armourers on the ground that the bombs were correctly loaded and shackled.
ET: Yeah [pause], but I’ve got to say, I was scared, no good saying anything different.
CJ: So, once you’d got up in the air then, what was your job before you got to the target?
ET: Map reading, not sitting right in the front of the aircraft, then when we come up, I used to more or less take over. [pause] Sometimes, depends where we was going we used to chuck stuff out of the, you’ve heard of it, window?
CJ: Window, is it the aluminium strips to fool the radar?
ET: Yeah, we had a load of blinds up there. I used to do that, but once we got up near the target I used to take over.
CJ: So can you describe what you actually did then, as you were running up to the target?
ET: I’d say, ‘Skipper, I’ve got the target in sight. Right, steady [pause], steady, left, left, steady’, oh, I forgot to open bomb doors! [laughter]
CJ: So you, yeah, you’ve already got the bomb doors open, hopefully [laughter]
ET: Yeah
CJ: So how did you sight on the target then, you had a bomb sight to work with?
ET: Oh yeah. When you’re training, you’ve got a bomb sight mark nine. When you’re actually flying on operation, you’re at mark fourteen. Very good bomb sight. Yeah, I used to be pretty good really.
CJ: So how did you actually identify the target and then decide when to drop the bombs?
ET: Well they used to give the bomb aimer a little map beforehand and that’s when he sorted it all out. And yeah, it was alright.
CJ: So, did they drop markers ahead of you, on the target for you?
ET: Oh yeah, it was all marked when we saw it, had markers.
CJ: So, then you’re running up to the target, and through the bomb sight, and then how do you decide exactly when you release the bombs?
ET: It is down to the bomb aimer, he decides I should hit it from here and then he releases it, and I believe I hit it on most occasions, yeah.
CJ: So were you able to see the bombs hitting to know where they’d gone?
ET: The rear gunner used to. Used to ask him and he’d tell us.
CJ: And did you have to take photographs?
ET: Oh yeah.
CJ: Umm. So, then what, after you’d dropped bombs, what were you up to before you got back to base?
ET: Well I used to sit there, sit in the front, and just more or less keep an eye on map reading, because I didn’t have confidence in the navigator [laughter], I didn’t. I said, ‘Jock, you know we’re going alright?’ he said, ‘’course we are’, ‘I know we’re not!’ And he oh, he really had the arse on then.
CJ: So, once you got back to base, then what, did you have to have a debriefing?
ET: Oh yeah. Once you got back you had a debriefing and they told you then, they knew more or less, they told you exactly what it was all about. Yeah, so you thought ‘oh, that’s all over’, but it could happen again the next day, it could, but it only happened once. But that’s the thing.
CJ: So, then you said you were demobbed in forty-seven, so what were you doing after that, did you manage to find a job straight away?
ET: Yep, well, butcher’s boy [laughter], that was alright. Nah, I was gonna go and be a postman. I went up there to take this test, I took it, I done alright and then my Dad said, ‘I’ve got a job for you’. Oh yeah, one of his clients you know, he said he reckoned he could do with a boy like me [laughter], I couldn’t say nothing, that was it.
CJ: So, whereabouts was the butcher’s?
ET: Shepherds Market.
CJ: Yes.
ET: Now you musn’t say you ever been to Shepherds Market, people will get the wrong idea. [laughter]
CJ: And did you have anybody well-known that came to the shop?
ET: Oh yeah, she’s told you already.
CJ: Do you want to tell us?
ET: What, come in the shop?
CJ: Any famous people?
ET: David Niven came, he was one of our customers. Er, what’s her name, what’s her name? [whispered]
CJ: I think somebody mentioned Anna Neagle?
ET: Yeah, Anna Neagle, yeah. I used to deliver to her, she lived in Park Lane. I used to deliver, she was on about the third floor and on one of the walls, like, out there she had her picture, yeah.
CJ: So were you still playing football at this time?
ET: Yep.
CJ: Who were you playing for?
ET: Battersea United
CJ: And what league were they in and how well did they get on?
ET: They were a good team. Because I became the captain [laughter] and they had to be a good team. Ask her, June?
CJ: So how long did you go on playing football for?
ET: Oh, [background noise] about a couple of years I s’pose
CJ: And what about the butchering, how long did you stick with that for?
ET: I was there when I was 14, 17, three and a half years, I think.
CJ: And so, what were you doing after that?
ET: Well I went, started going in the Air Force.
CJ: Yeah, sorry, after the war when you, in forty-seven, you said you were demobbed, so were you back to butchering then?
ET: No, I went and worked at London Transport.
CJ: Ok, and what were you doing there?
ET: They was advertising, well you’ve seen them, bills across the track, y’know, and up the escalator, on the trains and all that. And anyway, I always wanted to be the boss so, I became the boss. [laughs]
CJ: And how long did you stay with London Transport?
ET: Only forty years.
CJ: Only forty years.
ET: Yeah.
CJ: So was that up to retirement?
ET: Yes.
CJ: Ok, and what about the rest of the crew that you flew with, did you keep in touch with them after the war?
ET: I did in the beginning. We went to, he become a, a quarter master, yeah, he got made up, old Bluey. He was a flight sergeant but he become a [pause], he was pushed up to the next one anyway. Quarter – what they call them? Was it quarter master?
CJ: So what, he stayed in the Air Force, or he was –
ET: He went back to, he went back to, er, Australia. But we went to Australia, didn’t we June? [background noise]
CJ: So, this work at London Transport, I think there was some link with football, is that right?
ET: Correct, yes. Yep.
CJ: And what was it?
ET: Well, they wanted you to play football, and you kind of get a bit of a reputation in front of you, and people come, come after you, they do.
CJ: But I think you were working nights at London Transport, is that right? Was there a link with the football?
ET: No, that was alright. It wasn’t really but, I thought, if you’re on nights, you get more money.
CJ: And you said you’d been playing for a local team, did you have any trials with any big teams?
ET: Yep. Fulham.
CJ: And how did that work out?
ET: They wanted me, they signed me on.
CJ: So, you were playing for Fulham?
ET: I played for Fulham for a while, yeah, yep, but I realised I wasn’t as good as I thought I was when I got mixed up with them. They were really good, yeah.
CJ: And, er, how old were you when you stopped playing football, do you remember?
ET: Thirty, yeah.
CJ: So, after all these years at London Transport, did you retire after that or did you go to another job?
ET: No, I went part-time job, didn’t I? I was looking for, I was still looking for work, yeah, driver.
CJ: And what company were you driving for, what were you driving?
ET: I went and got a job, you told me, didn’t you? She said, ‘Dad, I’ve seen an advert in the paper, they want a taxi driver down at [pause], down at Eastchurch. So, I went down there and the bloke, it was only a small place, he said, ‘oh yeah’, he said, ‘do you know London?’ I said, ‘yeah, of course I do’. He said, ‘well I don’t like it, I don’t like going to London’, he said, ‘you’ll be ideal then for it’. He said, ‘and also, we’ve got a contract to take these naughty people up to the prison, or up to the court’. Used to take them, well they’ve got three prisons down there now, but they had two then. But yeah, it was alright. [pause] I know – [background noise]
CJ: So how did you come to meet your lovely wife, Ernest, was that through football as well?
ET: No, this time it was through cricket. I didn’t realise she was, took a liking to me, so she decided she liked me so, er, that’s how it happened.
CJ: And how long have you been married now?
ET: Sixty-two years. Yeah.
CJ: And –
ET: It don’t seem a day too long.
CJ: [laughs] As the song goes. So, coming back to Bomber Command, how do you think you, and other people who were in Bomber Command, were treated after the war?
ET: Not very good [pause] no, not very good
CJ: Do you want to expand on that?
ET: Well, we was all made more or less redundant and then, er, they gave – you’ve got to do something while you’re in the RAF and I thought this is a chance for me, I couldn’t drive and I thought this is a chance, I’ll get to learn to drive. When I got there, being interviewed, they said what would you like to do. ‘I’d like to be a driver’, they said, ‘sorry, all those places are taken, you can be a –‘ [pause], [laughs], I forget what they said after I got back. But, er –
CJ: And what about recognition of Bomber Command now, I think you said that you’d been up to the new memorial in London?
ET: Yeah, I think more of it now. Oh yeah.
CJ: And did you just visit the memorial, or were you there for the opening?
ET: We was there for the opening.
CJ: So I gather you had a presentation yesterday, of the Légion d’Honneur. Can you tell me about how you were picked for that, and how you were told about it, and where the presentation was?
ET: We had the presentation in Sittingbourne, in a great big hall down there and it was very enjoyable. The person who, er, gave me it was the mayor, the mayoress really, and yeah it was alright. Lot of people, a lot of people, I was surprised. A lot of people went there who, well I don’t know, I’m more popular than I thought! [laughs] Yeah, so I don’t know why they picked me out, I don’t know, but they did pick me out, so I must have been doing alright [background noise] Pardon?
CJ: So, who do you think nominated you then for this, this award?
ET: Well I assume it was the British Legion. I was surprised.
CJ: And were any other people being given the same award or was it just for you, yesterday?
ET: Just for me yesterday.
CJ: Well, congratulations on that. Ok, well thank you very much for talking to us today Ernest, it’s been a real pleasure.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Ernset Townsend
Creator
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Chris Johnson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATownsendE170207
PTownsendE1702
Format
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00:42:49 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Ernest was born in Marylebone, London. He tells of his childhood, how he helped his father on his milk round and became a butcher's boy at Shepherds Market before serving in the Air Training Corps. He joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 17 and a half. He tells of his joy at flying Tiger Moths, and his wish to be a pilot, and his posting to 61 Squadron flying in Lancasters. Ernest mentions Lack of Moral Fibre, and recounts the experience of another crewman who bailed out over Berlin, where he was arrested before he could be hanged by the local villagers. Ernest completed 11 operations, including Cologne and Hamburg. He also tells of what preparations were made for bombing runs, and how he did his job as a bomb aimer. Before being demobbed in 1947, Ernest spent time going around all the radar stations, doing rifle training. He then tells of his love of football, including playing opposite a former Dundee United Player and how, after the war, he signed for Fulham, playing only briefly, driving prisoners to court or prison and then working for London Transport for forty years. Ernset Townsend was awarded the Legion d’Honneur in 2017.
Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
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1947
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Germany
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Language
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eng
61 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
fear
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
lynching
radar
sport
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1159/11718/PTillbrookEHA1603.1.jpg
537662c74ac95ce55720fa05a8210f7d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1159/11718/ATillbrookEHA160105.2.mp3
c4544032c3a8eac3b0d330f2e10c7de6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Tillbrook, Ernie
Ernest Hector Angelo Tillbrook
E H A Tillbrook
Ernest Hector Angelo Pedrazzini
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Ernest Tillbrook (b. 1923, 188677, Royal Air Force), documents and photographs. He flew operations with 431 Squadron as a flight engineer.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ernie Tillbrook and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Tillbrook, EHA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Ok. So this is Pam Locker and I’m interviewing Ernest Hector Angelo Pedrazzini.
ETP: Pedrazzini.
PL: Pedrazzini. Which was his birth name and service name but later changed to Tillbrook, at his home at xxxxx, in Hull on the 5th of the 1st 2016 at 11 o’clock. Well, Ernie, can I start by just saying an enormous thank you.
ETP: Sorry?
PL: Could I start by saying an enormous thank you to you on behalf of the Bomber Command Memorial Trust for sharing your story with us.
ETP: Very kind of you. Thank you.
PL: So if we could just start, just before we started the recording you were telling me a little bit about your father. Perhaps that would be a great place to start.
ETP: Well my father was Italian. My mother was very English. So it was a little bit of a mix up. However, my father really lived his life in the trade. Restaurant trade. Eventually, because he was a naturalised Italian rather than British he went to, in the army. The Italian army. Unfortunately, I can’t find much about what happened. All I know is that he never, hardly ever received his payments because he had enough money from England. So he paid other army people to go and take his payments. Anyway, finally he was in the retreat of Caporetto which is a well known Italian retreat at the time. And there, somehow or other, he escaped. I don’t think he escaped so much as walked out of a prison camp with about thirty thousand prisoners. From there on, being a son with insufficient knowledge of what my father was doing I found that he eventually reached Russia or the Ukraine. He reached it by eating turnips and potatoes in the field and in effect pinching them. Anyway, he finally reached the Ukraine I think and luckily got a job is all I can say in, with a very rich — what one would call a [pause] head man in a big mansion. Unfortunately — he was very happy there but and had very good food and everything but of course at that time in Russia the Bolsheviks came in. And eventually the communists as they are known now. He then left and somehow or other without passport or any means of knowledge got to Moscow. And from Moscow he eventually got to Italy and found his family. His sister and presumably other members of the family. Finally he left Italy and reached England where of course his wife, my mother, and two sons were there. I’m a son of later birth. I was born, for some reason, nine years after my brothers were there. Now, shall I go on? From there on I suppose I come to Gillette’s. My first job after I left the, sorry, the school. And I had a very nice, I really enjoyed Gillette. It was one of the best companies you could be in at the time. However being young or foolish I wanted to be like my brother who was then in the British RAF. Having said that of course my brother got thrown out of the RAF because he was part Italian. It’s a long story. He became eventually a very [pause] sommelier in the Hyde Park Hotel. From there some very prominent air marshall or something said, ‘What’s a young man like you doing in the air force.’ Or whatever. Which was a little bit foolish but anyway my brother said, ‘Well I’d like to get back. And this air marshall, whatever he was, got him back in. But funnily enough in his records there’s always a name there to tell anybody that knew that he mustn’t be posted without permission of the commandant of the place. That’s the story of my brother. He eventually got into Bomber Command of course and he was with 637 Pathfinder force. Unfortunately, in August of ’44, just before I joined a squadron, he was shot down by the German Air Force and was killed. Funnily enough his bomb aimer — by the way my brother was an observer or navigator, his bomb aimer escaped. An Australian. He escaped somehow but tragically a few weeks later he was shot by a German patrol. So, that’s the general story of my brother. As far as I’m concerned, as I say being young and brash I decided that I had to go in to the air force. I could have been in a reserved occupation at Gillette’s but oh no. Brave Ernie Tillbrook or Ernie, sorry Pedrazzini at the time had to go into the air force. I joined a place somewhere in Victoria. One of these big offices. And there I was interviewed for all sorts of things which as far as I know I passed. But my final interview was with three dear old squadron leaders sitting at a table and I thought this is alright. I’m going to get through here. But oh no. They finally found that apparently I couldn’t see far enough from my eyes. Now, I’m not sure that anybody in an aircraft coming towards me I would know, be put off by somebody coming quite near me on my eye. Anyway, that was the story. So again I should have gone back to Gillette’s but oh no. I decided I’d go in to the — an ordinary airman as a flight mechanic. Which I did. I eventually got the wonderful, wonderful promotion as a leading aircraftsman which funnily enough I was prouder of that than any other promotion I took after. Anyway, that was in Wales. I had a nice time there. Eventually somebody asked quite a few of us at the time in Cosford, would we like to become flight engineers. So of course Charlie boy here goes again and volunteers to be a flight engineer. After a long story I eventually passed out as a flight engineer at — in Wales. St Athans in Wales. And that was the end of it. Eventually of course I went to 634 Squadron up in Yorkshire and passed out as a flight engineer on the Halifax’s. There, unbelievably, being a flight engineer I joined a crew who had been flying Wimpies and things for a long time. Of course there was no flight engineer so I had to join. People sometimes say to me, ‘Oh you must have all joined and been together and worked with each other.’ Forgive the expression but that’s complete balderdash. I went in to a large room where several of the other airmen were there and eventually I saw a funny looking chap with a pilot’s wings. Dear old Don and said, ‘Do you want a flight engineer?’ He looked at me and there must have been something in my face that he liked. He said, ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ in a real Canadian voice. And that was it. That’s how I became on Halifaxes at the beginning as the crew of, of course in those days, seven crew. So there it is. I eventually went to Croft which is a horrible place from the point of view of weather. And I can remember, if I may tell you the story, the Canadians there who allegedly were used to hard winters and lord knows what, they shivered. In fact, getting in to those terrible bunks we had they used to — one I can remember wore his pyjamas, his clothes, ordinary clothes and then his flying suit over the lot to try and keep warm. We did have a fire of some sort. One of these big fires but of course we never had enough coal. The only time we had any was when we scrounged some coal from somewhere or other. Having said all that of course I had an excellent time with the crew and as a sergeant and then I was with Halifaxes and we lived quite well. One or two odd spots which made me very nervous but we got through. Until eventually we went to Lancasters. Which of course despite the, one might say, the joy of the Halifax which seemed to be a much sturdier kite at the time we went to, on to Lancasters and I don’t know how in these days we ever transferred. Because with the Halifax we had Bristol engines and typically with the Lancaster we had Merlin engines, but that’s the time. We learned very quickly, and that was it. I completed the rest of the tour. Thirty one trips. And eventually left to go in to Transport Command on Yorks. Is that? I’ll go on?
PL: So, tell, tell me first of all what your job involved as a flight engineer.
ETP: As a flight engineer. I’m sorry. As a flight engineer I was, I was, in command. Well, I had charge of the engines with the cooperation, with the pilot who really was the one that was the master. But I would look after the engines, all the hydraulics, any other things. Flaps. Ailerons. Anything that went wrong it was my responsibility to see if I could do something. If we had a fire on board it was my responsibility, with the pilot to, to stop the engine. Hopefully. And we had a Graviner fire extinguisher, which again hopefully would stop it. We did have one accident. One of our aircraft had a fire while we were flying to [pause] I think Germany somewhere. But anyway again being press on Charlies we kept on with three engines. And my job then was to see that the petrol was in the right sequence and in the right order for carrying on with three engines. So, I think that’s basically what my job was. But, as I say, in general it was to look after the aircraft and its working throughout. Which was a job a bit different to the rest because really the pilot was the pilot and obviously controlled the aircraft. The bomb aimer was the bomb aimer. And which, by the way I often did the bomb aiming when it was in cloud. And then of course you had the navigator who for obvious — doing the navigation. The wireless operator for doing the wireless operating with various jobs of looking out for German codes. And finally those poor devils, or at least particularly the rear gunner who had the job obviously on the rear guns. I don’t know how anybody [pause] and my rear gunner was called Hal who was an excellent pianist, but however, he stayed in those things for sometimes up to nine hours in the cold. I don’t know how anybody could do that. The mid-upper gunner was in a similar position but at least he could occasionally move down fairly easily, so it wasn’t quite so bad. I think that’s the crew as I knew it.
PL: You said that in cloud you used — sometimes when there was cloud you did the bomb aiming. So why? Why was that? Why was it specifically when it was in cloud?
ETP: If you were looking for a target then sometimes the target was covered by cloud so you couldn’t really find any point of aim. So what you did — you had various things. Gee and various navigational aids and you pinpointed as near as you could by means of the navigation aids where, where the target was. Purely guess work. Sometimes of course you could already see the pause] sometimes you could already see the markers from PFF planes through the, through the haze or through the cloud but if you couldn’t really see you just bombed. What should I say? Rather in hope than anything else that you could hit through the target. So there we are. Should I go on?
PL: Please do.
ETP: I ended, as I said before with thirty two trips. We all left each other. I did see my skipper some years after but as far as the rest of the crew we never saw them again. Just as a part of it my skipper, at one time, in his usual way managed to get into a Spitfire and practice with a Spitfire. Which of course he came too close where I was flying in a Lanc on another occasion and nearly shook the living daylights out of me because he was too close. From there on I went again to some place in Victoria in London. And a chap said, ‘Ah. Just the man we’re looking for. We want you to go to India.’ That scared the living daylights out of me because India was right in the whole thing. So I said, ‘Well are you sure? I thought I was going somewhere else.’ He looked up his papers. Typical RAF and said, ‘Oh I’m very sorry. You’ll be going to Transport Command.’ So anyway.
PL: So why was that?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: Why was that?
ETP: Why what? Well it was a mix up in names and I think they just saw me. Probably didn’t even recognise Pedrazzini anyway and thought I was another chap that had come in. How should I say? A bright looking man. No. And as I say luckily much to my happiness I eventually went to Riccall in York. To train as a, further train as a flight engineer on York aircraft which was really a transport aircraft with same engines. Merlin engines. And there I did many trips to India [pause] well India, Calcutta. I’m not sure now. One’s India. One’s Pakistan. But anyway, wherever it was I went there and did several trips backwards and forwards from England.
PL: What sort of things were you transporting?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: What sort of things were you transporting?
ETP: Oh. We were transporting all sorts. Mainly service people. One trip was very nice. We had a whole load of nurses. Which was excellent. But in general it was squaddies. No. I can’t call them squaddies can I? Army personnel flying and one particular incident by the way, if I may explain it, we were flying from London — from Gibraltar to London or to, sorry, to England and over — passing over I think the Massif in France and believe it or not we were up at seven thousand feet because we couldn’t fly higher than that because of the air. No oxygen. We were flying at seven thousand feet and suddenly — boom. We fell over three thousand feet. Now the Massif must be going somewhere near four thousand feet. I don’t know. Luckily I had a New Zealand skipper who had enough strength. I mean I was hopeless. I was just stuck on the ceiling. He was able to grab the stick and eventually managed to bring it back under control. I’m not sure to this day how because I was useless. As I say I was stuck on the ceiling. My navigator was just trying to hold himself on a seat and that was it. Eventually we got back. We got back and of course the first thing was — oh by the way, in getting back the first thing we brought back a bunch of Scottish Highlanders in their, and of course they were dressed to come back. They were khaki true but with, forgive me for saying — a skirt. I don’t know what the Scots would tell me about that. But anyway —
PL: Their kilts [laughs]
ETP: And as they came up of course it was quite a sight. All their, forgive the expression again, all their skirts flew up and, mind you I didn’t have time to look to see what was happening but to cut it short we landed in Bournemouth. Somewhere near Bournemouth and of course me being, you know to, I went, I did honestly try and see some. There was one poor little squaddie at the back who got a special pass to come back to England and unfortunately the stick which holds the undercarriage when it’s still rose up and hit him. But anyway we managed to do that and we got back, and of course I got back kissing the ground and lord knows what when somebody came up and said, ‘Did you know your tail’s missing?’ Well the York had a mid-fin. And that was made of steel rods and canvas. Well that had flew off. But anyway we hadn’t noticed it obviously. And, finally, as a final story forgive me for saying this a [pause] what do we call the people that look, you know, careful you’re not stealing anything from the —
PL: Security?
ETP: Customs man. Customs man. Because we had those. Oh yes. We had those. We had to be careful. Anyway, customs man came up and took a look and said, ‘Oh you’ve had a bit of a trouble.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Don’t go up there.’ There was a ladder to go up. He said, ‘Oh yes. Why not?’ I said, ‘Well, just don’t go up there. It’s a bit mucky.’ Oh no. He couldn’t believe that. So up he gets and if, how do I put it, he then found that he had a handfuls of excrement from the elsan which we had, which was the only means of toilet we had in the plane had all flown up. I’m sorry about this but there it was. That was a true story. And if you customs people will forgive me we were very happy about it [laughs] but I’d better not say anymore.
PL: So, so what —
ETP: But then eventually I carried on.
PL: Can I just stop you before we move on?
ETP: Yes.
PL: Because I’m just curious to, to, what was the cause of the loss of altitude then? What caused the near accident?
ETP: Well of course most people say its, what do they call it, anyway basically it’s the downdraft of air. People say it’s all sorts of mysterious but frankly it’s a downdraft. Particularly if you’re over hilly country. Or mountainous country. You get a sudden downdraft. There’s nothing you can do and remember these kites were big things like they are today and we just went down. So down draft is the true explanation.
PL: And the, and the chap at the back who got hit by the lever from the —
ETP: Yeah the little chap, the little —
PL: Was he all right?
ETP: I call him squaddie, forgive me. Little army chap. I think he was going back special leave and he was sitting right at the back quiet as a mouse and the poor little devil — this big stick which is used to jam the undercar, wheels underneath which should be there [pause] he just, it wasn’t fixed and it just came up and turned around and hit him. Not too badly I think but obviously we had to take him back to the medics. I think that’s it.
PL: So losing the tail fin. That was part of dropping so —
ETP: Well the York — the Lancaster as you know had two whatevers, sorry about this, had two but for the York, to give it more stability it had this centre fin which is only a canvas and whatever and of course that just ripped off. But of course I was to eager to get away. I didn’t realise it until somebody said, ‘Oh you’ve lost your tail plane.’ [laughs] Sorry. There we are.
PL: I’m interested Ernie just to go back a little bit to a couple of things that you talked about. The first thing is that you said that you were in Lancasters and you were nearly hit by your old pilot in a Spitfire. So how did that come about because you’ve told me that you were in Halifaxes?
ETP: Oh sorry.
PL: From Croft.
ETP: Unbeknown to me at the time Don Hagar, our pilot, managed to get a trip or managed to get, before he went back to Canada, managed to get a trip or joined a Spitfire squadron and so I don’t know to this day how he did it but anyway typical Don Hagar he realised that I was flying a Lanc with another pilot and of course the temptation was just too great. He just swept so near me. Too near for me as far as I was concerned and said, ‘Hello,’ in fact out of the cockpit.
PL: So what was the job?
ETP: I wasn’t sure I liked it at the time. Pardon?
PL: What were you actually doing?
ETP: Oh we were doing a cross country check for some reason.
PL: Right.
ETP: It was after my tour, and I was joe’d as a flight engineer to go with some other pilot to do a cross country check or something. I can’t remember now what it was but just to fly and see that the aircraft was ok and we landed back.
PL: And you nearly didn’t.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: And you nearly didn’t. You nearly didn’t. Because of the —
ETP: Oh yeah. Well that’s what I thought. He was probably further away than I thought. I thought that’s typical Don. Get out of it [laughs]
PL: How funny.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: So Ernie, what about, what about your tours. You haven’t spoken very much about the tours that you did.
ETP: The?
PL: The tour that you did.
ETP: Oh. Well in those days — 1944, one must remember that frankly it was getting towards the end of the war. Not that everybody realised it at the time. We still had great trouble. We did trips. The first trips we did were possibly in relation to the D-Day landings and we, in other words we were doing daylight trips to Calais and various French ports but of course that was in the late summer so of course there was more light then. So as I say we were doing more daylights which were allegedly were easy [laughs] but quite frankly a lot of planes, a lot of aircraft were lost at that time because the Germans had plenty of flak, you know and night fighters at the time over there. But eventually of course it began to get darker and then we started the long trips to people like, to places like the Ruhr. Castop Rauxel which is one of the petrol places. I never did a Berlin trip but one long trip we did was to [pause] sorry. Munich. Munich. That was a very long trip. Nearly ten hours. Which was pretty tiring as you can imagine. Funnily enough there was raids on Munich before which we weren’t in, and they had terrible time. They were shot down, a number of them. But rightly or wrongly by the time we got to Munich there was hardly any defence at all. I think the people which I suppose one might say, poor people then but that never occurred to me as such. We, we bombed from about nineteen thousand, twenty thousand feet and had hardly any flak at all ‘til we came back. Then it got a bit dodgy as we got into Germany deep and of course the fighters started to come up. I think once we were hit by flak. I was very nervous. Hit by flak but as I say really didn’t have a scratch. The only thing was of course, typical RAF, having done all these daylight raids that was considered to be much easier than going to Germany and all the rest of it, which is a load of typical RAF bosh. Anyway, instead of doing thirty trips, which was enough, they made us do thirty two trips. And why? Because some boffin or other in the RAF decided that we wouldn’t just get a number of points for a trip. We would get a point in order of the trips. In other words a trip to France would only be two points. A trip to Germany would be three points etcetera etcetera. So then that is why we did thirty two trips and those two trips made me very nervous at the end. But again, I got through alright so, and as I said just now lucky enough to get onto transport command. Which is quite hairy in its own way. Shall I explain?
PL: Yes. Please do.
ETP: We used to land in Libya. Castel Benito. That was our first landing. From Castel Benito we went to Egypt. From Egypt we went to a place called Shaiba in the desert. And from Shaiba we’d land in Karachi. Which is by another name now which I’m not sure. Is it Mumbai or something like that? Anyway, that was Karachi and sometimes we went over to Calcutta. I landed in Calcutta once just before the monsoon and that was a most horrible experience. There was no water. There was nothing. But, anyway, I got over that. And of course at the time there were a lot of riots you had to be careful of particularly in Calcutta. Because as you know the Indian and Pakistan people began to riot. Mostly amongst themselves rather than to the Raj. I eventually made a trip, oh yes, that was a trip worth knowing. If I can think of the name. No. Forget that bit. I’ve forgotten it. It out in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a holiday place now.
PL: The Canaries or [pause] the Canaries or something like that.
ETP: The Azores.
PL: The Azores.
ETP: Yes. The Azores. That was rather interesting. We landed in the Azores. You had to find it. If you weren’t careful you’d miss it. Anyway we found it there and the strange thing was that as we were going in our van to the airport where we were staying for the night — the big red crosses on the doors. And of course in those days of course it was suffering from disease. Disease which I’ll think of later. Anyway, that was —
PL: Not the plague.
ETP: The good thing about the Azores, sorry is what I was, we were all to bring back all sorts of goods free of custom. Forgive me for saying but particularly silk stockings for the ladies. Anyway, there you are. That was our one trip to the Azores. And that was it really.
PL: So what were you — why were you going to the Azores?
ETP: For some, I think they had a base there for something. Partly an air force base but I think it was also an army base. And presumably went out to do food or whatever, every so often. I think we did have, yes we had, we were loaded with big crates of food and mail and stuff like that which we took back to the Azores.
PL: Fantastic.
ETP: Now, you carry on.
PL: Now, something else I wanted to, just before we move on from your, from the tour that you did was there anything else that you wanted to talk about your tour. Any particular experience.
ETP: The what? Sorry.
PL: About your tours. Your thirty two trips. Anything that you wanted to —
ETP: Well I’d like to but typically, you know, we went through the tour. Basically we escaped without a scratch but of course we had one or two nasty trips in, I think it was Castop Rauxel where the flak got us and its very frightening. I think I was in a Halifax at the time. It’s very frightening to hear all the shrapnel tinging against the side. Oh — one beautiful trip we had, if I may put it that way, was to Norway. One of the big towns in Norway. And we went from here which was England obviously and Don was Darlington sorry, well near Darlington. At Croft. And we flew at a level of I suppose about three, three thousand feet all the way. It was lovely. It was a sunny day. And you could see all the Lancasters, no, sorry they was Lancasters at the time, we could see all the Lancasters going across, and our poor bomb aimer, our skipper was a bit of a devil, said to the bomber, ‘Hey, come out here. Have a look at this.’ Well I was already looking. I could see what it was. But this devil of ours, Don, the pilot he must have been almost at sea level because you could almost see the spray coming from the propellers. Well, of course when poor old McKenzie, the navigator came out of his little hole, hut and looked out in to the sea it scared him like nothing on earth. He quickly got back and said, ‘You’re too low.’ Which wouldn’t have been much help anyway. But anyway we weren’t too low and suddenly as I say the fantastic flight and seeing everybody rise up to about ten — ten or twelve thousand feet and we bombed Stavanger or somewhere in Norway. Unfortunately, the tragedy was we, well bombed it because it had various factories and things on it but unfortunately one of the bombs and I don’t know whose, I hope to God it wasn’t ours, hit a school. One can only say It was part of war I suppose but it was very tragic. Other than that it was one of the wonderful, most wonderful trips I ever had in a Lancaster at the time. Yes, I’d love to say we were very brave and we were shot all over the place but quite frankly apart from when one aircraft, one engine failed we had a pretty good trip. Sorry about that [laughs] I’d like to think of all the others but I’d have to go through all the papers and try to think of it.
PL: No. No. That’s fantastic.
ETP: There were one or two remarks in the thing I made in the thing I made about high level of flak. Low level of flak. All sorts of things like that.
PL: So just a couple of things that I’d like to go back on that you mentioned. What are Wimpies?
ETP: [laughs] sorry. Wellingtons. My apology.
PL: Not at all.
ETP: Wimpy was taken from a cartoon in the paper showing Wimpy whatever he was and from then on of course they were called Wimpies.
PL: Fantastic. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about your, when you were in Croft what sort of things did you do in your free time?
ETP: Yes. We visited —
PL: Darlington.
ETP: Darlington. Yes. It was a very good, nice life in Darlington. Everybody was very friendly. But then I think all Yorkshire or northern people are friendly. But anyway I can remember one point we went to a cafe. And remember it was wartime. But anyway they did us well. I think we had a meal which consisted of dinner, no, what’s the first thing you have at dinner?
PL: Starter?
ETP: Starter, dinner and —
PL: Pudding.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: Pudding.
ETP: Yeah. Pudding. All on one plate [laughs] It was wonderful. Yes. I can always remember that. They really did us proud I suppose. But we did that. In general we went around. We saw York. We went to — yes we had a big ceremony at the cathedral. What’s the other cathedral?
PL: York Minster.
ETP: Yeah. York Minster but then there’s — was it —
PL: Durham Cathedral.
ETP: Sorry?
PL: Durham cathedral.
ETP: Durham cathedral. I think we had a, there was a plate put in for us. So we had various little trips like that to various places. I quite liked Darlington. It was [pause] yes but in general of course we were up in the north. And it was quite odd for the Canadians who had never been — well some had been to strange places as well I suppose. But in general I did like it there. And Croft. Well Croft was a typical out station. We had a good canteen thing there. Funnily enough, if I may say, and I hope it doesn’t upset anybody, we were with a French squadron. The Alouette. Our own squadron was the 471. The —
PL: I have it here.
ETP: Iroquois Squadron, sorry. I’ll think of it in a minute. Yeah our own squadron was the Iroquois but there wasn’t very much friendliness. There was friendliness between one or two of the people but in general there wasn’t much friendliness between the French and the Canadians. Yeah. I know they were all Canadians but you know what I mean. So, my memories, in general of Croft is going to the local farms with the young lasses. Nothing wrong with, in getting bread and onion sandwiches because there was nothing else much. And we went, you know, went out to, go off to go to a flight. We’d go along to the local farm. And as I remember two young lasses used to come in and feed us with this big hunks of bread. Lovely bread. And onion. And that got us off to a good start on the aircraft. As I say unfortunately with Croft, I’ve been around to various places — I’ll sing a song to you in a minute if I dare.
PL: Yes.
ETP: And you know I I did go around to various places and saw people but it was Yorkshire and quite honestly as a Londoner, very much, I didn’t know much of what else was going on in Yorkshire. I enjoyed what there was there but other than that. Yes. We used to sing songs. Horrible ribald songs during the time.
PL: Go on Ernie. Give me one of your ribald songs.
ETP: Dare I?
PL: Yes.
ETP: I can’t sing now. You know that. You can hear.
PL: It doesn’t matter.
ETP: Well I’ll just — it’s rather a sad one. “A flight engineer he was dying, as beneath his Lanc he did lay, to the engineers gathered around him, these last parting words did he say. Take the crank shaft out of my kidney, take the con rod out of my brain, out of my back take the cylinder and assemble the engine again.” Bom bom. Sorry about that. I told you it was a nasty one.
PL: Dear.
ETP: There was more to it than that but —
PL: Lots of black humour, lots of black humour I would imagine.
ETP: Oh very much black humour I’m afraid but that was the way it was.
PL: Of course. Of course.
ETP: We got up all the tricks you see on the films of jumping over chairs and squalor. When I — more on Transport Command. We had a lovely billet in Holmsley South. Beautiful old house. With a bar. Typical. Obviously a bar. But really when I think about it, very often on a so-called dining in night which was very formal or should have been. The bar would be swimming with beer on the floor. Everybody would be doing all sorts of tricks. Lord knows what. And then suddenly it was all stopped one day because the, what would he be, above a squadron leader. Wing commander I suppose or maybe above, came in and saw what was happening, oh no, he came in and said, ‘This much stop. You must behave like gentleman.’ And then unfortunately the squadron leader said, ‘Oh I’ll help you out, sir,’ and immediately the, he slipped over the beer and landed on his backside. Which didn’t help. After that what was called dining in nights, dining in nights were very formal. I was just lucky. Normally the lowest officer, you know, pilot officer or something would have to give the speech at the end. Thank goodness I just escaped it. Some poor little chap of a pilot officer had to give a speech. And of course they were all dressed up. Obviously we were only dressed up in our number ones but the army people would come up in their full regalia and I think the [pause] the what did they call him? Not squadron leader.
PL: Wing commander.
ETP: Wing. No. One above. Air — [pause] I’m not, anyway, let’s say the wing commander. He, he wasn’t a happy man having slipped on the beer. Oh yes. We were only allowed a sherry after that. So there we are. We became gentlemen once again. Hopefully. There we are dear.
PL: That’s wonderful. There’s two other little things I wanted to ask that are sort of personal questions really but obviously you’re, because of your nationality you — because of your nationality you’re unusual in the people that I’ve spoken to. Did you, with having an Italian name, did you experience any prejudice because of that?
ETP: Hardly any. I experienced lots more later which is, without going into it one of the reasons I changed my name. But before that? In the air force. Yes. I had one. I can remember one chap when we were all in the hut. I was only a squaddie at the time. He got a bit niggly but everybody else jumped on him anyway. So, frankly no. I never suffered any. Unless you can say, we had the typical corporals and I hated corporals in general and at that time and he [pause] what did he do? I’ve forgotten what he did now. Anyway, the corporal came in demanding something or other. So being a big head myself I said, ‘You can’t do that corporal.’ Now I was only, I think I was leading aircraftsman at the time. So naturally he stood up and said, ‘I can do what I like.’ Well, I suppose I acted as a bit of a [pause] —
PL: Lawyer. Barrackroom lawyer.
ETP: Barrackroom. Thank you and told him in no uncertain times that, God knows how I knew the names but anyway told him he couldn’t do that. So, yeah, obviously otherwise I mean I never had any trouble that I can remember. Luckily. In fact, if anything, it got me on because people you can imagine when you’re going to say about the corporal, he’d be there, we’re all on parade and he’d be saying, ‘Jones.’ ‘Smith.’ And then suddenly he’d say, ‘Ped ra zzini.’ ‘Corporal. Pedrazzini.’ ‘You?’ Because I was auburn haired, very fair, typical I suppose one could say British boy and there — Pedrazzini.
PL: Lovely.
ETP: Anyway, I got away with it.
PL: How old were you then?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: How old were you then? In 1944.
ETP: Twenty. Twenty one. Twenty. Very brave. I don’t think. Anyway, yeah, no, on the whole again I had a very good time. I was glad I went in. I was even happier because really I wanted to follow my brother so I was happier that I was a flight engineer. But as I say before that I had quite a good time. I suppose if I’d have been lucky I would have eventually become a corporal. Lord help me. But anyway, you know, I got — I eventually got my sergeant. Obviously when, you automatically got that. And then, luckily in the Canadian I got flying officer. Pilot officer and flying officer. Very brave [laughs]
PL: You mentioned, you mentioned you brother who of course you sadly lost. But you said you had two brothers.
ETP: Yes.
PL: What did your other brother do?
ETP: Jimmy? Funnily enough he was in the Savoy hotel. He was a chef. A trainee chef in the Savoy hotel. The story goes that, in fact somewhere I’ve still got a bronze medal of the competitions they did. But rumour has it that he would have got a silver or a gold medal but two chefs or two trainee chefs were on the same thing and the trainee chef allegedly overcooked or left it on and blistered the fish that my brother had. But he died unfortunately. He was only thirty one. He was very young. Shame really. My other brother was in Clapham College which was a very high college. It was a Catholic college at that time. I’ve heard some of the tricks he got up to [laughs] but I won’t repeat them. But anyway he was very good and of course he could speak perfectly French and Italian. Which was really the tragedy when he got shot down. And yes, he — I think I’ve always regretted of course losing two brothers. Although one was ten years older and one was nine years older than me. Because I suppose the gap was when my mother, when my father went back to Russia and things. I’m not sure. If you work out the dates it all looks a bit odd but anyway yeah. It was a shame really.
PL: So how did your, how did your parents meet?
ETP: Ah. Believe it or not. In the catering. There was a place in Hyde Park. A very big restaurant. And it’s still there I think. It’s a bird sanctuary and something there now. Yeah. Well way back it was one of the places to parade around. I’m talking. I mean I didn’t know them but anyway way back. My mother was a Devon lass who for obvious reasons I suppose came to London which they all did if they could and met my father. And that was how they met. My mother of course in those days immediately stopped working. And my father went on to places like Oddonino’s, the Cafe Royal. All sorts of places like that. Places I can’t even think of now. Yeah it’s quite — my brother went. He was in a very good position. As I say you may have not heard of the Embassy Club which was with the old Prince of Wales and all that lot and the [pause] it’s gone. The chap who was in India. In charge of India. British chap. Anyway —
PL: Mont?
ETP: Got it? He was killed by the IRA.
PL: Was it Montgomery?
ETP: No. Not Montgomery.
PL: No. No. I always get them muddled up.
ETP: Anyway, anyway, he was killed by the IRA.
PL: I know who you mean.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: I know who you mean.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: Yes.
ETP: All that crowd. Him. The Prince of Wales. The old Prince of Wales. They were all in that crowd. My father used to hate them because they couldn’t leave until the last one had drunk his whatever. So it was pretty rough for people in a way but anyway that was all part of it. Silly. Isn’t it?
PL: Yes.
ETP: Mountbatten.
PL: Mountbatten hurray.
ETP: Mountbatten.
PL: I’m so glad you got it Ernie. I’m so glad you got it. I was wracking my brains.
ETP: Well as you can see I have lapses. I keep telling everybody when I can’t think of something. I say, ‘I’ll give you a ring at 2 o’clock at night and tell you what it is.’ Oh dear. I’m talking too much.
PL: Moving on, moving on to after the war. After you’d finished your service what happened to you then?
ETP: I went back to Gillette’s. By the way I’d been a, what did they call it? Jack of all trades and master of none I suppose. Yeah. I went back to Gillette’s but I felt then I couldn’t get on with my learning. You know my —
PL: Your training.
ETP: You’ve got to realise a lot of people had stayed in Gillette’s and they were getting this and that. Probably me but I thought I wasn’t getting there. So believe it or not I was a grocer. Now, this was in the, a grocer when there was rationing and everything so I made money. I was with a so called friend. Unfortunately. And we had a shop and eventually we got another shop. But it just didn’t work out. And it’s rather funny, just to, not to bore you but as far as I — we used to take three hundred pound a week. Now, that sounds ridiculous now. But in those days it was and I know when I got there and it must have been my wonderful voice or something we made four hundred pound a week. Which was a lot of money. Anyway, that’s it all ended pretty tragically. So believe it or not I went back to St Thomas’ Hospital. And I was a, I suppose they’d call it a technician now. In the early days of electronics. Yeah. So —
PL: How interesting. And you, are you able to tell me about your wife?
ETP: About?
PL: Your first wife.
ETP: Yes. That was a bit unfortunate. I lived in something buildings in Lambeth and let me say first of all I should never have left the air force. That was the tragedy. And anyway, yes, she was in the army or whatever they called it. What do they call them?
PL: In the WAAF. Was she in the —
ETP: Not the WAAF. The army part.
PL: Oh sorry.
ETP: Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
PL: I can’t remember.
ETP: She was that. So I don’t know. It all went wrong soon after. We went, we went through the Blitz. I went through the [pause] she was a warden, I was, no I wasn’t a warden I was a messenger or something. I was what? Nineteen. Eighteen nineteen. We went all through that. We had a fairly happy time but it just didn’t work out. Unfortunately we had two children. Which I’ve got two children now. Well not unfortunate. One’s a vicar and one’s a vicar’s wife. So what more could I ask?
PL: Absolutely.
ETP: I’m hoping I can get a good [laughs] no. No. I mustn’t say that [laughs] yeah. So yes I don’t know what to say really. I was probably a bit of a snob. Probably. And it just didn’t work out. There was further complications to which I can’t really go into it.
PL: No. no. difficult times. Let’s move on from that because that’s your personal, personal story.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: Going back to — I’m really interested to hear about your experience during the Blitz.
ETP: During the Blitz.
PL: Yes.
ETP: Oh wonderful. I was in Lambeth as I told you. Every so often we were showered with incendiaries. We had a big church. Unbelievable. It’s still there. Most of it. With a huge tower. Have you ever been down to near Waterloo? Well if you look through Kennington Road.
PL: My son lives on Kennington.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: My son lives on Kennington Road.
ETP: Really. He must be a rich man then.
PL: He’s not. He’s in a room [laughs] anyway tell me about —
ETP: Anyway, yeah. Well, your son will know it. There’s a big tower. It was an American built tower and at the top it had stars and stripes or something. And you’ll never believe it. Our warden’s post was underneath that lot. And well, we did the usual. Every night around about 5 o’clock [brrrr] thing and we used to dive in to there. And I, as a, I don’t think I was a warden. No. I was some sort of messenger or something. And there was this steeple, the huge steeple as I say but also there was a wooden steeple and that just went up in flames one day. A bomb hit. I was in, we were all in the shelter, again ridiculous really, when you think about it. One good bomb there the whole lot would have gone. And we were there one day and we were all trying to sleep as you did. And suddenly — boom. Right opposite there was a bomb. Luckily it was a small bomb. Of course brave Mr Tillbrook, no, Mr Pedrazzini at the time, came along and a chap got up and panicked completely. I remember it to this day. I don’t know how this happened, ‘Stop everybody,’ that was me. Stopped the whole lot. Because there was quite a crowd. There was two shelters. One here and one. And that stopped. As I say other than that one of our friends or at least he was a warden at the time. An older man. He went out into the middle of the road , playing about and suddenly he was surrounded by incendiaries , yeah at the time he was sort of dancing, ‘Look at me.’ You know playing about and he said, came around. The other thing was we had a rather —
PL: What happened to him?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: What happened to him?
ETP: He was alright [laughs] he got through. We went into this so-called shelter which was only a church entrance and luckily no big bomb hit it. Incendiaries hit it but no big bomb. We were saved on the whole thing because the people — wardens and myself and things like that we were able to take all the incendiaries away. Or see that we were. Used to cover them with sand or something [laughs] terrible. And they were all up in the church there but luckily we managed to get them all and save the whole place otherwise like all the other churches around it would have gone up in smoke. St George’s Church which was my Catholic church is St George’s Cathedral actually which is just along from Kennington we thought oh this is great nobody’s been hurt during the weeks. But suddenly May the 10th my birthday we had the biggest raid. One of the last raids luckily. The biggest raid And I think every church except this one went up in flames. So I got married in the place near the church because that had gone up in flames. So, Bishop Amigo Place it was called. But that was it. Another thing — I’m not boring you with all this am I?
PL: Not at all.
ETP: Another thing was in Lambeth which I think was [pause] not like Kennington Road. The next road. Westminster Bridge Road I think. There was a, what were commonly called a doss house. You know. You may have heard of them. Which is a great place. A lot of army people used to come in from Waterloo Station. Go there for a — I don’t remember how much it cost. A few shillings a night. But forgive me for saying but one of things, every man had, what can I call it? A pee pot. Sorry.
PL: A jam jar.
ETP: I can’t think of the other name for it. A gazunder some people used to call them. And anyway, a Hermann Goering bomb landed right in the middle of the place. It didn’t explode. It imploded. And the whole place, again, I’m sorry but, I can always remember we went — it was Christmas. It was one Christmas and my brother and I had been to sleep. We thought brave boys, we’d been sleeping in the house. The old house we had. What happened there? There was suddenly a [voom]. Anyway, we got up. Couldn’t see a thing ‘til we got around the corner and there was the old doss house. Whatever it was called. Quite a big place. And I’m sorry about this but it was surrounded by pots. As I say it had imploded rather than exploded which was probably lucky in many respects and it did affect, it was called Lambeth North Station and it affected there. It was so deep. It was a big Hermann Goering thousand pound bomb or something. I’m laughing about all this. It wasn’t very funny at the time. Anyway, I was ok.
PL: So all the pots were outside.
ETP: Yeah. I don’t know why. I’ve got a picture of them all sort of —
PL: How weird.
ETP: I don’t know why it did that. Where they went, but — and for months I was in the shelter and for months after people were coming from all sorts of places asking if they knew of [pause]. And of course it was almost impossible to know who was there and who wasn’t. I think there was some sort of record when you went in but —
PL: And presumably they were all lost.
ETP: Yes. Most of them were lost. Yes. I think most of them that were in there were lost. I can’t remember anybody. Excuse me. That got out particularly. But it was all a bit hazy at the time. There we were. You know. You can imagine. We got — suddenly saw this big crater.
PL: Yeah.
ETP: Anyway, there it is. But funnily enough all around wasn’t too bad. If it had exploded it would have devastated the whole place. But it imploded. Very deep implosion. So sorry about this. I’m boring you.
PL: Did you, did you — no. It’s absolutely fascinating. Did you —
ETP: By the way, I did say your son was probably a rich man and you said he wasn’t. Do you know where I lived in Lambeth Road which is a little bit away, they want one million something for a house. God knows what we paid. My mother paid. Or father paid for it. A few hundred probably. But there you are. That’s the way it’s gone.
PL: So during that time, during the Blitz.
ETP: Sorry.
PL: During the Blitz.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: Were you afraid, were you excited? Were you. How was it as a young man being involved with this extraordinary event?
ETP: Frightening but quite exciting in its way. As I say regular thing 5 o’clock at night. Around about five. Sometimes a bit later. Sometimes a bit earlier. The old [brrrr] the old things would go and my mother, my mother racing along. And suddenly as we were racing along a bomb came down. Not that near actually. I can always remember this, my mother laid flat on the ground and I think I laid flat but whatever but nothing happened because we were much further away than we thought. In a way we were lucky around about that time because we were right near the train station. One or two nasty places but on the whole we didn’t get too bad considering we weren’t quite in the middle. I mean the middle was the east end and that place but we had — I can remember oh sorry, I mustn’t, you’re getting me —
PL: No. No. Keep going.
ETP: We went to the pub. 10th of May. Why not? In I go. With my wife at that time. We were all in this pub and [brrrr brrr] off it went. So we thought being very keen citizens we’d better go out and help and that was the 10th of May which was the worst blitz of the lot in that area. Loads of — you could stand out and see fires everywhere. So there we are. But again, being young you don’t see or take much notice of half these things. It’s all a great adventure. Sorry dear.
PL: So did you, how often did you — how often were you on duty?
ETP: Well, in effect, every night. We had the warden’s post we used to go in. The chief warden was there. He, by the way, was a communist [laughs] but anyway, yes.
PL: Is this the same one that was dancing in the street?
ETP: Sorry.
PL: Was it the same one who was dancing in the street?
ETP: Oh no. No. No. No. No.
PL: That was another one.
ETP: Oh no. No. No. No. He was a very, I think he was a, no he wasn’t a docker. He was, he had something to do with the docks. Righting something or other. No. He was a nice chap actually. No, laughing his head off like an idiot and suddenly realised he was in the middle of all these incendiaries.
PL: So you went —
ETP: He got away with it.
PL: So you worked at Gillette’s all through the day.
ETP: Yes.
PL: And then you went and did the wardening at night.
ETP: Afraid so.
PL: So when did you finish?
ETP: No.
PL: When did you sleep?
ETP: The best time was when I was with the Middlesex Home Guard with my rifle. Guarding the factory. Gillette’s. Lovely factory. And one night I was in the, not the workshop, it was the [pause] in effect it was the -- what do you call it, anyway I was there in the, we had a little office place where I used to make things. It was lunchtime and I fell asleep. Lovely. [Knock knock] next minute. ‘Did you realise you were asleep Ernie.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Why were you asleep?’ I said, ‘I’ve been up all night.’ He said, ‘Why have you been?’ It was unbelievable. Ten miles away you didn’t know a thing about what was happening. I mean occasionally a bomb would come but you really didn’t know.
PL: So where was the Gillette factory then?
ETP: Hounslow. Near Hounslow.
PL: Right. So it was sort of really that bit out of London.
ETP: Sorry?
PL: It was that bit out of London
ETP: Oh yes. Roughly ten miles out of London. Made all the difference. You still got bombs occasionally here and there. Oh what’s the name of the place? Have you been that way at all?
PL: Not really.
ETP: No.
PL: So how —
ETP: The Great West Road.
PL: Right.
ETP: Along there. Yeah. As I say —
PL: So how did you get in and out? Was there a problem getting home and out to work? How was travelling?
ETP: I used to get the train.
PL: Right.
ETP: To Waterloo.
PL: Right. So that wasn’t affected by the bombing?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: Was the train not affected by the bombing?
ETP: Not usually. Occasionally it did because obviously being in London but then if that happened I’d stay in Gillette’s. Because I used to sleep very often at night.
PL: Right.
ETP: As a Home Guard with my rifle.
PL: Right. So was that an additional job?
ETP: Hmmn?
PL: That was an additional job was it?
ETP: Oh yes.
PL: So you had three jobs. You were a warden.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: And you were in the Home Guard.
ETP: As I say more a messenger than a Home Guard.
PL: Right.
ETP: And then I went to Gillette’s and had a job and then I don’t know every day or two I was with my rifle. I even got a medal for shooting then. In Gillette’s.
PL: Goodness.
ETP: Wonderful place. Anyway, yeah, that was it. Yes, so I suppose we did have three jobs.
PL: So did you have any interesting times in the Home Guard?
ETP: Well at that time we were in Hounslow. Near Hounslow. I don’t know what, anyway, near Hounslow Barracks. The only thing I can remember. We used to do practices you know. And I can always remember one day we had an exercise with the guards of all places, of all things and there we are all night with our rifle or machine gun or whatever we had. All there in a ditch. And suddenly the guards came over. I can remember them now. They came over the top of a power [unclear] factory. Came over the top and I said, ‘You’re dead.’ I won’t tell you what he said. But he said something like, ‘Bloody well get off.’ [laughs] and that was it. No, we used to do exercises in Hounslow. And we’d do exercises at Gillette’s. But more, we used to have fire guards. Do you remember? Fire guards. Well — and we had a big tower. Gillette’s, if you can see it, had a big tower with a clock in it. There used to be an old boy in there. I’ve forgotten his name. He used to be in there at washing, and they had maps and they used to get information by telephone which way the plane was, the bombers were coming. And they used to make us sit in, and if they came to near they would sound the alarm and the whole factory would shut down. Yeah. Making thousands of blades a day. Very good.
PL: So that was, so Gillette’s. So what was Gillette’s doing? What was the factory making? Did you say?
ETP: Basically razor blades.
PL: Right.
ETP: You know every army man needs a razor blade.
PL: Yes. Absolutely. Of course. Of course. I just wondered if it had changed to other sort of war work.
ETP: Well yes it did. At one time I was making some sort of thing for an aircraft. Oh I know what it was. It was the, not the Lancaster. Not the Halifax. The Stirling. It was built like a flipping boat. Horrible thing it was. Although I’ve met some Stirling people and they’d kill me if I said that. Yeah. And it had hydraulics and things of all sorts. As far as I was concerned I thank God I never went in one. But anyway a lot of people did and a lot of people famous for it. What was I saying? Yes. Oh yes. We made parts. One of the things was a hydraulic pump thing. And of course you had to get down to minus temperatures to test it. Well, if you’ve ever seen the lark we used to get to try and get up to test this thing. I don’t think we ever did actually. But there it was so off it went. Somebody hoped it worked.
PL: So what did you do?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: What did you do? How did you do? What did you do to test them?
ETP: Well we used to have a tank with ice and everything in it. That’s as far as I can remember. We tried. I suppose nought degrees would be the maximum we could get down to. I think that may have been the test and you just hoped for the best after that.
PL: Absolutely.
ETP: They were, they were a literally, as far as I can remember they were literally built like a boat rather than like an aeroplane but that’s my opinion of it. Well, I can’t say a lot more. We made one or two things during that time in Gillette’s. Made a little, I can’t really remember. Not a lot because the main industry for them was the razor blades because as I say every personnel wanted razors. Well apart from the navy with their beards. They wanted razor blades. And they were flown all over the world. Given all over the world as well. So yeah. I loved it there. Had a good canteen. Clean. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the factories in England. Terrible. They were. Maybe a bit better now. I wouldn’t work in them for love nor money. Yeah. But anyway there you are. That’s it dear.
PL: So one, my last question is going back to Bomber Command and being involved with Bomber Command. What did you think about how Bomber Command was treated after the war?
ETP: How we were treated generally? Well first of all remember we were pretty young. Croft, I suppose, looking at it was a bit rough. But then this was general then. I mean who had enough heat and light and all the rest of it. But other than that I had, as far as I can remember, I had a pretty good time. How were the RAF people treated?
PL: I suppose in terms, I was thinking more in terms of the perception of Bomber Command’s role in the war.
ETP: Ah. To be blunt we didn’t think of it. We had a job to do. We didn’t like the Germans and especially when he heard some of the, later when we heard some of the things they were doing. So we didn’t like the Germans. We were there to do a job. A very nervous job at times. It was only after the war, later that we saw some of the atrocities that they got up to. I think that caused us more trouble. But then of course as I say now in general in the RAF if you were in any sort of position like a sergeant you weren’t treated too badly. A bit rough at times but not too badly. I still remember that place at Darlington with that big food. No. So that was, it had the old fashioned — I say army perspective of how people should behave which got a bit lost in the end. It still got a lot of discipline which you have to have really. It was very disciplined. I know I was too good to ever get too bad but probably I deserved it sometimes. The things we got up to. I did a court martial for one chap. They were pretty rough on the, with the WAAF and the men if there was any mixing. Taboo. It happened of course. But it was very much taboo and I got caught in the — I had to go to a court martial. This chap I was unfortunate. I was there one night with the WAAF sergeant. Ooh no she was more than a sergeant. WAAF officer. And we were doing the rounds to see that everybody was behaving. And this idiot came up and tried to be funny. He was going too go out. He was going to take his girl back. Well you don’t do that sort of thing. You might like to and probably many did but you didn’t, you didn’t profess it. So of course he got caught. And I hated it. Obviously we turfed him off and the squadron leader or whatever came in and I had to do a court martial. And I think the chap [pause] have you heard of LMF. Lack of moral fibre. I think he was eventually. He was an officer I don’t know? To this day I can’t remember what grade he was but anyway he went too far. He was out. Lack of moral fibre’s an interesting one. A lot of people are against it now but in effect at the time say for instance I did one trip, or didn’t do it. Was all trained up to go and do a trip and I suddenly got nervous or too frightened. Well then you’d be — even if you were an officer, or a sergeant in particular you were taken down to nothing again. So from that point of view it was pretty tough. I can always understand it because I suppose one could say you didn’t realise what you were getting into. But on the other hand you did a lot of training. You knew something of what could happen and so you just said, ‘I don’t want to go anymore.’ And of course with all that training and everything it was LMF. Which was a bit of a fatal word. You still read about the paper about how bad it was. But to a great extent I’ve got sympathy with the fact of the hierarchy. I don’t know.
PL: And how do, how do you feel about the fact that it’s taken so long for Bomber Command to be recognised?
ETP: Sorry.
PL: What do you think about the fact it’s taken so long for Bomber Command to be recognised for its contribution?
ETP: One word. Disgusting, I suppose. Yes. We were killing people. I never thought about it on a whole. I have occasionally thought God I wouldn’t like to be down there with those poor devils. But no, you were doing a job. You were told that it was them or us to a great extent. I never really felt any conscience of bombing people. Because they were bombing us you see. So it’s a bit of a tricky one. I know some people thought very much about it after but Dresden as you know. Everybody says Dresden. Well to me that’s a farce because Dresden wasn’t just a place with pretty pictures of people and these things there. They were just as much in the war with making things as anybody else was. What do I say? I was never sorry for them but I can have sympathy with them. In other words I wouldn’t have like to have been underneath them at the time. I think it was a farce because we know, if anybody had any truth, that Dresden there was the Russians wanted to come in there with Dresden. Obviously Dresden was a place with manufacturing so it was a natural target. And of course since they were escaping from the, from the Russians they were coming across in to Germany or into the, what do you call it, coming across into the south. That’s not the word I want but anyway I think it’s unfortunate of course there were a lot of refugees as such but then again what do you do. For all you know those people that were coming could have been escaping from the German army — or from the Russian army anyway. And the Germans, German soldiers and things coming in. So it’s a bad choice I know but at the time I never even, I wouldn’t have considered it if I’d been there. I didn’t actually have to go because it had ended. The main thing. And it was only afterwards. I’m sorry I’m going on a bit. I don’t know quite what to say.
PL: No. Not at all.
ETP: I was never really let me put it this way I was never sorry and nor could I understand all this nonsense about Dresden. As far as I was concerned it was another town. Whether that town should have been hit is another matter. Anyway, that’s about it dear.
PL: Well that’s fantastic. And I guess my last question is, Is there anything else that you want to add to this?
ETP: Probably.
PL: Wonderful story that you’ve told me.
ETP: I’ve been talking too much anyway.
PL: Not at all.
ETP: I can’t really think of anything. If I think of anything else. I told you about Norway. That was one in a strange way a beautiful trip despite what happened at the end.
PL: Well that’s —
ETP: I often, I often used to look out when we were over Germany or somewhere and you would see all these flares and everything. Quite a sight if you could put your mind to looking at it. Once or twice I was brave enough to look out. The navigator and bomb aimer very seldom looked out anyway. And as I say I did a lot of bombing myself rather than the bomb aimer because in those days with the, all the new techniques and things one could do that. I think that’s about it dear.
PL: Wonderful. Well can I just end by thanking you very much indeed on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre.
ETP: I hope I haven’t gone too far with it.
PL: You’ve told us an absolutely fascinating story. Thank you very much indeed.
ETP: Thank you.
[recording paused]
PL: So Ernie having switched the recorder off you then told me a wonderful story about your father who was — and his role in the war.
ETP: Yes. My father, I was going to say funnily enough but it wasn’t funny at all. When the Italians walked in to the war a [paused] he was interned but luckily he was never taken to the Isle of Man or anywhere as most of them did. He then, imagine, with two sons in the air force my father wasn’t allowed a radio. He wasn’t allowed a bike. And he wasn’t allowed to go beyond, I think, a five mile radius. And I must tell you now against all the laws if the radio was there my brother and myself used to come in and turn on the radio because my mother wasn’t allowed either. ‘Cause she again was not allowed. She was Italian you see because of her marriage. Yeah. So finally he had no job. Some of the, oh I must be careful, some of the people in the restaurants wouldn’t allow people like my father to work, so he had no job. He had to go on the dole which he’d never been on before. I think it was still called the dole. I don’t know. Anyway, he finally got a job, sort of doing odd jobs in the big church which I — and the church was actually, not Wesleyan. I think it was either Wesleyan or something. It was an American based church. And so he got to work. He used to do odd jobs in the church and acted as warden I suppose. In his best Sunday suit, very well dressed, he used to greet the congregation and I still picture to this day, in a Wesleyan or whatever church it was greeting all the congregation with an Italian accent. I thought that was marvellous. Anyway, he was very happy for a time until a bomb hit quite near and the water gushed in and his lovely boiler which he’d got in pristine condition, a pretty old boiler, he’d got in lovely good condition he got drowned, his boiler got drowned because it was below the ground. It was drowned in this boiler room. I think he cried his eyes out with that. Anyway, eventually it was pumped out and he got back.
PL: And he did that for the whole of the, did he do that — he stayed in the same place until the end of the war. Until you came home.
ETP: No. Eventually remember the Italians gave in in 1944. Something like that. So he was able to go back into the restaurant business. Oddonino’s I think it was at the time which you may know was a big restaurant. Well not very big but was a very well-known restaurant of the time. And later on unfortunately he died of so called nephritis which is a disease of the kidney. As far as I knew he wasn’t a big drinker. He like his beer and strangely enough although he knew Italian wine like the back of his hand he used to love a pint of beer.
PL: How lovely.
ETP: Except when he was in Devon one day and at the local Crown or Cushion or whatever it was called. No, the three, four — the Seven Stars Hotel I think. A small hotel I think in [pause] anyway. In Devon. He was convinced to go in because it was so much cheaper to go and drink a pint of cider. Well unfortunately he drank two pints of cider which he thought was quite tasty and quite good. But he went to bed and sometime in the afternoon and never got up until about 7 o’clock at night. Yeah. So there. He got back into the hotel trade as I say. But at sixty five he caught and in those days of course there weren’t the same things for kidney disease and the rest of it. I think they gave him pills or something to try and cure him. Not cure him but help him and it was rather tragic. Just went on for a few months and that was the end of it.
PL: Well thank you for sharing that additional story with us Ernie.
ETP: I hope its, there’s probably more I could have told you.
PL: It adds more colour to your story. Thank you very much.
ETP: It’s a pleasure.
[recording paused]
PL: So, this is Pam Locker again making another recording with Ernie Tillbrook on the 5th of the 1st 2016. There was just a couple of additional things that Ernie was going to add to his story. So Ernie you were telling me a couple of stories about bombing. You go ahead.
ETP: About?
PL: The first one was about taking off.
ETP: Oh yes. Yeah. Oh yes. Oh dear. The most frightening time I ever had. We were coming in to land from somewhere and my dear skipper, Don, overshot the runway. So the natural thing to do was wheels up and off. Back up. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened. Whether my plug came out of my hearing or what. I didn’t hear the order to lift up the undercarriage. So we were flying very low and as far as I can remember when I was looking out the side, nervous as hell, I remember we just about went over the top of a hangar. Luckily Don was quick enough to see what was happening and pulled up the undercarriage which allowed us to just miss by feet, or even inches, the hangar. I was so nervous. Partly because I thought I’d failed. Partly because it was a frightening thing to see. I know I got out of the aircraft and wouldn’t talk to anybody for some time after. To such an extent that my crew wondered what was, wondered what was wrong with me. That’s it.
PL: Terrifying. And then the other story you were going to tell me was about the island.
ETP: Oh yeah. One of the things which, how can I put it, was exciting for me but probably wasn’t very exciting for the poor devils that were on the island. As far as I know they were a load of army personnel manning some guns which had to be destroyed because they were in the way of the Mediterranean in general. So, we all came along at about ten thousand feet. Can you imagine a great load of Lancasters all with bombs flying over this poor little island called Ile de [Cezerre?]. No. Ile de Cezembre and all I can remember is looking out over the side. Our gunner, rear gunner was having a wonderful time shooting everything he could see. And when I looked out there was a poor, what I presume was some form of army personnel running like mad trying to get away, but being bombed. With bombs falling all around him and presumably obliterating the whole island. There you are. Don’t get me too far. I’ll keep thinking of stories.
PL: Thank you very much Ernie.
ETP: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for listening.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Ernie Tillbrook
Creator
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Pam Locker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATillbrookEHA160105, PTillbrookEHA1603
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Pending OH summary
Format
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01:45:36 audio recording
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Ernest Hector Angelo Pedrazzini was the son of an Italian father and an English mother. After the war he changed his name to Tillbrook. Ernie’s father escaped from a prison camp during the First World War and finding his way to Russia and employment in the pre-revolution years before escaping to Moscow and making his way back to Italy and then to his young family in England. Ernie Tillbrook was employed at the Gillette’s factory when he left school and experienced the London Blitz as a messenger before he volunteered for the RAF. He started as a mechanic before undertaking training as a flight engineer and flying operations with 431 Squadron.
Temporal Coverage
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1940-05-10
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Yorkshire
France--Cézembre Island
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
431 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
displaced person
fear
flight engineer
Halifax
home front
Home Guard
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military living conditions
perception of bombing war
RAF Croft
sanitation
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1151/11708/ASwainsDNJ170123.1.mp3
6c5a58a73d611bc1b4c8bce01e1b9548
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
Swains, Dennis
Dennis Norman John Swains
D N J Swains
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Dennis Swains (1924 - 2020) and two photographs. He trained as an air gunner but the war ended before he reached an operational station.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Dennis Swains 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
2017-01-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Swains, DNJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 23rd January 2017. I’m in Aylesbury with Dennis Swains to talk about his experiences in the air force but in life in general. So Dennis, what are the earliest recollections you have of family life?
DS: Um, probably when I was about four, I can’t remember anything prior to that. I remember misbehaving and being told off for whatever I was doing. That’s about my earliest recollection I think. Of course, I started school at what was St Georges or Black Horse Bridge School as we knew it in Amersham. And I was there until taking the 11+, or whatever they called it in those days, and I managed to get a place at Amersham Grammar School, Dr Challoner’s grammar school. But because I only got the scholarship in the second year I was then amongst the older ones in the class and it was twelve when I joined them and that was 1936, September, left in July 1941 when I was seventeen. There were a lot of firms evacuated to the Chilterns area because of wartime bombing and there were several insurance companies. And we had a lodger. He was actually from the railway clearing house, who were also evacuated but through him and sundry others I got a job with an insurance company at Newland Park, Chalfont St Giles. It was an old Scottish company, The North British and Mercantile, and I was with them for three and half years, so until May ’44. My father was a goods clerk on the Met Great Central railway and he looked after the goods work at Great Missenden and Amersham and he was also, of course, a relief booking office clerk and he would work at any of the stations between Rickmansworth and Aylesbury, if someone was away poorly, that sort of thing. And my Mother, who at sixteen I think, no fourteen it would have been, she joined the same railway company and she was a booking office clerk at Little Chalfont station and of course somewhere down the line they met. And they married in 1923, I was born in 1924. When I left school I joined the North British and Mercantile, I was placed in their accounts department and I served in accounts for the rest of my career with various insurance companies. Ones who took us over subsequently and right up until the time when I retired at fifty-nine and three quarters then, because once more there was a takeover bid and they offered full retirement for anyone over fifty-five, so I took it and retired then. Going back to school days, at Challoner’s, in 1941 the Air Training Corps was formed, a squadron was formed at Amersham Grammar School and from there I was recommended to go to Oxford with the possibility of a short term degree course, which would have resulted in me entering the air force a year later as a pilot officer. But unfortunately my mathematics was not of a high enough standard. I’d chosen to take other subjects at ‘O’ Level, and just to do ordinary maths. I didn’t touch trig and I didn’t touch calculus and as such I just returned to ordinary civil occupation again attending the Air Training Corps. During those years, ’41 to ’44 we visited Halton each Sunday and joined the gliding school there each Sunday where I learned to fly the gliders, the Slingsby Primary and the Grunau Baby. We had a German more advanced aircraft, plus the Slingsby dual-controlled glider with a sixty foot wing span. After graduating from the Primary we were allowed to do, only short hops, the width of the aerodrome. The rules were that you weren’t allowed to go outside the aerodrome perimeter. But our gliding instructor who had flown gliders in international competitions before the War, if a sixty foot wing span job could get enough height from its launch he would probably take us across to the hills, above Wendover Woods, and had up to twenty minutes soaring there before we went back and landed. It was quite a game, landing amongst all the other aircraft that were taking off. They had the Cierva autogyros there before the War, and they were practising. Well, it wasn’t quite a vertical take off, it was a short run until they clawed their way into the air. But they could land, of course, almost vertically. And other aircraft there were Ansons, Oxfords, Percival Q6 , Tiger Moths all doing their various circuits and bumps, or going off somewhere else. And it was quite a game getting the gliders along the edge of the aerodrome where we were allowed to take off and land but it was quite often fun if one of the instructors landed the aircraft away from the strip that we were supposed to stay on. That was good fun of course. Then in 1944 I got my call up papers. I was then nineteen and three quarters, somewhere my name had slipped through the net, and instead of being called at eighteen and a quarter it was a year and a half later that I actually joined the air force and found myself one of the oldest recruits joining at the time. During those three years, ’41 to ’44, there was always the thought that one day you were going to get called up and having served in the Air Training Corps and not wishing particularly to go into the navy or the army, to volunteer for the air force was the obvious thing to do. And that must have been noted somewhere in the records because I was called up and went into the air force in the Spring of ’44 and we travelled up to Scarborough to the Initial Training Wing. I met a chap on Kings Cross station with the same looking cardboard suitcase I had. Ernie Smale he was from Tintagel in Cornwall. And we stuck together until the best part of the way through OTU. And as his name began with an ‘S’ as mine did, we seemed to be doing things together in that first stage. We were placed in the Manor Hotel, in St Nicholas Square at Scarborough on the opposite side of the square to the Grand Hotel, which was the RAF headquarters. We fed in the Grand Hotel, the barber’s shop was in the Grand Hotel, so we were continually criss-crossing St Nicholas Square. In entry to St Nicholas Square on our first Friday it was jobs night. I was given a pot of white paint and a one inch brush and shown the stairs for the main entrance and was told to ‘paint the white line’ or ‘renew the white line’ down the side of these stairs. And that was my Friday evening job. And when I’d finished I said to the corporal, ‘I’ve done that now Corp.’ ‘Have you my son?’ He said. And he got out a ruler and he measured the width of the paint. And he said, ‘Two and a half inches, it should only be two inches.’ He said. ‘Here’s a bottle of turps and a rag’ And so my job wasn’t complete I then had to take the width of the paint down to the required two inches. [laughter] I’d straightened it up by eye, and thought it looked better straight ,but the rule was the rule and that was that. On our first night in the Manor Hotel, if you, if the room measured seventy-two square feet there was one person in it. If it measured seventy-five square feet the extra three square feet meant you could have somebody else so there were two in a room that size. And, of course, having dumped our civvy clothes we were handed the papers that we’d got to sign we gathered in one chap’s room. And the windowsills were very recessed and deep and one chap sat well sort of half over the sink on the windowsill. And we chatted and then we decided we’d better fill in the paperwork so bit by bit we got out of the room. And he got down off the windowsill but unfortunately he brought the sink with him. So there we were on our first night in the air force, in someone’s room, with the sink at forty-five degrees to the wall and everyone expecting that we were all going to be on a charge the following morning for damaging Her Majesty’s, His Majesty’s property. But Smithy, Smithy was one of these blokes who took charge straight away. He had us scouring the hotel to see if there was anything we could find that might help. One chap came back with a very ancient broomstick and it was found that with a bit of careful work if it was cut in half it would just prop the sink up again. And so they cut the broomstick in half with a very old penknife. It was a terrible job. But they wedged these two bits of broomstick underneath the sink and it leaned back against the wall to where it was originally. With picking up bits of plaster that had come out and mixing it with toothpaste they filled up the gaps around the tiles on the windowsill, they scraped the broomsticks absolutely clean with this penknife and they propped up the sink. And six weeks later when we left Scarborough those two broom handles were still holding up the sink and no-one had ever noticed. We often wonder whether they’re still there today. But that was probably our biggest worry. We then of course, learned to march. We learned PT on the south shore at Scarborough. There was an area that was surrounded by barbed wire entanglements with a gate through the middle and that’s where we did our PT. And although it was wartime there were a lot of Yorkshire people still managed to have holidays. They would come and watch us and stand round the outside of the barbed wire entanglement and they would call out different commands to what the PTI gave us. And if we followed their commands instead of his there was trouble. But it happened every time we were down there. There were always people standing there to watch and to laugh when we did things wrongly. We also had to learn how to march. We got mixed up in a Wings for Victory parade and we had to march with army and navy units right through the town of Scarborough. And we had to cross the bridge over Happy Valley, which is still there. And they insisted that we broke step. And when you’ve spent about three weeks doing nothing but marching, to break step is the hardest thing. But of course the problem was that if everyone marched across the bridge the vibrations would probably have had it down. We did manage to break step but it was probably one of the hardest things we’d done in those days. Then towards the end of the six weeks we had aptitude tests. They were similar to the 11+ but a bit more adult. But it was a question of ticking boxes and we all thought that this was a piece of cake. Some of us had done quite a bit of flying. Some of us had even, you know, flown solo in gliders and things like that. Only low hops admittedly but we all thought we were good for pilot. Or if not pilot, then pilot navigator or bomb aimer. And these tests were run by WAAF officers, with WAAF NCO’s. And after all the results had gone in the chief WAAF saw us in the lecture hall. [telephone ringing] Well the WAAF officer who’d been in charge of all this read out our names and what category we were in. And S for Swains is fairly well down the alphabet so we were all saying ‘Oh well, you know we’ll be alright when we get down there.’ And of course when it was read out ‘Swains, air gunner. Smale, air gunner.’ There were cheers that went up from some of the lads who’d, you know, listen to us saying ‘Well, we’ve done so much, we’re almost certain to be pilots.’ But we weren’t, and it came as a blow, but it was obvious later on that it was service requirements. The losses of aircraft, and this was now, although we didn’t know it then, we were in the last year of the War, just. And when you look at the losses, how they multiplied, year by year, from 1939 through to 1944, and later of course when you see the losses that there were between ’44 and the close of hostilities in ’45. They were losing aircraft at a fantastic rate in that last year, not really knowing that the Germans had perfected upwards firing cannons on their fighters.
CB: Um.
DS: It was a long while before the RAF realised it was not just anti-aircraft fire that was causing these things to explode it was fighter aircraft. So, obviously by that time, and realising that it’s two gunners to every aircraft then I suppose it’s not surprising that eighty of us were considered to be gunners. Of the odd twenty I think six made pilot navigator bomb aimer and the rest were radio operators and we don’t really know how many of the six survived. The eighty of us were sent off to Bridgnorth, I think the RAF were quite clever with their psychology. We wouldn’t, we were only youngsters, just joined the air force. We weren’t going to argue with WAAF officers as to why we’d all been made air gunners, we accepted it. And we accepted it of course with the warning that we could change our category then we could re-muster to a ground crew if we wished. But if we did it from this point forward at any stage our records would be marked ‘lack of moral fibre.’ Cowardice. And we were faced with that. I think, you know, we weren’t terribly happy about going for air gunners but there again we weren’t going to go home and tell our parents and friends ‘Oh well, we’ve chucked it in.’ We’d always said that we were going to fly, so we’d fly. So we stuck it and we went onto Bridgnorth which was Elementary Air Gunner School. And there, of course, it was, we came into contact with the Browning 303 machine gun. And amongst the other things we had to do was to learn to strip it down to its basic parts and to reassemble it. And having done that and learned it in daylight we had to do it in pitch darkness. And it had many, many, intrinsic parts. I remember there was a thing called a rear sear retainer keeper. And if you’ve got a rear sear retainer keeper, you’d got a rear sear retainer and if you’d got a rear sear retainer there must be a rear sear somewhere. And they were all parts of the breech block in a Browning 303. And we learned all about that. We did clay pigeon shooting which taught us trajectory, to aim ahead of the clay so that by the time our shot reached the same spot that the clay was, that was success. If you aimed too far away then you were a miss. And clay pigeon shooting was quite good fun. One of the things you learned very quickly on the first day was that the recoil from a shotgun was worse than a recoil from a 303 rifle. And we all finished up with badly bruised shoulders. We did rifle shooting as well, we did grenade throwing. We were told of the example where a chap had thrown the grenade and he’d not thrown it forwards, it went upwards, hovered above them and then dropped at the feet of the RAF Regiment sergeant. And the other two students in the pit ran along the trench as fast as they could away from where this hand grenade had fallen. And the sergeant from the RAF Regiment grabbed a sandbag off of the bank, put it on the top of the hand grenade and stood on it, and took all the shrapnel in his boots and they got away with it. But we were then taught to make absolutely certain that when we threw a grenade it went forwards over the bank and exploded where there was no problem with the bits hitting us. There was no flying of course at Bridgnorth, so we hadn’t at that time come into contact with the actual turrets. But we had to learn exactly how to manage a machine gun under all climatic conditions. How to clean it, oil it and look after it. And after due time there the next move was to Dalcross, No2 Air Gunnery School, at what is now Inverness Airport. So on the 11th of August 1944, which was my twentieth birthday we travelled up to Dalcross. Now when we arrived at Dalcross the position had been the same as at Elementary Air Gunner School, they weren’t ready for us. And for three weeks at Bridgnorth we’d done navigation walks, or cross country runs and all sorts of things. At Dalcross we were put onto potato picking with the Italian prisoners of war. And we picked potatoes and we followed the action of the Italian prisoners of war in not picking the tiny ones. Until just before we’d finished this three week stand-off they announced that whoever was in charge of the RAF allotments was inspecting the gardens and would be arriving the following day. We were handed buckets and we picked up all the tiny potatoes, took them across the road, tipped them into the Moray Firth and they were going up and down with the tide for days. And from such events as that wars are won. Much to our amusement really. Then we started the actual course. We were taken out on one of the early nights to be shown what pyrotechnics looked like. And we saw single star reds, double star reds and greens and yellows for the colours of the day. And the colours of the day were changed every day and in some cases every twelve hours. And I believe during the Battle of Britain it was as much as every six hours they changed the colours of the day by which an aircraft could identify itself by firing one of these Very cartridges. And we saw a demonstration of each of those and then the sergeant in charge showed us what was the twenty eight star signal rocket. And this was aimed from flying control to explode exactly six hundred feet above the aerodrome and was to guide in aircraft that were coming in, in exceptional weather. They’d stuck this thing in the ground and it was lit with another pyrotechnic called a ‘port fire’. Touched the fuse at the bottom of the rocket and it fizzed. And he said ‘Now this will reach about five hundred feet.’ He said, ‘And burst into twenty eight stars.’ And it was also used as a guide, to get aircraft to see where the aerodrome was if visibility was very bad. And the thing fizzed, and it fizzed, and it fizzed. And he said, ‘It’ll rise to five hundred feet.’ But it exploded on the ground, and there were twenty eight stars all curled up and fell on the crowd that was gathering round, one chap had to get a new overcoat because one of the stars burned its way right the way through his collar. So that was our introduction to pyrotechnics. And we were then taken to [Ardagh?] which is on the Moray Firth, an army place, and they had some turrets on the beach. And the sergeant who took us down there said ‘We’re going to show you what tracer bullets look like.’ He said. ‘First of all they’ll be on in ten will be day tracer, and that’ll be very bright.’ He said, ‘Then we’ll have one in ten night tracer, which is not so bright.’ And he said then ‘Amidst them all there will be other tracer bullets put.’ And he climbed into the turret and he fired this belt of ammunition out into the Moray Firth. And it looked, yes there was the night, the day tracer which was extremely bright and the night tracer went off. And we thought ‘Oh well, he’ll stop in a minute and we shall see another burst of fire.’ The chap suddenly bailed out of the turret backwards and the turret went on firing, and the bullets arced out onto the Moray Firth until the barrels got so hot and the guns stopped firing. And he finished up in trouble because he should have, once he got runaway guns, knocked up the covers on the Browning. And it was an easy thing to do. There was a catch on the side of the lid, you just lifted it up, the lid flew up and the gun stopped firing. But the guns had run on until the barrels bent. And the last two or three bits of ball ammunition came out through the sides of the barrel and there were slits in it about two or three inches long where this hard steel bullet, ball ammunition had come out through the bending of the things and we thought, ‘You know, this is a dangerous business being an air gunner. We haven’t got off the ground yet and we’ve had, been showered with twenty eight star signal rockets and now runaway guns.’ But we were introduced, there were Avro Ansons we were flying and there were Miles Magister which towed a droge about a hundred yards long. And we were sent up three in an aircraft with a pilot, and we took with us two belts of two hundred bullets each which had been dipped onto a coloured paint pad and we then fired, well we had to load the guns in the turret when we were in the air and fire them off at the droges and they would count the paint marks where people had hit the droges once we landed. But the droges were covered in paint smudges anyway. We never knew how they could say accurately how many rounds had actually hit the droges. The pilots were Czechs or Poles and only really knew one word of English and was ‘Why you no fire?’ So whenever we got a jam or a bullet out of the belt not quite in position, ‘Why you no fire?’ And we had to wind the undercarriage up, someone sat beside the pilot on take-off, it was a hundred and twelve turns on that handle between the seats to raise the undercarriage on an Anson. And if you were there fortunately when you were coming down to land, it was still a hundred and twelve turns for the undercarriage came down much easier than when it went up. And that was how we spent our days, we still did quite a bit of clay pigeon shooting. And we were up there when the weather turned bad, there was snow on the ground and we were put out to start clearing the runway and it still went on snowing and we thought ‘Oh this is useless.’ And we heard the sound of an aircraft coming and through the snow there was a little Fairchild Argus came in. And he landed practically without any forward run. It was coming in against the wind and it landed on the grass outside flying control and out of it stepped a lady air transport pilot from the the pilot’s side and from the other side got out her boyfriend, obviously they embraced he went into flying control, she got back in the Fairchild Argus and took off and disappeared into the snowstorm. And when the old man saw what went on there, we were flying within half and hour. He wasn’t going to have some woman fly when he couldn’t. So were soon given up trying to clear snow and the second it was suitable to fly we were flying again. We also had, having met turrets, we had to know all about them. You never knew if you were going to a squadron which had electrically controlled turrets which was the Halifax or whether you would have hydraulic controlled turrets which were the Fraser Nash’s fitted to Lancasters so you had to learn what you could about the turrets. And you weren’t expected to maintain them, that was the ground crews job, but you had to know how to clear stoppages and all sorts of things because once you got into Halifaxes or Lancs the rear turret was fed from sleeves on the side of the fuselage so you could have as much as a thousand pounds, a thousand rounds of ammunition for each gun. On a Lancaster the strips went right the way up past the mid upper turret practically to the wing route so you’d got tons of ammunition. And all these things could jam or go wrong and you had to learn best that you could to clear them. You had your own cocking tool, which was made of aluminium with a T handle at the end of it and a groove that fitted over the bolts on either side of the Browning so that when you got into your aircraft and were ready to fly you could cock the lever so that the guns would then fire when you pressed the trigger. And in fact you can tell the air gunner on the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park in London ‘cause he’s got his cocking tool tucked into his boot, it was the thing you hung onto in grim death because if you lost it well it was a problem to find another. [Exhalation of breath]
CB: Have a break. You had a variety of people clearly different backgrounds but from existing people did you have any people who’d been redirected as a result of LMF?
DS: No, I never knew of anyone who’d been redirected from it. And I didn’t know myself of anyone who ever refused to fly.
CB: How well aware were you as recruits, trainees of the LMF system?
DS: I wouldn’t have known.
CB: What they did to people?
DS: No, I didn’t know. I knew that they were normally stripped of their rank but, and decorations, but I wouldn’t have known what happened to them afterwards, and I never met anyone afterwards who I knew had been reduced to the ranks for that, not at all. So, we’d pretty well finished at Air Gunnery School. We had to do dinghy drill of course which we did in the baths at Inverness. I got caught for going off the highest board. We had to go off the various diving boards and I had a job getting into the Sidcot. It was good if you first of the day, the Sidcots were dry. But once they got soaked they were a job to get into. I missed a bit, there was I faced with the top diving board. I’d never been off the top diving board in my life. It was a case of just shut your eyes and jump. Then we had to turn the dinghy over and climb in, but that was a weekly effort while we were there. Flying was just air flying as we said previously with the Miles Master with its hundred yards of cable weaving above us so we were firing upwards at it. We did some firing at [whaleback?] buoys which were anchored just off the coast so we had a bit of air to, air to ground firing but not much and a lot of it was sitting in turrets in one of the hangars where the walls had been painted white and there were aircraft projected onto them, coming in towards you so you had to aim deflection shots. And there was quite, quite a lot of that too. But we finished the course on the 20th of December and paraded on the 21st having sewn our brand new sergeants stripes on our sleeves and on the greatcoat and set off home on leave. And I travelled down on the only through train to London, the four-twenty out of Inverness, due into Euston about ten o’clock the following morning. From there I journeyed home to Amersham, went down to where my fiancée was living to say hello, and the following morning 23rd of December, we were married in the Free Church at Amersham. I had a fortnights’ leave, we were called back after about ten days, and once again it was catch the only through train from London to Inverness which was the seven-twenty off of Euston, and stopped at most of the main stations on the way north and we picked up people who were coming back off leave and we got into Inverness about ten o’clock, eleven o’clock the following morning and we were told we didn’t have to be back until six-thirty in the evening. And half of [unclear] said ‘Oh, we’ll get on the bus we’ll go back and get a decent billet.’ So we took the bus. Well, a lot of the others stayed on in Inverness. ‘Oh, we’ll have a decent meal and a few beers, we don’t have to be back ‘til six.’ We walked into the guard room, into the, yeah the guard room at Dalcross and the sergeant said ‘Hello, what are you lot doing here?’ We said ‘oh, we’re ninety-four course back sarge from leave.’ ‘Stick around for a bit.’ He said. Disappeared and about twenty minutes later he came back with another fortnights’ leave ticket, a travel voucher and a fortnights’ ration coupons. So we were back on the bus into Inverness and bumped into some of the chaps who’d stayed there. ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ ‘Oh, we’ve got another fortnights leave.’ But they hadn’t got the opportunity then to get back to camp and to get back to Inverness to catch the one and only train, the four-twenty. So, having travelled up in the train from Euston I sat in the same seat, in the same coach, in the same set of rolling stock all the way back from Inverness to Euston once more, with another fortnights’ leave. And that was our goodbye to Scotland. After that we were called to NCOs course at Whitley Bay. And it had been snowing pretty steadily for days, and we arrived at Whitley Bay and there was a foot of snow. We were dumped in houses which had been requisitioned by the air force. We had fifty-six pounds of coal per semi-detached house for a week. It lasted a day. After that everything froze. The pipes froze, the toilets froze. We had to go into the Empress Ballroom, which was our headquarters, if you wanted to use a toilet. Or we were there for meals of course and we were told that we mustn’t use any auxiliary heating. So because we were told we mustn’t everybody did. And we bought little, tiny fire clay discs from Woolworths which had an electric element wound in them. And we had one in the middle of our floor where we were sleeping in one of the rooms in the house plugged in, going merrily all night. But that evening chappie came in with the laundry. And just called out our names and tossed it onto our beds. And one of them was left on someone’s bed and it rolled off during the night and we all woke up choking with smoke. Couldn’t see a thin, flung open the windows and doors. Got the people from upstairs down thinking the place was on fire and it was absolutely freezing within about five minutes. The smoke cleared and we saw that it was one of these little hotplates, the laundry had fallen onto it, half the laundry had gone up in smoke. And we eventually got back to bed, most of us were sleeping in our flying clothing because it was so desperately cold, and in the morning when we woke up to see really what had happened there was a groove in the floorboards where this hotplate had stood and that took a lot of scraping before we got back to what looked like ordinary board again. No-one ever really noticed it at the time but we were there and the weather was so bad that they called the course off and sent us to our next stations which was Operational Training Unit at Abingdon. And I do remember at this NCOs school we were introduced to the pistols. And if you became an officer of course you had a pistol otherwise we were taught how to do pistol shooting. I can remember it was so cold that we were holding the pistols on the range and it was almost impossible to pull the trigger using two fingers while you held, tried to hold the gun steady. It was so desperately cold. Of course, then we moved onto Operational Training Unit and there we were supplied with electrical heated equipment and from that time on we had two kit bags. You could always tell an air gunner ‘cause he had two kit bags. One with his ordinary kit, and one containing his flying clothing, boots, Sidcot, eiderdown suit, long johns, silk underwear and it was a bind having to take two kit bags around with you it really was. One was bad enough but having to take two was tough going. {unclear]
CB: This was the heated clothing?
DS: Heated clothing yes. The jacket which had extensions that came down to your gloves and extensions that ran down your legs. And although your feet could be very hot your knees could be cold because all the clothing was tight by the time you got all your flying clothing on so. They weren’t a hundred per cent effective but.
CB: Um. Just pause there. So when you joined up.
DS: Yes. Only found them of course when we were training. They volunteered and they came in.
CB: Scottish policemen?
DS: Yes. The first time they were allowed. We met them at NCO’s school at Whitley Bay. And the thing I remember about them is we were taken out in a lorry one night, about four miles out of Whitley Bay, given a map and said ‘Now make your way back and capture the Empress Ballroom which was our headquarters. We had a rifle and five rounds of blank ammunition and some of the Scottish policemen had also been sent out on the same thing. Well, they knew more tricks than the criminals I think. They stopped a bus and checked everybody’s identity card on the bus. And if they hadn’t got one they demanded that they appear at the police station within forty-eight hours. They requisitioned the bus and they drove back, dumped the bus in a back street in Whitley Bay, they were back in the billets of course in about half an hour and the rest of us had to struggle through a foot of snow to get back. It was reported in the Newcastle Evening paper the following day that someone had requisitioned a bus, stolen a bus, but I don’t suppose they ever caught up with the ones who had done it. Rogues.
CB: Um. After you finished at Dalcross. I’ll stop now.
DS: Yeah.
CB: What did you do then?
DS: Sorry.
CB: It’s OK.
DS: Well, it was OTU at Abingdon.
CB: Um.
DS: We went to Abingdon. The usual crewing up all brought together in a hangar and told to find yourselves a crew. And my, chap who became my pilot had gathered one or two people around him, he saw me and said ‘Would I like to be his gunner?’ So, I said ‘Yes’ and we formed a crew. He was John Bell, a Scottish baker. The navigator was Geoff Sedgwick, he was a cobbler from Manchester. The bomb aimer was a riveter from Newcastle. The radio operator was Colin Blight, he was a New Zealander who’d trained at Canada and come across the Atlantic. So that was our basic crew. And we stuck like that until we gained a flight engineer later on at heavy con unit. But we were sent to the satellite at Abingdon, Stanton Harcourt, and we did all our flying from there. It was the usual thing once they’d introduced us to the Wellington and our pilot had done sufficient trips on his own, no with a screen pilot rather until he was capable of flying on his own. And then of course all the flights that we did were with him. Cross countries by day and by night. There were also of course separate lectures for whichever category you were in there were things you needed to know. And we did the required series of flights, by day and by night. Until towards the end of the course, which we had had its problems. We lost an engine on a cross country some miles off the tip of Cornwall before we turned north to go up to Chicken Rock and then back to Abingdon. We had coring with oil freezing and stopping lubricating one of the Bristol Hercules properly and we had to feather the propeller because the engine was overheating and was not getting the lubrication. And the operator, wireless operator, sent out a Mayday call which was picked up by rescue people at Plymouth and they directed us back to St Mawgan at Newquay. We had sufficient height, they said that a Wellington would maintain height on one engine, but not a clapped out Operational Training Unit Wellington. We lost height steadily but we still had plenty in hand, landed at St Mawgan. We were met by the little airfield control van, a Hillman, and there was an officer in there who pulled up under the nose of the Wellington and shouted up to Jock, the pilot, who opened his window. ‘Got any bombs on board?’ Jock said ‘Yes.’ So the bloke nearly went mad. ‘Follow me’ he said and drove off across the aerodrome. And we were dumped on the far side of the aerodrome. ‘Open your bomb doors.’ He said. Opened them and we’d got ten twelve and a half pound practice bombs in there of course. So he wasn’t at all happy. But then our Wellington had got all the bombs raised [that it had done?]painted on the pilots window. He didn’t know when we landed that we were only a training aircraft and got these little bombs to drop somewhere. But, we then found that we were on the VIP aerodrome, St Mawgan. It was where the aircraft jumped off for going to Gibraltar and anywhere in the Middle East, and it was all very hush-hush. They tried to keep the aircraft without the engines running before take off as long as possible just start your engines and take off because they never knew if there was anyone watching who would say ‘Well, such and such an aircraft took off at such and such a time’ to someone in France. I mean they did lose aircraft over the Bay of Biscay. They lost the one with Leslie Howard the actor in it coming back from Gibraltar, he was shot down. And they reckon someone saw them taking off at Gibraltar, thought there was someone who looked like Churchill on the aircraft and it was shot out of the sky. So it was a bit hush-hush and it was full of VIP’s and when we had to have lunch in the mess with red tab generals and admirals and goodness knows who having their lunch and one warrant officer and five timid little sergeants sitting there trying to not be seen in the corner you know? So that happened to us there. And having done all that was required at Operational Training Unit we, the CO said ‘I don’t think you’ve got enough night hours in’ he said. ‘You’re going off on a three and a half hour cross country tonight just to make up some hours.’ And we were routed Abingdon, Lands End, Chicken Rock on the Isle of Man and back to Abingdon again. And we took off at dusk. And it had been a very hot day, quite a lot of storm clouds about and we dodged them all the way down to Lands End because flying westwards, although we took off at dusk, the sort of dusk went with us westwards and we could still see pretty well all these clouds built up and avoid them. We turned up the Irish Sea and it was as black as night and just plain, no trouble at all. Turned south eastwards again at Chicken Rock on the Isle of Man crossed the Welsh coast and ran into a belt of electrical storms. And I’d never seen anything like it. I sat in the turret at the back lit up as though I was sitting in a neon sign and St Elmo’s fire was running along the wings, dancing on the propellers, and the noise of thunder and the lightning flashing around us and well there was a lot of prayer went up for that aircraft that night I’m pretty sure about that, certainly from me. And there were five aircraft on this trip and we flew through this most appalling rain. Well, it was drumming on the aircraft. The noise was almost obliterating the thunder and lightning was flashing continuously, and we were in it for about twenty minutes. And then we flew out, no more thunder and lightning but still pouring with rain. And we got back over Stanton Harcourt and conditions were pretty grim. And I remember on the intercom Jock, our pilot said ‘Let’s have the lights on’ he said. And if you called up flying control and said ‘Lights, lights’ there were three searchlights came on that were angled to form a cone over the centre of the aerodrome and to give you enough light to land by. So of course ‘lights, lights’ was a coded signal and you used a code because you didn’t want any Jerry who was hanging about to sort of know what was going on. So, called up flying control and said ‘lights, lights’ and flying control came back and said ‘Do you want the searchlights on?’ [chuckling] ‘Yes, we B well do.’ So they put ‘em on and we landed and we were the first one back and subsequently one other aircraft came back. Three of them were lost that night somewhere over Shropshire and we were all trailing aerials of course, and we didn’t know but obviously something had struck those aircraft and they had just blown up, and we lost fifteen pals that night in training. And we discovered afterwards that we were the only five aircraft flying in the whole of the British Isles. Bomber Command had decided the weather was so bad they wouldn’t fly. But our press on commanding officer sent us off and that was that. Fifteen, three aircraft disappeared and they were buried up in Shropshire. They wouldn’t let us go to the funerals, but then I think that was standard practice, they didn’t let you go to the funerals of people who were lost. And so from there you didn’t know whether you were going onto a Halifax, heavy con unit or Lancaster one. And of course we, Wellingtons had hydraulic turrets so we hoped it would be Lancs, and it was, it was Lindholme just outside Doncaster and we went up there and we went up there. We went up there and we’d done a little bit of flying, only familiarisation, you know with a screen pilot, local flying. And VE Day came along and we then had a rather funny sort of month in which they couldn’t make their minds up what they’d do with the air force. Churchill had promised Roosevelt that Bomber Command would fly to India and fight the Japanese and there were all sorts of rumours went round. ‘Oh they’d going to take the mid upper turrets out.’ And everyone said ‘Why?’ ‘Well, they don’t think you’ll need them out there.’ And I said ‘Well, the Japanese are flying fighters just as much as Jerry did.’ ‘Oh well we don’t know about that.’ And then there was another rumour. ‘They’re going to paint the tops white. You don’t need camouflage, and it gets so hot out there that the white paint will reflect the heat.’ So it was a whole little period of indecision. And then we went on flying exercises, trips with a screen pilot and then eventually Jock on his own. We gained a flight engineer who was a chap who’d trained as a pilot in South Africa, got his wings but there was no aircraft for him when he got back to this country. And we carried on until VJ Day when they dropped the two bombs on Japan and we never flew again as a crew. It was another odd sort of thing. If I remember rightly the Australians and the Kiwis were on a flying contract for hostilities only. So with hostilities over they didn’t fly again and we soon lost him. They were taken down to boarding houses in Brighton and along the south coast and they waited there until there was a troop ship capable of taking them back to Australia or New Zealand. And they took the pilot. They took Jock and our navigator away, they went on flying. They went back to Wellingtons for a time which seemed very strange and then they went into Transport Command I think afterwards and the rest of us were made redundant. I never flew again in the air force. We were sent to Acaster Malbis which was the biggest aerodrome in Yorkshire built especially to take the Vickers Windsor which was a six engine aircraft of which they only ever flew two prototypes I think. But that was just a holding unit, we handed in all our kit there, all our flying clothing and stuff we didn’t want. Then we were sent down to Blyton in Lincolnshire which was another holding unit and there we were re-mustered and offered whatever trade we wanted to go into and I opted for Air Movements Assistant in Transport Command. We were waiting in Blyton and it was really wet, damp weather, sleeping in soaking wet blankets things like that, and I committed the cardinal sin of the crew in that when they asked one morning ‘Anyone who can paint?’ I said, ‘Yes, I can paint sergeant.’ So ‘Right’ he said, ‘Down to flying control.’ I thought ‘Oh well I’ve got a job at least and it’ll probably be warm in flying control.’ And it was. And they were working as the publicity department for the station because as it was a holding unit there were films on all through the evening and halfway into the night for people to go just to occupy them. And they were the publicity department they were designing posters and I produced all my own Christmas cards down there, painting you know, between other odd jobs. And I was there for a week, and it was a very good week, nice and warm and a job to do. And then three of us, two Scottish chaps, I don’t know who they were, well Jock and Matthew I knew them as afterwards. We were told we were going on a posting to Millfield which was a fighter OTU just outside Berwick-on-Tweed. And we became service policemen. Millfield, the living site and the aerodrome, were about a mile apart because of the hills and the land where the airport was, so we were living in the guard room, because they were short of service policemen and every night we had to, Group Captain Donaldson it was, insisted that everyone stood in the cinema for the National Anthem at the end of the film. No-one, I mean there was a tendency as soon as the National Anthem started playing people were up and running out of the exits for dear life. We had to stand there and make sure nobody got out until the National Anthem had finished, that was one of our jobs. And we also had a problem that the short cut from the aerodrome to the living site went through a private estate. And the people who owned the estate were quite happy with that but they had barbed wire entanglements put up on the bit where it went into the estate just to keep people on the road. And a WAAF cycling down there one night back to the camp with the sort of dim headlights that we had rode straight into the, into the barbed wire entanglements. And she was a mess when they got her out of there. And we then had to go down there on a evening when the shifts finished on the station and make sure no-one crashed into the barbed wire entanglement. So we had three weeks of that and at the same time Group Captain Donaldson was the bloke who took the world speed record in a Meteor off Bogner Regis just after the War, and he’d got his Meteor with him. And when he got a bit fed up with it he’d go and get in his Meteor and put on the most amazing flying display over the aerodrome until he’d sort of worn off his mood then he’d just land and carry on again. It was quite odd there. We had one occasion while we were there on a Monday when all the fighters took off. They were Tempests and Tornados and they were firing at turrets, at targets, on the beach at St Abbs Head at Berwick-on-Tweed. And they all took off one Monday morning and they came back within half an hour. And they said the targets hadn’t been moved along the beach. Well they usually sent out a bloke in a Hillman, one of the airmen, and he stayed in a hut if they were going to be firing for two or three days, and moved with a tractor the targets along the beach so that they weren’t firing their rockets at the same bits of cliff. And they found that the targets hadn’t been moved. So they sent someone out to see what was going on. And this chap had been out there for a few days. He’d repainted the tractor and sold it to a farmer and cleared off up to the north of Scotland where he lived. They eventually found him, picked him up in Newcastle, about six weeks later so we heard. Selling the tractor to a farmer. [chuckling] But it was quite interesting of course for the three or four weeks we were up there. And then after that it was Bramcote which is near Nuneaton. And this was a royal naval air station in the middle of England. It was a grass aerodrome, and no runways, no aircraft and no royal naval when we there. We just took it over and it was the training unit for Air Movements Assistants. And there we were taught load control. How you loaded an aircraft so that the centre of gravity was within the required limits and it would fly straight and level. And oh, wonderful things like knots and ropes that had special colours, special strengths and special lengths and all sorts of things. And then we were told we could put in a request for which station we wanted to go to. And everybody found that number nine was Palm Beach, Florida. So we all put down number nine. None of us got it of course. Although there were stations for Transport Command across the Caribbean to north of South America. Then there was the hop to Dakar in West Africa, and the route went on across Africa then where they’d supplied American aircraft and Transport Command kept those routes running for a time but we weren’t allowed to go to Florida, Miami Beach it was, not Palm Beach. So we finished our course there and they thought we were all going abroad to, ‘cause our demob numbers still hadn’t come up. And we went to Heaton Park in Manchester which was the jumping off points for troop ships from Liverpool to take us to the Middle East or wherever they finally posted us to. And there was absolutely nothing to do at Heaton Park most people put their beds, two legs of their bed out, into the little miniature lake in the middle of Heaton Park and fish for minnows with bits of string and cotton and bent pins. But it was really just waiting and demob numbers began to come up and in the end after three week or so there, there were very few people with demob numbers that would allow them to go overseas. And we were told ‘No, not sending you out, if you go to the Far East, you’ll be there in time to come back.’ Sort of thing. I was sent to Merryfield, just outside Taunton, where we handled Yorks coming from the Far East. And we had a commanding officer there who’d been a prisoner of war in Germany. And he’d got no time for the army. He said that they’d heard the guns from the army for weeks and said if the army had really pushed on they’d have relieved these prisoner of war camps much sooner. And he was a very bitter man about it. And we used to have to go out to the Yorks when they landed and picked up the manifest for their passengers and cargo. Take the passengers into the office and give them ration cards and travel warrants and dispatch them wherever they wanted to go. And one day he said to me ‘Your turn Dennis, and there was a York that had come in that wasn’t on schedule. So I walked out with the Customs Officer, the naval officer, and before we got to the York the door was flung open, steps dropped, about three steps to the ground, and down it came a red tab general, following by about ten high ranking army officers. He took one look at me and turned to the naval officer. ‘Where’s your boss?’ So the naval officer ‘Well in headquarters sir.’ And pointed to the door. And this crowd followed this red tab general. And what had happened we found when one of the members of the crew got off the ‘plane was that the aircraft had come from Singapore. And when it got to Karachi they had Rolls Royce Merlin which had come off a York and had got to come back to this country for repair. And that became what was known as AOG trans, which is aircraft on the ground transport, and that had priority over everyone but the Royal Family. So they put this Merlin on the York, removed half the seats and told the officer half his entourage would have to wait in Karachi for the next aircraft available. And he was mad at it ‘cause he’d had to sit and look at this vast crate underneath the wing of the York and it was covered in orange and purple striped labels which gave it the priority. And funnily enough British Airways used those same labels for AOG trans up until a year or so back. They took it on from Transport Command and this bloke was going to say his piece as to why he’d been taken off the aircraft you know? And I can imagine our commanding officer, having been a creaky, was quite happy to tell this bloke that he hadn’t got a leg to stand on you know? That Merlin engines were a top priority and he’d have to wait his turn. So I never really knew what he said to him. We always thought it was quite good that day for this chap to be told off. Anyway Merryfield closed and I went to Blackbushe. And the interesting part of Blackbushe was the Nuremburg Trials were on. And evidence for the trials was flown to Blackbushe every day in a Mosquito. And it was then taken in two lumps to the War Office and the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. And that had to go officer only escort in a little Hillman truck and they hadn’t got enough officers who wanted to do the job so we NCO’s had to take it sometimes. And it was the first place I ever came across self-heating tins of soup and cocoa which were kept just for the crews of the Mosquito because they only stayed on the ground about forty minutes and took back other papers that were coming from the Courts of Justice and the War Office. They flew them back to Nuremburg. And that was six days a week these Mossies flew and we used to feed them a quick bowl of soup and some cocoa from these self-heating tins. And that was quite interesting of course taking some of the evidence up to London. And then of course Blackbushe closed. And I went back to Abingdon. And there we had two Dakotas flying, eight o’clock each morning to, one to Buckeburg and one to [Fallsbuttel?] at Hamburg. They went every day and others went extra occasionally down to Vienna or Lubiana in the top of Yugoslavia. Trieste or Italy and they were flying mostly newspaper and mail. So I had to, someone had to go down to the office at half past five in the morning, and ‘phone up WH Smith at Blackfriars to learn the weight of newspapers going to Germany. And you ‘phoned the army post office at Nottingham to find out the weight of the mail. Then you sat down and worked out the weights and balances of two Dakotas. Took about forty minutes each, because you had to take the fuel load, the weight of the passengers if any, the crew. Passengers you gave them two hundred pounds each for them and their luggage. And any freight that was going with the mail. And the result had to be that the centre of gravity was within certain limits so the pilot could trim the aircraft and fly it as he wanted. And that had to be done between half past five and about half past seven when the trucks arrived. You then went out to the aircraft with a list and a pen and as the men threw the mail into the aircraft you had to keep a running total as to how much they could put in, a, b, c, d, e, which are the imaginary compartments within the aircraft. And the same thing with the mailbags when they arrived and then you got rid of the two aircraft about eight o’clock in the morning. And if there was nothing doing in the day you sat there like lemons until about six thirty in the evening when the aircraft came back and you got to unload them. And if there were passengers, give them a fortnights’ ration card and a first class ticket to Paddington. And that was that. We had one old lady came back from Vienna, she’d been a nursemaid to a family and got caught by the War and stayed out there. And she asked us whether ten shilling notes were still valid. She’d got some ten shilling notes left from when she went to Austria in 1939. And she said she was going up to London so we said ‘Do you know where you’re going?’ ‘I’m going to stay with friends.’ And she had an address but we didn’t know whether the place was still there or whether it had been bombed flat. And she’d got nowhere else to go, and she insisted that no, she was alright, she would find her way around. And in the end Chief said ‘There’s nothing you can do, give her a first class ticket and a fortnights’ ration card.’ And she was as happy as a sandboy to be taken in one of the lorries to Oxford Station, put on the train and off she went. And we never, of course, knew what had happened to her. And then just at that stage there were three of us, flight sergeants, running the section in Abingdon, and my demob number came up. The other two said ‘Oh, we’re going to try and get our stripes confirmed and stay on in the air force.’ Well I was married and I said ‘Oh no, I’m off.’ And demobbed I went up to Blackpool, picked up my civilian suit and suitcase and said goodbye to the air force. And I had a postcard about a month later from these two chaps that had stayed on and it came from Blackpool and said ‘No, they wouldn’t confirm our stripes so we left the air force as well.’ And that was the end, well the end of my RAF career as, finished there and then, that was August 1947. So, it had been not quite three and a half years, I’d been to fifteen different stations in that time. Some of them twice, well Abingdon was twice, but that’s it I’m afraid.
CB: Thank you very much.
DS: Rambled on.
CB: Thinking about that though, what was the real highlight of your RAF career?
DS: Well, I enjoyed the flying with the crew very much, I did enjoy flying generally.
CB: You did target practice when you were in the Gunnery Schools but what did you do about fighter affiliation, did you get much of that?
DS: Well we did at OTU, at OTU we did our air firing to a droge towed by another Wellington. Not by a Miles Master or anything like that. It was the bomb aimer’s job, there was a winch in the fuselage of each Wellington and we streamed the droge from there you see? And then one Wellington would zig zag across and we would fire upwards at it you know, hoping we’d got the right trajectory at the droge. . But they used to put up aircraft for fighter affiliation but one of the amazing things it always seemed to me is, we fired over Salisbury Plain. I mean Abingdon is pretty much the centre of England, it’s a long way to go to the sea, quite a while. You can go down the Bristol Channel, that takes twenty minutes from Abingdon, and you’re over Bristol. But to go to the other coast it’s probably three quarters of an hour or getting on for that. And I can remember flying over Salisbury Plain and they’d be a bloke down there with a tractor ploughing a field. And I’m pooping off, you know, couple of hundred rounds of ball ammunition, it’s got to fall somewhere. And our firing ranges were anywhere over Salisbury Plain. I suppose by the time the shot got to the ground it wasn’t harmful or anything like that, but that always surprised me that we did that but then of course they put up aircraft when we were using camera guns instead of Brownings and curling round behind us and attacking us from all sort of angles, and particularly so at heavy con units, we had Hurricanes there and it was very hard to see them at night. The Hurricanes had ultraviolet or infrared cameras on their wingtips which they switched on. We couldn’t see them but it registered on the film. So when you looked at the film you could tell, could see them coming round or wherever they were coming from. But so, and bombing ranges, I think the Wash was the one where we did most of our bombing because that was from Abingdon. And from Lindholme ‘cause we were a lot nearer at Lindholme to the coast than Abingdon. But there were inland bombing ranges but I can’t remember, probably in Wales I suspect where there’s plenty of uninhabited territory. I can’t remember really whether we dropped bombs on the landlocked ranges but they were only those little twelve and a half pound practice bombs which.
CB: Um. The fighter affiliation one involved Hurricanes and others also stationed on your airfield were they?
DS: Oh yes.
CB: And to what extent did the pilots engage with the gunners in briefings, of the pilots of the fighters? Did you talk to them directly?
DS: No.
CB: You never spoke to them at all?
DS: We did talk in the air, particularly at night. You know, you’d be on the, he’d have his radio on. He’d tell you when he’d attacked and say ‘Didn’t see you.’ Sort of thing. And quite often that was the case, very hard to see.
CB: Yes.
DS: See them at night.
CB: The instructors that you had from a gunnery point of view were people who had done a tour were they?
DS: Yes, yes.
CB: And to what extent did they tell you tales of the unexpected?
DS: Well, they were very good at telling you what had gone on. Up until that time, as far as, air gunnery school at Dalcross the people who were instructing you there, in many cases, were chaps who had been through previous course and someone had decided, you know, that they were worth hanging onto as an instructor, particularly the blokes who did aircraft recognition and things like that. They were rogues too really, they used to build kits in their spare time, and they had plenty of spare time. Plastic aircraft, and then they’d raffle them. [chuckling] And I used to make aircraft before I joined the air force. I had about thirty-six different ones. I sold them to a toy shop in Amersham when I joined the air force. And I used to fiddle about with bits of, bits of wood and a craft knife and they realised that, you know, I was making stuff myself and didn’t really trouble me about getting into the raffles. Because I mean they probably only charged about six pence each ticket for a raffle, and they’d have the boxes ready, which they got from stores, empty boxes. And I used to think by the time those aircraft got home I wondered if any of them were ever complete.
CB: Um.
DS: But er.
CB: Right we’ll stop for a bit. So the aircraft in the gunnery schools what were they?
DS: At Dalcross it was Ansons, and Wellingtons of course at operational training unit and then Lancs at heavy conversion.
CB: Yeah.
DS: So, they were the only aircraft that I flew in in the air force.
CB: Were the turrets all the same?
DS: No.
CB: Or did they have different turrets in.
DS: There were Bristol turrets in the Ansons.
CB: With how many guns?
DS: Two guns. They were Fraser Nash four gun turrets at the rear turret, and two guns on the rear turret on the Wellingtons. On the Lanc it was Fraser Nash again, two guns on the front, two guns on the upper, four on the rear turret.
CB: How did, did you have a choice, initially which gunner you were going to be, or did they say ‘You’re a rear gunner, and that’s it?’
DS: You trained as a rear gunner in the Wellingtons you see? They hadn’t got a mid-upper.
CB: No.
DS: So, I think that I just automatically went to the rear turret I suppose, and went to heavy conversion unit. I mean we picked up a young chap for mid upper at heavy con unit, but he only stayed with us a week or two because after VE Day we had this odd sort of period and there was this talk of taking the mid uppers out. And they were short of gunners anyway so we lost our mid upper and I suppose he must have gone to another crew ‘cause he wasn’t with us for any length at all, when they were considering, you know, are we going East or are we not? And we didn’t of course.
CB: So you flew without a mid upper gunner for a while?
DS: Yes, if I felt like it I might go and sit in his seat, see a different view for a change.
CB: What was the, what was the general operation of the crew? Did it work well? Well co-ordinated?
DS: Oh, I think so. Yes, yes. We got on fairly well. Yeah.
CB: And in the social context?
DS: Well, we were all NCO’s you see until Bill arrived who was the flight engineer. And he was a flying officer. And er.
CB: He’s the ex-pilot?
DS: Yes. So, you know, soon as a trip was over six or seven of us were off to the sergeants’ mess and Bill was off to the officers’ mess. I mean he was alright, no complaint about his efficiency as a flight engineer but he wasn’t a mixer you see? Got his own companions. I think that, well it was circumstances and probably nothing you could do about it. But you see it was rather funny, when Tom, Tom Paine.
CB: Who was the pilot?
DS: Became a pilot, some of his crew were officers, Tom was a flight sergeant you know? When he got onto a squadron the commanding officer said ‘All captains of aircraft squadrons are commissioned.’ and commissioned him on the spot.
CB: Um.
DS: So then he was with his fellows who were also officers.
CB: Yes.
DS: I mean that was an odd situation I think. But I mean you could be commissioned in the field as it were.
CB: Yes.
DS: With well probably this chap was allowed to do it with the agreement of the Air Commodore at Group I imagine.
CB: And as the captain of the aircraft then it would.
DS: The pilot effective of what his rank was.
CB: Yes.
DS: Yes. And I think that was probably recognised 99.9%.
CB: Um.
DS: You accepted that straight away.
CB: So you went through all this training having started late in practical terms.
DS: Yes.
CB: The War was progressing all the time, what was your attitude and the attitude of the crew towards getting into action?
DS: Well, if we’d got from heavy con unit to squadron it was a sort of natural progression.
CB: I wondered if you were anxious to get there?
DS: Probably not.
CB: Or you just assumed you would did you?
DS: Probably not in the last year of the War with the losses going up and up and up as they were.
CB: Um.
DS: You know, you’re always a bit apprehensive. My pilot was engaged to a girl in North Wales. He was a screen pilot at Valley before he was transferred to OTU and I think old Jock was always hoping that things would be OK. I was of course having married.
CB: Yeah. How many?
DS: If things had been different whether I’d be sitting here or not would be questionable. You see I had that year and a half later than anybody else being called up.
CB: Yeah.
DS: And I have no idea what the reason was. I wasn’t in a reserved occupation, used to ring up RAF records at Gloucester. ‘Oh no, no, your turn will come.’ You know ‘Don’t bother us.’ So I was a year and a half late there. So when we went from ITW to Elementary Gunner School we were three weeks just doing cross country runs, navigation hikes, talks nothing. And three weeks occurred again when I was potato picking. So that was six weeks wasted there. Then the NCO school, of course we was called off that because the weather was so atrocious and when I went back to Dalcross and got an extra fortnight’s leave, that’s two full months that I did nothing really.
CB: Um.
DS: And add that to a year and a half, if I’d have gone in at eighteen and a quarter the story would have been so different.
CB: Um.
DS: And I don’t understand why.
CB: Two other things. To what extent were the crews, particularly the gunners, aware of gunners on bombers?
DS: Um, I don’t think that it was. Well, there was always the thought that there’s two gunners and one of every, you know, every other category. But if you look at the graph of losses there was what twenty five thousand? I think that in the first four years of the War there’s probably not as many killed as in the last year and a bit.
CB: Um.
DS: So I don’t really know what effect that would have had on people at the time. I mean we certainly heard how many aircraft were missing and that sort of thing. I can’t say, I expect it bothered us, but I don’t suppose anyone was prepared to show it really.
CB: No.
DS: I mean for a long while in the last eighteen months when Jerry had got those twin engine fighters with the upward firing cannon, it was a long while before the RAF really knew that they’d got them and that was what was causing the trouble because using tracer you see? They were underneath an aircraft and they said they were accurate enough to even aim at a particular part of the aircraft.
CB: Um.
DS: They’d aim for the wing, ‘cause the fuel was in there and they were using what thirty millimetre cannons. Thirty mil, that’s an inch and a half, inch and a quarter, and how long is the shell? There’s enough explosive in there to do a lot of damage. And not using any tracer, I don’t think the air force knew for a long while what was causing this sudden explosion of aircraft or why they were suddenly bursting into flames. So it was, it was right towards the very end I think, well I don’t really know how they would have thought then. Going off on these raids in the last few days of the War was a very risky business. They were losing a lot.
CB: Going before you joined the RAF.
DS: Yeah.
CB: People who were still in civilian life were really in the focus of the public if they weren’t in uniform. So what did you do? Did you tend to wear your ATC uniform or did they give you a badge that identified you as a waiting person?
DS: No. I didn’t have a badge that would point out I’d been, you know, waiting call up. I never had any, any trouble that way. I know, well I mean we were at Air Training Corps several nights a week and weekends.
CB: Um.
DS: So we’d be in uniform quite a while. But no never, never found anyone antagonistic or anything like that as to why we were still there.
CB: And your workmates, what sort of ages were they? Did they tend to be older people?
DS: Yes, oh yes. And there were quite a lot of jobs going for people in our area. There was, insurance companies were dotted about the place. The railway clearing house were in Great Missenden. I suppose when I joined the company there were probably three others from the school joined with me, and others did in subsequent years. And, of course, we were the younger people who most of the people who were called up had gone by the time we got there.
CB: Yeah.
DS: They were um, yes they were quite a bit older most of them. I know I joined the spotters group at Newland Park, where they had a post on the roof where they watched for aircraft to warn people if anything was very close, sort of get under your desk or whatever you did in those days. They were quite independent those groups. After the War I joined the Royal Observer Corps. I found some of my friends who’d not been called you know in the Royal Observer Corps, younger than me. And I was in that for twenty-five years. We had a post at Missenden, group headquarters were in Watford and we had a post at Chorley Wood, Beaconsfield, Great Missenden and Princes Risborough. And we were linked by telephone to Watford, and to the other posts we could hear what they were reporting. And at the end of it when we were reporting radio active fallout and had stopped aircraft reporting all together, some of us were invited to go down to the underground command room at Naphill, Bomber Command’s headquarters. And we all had to have a special interview, I was alright I’d already signed the Official Secrets Act, and we did shifts in the underground control room at Naphill. But that was only reporting radio active fallout and you were given readings on automatic machines because there wasn’t any fallout to speak off. Nothing that was really measurable. So you had gadgets which, the tape which produced figures which you then report. And we had a separate map, beside the working map, at Naphill. But periodically if you were on shift when the Russians sent a couple of bears down the North Sea, and Leuchars put a Lightning, two or three Lightning’s up to turn them around then probably at Wycombe they would consider it was an alarm and the map they worked on by day disappeared and the War map came down in it’s place.
CB: Oh did it, right?
DS: And the control room was locked and you were in there, you couldn’t get out until they thought the problem was over. That was quite interesting but it got so boring just doing radioactivity that in the end they, they gave up and the Royal Observer Corps was disbanded completely. So I imagine there’s a few holes in the ground. They built a hole for us, when we went to occupy it, it was full of water. So they had to then drain it out and put another fresh lining inside but it used to be freezing cold down there.
CB: Yeah.
DS: Only about twenty foot down on a farm up at Hide End.
CB: Really? Just stop there for a mo’. The War finishes, you’re demobbed?
DS: Yes.
CB: Then what options were you and what did you choose?
DS: Well, I had my leave but of course having been employed, employers had to offer you a job back. And I went back. They had an office in Rickmansworth, the main office was back in London of course, so I travelled to Rickmansworth which was very easy for me and eventually when that closed and went back to London I had to go back to London to do insurance accounts again. But I finished up doing re-insurance accounting which was interesting because this was big sums, multi-millionaire figures. Things like we insured the Beatles for goodness knows how many million pounds when they made their first film. If one of the Beatles had fallen ill and they had to scrub the whole film this would have cost millions, so they insured on short term things but of course no company could keep the whole of the business. So, it was shared. And you shared it with companies around the world. And you had treaties with these companies. It was a bit like, ‘you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.’ We would take two and a half per cent of a risk from a certain company, anywhere in the world. They would take two and a half per cent of big risks that came our way. But so big were some of the risk that you didn’t insure, or you’d re-insure everything except the thing maybe a quarter of a per cent because you couldn’t take the lot, it would have.
CB: Um. Bankrupt the company.
DS: But because I was mixed up in that I got to speak to people, or write to them all over the world. And to countries in Europe and here you were talking to people and got to know them very well. I mean the Beatles was just one example . We had, there was a flush of American golfers, who fly their own aircraft. And that’s a risk. Even if they don’t make it to a golf tournament. Because the stars aren’t there, the public aren’t there and you’ve got a loss on your hands so all these sorts of things. It was quite an interesting change from ordinary accounting.
CB: Yeah.
DS: You know contacting all these people as to what they would take and, as I say I knew many people from all around the world. It was quite interesting.
CB: And you said you retired at fifty-nine and a half?
DS: Yeah, almost sixty. Um, but there was the offer, we were taken over and, for the second time actually, and they made that offer because they were then overloaded with staff.
CB: Um.
DS: And I had to stay on for six months to train up someone for my particular job and then it was goodbye.
CB: Yes. And that made you, you fully retired then did you?
DS: Yeah. Been retired for thirty-three years now. Nearly as long as I worked. [laughter]
CB: That’s very good. Dennis Swains thank you very much indeed.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Dennis Swains
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-23
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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ASwainsDNJ170123
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01:48:46 audio recording
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eng
Description
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In 1936, Dennis went to Dr Challoner’s Grammar School in Amersham, where an Air Training Corps was formed. At seventeen, he got a job with the North British and Mercantile Insurance company. He visited Halton with the Air Training Corps each Sunday, where he learned to fly the Slingsby Primary and the Granau Baby. In 1944, Dennis was called up and trained as an air gunner on Ansons. On the 20th of December 1944, he finished the course and married his fiancée on the 23rd. He then went to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Abingdon, where they crewed up and flew Wellingtons. Dennis describes a three-and-a-half-hour cross-country night run during which they encountered a terrible thunderstorm, and three aircraft were lost. The squadron was then posted to RAF Lindholme to fly Lancasters, but the war ended and they never flew as a crew again. After the war, Dennis went back to his job in insurance.
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Sue Smith
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Halton
England--Cheshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
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1936
1944-05
1944-05
1944-12-20
1944-12-23
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
crewing up
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
memorial
RAF Abingdon
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Blyton
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Dalcross
RAF Lindholme
RAF Stanton Harcourt
sanitation
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1145/11701/AStevensonWR151202.2.mp3
cdf64c51040d531c7161ab2d8c4fb941
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Stevenson, Walter Raymond
W R Stevenson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Walter Stevenson DFM (b. 1922, 1080597, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner in a Wellington with 621 Squadron in East Africa and Aden, and with RAF Costal Command. Walter helped to bring a number of war criminals to justice. He was demobbed in August 1946 and returned to his pre-war occupation of blacksmithing.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-12-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Stevenson, WR
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: This story relates to Walter Stevenson and part of the air force career he had resulted in the surrender of a German U-boat and the eventual death by hanging of the captain for war crimes.
[recording paused]
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and it is the 2nd of December 2015. And I’m with Walter Stevenson DFM and his wife Lillian. And we’re going to talk about his experiences in life but with particular interest in the war. So, Walter could you start off by talking about your earliest recollections? The family. Where you went to school.
WS: Yes. My earliest recollection is quite vivid. The age I wasn’t sure about but I was told many times when we came back from the hospital that I’d been away from home. So I was, spent x number of weeks in a hospital at Middlesbrough which is twenty odd miles from Merton. And I went there because me father had gone there on the say, Friday. And I went away on the Sunday. All I know is I saw the funny building outside vividly. And the nurse with, I’d never seen a nurse before. And I just probably went to sleep. And when I woke up I was in, I was in a ward where the matron sat talking, and father tells me this afterwards, ‘He’s too young to be on his own.’ Three wards in Middlesbrough. First World War casualties. TB. Special one for TB and a special one for [pause] TB. It’ll come in a minute. TB. Oh what I was in for? I’m forgetting the bit I was in for. I had smallpox. The biggest killer of mankind. Yeah. And father did. The two of us you know. The rest of the family which was mam, mam, me brother Tommy, older, and me sister Mair and sister Ivy. They were at home so why they didn’t get it I don’t know. I got it. And how long in there for? Sorry. The people would have to make their mind up and tell. Two types of, two types of smallpox. Very old, major and minor. The major was a killer. And the minor — comme ci, comme ca. You won some and lost some. Which I’ve later researched and found, I’ve always thought I must have had minor with dad because you can see by my face no pox. Well, it left you terribly scarred if, whether you died anyway. So —
CB: Okay. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
WS: And how long we were in for I can’t say. And coming out and then I was spoiled. Oh my mother had then had a, not while I was in there but shortly after we had another baby. Harry. And he died early. Very early. Six months or six weeks. And again I remember that vividly. Whether I was three or three and a half then, or four. I don’t know. I don’t think I was at school. And the first time I recommend of, I remember of that was father carrying the box out. You know. You don’t carry them today do they? Just a little white box. I don’t know where he was going. No, no burial. He just walked up to the cemetery. That’s what happened in 19 — three years on top of my age.
CB: 1925. Yeah.
WS: ’25. Say ’25. And that was the end. And then you lose it. Quite a enjoyable, I I liked the colliery very much. Started school at five. Did like all schooling, liked all headmasters and marks. Again which I fought with over in the book. Could have done better. You could have done better. She could have done better. We all could. I know what it’s for. It’s to encourage you on. I understand that. But I didn’t, I didn’t do bad and I’m big enough to put it down in a book. I wonder how many others are. Not many. Oliver has wrote his CV now because being cleverer than me he thinks he should have wrote a book but he hasn’t. He’s given a lot of advice in books but, but he hasn’t wrote a book yet. He’s left it a bit too late now.
CB: What age did you leave school?
WS: And I left school at fourteen. Oh yes, you’re going to lose track. I lose track. Fourteen. Yes. I played on. I was playing football for the school eleven so I carried on. So it’s fourteen on top of twenty two. ’36 and a bit longer. Purely to play football. Not to worry about. And father said the best thing you can do [pause] And drink your tea before it gets cold.
LR: I’ll make another one. I could do with another one anyway.
WS: And it does doesn’t it? She can carry two. Very good. Right. Oh, father said, you’d better didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t. There’s one thing I definitely knew at fourteen. One is I wanted to be a footballer. I still had that here and here. And father said, ‘You haven’t got a job yet?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’d better start looking.’ He knew well there was only one place to go and that was the mine. I wasn’t too keen on that. Not even as a fourteen year old. And I got a job in the butcher’s at Merton. Skillbeck’s. Which I liked. Riding a bike. Cleaning the floors. But it had one drawback. Working Saturdays ‘til 9 o’clock at night. Eight in morning till nine at night. Slavery. Absolute slavery. How people can. Fridays was till 8 o’clock. 6 o’clock every. Eight till six. 7 o’clock, 9 o’clock on a Saturday. 9 o’clock. Unbelievable isn’t it? And so I thought well, so I had to go cap in hand, say to dad, ‘Could you find me a job?’ I knew he could. He was a traffic manager so he had a little bit of pull. And he did. Got me a job as a blacksmith apprentice which I started about sixteen because I was playing junior football and I couldn’t play football working on a Saturday. [pause] And then I worked at the colliery from sixteen. Could have only have been two years. Eighteen. And I thought I don’t like it because even though I was a blacksmith we had to go down. Normally, blacksmithing you’d think it’s on an anvil all day wouldn’t you? No. That’s old fashioned. On the colliery there’s two types. There’s the person who goes down and does just shoes. Makes the shoes at bank and then puts them on the ponies down there. That’s one form of smithing. The other form of smithing was on the, on the bank until there was an accident or summat wrong with the coal cutting machines which we serviced and you had to go down. Sometimes, sometimes two, three mile in. Two mile in by. I did not like that at all. Hate wouldn’t be too strong a word. I hated it. But I did it until eighteen. The day I was eighteen I went to, decided — I decided. Not mother or father. I did. I was very clever then. I decided I would, the RAF has got to be a better job than going two miles under the North Sea. I didn’t think that was funny at all. Miners liked it and they did it. Terrible. Terrible job. So, I, I went with a friend of mine who was a joiner. Apprentice joiner. A bit, he was a bit older than me so he could go in at that time. But I had to wait for me eighteenth birthday because in them days, contrary to a lot of lads from London I’ve met, ‘Oh I joined up when I was seventeen,’ I said you must have had —
CB: They didn’t.
WS: You must. No. But they add a bit on you know. To the — I said, ‘Well, we couldn’t do that. We had to show the sergeant at Durham our birth certificate.’ Well you had to. Simple as that. So I signed in and that’s, and that’s the day I joined up and the date then was [pause ] it’s in the book.
CB: 1940. October 1940.
WS: Was it? Well, yeah that’s, that’s what it would be. October. And a new world to me. So I said, ‘Well, we’re off Charlie.’ I’ve just found out lately why, I did see him once after the war. He came to see me in Chalfont. There was something funny. Mind you he spent, that was his fault, he spent four years in Pershore or somewhere. In, well, when, when we’d got attested in Padgate you get attested for all. Have you — is your eyesight good? And can you breathe and can you speak? And all the, all the rigmarole. You know what it is. And before we went to bed that night I said, ‘Oh good, Charlie,’ I said, ‘I’m going home.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m not.’ He said, ‘I’m going to Barry.’ Barry? I’d never heard of Barry. I’ve heard of Bury but not of Barry. Barry? So he went. ‘Oh, why is that?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘They’ve decided I’m going to be a fitter.’ ‘They decided? You went as a W/op AG with me.’ Then I let it, and then I blew because I was happy to go back because I was playing football anyway. And he was in Barry and then I didn’t see him for five years. The places he was around. Pakistan and wherever. And from the, from Padgate back home until I eventually was called up at Blackpool which I enjoyed. I enjoyed it. It’s in the book. The RAF might agree or disagree my feelings. The RAF to me was good when it was very good. Like the boy, the little boy. He’s bad when he’s very, he’s naughty. Good, bad and indifferent wasn’t it? It was. My, me first day at Blackpool I think I got in trouble. Well, I didn’t get in trouble because they didn’t get catch me. But they would have caught me. But I went to the toilets and I had to stop in there ‘til they’d gone away. All I’d lost was me hat. I don’t. You know. You’re supposed to stick it up —
CB: In your belt. Yeah.
WS: Or the front, ent you? Aye. Well, it must have dropped out. So then that’s when me, and that’s when me title for me war years because that was me. That was my, what do you call them? It’s so true it’s untrue. Yes. I thought that was funny. I thought that. My daughter got this. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted, I wanted that. I wanted that. A bit smaller. And I wanted that. I was going to put it and get it SIB to get it--
CB: You mean redesign the face?
WS: Yeah.
CB: Redesign the face of the book.
WS: Yes. I did.
CB: Yeah. Thanks Lily.
WS: Yes. But I’m surprised that people are prepared to give that money to the Association so that I’m happy with. It’s, it’s but I thought that was catchy. But I did, I put five titles. I didn’t do that. But anyway. Thank you, mam.
CB: So from Blackpool?
WS: I miss that.
CB: Yeah. At Blackpool.
WS: That’s at Blackpool.
CB: That was square bashing. Square bashing.
WS: Wonderful. But that’s, you haven’t got that right. Square bashing. Marching. No. No. No. I didn’t march from day one. What height are you?
CB: PT. PT.
WS: Yeah. What height are you? What height are you?
CB: Five ten.
WS: Five ten. Oh right. That’ll do. Five ten’ll do. What height am I?
CB: Five six.
WS: Aye. And that’s pushing it a bit. In the RAF, I think I must have had high heels. They made, in my records which I got from Lincoln the people who did the records there should have done better. I would have marked their card. I’ve got it here somewhere. I don’t know where it is. It’s a proper record of me. Five foot four and a half.
CB: Oh right.
WS: So, I was supposed to, at Blackpool which I never did and never did anywhere else either. It’s very like that but I got pulled up there. First day there, ‘You in the middle. Bobbing up and down like a cork in the ocean.’ Maltese sergeant. I thought chh. Well, I couldn’t march. How can I march behind you? So, I used to get in the middle didn’t I? You learn quick. And it never did work and I just used to put up with it. But I, I, they weren’t going to beat me. They did. No. They wouldn’t beat me but I kept on fighting them which I enjoyed immensely. All in the book and I write it down. I did. I liked, I liked the thought of them trying to beat me. If I’d been five foot ten I could have joined the Durham Light Infantry and I would have been a hero. Killed them. All the Germans. I didn’t but I could only do what I could do. My pace. I read in the papers since this year, last year how could, she was in the WAAF. How could she keep up with —? How could anybody as small as five foot. Lil was just five foot. And she was, women have got, they’ve been paid awards for overstretching. Trying to — well it’s understandable isn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
WS: But they didn’t understand it with me. Why is that? I felt like saying, ‘I joined up to fly,’ I said, ‘You get somebody else marching.’ But you know the — did you go to Blackpool?
CB: No.
WS: No.
CB: No.
WS: Lovely place. I’d never been there before. Well, the furthest I’d been is Sunderland. Why I went to Durham I don’t know because the sergeant made me sick. His first words were, ‘Where are you from?’ Well, you’ve got to tell them. ‘Merton.’ ‘What do you do?’ You didn’t do anything at Merton. Only the pit. So he knew that. So clever like, you know. I said, ‘Yeah, but we’ve come to join up.’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ but he said, ‘We need blacksmiths and joiners.’ I said, ‘No. We’ve come to fly,’ I said. ‘We want to fly.’ He kept on and on, this sergeant. I swear he had nowt better to do. When we said aircrew, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘They all want to.’ Course I was a bit slop. I looked around. I said, ‘There’s not many behind here, sergeant.’ I gave him his rank. Don’t know why I did. Just taking the mickey. ‘Alright. Alright,’ he said. But there was nobody in there so he couldn’t say everybody wanted to join the RAF.
CB: No.
WS: And then from then Blackpool. And then my war years at Blackpool.
CB: What did you actually do at Blackpool? What did you do at Blackpool?
WS: Oh, in Blackpool. Twelve words a minute. Twelve words a minute.
CB: This was the, when you started doing Morse code.
WS: Yeah. Wireless was, as well you might know. You know. But I was quite good at it. I didn’t find it, I’m prepared to put everything in black and white. I’m prepared to put all me, they’re all in there. All the, all what I did. And I didn’t do bad. But not because I was clever. I did it because I liked it and it was different. And the only thing I didn’t like was after leaving Blackpool, I didn’t like it at Blackpool because I had to do guard one night. That’s all. I did a guard one night and they [pause] this is a joke. So true it’s untrue. Yeah. I couldn’t believe it happened in the RAF. The sergeant walked down with the people like. Down the ranks. And I’m sitting like this because I wasn’t very, I wasn’t keen on shaving if I went up. ‘Stand up airman.’ How you can stand up when you wanted a shave I don’t know but that’s what they wanted you to do. And they said, they go in a huddle, the sergeant and the PO. This was for an all night guard. And one of the big officers were guarding a hotel in Blackpool. ‘Come here.’ I thought it was a bit rough how he shouted at me like, but [laughs] I knew what it was for like you know. You haven’t shaved. Or your buttons. Well, I used to clean them like that. Rub them. And he said, the officer, you stick man. Well, I could have broke down in tears. Me? Stick man. I was about the untidiest, the poorest dressed man in the RAF. I wasn’t very good at dress. Mick used to say, ‘You look a mess,’ And even said, my mate in London. I said, ‘Well it’s, I’ve done my best but I’m not, I’m not meant to be smart at five foot four.’ [laughs] And I said, ‘Stick man?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I’ll get you. Don’t get too cocky for your — ’ so I just stepped out and I was stick man. Which was unbelievable but it pleased me because I didn’t have to stand like a twit outside the, one of the hotels. You didn’t do anything anyway. I was to meet further problems at Yatesbury. There I did well. I did. I passed out quite well at twelve words a minute. A little bit of technical work but nothing much other than —
CB: You got promotion.
WS: It started. It started after three days when I’d do the variation in me book. It’s again my daughter didn’t do it the way I wanted it. I do about six pages which I’d done sitting here. And I think I was better to do when I went to hospital in Middlesborough. So, I put that in the middle of the Blackpool one although I don’t leave Blackpool, you’ve got to read it. You’ve got to read me about six, I don’t know how much, it’s not six pages in there but it’s in six pages in A2s which I wrote. You then take your mind back from 1941 to [pause] from 1941 take your mind back to 1925 when I was in Middlesborough.
CB: In a hospital. Yeah.
WS: Middlesborough. Then I write about the people and the research I’d done on smallpox.
CB: Right.
WS: For want of something better to do and I got a lot of help from people in the hospital there and how much it cost and all that then. And about Louis Pasteur. I was interested in reading about him. He was one of the good things I liked. You’re not French are you? You’ve not got any French [laughs] Well, me and the French is not [laughs] He then decided that I would come back again. But I’d never leave Blackpool. But after three days there, ah that’s when that started.
CB: We’re talking about the title of the book.
WS: That started. Just a title. I didn’t think anything of it other than but I thought but it‘s catchy. It’s a bit like somebody sneezing or Japanese. I don’t know what it’s like. “Airman roll your sleeves up and shut up.” Going in the building which is what I wanted on the front pages of my book. Which I haven’t got. The queue was, how many is in a squad? Fifty? I think there was about fifty. There’s a photograph of about fifty. Till it come to me. And you know smallpox is a scratch rather than you, you’d know more than I did. The rest is needles and that’s bad enough. They sling them into you like. Five, six and then the sergeant said, ‘You can have the weekend off.’ Well, you know you can just about make your bed in Blackpool. Mind you the beds were very good in private digs. But when it come to the scratch bit then my ruffles came up. He’s sitting there and I’ve got me, me list from me mam which is sacrament. She can be one thing of all things. She wouldn’t lie. That’s, that wasn’t in her. And she taught me not to lie. And so did father. They said, you’re going through your list. Chicken pox? Yes. Something? Yes. Other disease? Yes. Smallpox? No. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. Smallpox. You’ve got chicken, you’ve had chicken pox.’ ‘Smallpox,’ I said. And then the queues were still waiting and I’m still —I’ve had smallpox and they’ve told mam or dad it won’t scab up. Well it was like talking to this here. And that, and that didn’t do my hackles any good. And they said, then the sergeant‘s voice come over, he was only about there but I can see him, nasty smirk on his face, ‘Roll your sleeves airman and shut up.’ So, you’re going to be scratched whether you liked it or you didn’t like it or the doctor was kind. He said, ‘That’s alright,’ he said, ‘Just come back if it scabs up.’ But of course it didn’t so they were right in that respect. But then the gentleman from Bristol University who’s wrote a wonderful book, he’s done a bit of research and they fight one another you see. A lot of doctors. And all right it didn’t quite work like that. Some people did live with it and some people didn’t. And when I wrote I said well I must have had the — what do you call them? A nice gentleman. He was the top man at Bristol University. He’s in, there’s a smallpox hospital quite near. Well, there was a place I was going to go and I’ve never got there. He said he would come up and see me. I don’t think it’s a very nice museum to see. No. I wouldn’t. That’s what I thought. But I would have wanted a look around. And it went on and I knew at the next station it would be the same again so I tried to fight it and I tried to win that one but I didn’t win that one. And from then the end of Blackpool. Wonderful six months roughly was it? About six months. Strangely enough a lot of navigators went to —
[pause]
WS: The place just up the coast of Blackpool.
CB: Morecambe. Morecambe.
WS: No. Not up direct. Along past. The long past.
CB: Okay.
WS: Instead of going north Blackpool, go south Blackpool.
CB: Oh right.
WS: Up there.
CB: Yeah. Okay. Well, there’s Lytham St Annes. That sort of thing.
WS: Lytham St Annes.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Oliver. I think he, he went to Lytham.
CB: Did he? Yeah. Yeah.
WS: Did a bit. But of course there was an aerodrome up there wasn’t there?
CB: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
WS: Yeah.
CB: So the point of my question was what you did during the initial training. So when you were at Blackpool —
WS: Yes.
CB: An important point was getting all the inoculations done.
WS: Yes.
CB: Which is what you’ve just been talking about. Then there was a certain amount of marching that had to be done.
WS: Yeah. Which I wasn’t good at.
CB: Then there was physical fitness. What else was there?
WS: Oh aye. Yeah. But I liked that. I did like that. I liked the, I liked that part because I like football.
CB: Yeah.
WS: So I wanted to be as fit as possible for when I came out.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Assuming I was coming out.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Didn’t know where I was going but, yes. Torn between being a perfect airman.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Which, I’m sorry. [laughs] I failed miserably. Nothing out of a hundred.
CB: And then you went to Yatesbury.
WS: Yatesbury.
CB: And at Yatesbury was the place where you learned W/T.
WS: From twelve.
CB: Yeah.
WS: From twelve.
CB: Twelve words.
WS: To twenty five.
CB: Yeah. Twenty five. Right.
WS: Twenty five.
CB: On Morse code.
WS: Yeah. We had that. That was just the Morse. But the good thing about it was I learned a lot about wireless which I found very interesting and I did well there apart from the damned Maltese sergeant. Going to war. He said, he was the one who said I’m going along there like a cork in the ocean. But I’d just come down from Merton with a kit bag on me shoulder and I wasn’t equipped to do that. I wasn’t a massive man.
CB: So from —
WS: And then I got —
CB: How long were you at Yatesbury?
WS: Six months roughly.
CB: Okay. Right. Then where did you go?
WS: There. It’s all in there.
CB: It’s in there. Okay right.
WS: Yatesbury.
CB: Well we’ll look it up in a minute.
WS: Yeah.
CB: But at Yatesbury did you do any flying training or not?
WS: No. Because, because the RAF in their infinite wisdom were clever enough to fill the, fill the stations up with potential [pause] potential W/op AGs. So it was just my bad luck. No it wasn’t. It was my good luck. My good luck. First time I’d had any luck in the RAF. All the rest had been bad. It had, they were producing at the schools more W/op AGs than aircraft for them but it should. They did, some did fly from there. So that’s when I, that’s when the RAF, the button, summat went wrong with the system. You then went in at the end of the year and said where would you like to go because you’ve got to go out on a station until there’s enough flying schools . Which was at Mona eventually, when we got to. So you went. I remember it and now I remember this vividly, ‘Where’d you like to go airman?’ I said, ‘The north preferably.’ Knowing full, that’s where I made me first mistake. I should have said Cornwall. And damn me they would have sent me there. But it worked. I said the north east and they sent me to Thornaby. Wonderful. Thornaby was, that’s when I met me first Halton brat. Wonderful lad. Corporal. Wireless bloke. And I went, I was in private digs in Thornaby. Which the address was Thornaby, you know. They did funny things didn’t they? The Post Office. It’s not Thornaby. Thornaby in Yorkshire. It’s that side the water. Yorkshire. Telephone number, the address for mam was blah blah blah RAF Thornaby, RAF, RAF Thornaby. Stockton. County Durham. Well, I couldn’t get nothing better. It was about twenty six miles from home. I could hitchhike home at night. Go to a dance at [unclear ] Lane. Come back in the train in the morning and be back in time because it was no, I could do, the corporal said, ‘What you want to do you do.’ He was, there was nothing he didn’t know about wireless because he did the correct training at Halton. And he was very very kind to me. I wish I’d remembered — he was a London lad but I forget his name. Shame. And —
CB: What did you do at Thornaby?
WS: Thornaby.
CB: What did you do there?
WS: Nothing. Well, I was supposed to be learning wireless. So we had, the squadron was 608 Squadron. It was two, two parts. 608 Squadron and C OTU. It was an OTU for Canadians on Hudsons. So that was, that was an advantage of a different radio set for me to learn. And he, he virtually, I went out with some of the ground staff lads and if they wanted help I couldn’t do much. But, but if, if anybody was flying, as you see in the log book I did quite a few in, I did quite a few just short trips. A bit scary too because they were sprog pilots. A sprog short trip. We got lost one day when we were going to Scotland. If you read the — it’s in there isn’t it? That’s sometime when I lost my book. About then. But, anyway, most enjoyable. First time I’d had a pint of beer from a padre. That’s a good record isn’t it? That was the second one I’ve had from you. Thank you very much. I was going to see this, the sports officer about football. And I knocked on the door. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Come in.’ He was a Catholic priest. [unclear] And he, he said, ‘Do you want a drink?’ I said, ‘Yes please.’ I thought to get a free drink from a padre is pretty unique. And he said, ‘Stand there. I’ll get the officer for you.’ And I thought that was very kind. And the trips were, the trips were nice but I didn’t know whether they were dangerous or not because I’d never done any flying. That’s me first. But they were all — have you got it?
CB: No.
WS: Oh. Let me. I’ll [pause] It could have been in my other [pause] oh dear.
CB: Right.
WS: That’s, that’s —
CB: So we’re looking in the logbook now.
WS: Silloth. No. That’s Silloth.
CB: That’s at Silloth.
WS: We want Thornaby. Thornaby. Yeah. They were all just scratchy ‘til we got lost one day and we went to Paisley. I said, ‘Well what’s gone wrong?’ And they were nice lads. All Canadian crews. We just went out into Paisley one night and then back the next morning. So they, they could still fly a bit.
CB: So you were at Thornaby for some time.
WS: Well, typical RAF they said you’ll only be there a few weeks. Turned out to be one year. So it’s a one year of me. Of me. But it was, as you can see I got quite a few flying hours in.
CB: Yeah.
WS: I don’t know whether it helped me or not. Some were good. Some were bad.
CB: We didn’t talk about your air gunnery. So after you’d done the wireless operation where did you learn your air gunnery?
WS: Well, from there I was called to —
CB: Ah. After this —
WS: Yeah. From when, when we went back I expect I had leave from there. Yorkshire. The island.
CB: In Yorkshire?
WS: No. In Wales.
CB: Oh Anglesey.
WS: Anglesey.
CB: Right.
WS: Thank you. And that was an experience in itself. You said that you’ve got Anglesey. Oh that’s right. That’s all right. Yeah.
CB: That it?
[pause]
WS: Silloth
CB: Air gunnery was Silloth was it?
WS: So that’s, that’s where my logbook goes for a —
CB: This is because you’ve got interruptions in your log book.
WS: Hmmn?
CB: This is because you have interruptions in your log book.
WS: Yes. Well, because I lost it.
CB: Yes.
WS: I lost it, you see. See, because I’ve got it down there. There’s my [pause] this’ll scare you to death then.
CB: The point about this is that Walter is good at losing things. Including his logbook.
WS: Yeah.
CB: So we’re now on to Mona in North Wales.
WS: Yes.
CB: Right.
WS: Mona. I thought that was different. That’s right in the middle of northern — have you been there?
CB: No.
WS: It’s dead in the middle.
CB: Really. Yeah.
WS: You know where the prince went?
CB: Yes.
WS: That’s on the isle, that’s on the end.
CB: Right.
WS: It’s still not far by island standards but, but you used to get a garry or summat to Mona. I only had one day off a week. Actually, Heather’s son’s just went up there to get his BA.
CB: Oh.
WS: And he went to Bangor.
CB: Yeah.
WS: We used to go to Bangor once a week.
CB: The interesting thing about your Number 3 Air Gunnery School at Mona is that all the pilots are Polish.
WS: All Polish.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Yeah. All Polish. Very good. We never, we never had any problems. Well, one problem when they tell you at school, ‘You could have done better.’ There’s one trip there that’s pretty outstanding. See. People could invent summat, a talking glass.
CB: Yeah.
WS: They’d make a fortune [pause] On —
[pause]
CB: Right. We’re looking in the logbook.
WS: On the, on the 24th of February 1943.
CB: Yeah.
[pause]
WS: On 24th of February.
CB: This is when you did an outstanding gunnery job.
WS: Well, there were so many things went wrong. We started in the morning. Have I got the hours down right? Ah, 10:50. 10:50. 10:50. That’s ten to eleven in the morning. And [pause] and on ‘til the 28th of February. Same trip. Same. Same, I don’t know if it was the same pilot or not. I think it was the same pilot. Up, down, up, up. You’re supposed to — it takes about a half an hour each. Less than that. And these are the things that can go wrong. And of course there’s like the aircraft that tows the drogue. What do you call them?
CB: What was the plane you were flying? An Anson was it?
WS: No.
CB: Or a Wellington?
WS: No. We weren’t. No. I think it, I think it was the horrible one. I think it was the horrible one. The, the Botha.
CB: Oh.
WS: Yeah. Nobody liked that.
CB: No.
WS: It was alright for training. But this, this was a one day trip. Most of them last an hour a bit. An hour and a bit. An hour. Less than an hour. We started here. Up, down because there was no drogue.
CB: Right. To shoot at.
WS: That’s the first.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Up down. In the same, the same, guns u/s. Up, down towering aircraft u/s. That’s the one. Then no, no aircraft. All that in, it’s a one day trip and it lasted, it lasted [pause] was it the 28th? Yeah. The 28th 12:50 and it went on. It went on about 5 o’clock at night.
CB: Right.
WS: For one trip.
CB: Yeah.
WS: For one.
CB: Because of things going wrong.
WS: Somebody should have done better there. Good job I wasn’t marking their card.
CB: So there you went. Then you went to Hooton Park. What did you do at Hooton Park?
WS: Hooton Park. I never knew what it was. I know what, I know what it is. And they had Bothas again. Did you ever? You didn’t fly in Bothas?
CB: No. No.
WS: Frightening. Absolutely frightening. But they just weren’t any good for anything. We got up and down with them but they had a bad name. Hooton Park. That’s in the Wirral Peninsula. Yes. Yeah. That was interesting that was.
CB: Right. Okay. So when did you go to the OTU? So you qualified as a gunner.
WS: Oh yeah.
CB: And qualified as a, you’d already done your radio operator
WS: Anybody could qualify as a gunner. It’s only, it’s — but yes. You had to do it, you had to do it.
[doorbell rings]
WS: That’s my daughter.
CB: Oh right shall I do? Oh she’s there.
WS: Julie. Two hours late. Is mam there?
CB: Okay. We’ll stop. We’ll stop a mo.
WS: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Okay. So you were saying? How did you feel about this? About the bombing.
WS: Well, yes, because I just, you live in an alcove in a colliery don’t you? You know how it is. And, and if ever there was it was a reserved occupation. None of us need ever join up. Well, you know it’s all volunteers anyway flying. But you didn’t have to join up. You were reserved like policemen. And them that didn’t want to go and dodged it. There was a few of them about. But I just thought I wanted to get in it but I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to go where the sun shines because I don’t like the sunshine. I abhor the sunshine. And I went to the hottest place on earth.
CB: But you were talking about bombing just then. And you felt you wanted to pay back the bombing.
WS: Yes. Yes.
CB: Go on.
WS: Yes. Well, but of course then I wasn’t sent to Bomber Command.
CB: No.
WS: That’s what’s in, that’s the bit that annoys me. I didn’t want to go to, I didn’t want to go to Japan or the Far East or Middle East. They’re not, it was the Germans I wanted to eliminate. They wanted to eliminate us so I thought I would like to eliminate them. Hitler or no Hitler. Whoever. They’re trying to make him a goodie now but he was no goodie. No goodie. The words come out ‘cause I grew up you see sixty fifty, reading the paper mostly for football interests but I can still see the photograph, “This is my last territorial claim in Europe.” Lies. Lies. Lies. And of course they’re still lying now. And that’s sad. Very sad. You can’t listen to liars who change your mind and changing and liars and then he marched in another one and keep on and on and on. That wasn’t nice in nineteen — to me it wasn’t anyway. Whether other people viewed it I don’t know. But [pause] but enjoyable at Hooton Park.
CB: So what --
WS: It was different.
CB: That was the radio school. Then you went to Silloth for the OTU.
WS: Yes. The, that was, that was the start of television. But —
CB: What? Gee?
WS: Yeah. Well, you know with the stripe down the middle and it was alright for —
CB: This was for navigation.
WS: It was alright for ten minutes, a quarter of an hour. We were supposed to be looking at it when we’re W/op AGs. We had three, you know in the Wellington and then we just showed it around. In fact I just come off the wireless set. I’d been on the wireless for two hours on May the 2nd. Then I went in the second dickie’s seat when I saw what I thought, never mind all the clever people, ‘Oh you saw the submarine.’ No I didn’t. I saw a long black object on this waterbed.
CB: Okay.
WS: Nothing else. Nothing new. Nothing. But people say, make it all sorts of stories up. Back to Silloth. It was interesting learning how the, you could pick up things.
CB: This is on the radar.
WS: But I —
CB: The H2S.
WS: Yeah.
CB: This is on the H2S radar.
WS: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
WS: That whatever.
CB: Okay.
WS: Whatever it was. And then from there to —
CB: What were you, what were you flying when you did that at Silloth?
WS: At Silloth?
CB: When you were using this equipment. So this —
WS: No, we used that equipment at [pause] at, on the Wirral Peninsula.
CB: Yeah. Okay.
WS: On the —
CB: When you were at Hooton Park? When you were at Hooton Park.
WS: It was Hooton Park.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Bothas at Hooton Park.
CB: Yeah.
WS: I think.
CB: So at Silloth.
WS: Yeah.
CB: You’ve got it as Number 6 OTU. So what were you converting on to there? On the training unit.
WS: Wellingtons.
CB: Wellingtons. Right.
WS: Wellingtons. Now, the reason, being there I flew with the bravest and the daftest pilot in the RAF. He was well named. Lovely man. Even though I got in trouble with him. I flew with him and I must mention this because it’s very very interesting. His name, you can’t forget his name. Bond. I am Bond. James Bond. Well, he wasn’t James Bond he was probably Willie Harry Bond but his name was Bond. And of course my best friend in London, his name was Bond. You see, I could never forget. He was on the, and he, you had to fly in Ansons when you first, when you first go to Silloth. And you had to fly from Silloth. This was, scared the life out of most people. You had to fly from Silloth. I knew every inch of the way. Silloth. Blackpool. Back to Silloth. Dead straight. Nothing complicated. Not at all. Three W/op AGs in the Anson. So Stevenson goes on first. I go on first. Then I had trouble getting through to Silloth. To the signallers up there. It was getting worse as the hour. Anyway me hour was up and I had to get off and another W/op AGs got on. I thought trouble here. So when I get back to the signals officer and I presented him with a blank sheet he wasn’t a very happy puppy. He said, ‘Not very clever sergeant.’ I said, ‘No sir.’ And the reason it wasn’t very clever? I had a blank sheet. And he said, ‘What’s the cause?’ ‘I don’t know what the cause is. I’m just learning how to —’ And when we land and come back I thought I know what the trouble is. He decided in his infinite wisdom I think. He did it regular. He’s very clever at it. Have you been to Blackpool? No.
CB: Ahum.
WS: You have? So you know the three piers. You fly over the top of them. Bondy didn’t. Bondy hedge hopped them. Three of them. And back again. Oh he’s got to do it both ways. I thought I know why I didn’t get through. So, so this signals officer said, ‘You’ll have to do it again sergeant.’ I thought, ‘Yes, please.’ And so within two days I had to do it again. Who was the pilot the second time? If you put money on it you would have been wrong. It was Bondy again he smiled. I thought, nothing to laugh at I said. And he said, ‘Hello.’ So I said, ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘I didn’t do very well last time.’ I said, ‘I got a blank sheet and got a rollicking from the — ’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘You’d be better going on second.’ I thought how does he know when it’s better to go on? He’s flying the damned thing. He’s not operating the, the signals. So he, I went on second. And my heart bled for the chap who went on first but I thought well you have a dose of it and see. See what you get. And of course I got through. No problem. So it was pretty, were a bit and when I go to the plane the second time he had a smile on. He says, ‘hello,’ as if much to say I’ve seen you before. As much as to say, ‘I’ve seen you.’ Do you know what he offered and I’m sure this was a bribe and I’ve never had them before. I don’t know whether you’ve smoked them. Did you smoke?
CB: No.
WS: Well what, you wouldn’t know about these then. These are the crème de la crème in smoking. Now, I’m just telling you. I’ve forgot the name.
CB: Woodbines?
WS: Vulcan Sobranie.
CB: Oh right.
WS: So when I get up to the front I said, ‘I’ve finished.’ A flight Lieu’s a flight lieuy, ‘I’ve just finished sir.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘How did you get on?’ He knew how I got on. I said, ‘Alright.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘It‘s best not going on first.’ He knew. He knew where he was flying, you know. I didn’t get on and he, he offered. He smoked and I never. You’re not supposed to smoke on them. But he handed me. I said, ‘Oh, thank you sir. I’ve never had one of these.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘They’re very nice.’ You had to be a flight lieuy and above to afford them. They’re about, do you know how much they are now? Well, I only know through paying the paper. Eight pound. Eight pounds for cigarettes to kill you. And so he said, ‘Have a cigarette.’ I said, ‘Can I smoke sir?’ He said ‘yes, yes.’ And one more story just about Flight Lieutenant Bond. Coming back somebody’s wrote a book. Kiwi. And I wish, I forget the title of it or else I would tell you willingly. When he. We used to go to Carlisle of a night and get a train back to Silloth. Him, this Kiwi and Bondy, obviously they were mates as well and they’d obviously been grounded for some reason because you don’t fly as a flight lieuy flying u/t air gunners. That’s not, that’s not what you joined up for. And he talked the driver, I nearly said the pilot, he talked the driver from Carlisle, from Silloth rather. No. Carlisle to Silloth. If they could have a go at the — and they did.
CB: Driving the train.
WS: The engine driver should have had his head. If anything had gone wrong there would have been big trouble. Great guy. And the book’s to verify that. There’s a book about it, a New Zealand skipper about his time at Silloth. If you work the times out I’ll bet you the magic eye can find the book and you’ll be, it’s worth a read if it’s only to tell you about Bondy.
CB: Just going back to what you were doing. So, what was the equipment that you were using that you didn’t get a signal on so you got a blank? What was it?
WS: The, oh that was —
CB: Was it a direction finder or was it —
WS: No. That was —
CB: Was it a type, it had got a screen had it?
[pause]
WS: No.
CB: Did it show you a map? What did it do? [pause] I’m trying to work out what it was that this thing was doing. That you were doing.
WS: No. No The wireless was just [pause] the wireless was just [pause] the wireless. No. Well, I didn’t. It wasn’t what we had when I was at Thornaby. So it was just, the wireless was just Marconi.
CB: But you were picking up signals of some kind but not all the time were you? What was it?
WS: I don’t know what. That was the first.
CB: So this is like a television screen.
WS: Yeah.
CB: But it’s circular.
WS: Yeah. With a line.
CB: And it’s got a cross in it.
WS: Down the middle.
CB: Yeah
WS: It’s in the book.
CB: Right. Okay. So this is a way of getting on to a target is it?
WS: It, it picks up all sorts of things. Picks up coastline.
CB: Yeah.
WS: There a certain amount of —
CB: Right. So it is an H2S type.
WS: Well, yes.
CB: Yeah. Okay.
WS: I’m not very —
CB: Okay.
WS: It was [pause] you could cheat a bit and look away. You shouldn’t look too long because you’re only this far from the —
CB: Yeah. From the screen.
WS: I don’t think it was all that good but —
CB: So then after you were at Silloth that’s when you went to Thornaby. And you were there for a year.
WS: To where?
CB: Thornaby. And you were at Thornaby for a year.
WS: Yeah. I was at Thornaby.
CB: And then, then you went back to Silloth.
WS: Yeah. Well, now see that’s where my logbook went astray.
CB: And this is the — oh right.
WS: You found that.
CB: Yeah.
WS: It’s lost somewhere around there.
CB: Okay.
WS: When it came back to me. And that’s me original one.
CB: Yeah. Okay.
WS: It just mixes it up a bit.
CB: Yeah. And this is a lot of trips over the Irish Sea obviously.
WS: Yes.
CB: From here you went to 303 FTU at Talbenny.
WS: Aye.
CB: In Pembrokeshire.
WS: Aye.
CB: What did you do there?
WS: What did? We did a couple of trips there. They were classed as operations. To tell you what I did.
CB: It was a navigation —
WS: Yes.
CB: Trip.
WS: They were navigation trips really. Nothing to do. Well of course you had to go.
CB: And this is on Wellingtons is it?
WS: Wellingtons and plus the, plus the fact that we, that Mitch and one of the W/op AGs was sent off. Was sent off to pick up our aircraft which we were to fly out to the Middle East and beyond.
CB: Right. So from there you flew out to Rabat.
WS: Terrible. Yes. Yes.
CB: Okay. What did you do there?
WS: Well, then it was in Rabat. Rabat. Well, well it changed. We didn’t fly to Rabat.
CB: Right.
WS: The RAF in their infinite wisdom had decided [pause] what’s the other place? Have I put it?
CB: Well, then they went to Cairo.
WS: No. But —
CB: And Wadi [Sadiki?]
WS: Well you see the first landing place from when we left. When we left —
CB: Talbenny in Pembrokeshire.
WS: No. No. No. Let’s, no, let’s go back. When we left —
CB: Hurn? Hurn, near Bournemouth.
WS: We left. Wait a bit. We left Silloth and we went to —
CB: South Wales.
WS: We went to Talbenny. Yes. And then from Talbenny we went to Bournemouth.
CB: Yeah. To Hurn.
WS: Hurn.
CB: Yeah.
WS: That’s it. We were at Hurn.
CB: And that’s when you —
WS: We flew from Hurn.
CB: From there.
WS: To the place that changed.
CB: Gibraltar? Did you —
WS: Hmmn?
CB: Did you got to Gibraltar next? On the way.
WS: No. No. No. We went to [pause] Rabat’s there. They changed it. It wasn’t Rabat. Can you switch it off?
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re just pausing for a moment.
[recording paused]
CB: Restart. Hang on.
WS: We went out the first night at this small place.
CB: Yeah.
WS: So it wasn’t all that big.
CB: Castel Benito.
WS: It wasn’t. It was quite big and Oliver, about four of us went out. I don’t know why we did but we did. Somebody’s stupid idea. And Harvey said, ‘You’re both for it,’ and ‘What did you do?’ It was always my fault. He said, ‘Somebody just pulled a knife.’ So Harvey had to, Oliver had to report it to the station commander.
CB: Your navigator. Yes.
WS: Yes. And on the ground this was. And they put them and they put the area out of bounds.
CB: Oh.
WS: But it was very interesting in the morning. When you went out from Blighty, from Bournemouth or Merton. Where ever I lived. When we went in the sergeant’s mess the communal mess they were. When you were in the queue, and this was a novelty to me, you had, typical American of course. You had to put your fingers up how many eggs you wanted.
CB: Oh.
WS: How many you wanted. We hadn’t had any eggs in this country for, very, even in the mess we didn’t know we had them. Private digs. So when you got there the eggs was all fried. Typical American. The eggs fried and just put on your plate.
CB: Fantastic.
WS: Wonderful. That’s the only thing that stood out about that. I said to Harvey, ‘I didn’t do anything,’ but, I said [pause] ‘Well,’ he said, ‘That bloke pulled a knife. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘That doesn’t mean very much.’ Typical Harvey. Oliver. Blame anybody but himself.
CB: Was that a military person who’d pulled the knife or a local?
WS: Hmmn?
CB: Was it a military person who —
WS: No.
CB: Pulled the knife? Or a local?
WS: No. No. It was a local. So they put that out of bounds. So they must have been worried about it.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Stopped anybody going in.
CB: Right.
WS: Just an ordinary boredom. Flying out to [pause] my birthday spent in, my birthday was spent at Cairo West.
CB: Okay.
WS: It was normal for my, I did have slight truck, it was nothing. Typical RAF. Painted with that stuff you know. Don’t know what they called it. It was a disinfectant. Anyway, the rest of the crew went to Alexander. Not Cairo. You know, we landed in Cairo. Joe was, I went in hospital in Cairo. I didn’t know they had a hospital but they did. And they all said, ‘Cheerio. See you when you get back.’ I said, ‘Thank you very much. Tell us how lovely it is at Alexander.’
CB: So from Cairo you then went on eventually to Mogadishu.
WS: Yes.
CB: The whole crew. You flew down there.
WS: Yes. Yes. Oh yeah. We flew from Cairo to a nice place. Well, it wasn’t a nice place but it was —
CB: Well, it’s a place called Port Reitz.
WS: Where?
CB: R E I T Z. Port Reitz.
WS: [pause] Port Reitz. No. We went from Cairo [pause] Where are we here? Cairo. 11th ‘til the 10th. That’s it, my birthday is the 29th of the 9th. So that’s four days. So I’d been in hospital a couple of days to Wadi [Said?] and I don’t know where that is. Wadi Said. And it’s quite a decent sized place in North Africa.
CB: Okay. Anyway, so on there then you’re, you took the aeroplane, your aeroplane all the way from the UK.
WS: Yeah.
CB: So you’re still in that plane.
WS: We’re still in that. And that was our plane number.
CB: Yeah. So then you went down. Where did you go from Cairo?
WS: Cairo to Wadi [Said?] Now from there to Juba. Juba’s the funniest place.
CB: Where was that?
WS: It was. In between. In between.
CB: Okay. And from Juba then that was just a staging post was it?
WS: Nothing there. Nothing there. Nothing there. People must have gone mad. I think they filled it. I think they filled the aircraft up with, with —
CB: Water?
WS: Cans. Cans of fuel. Cans of fuel. There was only one officer and it must have been an awful place. And then that was the short trip from there to —
CB: Mogadishu?
WS: To Cairo.
CB: Oh to Cairo. Right.
WS: Yeah. We did go. Before we went to Mogadishu we went. We landed. We didn’t, we didn’t go up to Mogadishu then. We went straight down from, we went straight down from Cairo [pause] from Kenya. We were in Kenya. Right. And we had engine trouble there.
CB: Oh.
WS: In Kenya. So we went down to Mombasa.
CB: Right.
WS: On Mombasa but by the time we got to Mombasa they’d changed it again. Mombasa was going to be the home of our squadron. 621 Squadron. It was the home of 621 Squadron. Just there’d been a number of ships sunk by U-boats in the trip around Africa.
CB: Yeah.
WS: You know, up. Up —
CB: Up the east coast.
WS: Yes. Up the east coast there and then turned around into. They wanted Japan so they had to be the big type of U-boat. The U859 was one of them. U852 was one of them and they, they changed Mombasa then. Just as we got there they said oh you’re not here now. Well we are here now but you’re not here now. We’ve moved up the coast to Mogadishu which reportedly moved and I read it a while back the last place on earth.
CB: In Somalia.
WS: It’s about right. Oh terrible. Terrible.
CB: Okay. So was, did that become your operating base?
WS: Mogadishu was.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Yeah. Thank you love.
CB: And what was the role of the squadron? What was the role of the squadron?
WS: To stop the U-boats going up there. So we knew or you know, through, through Enigma out here. Very cleverly. I know it’s very clever. But again you see it’s very clever but only for navigators and pilots. They didn’t come to me and say, Oh I stayed with these people I’ve mentioned. I’ve read air gunners. I’ve got books that said, ‘I told the skipper this. And I told — ‘ You don’t tell the skipper nothing. The age old, my father would say, ‘If you’ve nothing better to say shut up.’ The skipper wouldn’t listen to you anyway. You. You were an advisor. Don’t get carried away with your job. You were an advisor.
CB: Right
WS: That’s why you had that scrape.
CB: Right.
WS: To say, ‘Alright navigator. You can come and have a look at the screen if you want.’ Which he probably did. I can’t remember. But people make out that they, they turned up. You don’t do that. Not even Bomber Command. No Commands. If there’s somebody on your tail you tell the skipper. But first you fire at the damned aircraft before. It doesn’t matter. The skipper doesn’t give a toss as long as you hit the aircraft if there’s somebody at your back. But that’s another story of fairy tales and no fairy tales here.
CB: So, on the aircraft you are actually trained as a wireless operator signaller and also as an air gunner.
WS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
CB: On this squadron 621.
WS: Yeah. Well —
CB: What was your role? Where were you? You weren’t sitting in a turret at the back.
WS: No.
CB: You were doing a wireless operator job.
WS: I was a wireless op. Two hours. Two hours each.
CB: Right.
WS: The three W/op AGs.
CB: Right.
WS: Two hours on the set. Two hours on the set. Two hours [pause] There’s nobody in the front turret when you start. The set, the set, the IT, the ITV you know. We called it the ITV screen and then the rear and you go around from there. So on May the 2nd I, I was, I had been on the set and I’d just come off.
CB: Okay. Can I just clarify this? So, you’re flying along and you alternate. There were three wireless operator air gunners.
WS: That’s it. We were all —
CB: And you’d do two hours each.
WS: We were all the same.
CB: So you then go and sit in a turret when you’re not on the set. Are you?
WS: No.
CB: Oh. Where are you? If you’re not on the set where are you standing?
WS: I wasn’t. No.
CB: So, as a, as a signaller —
WS: Yeah.
CB: And air gunner — you do two hours on the set.
WS: Two hours each.
CB: Each. So where are you? Once you’ve done two hours what are you doing?
WS: Just operated from rear turret.
CB: Right.
WS: Spare. You didn’t go in the front turret.
CB: No.
WS: I went in the front turret because I’d sighted it and as I was sitting on the —
CB: So specifically, in this particular case. This is fast forward that on one of the sorties.
WS: Yeah.
CB: You saw on your screen a submarine. Is that right?
WS: No. No. I didn’t. I didn’t see it on the, on the, I saw it with —
CB: Oh right. Mark one eyeball.
WS: Yeah. I see it, I saw it there because, because the navigator in their infinite wisdom whose got all the information when you take off. It doesn’t matter who’s sitting where I was he knows that this is the line that the U-852’s coming up, you see.
CB: Ah.
WS: It’s been reported. But we don’t know that. But the pilot and navigator’s got a good idea where it is. Although Mitch in his infinite wisdom and he was no fool, he was on the toilet.
CB: Oh.
WS: He decides to go to the Elsan. Mitch is on the Elsan so the second pilot is flying. A bloke called Harvey Riddell. A Canadian. Nice lad. Never heard no more from him. I reckon he was killed in the Middle East somewhere. I’ve tried to get his name. Oliver tried but he didn’t succeed either. I went in the, Harvey took over the plane. The weather was diabolical. No question about it. Cloud. Rain. Everything. You’re not going to see nothing there anyway and the time then was probably just prior to 4 o’clock. I then move off the wireless set because that was somebody else moved on because we, you’ve got, you’ve got to have somebody on the wireless set. The ASV is not all that important. And then I [pause] only he must have spoke while [laughs] while he was on the toilet. He must have spoke. Harvey must have spoke and said, ‘The weather’s diabolical skip. What do I do?’ So he said, ‘Go down.’ Whatever. Not interested. Whatever. And as soon as he went under the weather — like this. Unbelievable. From that to this. Thank you love.
CB: So not, so what height are you flying at this stage? A thousand feet. Two thousand.
WS: Yeah. Not, not very, not very high. Not very high. But it happened immediately. It happened, it happens in seconds. The distance I didn’t know until Oliver tells me because he was, he’s got it worked out from when I sighted the submarine. It was about six or seven miles. I didn’t know the naked eye got so — my eyesight’s very good. Even today. I can read. I had me eyes tested Wednesday. I haven’t changed. My glasses haven’t changed. I haven’t got —
CB: Right.
WS: They’re the same glasses which I’ve —
CB: You’ve had for ages.
WS: Yeah. Which is luck.
CB: So you looked out because you’re in the front turret.
WS: No. I was in the second pilot’s seat.
CB: Oh you were in the second pilot’s seat. Right.
WS: Yeah. You see, because Harvey had gone.
CB: Yes.
WS: Mitch was coffeeing. Well, he should have been.
CB: Yes.
WS: But he said he was. And when, as soon as we went down I said ‘Harvey.’ As simple as that. I saw it as easy as that. And look. Did I see a submarine? I have never seen a submarine in my life. I saw a long black object.
CB: Right.
WS: Which wasn’t a ship.
CB: Right.
WS: It just looked, you know, like your tie laid down in the water.
CB: Right.
WS: That’s what it looked like to me. And of course I’ve done all the Q and all the U. Well watch officer. Is there a watch officer in the navy? Well you were to blame. But then like the First World War the man who puts his head above the — you win. You put your head up and I win. And that’s just the way it, he got the rollicking. He was to blame because he he should have been looking out for anything.
CB: For aircraft.
WS: For anything.
CB: So he was looking the wrong way.
WS: Yes. Yes.
CB: So, so you see the submarine, you tell the pilot. The second pilot.
WS: No. I tell Harvey.
CB: Oh. You tell Harvey.
WS: That’s when, that’s when Harvey —
CB: Yeah.
WS: That’s when Harvey told Mitch.
CB: Gets — yeah right.
WS: He soon left the —
CB: Yeah.
WS: He soon left the Elsan. And Mitch was up there like a flash. I was out of the seat like a flash. And I went straight in the front because that’s the position you should be if you were there.
CB: Yeah.
WS: You’re not normally there anyway.
CB: No.
WS: It’s usually Mitch in the second.
CB: So you got out of the second pilot’s seat.
WS: Oh yeah.
CB: Down into the turret at the front.
WS: Oh yeah. Which is only from here —
CB: The guns, the guns are ready primed are they?
WS: Yeah. It’s, it’s only from here to the television.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WS: As close as that.
CB: Ratio, yeah.
WS: Yeah. And then it —
CB: And then what?
WS: And it just got bigger and bigger. I did nothing. People. Well, I did. I had my finger on the trigger.
CB: You gave it a burst did you?
WS: Because I could see what air gunners, anybody could be in there. Just an air gunner. But when you get the sight with that —
CB: Yeah. So you got it on.
WS: If you, if you press before you’re wasting ammunition.
CB: Yeah.
WS: And you might get jams. You’re told not to. That not’s technical. You’re told to do short bursts.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WS: To save that you know. And just short bursts. You don’t get no jams. I got no jams.
CB: No.
WS: How many did I kill? You don’t think I was counting them do you?
CB: How many bursts did you give?
WS: Well, how do I know?
CB: Right. But you just do so you immediately started firing is what I’m getting at.
WS: Oh no. Not immediately. As soon as I got within the range.
CB: Yeah. Which is what? What’s your range?
WS: Because they still hadn’t gone down.
CB: No. What’s your range? Four hundred yards or [pause] normally.
WS: It’s not an interesting job.
CB: No.
WS: An air gunner. It’s a doddle job. You just — the distance from there. The distance —
CB: But they were all on the conning tower so you got them.
WS: Yeah. Well they weren’t all in but they were trying to get in damned quick.
CB: Yeah. Into there.
WS: I actually saw them running along the —
CB: Oh, on the deck.
WS: Yeah. You couldn’t help but, you couldn’t help but see them. I would have thought they should have manned the guns.
CB: So in practical terms. When you’re running the guns like this —
WS: Yeah.
CB: What did you shoot at first?
WS: Oh just the top of the conning tower.
CB: The conning tower. Right. And so —
WS: I didn’t pick people out and say, ‘I don’t like you.’’
CB: I didn’t mean that. No. What I meant was do you go for the conning tower first?
WS: Yeah.
CB: And they’re all running for the tower so they walk straight into it.
WS: Well, I expect this. I expect the captain had told everybody get in and get down but it was too, too late.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Too, too late.
CB: So, what happened then? So, you’ve clobbered all these characters on — the submarine doesn’t submerge does it?
WS: Oh yes.
CB: Oh it does.
WS: It went down. Oh it went down. So I thought, and Mitch thought too, when you spend hours just flying over water you probably don’t, you don’t expect, you should be expecting to see them they’re not. As well you know the size of the ocean. And within seconds of going over we thought whacko, he’s gone down which means we’ve sunk him. Well, what else can you think? It’s the first time. We then circled in a circle. Circled the swirl or whatever. Whatever. He went.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Whatever you see. And surprise surprise he came up. But [pause] but even I, in my infinite wisdom which is zero to think, to think, if, if we haven’t sunk them and he’s coming up that means we haven’t hit him. Well, that isn’t true either. We’d more than hit. There’s the submarine going along. The skipper by now knows what he’ll do. He’ll zigzag or whatever. So, Harvey, I suppose that the, because we haven’t got a bomb aimer.
CB: Yeah. He’s the bomb aimer.
WS: He presses the tit or does, does the skipper press it?
CB: Well, they both can can’t they?
WS: Eh?
CB: They both can.
WS: They both can.
CB: But, but normally doesn’t the navigator go down to do it?
WS: He’s got to get the figures out hasn’t he?
CB: Yeah.
WS: For the position and everything. Anyway.
CB: Yeah. Anyway, so were bombs dropped? Well they were depth charges. So you dropped, did you? Depth charges.
WS: Six.
CB: Yeah.
WS: You dropped them all, you see. If they had two lots —
CB: Oh. All in one go. Right.
WS: If you had two lots you could have go at this. Have another go like this. Make sure. It’s got to be, there’s a height down which I don’t know.
CB: Yeah.
WS: There’s a certain depth where it, where if you but the six has got to be dropped in a stick you see.
CB: Yeah. In a bracket.
WS: You can’t drop one at a time. You dropped the stick.
CB: Yeah.
WS: See, there’s, going that way you should drop one, two, three. Hoping two, three or four might, he might switch and get them. And when he come up and I used the words in my simple vocabulary. It come up like Blackpool Tower. Well, I knew that wasn’t right. So, while I knew we hadn’t sunk it I also knew we’ve done summat. Well, if he was alright even the simplest of person would tell you he’d be away running wouldn’t he? And he wasn’t was he? So, and I used the words Blackpool Tower which I —
CB: When he comes up. Yeah.
WS: We haven’t got that. But it came up. You know. I don’t know how submarines come up. I’d never seen any. But you would think that it would come up like a ship wouldn’t you? But it didn’t. It come up like that. And then flapped on the [pause] I’ve got the number one. I’ve got a better view than the skipper. I’m two yards further ahead of him. And I just, I saw the flap on the surface. I can see it. I don’t know if that’s good. And then within seconds. And then he opened fire on us.
CB: Oh did he?
WS: And he’d got an awful lot of armament.
CB: 37 millimetre.
WS: He must have some poor gunners because he never hit us and we were the only aircraft. By that, by this time of course we, we’d got the whole of the East Africa. Not that there was a lot of aircraft in East Africa. We’d flown from a horrible place. Scuscuiban, pronounced Shoo shoo ban. Diabolical area. Good that we sailed, we left from there in the morning but there was other, there was other stations but some of them just one aircraft. And 8 Squadron had been at, in Khormaksar for years and years you know. They’re very old.
CB: That’s Aden. Yeah.
WS: The squadron was. 8 Squadron. 8 Squadron, they were. And we were sent out there to help them I suppose. If they needed help, but [pause] And the more they fired though of course Mitch in his infinite wisdom you’ve got to judge his fire power and keep just outside of it. It would be silly going inside it else you wouldn’t be here to tell the story. And he’d be take great delight in sinking the aircraft that had damaged his. So, you just keep going in and out and by this time it’s red hot with information to ships in the, in the area. I don’t know if there was any ships in the area. Never there when you want them probably but, and we just kept on and on until our petrol level got as low as humanly possible. We had x amount of time to get back. And we did just have enough petrol. When we landed everybody was waiting to congratulate us and say congrats and everything like that. By this time we’d got, 621 had quite a few planes coming in but we’d done what we had to do. And there were about eight or nine aircraft and none of them sunk them. And he was a sitting duck. They weren’t a sitting duck when I, we went. Although they were. But he’d been down and chased. What we’d done we’d damaged the chlorine pipes.
CB: Oh.
WS: Whatever. Whatever it is and the skip, and one of the engineers shook his head to the skipper and said ‘we’ve got to go up and we’ve got to beach, beach it as soon as,’ which we did at [unclear ] There’s a coast place there where it had beached. And it was a success. And to think that we, we’d only ever seen one and we’d got ninety nine, we probably got a hundred percent success in as much as all the information we got, the RAF, after the navy had finished collecting all what they wanted you can have what’s left. They did the business. But it’s—
CB: But just to clarify this. So —
WS: Just.
CB: You’re sitting in the, in the co-pilot’s seat.
WS: Second pilot, yeah. Dickie. Second dickie as it was called.
CB: And you get, yeah. You then get down in to the nose where you’ve got the forward guns and there are two 303 machine guns.
WS: Two. They were like toffee apples.
CB: Yeah. But you’re spraying them.
WS: Yeah.
CB: Now, on the way over do you, does the plane drop the stick of depth charges as it goes over on the first pass or did you have to go round again?
WS: As you were going over.
CB: Yeah.
WS: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t know as a W/op AG and I’m not interested in looking down, I’m interested in looking —
CB: Sure.
WS: There. But even if I did I wouldn’t know what I was looking for. I only said ‘There’s the submarine. Go now. Go now.’ But of course he can switch when he’s gone under water.
CB: Yeah.
WS: So you don’t know. But then he, you have got to drop. The pilot. He’s trained to do. Suppose you were coming that way, we’re coming this way. You’ve got to drop them there. The first one there you might just walk in to the second one or the third one. So it could be the second, third. Could be any of them.
CB: Yeah. But what I meant was is they weren’t dropped on the first pass. When you were shooting they didn’t drop immediately after that did they? You had to come around again.
WS: Oh no.
CB: To drop.
WS: No. No, they had, no, they dropped them first time.
CB: They did.
WS: Mitch.
CB: Right. So that was good moving. Yeah.
WS: Dropped them first time.
CB: Right.
WS: And that is the nearest I can tell you.
CB: So, they were dropped. Not all in one go.
WS: Yeah.
CB: But in a stick.
WS: What they dropped —
CB: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
WS: Yeah. You drop them all. That’s the sad bit. I don’t think they perfected.
CB: But it obviously damaged the submarine.
WS: No. It’s probably right in as much as if you. If you hadn’t, if you hadn’t dropped them in a stick and he comes up with — you’ve read his armament have you?
CB: Thirty seven millimetre. Yeah.
WS: Yeah. Terrific armament on a submarine. Could blast you out of the skies and blow you to kingdom come. We couldn’t kill dead flies with two 303s and a four at the rear. With four at the rears. Good if you hit somebody but it’s —
CB: So, after the first pass. After the first pass.
WS: Yeah.
CB: When you did the shooting —
WS: Yeah.
CB: And then the bombs, the depth charges were dropped.
WS: Depth charges.
CB: Was any more fire. Did you, from the front or the rear turret, did they shoot again?
WS: No.
CB: Right.
WS: No. Because, only because he was up in, when I told you he’d come up and I think, I remember Mitch saying, ‘Take some pictures Harvey.’ And he was in his position then. So with the camera. Because if you, if you hadn’t dropped them then he could have blown you out of the skies with —
CB: Yeah.
WS: The next time.
CB: How far out to sea was this? Five miles?
WS: I can’t. I can’t —
CB: Twenty miles? Could you see the coastline from where you were flying?
WS: I couldn’t —
CB: No.
WS: And I wasn’t [laughs]
CB: No.
WS: And I wasn’t looking.
CB: Okay.
WS: I was looking at getting back to base like everybody was. Because at the time we’d been out or when we took off from when we timed from when I saw that I don’t know. I didn’t time. Oliver might know. He might not. I don’t know.
CB: We’ll ask him later.
WS: Yeah.
CB: Okay. So, anyway the submarine was then guided to the shore. Pointed at the shore and beached.
WS: Yeah. Well, you knew then —
CB: Yeah.
WS: That’s where he was going. Yes.
CB: Right. And the other aircraft from didn’t, they didn’t manage to hit it but they did bomb it did they?
WS: Well, again I don’t know but he got to the shore alright. Well —
CB: What happened then?
WS: Well, we were gone then.
CB: No. But when they got to the shore what happened?
WS: Well, he tried to scuttle it.
CB: Right.
WS: And made, I would say what’s the word? Hack?
CB: Hash.
WS: He made a hash of it. Yes. Made a hash of it. Whether he was thinking about his self I don’t know. It was his first journey as a captain. He’d been on other things you know. But it was his first journey out from Kiel as a submarine commander.
CB: A commander. Yeah. But he’d already sunk ships. He’d already sunk ships hadn’t he?
WS: Yes. Yes.
CB: Right.
WS: He’d sunk a ship that was built in, in Hartlepool.
CB: Oh right.
WS: The Peleus. And that’s why he was shot at dawn. Like I told you there was only five days difference between Mitch being killed and him shot at dawn. Irony isn’t it? The twist of fate.
CB: But he, the captain, Eck had been shot because of what he did. So what had he done?
WS: Oh he’d machine gunned, this is naughty as an officer —
CB: Survivors.
WS: This is naughty. He’d machine gunned people from the Peleus in the water.
CB: After he’d sunk the ship.
WS: It was your duty as an officer. As a captain and an officer to bring people on the ship. Find out what you can from them. Put them back out to sea if you should. In a boat if you don’t want them on your boat. Put them back there and then go. He didn’t do that. He, I think it was probably a slip of memory or —, no. It wasn’t. It was words from and I know with the research I’ve done, with the German High Command. I’ve read it from Kiel. That’s where. I’ve just read it. The officer, the officer in charge has got to be completely in charge but donates who’s in charge of the submarines. They were a bit like Hitler. They’re not going to do anything but they do do summat. And he said everything’s got to be obliterated because it’s your life. Now, that’s one thing telling that and when the skipper does that it’s wrong isn’t it? The trials you see it was found that that was naughty and that was wrong. And even though they don’t do that at [pause] although we were far from not guilty.
CB: But what had happened was there was a lot of debris on the sea. Surface of the sea wasn’t it?
WS: There was quite a few of them saving but again, as the famous saying, these are my saying, well my father saying — you live by the sword you die by the sword. Well, he cleared everybody which he thought was right so as everything’s, he can get away and people won’t see him. I understand what he has to do as a captain. But again it kicks you up the bottom when you, when you think you’ve cleared everything up and you haven’t. So four people survived.
CB: Oh did they? Right.
WS: Yeah. Four people survived and they found a way back to West Africa where the, where the Peleus was hit first.
CB: Oh.
WS: I don’t know how important the Peleus was now but it was just a tramp steamer I think. All different nationalities you know but and they got back to, they got back to port and that’s what, that’s why it came under the trials. And him and three officers were shot at dawn. And when we got back you’re talking about what he should do to clear up. When we landed back at Khormaksar, at Scuscuiban at about [pause] it‘s, it’s in the book what time we landed back.
CB: Yeah.
WS: I don’t know.
CB: In your logbook this is. Yeah.
WS: We got back at [pause] 7 o’clock at night. Well, the, the [pause] the fitters. I thought oh no. I’m not going back there again. But that’s what you’ve got to and you’ve got to do. So they decided that they had to fill up again just in case. He could have escaped but there was far too many aircraft in the vicinity so he didn’t escape. But anyway we did go out at 7 o’clock didn’t we? That night.
CB: Right. Right.
WS: Nothing happened. It was just beached by the time we got there. But, oh and when we got back from the first trip. When they were filling up, one of the fitters, fitter lad said, ‘This is your lucky day.’ And we said, ‘Well, yeah. It’s anybody’s lucky day if you sight a submarine.’ You don’t sight them once a year. So, 8 Squadron had never seen one I don’t think. He said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean that,’ he said, ‘You had one tank completely empty and the other one not very good.’ I remember when we just jokingly said to Oliver then, ‘You left that bit close.’ Yeah’ Oliver said, ‘I’ll get it a bit nearer next time.’ Well, you don’t think about that. You just think about getting back I suppose.
CB: You hadn’t been hit by any of the submarine fire had you?
WS: No. No. That’s what I say. While they were escaping by the time we’d got there.
CB: Right.
WS: So they were escaping. They were trying to get down in the conning tower. I’d never seen a conning tower but that’s where he was. I could have moved the turret sideways but I don’t see as there was any sense because there were two or three around it. Two or three bodies. I could actually see them, you know. I was nearly as close as you are so no problem seeing them on there. So I didn’t have any reason to move my turret at all.
CB: No. No.
WS: It was just, it was what they called plain firing but people could make a lot of it and say they did this and did that.
CB: So you’d, at that stage how long had you been out in that area?
WS: 4. 4 o’clock in the morning.
CB: Yeah. So you could be airborne for quite a long time could you?
WS: Yeah. Yeah. It, it was. It must have been. It must have been, the fuel must have been pretty low. And you’ve got to think then, and plus the fact that by, by the time we left the circle and going in and out just so to use up a bit of his, his ammunition. You’ve got to vary because some have, some has got different ranges to others.
CB: Of course.
WS: I don’t know the reason.
CB: Got to confuse the gunners.
WS: Mitch did. He said, ‘You had enough fuel to get to the end of the runway.’ I thought, charming.
CB: Yeah.
WS: Charming.
CB: Amazing. Was the, your picture on the wall shows a Wellington in white. What colour was the aircraft? Was it camouflaged in any way? The one you were flying.
WS: That was painted. I didn’t ask him to do this. He was on the squadron. He’d been at 8 Squadron. Then he come on our squadron. He just died Christmas. He just died last Christmas. Because he didn’t, they said he should have gone to the doctors and he said, ‘No. I don’t go. I’m not going to the doctors. I’ll just have antibiotics.’ He should have gone to the doctors. But his son is a very good painter. In fact that’s all he is good at. He’s, well because that’s all he does. His son. But the lad who did that his father must have picked the, I don’t know, it’s not a bad painting. A hand painting.
CB: But what I meant was that picture on the wall shows the fuselage white. But what colour was your aircraft?
WS: I think it was white.
CB: Right.
WS: I think it was white.
CB: And the wings are blue.
WS: Hmmn?
CB: And the wings are blue.
WS: Oh, well if that’s, I don’t —
CB: I just, for background. So, after the submarine incident then what? Yeah. So you’ve had the excitement of sinking the submarine effectively. Disabling it. Then your flying time didn’t stop. What did you do after that? In the days and months ahead.
WS: I don’t know. I don’t know. In the book Mitch and I went up. I went up. Mitch and I went up but I think that was before we sighted the submarine. Went up to Transjordan. That’s what it was called in them days. Transjordan. Don’t know why. Do you? Transjordan. I don’t know. We then went to a little island not far from where the, not far from Ben Abela right. Called Socotra. Have you? No? Don’t go there. You know what the king did there if you stole. Chopped your hands off. No messing. Got the tree and hand and he did. It belonged to, the Russians took over. I think the Russians still own it now. It didn’t belong to us but we went there and we were within a whisker. We were within a whisker of the U859. So, he’d got up in the meantime and this was about August time when it was the end of — it did get through but then I think he was sunk just before he got to Japan. So, we’d done a good job. And it was the, it was the end of submarines trying to get through to Japan. So in their infinite wisdom the British have, they [pause] yes.
CB: So that, your tour, how many, how many ops did you do to do your tour?
WS: Not as many as Oliver because [laughs] because he was a good navigator. Don’t ask me this because I can’t tell you and Mitch is not here to tell you. But a big chunk. He said, ‘Go and pack your bags. We’re going to Trans, we’re going to Transjordan.’ I don’t want to, I don’t want to go to Transjordan but when you’ve been at Khormaksar Transjordan was haven. Have you been to Kenya?
CB: I haven’t. No.
WS: No. Well —
CB: But Khormaksar is Aden.
WS: Khormaksar is. Yeah. Yeah, but what I’m saying is Khormaksar is diabolical. Ninety nine shirts this colour. Shirts, as soon as you put them. Kenya is not. Kenya is like this. And Socotra wasn’t bad. The climate how it was good I don’t know. But it was better. So the, we went there when the U859 was coming around which we learned later from my later second pilot who lived in Keighley. And the gentleman who, a gentleman lived near him whose livelihood was, if you never did — bringing up, bringing up gold from the, from the sea. Yeah. He had a diving, diving down and bringing up and he lived at Keighley where our second, second pilot came from. And he, he knew somebody and he knew that he’d got. Where he’d got it from I don’t know. He knew something about the U859 and we were within, we were within a very close distance of that but had got through to somewhere off India when I think somebody sunk it anyway.
CB: So, after that where did you go? Where did you go after that?
WS: When I come back to Blighty.
CB: Well, you went to Transjordan did you? You went to Transjordan.
WS: Yeah.
CB: And how long were you there?
WS: About six weeks.
CB: Oh right.
WS: Do you know what we were there for? Typical RAF of course. Aircraft instructor’s course.
CB: Oh.
WS: What aircraft? You don’t see any aircraft in there. I said, ‘What?’ All I spoke to Mitch was afterwards I said, and he was a big man, six foot odd, you know. I said, ‘How did you do?’ ‘Oh. Well,’ he said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I thought, ‘Ah, I’m doing better than you.’ I’ve got about seventy eight percent. So, that wasn’t bad. I don’t know what, I don’t know what it meant. When I told blokes back in the squadron they told me where to go. So I went there [laughs] But, but then we were, when we were away Harvey just flew a different aircraft. He thought it was great. I didn’t. And he was one of the unlucky ones you know because when he finished training in South Africa, he did his training in South Africa. I moaned about my flight sergeant. I know it was only pennies but it’s a lot of money to me. He come back from there I told you. And we went to, to he went to Blackpool. Squires Gate. Squires Gate. That’s it. That’s the name of it. And when he come back [pause] from there, and then Eastbourne. Have you been to Eastbourne? Do you know Eastbourne? Well, he was in a hotel, a big hotel on the front there. Did you see it? Where it had been half been rebuilt. Where Hitler hit it. Well he, the navigators were all in there.
CB: Oh were they?
WS: But they were out in the morning so they didn’t, they didn’t. Well he’d come back there. He’d come back there. He went through OTU like us. Silloth. Then went abroad. Did his tour as a sergeant. And then within weeks he was a flight lieutenant.
CB: Quick as that.
WS: Yeah. Well why? Ask me why. Well, because he was commissioned in South Africa. Could have done better I think. The, the, whoever was in the [pause] yeah. So he was a commissioned. I never got my flight sergeant but that was just pennies. But he was, he should have been. He looked, he looked like officer material. I said, ‘Bad luck Oliver.’ But he didn’t seem to mind. I didn’t get that. That would have drove me up the wall.
CB: So you, you ended up as a flight sergeant. You ended up as a flight sergeant.
WS: I —
CB: You became a flight sergeant.
WS: And then I become a warrant officer.
CB: And then a warrant officer.
WS: Yeah.
CB: But when did you get those two is what I meant? So flight ––
WS: I don’t think I got me flight sergeant.
CB: Oh just straight to warrant officer did you?
WS: I wrote, I wrote to the check people and they said it was, it could have been when I was up in Transjordan. You don’t think they are going to transfer statements and pennies up to Transjordan. No. It probably came through records at Khormaksar without telling. I don’t think I was very much interested anyway.
CB: No.
WS: And then I was, and the reason I was, and that’s when I went to Scampton as sports officer. Because I expect the sports officer had been demobbed.
CB: This is when you got back.
WS: Ahum.
CB: Well, so after, so from Transjordan you came back to where in England?
WS: Oh no. No. No.
CB: Where did you go?
WS: Back to Khormaksar again.
CB: Oh you did.
WS: Oh yeah.
CB: Okay. Yeah.
WS: But I enjoyed it there. Why? Well, because it was like Kenya. The weather was, the weather was very English. You know. I played football. I enjoyed that.
CB: So then? When, when were you demobbed?
WS: Demobbed in, demobbed, well, at Coningsby. I was probably demobbed [pause] I was probably demobbed at Scampton because I’d gone there. RAF Scampton. To be —
CB: Sports officer.
WS: Yeah. To be sports officer. Well, I would be I think. There was only two of us there.
CB: Then what? So when you came out of the RAF, what did you then do?
WS: Out the RAF. Blacksmithing down here.
CB: So this was 1945, ‘46 was it?
WS: I came down here.
CB: When did you come out of the RAF?
WS: August ’46.
CB: Okay.
WS: Roughly.
CB: And then what? So what did you do immediately after you were demobbed?
WS: Here.
CB: Why did you come down here?
WS: Well, quite easily. The reason I came down here I lost me, again Stevenson, and I didn’t lose this. I didn’t lose it. It was stolen from me. You know we used to sleep with the paybook under the pillow. Well, it puts a crease in your trousers. That’s the only thing I know. And I’d had a few drinks in Newcastle. I was looking for two minutes actually or [unclear] been with me. And when I woke up in the morning nothing under the pillow. So I went down to the bloke in YMCA Newcastle. And that’s when the story of [pause] That’s when the story of [pause] the paybook. Sixty odd years.
CB: In your, in your book.
WS: An event.
CB: Right.
WS: An event. And the bloke said, ‘Oh, it happens all the time mate.’ I go, ‘Oh it’s alright for you but I’ve got to go back to Coningsby and tell the bloke.’ But they were alright as it happened. But not nice when you’ve lost. And when the, the Express reporter, very words, remember them vividly. This was after I was married. We’d been out for a walk Lil and I and when we came back and then she said, ‘Someone is on the phone.’ And it was our, the Air Gunner’s Secretary from London. Lived in London. I think he was a policeman and he said, he started interrogating me and asked me if I — and I said, ‘Well what do you want to know about?’ He said, ‘Were you in Newcastle,’ blah. I said, ‘I don’t know but I probably was,’ because I used to go there sometimes. I had an aunt live in Newcastle. Quite a good way from the town centre. And then he said, ‘Well, they found your paybook.’ So when the Express get word because there’s a cut off in the papers isn’t there?
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WS: Between, yeah. So Manchester downwards. And the air gunner from [pause] it was in the AGA, Air Gunners Association. He was, he rung up the secretary and the secretary rings me. And that’s was how that was found. And they tret me well up there. Had a wonderful day.
CB: So what did you do when you came out? Immediately you came out. For a job.
WS: I then worked at, I then worked, just worked at Beaconsfield as a blacksmith. I went back to blacksmithing.
CB: But why did you choose down here?
WS: Because I’ve already said —
CB: Because of Halton.
WS: I’d already said to the reporter of the, of the Express —
CB: Yeah.
WS: Like, up there. He asked me that question, ‘Why have you come down here?’ And the words are just as vivid today as they were then, ‘I thought the cherries were sweeter.’ Meaning the choices. We’d got more choice.
CB: So as a blacksmith where did you work?
WS: Joe Lake’s, Beaconsfield. Wonderful. Wonderful man. He’d been a First World War soldier.
CB: Oh.
WS: It’s not there now. They’ve pulled it down. It’s a shame.
CB: What was it? What was it called?
WS: Lake. Lake and Mockley.
CB: Oh. Lake and Mockley.
WS: Do you know them?
CB: I don’t. No.
WS: Lake and Mockley was the name. And then I had a few changes after then.
CB: So where did you meet Lillian?
WS: Here. Wycombe.
CB: Right.
WS: Wycombe. At the town hall. It’s been pulled down has it?
Other: No.
WS: They ought to have done.
Other: Valentine’s Day.
WS: Was it?
Other: 1947.
WS: Don’t know who thought of that.
Other: Mum thought he was Polish because she couldn’t understand him [laughs]
CB: So, you spent all your life at Lake and Mockley when you came down here.
WS: No. No.
CB: What did you do after that?
WS: I went to. Well I was very good at welding to have been a blacksmith. I’ve done fire welding. Half the people that repairing wood I just went repairing motor cars. Panel beating. I switched to panel beater.
CB: Oh right.
WS: And that gave me a fair living. Fair. Not great.
CB: Well, we’ve done really well. Thank you very much indeed. And Lillian had been in the RAF as well.
WS: Yes. It’s in the book there.
CB: Okay. Good. One other thing that came out early on was you talked about how people were in reserved occupations and that’s what yours was. But you volunteered.
WS: Oh yes.
CB: What about this business of LMF. Did you come across that?
WS: No. I didn’t you know. But it annoys me. First, it’s not a thing to talk about.
CB: No.
WS: All I know is this. Again, this is typical RAF. Well, it’s just the RAF I’m afraid. I told a wing commander at Halton that and all last Monday when we were up there. He said, ‘I understand.’ He come from Edinburgh. He wasn’t born in Edinburgh but he was an Edinburgh lad. Charming man. Have you met him?
CB: No.
WS: Oh you want to meet him. They’ve got a lovely little museum there now.
CB: Yeah. I’ve been in it. Yes.
WS: Have you been in it?
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WS: Well, the bloke kept showing me the Wellingtons. I just, I said, ‘I’ve seen a few of them.’ Yes. He said, ‘Yes. I know what you mean.’ NCOs were disgraced. Now, wait a bit. LMF. I haven’t delved into the business but I think in my little mind there’s no difference between a sergeant and an officer. If you’ve the sickness or the fear of or decided flying is not for me half way through and it gets the better of me that’s a sickness. The Americans recognised that. We don’t. All I’m saying that is if you’re a sergeant you were disgraced. Did you know anything about it?
CB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
WS: On the square. Ripped off. And sent to the Orkneys. I say the Orkneys. Cleaning toilets out somewhere. Now, officers weren’t tret like that. They didn’t have any parades for any officers who had LMF. I think that was wrong. But then that’s Britain and that’s how the service works. I don’t know if they had LMF in the army. They must have had surely. In the trenches. Must have had. Or the navy. All I know is about is me. You know, you don’t, you don’t know the, you don’t know the difference.
CB: No. That was really good. Thank you very much.
WS: It was.
CB: Fascinating.
[recording paused]
WS: I’m just saying I don’t understand it. That’s why I said —
CB: We’re just talking about the time out in the Middle East. And so it wasn’t based on the number of operations that you did.
WS: No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t else I would have been —
CB: How long were you there?
WS: Else I would have been six months later just because I’d been up to Transjordan. I didn’t want to go to Transjordan. Mitch said, ‘Get your bag out. We’re going to Transjordan.’ And when he said aircraft recognition I didn’t stop laughing when I left him. I didn’t dare laugh when he was there. I expect he was happy to have a rest. I didn’t want to have a rest. But see what I mean it’s —
CB: So what we’re getting at is that you were out there for a year.
WS: A year. And all the, all the crews that started the squadron in when they —
CB: At OTU.
WS: When it was formed, when it was formed 621 Squadron, when we went up to London, what do you call him, my mate Bond asked one of the high ranking officers. All the plaques were along there except ours you see. So he said, ‘How come we’re not on there?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘621.’ Oh well,’ he said, ‘You were a special squadron.’ Special squadron. ‘You were a special squadron so they don’t put them up there.’ Well, I said, ‘That’s rubbish.’ ‘Well, no,’ he said, ‘You probably weren’t formed long enough.’ Well, I said from 1943 to ’49 or ’50. I don’t know when it was and I wasn’t interested. See what I mean?
CB: Yeah.
WS: He didn’t, he didn’t think that.
CB: It says here that 621 Squadron was formed at Port Reitz, Kenya on the 12th of September 1943.
WS: Yeah. And when was it closed?
CB: And it was disbanded when the number was changed to 18 on the 1st of September 1946.
WS: How many years ago was that?
CB: So that’s three years.
WS: They were going a bit longer than that. Well, he’s right then. Three years.
Other: So they can actually change the name of a squadron.
CB: Well sometimes because it’s a high squadron number.
WS: 18. They had Lancs didn’t they?
CB: Yeah. Probably. But anyway it was a complicated —
WS: It is.
CB: Situation. But they had so many squadrons they couldn’t continue them all.
Other: Oh I see.
CB: And what they’ve done is to keep the lower numbers because they were the ones by definition that were the oldest.
Other: Okay.
CB: Because they were formed in the First World War.
Other: Oh I see. Oh okay. That’s interesting.
WS: Yeah. It is.
CB: So how often did you fly on balance when you were out in Mogadishu, Khormaksar or whatever? Every day or every other day.
WS: About two hundred and fifty hours you see. That’s if you take a Bomber Command tour I was going to say I’m not saying you would do it one year but you could do nearly three tours in one year. Assuming you, I’ve got the survival rate. The survival rates are not all that high. In fact they’re pretty low. But for the length of time we were out there and the lads were lost in a short space of time. I remember one crew. I don’t who they are now. I wish. I’ve got their names and I have got the names of all the initial crews. They [pause] four of the five or three of the five of this crew was commissioned in the morning. Like, say they got the commission come through tomorrow morning then they’ll do tomorrow morning. And they were lost that day.
CB: Oh were they really?
WS: So that’s a loss if it’s, see you didn’t have to if, if you get in the water you’re deaded anyway. You can have all the rigmarole all your life but it’s, the ocean is a big, big place. I’m just saying so. So why did they? I don’t know. They probably, thought a year was long enough. My mate was, I told you he was out in Pershore who joined up with me. I think he went around the bend. Well you would there.
CB: He was there all the time. In Pershore.
WS: All the time. From Barry.
CB: From Barry.
WS: Yes. Yeah.
CB: Barry Island.
WS: Well he probably thought I’d never been to Barry.
CB: So we’re talking about being in a very hot area. You’re flying regularly. What did you do when you weren’t flying?
WS: Very little I should think.
CB: Football?
WS: Football.
CB: Swimming?
WS: There wasn’t much. Football in Khormaksar was diabolical. Sand’s glass. We all know that. You just had to go down. Even when I was on the boat coming home the doctor at the, halfway up the stairs said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘Oh it’s nothing. Sir. It’s just a little graze.’ ‘Take it off. And of course everybody is on the boat laughing at me. Nothing to laugh at. So, I took it off. Well, it was just an ordinary [pause] probably a bit infectious you see with the sand, ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘Put it on and see the MO in the morning.’ See what I mean? They —
CB: So what you mean is that when you fall over playing football on the sand it cuts you badly in the knee.
WS: Yeah. Diabolical.
CB: Okay.
WS: Diabolical.
CB: Right.
WS: We had, we had an officer bought, two officers, got to belong to officers to feed them. Got the photographs. I can see them now. Well, I didn’t mind the gazelle. And I’ve read letters about that. I reckon. they said it had a withered back leg. If you read about gazelles now. When cheetahs are after them where do they bite? Well, there’s only one place they bite because the gazelles are faster than them over short distances. I reckon he had its leg nipped off. Anyway, he was friends with the cheetah. My officer had bought a cheetah. I know. And he’d got to feed it.
Other: I’d have been a bit worried —
WS: Must have had more brains than sense. And they were walking around this when I was playing one day and I didn’t like the look of it at all, but I don’t know if it was harmless.
Other: I’d have been worried about it eating the football.
WS: Ridiculous. Bloody ridiculous.
CB: Just finally you’re, you’re in the, are you in the British Legion?
WS: I’m in the Legion. I’m in the RAFA.
CB: The RAF Association.
WS: Yeah. Still getting them. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. That’s really good.
WS: Yeah.
CB: And do you go to meetings of the RAF Association?
WS: Well no. But purely because now I’ve lost the car.
CB: Yeah.
WS: That’s the only reason.
CB: Good. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: There’s a correction in the interviewer’s comment about the radar in training. It’s not H2S but it was the ASV Mark 2 radar. The Mark 8 Wellington flown by Walter had an ASV Mark 3 in a nose blister centimetric radar.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Walter Raymond Stevenson
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-12-02
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStevensonWR151202
Format
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02:19:02 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Walter Raymond Stevenson volunteered for the RAF as soon as he was eighteen and trained as a wireless operator/air gunner, learning Morse code at RAF Yatesbury. He flew with 'sprog' pilots as they trained and was posted to Number 3 Air Gunnery School at RAF Mona. He was flying in Bothas, which he disliked, before converting to Wellingtons. Despite hating the sunshine, he was posted to a number of locations in the Middle East and Africa. He served with 621 Squadron whose role was to prevent German submarines from attacking shipping. He details the operation where he sighted submarine U852 which the crew bombed with depth chargers, visibly damaging the submarine. The commander of that submarine was later executed for the war crime of firing upon the survivors of the sinking ship, The Peleus. After demobilisation Walter returned to blacksmithing before switching to car repair work. </p>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Great Britain
Kenya
Somalia
Middle East
Indian Ocean
Egypt--Cairo
Kenya--Mombasa
Somalia--Mogadishu
North Africa
Africa
South Sudan
South Sudan--Juba
Sudan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-10
1941
1942-05-02
1943-02-24
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Walter’s earliest memories are of being hospitalised with smallpox. He enjoyed school but left at 14. Unwilling to become a collier he migrated through butchery to blacksmithing for an occupation, but he ‘hated’ doing this. Whilst his was a reserved occupation, he wanted to join Bomber Command and ‘pay back the bombing’ that the Germans had done.
Walter was ‘called up’ to RAF Squires Gate, Blackpool for ‘square bashing’. Despite being informed that blacksmiths and joiners were desperately needed, but Walter was equally fixed on becoming aircrew. Here he learnt Morse code. Next was RAF Yatesbury to learn wireless telegraphy, before qualifying as a radio operator. He was then posted to 608 Squadron RAF Thornaby, Yorkshire, a Costal Command station. After a year there, Walter went to No 3 Air Gunnery School RAF Mona, Anglesey. Walter trained using the Botha which he thinks is a ‘horrible one’ and became a qualified air gunner. Then came RAF Hooton Part, Wirral Peninsula and OTU RAF Silloth, Cumbria. At Silloth Walter was a W/op AG flying in Wellingtons. Here he met ‘the bravest and daftest pilot in the RAF’, called Bond, James Bond. Walter was now sent to 303 FTU RAF Talbenny, Pembrokeshire.
Walter was sent to RAF Hurn, Bournemouth. From Hurn he flew to Gibraltar and then to RAF Rabat, Cairo, Middle East Command, Egypt. He whole crew then flew via Juba to Mogadishu. Before he could arrive, they were diverted to RAF Eastleigh, Mombasa, Kenya. Walter was to fly from Scusciuban, Somaliland on detachment from the squadron. He feels that this location was ‘diabolical’. There were three W/op AGs in the crew, and they rotated the wireless operator’s role with two hours on the set. The set was technically known as the IT but amongst the crew as ITV.
The navigator knew the U-852 was surfacing and its possible location. The plane was unable to fly high due to low cloud cover, so Walter was able to visually sight the U-Boat from the second dicky seat. He moved to the front air gunner’s position, and after firing on all those in or moving to the U-Boat’s conning tower, it submerged. The plane circled the area thinking that the U-Boat was ‘Whacko’ and saw it re-surface, so depth charges were dropped in a ‘stick’. The gunner aboard opened fire with 37mm. Walter feels that they were poor gunners as the plane was never hit and they were the only aircraft in the sky. After the attack to U-Boat was guided to the shore and breached. The captain was executed with two other officers from the crew as war criminals for their behaviour earlier in the war.
Walter was sent on with his squadron to assist 8 Squadron in Ade, where they received ‘red hot’ gen about the shipping. He was posted to Khormaksar then Transjordan. He was there for about six weeks for the RAF Aircraft instructor’s course, before returning to England.
Walter was never confronted with a case of LMF but is both annoyed by it and understands that it was something never discussed. He describes the differing treatment to NCOs and Officers with LMF as NCOs were punished for it, but Officers were not.
Walter was posted as a warrant officer to RAF Scampton to be the Sports Officer. He was demobbed at either RAF Conningsby or RAF Scampton in August 1946. He returned to blacksmithing, married Lilian at the Town Hall in Wycombe in 1947. Walter is in the Royal British Legion and the RAFA. He no longer attends meetings as he is without a car.
Claire Campbell
621 Squadron
8 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Botha
lack of moral fibre
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
RAF Mona
RAF Silloth
RAF Thornaby
RAF Yatesbury
sanitation
submarine
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1116/11606/AScottSO150904.1.mp3
889a5cbb3b2747eacf089d7212052a69
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
Scott, Seymour Owen
S O Scott
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Owen Scott (1922 - 2018).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Scott, SO
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the benefit of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Owen Scott. The interview is taking place at Mr Scott’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon on Friday the 4th of September 2014, sorry 2015. Owen, I wonder if I could just ask you just to tell me a little bit about your early life, where you were born and your family background.
OS: Yes, well, I can do that, it’ll take a long time though [laughs] [clears throat] first of all I was born [pauses], I don’t know whether you want to know this but I was born in London in 1922, my family then moved to Broadstairs in Kent and at the age of ten I attended school in Broadstairs, Kent. I’m having to stop and just think about it because I’m not sure whether I’m, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression and I’ve got to remember what I did in those early days, I went to Chatham House grammar school in Ramsgate, Kent for about two years, when I eventually left the school, my uncle’s suggestion who was very keen for me to get into commercial life and start making a living, he did in fact find a job for me in Harris Lebus, the furniture manufacturer in Tottenham London where I was for about a year and then I returned home and I worked for a local builder as a clerk and typist and after that whoopsie-daisy the war came up and I was always very keen on aircraft and my school pal and I used to go the local RAF aerodrome and watch the aircraft and so I got the bug from that and was always very interested in flying and thought that I’d love to be a pilot. Now, it so happened that I worked, rather a lot happened around that time but anyway I, yeah, I volunteered to the RAF to become a fighter pilot, that’s what, what really urged me on and I just, I thought I’d love to be a fighter pilot flying Spitfires. Now, things got rather hastened at that stage and anyway I was accepted as an aircrew potential and joined the RAF and I was enlisted in London and started serving my time in the RAF. I was eventually posted to, oh dear, what’s the name of the place? Oh dear, on the east coast, damn it, forgotten that, anyway, I then flew for the first time in a Tiger Moth with an instructor of course and it was rather frightening because we took off in snow and I could not believe that the first time I left the earth and it was snowing like hell and subsequently we lost two aircraft over the river, near the Wash, just near the Wash it was and eventually we did our land drills and things like that in Scarborough and was eventually told to stand by but because five o’clock the following morning we were going to Liverpool and no, I didn’t solo at all, I only did about an hour’s flying and that was all, it’s all in my logbook and we were posted to Liverpool and to our astonishment we were put on board the SS Orbita ship and we took seven days to travel to Canada, we were under the impression that we were going to serve with the Canadian Airforce but the actual fact we were on standby for two months in Moncton, New Brunswick, that’s Canada and eventually we were put on a train and to our astonishment we went down to [unclear] just outside I can’t remember but anyway to [unclear] and it was at [unclear], that was an island, I flew solo for the first time. And it was a very exciting time and I remember the instructor saying to me, for goodness sake, don’t hit the tyre as you go off ‘cause the wind’s in the wrong direction and anyway they put the sandbag in the aircraft, this is an American twin-winged aeroplane but anyway I took off and made jolly sure anyway I did the circuit came in and landed safely and hurrah, hurrah, I’ve gone solo. Now then very shortly after that we were told to stand by five o’clock in the morning which always seemed to be the operational time and we got on a train and believe it or not, it took us six days on this train to go down to Pensacola in Florida where we transferred to the American navy. And the idea was to become acquainted with get our wings and to fly American Catalinas flying boats. Now I have recorded on various occasions some of the things that happened when we were in America, I was in America for just under a year learning to fly flying boats and had some rather exciting times which I have since recorded for posterity I hope. But some of the American instructors were very nice chaps but there was an element amongst them where they didn’t like, these goddamn limeys as they used to call us, and then eventually I got my wings and I passed out to be a full captain of a Catalina flying boat with the idea of returning to this country and serving in Coastal Command in America, in Scotland, so here I am with a, oh and also I dropped off at, in Canada, I’ve forgotten the name of the islands now but I did an advanced navigation course there before finishing off, thinking I’m jolly good, I’m gonna fly flying boats out of Scotland. Now when I got back to the UK, to my astonishment, we were told that we were going to go on a conversion course to landplanes and that we should fly with Bomber Command as Bomber Command pilots. Now this was startling news because here we are, I got my wings, I got my special ticket I got from the Americans to fly flying boats and we had to come back to UK to be told that you are going on Bomber Command was very disheartening and in actual fact I made a special request to meet a high ranking officer in Liverpool to, with a view to persuading him that I should go back onto flying boats. He told me to ‘Effing well get back to my squadron’ and was very rude for me indeed and he said, ‘If you don’t do as I effing tell you I’ll put you on a court martial,’ which was very, very frightening for me at that time, now, this seems to be a very long story.
JM: Please continue, it’s wonderful.
OS: But I’m trying to remember, I can remember very well all of this period today, what’s the date of today?
JM: Fourth of September.
OS: The fourth of September 2015 I’m making this recording in front of my charming chap.
JM: Julian.
OS: Julian. To continue with it.
JM: May I ask what year this was that you were joining Bomber Command?
OS: This would be 1944.
JM: ’44.
OS: Am I giving you enough information?
JM: You are. I was going to ask, did you go straight on to a squadron or did you have to do a conversion, did you go to a heavy conversion unit?
OS: Yes, I did.
JM: Tell us about that, please.
OS: Well, yes I flew, oh dear, anyway I lost my train of thought [unclear]
JM: Sorry.
OS: Yeah so much happened around that time is that I want to be as accurate as I can for this purpose and it was a very exciting time but at the same time it was a very frightening time because the thought of going on to Bomber Command wasn’t really what we were looking forward to at all so we were forced into it [clears throat]. I flew Halifaxes, first of all a four-engine bomber which were lousy aircraft and I had a very frightening experience with a New Zealand instructor who I would like to say was checking my crew out and he wanted to fly the aircraft and test my crew and I decided to fly in the rear turret for the experience so he was at the controls with my flight engineer, now we took off and suddenly he shouted, ‘Undo that, undo that, stop that, pull this up, pull that up, pull that out’, just as we took off and it turned out that he had forgotten to unlock the aileron controls and here we were off the ground, climbing and he had no control whatsoever over the aircraft. It frightened me to death ‘cause I was in the rear turret, didn’t know what to do and he kept shouting ‘Undo this, undo that, pull that lever, pull that lever’, and eventually the securing lugs that held the ailerons and rudders and flaps and everything else came into power and eventually they landed safely. I took the man to task and he threatened me and said, ‘If you report me then I will make sure that you are court-martialled’, so I had no option but to forget about the whole thing but it was a very, very frightening experience and it could have killed all of us. Now, around this time, I’m doing this off the top of my head of course, do you think I could just stop a minute and--
JM: Of course.
OS: And just think about
JM: Of course.
OS: Now here I am continuing my yarns about my lifestyle [laughs] and my experiences in the RAF. Now we flew the Halifax bomber as a, not as an operational aircraft but as an introduction to four-engine bombers. I did not like it at all and it was common feeling that it was a lousy aircraft to fly, put it that way, fortunately I did very few hours but as I said before like an introduction to going onto frontline Lancasters four-engine. Now I just stop there for a second if I may. I’m just going to think about that period because it was rather a lot happening particularly when I’m going to talk about, which I have recorded by the way, about picking up my flight engineer. Now both, Halifax, no, I’m not sure but anyway the Lancaster, you had to have a, you couldn’t fly a Lanc without a flight engineer, this is what we call a Lancaster finishing school which was also prior to going onto a squadron but of course now I’m in a situation where I’m going to pick up a crew and I think that’s where I better start.
JM: Please.
OS: Switch on.
JM: Go, it’s on, go. Yeah.
OS: Right. The method of gaining a crew and there were six other members to fly in the aircraft, two gunners, navigator, bomb aimer and flight engineer, oh and wireless operator. Seven of us altogether in every Lancaster. Now so what happened was that chaps got together, we weren’t commissioned at that time, we were flight sergeants and someone said, this chap over here is a nice fellow and I understand he is a good shot, this is a good navigator, they got together, came to me and said, ‘We think these guys will serve you well because we’ve lived with them for a few weeks and I think we’d like to introduce you to them.’ Right, now the next thing is that I met these crew apart from the flight engineer and this story I’ve already recorded because it is a full story and I’m gonna tell it now because I think it will be viewed with a lot of interest. The way they did it was that the crews and the skipper went on parade in lines and the fully qualified flight engineers used to march round the circle and as they passed each crew would fall out and attach themselves to that squadron. I don’t want to go into it any deeper than that but that was a simple as that. Now when the guy comes past me and stopped and then said, ‘Hello skip, my name is—' whatever it was and I looked at this chap and I could not believe to, now we were all around the age of twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four years of age, this guy looked to me as though he was thirty one, anyway I and also he was a very heavy chap, and he looked to me he was about fifteen stone and I could not believe that I got landed with this sort of chap although he seemed a very nice fellow. Eventually my crew came to me and said skip, of course he would, by that time I was commissioned by the way, so I wasn’t living with my crew who were all flight sergeants, he came to me and said ’We found out that so-and-so the flight engineer is thirty one, he’s not thirty one, he’s thirty one’ and he’s, but he said, ‘We’ve now found out that he’s forty one.’ I could not believe it, anyway there was no appeal, you had to take what they gave you and then when I started having him on the crew I found out that he was an ex Manchester policeman and he was in fact forty one. He was not, he found it difficult to get inside the aircraft and get up beside me on the cockpit, he was very slow on the uptake, on various things, and when it came to being qualified in how do we switch tanks, what pressures and temperatures, the engines would fly at, he was very slow and worried me to death and when I asked him to identify for example lights at night, he would say ‘Did you say, which one did you say, skipper? Which one is that, is it the one on the left or the one on the right?’ And I said, ‘It’s the green one, well, can you see it?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I can’t see green’ and it frightened me to death. Anyway I’m gonna stop there for a second to get my breath back. Now I’ve already indicated some of the difficulties I had with this flight engineer. I’m now going to recall something I will never forget, one of the things I will never forget and it was that we were on this particular, I forget which one it was, it was a German, German raid at night and lousy night, bad weather, flying in cloud and anyway I’ll skip the bit about the bombing run and the attack but on the, soon as we left the target, my rear gunner called me up and said, ‘Skip, I’m sorry to tell you but the starboard inner is on fire.’ I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting but I got out of my seat and to my amazement the damn engine was on fire and flames was shooting from out of the engine and I knew I got, so I did all sorts of manoeuvres like trying to blow the fire out, by diving in corkscrews and all that sort of thing, the fire wouldn’t go out and I knew it meant trouble because the flames were getting bigger coming from the engine. So what I had to do was to tell my flight engineer to fire the fire extinguisher on that engine, the crew I must say were very quiet and a little concerned, so I said to the flight engineer ‘Now stand by to press the fire extinguisher on the engine that’s on fire, that’s the starboard inner.’ He said, ‘Okay skip, don’t worry, you tell me when you want to hit the button.’ So I said, ‘Well stand by.’ So having dived and climbed for several times at very high speed, at very low speed to get rid of the flames that wouldn’t go out, so I said, ‘Well, on the count of three, I want you to press the fire extinguisher button on the starboard inner.’ ‘Okay skip,’ he said, ‘I’m waiting.’ So, I levelled the aircraft, and I said ‘One, two, three, now!’ The engine, the aircraft immediately yawed or to use a [unclear], anyway the aircraft swung round to the left, I could not believe it, he had pressed the wrong button and killed my point inner so now with two, only two engines left and there was a long way to go home over the North Sea, we got another four or five hours flying home. I, the aircraft, as I said, yawed again and I, once you fired the fire extinguisher you couldn’t fire it again. And anyway to this day I cannot remember how I got that port inner engine to fire and to be serviceable, I have never remembered how I did it but it was an absolute miracle and fortunately I got that engine started and we returned home on three engines. Now when we got back to base, as far as I remember it was about five o’clock in the morning, still dark and I landed and my flight engineer disappeared, we gotta go now for a debriefing, so he didn’t come to the debriefing and my crew and I reported what had happened on the debrief and we went and had our bacon and eggs and went to bed. Now it was still dark and my batman woke me up and said, ‘Skip, your flight engineer wants to see you desperately.’ So I get out of bed and he came in and he said, ‘Skip, I,’ he said ‘I’ve come to tell you what happened and why.’ He was in tears, he said, ‘Skip, my father is stone deaf, my mother is stone deaf, my sister is stone deaf,’ he said, ‘And I’m going deaf,’ he says, ‘And I couldn’t hear you.’ And I said, ‘You realise, do you, that what’ he said, ‘I could have killed us all’. I said, ‘You could, you stupid boy, why on earth did you go through with it like that, knowing that you were going deaf? How important it was to fly alongside of me in the cockpit?’ The following day he was posted from the squadron and I, when Nan and I, my wife and I were on honeymoon, I had a letter from him to say that he had taken on a pub in Manchester, we looked in and said hello, he was very happy to see me of course, so I said, ‘You’re still alive then?’ That’s all I could say. With a sarcastic tone and my wife and I carried on to the Lake District for our honeymoon. That’s the end of the story. There are two things that our eldest daughter Toni has suggested that I should record.[pause] I’m gonna tell you, don’t record, I’ll tell you afterwards but I just want you to see what I was gonna say, now just before I, no, don’t record it, ‘cause I will do.
JM: Yeah.
OS: I’m just trying to [unclear], I want to get into the rhythm of it and I want to get it right, having left the Lancaster Finishing School, we were eventually posted to a squadron. I can’t remember the name, the number of the squadron actually, but it was some fair way from Hemswell where we had the Lanc finishing school. It was about ten o’clock in the morning and we arrived at this squadron and I was greeted by the wing commander who said ‘Come in the office, nice to meet you, you can see what I’m doing here can’t you?’ And I said, ‘Well’, I said, ‘well, I’m not sure.’ He said, ‘I lost ten crews last night’ and I was horrified, he lost ten crews out of ten, wiped out the squadron, and he was going on the blackboard down with a duster wiping them all off. He said, ‘Well don’t worry about it’, he said, ‘You and I will be on a new squadron together and you’re gonna be my second in command.’ You see, so, I thought, oh, oh, alright, here we are, welcoming handshake so to speak, but crews started to come in and we started to build up the squadron with other crews, and after about a couple of weeks he called me in the office one morning and he said, ‘I’ve got something to show you’, and I said, ‘Oh yes’, took me in his back room and there was a container, about ten inches in diameter and about three feet high, it was a food carrier and alongside it there was a packed parachute, I was a little unsure what was going on and he said, ‘I’m just about to fly to Paris and I want you to cover me.’ And I was mystified, I said, ‘I’m not sure what you mean’. ‘Well’, he said, ‘my wife is still living in Paris’ and he said, ‘I’m going to take her a food container and I’m gonna drop the parachute over Paris and I want you to cover for me.’ I was so bewildered I suppose is the word, about this I didn’t tell my crew, but eventually crews started to come in and eventually we started operations against Germany. But he didn’t put me on to fly on ops so I went into his office this morning and I said, ‘Sir, I’m begging your pardon but why aren’t you putting me on ops?’ ‘Well’, he said, ‘you don’t want to go one of these piddling, stupid things on the north coast of France’, he said. ‘Rubbish’, he said, ‘we will wait till we get a big one then you and I are will fly together’. I said, ‘Fly what?’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll go on a big raid.’ Again, I was mystified. And he didn’t put me on. And now, I could not, for the life of me, bear the thought of me flying over France, over Paris, while he dropped some food to his wife, and I thought, I’m not gonna jeopardize my crew and myself here, I’m not gonna do it but I don’t know how I’m gonna get out of it ‘cause he’s a very powerful man. And anyway eventually, believe it or not, a posting came through for me and my crew to form another squadron. I was so relieved, my crew didn’t really, ‘cause I never let on I didn’t want to upset them but I did tell them a later time. But eventually, yes, we were posted to Hemswell to form 170 Squadron. And that leads me to another story. Now, the story goes like this, in the officers, by this time I was commissioned and my crew of course were all flight sergeants, eventually one or two of them did become commissioned but my crew and I were set now to go on an operational bombing squadron at 170 Hemswell. Now we had a little bit of a knees-up so to speak in the mess, in the officer’s mess, one. very shortly after this, one night, and to meet our new wing commander and during the course of the evening his wife came across to me and asked me if I’d go outside with her ‘cause she wanted to speak to me privately. I was rather surprised at this but we went into another room and she says, ‘Owen’, she said I, ‘You don’t mind me calling you by your Christian name, do you?’ I wondered what on earth was coming and she said, ‘But I’d like you to help me if you can.’ And I said, ‘Well, I will if I can but what is the problem?’ She said, ‘The problem is that my husband’ wing commander, forgot his name, ‘He’s not gonna be capable of carrying the post that he’s got’ and she said, ‘And I wanted you to if you would, try and help him all you can so that he doesn’t make any mistakes.’ But of course I, it was an unbelievable thing to happen on a night of frollity, put it that way, that’s the wrong word but, a pleasant evening and I did say to her, ‘Well, I’ll do whatever I can.’ Now then, we started operating hot trot trips over Germany and the wing commander was very weak at the briefings that we had to go on these raids didn’t put himself on at all but it was expected that the wing commander would fly operationally with the crews, he didn’t do that, and it was very difficult to approach him and I thought of what his wife had asked me but I didn’t have the opportunity and I could see that it was going to be inevitable that the man would not last in the post, it so happened that he was posted, we never saw him again and we eventually had a new wing commander. I never heard from his wife but I think that was a story that was a little unusual and for me at the time to find myself involved with the wing commander’s wife, well I can laugh about it now but it was very serious at the time. End of story.[pause] On one occasion on 170 Squadron Hemswell Bomber Command, I think it was on the raid to Duisburg, not, I can refer to it, it’s in my logbook anyway but it was a big target and there were over a thousand Lancasters on it at night and situation over the target was absolutely petrifying, there were fighters above, searchlights and you had to be careful of searchlights ‘cause once they got you in the searchlight they predicted anti-aircraft fire and you’re a goner. And I remember too many times being caught while I got caught twice on searchlights and but how I got out of it I’ll never know, I’m the luckiest guy, the luckiest crew. But coming back to this particular, I think it was Duisburg, but anyway what happened was this, we went on the raid and at night of course, and the job of the bomb aimer was to check through a peeping hole in the bomb bay just to make sure that all the bombs had left, had been jettisoned. The word was that ‘Skip, I’m sorry to tell you’ but that we got the cookie, that’s a two thousand pound bomb, it was fused and could not be defused. Once it was fused and it had to go. And there were five other five hundred pound bombs in as well. Nearly all night I flew up and down the North Sea trying to get rid of these bombs, they would not go and I think there was a malfunction in the bombing mechanism but no matter what I did I could not shake these bombs off. So I returned close to the squadron and called up control and said ‘I got a problem, can you advise me?’ And the guy said, ‘Oh yes, I’ll call you in five minutes.’ Very casual and some of these controllers in the control tower really used to irritate me because they were so damn cocky about things and I said to one of them on one occasion, ‘It’s alright for you sitting there smoking your cigarette but here I am in trouble and all you got to do is say goodnight.’ But anyway they said after five minutes, ‘You can either put the aircraft on automatic, head it out to sea and parachute over the sea or you can put it on automatic and bail out over the land but make sure that the aircraft sets itself and blows itself up in the sea. Or you can land with it and just be gentle how you land it,’ so I called him back and said, ‘I’m thinking about it’, so I said to the crew, ‘I don’t want to persuade you but I’d rather than bail out either over the sea or over the land, I’d rather put it down.’ And the crew were marvellous, they said, ‘Skip you can do it, you can do it, boy, we all vote for you, we are going with you.’ I was very honoured, sorry, upsets me even today. I don’t know what to think about it, but this is what happened, now it’s dark, pitch black and it was raining a bit anyway I called funnels that was the to let the control know where I was and I came up on the, they didn’t, they wouldn’t light the airstrip, the landing field for me because you weren’t allowed to light up at night oh dear in case there were fighters about but anyway I’ve got very few lights, it was pitch black, raining slightly and I didn’t say anything to the crew but I thought to myself, come on scotty boy you gotta put this one down right. And anyway I came in and I landed it on three wheels and my rear gunner called me up and he said, ‘Skip, that’s the finest landing you have ever made, that’s the finest landing you’ve ever made’ and I was still rolling up the runway. And I’ve got to put the brakes on and then he said, ‘Skip, and furthermore you’ll never in your life make another landing like that. It was fantastic’, now I’m now rolling up the runway and I’m doing about a hundred and thirty knots and I gotta put the brakes down and I’ve got these damn bombs stuck up in the bomb bay. So I, and I warned the crew, I said, ‘When we get to the end of the runway, I want you to open up all the doors and the hatches, jump out and run with me like bloody hell.’ Because I knew that if that bomb fell off, it would blow the squadron to smithereens, because you could not defuse it. I turned off very, very gently into the lay-by and [sighs] It upsets me to think about it, but we were the luckiest crew that ever lived because when, I didn’t open the bomb doors, normally after you’d been on a raid you opened the bomb doors when you finished doing the survey and so we ran away and went and had our bacon and eggs and then had a debriefing. Now, later on, that morning I decided to go to my aircraft to see what the situation was. They’d already got inflatable bags under the bomb bay and under the wings and the idea was that because this bomb was still there, they had to lower it very, very gently otherwise it would blow up. Now an actual fact, I recorded this matter, on ITV about a year ago and a full description I gave of it and it went like I’ve said and now here we were now. The frightening thing was that when I landed the actual bomb, the big one, the cookie, the two thousand pounder, which you couldn’t defuse, was resting on the bomb doors. And if I had done the usual practice of opening the bomb doors it would have fallen out and blown up the squadron. But how lucky can you get? We got away with it. End of story. The, it was never disclosed why that bomb had hung up and the five hundred pounders you see there was a mechanism that the bomb aimer used to drop the bombs and looking back on it, it was never really looked, into, we were all so pleased that the war is over, hallelujah and let’s have a good time, get back and let’s live again but I think there was a malfunction in the mechanism of the bomb aimer because he was a lovely guy and he actually became our good, our best man at our wedding, good old George, am I recording?
JM: Yes.
OS: Yeah, so, I’ll stop there a minute. Our executive officer on the squadron, lovely guy, he used to look after, bringing the bad news to parents and wives and so on, all our losses, lovely guy, called me into the office and he said, ‘Scotty I’ve got some good news for you, you’ve been appointed, you’ve been awarded the DFC’, and I couldn’t believe it, he said, ‘Yes you have’, he said, ‘And furthermore I want you to take the Croix de Guerre.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Well, there is a Croix de Guerre for you as well.’ He said, ‘I want you to take it.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not’, I couldn’t do that. You see, it was the end of the war, celebrations and never again gonna fly a Lancaster, never gonna bomb anything and I said, no, I couldn’t do that. Now, there’s a sequel to this but I anyway, I met him in the mess that night and he says, ‘Scotty, I really wish you would take it’, and I said, no, I couldn’t do it, now I tell you a bit more to that and it went like this, we were briefed and told that this was the last raid the RAF Bomber Command would do, it was the end of the war, then this is going to be the briefing for the last one which was to bomb the submarine pens in Holland. I think it was Holland, I can’t quite remember, but it’s in my logbook. And I was put on with the rest of the crews and now I am hesitating for a second because this was a very, very hairy situation so it was at the briefing it was for a daylight raid on the submarine pens as I say in northern Italy, Holland. And so it’s gonna be daylight, there were a thousand Lancasters on it and it was the last raid of the war. Okay, now then, we get the briefing, take off, I get to within fifty yards of the end of the runway and I lose an engine. It just went dead on me and I don’t forget a Lancaster when it’s fully loaded is thirty eight, repeat, thirty eight tonnes and you got to be very careful, I don’t care what anyone says, I’ve done it, when you fly in a Lancaster you have to be absolutely red hot about everything. Now I’m getting just a little bit emotional about this but it’s something that I can never forget in my lifetime, and I’m telling this true story, now I got off the end of the runway, how I got off the runway with eight tonnes on board of bombs, I’ll never know and I gradually went up into the circuit ready to go to the submarine pens. In view of the fact that it was gonna be the last and it was declared, this is the last raid of the war, in daylight, I said to the crew well I was entitled to go out to sea and discharge my bombload and return to base but like the stupid fool I was in those days, aged twenty two and I thought, for various reasons we’ll go I put it to the crew, they said, ‘Yes, come on skip, you can do it, we’ll do it, it’s the last one of the raids, last one of the war, it’s a daylight, it’s a cinch, it’s a walkover, come on, we’ll do it’, so I went on three engines, it was a stupid thing to do but I’m trying to build the story as to why I should do it but anyway we got near to the target, beautiful sunny day and a Lancaster flew very close to me, just under my port side, and don’t forget I’m flying now with three engines and he waved to me and put his thumbs up and he drifted across and went below me and we are now on the bombing run and my bomb aimer is saying, ‘Left, left, steady, steady, steady, ready, you know, stand by, I’m gonna fire it’ and we are all, ‘Good old skip, here we go, on the last one, we’re gonna drop this one on and stop these bloody submarines from coming out and damaging our ships.’ But to my utter amazement I saw this guy that waved to me go down and a parachute fell out, followed by another one and six parachutes came out and my, one of my gunners said it was a Messerschmitt 109 shot him down, and I was mortified so he hit, they were going down in parachutes, six parachutes opened but the seventh parachute didn’t but I presumed it was the skipper who couldn’t get out and I got my radio opposite, radio operator to phone base straight away and say they’d gone down in the sea and we never heard again what happened but this damn Messerschmitt 109 got him. We dropped our load and we got back safely. Now when it came to the debrief, my crew were very anxious to tell the female intelligence officer who debriefed us what happened, that we lost an engine and I went on three engines, she just marked it down as ‘he returned on three engines’. I was so disappointed because although it was a stupid thing for me to do, it was a celebration but to think that that guy lost his crew because of a 109. End of story. Well, one of the things that happened during the raid was when my - raid over Germany of course - was that my navigator rang me and says, ‘Skip, I’m sorry for Jerry, but we are six minutes early, we’ve gotta lose six minutes because the master bombers have got it wrong somewhere.’ Well, the frightening thing was how on earth am I gonna lose six minutes? so what I had to do was form a three hundred and sixty degree turn in amongst all the other Lancs going in and the perspiration was running off me because I thought, any minute I’m gonna get smashed up with another Lanc, but fortunately and I’m a lucky guy and weren’t we a lucky crew, we got away with it and we continued onto the target but the raids were petrifying, well the raids were terrifying because you know, a Lancaster’s a big aircraft, it was the biggest aircraft in the world at that stage and as I’ve said before, with a full load, you got thirty eight tonnes hurtling through the sky at two hundred and forty five knots and with the searchlights that used to be [unclear], I only went to Berlin once and when you got within striking distance, you’d have thirty searchlights all come on together and light the sky up, and then you see all these aircraft and I can remember on one occasion my bomb aimer saying, ‘Watch out for the sky, on your right, skip, he’s very close’ and he was and the bomber, and the rear gunner couldn’t have told his skipper I was within literally twenty five feet of him and I ducked underneath him and came up on the other side and it was like that and you knew there was fighters flying around but when the searchlights went up, you saw all these things happening and when the master bomber used to call you up and say, ‘This is master bomber one calling the main stream, good evening gentlemen, we are ready to mark the target and we will drop the first flares on the target in four minutes’ and then you see the green lights lighting up on the ground or red and you knew that the target markers were flying at literally at two thousand feet over the target and being shot at and we had the greatest admiration for those guys that used to fly Lancs and four engine oh dear, I’ve forgotten what they’re called, fast aircraft.
JM: Mosquitos?
OS: Say?
JM: Mosquitos?
OS: Mosquitos, yeah. Used to fly and then you get a message that says, ‘This is the master bomber calling you, this is master bomber two’, and you knew that number one had been shot down, it was always very scary but we had the greatest admirations for these guys, you know those who’ve all got VCs because there is so many of the guys that marked the target and never came back. But to, well, we’ll never forgotten any of them.
JM: I believe you were on the Dresden raid, Owen.
OS: Which one?
JM: The Dresden raid of February 1945, the one that attracted all the publicity post-war.
OS: Oh yeah, I was on that one, yes.
JM: How did you feel about that?
OS: What, when we bombed the?
JM: Dresden.
OS: Dresden, yes. Well, I was on the second raid, and they told us this is not, this is a very, very important target and every effort must be made to help make a success of this raid because it’s where we’ve got the Russians coming in from the East, there’s a lot of transportation of German equipment there and it’s gotta be blotted out, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be a hot raid. Now I was on the second raid there were five hundred and fifty nine on my things and when we got, it was a hell of a way to go as well, it took us I think six hours to fly down there at night and we had a few fighters knocking about on the way down. When I get to telling this story, my American accent starts to come out so forgive me if I talk like an American occasionally. But my wonderful navigator Derrick, who was the best on the squadron said to me, ‘No [unclear] skip, I never want to look out of the window’. On this particular night I said, ‘Derrick you come out here and look at this, you will never ever see anything like this at all in your life’. I made him come out and he said, ‘My God, what on earth is going on?’ There was tremendous fires all over the area and there were so many Lancasters knocking about, you had to be careful as well and the crew, particularly the gunners, I said, ‘Keep your eyes peeled fellows you, we’re not gonna know what’s happening here, we’ve gotta get on with this job and we’ve gotta get back’. Now here we go and Derrick, my navigator, he said, ‘I’m so glad you called me out from under the canopy, weve never seen anything like this.’ We did our job but there was a long way to get home and that night we flew for ten hours eighteen minutes on that target. End of story.
JM: Could I ask you Owen, what did you, what do you feel about the way in which Bomber Command was treated by the politicians after the war?
OS: Disgraceful. Disgraceful.
JM: It must have been very difficult as, you probably looked up to Winston Churchill
OS: Oh yeah.
JM: And there he is forgetting to say anything about Bomber Command. That must have hurt.
OS: Oh, it did. We were waiting for it. Didn’t come. And Bomber Harris, well, tell you a story about him, he came up behind us one day, are we on air? We are on the air?
JM: Yes, yes.
OS: Well, I was taking another squadron, taking another crew in a transport this particular day and damn me if Bomber Harris didn’t come up with his flag on his car behind us, was waiting to get past us. When the two crews all gave him the V fingers and called him, you know, Butch Harris, we called him, and was shouting at him, ‘Butch Harris, you’re a butcher, you’re a butcher!’ and I thought, I said, Shut up chaps, you’re gonna get ourselves in a load of a trouble here’, here comes my American accent, I can feel it, and the guy came up alongside us, they were all giving him the V fingers and I knew he was gonna pull us over, but he didn’t, he drove on. And that was an experience.
JM: So you’re saying that Harris was not popular with the aircrews?
OS: Oh yeah, that’s what we used to call him, Butch Harris, Butch Harris. And end of story.
JM: Okay.
OS: I was just going to say that a pal of mine on the squadron, lovely guy but I couldn’t believe that he was married with two children. I never mentioned it to him because I thought it would undermine his confidence but to think of him with, married with two children, he lived in Hull apparently, but he was a good pal of mine on the squadron, we used to play snooker together, we used to go out together, he had some frightening experiences like I did, had a lot in common, and on one particular occasion [laughs], just springs to my mind but, he and I were on leave at the same time and we arrived at three o’clock in the morning in Gainsborough and met by chance and we normally stayed in the local pub overnight waiting for a taxi to take us back to the squadron which was about nine miles away and on this particular night [laughs], it was a freezing cold night, we couldn’t get put up at the pub so believe it or not, but we sat in a telephone box, all night, sitting on our luggage, freezing cold and waiting for the dawn as it were so we’d get a taxi so we get back on squadron and he tapped me on the knee and he says, ‘Scotty’, he said, ‘you are awake, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘I’m freezing’, he says, ‘So am I’, said, ‘But’ he said ‘ I want you to know’, he said, ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ [laughs] and he made me laugh so much but he was that sort of guy and I missed him dearly because I came back on from another leave in the transport that brought me back, they told me the bad news that he never came back and he was a lovely guy. And I’ve never forgotten him. End of story.
JM: How did you feel as the end of your tour approached, were you and the crew nervous about whether you would complete or did you just take it a day at a time?
OS: Well, when we finished you mean?
JM: As you were approaching the end of your tour.
OS: Approaching the end of the tour?
JM: Mh.
OS: I got my logbook there with it all in. We are not on air, are we?
JM: Yes.
OS: We are on air?
JM: Yes.
OS: Ask me the question again.
JM: How did you feel as you approached thirty completed operations? Were you confident that you would finish your tour?
OS: No. I was scared to death ‘cause we got away with it for so long and we only got, shall we say I remember when we got to twenty eight, the crew never mentioned it though we were very tight-lipped about it, scared to death really, oh my God, we got this far, we’re gonna get knocked off tonight and on one occasion we were briefed for a bash, as we used to call it, and this officer came past me and he was in tears, he was absolutely throwing, he was absolutely drenched in tears, looking dead ahead he never saw me. I knew the guy, he was a fellow officer, he never came back that night. It was like that. And so the last two were very scary, very scary indeed and it was still intense activity full volume, you know, when you get a thousand Lancasters all going to the same target, it was absolutely terrifying but you had to keep your gut, you had to keep yourself in tight and you had to not think about it too much and the you used to dread going in the briefing room to see what was the, see what the target was and you know when it came up, you knew the bad ones and, oh my God, we’ve gotta go there tonight and I remember on one occasion, my batman woke me up, he says, ‘Skip, I’m sorry to tell you but you’ve missed the briefing you’re on. They forgot to tell you.’ They forgot to tell me that there was a raid on. And I climbed out of bed and put my flying boots on and eventually my batman took me out to the aircraft, the engines were running and my flight engineer had started the engines, and in the briefing when they called my name, they called my name, ‘Yes, I was available, I was there’ but I wasn’t and I got in the aircraft, the engines were running and I taxied out and took off and I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, someone tell me where we are bloody well going!’ And they said, ‘We are going to—' oh dear, hot target, I’ve forgotten the name of it for the minute, because I was going down the runway and I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, someone tell me where I am going!’ And when they told me, my God, it was some, something, I’m getting a bit worked up talking about it but never forgot it that night and that was somewhat typical of how life was on the squadron.
JM: You were all brave men but did you have any experience of any men for whom it was too much?
OS: Yes.
JM: And they refused to fly? Could you tell us what happened?
OS: Well, I had one good chap that I knew very well, he came to my room one night and said, ‘Scotty, can I talk to you?’ I said, ‘Of course you can.’ Lovely guy. He says, ‘Scotty, I have decided that I can’t go on, I can’t do it.’ And I said, ‘If you have decided that you know what you gotta do.’ He said, yes. I hate the thought of it, Lack of Moral Fibre, as soon as you said you couldn’t go, you were marked straight away, LMF, Lack of Moral Fibre, and it was a disgrace and he eventually, well, you see, if you did that, they posted you from the squadron straight away and they sent you peeling potatoes or something and it was marked on your logbook, Lack of Moral Fibre, couldn’t go through with it. This guy went through with it, I didn’t see him after that, a lovely guy but you see, there weren’t many that had the courage because they hated the idea of the expression Lack of Moral Fibre and that’s why it was put that way to prevent them from doing it and in other words so many thought about and nearly did it and didn’t and carried on and got killed. But that’s how life was on squadron.
JM: When the war was over, did you think about staying with the Royal Air Force or were you very anxious to go back to your civilian life?
OS: I was anxious to go to civilian life and what I did was you could apply to have an extension of six months on your term of office so what I wanted to do really was become a commercial pilot and bearing in mind that I was very fond of the sea because you know I was in the merchant navy as a young boy, fifteen, and with my experience in flying boats, my hopes were that I could get myself a commercial position flying flying boats. So I asked for an extension of six months, I was then transferred to another squadron and there are stories I could tell you about that. So for six months I had time to think about civilian life, I got married et cetera et cetera and I applied to British BOAC British Overseas Airways and then I sent an application form but I wasn’t successful, that’s how it was, but during that time, when I was with, I went to another squadron because my own squadron was disbanded and there’s lots of stories I can tell you about that, but for the moment I think I’ll shut down.
JM: Owen Scott, thank you very much for sharing your wartime experiences with me for this recording, it’s been a privilege to listen to you. Thank you very much indeed.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Seymour Owen Scott
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AScottSO150904
Format
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01:15:21 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Seymour Owen Scott (usually refered to as Owen) served as a Lancaster pilot during the war. Mentions always having a passion for flying since he was little boy. Remembers training in Canada and the United States to become a flying boat pilot in Coastal Command and then surprisingly being assigned to Bomber Command. Mentions various service life episodes: converting onto heavy bombers in England; a flight engineer being posted from the squadron for concealing his hearing loss; losing an engine on the last operation on the submarine pens in Holland. Gives a detailed account of a harrowing emergency landing with a hung up bomb. Remembers a frightening experience with a New Zealand instructor while training on Halifaxes. Gives a vivid description of the dangers the Lancaster crews faced during an operation. Mentions a brief encounter with Arthur Harris and a case of Lack of Moral Fibre.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
170 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Catalina
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
military service conditions
pilot
RAF Hemswell
searchlight
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1114/11604/PSayFD1705.2.jpg
52b843c39d0ced7b2eb03c0b13e49139
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1114/11604/ASayFD170712.1.mp3
c9d5fe21ca19ee77e4c519dc4a350b90
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
Say, Frederick Donovan
F D Say
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. An oral history interview with Frederick Say DFC (1921 -2017, 752638 Royal Air Force), photographs, charts and documents. He flew operations with 466, 196 and 514 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Frederick Say and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Say, FD
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 12th of July 2017 and I’m with Don Say in Highnam in Gloucestershire to talk about his life and times. So, Don what are your earliest recollections of life?
FDS: Being bathed in the tin bath by a lady with a red rubber, I think it was a rubber, I don’t know, red apron in front of the fire. Not [laughs] not too close obviously. And that was not my mother actually. My mother had died from what’s the official name of it? Hypocalcaemia. Not familiar with it? Milk fever. It’s an imbalance and in the days when it wasn’t unknown, it was known, cows get it. And when they get it its caller staggers and they stagger. And that’s the symptom for adults. I didn’t know my mother in other words. I have letters you know. A letter to my father. But she would be about twenty two. He would be about twenty one or twenty two. He had been in the Army. His picture’s somewhere over there on that table. You can see it facing you. Facing you.
CB: Right.
FDS: He was in the Machine Gun Corps. Underage so his mother got him, pulled him out and the army pulled him back in again, and he still stayed in the Machine Gun Corps. He finished up managing flour mills, flour and feed mills in Newcastle upon Tyne. But he’d be about twenty one or twenty two then. So I was then in the care for a few months I think with two old ladies who’d been in service who were some sort of relative, although I didn’t know them. And then my mother’s cousin and her husband started to look after me very well until I was, I don’t know, somewhere between five or six years old I think, she died. And eight years later my guardian as he became married again to a lady who said, ‘I’ve been a wicked woman.’ I said, ‘Yeah. I’ll drink to that.’ That was at her bedside visiting. I would have done too. Very unpleasant. There was much, much more cruelty by the tongue than by the lash. Can be anyway. It’s very difficult. It accounts for my aggression. Aggressive attitude to life [laughs] it may do. I don’t know. Blame somebody anyway. The current habit as well. So where have we got to now?
CB: So we’ve got to —
FDS: School.
CB: Yes.
FDS: Well, I passed, passed the various exams and left what was called then Tottenham County Grammar School err County High School. There were three schools. Boys Grammar, Girls High School and the whatever the next. That was called the County School. It was brand new with virtually an entire graduate staff. And quite a privileged education, finest court and the rest of it. And playing field. I was not a boarder and at no point did I feel any great loyalty towards it. Nor have I since. But I did pass school cert. Whatever it was called. Matric or something. And I also took, I was taken by my guardian to what we would we call him now? Careers advisor I suppose. And he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I know what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be told what I’m going to be doing all the time.’ So I said, ‘Agriculture sounds like a good bet.’ And I then took an exam and went to the what was then the Herts Institute of Agriculture, but now College of Agriculture, which was financially each year of half roughly horticultural training, half agriculture. And the [pause] they were a good staff. I didn’t work very hard there. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fell in love with my first girlfriend. Needn’t, needn’t put that down. Long since dead. It was near St Albans. About two or three miles. On the edge of the airfield. I’m trying to think of the name of it.
CB: Radlett.
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: At Radlett was it?
FDS: No. No. It was their private, err, manufacturers of aircraft.
CB: At Hatfield.
FDS: Pardon?
CB: Handley Page at Hatfield.
FDS: No.
CB: Well —
FDS: We’ll get through.
CB: De Havilland at Hatfield and Hand —
FDS: It was quite an important flight path.
CB: Handley Page
FDS: It’s over the College of Agriculture.
CB: Right.
FDS: Or it was.
CB: Right.
FDS: I’m trying to think what.
CB: Well, de Havilland at Hatfield and Handley Page at Radlett. Anyway, we’ll come back to that.
FDS: It’ll come back to me suddenly.
CB: Ok.
FDS: In the middle of the night. I’ll give you a call [laughs]
CB: Yeah, do that, yeah [laughs]
FDS: Tomorrow morning [laughs] But it’s relevant because I went there as a student and many years later I applied and was interviewed for the job of principal and then I discovered that the flight path. The first one was right on the flight path of the thing so I turned it down.
CB: Right. Ok.
FDS: Great fun.
CB: So you were at the college for how long?
FDS: A year.
CB: And then what?
FDS: I went, this is a bit I [pause] I went to, I worked for a local farm. When I say local, in Hertfordshire. I don’t remember it particularly. And eventually the principal went for a change of job and he said, ‘Well, I don’t know if you’ll like it but it’s a job of hedging for a man called Patterson,’ at [pause] near Salisbury somewhere he thought. It wasn’t. That was the one at Petersfield, in fact and the name of the chap was Rex Munro Patterson, and he was the nephew of Lady Alliot Verdon Roe who was the wife of Sir Alliot Verdon Roe, and I went there to go hedging and he interviewed me and he said, ‘You’re not doing hedging. You’re going to tidy up the farms that I’m renting.’ He, don’t write this bit, his aunt had lent him a thousand I think to start with. He’d been to Canada, brought back the idea of the buck rake which she gave to Harry Ferguson and he worked in tandem and he had about twelve farms over Hampshire and Sussex. Is that a coincidence?
CB: Extraordinary.
FDS: Sir Avro.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: And his son used to drive the lorries to go and collect heffers from Liverpool and bring them down to Hampshire. I used to go. Go with him. He would drive. He was about a couple of years older than me.
CB: That was a long journey.
FDS: Good fun. Heffers had never seen people before very much and they showed it. But he, Patterson was novel in the sense that he introduced the buck rake. But he also, he didn’t introduce he shared the introduction of [pause] what do you call them? I can’t think of the name of the damned things now, towing cow, cow units. Mobile units.
Other: Milking units.
FDS: Yeah. Across the Downs trying to —
CB: Mobile milking parlours, were they?
FDS: Milking. Yeah. They were on wheels. We used to, one man and a boy or a young man and a young, two young men rather, and I worked for that because I got fed up with the office and I was working outside. They were short on cattle and we had about sixty or seventy per two men which was quite remarkable then in those days. The land, a lot of the land he rented at about five bob an acre from Sir Phillip Ricketts. Ricketts Blue? So he had large lumps of Hampshire and Sussex and my life seems a circuit around that doesn’t it? That’s how I came to get to Portsmouth and join the RAF VR.
CB: So, we’re talking about now 1938 going into ’39.
FDS: I’m, I’m dodgy on the dates.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Dates and months. About that time.
CB: And you were eighteen in 1938.
FDS: I had to be eighteen to join.
CB: So, how did you go about joining the Forces? So, how did you go about joining the Forces?
FDS: I joined.
CB: Yes, but how did you do it?
FDS: Well, I, first of all I went to the Recruiting Centres, and I went to the Army first. They gave me a tongue lashing and turned me down.
CB: This was in Portsmouth was it?
FDS: Yes. Then I went to the Navy. All on the same Saturday [laughs] and then I went to the Royal Air Force who said, ‘Yes, thank you. Do you want to fly?’ And I said, ‘Why would I want to do that?’ I said, ‘All I want to do is to have something that’s a bit more lethal than a pair of boots for the invasion,’ which was supposed to happen at any minute. But I couldn’t take it seriously. I never did really. I changed my job, you see. I can’t remember quite why, but I went to Essex. Wickford In Essex, and I worked on a farm there for [pause] it must have been the three months before I was called up, because I was feeding the pigs and my friend who was staying with the people we were staying with at that time came round on his bike and said, ‘There’s a telegram. It looks important.’ And I looked at it and I said, ‘It’s vitally important. I’m needed to save the country three days ago.’ “You will report to Southampton,” three days before I received it. So I got on a train. You know, you do as you’re told. I went to the farm and I said to the farmer, ‘You can come back.’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s very likely. I don’t think it’s very likely because, I think I might join the Air Force. I don’t know.’ Anyway, I went down and reported to Glen Eyre Road, Southampton [pause] and the chap there said, I said, ‘Where am I supposed to go to now? You’ve recorded that I’m here.’ ‘Go over there with that lot. You two come with me.’ And we two of us followed him out to a vehicle, and he drove us around various, a house, ‘How many bedrooms have you, madam?’ I think the poor woman said, ‘Two or three,’ or something. ‘Right.’ They’re not awful?’ No. ‘Well, these two are staying here overnight. Not, will you? You board them overnight. They’ll be picked up in the morning I can promise you.’ So we were there over night at Glen Eyre Road. That’s it. No. That was the Centre. We were despatched from there to this house. Picked up by lorry and it gets ludicrous. It gets ludicrous. In the morning we got in to a lorry, the back of a standard RAF lorry and we drove to Tangmere. I didn’t know it was Tangmere. We drove through the guardroom and straight through. And there would be, there were fifty four of us. I think that’s right. Work it out yourself because the sergeant who used to be on the door of the local cinema had been recalled and he came up and said, ‘You lot,’ we were fifty four. ‘Three lots of eighteen,’ So there’s three lots. Then he had a piece of chalk. They could afford chalk. He carefully drew rectangles around each eighteen and I was in the first group. ‘You’re A-Watch, You’re B-Watch and you’re C Watch.’ And we said, ‘What precisely are we watching?’ ‘You’ll find out.’ [laughs] We were then marched off to a hangar and given bed boards and a pallias. You never had a pallias.
CB: No.
FDS: And straw. Put the clean straw in the pallias and what the hell do we do with this? Shaped vaguely like a musical instrument. A big one. You put these, anyway we kept there the other end of the hangar suddenly blokes came in in what appeared to be riding britches. Classy reservists. Six foot five airmen doing the same thing but the other end. And this corporal that was running this, this corporal or sergeant came around again. I said, ‘What are we supposed to be watching?’ He said, ‘You’ll find out.’ Marched off along a pathway and down a slope into a room. Guess what? Operations room. We were operations room clerks and three weeks to three months later I moved from AC2 ignorant general duties to leading aircraftsman SD, special duties. ‘Now, whatever you’re told in here and whatever you see in here you’re not to communicate with anybody in the fear of death.’ We did, oh eight or twelve stretches and they found out rapidly that very, all that was happening the convoys were going up and down to the Channel and 605 City of Birmingham Auxiliary, 43 Squadron which I think at that time there I think they were the Gladiators because Number 1 were the Hurricanes. Number 1 Squadron. Halahan was the boss. They were pushed off fairly rapidly to France. To a base there and did a lot of jobs when we ran away from [laughs] when we ran away from the Germans at Dunkirk. That was a lot later. But that was quite interesting to me. Lloyd. A chap called Lloyd from Lloyds Steel Pipes. Flight Lieutenant Lloyd. It was a millionaire’s squadron and didn’t they flaunt it? You know. Silk flying jackets and riding britches. Totally amateur. And relatively few other ranks. There were these fifty four of us divided into eighteens and then about eight were sent off to the wireless centre and what was there? We were shoving counters. Shoving counters around and putting things up for, instead it became enemy blocks of a hundred or two hundred aircraft but originally it was boats. Ships. And these were the convoys and the aircraft and they were sort of went out and did their patrols. And that was very exciting. We sat there, nothing happened. The Observer Corps were at the other end of the lines. They came in to us and you know that you’ve seen all the, have you? You’re familiar with the ops room set up.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
FDS: The map.
CB: Yes.
FDS: Well, there’s a sector map and the platform behind us. I don’t think there was any rank there normally under the rank of about flight lieutenant or squadron leader. And because we were near London we had visitors. Churchill. Churchill didn’t spur me on but I heard that he’d come down and been in the ops room and said that he thought it should be largely peopled by women and oddly enough I agreed with him. And they came in then. WAAFs came through. All frightfully, frightfully nice girls. I wrote a poem to one. Shall I tell you it?
CB: Do.
FDS: Her father appears in “Who’s Who.” I’m afraid I can’t introduce you. For an addition you need a commission. Three rings with the minimum two. She might take a cocktail with me, or come out to afternoon tea, but remember that you are a mere AC2. It makes all the difference you see [laughs] on an AC’s pay. Oh dear. I had nothing better to do than write silly rhymes. That was true, the girl.
CB: Excellent.
FDS: But they were awfully decent and one of them was called Bolton. Mary Bolton. Now, that’s relevant because guess what? She became the mother of Dyson.
CB: Oh.
FDS: I knew Dyson when he was that high and I was, I knew her sister was in the nursing order. I did a eulogy for her about a couple of years ago. Sheer coincidences. At that time we didn’t know it was a coincidence obviously. It was renowned for the excellent entertainment we got because we got all the shows from London and stars and anybody that thought they were anybody with power came to see us if they were allowed in. All shhh. Very secret. Well, the Germans knew. They knew where the, what do you call it? Radar units were because they came over and thoroughly bombed them after I left. Up to that point I was still getting it. I was then posted from there. I said, ‘I want to be out of here although it’s very interesting and very active with convoys and the like.’ I left and went to 10 Group and they promptly bombed Tangmere, did the Germans. Smashed it up and they had to relocate the ops room. I, by now at 10 Group, I didn’t know it was 10 Group. I was in a tent. We were in tented accommodation and some bloke came around. I don’t know. A flight sergeant. It didn’t mean anything to us. We don’t do any station duties. We were special duties. Shush. [laughs] So, I shared a tent for a few months. That ultimately became, it’s now the, what is it? I don’t know the stratospheric centre for, you know battle. It’s deep underground. There was masses of caves. I take it you know that. That county is riddled with caverns and one of them was 10 Group. And the chap who used to fly opposite, was it Hullavington on the opposite side? There was an airfield on the opposite [pause] 10 Group was on a hill. Not on a unit. And the air base was on the other side and the [pause] Park. Park who was on Fighter Command at one point used to fly in in his own little Hurricane. All white. White overalls and shouting and pulling, pulling rank. Stayed about two days and went again. And that was quite interesting for a while but I got bored with that and I was doing night duty and the chap [pause] who was commanding then? Baines. Wing Commander Baines. You had a wing commander who was ostensibly in charge of the ops room, and then the other, there was the Army, Navy and so on and you see them. And I was one of the little erks running about in between, and Baines was on duty that night. He said, ‘I’m bored.’ I said, ‘Well, join the club.’ No sirs or anything when we were off duty. We were on duty but relaxed and I said, ‘I’m bored stiff with this job actually.’ ‘What would you prefer to do?’ I said, ‘Well, I see these blokes walking out from aircraft and they don’t like any brighter than me. So, I’ll be aircrew of some sort.’ ‘I’ll recommend you.’ Which he did. And I went to, at that time I think it was a bit of an unusual entrance. I went to, what was the Air Force base? What is still the Air Force base? Headquarters.
CB: What? Bentley Priory?
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: For fighters?
FDS: London. No. The London office.
CB: Ad Astral House.
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: Ad Astral House.
FDS: I don’t think it was called that then. Anyway, I was sent there for an interview. To be interviewed for aircrew and I was waiting outside in the passage way and a chap passed me full of rings up his arm and I didn’t know how he got, a large ring and lots of small ones. ‘What are you doing there my boy?’ And I said, ‘I’m waiting to be interviewed, sir.’ ‘Are you nervous?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ So he said, ‘Well, don’t be, he said. ‘They’re no brighter than you. Thirteen times thirteen.’ I said, ‘A hundred and sixty nine.’ He said, ‘If you know that [laughs] wonderful. Air Commodore JB Cole-Hamilton. Yeah. Nice chap. Pleasant. He said, ‘Go ahead. You can pass that.’ There was no such thing as [pause] they had centres didn’t they in London and elsewhere for direct entry? And I was being slotted in with direct entry and you could pick me out, because all the others had new uniforms. I had a green great coat. It had gone green when I was in the tent. Sort of gone blue green [laughs] and I was posted. Posted from there. I’m trying to think of the next stage.
CB: Where was the selection centre?
[pause]
CB: Where was the selection centre?
FDS: It must have been. I went to Babbacombe. That was new. They had just taken over the hotels.
CB: Right.
FDS: And I was based in a hotel at Babbacombe with several other blokes. I was UT aircrew. UT pilot. They got fed up with that later on. They couldn’t get any aircrew. Everybody was going in to be a pilot. So they took, took a chopper. I think I wasn’t any good as a pilot. I wouldn’t have made a good pilot. And I came to the same conclusion that they came to. So I went to Torquay and did initial training, ITW, that would be wouldn’t it? Based in a hotel there. And then from there we were, we sat, when we were shipped up to Scotland. I think I went up to Scotland then. I’m not sure at that point. I went to Scotland. It’s come up at a different points. Is this making sense?
CB: That’s fine. Yes.
FDS: I think its fine thus far.
CB: Ok.
FDS: Where am I now?
CB: So, you’ve gone to Scotland.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: That’s to get on a boat is it?
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: That was to get on a boat.
FDS: Yeah. Yeah. And I went to the orderly room which the others sprogs didn’t know much about and said, ‘Say, where am I? Am I posted?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. I said, ‘Where am I posted to?’ And he said, ‘South Africa.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to go to South Africa. Where else is there?’ ‘There’s Canada.’ I said, ‘I’d like to go to Canada.’ He said, ‘I’ll swap you over.’ [laughs] Absolutely. That’s it really. So we were all lined up. The people going on the boat. I think they were about five hundred in the end and we were all lined up on parade, me in my green great coat. The Duke of Gloucester whose time [laughs] I met him much later on life, but he was around stinking of beer. He came round and was due to inspect us. And the chap in charge, whatever he was, of the parade walking down looking at all the airmen all standing to attention and he got to me [laughs] green coat. ‘What do you think you’re dressed in?’ ‘I beg your pardon? This is my issue.’ ‘Well, where have you been?’ I said, ‘Where I’m sent. To a tent at one point. That’s where it went greenish.’ ‘Go over to the stores now and get a new coat.’ And I was sent to get a new coat. It was incredible. I went over on the [pause] doesn’t really matter. It was a liner anyway. A cabin. And I had my first large bar of chocolate for a long time I remember. I remember two merchant seamen who were crew I think were going out to be crew to come back having a fight outside [laughs] in the whatever it’s called. Passageway. Incredible. And we came in to, came in to Canada. Which port? It was while it was still in those days it was still non-alcoholic. What did they call it?
CB: Prohibition.
FDS: The state that we landed on was a non-alcoholic state. So the first two civilians I saw were three staggering drunks [laughs]. Lots and lots of whatever it’s called. I can’t remember now. Illegal booze anyway.
Other: In the US.
FDS: Hmmn?
Other: In the United States.
FDS: Canada.
Other: Oh, in Canada.
FDS: In Canada at that point. In that State. I’m trying to remember the name of the state. It starts with an M. Manitoba? No. That’s west. East. Eastern Canada. Where you land. Or you did land anyway.
CB: Well, a lot of people went to Newfoundland, didn’t they?
FDS: Yeah. We, my lot didn’t because we went to the other bit.
CB: Ok.
FDS: I’m trying to think what it was. I think it was M [pause] When I came back it was still alcohol free. Whatever the word is.
CB: Was it?
FDS: I came back through the, by now it was a big unit. When I went out it was just a base. Nothing was there. We were put on trains. A three day train journey. Very exciting. Old trains you know. You could climb right up the ladders and black gentlemen seeing you on and off them. And three days we were on the train. We got marched off every three hours to make sure we didn’t get too constipated. And we were there two or three hours I think. Stopped. Marched around a bit. Lounged about a bit. You needn’t write it down but I was invited when I went back. Not to me personally. There were three births as a result of those stops. I went back again more than a year later. This was what I was told believe it if you will. I could believe it. We were all white flashed people. The story went around that the people with white flashes in their hat that had unmentionable diseases. That was the story they floated. The other, the non-white flashed people. Quite amazing. Yeah.
CB: So you got on the train three days.
FDS: On and off it for three days.
CB: And where did you end up?
FDS: Very well fed. Calgary. Calgary Airport [pause] which had part of it as an EFTS, and I did a hell of a lot of EFTS and I did a, I got as far as the, I did as far enough to get as far as what’s his name? CFI. And he downed me. Well, he downed me officially. I was told this is only in the last six months. I wasn’t relating this, I heard it related that they had so many pilot applicants ‘38 ’39 they couldn’t cope and they were overdone and they couldn’t get any aircrew so they just chopped off a convenient lot. Which they had to do. So whether I was part of the excess or not I don’t know. Anyway, I went there and I enjoyed that. We used to fly up to the Rockies at the weekend. It was very good.
CB: So you saw the chief flying instructor and what did he do?
FDS: Failed me.
CB: And?
FDS: I was disgruntled. I was disgruntled. It was all very civil. I was called and said, ‘You’re being released.’ That’s all. ‘You’re going to the navigation school.’ I said, ‘Please sir I don’t wish to go to a navigation school. I’d like to go back home now. So, if I can’t do this I will go as an air gunner.’ ‘You won’t. You will do as you’re told.’ Oh. So I was very bad tempered. I went off to the railway station with full kit. Kit bag. All sorts. I’m not sure I didn’t have a gun. Didn’t have any ammunition that’s for sure. I had a gun. I think. Anyway, I climbed on to this train, threw my kit in the corner and found I was accompanied by a beautiful red headed girl about my own age. And we were together for three days because she went off, she was going on one stop further than me. I got invited for the weekend, which was rather nice. So, at weekends of the war the war stopped for us in Canada. Stopped at weekends. It was rather nice. They’d come and get in the car.
CB: Where was this nav school?
FDS: Hamilton, Ontario which you know. I failed my first exam there. Don’t write that down. I failed it quite deliberately. I was sent for an interview. ‘Your little game is to fail and be sent back. It won’t work. You will be here if necessary until you’ve got a beard down to your knees.’ [laughs] I know that, I know you can pass the exam. You know you can pass the exam. Go and pass the bloody thing.’ [laughs] So back I went, but I was back a course all the time as a result of that. So, where are we now?
CB: So there we are in nav school. So what —
FDS: Still at Hamilton.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Anything interesting happen? I flew round. We flew all over the place. Up to Muskoka looking for a chap who got lost off a formation with Harvards. He got lost in the snow and if you get up to Muskoka and up in that direction it’s about a thousand lakes. We didn’t find him. Whether he was found eventually I don’t know. But he, how he got lost off a formation. That’s what they told us.
CB: So when you were at nav school?
FDS: Interesting.
CB: What was the course content?
FDS: DR nav. Well, we’d already done DR nav anyway so we did DR nav. Lots of cross country. Well, it seemed lots of cross country. They’re logged in here and there. I can’t remember how long it was. They were just about coming up to the point where the Royal Air Force had a fit of the tremors and invented Nav Bs. So navigators who didn’t do bomb aiming and bomb aimers who didn’t do navigation, which was pretty damned stupid but if you were lucky like me [laughs] pilot, a third, a third of the pilot’s course, about all, all of the nav course. The whole. I went to bombing and gunnery at Picton. Picton. Where was Picton? Is it in the back of the book I wonder?
CB: We’ll, we’ll stop in just a mo if we may, but what were you flying when you were getting your navigation practice?
FDS: Anson. I flew with a chap called Warrant Officer Orville and he said, ‘We’re running out of fuel and I don’t know if we can get back very easily. We’ll have to land.’ We landed on what is now the main highway. The trans-Canada highway. Goes up north. We landed on it [laughs] Cars and things came to us and brought petrol [laughs]
Other: Orville.
FDS: As I recall he had a big moustache. I was sat behind him. I had to feed him chewing gum to watch his moustache going up and down.
CB: He was a Canadian, was he?
FDS: I don’t know.
CB: Oh.
FDS: I think he, I think he was English.
CB: Ok.
FDS: He seemed fairly English. But you used to go, you could orbit Hamilton and you could see the, what was the American town down the bottom of the lake? You could see the lights on there very clearly. In no circumstances would you go over to the, to Niagara. So, I’ve got a picture of Niagara Falls taken when we weren’t supposed to go there. We all went there obviously but they weren’t in at that point. They came in in that December I think it was, was it?
CB: So we’re in, that was ’41. So, what time are we in now? We’re in 1941.
FDS: I’m in —
CB: 7th of December ‘41 the Americans joined.
FDS: I’m not [pause] if I have a look at that.
CB: We’ll just stop for a mo and have a look.
FDS: I might have a look because people flying the drogue.
CB: People flying the —
FDS: The drogue.
CB: Yeah. The tug. Yes.
FDS: For gunnery.
CB: Yes.
FDS: Were people who’d been on the pilot’s course with me.
CB: Oh, were they?
FDS: Several people. ‘What score would you like to get?’ Well, of course you can’t get a hundred percent if you were gunning. In gunnery not likely you would get much more than five. I said, ‘Well, I don’t want to get close enough to see the scissors on it but I’d like to get a few shots at it.’ An impossible score. I had to go up and do it again. He got a rocket for being so close.
CB: Oh right, yeah.
FDS: All very decent fun really.
CB: In your gunnery training what did they do to begin with to train you?
FDS: I don’t remember it very much.
CB: Were you using on the ground shot guns or what did you do?
FDS: Oh yes. Yes, we used those. A chap called Henty who’d shot at where ever the famous rifle shooting is.
CB: At Bisley.
FDS: Yeah. He’d been a Bisley shot. Henty. Yeah, we did rifles. I can remember using a revolver because we [laughs] when we shouldn’t do we went in a Nissen hut and we had a lot of marmalade tins and put them on a fence and you could use what was that little, don’t put that down for goodness sake. You could use sten ammunition.
CB: Oh, sten guns right.
FDS: But that ammunition would fit the revolver.
CB: The 9 millimetre. Yeah.
FDS: Yeah. Incredible. Naughty boys. We had a smoking chimney [laughs]
CB: Not 45s.
FDS: Shot the, shot a revolver up the chimney. Flames and smoke coming out the chimney. They could see it, of course. Dear oh dear.
CB: So, they let you get away with some of these things.
FDS: Oh yes. The Royal Air Force for me was fun from the minute I started the ops room with the latter part of the ops room was. The first bit was interesting but not much fun. I didn’t think anyway. I mean moving counters a bit. Knowing where a ship was and an aircraft it could absorb you for the first day or even a week, but it’s not, and mainly men at that point on the other end of the phone lines, Observer Corps.
CB: Right.
FDS: Yes. It was Group Headquarters I was moved to. I don’t know why. But —
CB: 10 Group. Yes.
FDS: 10 Group. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if I’ve not entered. I didn’t enter any of that did I?
CB: No. Let’s go back to Picton, Ontario.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: And your bombing and shooting.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Gunnery were at the same place.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: So we talked about the gunnery. What, what were you flying in when you were doing the airborne gunnery?
FDS: I can’t think. Oh, we had a VGO. Vickers gas operated isn’t it? So it was a cockpit, open cockpit at the front or back?
CB: Was it?
FDS: I can’t remember. Instructor would be generally at the back of a two seater thing so presumably I’m right aren’t I? VGO. It stays in the mind. Vickers gas operated machine gun.
CB: Yes.
FDS: Used to get stoppages. Well famed for the number of stoppages.
CB: It didn’t like the draught.
FDS: I wonder what it was. Oh I know. The thing. They shot a load of them down at the beginning of the war.
CB: Oh, they were —
FDS: Battle.
CB: Fairey. No. No.
FDS: The Battle would it be. Would it be the Battle?
CB: They could have been Fairey Battles.
FDS: I think it probably —
CB: Because they lost so many to begin with.
FDS: They shot a hell of a lot of them down. Yeah.
CB: The light bomber. Yeah. The Fairey Battles they put to Canada.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Vickers gas operated machine gun.
CB: Right. And then bombing.
FDS: You could almost count them coming out.
CB: And bombing. Yes. Bombing. How did they teach you bombing?
FDS: How? Well, they had a good, they’d got a damned good simulator. You did hours on a simulator similar to, not identical with pilots but similar, and you bombed that and you also [pause] That would be it, yeah.
CB: Did you not get any live bombing with the Battle? With the Fairey Battles.
FDS: I don’t think so. No. I think that would be, they had six practice bombs. Whatever different. I have that. I don’t know if I would enter that. Would I enter it?
CB: We’re just pausing for a mo.
[recording paused]
FDS: Chris, well, this is what made my voice go high is pollen. I’m trying to [pause] Watson, Watson, Watson. Oh dear, eight bombs. Wellington. That’s, no that’s an OTU. 20 OTU, Elgin.
CB: Yeah. That’s a bit. We’ll come to that in a minute.
FDS: Picton, Picton, Anson, here we are. There you are.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Results of the gunnery course. Results of the bombing course.
CB: Right. Ok. That’s good. Thank you. Yeah.
FDS: It’s taking a long time isn’t it?
CB: So, you finished the course on bombing. You qualified on your navigation.
FDS: Yeah. It says so there.
CB: Does it?
FDS: Oh, very much so.
CB: So, because you were doing navigation, bombing and gunnery.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: You were the traditional observer.
FDS: Absolutely.
CB: So how did your graduation occur?
FDS: It didn’t.
CB: So —
FDS: You mean when did I get my wings?
CB: Yes.
FDS: I think they were sent to me. I’ve never had a —
CB: So, you came to the end of the course is what I’m getting at.
FDS: Yeah. My award was different.
CB: Was there a parade?
FDS: Not for me.
CB: And everybody went.
FDS: I nearly always had something like scarlet fever, or a change a course or something. Something. I never finished with the people I was with.
CB: Oh right. So at that end of this.
FDS: I don’t remember doing so, anyway.
CB: At the end of the observer course how, what happened next?
FDS: Well, I think there was a parade and gave them my wings and then I did the Picton one. Much the same thing happened.
CB: So you got your —
FDS: You had a parade. No they had a reward.
CB: They did.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Why weren’t you on the final parade?
FDS: Oh God. I honestly can’t remember.
CB: Ok.
FDS: Nothing disgraceful.
CB: No. So, at the end of the training in Canada then what happened?
FDS: The end of the training in Canada. I’m trying to think where I came back from [pause] I had a great welcoming sign in this particular camp and it said, “The following premises are out of bounds for all ranks because of the [unclear] that had gone on. Well, they were made their own gin from wood alcohol which will make you blind, and some people were damaged by it obviously. So all ranks were forbidden. So, you probably ignored that. No means of implementing that anyway. And they weren’t all thieves and robbers fortunately. I have never ever been on a Wings Parade. That’s an achievement. You just brought it to my mind. What a shame. Not really. Something always intervened.
CB: But you didn’t get any illness in Canada did you?
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Oh, you did. What did you get?
FDS: Scarlet fever.
CB: Right. Was that at the end of the course or when?
FDS: I was at Trenton at the time. No. I was sent to Trenton which was a hell of a big base. When was I sent to Trenton? I think this was how I came to miss wings or something. I had this, I was having an examination of some sort that was important and I sent my apologies and said, ‘I have an infection.’ It was a ring around the wrist. I thought it was. I didn’t think it was an infection. I said, ‘It’s just a sore ring but I’ve overslept but I’ll come and do it because I can pass.’ ‘You won’t.’ Looked at it. You’ve got scarlet fever. Oh right. You’ve got to go through —' they drove me off in a large posh vehicle to a civilian hospital. Put me on the ground floor. Put me in one of those silly operation gown things that buttoned at the back that wouldn’t do up and I had a room on my own. I said, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ They said, ‘Well, you’re going to be isolated for four weeks or six weeks’. I said, ‘Well, that’ll be nice won’t it?’ Anyway, they brought me no food so I rang my bell they came and they said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘I’m out through that window if I don’t get some food. I’ve had no food since breakfast.’ ‘Oh. You’ll get some.’ So they brought some. It was terrible. I was supposed to be on a starvation diet. I don’t know. I was there about six weeks. That’s how I got an intervening bit missing things. They came and brought an me ice cream. The people who walked past the window. ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘I’m an Englishman imprisoned here.’ And they had a poor little kid in a room as it were over there. He was dying from [pause] what was it called, the horse [unclear] bug?
Other: Tetanus.
FDS: Tetanus. Yeah.
CB: Tetanus. Right.
Other: Lockjaw.
FDS: Because the chap who had to keep an eye on me was also keeping an eye on him and doing other jobs. He said, ‘I’ll leave this door open. You can see him. If he has any great problem or distress he’ll wave at you. That wasn’t very pleasant but there you are. They were all very kind. I got back and sent to Hamilton and of course everybody had gone. That’s how I came to miss. Right. I wasn’t deprived of wings. They could have kept me there for the next quarter though but I’d finished. There we are. That was Hamilton.
CB: So you travelled from Hamilton, Ontario back. How did you go?
FDS: From Picton?
CB: From Picton. And where did you go?
FDS: This you’ll find difficult to believe. I went to the holding unit. Whatever it was called. I don’t know what that was called. It was holding unit for entering and exiting Canada. It was huge by the time I left after a couple of years. But I went round from there to New York. New York, guess what I came back on. The Queen Mary. I get bounced about don’t I? I was the only observer of the four hundred and ninety nine pilots and me. And five hundred American nurses, and about five thousand Americans. And they put a guy, put a bloke with a gun on the door for these [unclear] I said to one of them, I asked the Yank, ‘What’s this bloke armed for?’ I said, ‘I’m going to be armed if they’re going to walk around armed.’ He said, ‘I don’t know really.’ I said, ‘Nothing, there’s nothing there would tempt any of us [unclear] if he’s unarmed. [laughs] They said, ‘You will get one meal a day once we leave harbour.’ And once we left harbour they were all being seasick. You could get food any time you liked. And the Queen Mary came in to Scotland and I came down from Scotland to Bournemouth. Stayed at Bournemouth for six weeks or so waiting to be posted and it was a Canadian unit, it’s a Canadian run, very nice. Good summer. I went down to the local pub there and there was a Wren there and I thought I know her. And I said to her, there was nobody else about, so I said, ‘Don’t get frightened.’ Nobody else there. I started off with a very unusual line, ‘I know you.’ And she said, ‘Yes. I know. I know you from when I was down at Tangmere.’ Tangmere, near the coast. We used to go to the coast and she was one of the girls I met with because most of the entry were local blokes. My, my other seventeen companions were nearly all local. And that’s how, you know they introduced you to the local girls and boys you know. Quite interesting. Jean Marsh that was. So I had her companionship for a short while and guess what? Where I went next? I’m damned sure it’s next, Scotland isn’t it?
CB: For the OTU.
FDS: OTU.
CB: Ok. So, where was that?
FDS: I’ve got the unit in mind.
CB: Elgin was it?
FDS: Pardon?
CB: Was it at Elgin?
FDS: Yeah. No, Lossie.
CB: Lossiemouth, Ok.
FDS: I met a CO of Lossie about couple of meetings [unclear] ago. I’m right aren’t it?
CB: Yeah. Lossiemouth first.
FDS: Which one was it? 12?
CB: Well, you —
FDS: Was that 12th ?
CB: That was 20.
FDS: Well, it was 12 that I went as a staff member later on. We haven’t got very far have we?
CB: We’re doing alright. So you had two OTUs. You had —
FDS: No. I went to the other OTU as an instructor.
CB: Oh right.
FDS: Between tours.
CB: Ok, yeah.
FDS: Which was the normal.
CB: Yes.
FDS: But I got off it in five months because I posted, I posted myself as you will see. I applied for a posting and I’ve got a letter there if you can read it and it says I’m applying for instruction in new instruments and it says, “No permission. No.’ Exclamation mark. ‘This man has been only been off five months and cannot be spared.’ He actually put on it. [unclear] He went off on leave that week and I went to the orderly room and I said, ‘Is there [laughs] is there a spare posting?’ They said, you know, posted. They said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘I’m off.’
CB: So where did you go next?
FDS: Where am I now?
CB: So you’re at the OTU. What did you do at the OTU? You had to crew up first.
FDS: Oh yeah. That was when one of the Royals flew into the hill and got killed didn’t he? They were, what they were doing they were using —
CB: The Duke of Kent.
FDS: Wellingtons until they were knackered and then they put them on to OTU where they were even more knackered and that’s what happened. He was on training I think, very sad.
CB: The Duke of Kent. Yeah.
FDS: It was. Yeah.
CB: So, you got to Lossiemouth. What? How did you crew up?
FDS: Just stood around in a heap as usual. They were crewing up and I crewed up with Alec Watson. I must be, I want you to be very, very careful and scrupulous. I’m sure you will be here. If I say he, he became a bit diffident in sight of a target. He finished. He was all right. He didn’t go off LMF but they would have posted him off LMF if somebody had witnessed it I’m sure. He never [pause] he hesitated. But I should have thought that fifty percent of them hesitated.
CB: Are we talking about at the OTU?
FDS: Hmm?
CB: Are we talking about at the OTU.
FDS: Not at the OTU. At that point. No.
CB: Right.
FDS: Later on when I was training, when I was instructing at OTU he did bullseyes. What was a bullseye then?
CB: They were practice raids weren’t they?
FDS: Yeah, they were going out, tipping the, actually when 617 did their job I think somebody said no other aircraft? What a load of rubbish. I’ve got one veg which is down as a no sortie by some bloke. Six and a half hours. No sortie. I could have kicked him in the crutch. He obviously was not an operator. He just signed it, you know and said oh [pause]. Naughty that. Worst things that was done. But I crewed up there with Watson. The rear gunner of that crew was killed later. I could have found out how but I didn’t see anymore. I thought, well that’s being a bit morbid. The others survived their, that one tour so —
CB: So you became a crew at the OTU.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Was the, were you did the whole crew then go on to the squadron?
FDS: Yeah.
CB: So which —
FDS: I think. Can I — [pause]
CB: We’ll stop again.
[recording paused]
CB: So from the OTU you were posted to a squadron. What was that and what were they flying?
FDS: 196 Wellingtons. I’d better have that back again now.
CB: Where were they?
FDS: I remember. Hmm?
CB: Where were they flying from?
FDS: Just north of York.
CB: Linton on Ouse, was it?
FDS: No.
[pause]
FDS: Just as well it’s been dealt with as an archive, isn’t it? 196 May, Picton, ah [pause] December ’42.
[pause]
[recording paused]
CB: April ’43. Right. So, 196 was April ’43.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Right.
FDS: It says here.
CB: That was the full crew.
FDS: Ops Duisburg. Yeah.
CB: From the OTU.
FDS: Well, a full crew of five isn’t it? Ops to Duisburg. Oh, and gardening. Gardening looked like a soft option. It wasn’t. I can remember we went there. Six aircraft went gardening with a couple of mines and only us came back. And there’s six hours and five minutes. That’s not [pause] that’s rather a long time in enemy territory. There we are, and ’43, 196, May. Do we want any of those?
CB: Well, just to know what did you do in. What sort of raids were you doing in your Wellington with 196?
FDS: Killing people with —
CB: But where?
FDS: Mixed bomb loads.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Not very big bomb loads really in retrospect.
CB: But where were the targets?
FDS: Well, Germany. At that time, anyway. I don’t think they did anything. I’m trying to think of any others. I don’t think so. Dortmund. Oh, Dortmund. DNCO. Not Carried Out. Two hours fifty. Doesn’t say why, but it does say an air test. We did another one gardening. You see why I was allowed to go off on my own I think. There’s another one.? No you wouldn’t know the sortie. Six hours five minutes. Return from St Eval.
CB: Because gardening is mine laying.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: And what height would you fly when you were dropping mines?
FDS: Well, above nought feet but not much above fifteen hundred. If you did it, if you did it very much lower they’d go off and if you did it much higher they’d go off. So they were always, we had a Naval chap come round and explained the fusing, very carefully. The [pause] we, we had bombs and things. You had two, two little cavities. One cavity had liquid in it and the other didn’t. Well, the one that didn’t was sent out and of course they’d drill and say, ‘Ah a one cavity bomb,’ and then they’d drill them again and bang it would go off. They altered them all the time. A fuse [unclear] Some of them, some of them pretty obviously were more or less instant which is difficult.
CB: You’re talking about the bomb disposal people dealing with the bombs when they were found.
FDS: Made it very difficult.
CB: Ok.
FDS: Return from St Eval [pages turning] 196, June, gardening Lorient, DCO. Return from East Moor, engine spare. Air to air bombing practice, air test, air firing. Here we are. 21st Krefeld. Two five hundred, seven small bomb containers, DCO. The 22nd ops Mülheim. Two five hundreds, seven small bomb containers.
CB: What governed the choice of bombs then? The combinations.
FDS: The CO. Well, the command group.
CB: But it was to do with the target was it?
FDS: Group would decide.
CB: Yes.
FDS: Well, if it would burn well they’d have more incendiaries.
CB: Right.
FDS: If it’s, I, I get the impression that if accuracy was the first call you’d have your armour piercing. So, at low level you’d have, well I’d hope they were long [laughs] long on weight, you know. Low level you didn’t do small bomb containers. Where are we now? Mülheim, Elberfeld, Gelsenkirchen. Five and a half hours. Five fifteen. Six ten. A long time isn’t it over enemy territory? June — ops Cologne. Four five hundreds. They did aim at legitimate targets, you know. The actual bomb. I don’t know if you’ve seen the bomb maps. Have you seen the actual, the night maps?
CB: Where the bombs are dropped.
FDS: Where the black, yeah.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Where there were, I’ve got some but I’m not sure where they are if you want. Oh. A Monica test. Yeah.
CB: So just describe Monica would you?
FDS: Oh, I can’t.
CB: So, that’s your tail warning radar.
FDS: They could pick us up very well.
CB: For night fighters.
FDS: They could pick us up very well. July — St Nazaire. Return from Chivenor. That was six hours forty minutes. Ops Cologne five hours. Advanced base Harwell. Gardening Lorient, six hours ten minutes. That was on the 5th. Gardening Lorient again.
CB: So you did quite a bit of mine laying.
FDS: Yeah. Did a —
CB: And how did you feel about that?
FDS: That was about the time, was that about the time they were trying to run the battleships, the German battleships —
CB: Yes.
FDS: Were trying to run up the coast.
CB: The Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau.
FDS: And we were trying to drop mines.
CB: In the way.
FDS: [unclear] relatively harmless bullets I suppose.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Because they all went off at different [unclear]. Watson, gardening again Lorient. Gardening Dutch coast.
Other: On a run was it, were you occupied all the time or were you —
FDS: Oh, yes. You were frightened from when you took off. Nervous shall we say. Yeah. Nervous before take-off because you could land at the end of the runway with a full bomb load which was not very comfortable. It happened the odd time. Then you were going around and around missing each other in the clouds if you were lucky and then you went at what? At ten thousand feet. You could be shot down over your own airfield. Some were.
Other: By whom?
FDS: Germans.
Other: Right.
FDS: They were only twenty minutes flight from Britain remember. They could get over here very quickly.
CB: I’m just going to stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
FDS: Well, you were always busy because you were navigating your entry. Two navigators in effect. They and what you could call broadly a DR navigator and the IT.
CB: So the dead reckoning navigator —
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Is the DR. And the IT is the one using the electronics.
FDS: That’s right.
CB: Ok. So we’ll come to those in a moment.
FDS: We swapped them around a bit.
CB: Right. And on, so on your tour with 196, did you do the full tour or did you then go and do something else?
FDS: No. 196 after about twenty operations 196 for some reason was, well a good reason converted to Halifaxes. Some of it was diverted to Halifaxes. I think Watson with the remainder of that crew, I think they went on to Halifaxes to finish that tour and I flew spare. I flew spare. All sorts of odds and sods. Flight Commander Edmondson was one but as Squadron leader.
CB: But still in, still in Wellingtons you were flying spare.
FDS: I think this was Stirlings.
CB: You —
FDS: That was it. I’m sorry. I’m confusing myself here.
CB: Right. So, just to step back a bit 196 you did twenty ops.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: And at the end of your twenty ops what did you switch to?
FDS: Well, I think I was Stirlings.
CB: You did.
FDS: I know I was on —
CB: Never on a Halifax.
FDS: No Halifax.
CB: No. Right.
FDS: The Stirling was a hell of a rotten aircraft, I think.
CB: What was, what was the point of the Stirling?
FDS: It didn’t climb very well. It was electrical more or less throughout so that you could select undercarriage up, and then select undercarriage down and one wheel would come down. So you’d say to the trainee crew, ‘You can find, finds yourself a handle and you can turn that two hundred times, and that will lower the wheel, and if you’re lucky it will lock and show, and do you do that?’ And we said, ‘No, we don’t do that.’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘Well, we select down, one wheel comes down, we select it back up again and then we hit the [laughs] hit the plug hard with the nearest blunt instrument and it comes down.’ They were very heavy too. They couldn’t climb. We took, in the early days did a climbing test around Wales. Not very good. And I went with a squadron leader, I think. Modane Tunnel. We had to go round the taller mountains to get down to the Modane Tunnel.
CB: I’m just going to stop a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: In, in flying with 196 it says that you got to the end of the tour.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Having done twenty nine and a half. What was the half?
FDS: Some idiot’s impression. That is you know —
CB: It was an operation that wasn’t more than a certain number of hours was it?
FDS: I don’t know what the [pause] I never queried.
CB: Right.
FDS: I never queried anything like that.
CB: So, you got to the end of the tour. What happened next?
FDS: Trainee. I was training.
CB: Yes. So you, you were posted to an OTU.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: That was at Chipping Warden.
FDS: There was two instructors per course. You know, ex-ops. And what they were doing we had correctly, we did the rule book instructions, and then what was more useful to them was telling them the contemporary position which was more useful really. So that we, you know you don’t know what to expect if you were fresh off a training course. And the first time I went up I was seeing flashes. I said, ‘What are the flashes?’ You know. Little things like that [laughs] ‘People firing at us,’ they said. I said, ‘Are they near?’ ‘If you’re near you’ll hear it. And if they’re very near you’ll smell it.’ Dead right, yeah. You’re as naïve as that. It’s a great shame. A lot of bumping going on. Of course you suddenly realised there a, later on with Lancasters of course four hundred all going, all briefed for the same trip. So if they followed it literally they were flying up each other’s jacksy nearly I would think.
CB: So at the end of your tour with 196 you went to number 12 OTU at Chipping Warden.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: So, there were two. A specialist for each. There were two navigators there doing the instruction. You were one of them. How often did you fly?
FDS: I’m just wondering if the other one was, yes, he must have been. How often? Well, I don’t know. It says it down there.
CB: But I mean in practical terms how often did the —
FDS: Didn’t seem.
CB: Trainee crew have a navigator with them?
FDS: Ah, I see. Well, there was a requisite amount and I can’t remember what it was, it would. Does twenty hours sound sensible?
CB: Was it? Right. Might have been. Yeah.
FDS: It’s —
CB: But, but most of the training you did was on the ground was it of the trainee aircrew at the Operational Training Unit?
FDS: I would think, yes. Yeah.
CB: And if you went on a trip with them you’d be standing next to them.
FDS: Oh yeah. Yeah. Be with them. Yeah.
CB: So, what were your impressions of being an instructor?
FDS: Well, you recognised the essentials of it. And because Command, whoever it is can never be as updated as the people that come off ops. And the advances in tactics and technology of both parties was extreme by about that time. From there on all sorts of technology had been flourished. And Germans showed great courage I thought. And tenacity. I met one or two since, you know. Post war. Very interesting. One chap had over sixty Lancasters to his credit. Six or eight in a night.
CB: Amazing isn’t it?
FDS: Yeah. They were good at it.
CB: So, how, how does the time, how did it at the OTU how long did you stay there normally? Did you know how long you were going to be there?
FDS: You were supposed to be, as it says in the, my CO’s note. You were supposed to be off six months minimum.
CB: Right.
FDS: Generally about a year. Six months to a year.
CB: Right. So, in May ’44 you finished at 12 OTU, and you went to a Heavy Conversion Unit.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: And that was 1678.
FDS: That’s at Waterbeach that.
CB: Right.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: And what were you flying there?
FDS: Lancasters. Don’t ask me which mark. They played about with Marks 1, 2, and 3 and I never knew which we were on.
CB: Right.
FDS: They were, they were very similar. Very similar.
CB: And because you’d been an OTU then you weren’t coming through as an instructor. You weren’t coming through to the HCU as a student. You were a qualified person so how did you crew up in the HCU?
FDS: I went as an odd man.
CB: All the time or just temporarily?
FDS: As soon as I got there. I wanted to get back on a squadron and have a bit of freedom.
CB: Sure.
FDS: Complete freedom.
CB: So, how long were you, but when you, as an odd man but didn’t you crew up with anybody there?
FDS: I think it may say it. That’s my escape picture, isn’t it?
CB: Yeah. Your escape picture in here.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: So at the, what my question is at the HCU. The HCU was the point from which people joined a squadron.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: So normally it was a complete crew that would transfer from the HCU —
FDS: Yeah.
CB: To the squadron. So, how did you fit into that?
FDS: They needed a bomb aimer.
CB: Yeah. You were put —
FDS: Bomb aiming.
CB: You did bomb aiming did you?
FDS: I think they wanted a bomb aimer.
CB: Right.
FDS: Because I kept putting down bomb aimer forever more. Yeah.
CB: So, at the HCU you were bomb aiming.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Ok. And what was the aircraft?
FDS: I think by this —
CB: So that was the Lancaster.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: And then you went to a squadron.
FDS: That’s right.
CB: And that was 514.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Ok. So what was the crew like there? Your pilot was Warrant Officer Beaton.
FDS: Yeah, inexperienced but good. He died as Flying Officer Beaton DSO and he thoroughly earned it both times. But he, he and his crew, I’d left, I always leave just before they have an accident. I left and they, I left at the time I’d finished a tour and he went over the day after the war ended to bring back prisoners of war and crashed. Killed the lot. So —
CB: Operation Exodus.
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: Operation Exodus, yes.
FDS: Yeah. Or something like that. So, I was very careful how I trod because I wrote to the, the Air Force itself and said, “What’s the account of this?” They couldn’t account for it. I thought they might say pilot error. They didn’t. And they were quite right. The bodies were all in the back of the aircraft and in practice what should have happened whoever was being loadmaster as they now call the bomb aimer presumably say, ‘You sit there and don’t move a bloody muscle. It doesn’t matter what reason.’ Because you know the inside of a Lanc and if you grab on any bit of it you’re impeding and the, what do you call it when you push forward? When you put the nose down.
CB: When you put the control column down. Yeah.
FDS: What’s the —
CB: So, the elevators. Yeah.
FDS: No. No. No. The trim.
CB: Oh, the trimmer, the trimmer, yeah.
FDS: The trim was full forward.
CB: Oh, was it?
FDS: He was complaining that he’d got some sort of aircraft fault. He was going to make some sort of emergency landing and of course he did that with them all scuttling in a panic. I mean I was sorry for them. They’d been in prison for three or four years or more and they’d perhaps had never flown before. So the right thing to do is to say, ‘You’ve never flown before but this lot have and they’ve done it safely and there’s no enemy fire. Sit where you are and don’t — ’ You would be very conscious of the centre of gravity, and if one went to the rear and the others tried to rescue him.
CB: Do you know where the plane crashed?
FDS: Forward trim.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: And it was forward trimmed. Did a flat spin within about twenty minutes of the take off.
CB: Oh, did it? From Belgium.
FDS: France.
CB: Oh France, was it?
FDS: Just on the edge. They are all buried just out, on the edge of the district where all the riots were happening. The French suburbs. I can’t think of the name of it.
CB: Right.
FDS: It’ll come. But the whole lot, great shame. Captains to privates and an Americans who’d thumbed a lift illegally. Well, improperly rather.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Not illegally.
CB: So, it might have been overloaded anyway.
FDS: Only one.
CB: So, when you were —
FDS: Twenty three.
CB: Pardon?
FDS: Twenty three of them.
CB: In the aircraft. With 514 what are your recollections of flying with that Lancaster squadron?
FDS: I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked the daylights. Some people didn’t. They preferred the nights. But I preferred the daylights. You could see where you were and what you were doing precisely. Real precision stuff, you know. And they were good.
CB: How accurately did you think you could bomb?
FDS: Well, I’m not bragging. A hundred percent. I could do it. But only because of the kit I had I hasten to add. The kit we had at the end was brilliant, but if you asked me how it worked [laughs] it was modern IT before they’d even dreamed of it I think. The Mark 14 was quite a good sight.
CB: Bombsight. Yes.
FDS: Quite a good bomb sight. You could bomb reasonably accurately with that. There was not an excuse normally for being over about what fifty yards with that I would think. But with the latest stuff you could be spot on. That’s why I’m sure you are. I read these people saying they should be more careful in their bombing, and I think just get up there and give yourself precisely thirty seconds to make a decision because that’s what you’d got. And now we had longer to make a decision. A bit longer, anyway. Yeah.
CB: So, when you were lying down in the front operating the bombsight what’s going through your mind looking down at the flak coming up at you?
FDS: Oh, very little. I didn’t [laughs] I have a convenient mind. I shut off. So it gets familiar. The minute I’m free of direct responsibility but —
CB: But actually you’ve got your eye on the target haven’t you? So —
FDS: Absolutely.
CB: So, you’re not —
FDS: Full marks for that. Absolute concentration. Regardless of anything else. But once it’s done it’s done, that’s it.
CB: And after the bombs have gone then you have to wait for the camera to work.
FDS: Yeah, for flash work. The flash had a nasty habit of exploding once every so often.
CB: In the aeroplane.
FDS: It’s like a bomb going off. A bloody great hole.
CB: Did it happen on your plane?
FDS: Not with the Lanc.
CB: So, you joined 514 in June, just at D-Day.
FDS: When?
CB: You joined 514 Squadron —
FDS: Yeah.
CB: In June 1944.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: So D-Day time.
FDS: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So that’s why you had a lot of daylight bombing wasn’t it?
FDS: Before, during and after. Yeah.
CB: Yes.
FDS: Got a nice letter from the French. With the [pause] that nice little brigadier general to give the award.
CB: Your Legion of Honour.
FDS: Pardon?
CB: They gave you the Legion of Honour.
FDS: Yeah. They gave it to six Typhoon pilots and me.
CB: Did they?
FDS: Wrote a kind letter. A very nice letter as well from the [pause] whoever was the deputy to the man who was boss then.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: It was a very good letter as we. One of the more thoughtful letters I’ve ever received officially. Very good. I’ve got it somewhere.
Other: They singled you out as —
FDS: Couldn’t single out seven thousand.
Other: No. So it was — yeah.
FDS: They single you out in the sense that they give you a decent personal reply and a decent personal awarding.
CB: On three of your trips with 514 you flew as a gunner, a rear as the rear gunner, two of them.
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: You flew as a rear gunner.
FDS: That may well be.
CB: On a couple of occasions.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Well, I did all the courses.
CB: Yeah, ok. So when you came to the end of that tour of 514 what happened next?
FDS: Well, I saw my CO because I was going to be posted and I said, ‘I gather I’m being posted. I’d like to, you know, I’d like to go back to my reserved job now if I’m not going to, can I fly anymore?’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.’ So I said, ‘Well, you’re the boss.’ ‘What are you going to do then?’ I said, ‘I’d like to go back to [unclear] I’m going back to agriculture.’ Which I did.
CB: So, how did it work? You had the conversation with him but how did the mechanism work?
FDS: Ah. Walking along [pause] somebody, who was it? We passed the, what do they call them these days? I don’t know. Further education training officer on the squadron.
CB: Right.
FDS: F&ET I think it was called and they could make recommendations I gather. And he said, ‘What are you doing as you’re moving off?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know really. If I could move off I’d go — ’ I said, ‘I’m going back to agriculture anyway.’ He said, ‘What were you doing before?’ I said, ‘Well, I’d been at agricultural college. I’d hope to do a diploma and be decently qualified. It’s no good saying I can do a bit of farming. You can prove that by showing it but to know it you’ve got to do it and I’m out of touch.’ So, he said, ‘What about, what about a graduation? What do — ? ’ I said, ‘First of all I don’t think I could do it, and secondly I don’t know that it would be necessarily a great advantage to be a graduate in it.’ So, I rang up my friend who had been put in other words, he was reserve through health. He was genuine enough. He had graduated through London University, I think. I rang him up. I remember the call very well and I said, ‘The Royal Air Force through the offices of the squadron have decided that I could have a degree course. What do you think?’ He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said , ‘Well, I’d do it if I think it would be of any value, but I can’t see how it would be of direct value to me and it would be three more years.’ I said, ‘I’m already six years behind everybody else. I said, ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’m six and a half years ruddy years.’ [laughs] He said, ‘You’ll walk it.’ I said, ‘What makes you say that and he said we’ve kept your brain alive during the war and it hasn’t gone to sleep in the last forty eight. He said , ‘I’d go.’ So that was it. I went to see the F&E. He arranged an interview in London. Oh, they got in touch with the principal of the college I’d been at. Had I any reference? So, I said no, so they referred to the old chap who very gladly backed me up which I thought was very kind. And who else signed it? Anyway, I got a couple of references and I was accepted on the next course where there was the opportunity.
CB: Where was this?
FDS: Durham. I applied for Cambridge actually, taking it that it was near Waterbeach and I knew the area fairly well and guess what? They were full. They were full. Almost as soon as I applied they were full anyway. They were about eighty ninety percent ex-service being fair to the universities and they were very good.
CB: So when was this?
FDS: I got married. All these things happened at once. I left the Air Force. I left the Air Force in ‘45 did I? Or ’46. I got married. I was married when I was still in the Air Force. We were. And I was in charge of MT for a few months. Well, nominally in charge. A flight sergeant found himself suddenly [unclear] [laughs] I said, ‘Who runs this unit? I do so far as you’ll continue. When I leave you can inherit it if you like.’ [laughs] So he ran it. He was very good.
CB: What rank were you at this, at this stage?
FDS: Warrant officer.
CB: Right. So just take —
FDS: Yes. On my first unit, the 196 said you can go, you can go on for commissioning. I said, ‘No. I don’t want to be a tiny fish in a tiny pool.’ And it didn’t seem very, I said, ‘It’s not my career. It’s not my choice.’ When I said I didn’t particularly want to fly, true.
CB: Let’s take a step back.
FDS: Just kill people.
CB: You finished in 514.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: Where did you get posted or did you remain with the transport at Waterbeach?
[pause]
FDS: I wasn’t at, I wasn’t at Waterbeach for transport.
CB: Oh, right. So where, where did you get posted to?
FDS: That unit was Hucknall.
CB: Right.
FDS: Watnall. Watnall. RAF Watnall, W A T N A L L. It was also a Rolls Royce area. Watnall, Hucknall. I was so damned busy leaving the Air Force and getting married and thinking about what I was going to do to earn a living and [laughs] I went out and had a drink one night and there was some youngish blokes I thought at the bar the other end and nobody else. ‘Would you like to have a drink with us?’ So, I said, ‘Yeah. Fine.’ They said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m leaving as soon as I can.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I said, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ They said, ‘Why don’t you come over for casting. We’re open casting.’ And they were open cast coal mining. He said, ‘There’s a lot of money in it.’ I said, ‘I’d be destroying the countryside.’ ‘No, you wouldn’t. We’ll put it back when we’ve finished.’ I ought to have don’t it really. I’d have had three years of extra income because I had a grant but it wasn’t as you can imagine it wasn’t overly generous.
CB: Where did you meet your wife?
FDS: This must be exceedingly tedious for you.
Other: No. No. It’s very, very interesting.
CB: Where did you meet your wife? She was a WAAF was she?
FDS: As I was driving a lorry across from, at Watnall, it wasn’t Watnall. it was Hucknall was the name of the —
CB: Right.
FDS: Hucknall. The airfield was one side and the sort of flying bit was, the flying bit was one side and the admin the other and I was going from the admin side to the flying side with a lorry. Just for the fun of the thing I think. And going down as I got to the gate guess what? There was a lady coming in on her own, and that was my wife. I saw her and I said, ‘My word, she’s new to the place.’ I knew that because it was a Polish unit.
CB: Oh.
FDS: So, I went to the orderly room and a chap called [unclear] Brown was in charge there and I said, ‘[unclear] you know everything. Who’s the lady who’s just reported in? What section?’ ‘She’s on MT.’ I said, ‘Well, well, well [laughs] We’ll put her on duty the first night she’s there. Make her [unclear] her duties are and I’ll meet her there.’ So, she said —
CB: Never looked back did you?
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: Never looked back.
FDS: I didn’t. She did [laughs] she said, she said, ‘I walked in. There was this flight sergeant who took the details because he was doing the admin. I was sitting there,’ she said, ‘This air crew bloke was sitting there with his feet on the table himself.’ I said. ‘Until you came along who else was there to please, I ask you?’
Other: Charmer.
FDS: There she is. Up there on the brown.
Other: Yeah.
FDS: Framed one.
CB: Lovely.
FDS: When I had some hair.
CB: How long did you have to wait to get out of the RAF after that?
FDS: I don’t know. It didn’t seem awfully long. A few weeks. They did, they did their best for me. I’ll tell you what I was very annoyed about. I did an MT course where I was going to supposedly to pass the time. ‘What would you like to do?’ I said, ‘Well, the flight sergeant is going to run it and I’ll do it nominally and I’m going to learn how to do it. So they posted me up to Blackpool I think it was. Blackpool, Weeton, Weeton. Does that sound right?
Other: Yeah.
FDS: Weeton.
Other: Weedon.
FDS: Hmmn?
Other: Weedon. No. Not Weedon.
FDS: Your question was again, sorry?
CB: Yes. When did you leave?
FDS: When did I leave? I’m thinking of when I left. I’m trying to relate it to courses for the time but I didn’t do the actual course. I did two weeks of the course only. That’ll be recorded. I’d been driving for years on farms. With, you know pushing hay suites and stuff.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: So I could drive and [pause] yeah.
CB: And the course was running the MT section, wasn’t it?
FDS: I did, yeah. I did about two weeks there, and the, whoever was dealing with the admin said, ‘There are four Crossley lorries to go down with four thousand pound bombs on, down to Newmarket and it will just take up the timing, you won’t have the tedium of doing the course.’ I said, ‘Well, thank you very much.’ ‘And you are in charge of it.’ And I said, ‘What bombs are they?’ ‘Four thousand pounders, but they’re empty. They’re taking them down to get them filled.’ But we had outriders with red flags and these old, you know Crossley lorries with —
Other: Yeah.
CB: Canvas roof.
FDS: Left hand drive. So, I drove my Crossley lorry. The roads cleared. The Americans would get out our way. Saw the red flags. These lorries. Took us two days to get down from Blackpool to Newmarket where I left. I don’t know what happened to the lorries. I’d done my job. Over to you. That was the last I saw of active service. I left.. Oh, I can’t remember when I left. January. Must have been January. We were married in January, weren’t we? No. We were married. Still in the Air Force. Yeah. I was still in the Air Force then.
CB: You said you were married in 1945.
FDS: Yeah. I thought. Yeah.
CB: It was fairly quick.
FDS: Oh, November to, it was from I do remember that it was from November to January. Yeah.
CB: So then you did your agricultural college at Durham. What did you do after that?
FDS: University of Durham.
CB: Durham University.
FDS: They haven’t got a farm there. They did useful stuff from my point of view. Because I was familiar with the kit then and it changed. In the same way that the Air Force changed its technology so did agriculture.
CB: How long was the agricultural course at Durham University?
FDS: Three years. And if you did an honours degree it was four.
CB: Right.
FDS: So I went to see the boss and said, ‘What do I do now? I’m seeking advice.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve a choice. You can do an honours degree but agricultural colleges are being offered to counties and they haven’t got them established so you could get in on the ground floor if you wish. ‘But,’ he said, you know, ‘I’d back you for either.’ So I backed for three jobs. The agricultural Co-op in London, and Hartbury had just, Jack Griffiths had just bought Hartbury on behalf of the Authority. So I was one of the first as lecturer agriculture. Then became vice principal there for about thirteen years. And then I did vice principal up in Staffordshire, Penkridge.
CB: And you retired from there, did you?
FDS: I retired from there. Oh, and then [laughs] I was invited to sit on the panel for whatever it was called when they allowed farmers so much milk, you know. Milk quota. The Milk Quota Panel. Would I sit on the Milk Quota Panel for Gloucestershire? I said, ‘No. I’ll do it for any other county if you wish but not Gloucester. I’m not going to quota people I know.’ So I was quoting, quoting still people I knew in Wiltshire. Just funny really. Strange.
CB: So what brought you to Gloucester?
FDS: Hmm?
CB: What brought you here to Gloucester?
FDS: The job. The fact that I knew it. I didn’t know Gloucester. I knew of Gloucester, and I knew of Gloucestershire but I didn’t know it at all really.
CB: And at what age did you retire?
FDS: Whisper it quietly, sixty two. I was going to retire at sixty. You could retire at sixty and I had enough bottling about one way or another. I didn’t take, I didn’t think I could subject my wife to dotting about. You can see from that I was dotting about, you know.
CB: Yes. Yeah.
FDS: All the time.
CB: Yeah. How many children have you got?
FDS: There was three jobs so I went for this one and got it. It had accommodation. A clapped out cottage on the side of the main road where you turned left to go in to Hartbury. So they said just wanted to let you know. So they then put me in the corner house of the college and a very busy old lady, the butler’s wife came across. She said, ‘Captain Canning, and Captain Ramsey were there.’ I said, ‘I know but it’s been disinfected since they were there.’ They were there on, you know during the war.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: He was still there post war.
CB: Was he?
FDS: A pathetic old man. And he got married to quite a nice lady and they said she’s having a baby. I said, ‘Good. Well done.’ And it was a girl. So that was the end of George Canning, Prime Minister and foreign minister and aspiring gauleiter of the south west. He would have been.
Other: Did he go to Australia?
FDS: No.
Other: No.
FDS: Why did I say Australia?
Other: No. I was asking that.
FDS: I was in Australia.
Other: No. No. Canning.
FDS: Oh, that Canning.
Other: Yeah.
FDS: Canning was in charge of [pause] he was in charge was he? George Canning was foreign minister.
Other: Right.
FDS: Way back.
CB: How many children did you have?
FDS: Two. I’ve four grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Only one grand-daughter. Don’t put down regrettably because the others might read that [laughs]
CB: Right.
FDS: You never know anyway.
CB: Finally, what would you say was the most memorable point of the war for you?
FDS: Meeting my wife. It was.
CB: What was the —
FDS: Memorable of the actual war [pause] I think the second tour. And I would say particularly in daylight. I don’t know if she, I don’t think it should be recorded because I, I had an understanding with my superiors of 514 that we could please ourselves, Weeton and I, within reason. So that if for some reason you didn’t have a primary.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: You could go and do a secondary.
CB: Sure.
FDS: And it was about the time that Montgomery would ring up and say, ‘I can’t move out of — ’ it wasn’t Le Havre. It was —
Other: Caen. Caen.
FDS: Caen. ‘Can you make it that it possible for me to go?’ He told Harris. Harris was fresh from area bombing so Harris raced three hundred Lancs down to a town the size Newham, and it was a pile of rubble. He came with his tanks through it. They couldn’t put anything through it for about a week.
CB: Right.
FDS: Yeah. Oh, great fun. And Villers-Bocage was another place I knew. They got stopped there and the Germans ill advisedly, well advisedly actually had a practice Panzer group and they were practicing, and they were practicing right near our troops conveniently for them and they were about to set off the following day we were told. And they were in a wood outside. Villers-Bocage is a nice little village now but there was a great big hole there after we went there. Three hundred Lancs. They all bombed. The dust came up to ten thousand feet.
CB: Did it really?
FDS: Unbelievable.
CB: Wiped them out.
FDS: People banged into each other which that was a loss. Easy to do if you’re fairly close.
CB: And so the —
FDS: But that was a good job. I thought it was a good job anyway. I was sorry for the people underneath.
CB: Wiped out the whole thing, yeah.
FDS: What?
CB: Wiped out the whole thing.
FDS: Oh, not very nice for them at all.
CB: No. When there, when there were air to air collisions, what normally happened then?
FDS: Well, at least one is lost normally. I don’t know why that is really. What happens. Nothing really can happen but I see discipline. If you’re told to fly in a loose gaggle who can blame you? What about when you drop your bombs through somebody underneath you? That happened as well.
CB: Did you see that happen?
FDS: No. I saw where it had happened. You know, a Lanc with the front of it off. They stopped short at the sort of windscreen virtually. Bought it. Nasty.
CB: You alluded a bit earlier to a situation that has the heading LMF.
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: So, what do you recall about lacking moral fibre in terms of —
FDS: I think the words lack of moral fibre is a disgrace to the Service. An easier way could have been chosen. They paid us the compliment of imagining that we’d all run away, I think and they thought we’d be frightened of that. That wouldn’t frighten me in to running away from it. Fear would do it. I had to go on bombing and experience fear for the only time in my life. I had not been frightened before. You don’t go through life frightened if you’re fortunate do you?
CB: No.
FDS: But I did then. I was frightened out of my guts, dear me. Mentally praying to everything in sight and not in sight.
CB: Are you talking about as a navigator or as a bomb aimer?
FDS: Either. Either in terms of fear. You’ve got to suppress it. I don’t meant that. It sounds terribly brave. If you are of a certain temperament that is what you are I think. And if your temperament is average which I’m a great mind you have your fears and you overcome them, don’t you? Really. It sounds terribly brave. If you survived that is.
CB: Sure.
FDS: Sounds good but everybody has the, I mean people say now, people, youngsters couldn’t do it. I disagree entirely. That abuses the unknown doesn’t it? I’ve got, obviously got lads there. They could do it, and if necessary they would do it. I think they’d [pause] I don’t know if they found it unnecessary, I would now. I don’t, it’s not a solution to anything. I don’t know what you do instead of bombing in Syria. I’m not that clever.
CB: You talked about one of the, your early captains having some difficulty.
FDS: I think he had a difficulty, and I think he overcame it within his limits to overcome it. But if you’re not, it sounds horrible, if you’re not prepared to press on really thoroughly you shouldn’t really be there. It’s doubtful whether it’s the right place for you.
CB: So, in circumstances where people felt they couldn’t continue what happened?
FDS: You never knew really. I heard rumours. People said they, I think it depended where, where you happened to be. I heard various stories about people being paraded and stripped of the badges, rank. What the hell difference would it make if you finished anyway? So, they’d take the stripes off or crowns or whatever. I don’t know. And they put them into [pause] I think that was a damned cheek. Put them into a labouring units, you know.
CB: Hard labour.
FDS: Hmmn?
CB: Hard labour.
FDS: Probably.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: I don’t know. It’s not a thing I can ever remember people discussing. We didn’t discuss our fears. I wouldn’t have been as candid with my own crew members as I am with you. No chance.
CB: And with the crew —
FDS: You’d admit fright, yes.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Every, you can say especially anybody that says they weren’t frightened weren’t [laughs] they just weren’t there. At some point.
CB: Did it vary do you think according to the position in the aircraft? The role.
FDS: I think the gun, gunnery must have felt frightened because they were in isolation. But I couldn’t see the logic of people that talk about them but not the gunners themselves. Very dangerous position. Now, if you were a German pilot for the latter part of the active war when most of the killing of everything was done they divided, they tumbled the corkscrew very quickly. We knew they would. But some people didn’t and they corkscrewed so the German comes back, flies straight through the bottom part of the corkscrew underneath the aircraft, guns made and manufactured to fire upwards. Comes under the bomb bay, bump. Dissolved. There’s one flash and the lot’s gone. Now, I can understand how these people could shoot down forty to sixty easily. The dangerous bit was going in to the stream of four or five hundred aircraft who didn’t know what they were doing.
CB: In the dark.
FDS: Much more dangerous. And all of them carrying about two thousand gallons of fuel, a couple of thousand gallons of explosive of one sort or another. And fabric. Bloody cold at minus thirty with no heating [laughs] Ah but you had this woolly jacket. Didn’t you just.
CB: Did you prefer being in the Lancaster or in the Wellington?
FDS: Oh yeah. The Wellington was a wonderful aircraft of its day. It would equal the Lancaster in its virtues I think. In, in it’s possible virtues. You can climb on one engine with a four thousand pounder. The wings flap normally. That much is as you are aware and in four thousand pounder on a 1C of a Mark 10 held its [laughs] I surrender. Keeping it straight it’s not flapping at all. No. It’s, I think you admire an aircraft design that can carry eight twelve thousand pounds in one bomb. I could admire the man who can design that, and designed the Lanc. Chadwick was the Lanc and my other man whose name I’ve conveniently forgotten [pause] damn it. Bouncing bomb.
CB: Yeah. Barnes Wallis.
FDS: Barnes Wallis.
CB: Barnes Wallis. Yeah.
FDS: He designed the Wellington.
CB: The Wellington. Yeah.
FDS: Brilliant design. Every design he had is brilliant, and I believed the film that I’ve seen once or twice a very modest man. Very modest.
CB: You had two different crews on operations. How—
FDS: More than —
CB: How did they compare?
FDS: More than two different crews.
CB: Oh, did you? Right. So, how did the crews gel?
FDS: I think very well. Not just to say it. I haven’t thought of it so that’s why, why I’m quite sure. I wouldn’t hesitate to go on ops with them.
CB: So there are two parts of it. One is on ops and the other is socially.
FDS: Ah, well I was odd man out a bit. I did say, perhaps ill-advisedly when we were with the Lancs I said, ‘We have to discuss,’ which we did, ‘The possibility of bailing out and evading and we obviously are not going to evade as seven. That would be bloody silly. I do my division properly. I reckon there were three twos. I’ll volunteer for several reasons,’ I said. ‘One, I’m the only man on this crew who can make rabbit snares out of parachute wire. I’m the only man in this crew that can do [unclear] loud enough to know.’ I said, ‘Anyway, I know my way about, you don’t, but please yourself.’ ‘Big headed.’ I said, ‘That too.’ That too. No. I wouldn’t hesitate. I had the one slight reservation. I think Watson was unkind to himself really because he was very newly married. To be newly married on ops going into what looks like a living hell, and the general activity going on. It’s enough to frighten anybody that’s intelligent anyway. And if you’re frightened you slow down, don’t you? I suppose.
CB: But what do you mean by being unkind to himself?
FDS: Well, the very fact that you can, don’t quote any of this please. Don’t quote any of this.
CB: No.
FDS: Because I’d deny it. There you are. But unkind to yourself. If at some point in your life you desire to do something, and you know inside yourself you were desperately uncomfortable with doing it you’re not only heroic you’re being unkind to yourself aren’t you?
CB: Right.
FDS: No. Slow down. He wasn’t alone. I reckon four hundred aircraft. I reckon four hundred of them it was listed in many publications that fall back before they routed ops over. They didn’t know in our early days. They didn’t always route you over the target. You see on, veg, veg, you know on target with this we were very much on target. No. It’s, there was a drop back and it’s been noted in many. You must have read them surely. Which is why they routed people over target and round. That was bloody clever. And then they, [laughs] see why do you have people to train? I said, ‘Wind velocity is a dodgy thing so always check WV if you’re navigating. And even if, whatever part of the navigation you are and even, even if your crew are doing spot checks see what’s happening.
CB: You got the crew to help you with regular —
FDS: Hmm?
CB: You, you got the crew to help you with the wind velocity observations regularly did you?
FDS: Oh yeah.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Yeah. I’m a strong believer in if you’ve got grounding in DR and you’ve got it and you could find the wind velocity and you’ve got a driver that’s obedient you’re alright. So, I said to Beaton, ‘You and I are going to get on very well, if I obey you and you obey me.’ I said, ‘You’re not going to be bossing me. I’ll boss you at least twenty minutes of it anyway.’ Well, you can’t have it. I think that must have happened with drop back. I can’t believe that a bomb aimer would sit there and sort of not get there as it were.
CB: You mean the whole crew was complicit in a way in running.
FDS: Well, I wouldn’t like to say.
CB: Right.
FDS: The others wouldn’t notice it. They’d be too damned busy. The wireless operator, well they’d be gunning and looking out for not bumping into, bumping into other aircraft I would think.
CB: So, in dropping back how would, how would that actually work?
FDS: We’d decelerate. De-throttle.
CB: Right.
FDS: Not noticeably, you know. Bring it up and you throttle back. You’re not just the [unclear] of it, you make a change. If you’ve got a headwind you used to keep going in that headwind. You could always blame the head wind. One classic occasion I can remember was, I can’t remember which one it was but obviously half the amount, half the number. Say there were two hundred, a hundred of them flew on the forecast wind and a hundred of us took our own. And the fellows who took our own got their earlier. The others came up later and we were flying back on a reciprocal course. So a hundred. Not very nice at all. You had to tumble quickly what happened.
CB: Normally after the bomb run you would turn which way?
FDS: After a bomb run well you’d run. You’d overshoot.
CB: Yes.
FDS: For the distance.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: You need to overshoot and then you’d turn. Not always starboard because if you did that always they’d be hanging about over there wouldn’t they?
CB: But you would go starboard normally would you?
FDS: There you are. I think so. I don’t know why really.
CB: You overshoot so you’re not hit by other bombs coming down, but you also do it to take the picture.
FDS: Oh, you are hit sometimes by bombs coming down.
CB: Was there, was there a prescribed time from the overshoot from release.
FDS: No.
CB: So what would you do?
FDS: It was assumed that you would drop your bombs and drop them in the right place, and they were right to stick to that assumption. Otherwise, we could have made the modifications on everything else that they could guess. No, you do as you’re told really.
CB: Yeah.
FDS: Mostly. If you wanted to draw a quick archivist comment that would be it. What is the account of bomber operations? I think, ‘Get on with it. Do as you’re told.’ And largely that works because it’s been based on other people’s experiences hasn’t it really?
CB: But how would the holding back work? How would it work for the crew holding back?
FDS: I don’t know.
CB: You were talking about earlier the crew held back.
FDS: Yeah.
CB: What would happen then? They’d get caught up back by the rest of the stream wouldn’t they?
FDS: They could be. I didn’t worry about them.
CB: No. As long as they weren’t in front of you.
FDS: Yeah. Quite. Nobody, I nearly said nobody, very few were in front of us. I think one of the great advantages we had was that we decided early on we, Beaton had that going for him.
CB: What was your worst experience would you say in the war?
FDS: Mine? [pause] I don’t know really. In terms of fright I suppose being frightened, that would be, yeah that would be the worst experience. Being frightened because it was, I’d never known it before.
CB: No.
FDS: I wasn’t afraid of everything in sight to survive. Prior to that I had no reason to believe I wasn’t going to survive. But actually the element of personal risk comes in. You’ve been hit, begin to believe in your own omnificence. You’ll survive anything. And up to a point I suppose it’s true.
CB: Yeah. Well, you did a lot of ops didn’t you?
FDS: Yeah. Hmm?
CB: You did a lot of ops.
FDS: Yeah. Yeah. I suppose I did. Yeah. Well, in fact I know I did. Actually I’ve no idea how much more than average. I don’t know what was the average overall. I know that most crews that were shot down were shot down in their first eight. And I know that I slept in the same shed as other people. The Committee of Adjustment would come round and take their kit out. That was, that’s a bit unnerving.
CB: Was it?
FDS: Not unnerving but it wasn’t, wasn’t quite the thing really. Perhaps, come around and take the kit before or after we were there [pause] Take the kit out and make room for the replacements.
Other: How long, did you have any sense of getting over it after, after the action had finished?
FDS: Older?
Other: No. Did you have any sense of getting over it? I mean it was a terribly stressful time I presume. So, today —
FDS: I don’t [pause] We always stress differently I imagine. I don’t know. There are great similarities but we’re all different. If I’m doing, give you an example that’s non - operational. Coming out of Gloucester there’s a causeway and there’s room for two vehicles going in and two coming out. I was coming out and for me everything stops to, I heard a police siren, and I thought what the hell is that bloke doing? He can’t be on my side of the road because there’s only two rows and two rows, a lorry there, a car here, a lorry de da de da. I thought what the hell is he doing? All this in a split second. And I thought the bastard’s coming up this road and if he comes up this road he’s going to have me off If he’s not careful. I can’t get him off. There’s not room to manoeuvre which I’ll certainly do if he’s coming at me. And the lorry there was just beginning to do that and I was just beginning to do that, and I thought well I’m not going to harm the lorry. And fortunately at that point he just stopped. He stopped hooting and it straightened. But there was a direct drop of about thirty feet there and you were two feet off it. That made you think a bit, you know. What do you do here, clever lad? But I’m not conscious of stress then at all. You know, I’m in command of myself and the vehicle. Frightened out of my wits but still in command. I think that’s the answer. People who go around in life hectoring other people being in command have a habit of surviving. Perhaps that’s what I noticed, I don’t know. Not a very good answer is it? I don’t know the answer.
CB: Why do you think after the war, why do you think after the war so few veterans from all the Services didn’t want to talk about what they’d done.
FDS: Well, they’d been living it for seven years, six years. I was newly married, got a new family to meet, and people to meet. I’d got to go to get a job. Too busy. And I don’t, I did, I haven’t got [pause] I hope I come across as a desire to do it now, quite honestly. I’m prepared to do it now because it seems a bit small minded not too.
CB: Well, it’s something that’s really interesting for people to understand what was going on.
FDS: I think the difficulty I see, and this is truth, I haven’t consciously lied at any point. I don’t think I would. I think people are tempted to lie, and I think some people most obviously lie and I despise that. If you’ve got the need to lie don’t go.
CB: Well, that’s been most fascinating. Thank you very much, Don Say
FDS: I’m sorry.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Frederick Donovan Say
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-12
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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
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ASayFD170712, PSayFD1705
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Pending review
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02:10:26 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Description
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Frederick Say went to Tottenham County High School and when he left school he went to study agriculture. He joined the RAF and was posted to RAF Tangmere and worked in the Operations Room as a clerk and was promoted to Leading Aircraftsman Special Duties. From here he was posted to Headquarters 10 Group. He was recommended for aircrew and after initial training in Babbacombe was posted to Canada for training in navigation, gunnery and bomb aiming. On his return to the UK he was posted to 196 Squadron where he and his crew commenced bombing operations, completing 29 and a half operations. After completing his heavy conversion training he was posted in June 1944 to 514 Lancaster Squadron as a bomb aimer and took part in the bombing operations in support of D-Day. Before leaving the RAF he worked in the Motor Transport section at RAF Watnall.
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Great Britain
England--Devon
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1943
1944-06
1945
12 OTU
1678 HCU
196 Squadron
466 Squadron
514 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
RAF Chipping Warden
RAF Tangmere
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1081/11539/APragnellJ160526.2.mp3
b1d5d9b341a280f4d84f05cf037014fc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Pragnell, Jack
J Pragnell
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jack Pragnell (b. 1921, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an observer with 51 and 102 Squadron. His twin brother was killed in action 16 December 1943 flying with 432 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Pragnell, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: So this is David Kavanagh on the 26th of May 2016.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Interviewing Jack Pragnell at his home. Ok. So if I just put that there. So if you just talk normally. If I keep looking over it like this I’m just checking that it’s still working.
JP: Yeah. Ok.
DK: So that’s out there. What, what I wanted to do was really just talk through your experiences before the war maybe.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: What you were doing then. Why and how you joined the air force and what you did in the air force.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And then later on afterwards. So, to start with perhaps if you could just say what you were doing before the war.
JP: Well, before the war my twin brother and myself we were together all the time by the way. I’d got an identical twin.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JP: So we worked at, at Manfield Shoe Factory. In the office. Until, well we had, we were quite poor. We had to leave school at fourteen although we were at grammar school. We caught up on night school and everything so we did all that. And then come the sort of seventeen or so when I was a bit of fed up and wanting to move couldn’t do it because I was coming on to eighteen. And nobody had got a job there.
DK: No. No.
JP: And jobs were scarce for people. So we, we did a lot. Played a lot of sport. Enjoyed life thoroughly. We were both pretty good at sport and did very well at school and we were in the Boy’s Brigade and went to camp with them. And it was a lovely time. And then come the time when conscription was being, when none of us — all I knew of conscription was the First World War.
DK: Yeah.
JP: The filth and the degradation and the death in the, in the trenches. And we sort of wanted the glory boys you know. So we said, ‘Let’s go,’ and four of us got together one afternoon. Packed up our work and went off ostensibly to join the Fleet Air Arm because we liked the uniform.
DK: Right.
JP: When we got to the depot at Dover Hall it was the RAF recruiting place. The Fleet Air Arm was at the Naval place. In a different place. So anyway, we were talked into joining the air force. We had a few tests and we were accepted on the pilot navigator thing. Three of us. One was ill and went away. He came twelve months later and was a W/op AG but he was one out. So the three of us then waited as you did. Signed on. Waited. And we went to the place where they — Cardington.
DK: Cardington.
JP: To be signed up. Funny thing there. We go through. People didn’t know the difference. Absolutely identical. So he goes, my brother goes through and I was taken ill. So I was parked in to sick quarters for a week. When I came out he’d already gone through and been accepted on the pilot navigator thing. So I follow through and did the tests and one of the doctors said, ‘Well, we saw you last week.’ I said, ‘That was my brother.’ ‘Your brother?’ I said, ‘My twin brother.’ He said, ‘What did we do?’ ‘Oh you passed him.’ ‘Alright, you’re through.’ [laughs] So then we waited. This waiting time of several months, you know as everybody had to wait. And we were called up to Babington in London there to be — no. It was in the south. To be kitted and equipped. Near Bournemouth. Equipped and marched and inoculated and equipped and marched and inoculated. Incessantly. And then we went to Stratford on Avon at ITW. My brother and myself shared the Venus Adonis Room in the Shakespeare Hotel. Absolutely stripped clean. You know what I mean. I’ve been since and had a look. It’s a different kettle of fish. So then from there, after a few weeks of this, ‘You’re going.’ Didn’t know where. We were equipped with tropical equipment and, a kit bag full of that. And one night we were, well we were then taken to West Kirby near Manchester there. We were there for, I should think maybe a week or so and suddenly one night we were taken out at night and marched into the Glasgow station and climbed on a train outside the station and straightaway to a boat. The Moortown. The tramp steamer converted. And the filthiest, dirtiest old shabby ship you never saw in your life. It was an army boat and of course we were cadets there with a white flash in our hats oh and they took the mickey out of us left, right and centre. And we had the, under the bottom. Five weeks on that boat. Trudging. We didn’t know where we were going. We set out to the middle of the Atlantic we thought. Then suddenly we turned to port. Half of them sheared off. And with that I understand they finished up in America or Canada. We then went, they said, ‘Oh you’re going to Rhodesia.’ Well, we’d heard of Rhodesia but it was a long way away. Well, we went through. We couldn’t get off the boat. We had salt showers. It was purgatory. So, and the food wasn’t great you know, out of a big cauldron. But we got there. We finished up in, we went around the Cape. We thought where the hell are we going now? Sailed around. Finished up in Durban.
DK: Right.
JP: Lovely place Durban. It was lit. The sea was dark there. All the lights and what not. But there on the sea front was a dance hall and fairy lights. It was like heaven. And we were there a couple of weeks or so and the people were marvellous to us. They were queuing at the gates to take us out. And my brother and myself being identical twins we were snapped up, you know.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And they took us all over the place. And we then got on the train. It took three days. One of these slow moving things with the old wagon at the back. We could get off and walk with it. Finished up in Bulawayo. It’s in Southern Rhodesia. Well after a few weeks there at the ITW again we were marched, we were inoculated. But we had a lovely time. People took us out. They queued at the gates to take people out. But then, being the two of us we got special treatment you know. So we had a lovely time. It was hard work. It was hard work but we still relaxed well and played well.
DK: So what sort of work were you doing in Bulawayo then?
JP: Well, that was a holding camp.
DK: Right.
JP: A sort of ITW.
DK: Right.
JP: It was, actually it was the old cattle market and we slept in the, where the cattle slept. With a blind down the front and —
DK: Yeah.
JP: Wooden sort of flooring. It was a bit primitive. And so were the quarters. But we loved it anyway.
DK: So the training you were doing there. Was that for, as a navigator or pilot?
JP: We were then on the pilots navigator.
DK: Pilot navigator.
JP: It was the top course. Yeah.
DK: Right.
JP: And we were doing navigation. We were doing star recognition. We were doing pilot recognition. We were doing aircraft. The whole gamut of night after night day after day.
DK: And did it include training as, flying?
JP: Oh that was all training. It was nothing but training with a bit of time off now and again. It was very hard graft. We loved it. We played a bit of football and a bit of, quite a bit of cricket in the spare time. Then we were picked out. ‘Right. You’re going off to pilot training.’ Went to Gwelo which was in the back woods of East London there. Of south, what’s the name? Southern Rhodesia. Well, I promptly had the bane of my life in the air force. Every so often I got tonsillitis. And it got every course I went on I had to have a few of days in dock with this tonsillitis. And I went in dock in the middle of the pilot training.
DK: Right.
JP: It was on Tiger Moths. I’d soloed but I was a bit ham-fisted. We’d only had a bike up until then. That hadn’t even got a three speed. So we trained and then they came along. The CFI came. I was behind because I’d had this week off and you could not get behind. It was push push push. This CFI, the Chief Flying Instructor came and he looked me up and down and said, ‘Well, come on.’ So I took him up. Landed him. Well, of course the tension of him being there and I was a very raw pilot. But he, he would have gone through the ceiling when we landed, you know. In a Tiger Moth on a grass field it was I thought. So I landed him. He looked me up. He said, ‘Well, what’s your navigation like?’ I said, ‘Well, quite good.’ He said, ‘I think you’ll make a better navigator than a pilot. You’ll be alright on these.’ The next step were Harvards of course. The killers.
DK: Yeah.
JP: He said, ‘You’ll kill yourself I think.’ And they were. A lot of people were. These decrepit Harvards. So, my brother got himself taken off and we were allowed to go together. We sat there and waited, oh two or three weeks until a course came and we were taken down, all the way down to East London. On the Cape.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And there we did the full observer course. Navigator, bomb aimer, air gunner. Again played a lot of sport. Again, taken around a bit. Again went out together. It was a lovely life because we did everything. See whereas if I had gone on my own I’d have had to look for a comrades.
DK: Yeah.
JP: I’d have had to look for a mate. There was two of us. We’d always got a mate.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And we were so much alike. We, well we were a part of each other. Absolutely. Dressed the same. Shared our money. Shared our clothes. Shared our uniforms. And got on ever so well together. Bane of the life of the instructors who didn’t know who they were talking to [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
JP: But anyway, we did well. We passed out from there. And then we had about three weeks at Cape Town waiting to come back. And then we came back alone. Not, we went out in convoy for the five weeks. Very slowly. Very tedious. The Prince of Wales and the other one going up and down. Of course they sailed on to the Far East and that was when they were sunk.
DK: Right.
JP: We were the last lot to see them when they went off.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But we came back alone on the Otranto. Which was a, was a merchantmen. In fact on the way back picked a boat load of survivors from [pause] from a boat from Argentina. Something Star. A meat boat.
DK: Right.
JP: And the women and children. We picked them up and brought them back. Then we got back here and due a bit of leave. And then posted to Yorkshire. To Driffield.
DK: Right.
JP: The main place there. And we were crewed up. Well. No. First of all we go on to a Conversion Unit.
DK: So which? Can you remember which Conversion Unit?
JP: In Lincolnshire somewhere.
DK: Right.
JP: It was Norfolk or Lincolnshire and I forget where it was.
DK: This would have been one —
JP: It’s a well-known one.
DK: Right. But this would have been one of the Heavy Conversion Units.
JP: Yeah. They were flying Harvards and the other things. The other four engine jobs. You know. The first ones.
DK: The Stirlings.
JP: The twin engine job. No. Not the — the two engine.
DK: The Anson.
JP: No. No. We’d done our training in Ansons.
DK: Yeah.
JP: No. Bigger ones.
DK: The Wellington.
JP: No. No. Different from them. Wimpy was there.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But the Wellingtons. They were ones that crashed a lot. They put four engines on them in the end and called them the Halifax.
DK: Right. The Manchester?
JP: Yeah. I think it was that.
DK: Manchester. Yeah.
JP: Yeah. So we as we got there we saw one plough in. Yeah. Now, the next morning they said, ‘Now look. We’re looking for bomb aimers. You’re a qualified bomb aimer and a qualified navigator. It’s equal pay. Equal terms.’ But you see then all the crews then were becoming not six crews but seven crews. And there was a great shortage of bomb aimers to add to the crews. So they asked for volunteers to go straight on ops, perhaps with the odd cross country, without doing a con-unit. So about ten of us stepped forward and within a couple of weeks we were crewed up at Driffield in a squadron. And a couple of cross country’s — ready for ops. Well then my pilot, we were the odd one in the crew then but we were in the crew. I was in the crew as a bomb aimer and in charge of the bombing and that. I didn’t have a bloody clue. So anyway the biggest bomb I’d dropped was the sort of five pounder in practice. Anyway, we soon caught up. They put us through the mill and so unfortunately they, the crew went on some operations. And the pilot went on his expertise, expert, expertise trip. You know, with a crew.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: And they were missing. So the crew was broken up and I was floating around. I was lucky because looking for a bomb aimer was a crew where four of them were on their second tour. The pilot was a flight lieuy. The navigator was a flying officer. The gunner was warrant officer and a whats-its name. And they were looking for — and there was I, a youngster, shovelled into this lot.
DK: With an experienced crew.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: So I was lucky.
DK: Can, can I just check. Which squadron was this with then?
JP: 51 then.
DK: 51. Right.
JP: 51.
DK: Ok.
JP: And my brother, who was with me at the time.
DK: Yeah.
JP: On our, when we got there we had to, we knew we’d got to part. And we got a great pile of kit in the middle of the room and it was one for you, one for me. It broke my heart, you know. The first time we’d been parted or anything like. And we shared it. Now he got into a crew as well but it was a time when the Canadians were breaking away from 4 Group to form 8 Group.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And the rest of his crew were Canadian. Most of them. Four out the six. Or five out the six. And they opted to go Canadian. Well, he went with them. Now, strangely enough they were doing some operations. They were doing minelaying or what have you. And his pilot went on an expertise trip. Was missing. So, they again were crewed up. We stayed in the area and he got most of them together. They still stayed with the Canadian group but he got a bit behind then whereas I was straight on ops. I mean by January I’d done two or three ops to Lorient and places like that.
DK: So which type of aircraft were you on in 51 Squadron then?
JP: A Halifax.
DK: A Halifax. So —
JP: Halifax. It was all Halifax from then on.
DK: So all your operations were Halifax.
JP: And so was he. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: It was Yorkshire.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: They were all in Yorkshire. Around about. Well Pocklington actually. Snaith.
DK: Snaith.
JP: Was the one we were at for 51. So we did, I did, we did about half a tour with 51 and we were doing well. We were one of the crack crews and I became, although I say it myself, pretty good. I went to learn. And we did, the farce of, you know observation star sort of things. Astro. Well that was a farce. A complete and utter farce. You couldn’t do it. You know the old joke goes about they were lost and the navigator, the pilot said to the navigator, ‘Go and take an astro fix will you?’ He said. So the pilot comes back, ‘Take off your hats. You’re in St Paul’s Cathedral.’ And it was about like that. That’s the old story that got around, you know. Anyway, half way through the tour we were taken from, our pilot was promoted to squadron leader so we went to Pocklington where he took over a squadron as a squadron leader. And finished my tour there. And I had a very hot tour. We all did in there. I mean I had a very very warm tour in the end of ’42 and ’43. That was the heat of the losses.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And I was one of the lucky ones.
DK: Can you remember the name of your pilot at 51?
JP: Yeah. Squadron Leader Hay.
DK: So he went on to Pocklington then with 102.
JP: Oh yes. And took the crew with him.
DK: And you went with him.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And he then went as an instructor. I understand afterwards he had a bit of a crash and nearly wrote himself off. He was a bit wild. He was a typical, you might say a very early pilot. Mad as a bloody hatter but brilliant pilot. And the navigator then stayed but the chap doing the bomb aiming, no he was doing the navigation. That’s right. And I was then then the bomb aimer. He was a second tour man. He’d done his first flying on single engine stuff in India. He hadn’t got a clue. He had not got a clue. So we got lost on the way back from [unclear] We called Mayday and we were flagged up by searchlights flagging us up to get us home. So after that he was taken out of the crew. They got a pilot, they got an officer who was already a qualified, well-qualified navigator to take over the navigation and I then took over the bomb aiming.
DK: Right.
JP: So, from then on, apart from the fact we had a very very hard tour. And we had the toughest of the tough it was good plain sailing until they finished their, about four of them finished their second tour. I’d still got ten ops on my first tour. So their second tour was twenty, mine was thirty. So I was an odd Joe and I flew with seven different pilots. Sprog pilots, experienced pilots, wing commanders, squadron, to fill the gap. I was lucky. I mean pure luck that that I came through.
DK: So, how many operations did you do all together then?
JP: Well, counting two abortive when we had to go, they counted. And in fact we’d done a bit of operational out in South Africa. Out in South Africa, looking for Jap subs. I did a total of twenty seven full ops but the other two counted and the others patched together so really it counted for the thirty ops. I say it was twenty seven. But it was about, when you take the, what they counted. And I was ill. I’d suffered from the tonsillitis. I’d been in and out of dock. And just until my last op came. My last op was to Berlin. The one before it was Peenemunde. So you can tell it wasn’t easy. So I was taken, I was booked in to go when my tour finished. So I was now, they told me when it would finish and I was ready. Waiting for this last op to come. I was to go in to the hospital the following week to have my tonsils out. They were the bane of my life. So I got to bed. Tannoy. Would I report to sick bay. They’d made a mistake. The hospital was the next day. So I go in and of course I didn’t realise my body was upset. I mean you think the tension and that. You didn’t realise. They nearly killed me. They apologised afterwards. They should not have operated. It wouldn’t stop bleeding and they had to go deep. And afterwards, after a week I was like a wraith. Lost no end of weight and, and I came [laughs] when I went out the doctor said, well he said, would you, I’d been to Berlin the night before. When I got in there it was on the news about the Berlin raid. I said to the bloke, ‘Yeah, it was pretty rough.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, I was there.’ ‘He was there. He was there.’ All the nurses gathered around. I was the hero [laughs] So ,so anyway it, I came home on a bit of leave.
DK: So you, so you survived a trip to Berlin and then —
JP: Yeah.
DK: Were in hospital.
JP: The next day I was having my tonsils out.
DK: Oh dear.
JP: Now, my twin brother was on the way and they’d transferred from Halifaxes to Lancs.
DK: Right.
JP: And their first Lanc trip was a Berlin which was the Berlin following the one I went on. The last Berlin in ’43. And I was on the one before when we lost a lot of aircraft. But he was on that one. The first trip in a Lanc. They were shot down and killed over Leeuwarden in Holland.
DK: Oh dear.
JP: So that was it. It broke my heart that did. I didn’t know what to do with myself. And I was shovelled around then.
DK: Can you remember which squadron your brother was with?
JP: It was [pause] an American in the Canadian air force. I did, well names have got me.
DK: Yeah. Ok.
JP: I think it was 425. It was something like that. One of the Canadian squadrons in the north.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Yorkshire. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We met from time to time. In fact the Canadian uniform was a bit better than ours and he came down one day with a pilot’s uniform on. I said, ‘What —?’ He said, ‘Well my pilot is staying with us but he’s a Yank so he’s transferred to the Yanks. Still as a pilot.’ Getting double pay sort of thing and more comfort, ‘And this is his uniform.’ So he swapped my old one for this and I had a new uniform.
DK: Oh well.
JP: Well, I said at the last thing when we were in East London we were qualified and we got pinned things on. Our things for South African officers to come around, a general or something, and pin them on and a band played. That sort of thing. So the last, we had a course dinner, the menu’s in there. And this flight lieutenant gets up and, words of wisdom, he said, ‘Now, there’s one thing I’d like to say.’ I’ll never forget this. ‘Before we go out tomorrow on parade you’ve got to look your best,’ and he said, ‘And Pragnells get your bloody hair cut.’ [laughs] See we’d both got double crowns. When you cut that short it stands up like a hedgehog [laughs]. And they didn’t know the difference anyway. We got away with blue murder.
DK: So, what, what was your feelings about flying in the Halifax then? Was it a [unclear]
JP: Well, we worshipped the Halifax. Yeah. See, it’s a lost machine now but it did more. It towed gliders, it did Met, it did bombing, it did transport. It did everything, the Halifax. Whereas the Lanc
DK: Yeah.
JP: Faster, higher, newer, only did bombing. And of course we hadn’t got all the equipment. We had to manage with the old Mark 9 bombsight where we set our own. And it was impossible to take an astrofix because you couldn’t get it steady enough. We set the bombsight ourselves. Well inaccurate because you can’t get the exact speed. Now the Mark 10, the last few I got, the speed, the speed and that was fed in, and the height, was fed in electronically. But we had the, the what’s the name box for a few but they had all the latest equipment. We just had DR and that was it.
DK: Yeah.
JP: So, we, I mean we worshipped the Halifax. It took us there. Got us back. And now mention the Halifax you’re treated with scorn, ‘that bloody thing.’ Yet it did all. It was like the Hurricane and Spitfire. Hurricane did the work. The Spitfire got the credit because of the name.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Hurricane. Lanc got the credit because new aircraft flying higher, faster than anything and got all the credit. But we did a hell of a lot of work. In fact we got to, say about twenty thousand feet. They were above us but below us were the Stirlings and the Wimpies and the Wellingtons. We did our bombing runs on them and they did their bombing runs on us [laughs] yeah.
DK: Could you, could you actually see much at night then? Could you see?
JP: Well, it depended on the cloud.
DK: Yeah.
JP: I mean the Peenemunde raid was a one off. It was absolutely clear moonlight. It was like daylight and we went in at fifteen thousand lower. And it was a must. It frightened the life out of us. They briefed us. They said, they locked the doors and you mustn’t breathe a word. If a word gets out we’re finished. It’s got to be deadly secret to get this place where they’re making the V-2s or V-1s. And so all this. It’s dangerous. And you’re going out at a lower level. And you’ve got to go whatever the weather. If you don’t go tonight you’ve got to go to it and then it will be twice as bad because by then the Germans probably would have known.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And they did a fake run to Berlin. So we got over Denmark and we got to Flensburg and we were coned. Now to get coned was suicide. When you’ve got a bomb load and once they got you in the cone of light you couldn’t see and the only way out was to get down below the angle. So you came down with a loaded bomber and you had a job to pull out. It was almost suicide to get caught. And they either fired up the flak or get the night fighters on you. But of course we were lucky. The night fighters had all gone —
DK: Yeah.
JP: To stop this, what was going to be a trip to Berlin. And they weren’t there. So that was just an incident where I had the luck, you know.
DK: At the briefing for Peenemunde —
JP: Yeah.
DK: Did they tell you what was being made in the factories?
JP: Yes.
DK: They did.
JP: Yes. We knew about this WAAF. WAAF had seen the photograph. And the, and the Poles had already, give them credit, the Poles were the bravest of the brave. They pinched a chunk of wood and they’d got it over through Sweden. So we’d got more idea and also don’t forget our Buckinghamshire team was taking the secret doc, the secret meetings of the Germans.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: They could learn. So we knew more than they thought we knew. They told us all about it and said what it was and said we’d got to wipe it out because it was the V-1 then and that was creating havoc. It was frightening. You know, putt putt putt and down it came. And it was creating a bit of panic. And when the V-2 came it didn’t even make that sound. Explode half a town you know. So, they told us we’d got to go and we’d got to get it. Now, the Yanks followed a day or two later. But the Yanks got all the credit. They weren’t even there. On that Peenemunde raid where we dropped people in to sort of stifle it and that, the RAF did it. Yeah. When we got there not a sound. It was way way way into Denmark. Past the Kattegat up in the Baltic and we went on in straight line as if we go up to Sweden or turn starboard to Germany. To Berlin. That was up there. And suddenly we were, we knew we’d got to find this place. They stuck out in the water. This sort of bulbous sort of bit of land. No searchlights. No flak. And as we turned to go in, oh then all hell was let loose. We were on the first wave. So we were through and out. Out the other side before too much trouble. But those that followed got hammered.
DK: Yeah. Could you see much of the target as you dropped your bombs at Peenemunde?
JP: No. You could see the, that raid yeah you could see the huts and the buildings.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But normally when you were at twenty five thousand and don’t forget you’re not going to a flat surface. You’re going to a sea of fire. Flames. Kites going down. Green and red, what’s the name of it on the ground and the searchlights and night fighters. So you, you didn’t see much. And it got all smoky if not cloudy. So, on a good night going in you could pick out the rivers and the main road. The [unclear] were light. They were like big white sort of lights. And the, and the woods. Well later on of course when I then went on to glider, glider towing, paratroop dropping at low level a different kettle of fish. We map read everywhere then on the shape of the woods and the rivers. But you only saw the minor ones up there. You could see enough. Well you could say look there’s a load of flak ahead. That’s probably, you look at your map, that’s probably the town of so and so. Go to starboard to avoid it. And then the pilot would say, ‘How far do you think we are Frank from — ’ and I’d sort of, ‘Ten miles.’ Alright. It was a good crew and they relied on everybody.
DK: Can you, can you still name your crew then?
JP: I can. Yeah. Well. Ron Hay was the pilot. Dougie Henderson was the rear gunner. John Garland was the w/op AG. The rear, the mid-upper gunner was a young lad who lost his life in a car, in a coach accident when we’d only had him a week or two. And then an Aussie joined us, Arthur Evans. And we were friends. And the navigator. I hardly spoke to him because he was in his little enclave and he was an officer. We were all NCOs except Doug. Well, when they finished the tour the pilot he had us in. He said, ‘Well, what can I do? Would you like me to recommend you for a commission?’ The rear gunner said yes. I said, he asked me, I said no because I was not going to get beyond my brother. Imagine. Identical twins. One walking down the street with a commission and one not. I couldn’t do it.
DK: No.
JP: So I said no. I was offered it. Only if I’d taken the chance I’d have done probably a lot better but I wouldn’t take it.
DK: Did you find that a bit difficult that your crew, some of the crew were officers?
JP: Yeah.
DK: And yourself NCO. So you wouldn’t mix socially or —
JP: Yeah. You wouldn’t mix socially unless they would. But they weren’t really allowed to. They did up to a point. We’d go out for a drink now and again but then we’d go our own way.
DK: But you didn’t see that as a problem in the crew itself.
JP: No. No. No. We were all mad and all equally sort of wanted to go. And I never saw, I did with a couple of crews I flew with, saw much panic. You see the bravery was not going on ops where you were shot down. Because you didn’t expect to be. You hoped not to be. The bravery was going the next day and the next day. I mean in successive. In there you’ll see I did four ops in five days. Absolutely tired out. It wasn’t just the op. The next day you had to go to get your aircraft ready. If there was not a malfunction you had to go and do a little flight test. Had to get all the equipment ready and be briefed all day. So you never got any sleep.
DK: No.
JP: And of course when you got to bed you were too tired to sleep and too exhilarated. There was a certain exhilaration when you got back.
DK: I was going to say how did you feel as you got out of the aircraft after, after the mission? After the operation.
JP: Happy. You know. Very contented. Very very pleased with life. And we used to, we didn’t feel boastful or anything like that. We’d got to go to be debriefed of course with the old padre there. And he used to hand out the fags and I didn’t smoke so I used to give mine away. And then we had, always looked forward to egg and chips. Egg and chips. And if any crews were missing we ate their eggs. But you wouldn’t know. See, you only knew your own crew basically. You knew the others in passing but everything was, everything was together. You trained together, you flew together and you went out together. Had a drink together. You see you were right out in the country. Not much you could do. So you got the old bike and went to the nearest pub. And if they hadn’t got any beer we’d go to the next one. And then we’d find a little social dance. That sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
JP: You couldn’t do anything. Occasionally we got in to York. I went to Leeds a couple of times. And I believe, and I can’t remember how but I went to Sheffield once. Didn’t get on there because we hadn’t got time. We’d just go for the evening and wander around and have a drink and —
DK: And then.
JP: That was it.
DK: As you were then told the next day another operation how did you feel then as you were getting in the aircraft?
JP: Well, quite, quite glad really. You were getting through them. I remember I sort of started putting a number by my ops. And, and so they said, ‘We don’t count. We don’t count the ops. We just do them.’ But you did. In your mind. You knocked another one off. And it got more sort of you know the early, oh yeah but when you got in your twenties and people all around you were missing. You didn’t know whether they’d been shot down, whether they’d finish their tour, whether they’d left. And all this. It was come and go all the time. You couldn’t settle anywhere. Only with your own crew.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Because if you made friends because they were missing the next night. That wasn’t to say they were missing. They were posted away to somewhere else. It was a come and go. So there was that community of crew. They were more or less everything. And you got on well with them. Well most of them. Some, some you didn’t. But you were so closely knit together and there was a camaraderie about it. And I met two crews that panicked a bit. One of them supposed to be one of the, actually I flew with them a couple of times. And they’d done well on the thousand bomber raid and the pilot had got his, had got a gong out of it. So they were supposed to be a good crew. But they got behind somehow and the bomb aimer had gone, I reckon he’d gone to LMF. Lack of moral fibre. They used to take them out and strip them, you know. Lack of moral fibre they call it. Nerves didn’t count. None of this psychology or that sort of thing. You were whipped away. If you were an officer, reduced to, well kept your commission but reduced in rank to the menial jobs. If you were an NCO you lost your rank and everything else.
DK: And this crew. Did you think the bomb aimer then was, had had some problems?
JP: The bomb aimer had a lot. You see, I was the one who, well out of them I’d done a bit of flying on the Tiger and the Anson and whatnot. More than they had, some of them. And I was the one who used to help the pilot at his take off because you needed two. One to help push it up.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And I was the one that helped him on landing. And, and I was the one he referred to. Now, you see if you go to Berlin you’ve got over an eight hour trip. Well the pilot can’t get and have a quick wee. There’s nobody there. Now on one occasion he put it into George which was the automatic pilot, ‘Here you are Prag. Have a go at this.’ And I held this, frightened to death while he went and had a quick wee. But they relied on you so much.
DK: So your job also included flying the aircraft then when he needed a break.
JP: Well, it didn’t really but it depended on the pilot. He used to let me have a go now and again but when he was a, I didn’t, I wasn’t good enough to sort of take it on and like it.
DK: So, on, on a typical operation then as, as you as the bomb aimer.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: What was your role when you got on the aircraft and you took off? Are you helping the navigator?
JP: Well, the navigator. He was in his little sort of hut thing and I, I didn’t want to be a navigator because you couldn’t see what was going on. You could only hear. Whereas a bomb aimer you had the freedom of the aircraft.
DK: Right.
JP: And you were more or less in charge of that part of the aircraft in many ways.
DK: Did, did your job involve anything to do with the bombs before they went on the aircraft? Would you check them?
JP: No. The armourers did that.
DK: Right.
JP: You saw them and watched them winch them on but it was the armourers that did it. You knew how to, if it didn’t go off they’d was a little pannier thing you could undo and pull a toggle and get it, release it.
DK: Yeah.
JP: You’re not supposed to, you couldn’t bring them back because you couldn’t land with them or they’d have gone up and blown you up. And if you’d still got them when you got back you had to drop them in a dropping zone. Ours was in, in the North Sea. And —
DK: Did you have any that didn’t drop? That you, you had to —
JP: I believe, I didn’t know but the flight engineer, he was often, he was a Scotsman and he was often half drunk. He said there’s a couple of, a couple of bombs there. So I went down to look. I pulled the toggle but whether it released the bomb or not I don’t know. But I think once, yes in the North Sea there. See, you got, what’s-it Glenn Miller lost on a place like that when they came back and dropped their bombs. They reckon that’s where, how he lost his life.
DK: Yeah. As you, as you’re approaching the target then.
JP: Yeah.
DK: You’re in the front. You’re looking down.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And then what’s your role there? Do you arm the bombs and then drop them?
JP: Well, you do the map reading in. The pilot, the navigator’s supposed to get you within range and then it was yours and you do the, you see the target where the green and red flares were. And the Pathfinders above were saying bomb on the green flares because there had been an accident and the red had drifted away. Or bomb on the red. Or right between the two. So you directed it in between all the flak and the flame to where you think the target was. And you go on, you know, ‘Left. Left.’ You said, ‘Left. Left.’ And ‘Right,’ So if you said the same so you didn’t get the same tone.
DK: Right.
JP: ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady.’ And when you were approaching you had the bomb doors open. You had to open them ready and you kept them open ‘til after you’d dropped your bomb for the photograph. As you closed the doors so the photograph was cut off. So you had to, as long as you, the time was how long your bombs would take to drop and each bomb had a different timing because they were different. Smooth or whatever. And they were different weights. So they had the speed they entered so all that had to be entered on your bombsight. So it was done automatically later but we had to enter it on a height bar and, and another knob here, another knob there. And then we got the information as we flew. And then you’d drop it as you said, ‘Bombs gone,’ And then you get the panic. ‘Get rid of them. Go.’ And you’d got you had to be cool, calm and collected until that photograph went off. The flash went off. Because that was taking, you see the bombs didn’t go down like that. They go on an arc with the speed and they were there. They’d say, oh bomb here. They’d land over by you, you see. So we had to wait that time. It seemed like an age. And you couldn’t turn around and come back because you were going in to your own people. You had to fly on over Germany and then so many miles they’d either turn. You didn’t know whether you were going to turn port or starboard to find the way out.
DK: As, as the bombs left the aircraft could you feel the aeroplane.
JP: Yeah. You felt it go. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And what, what was the crews reaction as they’re waiting for you to drop the bombs?
JP: [laughs] Going mad. ‘Close the f’ing doors,’ [laughs] And I used to, I was the youngster you know. They were all older than I was. I was supposed to be cool, calm and collected. The pilot was good. The pilot would do everything you told him to do and yet he was probably the most experienced pilot in the Group. So we got all the big jobs. The Berlins and the Peenemunde and we got the Hamburg raid when we wiped it out with Window. It’s all in there in that book of mine. Yeah.
DK: Can I have a look at the logbook?
JP: Yeah.
[pause]
JP: Now, that’s precious. If you look in the back there’s all the stations, all stations of it and there’s a picture of myself and my brother there in that envelope.
DK: Can I?
JP: Have a look at that. Yeah.
DK: I’ll be very careful with it.
JP: That’s alright.
DK: You were alike [laughs]
JP: We were nineteen there. That was taken just after we got home from South Africa
DK: I don’t know how people told you —
JP: They didn’t.
DK: Yeah.
JP: They didn’t. You can see. You can see why we were known as, we were known as Prag by the crew.
DK: So are you on the left or the right?
JP: I think on the left.
DK: You think [laughs]
JP: From me it would be the left.
DK: Left. Right.
JP: Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Lovely.
JP: Broke my heart when he was killed. Part of me went. And I had a hell of a time after that. I wasn’t happy.
DK: No. I can understand.
JP: It’s got all my qualifications in there of course.
DK: So I’ll read this out for the recording. So you were on Ansons here. This was in Rhodesia.
JP: Yeah. That was —
DK: East London.
JP: The Navigation.
DK: Yeah. East London.
JP: Yeah. That was South Africa.
DK: South Africa. Yeah. Yeah.
JP: And the Oxfords were bombing.
DK: So you were on Fairey Battles as well.
JP: Pardon?
DK: Battles. Fairey Battles.
JP: Yeah. That was the gunnery.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We used to fire at a drogue being towed by, what have we got here?
DK: And Oxfords.
JP: Oxfords. That was the gunnery.
DK: Yeah.
JP: That was the, you know, the bombing.
DK: That’s South Africa. So it’s 102 Squadron. And then it says 1652 Conversion Unit.
JP: Yeah. That, well we went there for a couple of weeks. That’s all. You see I didn’t get, I didn’t start until late in 1942. Yet I was doing my ops in ’42 and ’43. Yeah.
DK: And then on to 51 Squadron at Snaith.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So that’s Halifaxes.
JP: Yeah. See Pocklington was the holding unit then.
DK: Right.
JP: The head of the Group.
DK: So Lorient, so Cologne.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Wilhelmshaven.
JP: Yeah. Wilhelmshaven. Yeah.
DK: It says here Nuremberg. Engine. Engine u/s. Bombs jettisoned.
JP: Yeah. We had to come back. Yeah. We got there and more or less had to drop the bombs and had to come out. That counted as an op because we’d got more than half way I believe.
DK: So this is February 1943. And then there’s Cologne. And then St Nazaire in France.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So Berlin on the 1st of March.
JP: Yeah. I did three Berlins. And you’ll find there were ten Essens as well.
DK: Right.
JP: Three Essens in there.
DK: So the 1st of March was Berlin.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 5th of March, Essen.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 9th of March, Munich.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 12th of March, Essen.
JP: Well, would you get a harder tour than that anywhere? Suicide.
DK: Well, you had a bit of a break here. It’s the 26th was Duisburg. And then 27th of March, Berlin again.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So then April. 3rd of April, Essen.
JP: Yeah.
DK: April the 4th Kiel. The 8th of April, Duisburg. The 14th of April, Stuttgart. And then they’ve given you another rest here [laughs] May 13th Bochum.
JP: Bochum.
DK: And then?
JP: Dortmund. Bochum.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Dortmund. Dusseldorf.
DK: And then 23rd of May, Dortmund.
JP: Yeah. They were all the Ruhr Valley.
DK: 25th of May, Dusseldorf. Sorry. So July the 24th was Hamburg.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So that would have been the big raid on Hamburg.
JP: That would have been the [pause] when we wiped it out with the firestorm yeah.
DK: And then 25th of July, Essen. August the 2nd , Hamburg. August the 8th Nuremberg. Milan.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Milan, Italy.
JP: We didn’t get there. We got, we couldn’t get over the, had engine trouble so we got as far as the Alps. Had to turn around and come back.
DK: So that, it actually says engine u/s. Bombs jettisoned.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then August the 17th Peenemunde.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And it says you landed back at Middleton St George.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. We couldn’t get in. We were fog bound. Our place.
DK: Right. And then August 22nd Leverkusen. 23rd of August, Berlin again. So that, that presumably would have been, oh it says you were then screened from operations.
JP: Yeah.
DK: September 1943.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Wow.
JP: In the further ops you will see, if you turn over, on the, when I re-mustered. I couldn’t stand Training Command after my brother was missing. And I had a row with the wing commander. So I volunteered for another thing and found out it was glider towing.
DK: That was with 298 Squadron.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Tarrant Rushton. So, you were, you were towing the gliders then.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. We took a Hamilcar in the big bugger.
DK: Hamilcars. Yeah.
[pause]
JP: Then I did an instructors course at Number 1 Air Armament School, Manby. Which was, by then, by that time the war was, we weren’t needed after that. They didn’t know what to do with us.
DK: Yeah. So, so, that’s May 1945. You’re on Wellingtons then.
JP: Yeah.
DK: What was that like? Flying Wellingtons after the Halifax.
JP: Wellington was probably the best aircraft of the war. It did everything.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And it was still going strong at the end of the war.
DK: And that was —
JP: Very strong. You know the geodetic construction.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And it stood up to any. It burned because it was fabric. You could reckon if a Wellington crashed it was going to burn. We did crash in it. Is it there we crashed? A ten minute trip.
DK: Was that at Manby?
JP: No. That was later on. During that time. So, when I was in Training Command. On one of the odd trips.
DK: Yeah. So [pause] so when, when did you leave the air force then?
JP: When? It’s in my book. My service book there.
DK: So would it have been about that time?
JP: No. It was —
Other: ’46 I think.
DK: ’46. Ok.
JP: It was a bit later. 1946 I think. Yeah.
Other: Yeah. May. May ’46.
JP: Yeah. I did just over five years.
DK: Yeah. And what did you do after that? When you —
JP: Well, I didn’t know what. I wasn’t going back to my job. I couldn’t stand the thought of a tin pot office job. And I had straight, I had a couple of months leave and about two hundred quid to spend. You know, as the generous air force. And I was walking home one day having told Manfields. They offered me a job. Offered me a good job. I couldn’t go back. Couldn’t go back indoors. So, I was walking home along St George’s Avenue which was by the technical college and out shot one of the teachers who was my old teacher when I was at school. And he’d been an officer in the cadets. So I used to meet him at the odd dance at the Salon and whatnot. And he used to speak. So he said, ‘Hello,’ he said. Well I was demobbed. He said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve got a couple of hundred quid in the bank. I’ve got a couple of months leave and I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ I said, ‘I’m not going back to my old job although they said I could. It’s a waste of time. I’m not going back there.’ He said, ‘Well, why don’t you take up teaching?’ I said, ‘Well can I?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re a qualified instructor to start with.’ Which was better than a teaching diploma. He said, ‘And furthermore you were one of my bright lads,’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said. I said, ‘What do you do?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll get the papers and I’ll sign. I’ll recommend you. You’ll have to get another recommendation and get the papers filled in and then wait.’ Well, I did this. Within about a fortnight I was accepted. And they sat down, ‘You don’t need to be qualified. You can start straight away.’ I was teaching within a month. A class of my own in a school. Well, I had that for about eighteen months. Then I went to college then and then after a few years I got a headship. Then a bigger headship. And that was it. Twenty odd years ahead. I was a magistrate for twenty seven years in addition.
DK: Oh right.
JP: And all sorts of other things.
DK: So how, how do you look back on your time in Bomber Command now? How do you feel about it after seventy odd years?
JP: A bit of a joke. And, you know, the bombastic sort of people there. Well one wing commander. I was introduced. When we went back for my second tour they were crewing up from all over. And I was the one who had done most. I’d done a tour of ops. None of the others had. So, we went through, ‘Now, what have you done?’ I said, ‘Well, you can ask the others. Well, I’ve done a tour of ops.’ ‘You did what?’ I said, ‘A tour of ops.’ ‘On what aircraft?’ ‘Halifaxes.’ I learned afterwards he’d flown Halifaxes. And he tapped his chest, the bombastic bugger and said, ‘And didn’t you get one of these?’ I said, ‘No. My name didn’t come with a NAAFI ration.’ He went mad. ‘These have to be earned,’ he said [laughs] He didn’t like that and I didn’t like him. I had a big row with him later though. You see I missed out through being ill. Immediately afterwards for two to three weeks I wasn’t there and that was when things were being disposed of. I was told I was getting a gong. I didn’t get it.
DK: Oh really.
JP: I was also told, I went up for commission but didn’t get it. I think it had gone before that I’d had a row. When my brother was finally reported killed my mother was suicidal. And we were on then glider towing. Now, that half of England nothing was allowed out. No phone call. No letters. No anything. You were not allowed out if you were in that, in the forces because of the secrecy of it for D-Day. This went on for several weeks. Well, my father sent a pre-paid telegram. And mum, they knew I was back on ops because his friend in the Bournemouth had told him. He’d got a friend there. But didn’t know what ops. And of course she got the wind up. Thought it was like my brother. And then she was suicidal. And I didn’t know what to do. So he wrote and said, ‘Look, you must come home.’ So, I went to the wing commander. This bombastic devil. He didn’t think much of me and I didn’t think much of him anyway. I let it be known. So I sat I’m on my own [laughs] frequently. So anyway, he, he was there in the crew room surrounded by people. I said, ‘Look, it’s important. Could I have a forty eight hour pass?’ ‘Forty eight hour pass. Why?’ I said, ‘Well, my twin brother has finally been reported killed and my mother’s suicidal.’ ‘Well, what good can you do?’ I looked him up and down. I said, ‘I’ll bloody soon show you what good I can do,’ I said, ‘For one thing my MP will know. Another thing the Daily Mirror, which was the forces favourite, that will know. And another thing you will be on the bloody grass.’ He looked at me and I turned around and walked away. I took the forty eight hour pass. And when I was home my mother made me promise not to fly again. I was heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do. I mean I was on my own. I was no longer had to, got a mate. I’d been a loner. When he was missing I became a loner because I couldn’t, couldn’t gel.
DK: No.
JP: So I went back and I said, ‘Look. I’m not flying anymore.’ Well, the crew couldn’t understand it. They could understand but they knew why. The CO, well the CO was the one I’d had the row with. But the one below him, the squadron leader, he was a lovely bloke. He was a bit older and a bit more understanding. And he had a bit more authority really. He was long established. And so I used to have to report to him every day. He said, ‘Will you fly?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘Normally if they can’t fly they are stripped of their rank and that,’ he said, ‘Because you’ve done a tour of ops we feel we can’t do that to you but,’ he said, ‘Your crew is standing by.’ And D-Day was, turned out to be about a fortnight later. ‘Is waiting. And you’re one of the leading crews. But the crew can’t fly without you. So, at the moment the wing commander realises that he should not have said what he said. He hasn’t reported it. But Group want to know and they’ll have to.’ So anyway I was standing on my own in the navigator’s room just looking around. And nobody wanted to know me. I was a bloody pariah you know. And in comes this wing commander. And he looks me up and down. ‘Pragnell.’ ‘Yeah.’ No sir. I never called him sir again in my life. He said, ‘Well, I want to fly up to Wing.’ We thought he had a lady friend at Wing. Near Leighton Buzzard there. He used to go frequently. Perhaps it was a Group meeting. I don’t know. He says, ‘I want a crew.’ He said, ‘Will you fly?’ I looked him up and down. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Right,’ he said , ‘We’ll get a crew together,’ and so and so. So, I had to go round and get a gunner and a what’s the name and we flew him up there. I flew him up there. Got him there. I didn’t bother to navigate. I map read him up because I was good at that by then. I’d map read over France and very good at it. So anyway I got off for the sake of the other lad I got a proper course. Flew him back. We got back to Brize Norton. That was our headquarters. And he said, ‘I know where I am.’ So, ‘Right.’ So he flew back and dropped us off and I then went back in to my crew. And then came D-Day of course. So then very shortly after D-Day, now whether it was because I was more experienced as I was or whether he didn’t like me as I think it was I was taken out of my crew within, with several others. But whole crews. To form a new Conversion Unit up near Nottingham somewhere. To train for the Far East.
DK: Right.
JP: And we, well as soon as we got there the war virtually finished so we weren’t, we were posted all over the place then. So I was taken out. Not, with this other crew and flown up to this place to help form this unit. Well, we got together, did a bit of instructing but then the runways apparently wouldn’t take the weight of the bigger aircraft. So we moved to Saltby, which you probably know. Lincolnshire way.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We went there in convoy and I was given charge of a couple of lorries. A handful of erks and a lorry load of stuff to go down and went through Burton on Trent and through there. And I got relatives in Burton on Trent so, ‘We’ll have an hour here lads.’ So we stayed there and I went and saw my relatives and had a cup of tea with them and we went back in to Saltby. And I got the best billet. Well, that didn’t last long. We moved on again. We went to Marston Moor. We went somewhere else. That’s all in there where we went to. And we weren’t wanted. Because they’d got so many like us that had finished their ops they didn’t know what to do with them.
DK: No.
JP: They made lorry drivers and engine drivers out off of lots of them. And I got a lovely little number myself. I I got in to a department. Only a flight lieutenant and he was in charge of the bombing equipment and the distribution of it. And the bomb dump was absolutely full. Old wings, parts of engines, mechanical stuff. And it was brimming over. And he gave me the job with a lorry and a couple of erks who knew what they were doing, and a driver to go out each day. And they sorted out the pick of the stuff. Expensive metals. And we’d go to York every day. We’d drop this off. And go back there the next day. Marvellous time I had. And I, and there’s all sorts of things going. You know you couldn’t get coat hangers for love or money. Now, there was, hanging all around this room where the gas capes had been there were three coat hangers on each peg. Little did the flight lieutenant know. A bit later there were only two of these coat hangers on each peg. When he came to me one day, he said, ‘Oh, you can have a coat hanger.’ ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ All my mates had got coat hangers. Another time he came and said, ‘Well we’ve got so much stuff.’ They’d got farming equipment, barbed wire, these stakes that went in and the farmers were crying out for stuff. He said, ‘We’ve invited some of the local farmers to come and have some. So,’ he said, ‘Go and see to it.’ So I went up there and there were these farmers with their tractors. ‘Well, what can I have?’ ‘I don’t know. Have what you like.’ They were loading on the barbed wire and I came in for a lot of eggs that day. It was a lovely time. I was completely in charge of myself and nobody bothered me.
DK: But the stuff was being used. It was being used usefully on the farms though wasn’t it?
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Yeah. They were very friendly actually. The farmers. It was back up in Yorkshire of course see. Where I knew. All my flying. That was Linton on Ouse this was.
DK: Right.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. At the big one up there. But the rest of it was Pocklington and Elvington and Snaith. And my twin brother was Holme on Spalding Moor and Northallerton and around there. Yeah. It was in Northallerton that one of them took my tonsils out. That was a joke. He said, ‘Well, come on. You’ve got to go.’ So I had to get up and get dressed and I got an ambulance to take me. And it was the old ambulances. No sirens. It was ring bells. And everywhere we went for a bit of fun he rang the bell. And the people were lining the street. And when we got there he rang the bell. Pulled up. People were watching. And I climbed out [laughs] I saw life.
DK: Oh dear. Ok. Well that, that —
JP: Sorry to bore you but —
DK: No. That’s, that’s great. I’ll stop it there.
JP: Yeah.
DK: That’s been marvellous. Thanks, thanks very much for your time.
Other: When you’ve stopped it —
DK: Still going.
JP: Well, if you want to —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jack Pragnell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APragnellJ160526
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:02:19 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Training Command
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Pragnell and his twin brother Thomas volunteered together for the RAF and trained together. Jack flew operations as a bomb aimer with 51 Squadron. His brother joined a Canadian crew. Jack was plagued with health problems and was suddenly told his operation to have his tonsils removed would be taking place the next day. It was only during his convalescence that he realised just how the stress of operations had already affected him. His brother and his crew were shot down and killed which devastated Jack. After his tour he joined Training Command before joining 298 Squadron towing gliders.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
South Africa
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Dorset
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
102 Squadron
298 Squadron
51 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
fear
Halifax
Hamilcar
lack of moral fibre
RAF Pocklington
RAF Snaith
RAF Tarrant Rushton
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1046/11424/ANeedleR171004.1.mp3
039babd17b2f945723e0be063c79ba99
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
Needle, Ronald
R Needle
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ronald Needle (1925- 2019). He served as a rear gunner with 106 Squadron before his Lancaster crashed in France.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-28
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Needle, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Right, this is Gary Rushbrooke for the Bomber Command Association. I’m with Mr Ron Needle in Bourneville, Birmingham on the 4th of October 2017.
GR: So Ron, you were just telling me you were born in Birmingham.
RN: That’s right, yes, er I had a happy childhood because I was one of eleven children, but at one time there were ten of us living in the slums back to back house in Ladywood, Birmingham, and it was a two-bedroomed house with ten children and a pair of mum and dad. So you can imagine. [laugh]
GR: Where did, where did you come in the eleven, oldest, youngest?
RN: No, the fourth, fourth oldest
GR: Fourth oldest.
RN: Fourth oldest. But um, we, you know, there was no electric, no televisions, no telephones, no fridges, you, you had to go up the back yard to go to the boiler and take your turn to do your washing but then when I was twelve we moved to Northfield and er course it was such a contrast to house nothing but back to back houses and in Northfield there was gardens and a brook, and I called it God’s Country and to this day, and I’ve always lived near here, and luckily in Bourneville which is mainly Cadbury’s er you know I’ve lived here since I was twelve, that eighty year, I’ve lived here.
GR: Eighty years.
RN: Eighty years in this area. And um, luckily I had a damn good father.
GR: I was going to say what did your parents do, I mean.
RN: Well my father was er a postman sorter at Birmingham main post office and he was also President of the Post Office Union. But he was well respected because, unlike, dare I say, unlike today, my father looked after the men who were in the right. If a man was in the wrong whether he was a union member or not, then they had to be responsible. He would not stick up for a man who was in the wrong and I find that very different today.
GR: Yeah.
RN: So, but he was a wonderful father. He worked his damn socks off to keep us, and I’ve got nothing but respect for him. But then when I was fourteen I was staying in the gar, I was in the garden at Northfield during the war, and I saw a German plane climb very low and it was obviously a reconnaissance plane. It didn’t try to shoot at us but I obviously guessed he’d taken photographs of the Austin Aero and the factory there at Longbridge
GR: Yes.
RN: So that made me determined to join aircrew. So when I was
GR: So you was about four-fourteen when war broke out.
RN: War broke out, yes
GR: Ah yeah.
RN: And when I was seventeen I was working on the Stirling bombers and of course it was a
GR: When you say working what did you?
RN: I was a fitter.
GR: Right
RN: I was a fitter on the Stirling bomber, but then they decided it was out of date and we were all made redundant, and I went down to the Labour Exchange because at that time
GR: So when you say, sorry, so when you say
RN: It’s all right, No, on you go
GR: When you was working on the Stirling, was that, you weren’t in the RAF then
RN: Oh no, no, I was a civilian,
GR: Doing
RN: Civilian, helping to fit the sheets around the aircraft, the iron up sheets.
GR: So you was actually working in one of the factories
RN: Oh yes,
GR: Making
RN: Stirling bombers
GR: Stirling bombers.
RN: And then when we was made redundant I went to Selly Oak Labour Exchange and the man said ‘Oh, you’ve got to work down the mines’ and I said, ‘I don’t want that’ [emphasis] and he said, ‘Well it’s that or the Forces’. I said, ‘Well that’s what I want – the Forces’, and lo and behold, he found me a nice little job, in Birmingham. And then when I was seventeen and a half, and had to sign up, my Manager said ‘Ron, we’re doing specialist work, so don’t sign’ he said, ‘and you won’t have to go in the Forces.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir. I’ll go sir’. But when I went to the RAF recruiting office I volunteered [laugh] straight away for aircrew and then I became an air gunner and a rear gunner.
GR: So, obviously, you yeah you signed up, they called you up.
RN: They called me up. I started off at St John’s Wood.
GR: Yeah.
RN: I’d just had my
GR: Lord’s cricket ground.
RN: That’s right. I’d just had my hair cut but the two NCOs said ‘Get your hair cut airman’ [laugh]. So although I’d had my hair cut it didn’t meet the RAF standards. [laugh] I’ll always remember that. What interested me more than anything in the RAF [cough] was there was a Canadian who was, liked to gamble, and I didn’t, I couldn’t afford to gamble to be honest, but I always remember, er he lost a lot of money, and he turned round and said to the lad who owe, who won the money, it’s double or quits, and he kept doing it till he won. And from that moment on, I’ve never [emphasis] bet on cards.
GR: Ah.
RN: Because I thought that was a nasty thing to do. He kept up.
GR: Yeah.
RN: Anyway, um
GR: Having said that, I’m sitting next to a pack of cards!
RN: Yeah, I play crib!
GR: Okay, yes. [laugh]
RN: I play crib [cough]. And then um,
GR: So what was the training like?
RN: The training was good, er,
GR: What did you want to be when you joined?
RN: I wanted to be a rear gunner.
GR: So that was a bit fair
RN: I um, I mentioned it right away, mind you I er, I’d only had an elementary education, but I did well at school to be truthful, erm, but um, no I wanted to be an air gunner. And when I went to Stormy Downs in South Wales on the gunnery course er I met up with a chap who we agreed he would be the mid upper gunner and I would be the rear gunner, but [laugh] when we, er, finished our course, they asked us if we give our names to who we wanted to go with, which we did. But, when we got to the OTU they’d split us all up, and I can understand that now, they split us all up so although you’d put your name down to go with someone, then you wasn’t with him at all it was a stranger. But luckily I was with a chappie who agreed to be the mid upper gunner, I the rear gunner, and we got crewed up ah, and a strange thing happened, we were on training exercises and the navigator would call out, ‘Righto Skipper, change course to 163’, and the pilot would say: ‘I’ll [emphasis] tell you when I’ve to change course’. And then the bomb aimer would say, ‘Righto skipper, ready for bombing’, ‘I’ll [emphasis] tell you when you’re ready for bombing’. So when we landed, the crew
GR: This is, this is all at training
RN: Yes, we decided that we didn’t want to fly with the pilot. So we saw the Squadron Leader and in charge of the camp and we were, we told him our fears, our problem and we had another pilot come, named Jim Scott, from Scotland! Lovely man, and he saved my life, twice. Because once we were training, as funny enough a Stirling bomber, and we flew into cumulus cloud. Well, some clouds have got very strong winds, updrafts of wind, and we got caught in the updraught of wind and the plane went out of control! The pilot managed to regain control but the plane was shaking and I thought it was going to fall to bits. So we managed to land on an emergency landing. But, [emphasis] the next day three of the crew, the mid upper gunner, the wireless operator and the navigator backed out of flying. So we had to have three new members.
GR And how did you feel about that?
RN Well, I told myself, I wasn’t, funny enough, I never ever [emphasis] thought I was going to die, I must have been crazy. But I thought, how can I give up flying and my parents would be ashamed of me and that was I suppose the real reason why I carried on, but I don’t know whether that’s the truth or not because
GR [Cough] So them three that decided they didn’t want to fly were they just taken away from training or what?
RN Yes, I don’t know what happened ‘em,
GR: They just disappeared.
RN: I did find out, and I’m not going to give details because it’s a man.
GR: No, no. Yes,
RN: But my daughter did find out that the mid upper gunner er lived to be in his eighties,
GR: Right.
RN: But I never got in touch with him.
GR: No.
RN: Never got in touch with him, but er as I say, I won’t mention names.
GR: No, no, no.
RN: But then as I say, er we did eleven ops, one of which was er Munich.
GR: Tell me about your first op.
RN: Oh, the first op
GR: Cause that was the first, because obviously then you’d you’d done your training and then you were sent to 106 Squadron.
RN: Yes that’s right.
GR: Where were they based?
RN: Er Metheringham in Lincoln
GR: Metheringham, so. Right
RN: Metheringham so,
RN: Metheringham
GR: Tell us how you felt about that, going to Metheringham.
RN: Oh, I felt delighted. In fact when we walked into the Nissen Hut you know there was nice beds there, with sheets and two fires, and Jim, and er, the wireless operator turned round and said “Looks everybody’s flak happy [laugh] one of the crew, one of the crew who was in there, said you’d be bloody flak happy if we’ve been shot at and I always remember that but anyway it was, I was happy, I was doing what I wanted to do. I don’t say I wasn’t frightened, I was scared, because I’m going to be truthful, on one occasion, we were briefed to go to to Berlin and I knew at that time it was a very very bad operation.
GR: Yeah.
RN: Because of the losses that we knew about, but when he turned round, the Squadron Leader turned round, and said we were going to Berlin, a big cheer went up. I didn’t cheer, because I was really afraid. I was, I was frightened. The first time I was ever frightened of going on an operation. But we went out to the planes, ready for take off and then a message came through ‘Return to the briefing room.’ And when we went back to the briefing room, the Squadron Leader said, ‘Sorry chaps the operation is cancelled,’ and the cheer that went up then.
GR: You cheered then.
RN: I did, yes. I did.
GR: [Laugh] So what was your first operation, where can you remember where that was
RN: Yes I think it was the Dortmund Ems canal
GR: Oh right
RN: And er. we went there two or three times because it was obviously a way for the Germans to move the troops and materials.
GR: Yes
RN: Armaments But I always remember it because it was very cloudy, and we had to come under the clouds to bomb, and when we dropped the bombs, a few seconds later when they landed, the aircraft shook [laugh] because we was that low.
GR: You were low down
RN: Low down. But that was the one that er, but as I say I said to my granddaughter oh ‘bout twelve months ago, I know it sounds crazy but never once did I think I was going to die, never. The thought never entered my head. I was afraid, you know. I, whenever the bomb aimer said ‘bombs away’, I was always thinking good, now we can go home!
GR: Let’s go back
RN: Yeah. But um, I went on a few ops, you know, we went to Norway, France marshalling yards, um, Aalburg, just outside of Hamburg, um, Munich twice, but on the second time we went to Munich, er, we dropped our bombs, and I wasn’t too concerned because the first time there wasn’t much flak, no enemy fighters, and er when the bomb aimer said ‘bombs away‘ I thought ‘great we’re going home now,’ but suddenly the plane went out of control and what had happened, we’d nearly collided with one of our own aircraft. The plane went out of control so much so that the crew tried to bail out and ditched the escape hatch. And of course, being January,
GR: So out of the plane was out of control.
RN: Yes. I was
GR: Was it spiralling down or
RN: Spiralling down, well, yes,
GR: Yes.
RN: Spiralling down, but luckily the pilot, a wonderful pilot, managed to regain control. But
GR: But nobody had bailed out?
RN: Nobody had bailed out, but the escape hatch had gone and icy cold air was coming into the aircraft so, he immediately called me up and said would I vacate my turret and give my gloves to the navigator so that he could plot a course, to near Paris, for the emergency aerodrome. But then I was sitting in the back
GR: Was the aircraft flyable then?
RN: Oh yes,
GR: It was okay
RN: Oh yes, the only thing wrong with the aircraft, we were flying blind and the esc and no escape hatch. Because icy air was flying in,
GR: Right
RN: The machine. And then the pilot called up the mid upper gunner and said er ‘Mid upper gunner, can you see the deck yet?’
GR: So where were you, sorry Ron, so where, so you’ve come out your turret
RN: I’d come out my turret
GR: Where were you sat or what were you doing?
RN: That’s it, I was sat on the Elsan! [laugh] OK Margaret.
[Other] – I’ll just put this away [whisper] sorry, sorry see you next week
RN: See you next week.
[Other]: Bye.
GR: Right.
NR: Yes. We were, you know, in the area of [pause] still near the German border.
GR: Yes, er sorry we’ve just interrupted but. So, you’ve come out of the rear turret
RN: Yeah, so I’m sat on the Elsan at the back,
GR: Yes.
RN: Plugged in the intercom and was waiting to hear what was going on, and then the the pilot called up the mid upper gunner and said ‘Mid upper gunner can you see the deck yet?’ And without any panic, the mid upper gunner said ‘Yes skipper, it’s right below us.’ The skipper’s response was, ‘It can’t be, [emphasis] we’re at four thousand feet.’ But we weren’t. The altimeter must have been giving a false reading, because suddenly I felt myself being pushed forward and went unconscious for hours. When I came to, the plane was on fire, and I’d, I’d been unconscious for hours but I managed to, dis - my harness had saved my life so I managed to press the button, release my harness, fell to the floor, but I’d broke my leg, punctured my lung and dislocated my right arm.
GR: So what had happened?
NR: Well I’d obviously it’d I had pull I’d gone forward and hitting the mid upper turret but my harness had got caught on the fuselage and pulled me back.
GR: So I know you told me earlier, but basically the plane, the Lancaster, you all thought you were at four thousand feet, but you were at ground level and it crashed.
NR: It crashed in a forest.
GR: Crashed straight in.
RN: In on a hill in occupied allied occupied France.
GR: Right.
NR: Near the German border.
GR: Yeah.
RN: And er I lay there for hours because this was just turned eight o’clock at night. Day broke the next morning, I was still lying there waiting for people to come, and then I heard bells ringing from a church.
GR: So you’re inside the aircraft.
NR: Yeah.
GR: Yes.
NR: No, managed to get out of the aircraft.
GR: Oh sorry.
NR: I open the door, crawled out of the aircraft.
GR: Was there anybody with you?
NR: No no I was on my own.
GR: Right.
RN: All on my own, because Harry he he was saved because said he had a feeling we were going to crash and he held on to the spar, you know near the Perspex astrodome.
GR: Yes.
RN: And that melted actually melted on to him and he got out, he was badly burnt but luckily only on skin deep and he escaped early because he wasn’t unconscious. So I didn’t know he was alive and he didn’t know I was alive and then,
GR: And at the time, I know you’ve already told me, but the rest of the crew were killed.
RN: Five of the crew were killed.
GR: But you didn’t know this at that time.
RN: No no.
GR: So, you, you’ve come round, you’re in the aircraft, sorry, you’re outside, you didn’t know where you was, what’d happened.
RN: No. And then it, suddenly I heard bells ringing from a church. So I thought, sounds near, so I crawled out of the forest in the direction of the bells, and lay by a tree on a, in a field, and I shouted for help and within minutes I saw three people running towards me, one of who I found out later was the bell ringer. So I was taken to the Mayor’s house, who who looked after me, till the ambulance came and again, luckily for me, there was a hospital three mile away at a place called Commercery in France with American personnel running the hospital. They looked after me, and gave me doses of penicillin but er, because I got gangrene, that’s what, well it turned to gangrene
GR: So your right leg .
RN: Yeah, my right leg.
GR: Which had broke, frostbite, gangrene had set in.
RN: Yeah, so they took half me foot away.
GR: While you were still in at the
RN: Still in France yeah,
GR: Right.
RN: We’d gone. Then we they sent me back to England on a hospital train and then when I got to England I went to a place, RAF Hospital in Swindon and eventually I had to have my leg off below the knee but and it was okay, So luckily. [emphasis] Again, I repeat this word luck, because I think life is all about luck.
GR: Yes.
RN: I was lucky I was,
GR: When did you actually find out that the rest of the crew hadn’t made it?
RN: Oh at when I was in the American hospital.
GR: Yeah.
RN: And, cause that was when they told me that Harry was safe, he’d, he’d escaped, and er as I say he crawled out on to the aircraft body and er he found his way to a sheep hut in the middle of the village and er someone came with a pitchfork, thought he was a German. But he made them realise he was he was English, and they looked after him, same as me. I was well looked after. The French looked after me. I’ve got nothing but admiration, in fact I became good friends, as I say 43 years afterwards my brother-in-law turned round and said ‘Ron, come on, we’re going to find this village where you crashed.’ And I remember going to the village, asking a young lady who happened to be Andre’s daughter-in-law if she could speak English. She said a little, but she didn’t understand. But again I was lucky, she took me to a hou- bungalow two hundred yards away cause it was only a little village, and the woman there could speak perfect English, in fact she was an interpreter for the American Armed Forces during the war. [laugh] So again became good friends and she sent her husband Guy, er who was a prisoner of war in Germany, to deliver it, who spoke to Andre and a few minutes later Andre came up in his truck and er when he saw me he put his arms round me and hugged me, made a fuss of me, and he when he went up to his house. This is important, he went to his larder and he brought out a cake tin which he’d made from the Lancaster bomber, the salvage, the bomber. So Reg, my brother-in-law had it engraved with 106 Squadron, 5 Group, Metheringham, details of the crash and we took it back to Andre. When Andre saw it he claimed it, went to the larder and brought out another cake tin, and gave me that, so Reg, my brother-in-law, had it engraved in French, so we then we done a swap. So Andre had erm a cake tin which was engraved with the French details and I had a one with in English.
GR: Have you still got it?
RN: Well, my daughter’s got it over in Bedford.
GR: Oh that’s lovely.
RN: O yes, oh yes, she’s got it alright.
GR: So going back to the hospital erm, this would be round about March, April, May 1945?
RN: Correct.
GR: Yeah.
RN: Yeah that’s right.
GR: How long was you in hospital for in England?
RN: Well, on and off um because of the different, the gangrene, taking a long time, er it was about 5 months.
GR: Right.
RN: But it was er way into November [emphasis] before I had an artificial leg. But um, well I was lucky, I managed to run and dance and play golf.
GR: So I, I presume then you were released from the RAF.
RN: Yes, yes.
GR: Yes.
RN: And I did say, I’ve gotta get, one thing about being old you can tell the truth, I do remember telling well the, some of the officers who came to interview, that I didn’t want to fly again, and I didn’t. It was true, I didn’t want to fly again. Erm you know, because of what had happened to me. But er nothing was said or done. I was discharged, on a discharge.
GR: What did you do after the war Ron?
RN: Well I was, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Bendix washing machine?
GR: Yes.
RN: But I the firm I worked for was making washing machines.
GR: As an engineer, or
RN: No I went as a progress clerk.
GR: Right.
RN: And again, it was the happiest days of my life. I can still remember nearly all the part numbers of the panels, the motors and all the integral parts even now, and I loved it and again, I suppose I was lucky because one week we didn’t reach the target and my manager turned round to the superintendent and asked him to fiddle the records to say that we had achieved the target. [Cough] But my superintendent turned round and said ‘Right our Ron, we’ll give him the, what he wants but I’m going to send one to the Chairman and the others with the correct details.’ Now, I know I’m right, I know in my heart I’m right. I didn’t like that, I thought, you know, you can’t, you can’t give the Chairman the correct details and the manager the wrong details. So I did tell the manager and er I wasn’t ashamed of it, I told him what what had happened and he turned round to the super and he says ‘I’m accepting what you said, we’ll just issue the right details.’ So, I was pleased about that. But I tell you that little story because, I’m sure he recommended me to be promoted to the buying office.
GR: Ah right.
RN: So er and then I was asked to take over the stores which I did. And I enjoyed it, but er the happiest job I ever had without a doubt was as progress clerk. It wasn’t you know, was well paid, but um I was just happy doing it.
GR: Yes. And I, I have to ask because you were waiting for me at the door when I came up and I didn’t know you had a, obviously a false leg, it’s not been a hindrance to you, or?
RN: Well, only in later life
GR: Yeah.
RN: Only twelve months ago.
GR: Well you look well when I came, Ron. [laugh]
RN: Well, that’s the medication
GR: Yeah
NR: The medication is great oh its er
GR: But since the war, the last sixty seventy years it’s not stopped you doing anything?
RN: No, no.
GR No.
RN It’s only in the last couple of three years
GR Yeah
RN But er I started to lose me balance which you do when you’re old.
GR: Which you do as you get older.
RN: when you get old.
GR: Yeah.
RN: But other than that, great.
GR: Oh that’s good, that’s good. And I know you mentioned Harry, who was the other survivor.
RN: Yes.
GR: And I know he passed away a few years ago.
RN: Well, Harry er he married a girl from Barrow-in-Furness. He came from Brighton and er they decided to emigrate, so they adopted a child and went to New Zealand. Unfortunately his wife, Winnie died, in New Zealand, so he came back, to England. So I, I met him at Southampton, and er driving back to Birmingham and then I drove him to Barrow to er see his sister-in-law, but then the next thing I knew, a few months later, he married a girl in Sheffield and er I was in we was we was in touch all the while and er eventually unfortunately, his wife died and then um because of our age, Harry died.
GR: Yeah. What was Harry’s surname?
RN: Stunnell, Harry Stunnell.
GR: Stunnell.
RN: Yeah, he’s mentioned in the book of course, but er we were good friends, We were obviously we got something special happen to us, which bonded us together.
GE: Were the crew, were the other five members of the crew buried in France?
RN: Yes indeed.
GR: Yes.
RN: In fact I’ve been to the cemetery.
GR: That I was going to ask if you’d been.
RN: Yeah, oh yes, I’m glad you asked that Gary because the name of the cemetery was C H O L O Y and in fact I though it was [sounded] shaloy but in French it’s [sounded] Shalois. Shalois. But, er yes. Andre the er bell ringer, two or three times, he took me to the cemetery and I saw all the graves of the crew and others, and I even met the gardener who’s main job was to look after the cemetery and er you know yes, it was nice, it was nice to er, to see it.
GR: Like you’ve said, you’ve said a couple of times I think, because you didn’t know you were going to crash, cause obviously crews er the pilot said get ready to crash land.
RN: That’s right.
GR: Brace yourself.
RN: That’s right
GR: The pilots looking for somewhere to land, this came completely out the blue.
RN: Oh yes,
GR: You knew you were in a bit of trouble but didn’t realise you were that low.
RN: And of course, the pilot was going by his instruments.
GR: Yeah, And he wouldn’t have known nothing.
RN: Yeah so at least on my consolation is, that they died within seconds.
GR: Yeah.
RN No Didn’t suffer no, so, that I know that sounds bad.
GR Suffer. No, no it’s not bad at all it’s erm.
RN Well that’s briefly the life I had. I was married er I had a lovely wife.
GR: Married after the war I presume?
RN: Yes um, I was married at the end of er November in 45 and I had two daughters and a son and the two daughters even today spoil me rotten.
GR: And so they should [laugh]
RN: Well, [laugh] unfortunately my son died with cancer, but um no, I’ve had a good life, I’ve keep using this word lucky, but well I have been a lucky person, I have been a lucky person, and still am.
GR: Yeah. Lucky, but good. Good yeah. Ron has kindly donated his book “Saved by the Bell”, erm, which the the University can use to take bits out etc, I’ll just switch off. That was lovely thank you Ron.
RN: I have sent one to the University of Lincoln.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ronald Needle
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gary Rushbrooke
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ANeedleR171004
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:30:37 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Ron Needle, from Birmingham, flew operation as a rear gunner on 106 Squadron Lancasters at Metheringham. Operations included Norway, Dortmund Ems Canal and Munich; he was one of two survivors after his aircraft crashed in France. Ron was aided by local villagers in Choloy and treated by American doctors. Repatriated to England, his lower leg had to be amputated and he was discharged from the RAF. Ron married and had three children. He returned to France, visiting the villagers who helped him and the graves of his crew.
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--Lincolnshire
France--Meurthe-et-Moselle
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
106 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
crash
crewing up
fear
final resting place
heirloom
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Metheringham
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1027/11399/PMcVickersCG1701.2.jpg
e63e360b9d8c44c497cd07bf38ac604f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1027/11399/AMcVickersCG171006.1.mp3
e70c5002647526a9e94ca6d62c386bfe
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
McVickers, Christopher George
C G McVickers
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Christopher George McVickers (1922 - 2018, 1042135 Royal Air Force), his log book identity card and disks and his decorations. He completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 218 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christopher McVickers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-06
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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McVickers, CG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: Right. This is an interview for the International Bomber Command.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Digital Archive between Harry Bartlett, representing the Archive and Christopher George McVickers who was a member of 218 Gold Coast Squadron and served throughout the war in —
CM: Well —
HB: With 218.
CM: ’41.
HB: From 1941 through and served after the war through to 1965.
CM: ’67.
HB: Thank you. I was wrong.
CM: Well —
HB: I have.
CM: Don’t forget I wasn’t flying for the last eighteen months. I was just, I was a missile controller.
HB: Right. Right. So, Kit isn’t it?
CM: Kit.
HB: We call you Kit.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Right. Where you were born, Kit?
CM: Blackhill, County Durham.
HB: Right. And did you go to school at Blackhill?
CM: I’ve no recollection of ever going to school.
HB: No.
CM: I forgot about it. I went to school quite obviously.
HB: Obviously.
CM: Went to school at Benfieldside.
HB: Aye. And, and your first job was in —
CM: Errand boy.
HB: Yeah. In the —
CM: As you did in those days. This was, I’m talking 1935 ’36 you know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Did up to fourteen.
HB: So you were an errand boy.
CM: I failed the eleven plus.
HB: Right.
CM: But it wasn’t — I had a broken arm during that period and also went to hospital with scarlet fever during that period.
HB: Right.
CM: When I came back to school because obviously the sickness thing. And the eleven plus was pending, I couldn’t do it at the time.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because I couldn’t sit at the desk like that.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So I missed all the revision and everything else. So, they all said, you’d have no chance with that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I took, I took it privately. By myself.
HB: Oh right.
CM: Just with my arm out of the, just like that. So consequently I didn’t know how to pick my pen up or to write.
HB: Aye.
CM: So I made a mess of it and I failed it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So there was a lot of talk about it at the time. Jane knows all about this. And my father made such a fuss of this. ‘My son has never had a chance. He’s had no chance. No revision. Nothing at all.’ Sat down with his arm out of his sling and taking an important — so that’s, but at that time they did their very best.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But they couldn’t do anything about it.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So you just —
CM: I was going to pass the eleven plus but I didn’t due to circumstances.
HB: Yeah. So you became an errand boy.
CM: Yeah. I was. I won’t say I was a very humble errand boy but I was the best errand boy in the locality.
HB: Yes. Absolutely. And you went to the steelworks I understand.
CM: Yes. My father, my father’s brother Kit who was the, as I said was general secretary of the Iron, Steel, British Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades Association. So he had so much power he could say to me, ‘It’s your sixteenth birthday coming up Kit lad.’ Kit lad. He said Kit lad. He said, ‘Just report to the timekeeper and say you’re Uncle Kit sent you,’ he said, ‘You’ll be set on.’ So I thought, My God, this is nepotism but in a fine sort of way but that’s how I got the steelworks.
HB: And that was at, that was in Consett.
CM: Within two years of course, those were ’36 ’37 then the war broke out and instead of being, doing, on the staff of the steelworks which I was they said, ‘Ok. We’re going to need all the best men we’ve got to man, man the furnaces,’ because a lot of the people on the furnaces had been, were Territorials and they’d been called up anyway. So semi promotion was not only I was going to be boy plus beyond boy to the eighteen year old man. Man’s, man’s business. So suddenly I got promotion beyond the dreams of avarice.
HB: Oh lovely.
CM: But the only fault of it was the timekeepers thought these were boys and they’d be boy labourers. Therefore, they must pay boy labourers wages. So about three months later Kit said to me, he said, ‘How are you spending all the extra money Kit lad?’ And all I was getting was, I said, ‘Well, I’m not getting any extra money.’ I’m getting boy’s labourers wages. He said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Just stay here. Don’t move from that place for ten minutes.’ And off he went to see the, not the commanding officer —
HB: No.
CM: The general service manager. You know, the boss. Came back and said, ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘You’ll get all the backpay you get at full men’s wages. Not only that it’s all the people who’ve been doing the same thing as you. They’ll get the same thing. Well, I was the most popular chap in the steelworks. By this time it was quite a lump sum between boy’s labourers wages and men’s labourers wages.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Anyway, I did pretty well because leaving school at fourteen didn’t make much difference. I had the intelligence then in the first place. Which I would, that’s why my father said I would have been a cert for the grammar school.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I had the grammar school brains without the grammar qualifications.
CM: That’s —
HB: So I did alright.
HB: So that was up to, that was sort of ’37 ’38.
CM: That’s right. Well —
HB: So, so, how, how did you come to join the RAF?
CM: It was 1941 before I joined the Air Force.
HB: Yeah.
CM: By that time I was nineteen.
HB: Yeah. And did you, did you volunteer Kit?
CM: Oh yeah. Yeah. They wouldn’t let you go unless you volunteered.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And you had to be, you had to volunteer for either submarines or aircrew or some other damned dangerous job.
HB: Yeah.
CM: They wouldn’t let you go otherwise. They wouldn’t let you go just to be an ordinary soldier.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: You know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: You’re more important then to be manning the furnaces.
HB: Yeah. So, so it was so you basically you were in a Reserved Occupation.
CM: Oh, that’s right. Yes, I was. Yes.
HB: And then to —
CM: Like Kit. Like Kit himself.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: The boss. And the boss of the steelworks. They were all Reserved Occupation.
HB: Yeah. So you then went from Reserved Occupation and you volunteered for aircrew.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Right.
CM: But if it had been anything other than aircrew they would said no.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Back to where you were more useful.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Which I was by then. I was an experienced furnaceman. A fourth. There a fourth hand, third hand, second hand and first hand. You know, four men manned the furnaces. So you progressed from fourth hand to first hand but it took you about forty years to do it.
HB: Yeah. Oh yeah.
CM: The SiC turn system. [unclear] was in operation.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So —
CM: Organised by my Uncle Kit.
HB: Yeah. So you come and join the RAF. And you obviously had to go for your [pause] you obviously had to go for your training. Where did, where did you go for your training?
CM: First three months was Blackpool.
HB: That’s —
CM: General service training.
HB: Yeah.
CM: You know, square bashing.
HB: Was that at Padgate?
CM: No. That was at Blackpool.
HB: At Blackpool.
CM: Yeah. Blackpool.
HB: Right and —
CM: And from there to Yatesbury.
HB: You went to Yatesbury.
CM: Yeah. But, well say Yatesbury. In actual fact it was a branch of Compton Bassett which was the Ground Radio School. Yatesbury was the Air Radio School.
HB: Ah. Right.
CM: You went to the Ground Radio School because we weren’t going straight on to be at the air gunner’s course. There was a bit of backlog so we went in —
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
CM: Graduated as wireless operators at this station. I was supposed to get to Anglesey but there wasn’t flying there.
HB: Oh right.
CM: But they had a small station that was there to get experience of this.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Just general wireless operating which stood me in good stead because by the time we really got to the squadron, you know, I was an experienced wireless op.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Not only just getting practice but doing the real thing.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But that made me a pretty good wireless operator to start with, with the experience I had.
HB: Oh right. So that —
CM: So —
HB: So you progressed through that training.
CM: That’s right.
HB: In ’41.
CM: That’s right. And then I was doing these stints at various units and then eventually I was called back. This time to Yatesbury to do what they called the refresher course. Six weeks.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Refreshers. Getting, you know the last time that we were nineteen year old nincompoops. They said — we’d better give them a bit more of a refresher.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That was good.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because I found that I learned more in the six week refresher course than I’d learned for the whole three months before. Getting it again. Because by that time —
HB: Yeah.
CM: I knew what I was all about.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I could take it in better. So, as I said I came and graduated as a W/op AG at [pause] we didn’t do any flying at the gunnery school. It was at a ground gunnery school only because at that time, 1943 the losses, the losses were so great they wanted people desperately at the squadrons. And that’s where I got a, I did a —
HB: Yeah.
CM: I was a w/op AG without doing the air gunnery course. But I still wore a gunner’s brevet because I’d been trained as a ground gunner. That’s, they just cut the courses short.
HB: Yeah.
CM: At that time.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So, I graduated in June, 2nd of June 1943 as a w/op ag. Wireless operator/air gunner.
HB: Air gunner. Yeah. Right. So in [pause] you end up in 1943 in, at the OTU at Ossington.
CM: That’s right.
HB: That’s obviously where you start, start your proper flying and wireless operating.
CM: That’s right. With Sergeant Topham.
HB: Yeah.
CM: As my captain. But he couldn’t, when he went to the Lancaster finishing, the Stirling OTU. What did they call it? Heavy Conversion Unit.
HB: Yeah.
CM: When we eventually got there we realised that Johnny Topham, even though he was a wonderful man. He was an ex-police, police sergeant from Newcastle he picked me because I was an ex-errand boy from Consett.
HB: From Durham. County Durham. Yeah.
CM: But he couldn’t fly a — he couldn’t land a Stirling. Stirlings are very very difficult aircraft to land because they’re high up.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I can show you a photograph of a Stirling, you know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: A hell of a, if you fell out the cockpit of a Stirling you’d kill yourself.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It’s so high.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And he couldn’t land the Stirling. Very difficult to judge the distance.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because of this huge electrical undercarriage and everything.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Very difficult to gauge. Two or three feet as you circle, bang down with a hell of a — break the undercarriage. So you had to be really a skilful, have the feel to start with and Johnny couldn’t do it.
HB: Right.
CM: So he had to go by the board. He went to Lancaster Finishing School and got away with another crew and did a tour of operations.
HB: Right. So, so —
CM: Nevertheless, I went, we got Johnny, with Johnny Lloyd who was an ex-instructor.
HB: Ah right. So that’s, that’s the Lloyd that appears in the operational record.
CM: That’s right.
HB: With you. Oh right. So, it says in your logbook you just, perhaps you can explain it to me it says OTU satellite Bircotes.
CM: That’s right. In each of these OTUs they always had a spare. For diversions and things like that. And sometimes you’d be stationed at the satellite because it was more convenient. To take more, more aircraft in the air. More people going through. So Bircotes was a small grass field right almost just on the edge of Bircotes mining village.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
CM: So but there was a lot of juggling about there with pilots like Johnny Topham I’ve just been telling you about and other people like that. John Lloyd, the other bloke too, he went LMF as well. So it was branded as a kind of a jerky sort of tour.
HB: Yeah.
CM: You went to. You see it followed through the worst thing. I’d be a long time in the squadron with Johnny Lloyd and of course every time he took us he took us fly us he took us, he could fly a Stirling, every time he took us to it he could [unclear] with it. They thought was great. We thought was great actually to have a captain who could fling a Stirling around the sky as if he’d been born and bred to it. But of course the authorities didn’t like it. They wanted to be trained in the orthodox sort of way.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So my passes to these sort of things is varied, many and varied.
HB: Yeah. I don’t know if you can remember this, Kit as just an interesting little note in here. September the 4th 1943. You’re with Sergeant Topham as the pilot.
CM: That’s right. Johnny Topham.
HB: And you’re doing a, you’re in a Wellington.
CM: That’s right.
HB: And you’re doing a cross country test.
CM: Yes.
HB: Routine test. And it says in here that you couldn’t maintain your height.
CM: That’s right.
HB: So what happened?
CM: Crashed at, crashed at Catfoss. Doesn’t it, doesn’t it mention crashing at Catfoss?
HB: Yeah. Yeah. It does.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Yeah. So, so what? You just hit the ground and slid.
CM: Well, we were coming in to land. The communication wasn’t very good. But he had got to the air traffic control that we were coming in to land because he had lost, lost an engine. He couldn’t maintain height. But when we approached the runway there was a Beaufort, a Beaufort. At Catfoss was Beauforts. It was a Coastal Command station.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And he’s on the end of runway. So what can we do? We had to get down because the aircraft wouldn’t make it. It wouldn’t have got off the other side.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Only one engine and that engine was derated.
HB: Ah.
CM: It was derated and therefore it was not, they couldn’t put us off anyway. In spite of the fact the engine was, and we’d lost one altogether they’re going to crash anyway. So at the very end of the runway Johnny was trying to get over the Beaufort that was standing at the end of the runway who obviously wasn’t aware what was coming in behind. Just at the last minute he just kind of boosted over the Beaufort and hit the ground but then that lifted pretty well high up. Then when we landed this time hit too hard, undercarriage split and we crashed in to —
HB: Slid down.
CM: That’s it.
HB: Anybody hurt?
CM: No. Of course with the Wellington when it crashes on the ground you can’t get out.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
CM: Did you know that?
HB: Yeah.
CM: You get in through the nose.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And that goes straight against the ground. So they’d got a screened, a screened navigator basically standing beside me in the astrodome. And he undid, I wouldn’t have known about this, he undid the four screws under the astrodome and just on the approach he knew. He knew what he was doing. He was going to make an escape hatch to start with before we even got down.
HB: Right.
CM: And he put us down. He says, ‘You’re going out there.’ The only snag is that when we hit I was knocked arse over t [laughs] and I was lost. But the navigator he hung on. He was experienced. He hung on and he was the first out. And when the others would have got out the same, the pilot got through the cockpit.
HB: Aye. Aye.
CM: Which took a lot of time to take in. Of course I was hit in the back and I strolled out of the, from underneath the astrodome and I heard the navigator say, ‘The w/ops still in there. The w/ops still in there.’ Because expecting the Wellingtons are notorious burners.
HB: Aye.
CM: Experienced. And then one of the, one of the brave members of my crew got in. I’ve forgotten his name, what it was now. But he was the chap and he hooked me out. He sort of picked me up and pushed me through the astrodome.
HB: Right. That’s —
CM: And I can’t, looking back I can’t ever remember thanking that chap.
HB: No.
CM: I was so shocked that they did that. That Kit McVickers was involved in this crash. I couldn’t get over it. But I can’t ever, I may have done. I think I should have done through my background and training.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But I can’t ever remember saying. Look [pause] I can’t even remember his name.
HB: And that was just a, and that was just a routine training flight.
CM: That’s right. That’s right.
HB: At night. A night time one.
CM: I was very pleased of course that the crew were around me.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The most wonderful men. But then again all the crews I’ve ever had. They were all wonderful men.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So then you moved on to the Conversion Units at Chedburgh and Wratting Common.
CM: That’s right.
HB: And that, and was that when, that was when you moved to Stirlings was it? From the Wellingtons?
CM: That’s right.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. Oh, I see what you mean. Yes. Yeah. Topham was, Topham was your, was your pilot nearly all the way through there. And then [pause] it’s alright. I’m just, I’ve turned two pages in your logbook here. At Stradishall is where you joined up or you occasionally flew with Lloyd. What, what was his name? What was his name?
CM: What? Whose? What was —
HB: Lloyd. The pilot. Lloyd. What was his name? His full name.
CM: Just on Stirlings.
HB: No. On, yeah, Stirlings. Yeah.
CM: Well, first of all there was Johnny Topham.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And then Johnny. Johnny Lloyd. Both Johnny’s.
HB: They were both Johnny.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Right. So you, so then you pick up with Johnny Lloyd at Stradishall.
CM: That’s right.
HB: And you, and you do your training there and then you’re posted to 218 Squadron at Woolfox Lodge.
CM: Woolfox Lodge. Yeah. The best station I’ve ever been on.
HB: Right
CM: Right on the Great North Road.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: The billet. Within one minute of leaving my billet I’d be out on the side of the road and the boys — here’s my younger daughter now and her husband are coming. You’re very popular Mr Bartlett. Fred is it? Fred or Jim? First name.
HB: Harry.
CM: Harry. God, I was going to [unclear] yeah. And of course there was always traffic going backwards and forwards.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Military traffic.
HB: Yeah.
CM: You always get that. So I was lucky in that respect. This is, this is Mr Bartlett. Harry Bartlett.
Other: I Know. We spoke on the phone.
HB: Let me just, let me just, let me just stop the tape.
CM: Fiona.
HB: For a second.
CM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
HB: It’s 12.30 and we’re going to restart.
CM: Does that mean that memorable conversation hasn’t been recorded then?
HB: No. Perhaps as well we haven’t recorded that bit of the conversation. Right.
CM: But that, that was part of my life and of course we depend on communications with the girlfriends to keep us going. We looked forward. No one was more popular than the postman at Bomber Command. Letters coming in. Really beautiful. People loved their communications.
HB: Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. Well, we’ll just go back. We’re on 218, Gold Coast Squadron now. And that’s — sorry I’ve, I’ve closed the book and lost the page.
CM: It is bewildering because it isn’t straightforward because losing these people to LMF and one way or another it became a little bit bitty through my tour.
HB: Yes. Yes. That’s [pause] sorry that’s — I’ve, I’ve somehow managed to lose the whole of the Second World War there to closing the pages. A clever thing to do.
CM: I know. It’s easily done.
HB: Right. So, so you’re on, you’re on Stirlings. We’re in 1944 and you’re flying operations then. And you’re doing all the standard.
CM: But don’t forget at that time there’s the preparation for, D-Day was coming and of course although we were on the squadron but we were the new boys. And they didn’t want, with this big invasion going to take place, new boys cluttering up the edges. So consequently we found ourselves as a crew just chucked a little bit to one side because they wanted to get the main force trained. We were just incidental. So the only chance we’d got of getting operational in those days was mine laying. But of course even mine laying went by the board. We were also trained. Trained up to do this raid on the, with 617 Squadron dropping radars. Dropping Window all along the route to indicate a big fleet going to the north of where they actually landed. And 218 and 617 were two squadrons doing that. I wasn’t even on that because we were just on the, we were the new boys.
HB: Yeah.
CM: On the edges.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But with all this activity going on but not being part of it and we were too late to join it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: They didn’t want to be cluttered up because at that time it was getting on for June wasn’t it? If you look at the date it’s getting on for June the 6th
HB: Yeah.
CM: D-Day.
HB: Because, because throughout what you’re talking about. Through, throughout June and [pause] June and July you’re flying bullseye.
CM: Yeah. The bullseye was the last thing before you actually did operations. It just kept, took in all the aspects of bombing.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Without actually being there. Bullseye. It was. There was some navigation, dropping bombs and practice bombs and flares. We did use operational techniques without being actually on operations.
HB: Right. Right.
CM: That sort of thing.
HB: Right. So, we’ve come through June. We’ve got into July. You’re still doing a lot of training flights.
CM: That’s right. Because that was the aftermath. Things were still in a bit of chaos.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I did my first operation there. Sometime around, around about. Generally, on pages you can see war operation. I didn’t even know how to report in my logbook. You never put war operations. You put operations.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Have you seen it yet? Operation. War operation. That was the only one we did in the Stirling.
HB: I’ll have a quick. I’ve got it. War operation.
CM: The one.
HB: That was the 8th of July.
CM: Yeah. So I missed getting the —
HB: Yeah. That was in a Stirling.
CM: That’s right.
HB: With the pilot, with —
CM: Lloyd.
HB: Warrant Officer Lloyd. Johnny Lloyd. Johnny. Johnny Lloyd.
CM: That’s right.
HB: And that was — Attacked FB. Flying —
CM: Flying bomb.
HB: Flying bomb depot.
CM: Yeah.
HB: In daylight.
CM: That’s right.
HB: [unclear] Capel. Yeah.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Right. So that was, that was your first was it?
CM: That’s right.
HB: That was your first op.
CM: Also shortly after that they decided they weren’t going to fly Stirlings anymore so in all the chaos their transferring to Lancasters. You see.
HB: Right [coughs] excuse me. Oh yes. Because by August you’re doing, you’re doing the training on Lancasters. And then we get to September ’44. Then it really starts doesn’t it?
CM: Well, our Johnny went LMF if you read it.
HB: Who? Who went LMF?
CM: Of course that’s not in my logbook because you couldn’t put anything. You didn’t even leave. You just didn’t leave the ground.
HB: No.
CM: You just sat on the side of the runway.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So it’s not, it’s not even listed because why, why should it be? We didn’t get airborne.
HB: No. Who? Who, who actually went LMF?
CM: That you’ll find that in the end Warrant Officer Lloyd ends. No more for him at all. And they get a new one. This one. It took a bit of, it took about three or four weeks to get a new captain who was Hill. Warrant Officer Hill.
HB: Oh yeah that was —
CM: Who was the best pilot.
HB: That was December. Yeah. In the December. Right. And well we’ll, we’ll come on to that because you’re flying with Lloyd in Lancasters. NF 955 and 56. And you’re doing operations at Le Havre. Three. Three times you went over Le Havre.
CM: That’s right.
HB: And —
CM: On the last trip there, when Glenn Miller was — we jettisoned all our bombs in the sea because the target was covered with, covered with, covered with mist.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So you couldn’t drop them because there was civilian people in Le Havre.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So we jettisoned in the sea and that was the day that Glenn missing, Glenn missing went miller [laughs] Glenn Miller went missing.
HB: Oh right.
CM: Flying to the site of a new concert they were going to have.
HB: Oh right.
CM: He must have been, he must have been the most terrified man in the world to suddenly find you were flying over the North Sea just within a few miles of France and suddenly being bombed by, in the middle of the ocean, the middle of the North Sea by about five hundred bombers.
HB: Oh.
CM: The jettison area couldn’t, they couldn’t, they could have jettisoned by the city but civilians were there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was a terrible waste. And he must have thought what on earth is happening here?
HB: And that was, that was —
CM: The gunner from 90 squadron at Tuddenham he saw, he saw this little plane. Pioneer or some —
HB: Yeah.
CM: He saw it actually go in.
HB: Did he?
CM: So there’s no doubt about that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The September. The bombing.
HB: Because that’s, that’s 5th 6th 8th of September. Yeah. And then you did an operation to Frankfurt.
CM: That’s right. A night.
HB: A night operation.
CM: We lost four aircraft on one flight on that raid. In that incident. Because it’s a city you see.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was Lloyd flying that. And then you did an attack. Oh, 28th of September you did an attack on Calais.
CM: That’s right.
HB: A German garrison.
CM: We could, we could actually see the airfield from where we were bombing it. And then we lost three aircraft on that raid. The Calais raid.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The fire. The 88 millimetre fire from, from Calais was so accurate that the aircraft was shot down within sight of their base.
HB: Oh no. Oh dear.
CM: So at Calais is hardly worth anyone going actually.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Just shoot the bombs from the guns from Dover.
HB: Right.
CM: But I remember that as being very very fraught because it was a small target and there were five hundred bombers on it. It was absolutely bloody dangerous.
HB: So, I mean your last — it says in here your last operation with Johnny Lloyd was Wilhelmshaven.
CM: Wilhelmshaven. That’s right.
HB: Yeah. That was 5th of October. And then you did, you did some navigational training which was abandoned.
CM: Who was flying on the navigational training?
HB: That was Lloyd. That was Johnny Lloyd.
CM: Oh that’s —
HB: That was an abandoned exercise.
CM: Yeah.
HB: And then —
CM: Now, one of those trips wouldn’t be in my logbook because we didn’t get airborne but he suddenly decided he wasn’t going to go.
HB: Right. Because then you’ve got a you see where they’ve cut the logbook to fit this folder they’ve lost the actual first day. So it’s really early on in December and you’ve got Johnny Lloyd flying on a familiarisation with a Lancaster. Circuits and landings.
CM: That’s right. So it was only, it was when I was on Lancasters that we did the aborted trip on the —
HB: Yeah.
CM: He went LMF.
HB: And then —
CM: So —
HB: And then within a couple of days you’ve got WO, Warrant Officer Hill.
CM: That’s right. Well, there you are you see. One didn’t fly and then you’ve got to get a new captain. Still, we never saw Johnny Lloyd again.
HB: Yeah.
CM: He just vanished off the face of the earth.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s what I say. All these things —
HB: On the time, on the date.
CM: All these things of the crew were hushed up.
HB: Yeah.
CM: You don’t hear very much about but mostly it was never put down in black and white.
HB: On the day that, on the day that as you described it he went LMF. What, what happened on that day? Can you remember?
CM: Well, taking off as I believe about 2 o’clock on the afternoon. That’s right. And as I said the 149 Squadron which was with us at Methwold were coming on to the peri track this way and we, 218 were coming around this way. So the peri track was filled with aircraft converged on the runway here. Right. Well, so when we went into the runway on the right hand side we were blocking the runway. No one could take off. Then we started to backtrack slowly. Taff in such a state by the door I can’t imagine what it was like. Silence in the crew. Turns around in front of all this other aircraft, took aim [unclear] and off he went again. Exactly the same thing. [unclear] went straight in there and of course the commanding officer in the background weren’t having that. So anyway straight in. They came in the jeep at the foot of our aircraft and straight away, barking. Couldn’t move. And then, ‘Follow me.’
HB: Yeah.
CM: Before the jeep went back to dispersal.
HB: So, he was, he was sitting in the pilot’s seat.
CM: That’s right. He was —
HB: But he just couldn’t take off.
CM: That’s right. He just wouldn’t take off.
HB: He wouldn’t take off.
CM: He said he could but he didn’t want to. He realised I think that Good God, I’m going to be ruddy be killed on this operation. I’m not sufficiently good. I’ve overstretched my capabilities. And I’m not really, I should have taken more notice of [pause] I think he was worried he was going to make a mess of things.
HB: Right.
CM: This turmoil inside for some reason. I don’t know. Presumably —
HB: So you got back. You go in. You got back to this dispersal.
CM: We got back. He stayed in his seat. He says.
HB: Yeah.
CM: One of the commanding officers came running at the aircraft. He says, ‘Stay where you are. Stay where you are.’ And then he says, ‘Don’t anyone move. Leave the captain there and come out now.’ Stop what you’re doing. Just drop it. Come out.’ So we all trooped out and they had a whatsthename, jeep waggon came out. A little bus to take us back. And one of us said, ‘What’s going to happen to Johnny?’ You know. Because he was very popular you see. We loved him. Johnny Lloyd. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘He’ll be taken care of. Don’t you worry about that. Johnny’ll be taken care of.’ And we found out later that he’d ditched, within twenty four hours he’d left the station.
HB: Right.
CM: And within, ooh a few weeks we found he’d been turfed out of the Air Force.
HB: Right.
CM: He then went back to his place where he lived and he became destitute. That’s the story we found out later and he was ashamed of himself. Humiliated. His status as a captain and as a solicitor, it was the damned report, it was terrible. But then we found he’d, there’s a rumour that his family had gone off and sent him to Australia and he was doing his training as a solicitor. But the booze. The booze also took part in it this time.
HB: Oh right.
CM: And nothing went in there. In the erratic, an erratic state, to doomsday if you like. Just died in Australia.
HB: Oh, that’s a shame.
CM: I’ve still got — he gave me the book of poetry I’ve got down there somewhere. With his name in the front.
HB: Right.
CM: Johnny Lloyd. He was a very clever man. During the time we were there, the time we were hanging about. I’ll tell you about it. A chap who had been sent on leave to, to Ireland was court martialled and they want someone to take the case. And so Johnny said, ‘I’ve got nothing to do. I’ll take it.’ And he’d been sent on indefinite leave on this unit [unclear] To an escort unit. And he was sent on leave and they’d forgotten about him. They just kept on sending him a renewal of his leave and his money every fortnight. So of course he thought, well, the money’s coming in I must be on, still on indefinite leave.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Well, it lasted about two years this.
HB: Oh no.
CM: So anyway Johnny was, to cut an awful long story short he was, Johnny, he was a very good solicitor. Very good [unclear] He had the gift of the gab. A Welshman but a poetic Welshman.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And a solicitor. And he got, he got the chap off. It was the talk of the command.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Of 3 Group for a long time.
HB: Obviously, a well —
CM: Eloquent and [unclear] Put on a defence that they couldn’t penetrate. What could the man do? He was living in the neutral part of the, though he wasn’t in the war. He was there getting his regular payments and money and free meals and ration cards.
HB: Oh dear. Yeah.
CM: So he said what could he do? He must have been sickened. ‘I’m not doing the right thing but what can I do? If I go back now they’ll probably court martial me.’ Which is what they did when he did get back.
HB: So, Johnny. Johnny —
CM: So there you are. That’s an incidental.
HB: Yeah. No. No. No. It’s important. Johnny. Johnny. Johnny Lloyd was a popular man.
CM: Oh yes.
HB: Did you ever see him after the war?
CM: No.
HB: At all.
CM: Shirley and I —
HB: That was it.
CM: My wife and I went to this place of birth and every time we mentioned the word Johnny Lloyd everyone clamped up.
HB: Oh right.
CM: We got, we got the one chap who was at the boozer. The boozer. [unclear]
HB: Yeah.
CM: He knew Johnny and said he was a fine man but he said he didn’t get a job and he could be found on any any day any time on the street ends, ‘Can you give me sixpence for a cup of tea?’ But that’s a big blow to me as a chap who loved him. And Shirley who didn’t know, didn’t know him but to come across that sort of situation.
HB: Sad.
CM: So he went to Australia. Drank himself to death.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I did go to his house because I think one of his relatives still lived there but they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t talk to us.
HB: No.
CM: And Shirley, my wife could charm the birds out of a tree but even her eloquence couldn’t do it.
HB: No. That’s a shame.
CM: So what I did, my duty by him. I wanted to find out what really happened but I failed. Well, I knew that what the end was.
HB: You say, you say failed. I think you probably did your best.
CM: I can take you and show you a photograph of Johnny Lloyd. My script is, my computer has been u/s but I’ve got a photograph of my crew. The crew I finished my tour with and the one that was with Hill. But this one here was done on the Stirlings when he first came to the squadron.
HB: Right.
CM: And it’s a very good photograph which was of Johnny —
HB: That’s, that’s alright. We’ll grab the, grab the photo in a minute.
CM: In a minute.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Oh, I was going to turn the computer on. You know when it comes up —
HB: Don’t, don’t worry about that.
CM: Ok.
HB: We’ll sort that. We’ll sort that in a minute because what I wanted, what I wanted to do was was to get through. You’ve got —
CM: Operations.
HB: You’ve now got —
CM: Operations. Yeah.
HB: Another pilot —
CM: Yes.
HB: That you’re getting to know and learn. Now, you said earlier to me before we started the recording he was an experienced pilot.
CM: Johnny. Yes. He was at, oh for two years at an airfield. An Advanced Flying Unit.
HB: Right.
CM: Flying Ansons.
HB: This was Hill?
CM: That’s right. That was Johnny. But that’s, that’s appeared in the book of course, but he was a well-known pilot.
HB: Right.
CM: He was an exhibitionist through the routine. Very good at it.
HB: Oh right.
CM: But he wasn’t meant for operations. Johnny. He was poetic. He’s like that famous Dylan Thomas.
HB: Sorry. That’s Johnny. That’s Johnny Lloyd is it?
Other: We’ve moved on.
HB: Yeah.
Other: From Johnny Lloyd, dad.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Eh?
Other: We’ve moved on from Johnny Lloyd.
CM: We’ve —
HB: Right. So, it’s Johnny. So, so Hill.
CM: Yeah. Well, Hill —
HB: We’ve now got him as the pilot.
CM: He was an experienced pilot from the Far East err the Middle East.
HB: The Middle East.
CM: He’d had a tour of operations on Wellingtons.
HB: Right.
CM: So, when we got him —
HB: What was, what was his first name, Kit?
CM: First name? Bill.
HB: Bill. So that’s Bill Hill.
CM: That’s right.
HB: And he’d come to you from the Middle East.
CM: Yeah. He’d been in this country some time actually.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But he wasn’t trained on Lancasters and when we got him he was just an ex-Wellington pilot. And then we went to, through the, he did the Lancaster finishing course there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Change of direction with Bill Hill. Then back with, back to my old squadron again.
HB: And —
CM: 218.
HB: And really really quite quickly he’s in to an operation.
CM: That’s right. Because he was experienced.
HB: On New Year’s Eve 1944 to Vohwinkel, in the Ruhr Valley.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Wow. And you obviously, and then, and then you had to go, you did that in the daytime and then you had to go back and do it in the night time.
CM: That’s right. I remember that one.
HB: Blimey. And that, that’s yeah. You’re then really then in to doing quite a few of these operations.
CM: That’s right. That’s when, that’s when my tour really started, because —
HB: Yeah.
CM: Johnny sorry Bill Hill was determined to get through a tour. He wanted to do it as quickly as possible.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Yeah. He was a good.
HB: Well, he’s got a good team.
CM: He was an excellent pilot. He was an ex-deputy headmaster and he was only about twenty five.
HB: Oh right.
CM: He was a clever lad.
HB: Yeah.
CM: He used to do comic turns as well on the stage.
HB: Did he?
CM: Oh yes. And in the air. He keep coming back from operations Johnny err Bill, Bill Hill was witty with us all together. And also on Dresden I remember he said to me, he said, ‘Wireless operator.’ I said, ‘Yes, captain.’ He said, ‘Do you want to see a, see a sight you’ll never ever see in your life ever again?’ I said, ‘Well, yes.’ He said, ‘Well, just get in the astrodome and have a look down. Down stairs. Dresden.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was too. I’ve never seen anything. The first thing I saw when I was in the astrodome was smoke. Something you hadn’t even heard of. Smoke from the burning city coming past the aeroplane. But you could see the [unclear] of streets burning ferociously.
HB: What height would you be at there?
CM: Oh about twenty thousand feet.
HB: About twenty. Yeah.
CM: It varied twenty, between twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. It could be fifty feet.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was so that you wouldn’t — to lessen the risk of collision over the target.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because all the aircraft coming in on the markers from all directions, you know. Coming in.
HB: So you were at twenty thousand feet and you’re actually flying through the smoke.
CM: Yeah.
HB: From Dresden.
CM: So the smoke was so intense. The wooden mostly, part of the really beautiful buildings the wooden buildings were quite inflammable and they were set alight. And there it was.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Start the whole firestorm as they called it.
HB: Can you, can you remember what they told you on the briefing for Dresden?
CM: Yes. They said there were people in the town, the troops concentrating in the town. They said, not only that but not only ball bearings but some things very important mechanisms to further the war.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Radar and all sorts of things they had scattered all over Dresden. All sorts of other things. Now, our enemies are saying well it was a quiet town. It didn’t do anything at all. It wasn’t. It was very well armed but they didn’t have any, this late in the war all the guns had been taken away because the Germans thought oh they’re going to leave Dresden alone because it’s a wonderful city. They’re good that they, because that business with Churchill started off and Dresden, Chemnitz and Berlin and all these taken at this, we wrecked them all. Dresden was wrecked in one raid.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Eight hundred and fifty bombers.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Just saturation. It’s in there I think, is Dresden.
HB: Yes, yes. Yeah. I’ve got —
CM: Nine hours fifty minutes.
HB: Yeah. It’s got, it’s got marked in your book here. Dresden. Saturation raid. And Chemnitz.
CM: Yeah. Next day there wasn’t such a good raid because the weather was bad.
HB: Yeah. I’m just going to check because I think. I’m not sure about the batteries on this. Oh no, we’re alright for a minute.
Other: Dad.
HB: Alright for a minute.
Other: Would you like me to make you another cup of tea?
CM: Ask Mr, Mr Hartley. I presume you’d prefer to be called Harry.
HB: Harry.
CM: Harry.
Other: Harry would you like —
CM: In Geordieland you would be called called Harry Hartley.
Other: Daddy, would you like me to make you a cup of tea?
CM: Yes, dear. It’ll freshen up the one that.
Other: I’ll make you a fresh one.
HB: Right. So —
CM: I told you that was the thoughtful one, didn’t I?
HB: Yeah.
CM: She’s the more thoughtful one.
Other: Dad faces us off against each other as you’ve probably realised.
HB: Oh, I gathered that [laughs]
Other: Yeah.
HB: Right. So, yeah. So, we’ve got, he’s certainly rattling through the operations here because you’re, you’re talking for, this is February 1st 3rd 9th 13th 14th 18th 19th 23.
CM: That’s right. That was —
HB: And that’s operations every two or three days isn’t it?
CM: That’s right. That’s right.
HB: Right. And and that, so I mean that’s how it goes through to April ’45.
CM: Well, there you can see the tour, the tour expired citation. Can you see that? Tour expired.
HB: Hang on.
CM: It would be in the last few pages of my logbook.
HB: Yeah. First operational tour completed.
CM: That’s it.
HB: 9th of April.
CM: Just got to put a tour in before the end of the war.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because I was still, I was very young you know Mr Hartley. I was always, I wasn’t a kind of a middle aged old bastard. [laughs]
HB: Oh no. No.
CM: I was quite youthful.
HB: Oh no [laughs] I mean, I mean you were born in ’22.
CM: Yeah.
HB: And you’ve gone in there at what? Nineteen? Twenty?
CM: That’s right. That’s right. Nineteen.
HB: Nineteen. Right. And, and —
CM: I joined —
HB: Then you finished, you finished your tour there and —
CM: Kiel. It’s on the top of the —
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Your last one was Kiel.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Naval, the naval arsenal.
CM: And on that raid there’s the battle cruiser, German pocket battleship. The last one that was [unclear]. We sank that on that raid. It was moored in the Kiel Harbour. It was moored at the side of the quay and it turned over.
HB: Oh right.
CM: As well as other members of the Bomber Command which were much more [unclear] than me. They sank the Tirpitz in Trondheim harbour. It wasn’t me that did that.
HB: No
CM: But Bomber Command sank more battleships than the Navy.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It’s incredible that when you think of it.
HB: That’s amazing that. Right. So we’ve got — we’ve now gone to 90 Squadron at Tuddenham.
CM: Tuddenham. Yeah.
HB: But before we get there. Right. We were talking about girlfriends earlier on.
CM: Girlfriends. Not Tuddenham.
HB: We were talking about entertainment and dances and all this sort of business and this carry on.
CM: Scandals.
HB: No. No. No. I’m not after, I’m not after scandals.
CM: They’re not scandals.
HB: I’m not after scandals at all but if you want to tell me any scandals I’ll talk to you.
CM: There weren’t many scandals.
HB: But did you actually, looking at the picture on the wall you obviously met your wife during the war.
CM: No.
HB: No.
CM: No. I married my wife just after the war. My first wife.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And —
HB: And did you meet, did you meet your wife during the war?
CM: No. She was a girlfriend from home.
CM: Right.
HB: Jean Smith. Unfortunately, we were married for about, only about three or four months she became pregnant.
HB: Right.
CM: And about a few months after that she had a miscarriage and she had, she contracted tuberculosis. Galloping tuberculosis and within six weeks we knew she was going to die.
HB: Oh no.
CM: Just this, this galloping thing. You couldn’t. Just a few months after that they found a cure for tuberculosis. Even this severe one that Jean had. But it was too late for her.
HB: Was that when —
CM: She went down just like I’m doing, it happened to have, no matter what I eat I can still lose weight.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Just lose weight. But that’s the same with poor Jean no matter what she ate she turned in to a shadow and just faded away.
HB: And what, when was that? What —?
CM: That was in ’46 I think, really.
HB: 1946.
CM: Because I’d, I’d left the Air Force by then but I didn’t stay left because as soon as Jean died I thought well what the hell do I do? Going back to the steelworks. Three shift system, you know. I think I’ll go back there. I was very happy in the Air Force. So my father said well Jean I’m afraid that we weren’t going to keep her long like. So I wasn’t long in the when I left the Air Force I was sent home, you know, and she just died. So she died and I wasn’t the sort of man to hang around of course and I started going out before I met Shirley. My beloved wife. My really beloved wife. Married fifty seven years. Two children. And a beauty. Look at that photograph on your right hand side.
HB: Oh yes. I’ve, I’ve already seen the photos. Yeah. Yeah.
CM: And you see that on the wedding photograph I haven’t got the common sense to hold my wife by the hand. I said why couldn’t it, to anybody that sees that now, ‘Oh, you made a mess of that Kit lad.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t the photographer say for Christ’s sake. Hold your wife by the hand.’ Not hold your belt by the hand. But they didn’t. Now, if I’d been a photographer I think I would have said, ‘Hold your wife by the hand.’ Certain things, certain trades must do that’s to make sure that the pose is right.
HB: Yeah.
CM: However, it’s nice. You see my wife. She was only eighteen then.
HB: So where did you meet Shirley?
CM: Grimsby. I was stationed at Binbrook.
HB: Right.
CM: I figured out that for over five years I was in two Bomber Command squadrons.
HB: Right.
CM: 12 and 101.
HB: Right. Right. So, so when we’re, so let’s just go back to 218. You’re in 218.
CM: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: You’re based at Woolfox Lodge.
CM: Well, when tour expired the crew left. All the crew. Leaving me behind because I had just been promoted to warrant officer. They wanted a warrant officer to take charge of the parachute section. So they left me behind. And they said also, ‘You’ve done a few trips less than your crew. Therefore, you’ll be available for a spare.’
HB: Right.
CM: So I was, so I was a new warrant officer and I was still on the squadron.
HB: Right.
CM: Which had the parachute section.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But I had to pack that in deliberately because the chap in charge of the parachute section, genuinely head of the section itself came to me. He said, ‘Mac,’ I didn’t let the fact that he’d missed out the sir because I was a warrant officer by then. And he said, ‘They’ve got fifty parachutes not on inventory.’ Right. I said, ‘Yes,’ knowing what was coming. He said, ‘Well, if they’re not on the inventory they don’t belong to anyone.’ He said, ‘We could make ourselves a little bit of money here.’ I got a cold, I remember feeling a cold feeling. I’ve gone through a tour of operations. I’ve risked my life and I never knew, knowing the McVickers luck I was going to be found out before I could say one word I was going to be found out. So, I said, ‘No. I want nothing to do with this,’ and I went straight from there to my commanding officer at the station, not the station commander the one that’s responsible, and said, ‘I have a problem sir.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘It’s very personal sir but it’s taken me a long time to think about this.’ He said, ‘You’ve got, I think you’ve told me this you’d better get on with it. And I said, ‘My flight sergeant, he wants me to do a, about the inventory.’ I said, ‘I want absolutely nothing to do with it.’ He said, ‘You’ve done the right thing.’
HB: Right. Yeah.
CM: ‘You’ve done the right thing.’ And all that’s happened as far as I know he was just taken off. Taken off. Was posted.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I’ve shared this because I felt very guilty about this. He said, ‘It’s your duty to do that.’ So that was a bit of guilt in my life.
HB: Yeah.
CM: However, it is. It is. It was the right thing to do. If I’d been involved I would have lost my whole career on operations. All the medals would have [makes noise] you know.
HB: Yeah. Everything.
CM: So anyway I I don’t know whether that would figure in your synopsis but they’d say, ‘Was he a nice chap?’ ‘No, in all my years he was a bastard after all.’ You know.
HB: No. No. No. No. What, I mean what obviously what you’re now telling me is, is this is, this is at the end of the war and there’s big, obviously a big change of attitudes.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Now. So, and and you’re posted out to Conversion Units and you, and you eventually end up at Binbrook.
CM: That’s right.
HB: As a warrant officer there. And I mean there you’ve, it’s still very intensive. Even in 1947 you’re still flying. Flying an awful lot.
CM: Oh, that’s right. Flying was there. That was still a bomber squadron.
HB: Yeah.
CM: In fact I used to say to Mike Chalk my friend, he said, ‘We’re the only two buggers that, we’re the only two wireless operators left on the squadron.’ I said, ‘We can’t be operational.’ Then the Korean war came up and we had, we had not only Binbrook but all the crews there were no more than you could purpose with four or five to crew. Couldn’t make up proper crews.
HB: Oh right.
CM: So, by this time they started the new ranks. I don’t know if you know anything about this. Because this is something that should be very interesting to you. What happened immediately after the war. If you look at this photograph here.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Take a little look standing up, Harry.
HB: Oh no, I’ve seen that one.
CM: And what do you see on the arm of your favourite flight sergeant? By that time ranks had changed and I was, can you see that rank?
HB: That’s. Is that, is that the change to master.
CM: No. That was the master. That was signaller 1. Three. Three stars and a crown.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Now, that was the same as flight sergeant. I’d been reduced to flight sergeant anyway so they reduced me even further to signaller 1 which was the same as a flight sergeant. So anyway, it resulted in a mass exodus.
HB: Right.
CM: Of people. Some of the officers had been given a commission by an interview and there they were walking around. Didn’t touch them at all.
HB: Right.
CM: So people got fed up with this because there were still more NCOs than officers and of course they were leaving in droves. The next we knew that’d, just over two years and the next thing we knew was revert. Take the stripes off, take the stars off, revert back to whatsaname, whatever that indicated. And in my case it was flight sergeant so put flight sergeant stripes on. Same as there.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So —
HB: Got one there.
CM: Not many people know about this.
HB: No. No.
CM: At the same time it’s a very important aspect of Bomber Command after the war. Not only Bomber Command but all the Commands.
HB: Yeah. Yes.
CM: All aircrew. The NCOs were given a kick in the teeth and shat on from a very great height.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Now, they recognise that there’s been that but they promised there’d be recognised, all that they should be kept the aircrew separate from the sergeants but it was good that way but what we sort of did was the complete dislocation of all the squadrons of Bomber Command. They didn’t have, they didn’t have a Bomber Command.
HB: No.
CM: By this. Not very much talked about that but I can show you letters I’ve written there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: About this.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And I think this is relevant.
HB: It is. It’s all, it’s all relevant. It is all relevant.
CM: You didn’t know about this and yet you’re an interviewer.
HB: No.
CM: You can see it there.
HB: No.
CM: Passed the —
HB: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Because it was only because I had certificate that I was married. Jean. You’ve seen Jane.
HB: Yeah.
CM: My other daughter. That’s her as a baby. That’s in —
HB: So that so that, that’s occurring as the Korean war’s —
CM: That’s right.
HB: Brewing up.
CM: Though Bomber Command wasn’t involved at all in the Korean war.
HB: No. No.
CM: Because they couldn’t be. They didn’t have enough crews. Now, you see that must have hit the people who organised this. It must have hit them with a hell of a wallop. They were responsible for the absolute the demolition of one of the most powerful weapons known to history. The Bomber Command was as you know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Far bigger than the American Air Force in, in its numbers. And don’t forget they made big mistakes, the Americans at the beginning of the war. They thought they could fight the fighters off. They couldn’t.
HB: No.
CM: They shot a lot of fighters down but they couldn’t fight them off.
HB: No.
CM: They lost fifty aircraft, fifty each on two of the ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s a hundred and twenty aircraft. No. A hundred aircraft. A hundred aircraft.
HB: Yeah.
CM: These B17s. There were only them that you can recognise and of course Bomber Command and I think my God and they introduced this new rank and they all kept going out in droves and asking to get premature release. We’ve destroyed a really good Air Force. That, that is never talked about.
HB: No.
CM: But I talked about it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I wrote a letter [unclear] a student.
HB: Yeah.
CM: You’ll have to come again. I put it all down in black and white.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And I’ll show it to you. You might, you might create a, Mr Hartley what’s known as a coup.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Because nobody else knows about it.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: And I’ll show you something and you might think after all you must have the better interviewing technique. You speak with posh language but you didn’t get this information.
HB: No. No. That’s true.
CM: You flashed a photograph of me out in my, in my James Bond days. I was auditioning for James Bond [laughs] You see.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Things are made in —
HB: Was this occurring after you’d gone to the instructor’s school? Or before?
CM: It was, it happened if you look at my logbook it says it should be ‘47.
HB: So I’ve got you going, I’ve got you going to Scampton in July ’47.
CM: That’s right. I was on detachment there.
HB: On Lincolns.
CM: That’s right. Because all the Bomber Command was on, at Binbrook.
CM: All Lincolns.
HB: Yeah.
CM: All Lincolns.
HB: And so was, so the time you’re talking about when they decimated the NCO level.
CM: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Is that before ’47 or after?
CM: Well, it was 1948.
HB: Oh right. Right.
CM: I was married in ’48 look at the bit.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Even though I’m wearing a, what’s, look carefully a warrant officer’s uniform right. If you look carefully you can just see the badge.
HB: Yeah. With the circle.
CM: But we were allowed to wear the officer’s uniform because at that time there was a hell of a shortage of uniforms.
HB: Oh right.
CM: And just keep on wearing it until as soon as we get new uniform. So there we were parading around as warrant officers even though we weren’t. And eventually we had to have the warrant officers tapes off and put the whatsanames on, but that was very humiliating you know Harry.
HB: Yes, I can imagine.
CM: And just you remember especially the warrant officer suddenly got bumped to sergeant’s stripes. Stars instead of stripes.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was just humiliating in the extreme. There was a tremendous amount of ill hateful feeling about it in the squadrons. They detested the officer who kept the, nobody who kept their own rank.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And at the same, they graduated as officers, they graduated as, but the same, exactly the same training. Exactly the same job.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Yet they were left alone.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And that of course that led to tremendous resentment.
HB: Yes, I can imagine.
CM: But regardless of what happens in this interview I will dig out certainly this for your own personal viewing.
HB: Yeah. Oh, I’d be, no, I’d be, I’ll be interested in that. I’ve got a — I don’t know if I’ve read this right. I’ve got you here in your book. In your, in your logbook at number 100 Torpedo Bomber Squadron, Hemswell.
CM: That’s right. That was the squadron when I came and joined the Air Force. I was posted to Hemswell. Hemswell was.
HB: Is this when you, when you rejoined?
CM: When I rejoined the Air Force.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Yeah.
HB: And that was August. I’ve got August ‘47.
CM: ’47 would be.
HB: August ‘47 for that. Yeah. And then it goes. And then it goes through. Were you instructing there?
CM: No. At Binbrook, no. I was a —
HB: No. At Hemswell.
CM: At Hemswell.
HB: With the torpedo bombers.
CM: That was a detachment, I think. No. That was at, this was what was the squadron name at the top?
HB: It just says number 100 torpedo bomber squadron.
CM: That’s right. That’s right. That’s Hemswell.
HB: At Hemswell.
CM: I was just attached to the squadron. Binbrook was being resurfaced.
HB: Ah right. Right. That — yeah. Yeah. Because then you returned to Binbrook.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Yeah. I see what you, I see what that, I see what that does. So you’ve come through to ‘47 ’48.
CM: That’s right. Yeah.
HB: And you’ve gone to 12, 12 Squadron.
CM: 12. That’s right. Famous squadron.
HB: At Binbrook.
CM: VCs. The VCs were the two men who sacrificed their lives at the bridges at the invasion. You know, they bombed the bridges and both were killed, attacking success of one of those bridges and they both got VCs. But they’re all [unclear] the Fairey Battle this was.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
CM: At the beginning of the war. But the airman that was flying with them wasn’t a sergeant. He was an LAC so the thing is this. The argument that he was an LAC. Therefore he wasn’t entitled to a DFC but as a LAC he wasn’t entitled but also quite obviously to the DFM which the two sergeants had got. The VC, sorry the two sergeants had got. He got nothing, but the LAC was doing the exactly the same job as the pilot and the navigator who got, two got VCs. They couldn’t leave him out and isolate as if he’d done nothing. God knows what acts of bravery he would have done, but they didn’t. They just a little kind of, little bit of [unclear ] but they got VCs and he got nothing at all. That was quite a bit, that was at 12 Squadron. That was a squadron to which I belonged at that time. The chap called Norris [unclear] and on Pampas and Seaweeds.
HB: Yeah.
CM: We did, did a lot of Mousetrap trips on those squadrons
HB: Yeah. I noticed. I noticed that in your —
CM: Pampas.
HB: Operation Pampas. Yeah.
CM: And on one of those trips we met the Queen Mary in 17 degrees west and Nogger said, he said to the crew, ‘This a chance I wouldn’t miss for a thousand years.’ A thousand pounds. I’m not sure which. I think it was pounds. And we said, ‘Yes, Nogger,’ because we were all in awe of him. He was a skilful pilot.
HB: Which, which was he?
CM: We did an exhibition of flying to the occupants of the Queen Mary that they’d never seen in their life. Much better than you’d ever see in the —
HB: Yeah.
CM: He did everything.
HB: Was his name Norris?
CM: Nogger Norris. Yeah.
HB: Nogger Norris.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Right. Yeah.
CM: And I took a photograph of the Queen Mary but it was taken with my father in law’s box brownie camera. So, it was, even though I was pretty close to it it looks as though it was farther away.
HB: Yes. Yeah.
CM: But when we took the photograph with one of these alongside, Giles the cartoonist was on board the Queen Mary. Right.
HB: Right.
CM: He was on board.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And he, and Giles saw this, he saw this going on. This kind of shooting up. And he drew a cartoon of it and on the cartoon you could see the Lincoln aircraft 17 degrees west shooting up very close to the Queen Mary. In caricature. In drawing.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So, we didn’t know about that. So when we got back after all this shooting up and God knows what. I lost my trailing aerial as well. Is it in the book?
HB: There’s a thing in here. It just says trailing aerial struck by lightning.
CM: Do you see how many hours it is?
HB: Eight hours thirty five.
CM: Eight hours.
HB: Yeah.
CM: All through the Pampas you’ll see they’re all about six hours. So, the captain —
HB: Yeah.
CM: We came back late wanted to know exactly where we’d been for the two hours that’s missing. So Nogger Norris knowing this, before we landed said, ‘Don’t forget chaps. We haven’t seen the Queen Mary. Ok.’ So, when we landed we kept our buzz. A good crew. We kept it mum.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So the first thing that happened was the flight sergeant in charge of the ground staff got Nogger and [unclear] over to see the where my aerial left the aircraft. And my aerial left the aircraft, came down the, fair lead from the reel, down where we sat through the hole in the bottom of the aircraft and about three or four inches down at the fuselage it had welded itself onto the side of the fuselage about nine feet. It was nine feet along the fuselage, just up the fuselage, welded and beyond that there was a little nidge of about an inch and a half sticking up and it was beautifully rounded at the end. And the flight sergeant said to Nogger and I, he said, ‘That takes a bit of power to do that.’ To do that.
CM: Yeah.
CM: It takes a few volts to do that.’
CM: Yeah.
CM: I thought, Christ almighty all those millions of volts within two feet of my Charlie.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So, anyway it was interesting at nine o’clock the following Monday morning. This was a Friday night, Friday morning. The commanding officer [unclear] there, Nogger there and me here and the other navigator Chuck. I can’t remember his name now. It’s a terrible thing. Those names would have come easily six years ago.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CM: And just as he started I was right though about these missing two hours. And suddenly the shutters opened at the back and the adjutant popped his head through. He said, ‘Sir. Sir.’ He said, ‘Adj, I told I wasn’t to be disturbed for the next, the next hour.’ He said, ‘I think you’d like being disturbed by what I’ve got to show you.’ So, he said, ‘What is it? What is it?’ So the Adj took something in from the fellas and said give it to the commanding officer. And [unclear] remembered stern faced [pause] And I saw his face changing from stern to kind of a little smile at the edge of his face. And eventually [laughs]
HB: Yeah.
CM: He said, ‘Nogger,’ gave him the papers, ‘I know exactly what you were doing for those two hours.’ And of course it ended up with laughter. Because no harm had been done.
HB: No.
CM: And there was the, Giles with his family aboard the, the Queen Mary and on the side of the ship you see a beautiful sketch of the our aircraft. Can you believe that?
HB: I can. I can believe it.
CM: I cut it out, put it in my logbook and it rotted for the next twenty years. and just rotted away. And when we decided to put these down, these things down in print I realised that I didn’t have this. Now all my family, all my, have you seen them, have you seen them?
HB: Yeah.
CM: And others as well have tried to get copies of that. It’s not, it’s not to be got. Even the people getting back, the back, the numbers of the aircraft, of the Daily Express.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: It wasn’t there either. But Fiona looked up my career in the Air Force list as a warrant officer in the air force list she found it wasn’t listed and it said not to be released until 2022.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. It’ll be, it’ll be in the Official Secrets Act.
CM: So, so because that’s nothing to do with the Queen Mary. It also stopped me from having any contact with other things attached to that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So that I didn’t get it. Peter particularly at the museum museum archives but they couldn’t get that.
HB: No.
CM: But somebody’s got it. So I couldn’t make a proper story about it because I didn’t have the proof. Because people would say, ‘Oh yes, I’ve seen that. Oh yes. Indeed.’
HB: Yeah.
CM: But that was it.
HB: So then.
CM: I’m listening.
HB: We get to 1949 and we’re off to shorts.
Shorts and topi and off to the sunshine in Egypt.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Was that, what was —
CM: Shallufa. Then we went there and Bomber Command went there after the war. For a month every, like six or seven months I was there. Eight or nine months.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The desert was good weather. It was good flying weather.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s what was good. That’s what we went for. Took off from Shallufa and we did El Shatt. I always thought that couldn’t be the proper name. El Shatt. E L S H A T T. El Shatt. I was ashamed of putting it in my logbook [laughs] Bombing range.
HB: And yeah like you say just there for a few months and then you know what what accommodation did you live in in Egypt then? For those few months.
CM: Nissen. Nissen.
HB: In the Nissen hut.
CM: Well, the Nissen was corrugated iron. They were small.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Plenty of wood there and that sort of stuff.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. And then you’re back to —
CM: Don’t forget that Shallufa in the winter was colder. It was colder in Shallufa than it was in Binbrook.
HB: Yeah. I can, oh I can believe that. Yeah.
CM: By God, I’ve experienced some cold. Literally shivered. And shivered all night.
HB: Yeah.
CB: Couldn’t get warm.
HB: And you’re back to Binbrook.
CM: That’s right. Detachment you see.
HB: Yeah.
CM: [unclear] 12 Squadron detachment and 101 Squadron detachment.
HB: And then [pause] this is where the change comes isn’t it? In 1949. Because you go to Scampton on a Conversion Unit.
CM: Scampton. That’s right.
HB: And then. And then you go to 101. Binbrook.
CM: That’s right. I went back to Scampton because that was the Lancaster Finishing School then.
HB: Right.
CM: Right. So, that led to the —
HB: Yeah. Oh. Yeah. You did say. You did say that. Sorry I just need to keep checking this. The batteries.
CM: They won’t be able to understand a word I’ve said, Harry.
HB: Well I can understand you and that’s all that’s all, that’s all that’s important.
CM: You’re nearly a, you’re nearly a Geordie yourself.
Other: Dad.
CM: Yes, dear.
Other: In ten minutes I’ve got, I’ve got an appointment.
CM: Fiona, darling, I thought you’d gone. Didn’t you think she’d gone, Harry?
Other: No. I’m sitting here but in ten minutes I’m going to have to go because I’ve got an appointment in Ashby at 2. So I’ll go on my appointment.
CM: That’s right.
Other: It’s just, it’s just the flats.
CM: Make sure Harry’s alright. A glass of whisky maybe.
Other: Can I get you anything at all, Harry?
HB: No. No. I’m fine. I’m fine.
Other: Would you like another drink?
HB: As long, as long, as long as Kit is alright.
Other: He’s got his cup of tea. Dad has his lunch at —
CM: The only thing that’s wrong with me is ninety five [unclear]
Other: Dad has his breakfast really late like, you know sort of late late so he has his meal, his lunch sort of often about 4.30. So he’s —
CM: Oh yes. That’s it.
Other: But, so I will come back, dad after I’ve done my appointment.
CM: Yeah. Ok.
Other: My son is wanting to buy a flat in Ashby.
CM: Right.
Other: And we’ve got an appointment to look around it with him.
HB: Right.
Other: Just to see what we think. And we cancelled it yesterday because we got stuck in traffic. So I’ll go.
HB: Well, what, what I’ll probably do is.
Other: I’ll come back.
HB: I’ll finish the interview and then I’ll contact you later and let you know how we’re going to come back.
CM: That’s right. I said to —
Other: You’re most welcome if you think you —
CM: Fiona said, ‘Oh he won’t, he’s not interested at all in what you did after the war. He’s not interested in,’ this and that. And I said, ‘You don’t know what he’s interested in until he comes.’ I thought about this because that is something that I think is very, that people should know about.
HB: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Other: It’s an interesting one.
CM: The dirty trick that the Bomber Command well not just bomber but the Air Force generally.
HB: But it, it’s that transition period we are also interested in.
Other: Yes.
HB: Because we’re going from a time of world war.
Other: Yeah. Conflicts.
CM: That’s right
HB: Into a peacetime and policing operations.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Of, you know Korea and all those.
CM: That’s one of the reasons why we never got the medals. Can’t you see that. We can’t demote them, treat them as S H I T and then kind of go we’ll give them medals as well.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Couldn’t do it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So that was what the fuss was about. We didn’t. We were not even honoured in Bomber Command.
HB: Yeah. Well, it’s a quarter past one. I’m going to just stop the tape for a minute while —
CM: Ok.
HB: Your daughter goes.
HB: And then I’ll restart it in a —
Other: And if you wish —
[recording paused]
HB: Right. We’re recommencing the interview. We have had cups of tea and a comfort breaks. So we’ve moved on now to around about 1952 at RAF Watton in 192 Squadron.
CM: Central. Central Signals Establishment to use its full name.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s to mask what it actually did. It was a spy squadron.
HB: Right.
CM: But Central Signals Establishment gave it a kind of fancy name but [unclear] believe anything if you like. Not a hundred percent anyway.
HB: That might, that might answer the question. In your logbook you’re flying with Flight Lieutenant Neil.
CM: Yeah. Flight lieutenant. He was, that was on Super Fortresses. In other words B29s.
HB: B29s.
CM: I’m an ex, an ex-Boeing B29 wireless operator.
HB: Yeah. Were they called Washingtons?
CM: That’s right.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The Washington was an American name for an American aircraft.
HB: Right.
CM: But we called them Washingtons. American but it was also British.
HB: Right.
CM: So there was a Washington [unclear] married them both together.
HB: So in your logbook it says your duty on [pause] in at the end of 1952 was left scanner and right scanner and special operator.
CM: Spec op. That’s what you called spec ops because you did this job I was telling you about. I don’t know whether I’ll be shot at dawn about this but it’s still secret. Top secret. But it was literally finding out the frequencies of the radars and the special operations. We did that. Once we got that we could be able to jam it. To jam it. And once you knew where the frequency was on the end of the spectrum you could put a jam in there and make it impossible to operate.
HB: So who’s, who’s radars were you trying to discover?
CM: Yeah. But I don’t know how you can’t mention that without breaking the Official Secrets.
HB: You won’t break the Official Secrets Act now.
CM: Yeah. As I said in this Fiona found out that nothing’s to be divulged about me personally in the Air Force until 2022. My hundredth birthday. So you make that of what you will.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: But the B29 as I say were a joy to fly after Lincolns. We used to, we used Lincolns to Watton before that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But the B29 was a luxurious aircraft. Do you know that it was separated by a tunnel? There’s the front end of the aircraft right the co-pilot, the captain and the engineer and all this but the back end of the aircraft was nothing else but spec ops. Right.
HB: Right.
CM: And the whole thing was connected like, like two bellows. The front bit was pressurised. There was a tunnel going over the bomb bay to the rear compartment. So to get from the front to the rear they crawled along the tunnel.
HB: Oh right.
CM: It was from here to well just beyond the window there you know.
HB: So you’re talking —
CM: No bigger. No bigger than that wide.
HB: So you’re talking a good twelve fourteen feet then of tunnel.
CM: That’s right. So getting there hurt your knees crawling up and down so people didn’t tend to go forward. Anyway, the two people at the back were about that stationed from the observer point.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s the back end of the tunnel. To see, to be able to see the engines, all the engines, the flaps. Right. And the undercarriage. They couldn’t see them from the front.
HB: Oh right.
CM: Even the engineer. So I was the left scanner and right scanner but the eyes for the engineer who couldn’t keep on crawling back and forwards along the tunnel.
HB: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So important.
HB: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CM: So I always went for the right scanner because I felt that it was the one place to be to keep a good lookout for the —
HB: Right.
CM: And sway up and down left scanner, right scanner. Otherwise it would be, you couldn’t put spec op. You could be spec op, yes. But on transit you were just kind of sat sitting. You used to fly from Watton to Nicosia in Cyprus and then fly from there the next day with all these aerials. There was an armed guard when we landed in Nicosia and the aircraft was never ever left alone. And the next day we would take off with the full crew of course and the trip would be about, we’d be down there eleven hours, twelve hours doing nothing else but scanning all the frequencies. Picking up their radars. You had to be very lucky because they knew when there was spy aircraft around. They’d switch off. But they had to switch on to see where that spy aircraft was. So watching out all ready to go because it only took a few seconds. It was on. You recognised it. You’d press a button. The camera would take a photograph.
HB: Right.
CM: So I scanned the photograph and the recording and did this virtually the same thing as sitting at home and doing this thing with you, because as we were doing that the recording, they’d take it back to Watton and you’d see it properly. You didn’t see it.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: They had —
HB: Yeah.
CM: Yeah. Boffins.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Boffins. Whatever they are.
HB: Yeah. The boffins.
CM: Boffins.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So it was an important job and I think I was part of the Cold War as well as the hot war. So that should —
HB: Yeah.
CM: Be a footnote of that thing that I said. Mr McVickers bravely advanced for the, to be a spec op and took part in the Cold War. Which I did.
HB: Well that’s right. I mean, I mean it’s, it’s very obvious from your logbook that —
CM: I’m a lying bastard.
HB: No. Oh, no. No. No. No. Nowhere near. No. You’ve certainly, you’ve certainly done a bit. I mean there’s, there’s a section here that’s quite fascinating because in the middle of doing your spec ops and whatnot you go to the School of Marine Reconnaissance.
CM: No. No. That was when I was posted there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So when you’re posted you’re still kind of doing whatever you were doing beforehand.
HB: Right.
CM: They sometimes overlapped a bit before you went and it’s doing middle of the road.
HB: Yeah.
CM: A flew flights, you know. That’s what it amounts to.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The School of Maritime Reconnaissance now.
HB: Yes.
CM: The Royal Air Force, St Mawgan, Newquay, Cornwall. It should be on top of the whatsthename —
HB: Yeah.
CM: That was, that was a five months course. Now within, after doing four months to start the flying phase of it the CO sent for me and said they were very very short of flyers at 224 Squadron. I said, ‘What do you mean, sir?’ He said, ‘They desperately need a signaller.’ And I said, ‘I really am not the person to pick. I’ve been off the flying for five years. I’ve done no flying on this and I’m on a course. I’m on a [unclear] aircraft radar work at all.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘You can, with all your experience could pick it up with no trouble at all.’ That wasn’t true. When I got to 224 Squadron which was down there if you looked at 224 squadron —
HB: I’ve got 22 —
CM: Not 224.
HB: I’ve got 220.
CM: That’s the one. 220 Squadron.
HB: 220 Squadron.
CM: 220 Squadron.
HB: Yeah. St Eval.
CM: St Eval.
HB: St Eval.
CM: And that’s —
HB: That was on Shackletons.
CM: Well, within, within about a fortnight they realised that I wasn’t trained on the radar and the radar was the most important thing. I wasn’t trained on it. So I thought — I was in a hell of a state. And I told the commanding officer that I’m really not trained for this work. But I’ve just been sent. I’d no idea at all why I was sent there because Cornish the commanding officer said to me, ‘We don’t need you. We don’t need any training chaps, we’re fully, fully committed.’ So I thought what the hell is going on here?
HB: Yeah.
CM: I think, now during the time I was there they sent me to to Mount Batten. Now Mount Batten was the headquarters of Coastal Command. And I was replacing a man who was doing Anson flying. Supposed to be an instructor. A very important instructor flying from station to station and everything. And the man had gone sick for something. Obviously transitory. But when I appeared on the scene he suddenly made a remarkable recovery.
HB: Right.
CM: So I was stuck there at Mount Batten [unclear] let’s get it right here because Mount Batten is the commanding. This is the most important place in Coastal Command. Why don’t you use that to do something for yourself? So I went to see the postings department which posted all the people in Coastal Command. Everything was done from there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And I flannelled one of the, with the WAAF officers who were there. I said I’m in a bit of a dilemma here Miss, Ma’am and explained what had happened and everything, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I think we can probably do something for you. What would you like to do?’ So I said, ‘Well, there’s one Neptune station dealing with nothing else but Neptunes. Lockheed Neptunes.’ I said, ‘This is based in Topcliffe in Yorkshire and would be ideal for me for getting home and everything else and also picking up, because I’d been on a course, picking up on what had left out in being mid-course. ’I said ‘Perfect solution, She said. She said to me ‘Your next course. I’ll put your name down. I’ll put your name down now. So it’s finished. Nothing has happened. You go.’
HB: Right.
CM: So when I went back to the station. St Eval. 220 Squadron. I could say to the people I’m posted. You know. I obviously shouldn’t have been here in the first place. I’ve been reposted. So I was gash again. I was completely gash. And I just spent my time sitting in the mess and making myself a bloody nuisance where ever I went, you know. And soon enough, as soon as the [unclear] came up I got the posting off to go to Kinloss to do the Neptune course.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I was on Neptunes for two and a half years. The best aircraft I’ve ever flown in my life.
HB: And what was, what was the Neptune?
CM: Lockheed Neptune. I’ll show you what.
HB: Oh, that was, it was —
CM: Lockheed was the one before the Boeing, well after the Boeing but —
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Because obviously you’d been flying on Shackletons.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And then you go to Neptune.
CM: I’m afraid it will have to wait now for the next time you come actually.
HB: Oh, no, don’t worry about that. I’ve found. Yeah. I’ve found Topcliffe now. Yeah. With Coastal Command.
CM: That’s right. It’s all Coastal Command.
HB: Yes.
CM: That’s a Bomber Command Lincoln. That’s one of the Lincolns. If you look at the SR is the code letters.
HB: Right.
CM: The code letters for 101 Squadron.
HB: Right.
CM: We, I was on B flight there, George [ ] was the co-pilot and the bomb aimer in the astrodome. That’s me. Best photograph I’ve ever had taken. You see they get access to the photograph.
HB: Yeah.
CM: What had happened, there had been an aircraft sent to take photographs of the villages and towns actually but the photographer being a clever little bugger he said it would far better if you had an aircraft superimposed and we happened to be airborne SR 101 Squadron.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Doing bombing at Wainfleet range. So, they called us up, ‘Are you finished there?’ ‘Oh, we’re finish in a few minutes.’ They said, ‘Go through to Cleethorpes and rendezvous with this aircraft that’s taken —'
HB: Oh right.
CM: And that’s how we got it.
HB: That’s how they took the photo.
CM: It’s a good photograph of Cleethorpes. You can see the [unclear]
HB: And that’s the, that’s the Lincoln aircraft. Right. Yeah.
CM: And that’s the Lincoln, that’s right. And that’s me.
HB: And that’s you in the astro.
CM: No matter how, no matter how vague it is that’s me. It’s one of the —
HB: Well, you need, you need to put that in the pile for, to copy. And that one definitely. Right. So, right we’ve got you, got you in Topcliffe and you’ve done rocketry and all those sort of things and then —
CM: Made drops to the weather ships.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Weather trips. All that sort of thing.
HB: So, I mean you were at Topcliffe a good, a good long time weren’t you?
CM: Two and a half years. I did a full tour.
HB: Yeah.
CM: On Neptunes.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But I was the first. The first They took one, one squadron member from each squadron. At least one. One member and posted them separately just to see if it could be done. Suddenly they found themselves with all these Neptune crews. No pilot could have told us yarns, you know [laughs]
HB: Oh right.
CM: So, so the experiment they took the flight sergeant McVickers, that was me and Flight Sergeant Chalmers and another one called flight sergeant [pause] Oh I can’t remember his name. But [unclear] squadron, just us three people on a course on Neptunes.
HB: Yeah.
CM: [unclear]
HB: It’s alright. I’m just, I’m just double checking the battery. Make sure the battery’s still alright. Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah that’s an aspect that we don’t, that’s an aspect we don’t sort of come across, you know. Obviously they’re trying out different ways of putting.
CM: That’s it. Well, you see we’re flying there but tac incident said put that new chap Flight Sergeant McVickers on the —
HB: Yeah.
CM: A cold chill went down my spine. Because I hadn’t had any — I’d had exams. I’d had the exams instructions on the radars. The APS 20 and things like that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But I didn’t have the practical. I’d never used it in the air. So I mean, to ask you to sit down and do something from scratch which I didn’t even know how to switch on, you know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Anyway, they forgave me for all that and telling me off and I did alright for two and a half years.
HB: So, so Neptunes. The Neptune. I mean, it goes, it’s obviously a well used aircraft.
CM: I’ll show you a photograph.
HB: For that.
CM: You’ve never seen anything like it.
HB: For that.
CM: It was the most luxurious aircraft I’ve ever seen in my life. Neptune. Never. There was one of these commanding officers, ‘Oh you can’t take photographs.’ [pause] Yes. If you come again. I know now what you’re after I’ll have anything ready.
HB: No. No. No. Worry not. Worry not about that. I mean the important thing is getting your, your story.
CM: Operations.
HB: Yeah. Absolutely. So, now, we’ve gone, you’ve gone to Kinloss in [pause] you’ve been on the Shackleton course. That’s in ’56. 1956.
CM: What was that in 1956?
HB: That was, that was you were at Kinloss in ’56.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Doing a course.
CM: Yeah.
HB: A Shackleton course.
CM: Yeah. That would be the Neptune course because there was flying attached to that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: We were flying on those. On Neptunes.
HB: And then [coughs] excuse me. You’ve got [pause] ’56 you’re off to 224 at Gibraltar.
CM: Gibraltar. Yeah. 224 Squadron.
HB: And that’s on Shackletons. Where were, where were you operating then from Gibraltar?
CM: Well, once again I’ve got to show you this. The base of Gibraltar. The base of the rock there’s an open space. And you can imagine the north face, they always shows the north face in Gibraltar so that’s the face facing north. Right in front of the north face of Gibraltar they built a runway. The sea is at one end at Algecirus Bay and then extended in to the rocks so the whole thing, was not enough room for a proper runway but they kept on building it out to sea, out towards Algecirus, Spain. So there was a long enough runway. Our photographs you can see sticking out of the Bay.
HB: Yeah. So, so you were you were obviously looking at your logbook you were flying out of there regularly. Did you cover the Mediterranean and —
CM: That’s right.
HB: Western approaches or —
CM: The Med, did cover the Med but also as you say the Western Mediterranean, but we did all the trips to Malta and Corsica and Sardinia and visiting there. North Africa of course.
HB: Yes.
CM: Is on the right hand side as you go along. So a lot of trips just landing there. Anyway, I did the exercise. Managed to survive. Became quite proficient at the radar but you know I thought that’s not fair for me. I’m cast out of my course.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Which I would have joined the squadron with the crew as to be a signalman. A signalman. It would be good to replace that man as a special job and he made an immediate recovery. The best thing that ever happened to him was me appearing. So I mean, he thought, oh Christ and he recovered.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was a cushy job.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I mean this is what sort of comes through in your logbook is you’ve got this level of consistency going through now.
CM: That’s right. I did.
HB: And, and as, as an air signaller and you were going through here [pause] sorry. What did I just notice? Yeah. That was something caught my eye. In 1957 you were doing communication trials with HM submarine Subtle.
CM: That’s right. I went to one trip to Ballykelly. We went, this chap and my number two and my signals team, we went to this submarine. HMS Subtle [unclear]
HB: Yeah.
CM: And we went for a full day in a submarine. One of the, well one of the most enlightening experiences I’ve ever had.
HB: Yeah. So you actually went in the submarine.
CM: Yes. I’ll tell you something else. I’ve lifted the periscope up. Transferred, transferred into — I’ve watched the submarine sink from, from the periscope area.
HB: Yeah.
CM: They gave us two a really wonderful experience of a submarine. [unclear]
HB: Yeah.
CM: Which was invaluable for, that’s what we were there for. Submarine killers.
HB: Yeah.
CM: In Coastal Command that’s what we did. We looked for submarines and sank them.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So we were gaining experience that was something good. And they showed us, the crew showed us the biggest pile of pornographic material, photographs I’ve ever seen in my life. It was about this big. And the [unclear] as well. God, it really embarrassed me.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I never seen. Every angle. Every possible. I thought these people are all sex maniacs. Because we were getting it regular. This was the [laughs]
HB: Yeah. The, the where — what I’m, what I’m what I’m interested in is you started your career in wireless ops and wireless operator in the ‘40s and we’re now in to the late 50s.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Coming up to the 60s.
CM: New equipment is coming up.
HB: So all of that equipment as it comes along I mean, was it every time new equipment you came out you had to go on a training course?
CM: No.
HB: Or did you a lot of on —
CM: No. If there was something radical, something completely different you’d go on a training course, because nobody could do anything about it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And the men in the latter part were the men that got the Air Ministry details, put everything down, the whole thing. They’d learned from there. Then they’d teach the people who were going through the courses. That’s right. So the radar, the equipment on the Neptune aircraft is so far advanced that until just recently in the last ten or fifteen years it was still being used in the spy planes.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was so accurate. The APS 20 it was called. Air Pulse Search.
HB: Air Pulse Search. Oh right. Yeah.
CM: Ever heard of that? Air Pulse Search.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And the other one in the part of the wings, took part of the wings. One had the APS 30, the APS 31 and yet that’s just the system where you could lock on to an aircraft and home on the aircraft. Or anything. A ship.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Very very accurately with the APS 31. So the APS 31 and the APS 20 made perfect for long distance. They were used for aircraft coming in. The APS 20. An aircraft designed by the Americans for their aircraft, the Neptune was the aircraft used by us for long distance search except for the big fighter stations.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Air defence of Great Britain stations. They had their own.
HB: I’m interested in a note here in your logbook, Kit for [pause] we’re talking March 1958. And it’s something I’ve not seen anywhere else. You’ve suddenly got a list of it says, this is the 6th of March — anti-submarine air offensive operations.
CM: That’s right. It’s the whole squadron.
HB: A large [unclear] of those.
CM: The submarines, our submarines had taken the place of enemy submarines.
HB: Right.
CM: But about the German expression. They were enemy submarines. We had to find them. So they’d been given —
HB: Right.
CM: We had a good idea what they were using in submarines but we had to find out. In other words we had taken our submarines as being enemy submarines. We had to find out all about them.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Well, that was really good training.
HB: Yeah. Ah right. That’s explained it then because I was, I was suddenly thinking 1958.
CM: I was stationed at Kinloss then.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Wasn’t I on the, that’s when I was on [ unclear]
HB: No. No. That was you were still at Gibraltar in ’48 err ’58 sorry. ’58.
CM: I was in Gib then.
HB: Yeah. You were in Gibraltar then. That’s what caught my eye was the fact that you got offensive operations but, yeah I understand that now. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s that transition you see that you’ve gone through all of this equipment. It’s, and its, I presume not only has it become more technical.
CM: Complex.
HB: It’s become small.
CM: Complex.
HB: Yeah. Complex. It’s almost become smaller as well.
CM: That’s right.
HB: I would presume.
CM: More adaptable.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The telephone valves, valves suddenly vanished off the face of the earth and first thing in this system, they got the APS 20 which was about this size.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It suddenly became about this size but the big thing was the screen.
HB: Right. So it went from, it went from the size of a coffee table down to —
CM: Well, yeah. In the [unclear] sense.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But, but it was an interesting job. Can you imagine to a schoolboy to be with all this anti-submarine equipment?
HB: Yeah.
CM: The finder. It was very very interesting. And if you’ve got something real on the screen. Something that was enemy, you know. Not so much enemy.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Simulated enemy. You think this person diving the submarine I have got him in my sights offensively [unclear]
HB: Yeah.
CM: With depth charges which we had.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. That, well that —
CM: We’d be doing the job which we knew we’d be employed in doing if a war broke out.
HB: That was your job. That was your job wasn’t it? And then we get to 1960 and you’re back to Kinloss [pause] flying Shackletons again.
CM: Yeah. This would be the Shackleton then would be in January was it?
HB: Yeah. Shackleton 1 it’s got. Yeah. You got people like, you got numerous pilots with you. All sorts of different pilots.
CM: I think that would be on [unclear] it was [unclear] training. Must have been flying the aircraft that trained them.
HB: Right. Right.
CM: Numbers and numbers of the —
HB: Yeah because you’ve got, you’ve got exercises.
CM: That’s right.
HB: A3, A1, A4, A5.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Not exercises for me but exercises for the pilots.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Trained in, that was for the aircraft and I was just crew then.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Did all the dogsbody stuff. All the stuff that —
HB: Yeah. Yeah. The sweeping up. Making the tea.
CM: I did cooking as well.
HB: Cooking.
CM: Oh we had a, you could get airborne for twenty four hours in a Shackleton, you know.
HB: Right.
CM: Twenty four hours. I never did one. I did a twenty two hour trip once but it’s too long. I think a complaint. ‘I’m not having this. You’d better cut my hours down.’
HB: Yeah. I mean there’s some seven and nine and ten hour flights here.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. And then yeah as I say you carry on, you carry on at Kinloss for a good old time again.
CM: So my next posting after that was I did a [unclear] on the ground staff doing, looking after these, they called the a space stage two trainer. Looking at simulating trips in the air but not leaving the ground.
HB: Right.
CM: You could make exercises. You could make them up all the time.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So instead of wasting money on petrol you could do the same thing on the ground. Get the same experience. The same equipment and everything. So that was saving money.
HB: So was that, was that sort of classroom based or was that in some sort of simulator?
CM: No. This was actual equipment. You’d sit in these cubicles with the same stuff that you’d have in the aircraft.
HB: Right.
CM: You have use of the headquarters in these cubicles. You’d have other aircraft in these cubicles. And all the equipment.
HB: Yeah. So the cubicle would be set up exactly as if you were in the air.
CM: That’s it. But radar. Of course you couldn’t get a radar signal there so they simulated that. Simulated kind of things coming up.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: But nevertheless you could save a lot of money by just doing it on the ground.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was all handle work. Key work.
HB: Yeah. I can see. I mean I can see in here that I’ve come to that part. Yeah. Of the sort of the sort of staff training and what not. The [pause] yeah because that I mean obviously the booths that you talk about that were set up, you know with the equipment.
CM: That’s right.
HB: They obviously became the forerunners of what we now know in the modern —
CM: Yeah.
HB: Era of the flight simulators.
CM: That’s right. That’s right. But the link trainer I mean, it’s a simulator.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But you can get, you can fly blind with. The thing is you couldn’t get airborne so got to fly blind there except for putting specs on, hoods on people which they did do. But it was too costly and too —
HB: Yeah.
CM: The link trainer fulfilled that role exactly. They couldn’t see anyway, so you had to go by the instruments.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
CM: You see people used to use the instruments and have faith in the instruments you were using. That was good. The link trainer was good for that.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: People who were poor at blind flying became excellent after a few spells on the link trainer.
HB: I have noticed throughout your logbook —
CM: Hmmn?
HB: I’ve noticed throughout your logbook there’s regular little comments signed by senior officers. Wing commanders and such of, “above average,” “high average.” That’s how they’re assessing you.
CM: That’s damning you with faint praise.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So where are we now? We’ve got to — now, yeah this is, this is the thing. 1963.
CM: Posted to Changi.
HB: You’re in — yeah.
CM: Posted to Changi.
HB: 205 Squadron, Changi.
CM: The best posting I ever had.
HB: Was it?
CM: My wife, she was a very good looking lass but by God the people there the commanding officers they wouldn’t, they would all make a beeline for Shirley whatever the occasion was.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Commanding officers, flight commanders, ordinary people in reserve couldn’t get a look in. So, I said to Shirley, ‘Who are you with, darling? The commanding officer or me?’ ‘You darling.’ ‘Good.’
HB: So a little bit of marital strife there [laughs]
CM: Shirley and I had a very good looking daughter if you see photographs of Jane when she was fifteen sixteen.
HB: Yeah.
CM: She was a very good looking girl. Just like her mother.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Well I saw that in that photograph. Yeah. But so that again that’s flying out in the Shackleton Mark 2s and that’s and I presume that’s doing much of the —
CM: Well, you should come across somewhere there at Changi that we had a wall, if you look at my medals. I’ve got a medal which very very few people have had. Fiona’s put it somewhere where you wouldn’t miss it. So Fiona’s put my medals where we’ll never miss them so the chances are I’ll never find them.
HB: Oh no. Worry not about that.
CM: This one’s particularly good.
[pause]
HB: So that would be [pause] so I’m just trying to find it actually in here. Would that be, would that be Borneo? Would that be the Indonesian Confrontation?
CM: Yeah. That’s right. That’s right.
HB: In ’63.
CM: That’s what I would show you if I could find the damned thing.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The medal I got for it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Fiona’s, Fiona’s put it in a place —
HB: You’re a bit, you’re a bit far away from the recorder now Kit.
CM: My daughter has put my medals in a place where I can’t miss them. Therefore I know I’ll ever find them.
HB: Don’t worry about them.
CM: Ok.
HB: We’ll sort them out later. I was just trying to find —
CM: Well you’ll notice that those top of the. Something called Hawk Moths.
HB: Hawk Moths.
CM: Hawk Moths. We were fighting in the Indonesian confrontation.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But there’s one thing we weren’t allowed to do Harry. We weren’t allowed to kill them.
HB: Oh right.
CM: It wasn’t a war. It was a confrontation. Once we started killing the bastards it went to a — so what we did they supplied from Sumatra. If you can imagine Sumatra or just in the Malacca Straits. There’s Malaya one side and Indonesia on the other.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Sumatra. But they used to go across from Sumatra to Malaya and do damage. Dropped by parachutes and people and all this business so we knew that we had to get these people as they’re flying, as they’re sheering across the Malay Strait with motor, motor torpedo boats they were, I think. Big boats but vulnerable. We found that the only thing we could frighten them to death with was this. We used to get, we used to have one, it was always at night. They always came across at night. They didn’t come across in daylight. The fighters would have got them.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But they couldn’t do what we could do. We could kill them or make severely inconvenience them by a simple method of using our four engines.
HB: Right.
CM: Four Griffon engines. So much power. One thousand eight hundred and fifty horsepower and the propellers had to be contra rotating to absorb all the power. They had tremendous [unclear] Simple as a Shackleton pull you out of anything, any trouble you were in just open the throttles and get out of it. And what we used to do was to fire off these 1.5 magi flares. There was thirty six of them in banks of, packs of six. Six sixes are thirty six. Six sixes. Now, they used to burn. Burn in the air. Bang when they go up there and when they reached their zenith it would burst. It would burn with a really fantastic light for about thirty five, forty seconds. Not very long. But long enough at thirty five seconds to appear what was going on. And as they went out, bang another one would go off. And this was going out this would lit up again. So you could get maybe a minute of continuous light. A minute’s a long time.
HB: Yes. Yes.
CM: You know, you know the smart gun there, get the radar detector going towards it and just suddenly, they’re not expecting it up it would go. Bright as day. So what we could do then look at the boat going along from Sumatra to the main whatsaname Beach in Malaya.
HB: Malaya.
CM: And you’d fly towards Malaya ourselves so the boat length ways. Not that way but that way. So then —
HB: So you’re coming in on the side of the boat at ninety degrees.
CM: That’s it, but you’d go down to ten feet. Just above the waves and you opened the throttles and go over this boat. Just dead, bend down just a little bit and level off and the whole blast of this right against the, the force of it, the force against the boat and over she’d go, and all the crew as well.
HB: So it would capsize.
CM: Capsized. Yeah. That’s something else. You’ve got a scoop here.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I’ve never heard this mentioned anywhere, that was.
HB: And that, that’s in the —
CM: But you see it there as Hawk Moths.
HB: It’s Hawk Moth operations.
CM: You can see.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. I can see Hawk Moth here.
CM: That was down in the Malacca Strait.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And of course we wouldn’t then, we’d find a few people. There’s always people swimming around.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So we said after all if it doesn’t kill them they’ll probably get in to the boat anyway. You couldn’t sink these damned things.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But all the stuff had been tipped out.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And the whole operation, their operation would be cancelled.
HB: Yeah.
CM: In other words we won the war.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: That’s why it’s important to me to find where Fiona has hidden my medals. So she can, she can find them easily.
HB: Oh we’ll find them. We’ll find them at the end of the interview, Kit. Don’t you worry.
CM: She’s lovely. She’s a lovely lass but by God she doesn’t have the thoroughness of Jane.
HB: Right.
CM: Jane’s very thorough.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. There’s quite a few. Quite a few of these Hawk Moth operations in there.
CM: And of course during my time there we won the war. Sukarno gave in.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: I was chosen to be the photographer at the HMS Bulwark and HMS Centaur, the Ark Royal and the huge fleet out there just out for the Confrontation. They formed two lines of ships. The capital ships, the aircraft carriers and the battleships and destroyers and all the little ships.
HB: Oh right.
CM: That were there. And we flew down through the, we had an avenue of ships and we were taking photographs actually.
HB: You were doing the aerial photos.
CM: I was on the verge of coming back, I never saw those photographs.
HB: Oh right.
CM: But I was chosen as the photographer. Photographer, you see. But that was, so that was the end of the Confrontation. The Indonese gave us a medal and we got another General Service Medal. So that added two medals to my which nobody, not many people —
HB: No.
CM: Certainly not many people in the war, my medal rate, did you see that? The medals. You still can read it.
HB: I saw, I saw the medals on the photographs.
CM: That’s right.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But there’s two short.
HB: Ah right. Yeah. Which is —
CM: The Indonesian one and the what’s the name.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s right, because they show the medals, that’s extra medals because the medals then were the general service medal and the Malaysian medal is on there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And there’s two complete rows. Well I’ve never seen anybody except me that’s got these two complete rows because I carried on after war.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I was on operational squadrons after the war. I was in a front line squadron.
HB: I was going to say it’s all operational isn’t it? Yeah.
CM: I was the last in.
HB: Yeah.
CM: That’s why I wanted to kind of make a special mention of me about the guerrilla boat because I think your word after getting this scoop. These two scoops.
HB: Yes, it does. Yes. That’s great because that takes us through to where are we? 1965.
CM: But I didn’t do any flying though at that.
HB: June ’65 you [pause] I think that was —
CM: I went, I wasn’t —
HB: Sorry. July.
CM: I was a missile, I was a missile controller at Neatishead.
HB: Yeah. Because, because we — yeah. We —
CM: That wouldn’t be in the logbook.
HB: Yeah. So we’ve done —
CM: They don’t put missiles in logbooks.
HB: I think [pause] I’ll just, I’ll just make absolutely sure about this.
CM: So, it’s a full career flying in front line squadrons all the time.
HB: Yes.
CM: So I’m quite proud of that.
HB: Yes. I mean you’re flying [pause] Let me have a look. You’ve got a Hawk Moth operation on the 16th of August 1965. And you’ve certainly flown some hours on that.
CM: Oh yes.
HB: And that —
CM: I flew a lot after the Indonesian conflict to start with.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But we did have a new flight commanding officer at that time and he took a shine to me.
HB: Oh right.
CM: Unlike some of the buggers [laughs]
HB: Yeah. So that’s where, that’s when your actual flying logbook finishes.
CM: That’s right.
HB: But then in ’65 you go — or ’66 sorry.
CM: I left in ’67.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I was on missiles. I was the controller at Neatishead. But unfortunately —
HB: At where?
CM: Neatishead. It’s the biggest, one of the biggest air defence stations.
HB: Neatishead.
CM: Neatishead. N E A T. Neat. I S. Neatis Head. H E A D.
HB: Neatishead.
CM: Neatishead.
HB: And that’s where?
CM: That’s Norfolk, I think.
HB: Norfolk. Right, right.
CM: But unfortunately, on my wife’s instructions I’d put in for a commission when I left whatsaname, I knew I was pretty well thought of, you know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And I knew that Commanding Officer Harvey was, he loved, he literally, he kept treating my wife at every possible occasion. This came back to me. So I knew I was well in with him but whether he was going to translate that into a good recommendation, so I just applied. Nothing. And Fiona said err my wife Shirley said, ‘Have you still applied?’ So I banged an application in. Then I was posted to Neatishead. The first thing that happened, I was posted there. I had a good long spells of leave before I went there. The commanding officer said to me, a very nice man, he said, ‘I’ve had a recommendation,’ from your whatsaname, commission he said, I can’t possibly send this on unless I know something about you.’ Right. Oh sod off. I didn’t, I was deaf as a bloody post I think. I couldn’t care less about a commission. I was nearing the end of my time.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And I thought it was just incidental. I knew I would be, I knew it would waltz through it so what happened? I fell in very very much with a girl who was a flight lieutenant. God knows what her name is now but she was the WAAF commander. She sat at the desk opposite me.
HB: Right.
CM: And she and I became quite comfortable.
HB: Yeah.
CM: For want of a better word, she did. It wasn’t long before she asked me about, ‘Can you take me home in your car tonight, my car’s u/s.’ [unclear] I realised, my God at my age of forty four, forty three this bloody woman’s is in love with me.
HB: Oh dear.
CM: This ugly bastard like me, you know. This was so amusing. So I didn’t dare to mention that I was here but being the adjutant because I’d put or commission, but she seemed to know. She said to me now and then, she said to me, ‘Everything’s ok, you know. Everything’s ok.’ So from that I assumed that she was giving the reports to the whatsaname. The commanding officer hardly saw me. She was putting in the reports about me. Right. So I thought I can’t go on here. I’m a bit of a, I’ll have to find an excuse to get out of it because I’m as deaf as a bloody post. I had to go through all the treatments, ‘Sorry Mr McVickers. You’re deaf.’ You know, that real deep deafness was starting so I knew I wouldn’t get through anyway.’ Anyway, to cut a long story short they had this sent to have a big overhaul at Neatishead, all the whole thing. It been going for years and years. The whole thing’s has to be changed. They’re going to be away for, I think it was six weeks two months, it’s going to be overhauled, all the new equipment. Everything kind of renewed. So they sent me, because there’s nobody at the station virtually at Neatishead, there’s the ground bit and there’s the top of the hole. There’s a big hole. They put me with the other spec ops doing this job and sent me to Patrington which was another Air Defence of Great Britain station. But when I got there I found that the situation was different. The man who was in charge of everything there was a [pause] what’s the word, he was less senior than me. So they said, ‘Well, you’ll have to take over.’ So I said, ‘I can’t possibly take over the job. He’s been trained to be an air traffic controller. A missile controller. How the hell can I possibly do it?’ He said, ‘Well you’ll have to go on a course,’ but I said, ‘I can’t have this. The best thing would be for me to pack the whole thing in.’
HB: Yeah.
CM: They said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well if I haven’t been properly trained I’m going to be taking a job about which I know nothing.’ I was looking after all the missiles on the ground you know. I said, ‘I’m supposed to be a controller from Neatishead.’ Signalling the targets on the whatsaname and phoning them through to Woodhall Spa or [pause] I’ve forgotten the name of the other place actually, near Grimsby. There what I’m looking for. Just to pass the target on to them. Nothing else. I was the controller. Missiles controller.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And the people there thought the best thing was I thought my god what’s going to happen suddenly coming home from Neatishead to say, ‘Report to for training for the commission.’ That’s the last thing in the world I wanted at the time.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So I didn’t tell Shirley about that obviously but I’d certainly heard nothing about the commissions and I left the station. You know. Left the, my friend the WAAF. The flight lieutenant. The good looking WAAF, and suddenly I was unemployed. So I thought the best thing I could here is kept mum. I’m out. I’ve got a good job. A good job lined up and I thought far better to get a job at forty five then be an officer at fifty three or fifty four and find out nobody wants you.
HB: Yes.
CM: So I used my loaf and told Shirley what happened. She said, ‘Oh let’s get out. I’ll get a job as well.’ So she became, to cut a long story short, she’d been a photographer at some hotel just up the road apiece and this job came up in the Trading Standards Department saying they were starting a new section. A completely new department called Consumer Affairs. So they set out all the qualifications, sort of. ‘What a pity Shirley. You could have applied for that.’ She said, ‘I fully intend to apply. To apply for it.’ I said, ‘Well but you’ve had no training darling. You’ve got no qualifications except matriculation.’ So she said, ‘I’m going to apply.’ I said, ‘What are you going to put down for qualifications?’ She said, ‘Just that I’ve been a service wife for nineteen years. I’ve been nineteen years.’
HB: Yeah.
CM: So off she went and within a fortnight she got a letter back. She’d passed the first stage. We found out later there was seven hundred and odd applications. And that was the big weeding out.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And Shirley survived that. And I said, ‘If you survived that’s good. You must have looked good on paper.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I did. I did a good job with that’. So the next was personal interviews. They took a long time actually. But after a while I said to Shirley. ‘What’s happened at this interview? What’s going on here?’ She said [pause] So I thought that she knows something that I don’t know.
HB: The tap on the nose. Yeah.
CM: So I’d better press her, I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, I’m your husband,’ you know. Got to get a job to save the family because I was getting two thousand two hundred at that time. ’67. When the national average was seven hundred and fifty.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I was getting two thousand.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So we would be digging into our capital. And the next thing that happened was another interview with only about twenty or something like that. Shirley came home. I said, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get the job.’ I said, ‘Shirley, darling how could you possibly get the job with all these qualifications and you haven’t got any of them? You’ve just matriculated.’ So I was really worried about it so I didn’t make a mess on the carpet. In other words Matriculation did. She said, ‘I’ll be their first choice and I’ll get the job.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s lovely you assume that but I think you’re being a little bit premature. Anyway, to cut a long story short again four, four, four left, four interviews and she was, Shirley was told and the other, presumably the other three were told that by 6 o’clock tonight one of you would have got the job. He said, ‘We’ll be visiting the one that’s got the job before 6 o’clock tonight.’ Although whatever it was I forget the timing, so I said to Shirley, ‘Aren’t you a bit nervous with it being in the last four?’ She said, ‘No. I’ll get the job.’ So, I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘Oh, I’ve been their first choice all every interview I’ve had.’ I said, ‘But how can this happen?’ This job of course with all these qualifications, suddenly it was.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But anyway, at ten to six that night I’m sitting tactfully in our living room err the dining room. No. Spare room.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I could see the front and I saw these two people get out the car. Mr Butler and Mr Charlesworth. One was an ex major and the other was a Swordfish pilot.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I realised then straight away sort of found out what they were that they’d taken a shine to Shirley because I was the sort of a warrant officer aircrew. You know.
HB: Yeah.
CM: This is the sort of men, somebody that they wanted in the background of. I’m not saying that’s true. But I just think that’s what happened.
HB: Yeah. That’s what you thought. Yeah.
CM: One of the things in her favour.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I said to Shirley, ‘Shirley, they’re here.’ And she came in and she said, ‘Yes.’ She said go in there and I’ll call you in. I took them into our special room that we had. And I said, Shirley came with me ‘Mr Charlesworth of course, my wife, Shirley.’ ‘We know. We know your wife, Mr McVickers. We’d like to be, if you don’t mind, alone for the, with her for a —’ So I knew straight away that she got the job. She was the first choice just exactly as she’d said.
HB: Yeah. She’d known that all the way through.
CM: It was, yeah she was, first appointment. The only one thing that they said to me, Mr Charlesworth, he said, he said she was an outstanding candidate. That’s was it. She was an outstanding candidate.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Now, what that means I don’t know but an outstanding candidate gets rid of all the qualifications. Qualification this and qualifications the other. They just took her on her own merits.
HB: Absolutely. Yes.
CM: And Mr Charlesworth err Mr Butler said afterwards, many many years afterwards, she was working there about twenty years she was the obvious choice to do the job. That’s because —
HB: So so while Shirley’s getting her job and you’re —
CM: I was then worked for Anglian Water.
HB: So, so you’d, you’d then finished and you joined —
CM: Anglian Water.
HB: Anglian Water.
CM: I left the civil service. It didn’t make that much difference.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The man that told me that I was a natural, natural at the job which I wasn’t and also one of the employees there told me if you want to get on here don’t kind of send things back for verification. Just pay them anyway. You see, you’re allowed a five percent, a five percent error. He said you’ll never make any [unclear] It was so simple that there’s no errors. No possible errors. Overtake the hard ones by scores. So you never get five percent error.
HB: So what was your actual —
CM: So I held a job, Mr — he did the X, Ys and Zs and I did the As and Bs. It’s a good to contrast. He got very few applications because everything was to be handed to me. And see he did the bits that were difficult for me. He cancelled them all out.
HB: Right. So what exactly was your job.
CM: It was an easy job.
HB: Yeah.
CM: At the top of the tree.
HB: Yeah. What exactly was your job Kit?
CM: Vetting Officer. I decided how much if a person was eligible. For instance if you’d only had half the payments in you only got half the payment. Right. So if the person came in and they’d only got say, fifteen instead of the twenty six minimum application you’d cancel it altogether. Right. But he’d gone straight to the name then, assistant or something. He’d say what had happened. They’d pay him as if he was full, full stamps.
HB: Oh right I see.
CM: He gets full stamps. So I mean no matter how little you had, their people who only had fourteen they’d get for fourteen and they’d get less then the person that had got none, none at all and he get paid the full. So us vetting officers we soon cottoned on to that. This was completely and utterly unfair.
HB: So this is for the water rates.
CM: No. Not water. This was, this was, that was the next job that I came to.
HB: Oh sorry. Sorry. I’ve missed a bit out. So that, so that was in to the civil service.
CM: Yeah. That’s right. The Civil service. And he kept on saying to me, ‘Don’t worry about that.’
HB: Yeah.
CM: After one year you become a, the, become a something officer.
HB: Yeah.
CM: [unclear] officer. It was the next step up. Free. Just get it free. You’ve got that anyways, if you’d done a year.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So I thought [unclear]. Here I am stuck in a job I dislike intensely, you know, being an aircrew man all my life and suddenly I’m kind of stuck there. So Shirley said, ‘I’ll find you another job.’ This is my wife. By this time she’s working at you know, she’s the department commander.
HB: Yeah. [unclear] Consumer Affairs.
CM: I’ve got all the certificates that she’d got.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Given to her. Not kind of worked for but given by virtue of her job.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And she said, ‘I’ve got a job here for you, working for Anglian Water as a district inspector.’
HB: Oh right.
CM: But what I got with the job wasn’t district inspector. It was area inspector. A rank higher up.
HB: Yeah.
CM: There were people who were experienced. Of course I had no experience but I did as Shirley said when I went to the interview. The first one I thought what the hell? Shirley can do it I can do it. So I was completely not bothered about it.
HB: Yeah
CM: I’ve got a good job anyway I’ve got pensions from the Air Force, I’ve got pensions from water board, I’ve got pensions from this and pensions from that.
HB: Right.
CM: So I did.
HB: It’s alright I’m just double checking the battery.
CM: Anyway, I’m terribly sorry I’ve taken over.
HB: No. No. No.
CM: But then you’re getting something about my background.
HB: No. No. No.
CM: I ‘m lucky. I’m lucky I have been, how lucky I could be.
HB: I’m interested in the length of service you’ve given.
CM: Yeah. I did thirty one operations in the hot war and there were five six, six, seven in the Cold War.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I did in the, in the, in the whatsaname for.
HB: Malaysia.
CM: Over the water to fly in the helicopters to look for where an aircraft had been. [unclear]
HB: Yeah.
CM: I had to map it out and tell them where it was and they’d come out and sort it out.
HB: The Air Sea Rescue. Yeah.
CM: So I had a particular job there and the promise to being an area officer and then another rank higher but I had to have the qualifications. They got to invent the qualifications for me. They said just get the A level in the, we’ll do the, all the chemical experiments for you. I said I’m in the base of a bloody load of corruption here. There was experienced both the civil service, they both told me first thing. They’d be a bit what’s the name. Something officer, there.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Field officer.
HB: Right. Yeah.
CM: But I wasn’t long enough, part time.
HB: So you’ve, you’ve gone all the way through the war. You’ve had your RAF career over twenty years.
CM: Twenty six years.
HB: Twenty six years. And you, you’ve gone back into civilian life. What do you think, what do you think the war, that your wartime service with Bomber Command what do you think that gave you for your later life in the RAF and —
CM: Confidence.
HB: Right.
CM: I was a, as far as I was concerned I was not only a wireless op air gunner who did his job but also I knew that I wasn’t, I wasn’t really scared. I told you I was the biggest coward and everything. I wasn’t.
HB: Right.
CM: I was apprehensive. I used to look at the, the aircraft coming in, the place where the aircraft was parked and find that there were so many bombs, if you looked at the front of the aircraft and you could see nothing else but steel all the way around from middle right at the end. Right through this. A huge bomb bay about easily from that to here in a Lancaster.
HB: Yeah. A good eighteen feet. Twenty feet.
CM: Nothing at all. And you’d look at the front and you’d find that, yes you could see it, everyone said it but you wouldn’t believe it. The wings were fitted upwards.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I thought my God it’s so bloody heavy there that the damned wings are lifting up.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And of course everyone, we were all aware of that, you know. And how the hell could this possibly get airborne? But as soon as the aircraft had gone on off the runway and got the a airflow over it the wings then start to lift, because if they [unclear] to lift and of course they reassert themselves.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And of course the Lancaster designed from the bomb bay. It was designed as a —
HB: Yeah. So so you attribute your confidence to it.
CM: And also I was a good wireless op. Morse, because I always, I never got any IMIs. IMI means de de da da dit dit — please, ‘please send that again.’ De de da da dit dit.
HB: Right. Yeah. Right. So, of, of your crews.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Because you obviously had you know a number of, you know slight changes during Bomber Command duties.
CM: Well, they didn’t know anything about ops. They didn’t tell them anything in Morse.
HB: No. No.
CM: But as something else to think about doing lectures. When I was doing my t cal, it was teaching I used to think to myself what I should really do is something that’s really interesting. And one of the interesting things about being a wireless operator was emergencies.
HB: Right.
CM: Now, you know that everyone sends SOSs when they were da da da da, so. But it used to be SOS de de dit da da da dit dit dit da da da dit dit dit. So this brilliant bastard, who it was said, ‘This is not distinguishable.’ It’s dash O S sent, sent separately. Why don’t we put it all together and make it one symbol? So what they did SOS and with SOS, SOOS and they put a bar across the whole lot which meant it ran, the whole thing bit of it, instead of it being it dit dit dit da da dit dit dit it became de de de da da dit dit dit dit dit dit da da dit dit dit Which everyone knows as SOS.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CM: So therefore it was adopted.
HB: Oh right.
CM: So we knew we had a system whereby if you had an emergency we used this system to do this. There’s a word called PATASACANDI. PATASACANDI. And if you think about that PAT is Position and Time. PAT CAS Course and Speed. A PATCAS Altitude. And then name. Name of aircraft. Intention of pilot. Right. All of this went out of your mind even and put all the things in and send it as PATACASANDI. In other words —
HB: Right.
CM: Height would be QAH fifteen, fifteen thousand. PAT, PAT in time of course you’d get your watch, plus course and speed. You ran the different course off from the, the whatsaname [unclear] and yaw thing, and speed. I didn’t get the speed but the navigator put down the speed. QTJ my speed is, my air speed is, such and such and such, my ground speed is depending which you were going to use. Then —
HB: Right.
CM: The course. And then there was the altitude. And the other one was the nature. The nature of, nature of, nature of the emergency.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Engine just, engine on fire. Bomb in, bomb in, bomb in bomb bay. Whatever the emergency was. They put that. Then intention of pilot. A PATCASANDI, Intention of Pilot. I at the end — intention of pilot. PATCASANDI. Everyone in the aircraft and the engineer knew that. How to send an emergency message was always in your head.
HB: Yeah.
CM: It was easy. You also knew the Q signals which we’d stick to them. The QAS for height. QTI for skip a course, your QEH was [unclear] of the whole thing so you could do it in your head. All the navigator had to say was, Kit.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
CM: I was confident that if there was an emergency I could send that.
HB: Did you, did you, when you look back we obviously lost an awful lot of —
CM: Engine Yeah.
HB: Aircrew and, you know people, you know, people didn’t come back. What was your, what was your general feeling? You know. You fly out on an op. You come back and a couple of your planes are missing. What was, what was your feeling about that, Kit?
CM: What we’d do then if you knew an aircraft had been shot down. We’d got sometimes to the 500cc channel, the name of channel 500 KCs which was 500 used by everybody. Maritimes, aircraft all go to the 500cc and you could hear anyone in distress sending his distress position.
HB: Right.
CM: That was the wonderful thing about being a wireless op you could be individual, an aircraft you’d see shot down and we’d know you didn’t have any chance of sending anything.
HB: No.
CM: But others which were badly damaged the wireless operator there frantically trying to get a message through.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because his message and don’t forget you obviously finished off the message, the SOS by pressing his key for twenty seconds which was a long time [buzz] All the time in the world for the ground staff and other people anywhere taking bearings on you so therefore they get a good picture of just exactly where you were in the North Sea.
HB: Yeah.
CM: I feel I’m taking over too much now of this. Way over things that don’t even matter.
HB: Oh no. No. No. These —
CM: Well, it gives a good background to a wireless operator’s job.
HB: Well, that’s, that’s why you’re being interviewed Kit.
CM: Is that right?
HB: Because your wireless operator experience, I mean we’re talking lots of years here has developed. But —
CM: That’s right.
HB: In Bomber, in Bomber Command.
CM: They were going to be shot down.
HB: Yeah. You, you must have experienced that, you know. With friends.
CM: Yeah.
HB: And other crews that you knew.
CM: Oh yeah.
HB: Who didn’t come back.
CM: Yeah. I won’t talk about that.
HB: No.
CM: Distressing experience I just cut it out of my mind.
HB: No. That’s, yeah that’s understandable. I mean it’s, it’s a difficult area because none of us now can even imagine how you would feel and what you would experience.
CM: That’s right but I do wish before you go and I know you’ll be thinking to yourself how can I get away with this [noise] I’ve broken your communicator.
HB: Worry not. I’ve stood it back up.
CM: I wrote, I wrote a letter once, on an old notepad, so I’ll just [pages turning] Look at this. Do you hear what Sherlock would say? You’ve got all these to read when you’ve got time. Not now.
HB: Well, we will. We will on another occasion, I think.
CM: That’s the chap that was flying that Typhoon.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Now, I won’t, I won’t keep this, but I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a description of a flight I made. Just a flight rather than the flight. The definite article rather than the indefinite article. Ah is indefinite article. The is action.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So this particular flight was in my mind and I wrote it down exactly how it was. But also I’ve mentioned something which I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere before. Are you listening carefully for it Harry? It was well known in Bomber Command that an awful lot of atrocities took place. Have you heard about this?
HB: About the —?
CM: Atrocities towards aircrew.
HB: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
CM: Some of these people who are — they went through a very very harrowing experience. Some of them went mental. Deranged in fact. And they gathered themselves during a raid and tried to collect any bombers. A lot of people, had they baled out over the target and they’d come down in the streets and they, generally speaking there were some people who would [unclear] had very bad time indeed. They were hanged from lampposts. They were kicked to death by the civilians. They were shot by platoon commanders who wouldn’t take them in. They just cut them down with that, you never hear anything about that.
HB: No.
CM: It’s up to Bomber Command did [unclear] that’s why to a lot of people like me know about this. If people knew about the really bad times that they faced if they were ever taken prisoner. If the Luftwaffe were around the area and the Luftwaffe were patrolling they were pretty safe, but if there were no, no Luftwaffe around the SS they couldn’t have cared less. They’d shoot you out of hand.
HB: Yeah.
CM: An awful lot. There’s never been any book published. Any publication about it. People know, know this went on. But if you try to find anything about it.
HB: Yeah.
CM: The only way you find out about is by looking up at this report that I put in.
HB: Right.
CM: Which I can show you.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But I can’t now because I can’t remember where it is.
HB: Well, yeah.
CM: So I thought this might be the sort of thing that you’d be looking for.
HB: Yeah.
CM: On top of. In addition to. As well as —
HB: Yes. Yes.
CM: Rather than —
HB: I mean, it’s been fascinating listening to you Kit talking about that, you know. Not just, not just the wartime but the whole of, the whole of your RAFs experience. And you know how, I mean you said that you described this period of time when NCOs were being reduced in rank and whatnot.
CM: Well —
HB: But, but how —
CM: They don’t, they, let’s put it this way they didn’t say it was a reduction of rank
HB: No. No. No. No.
CM: They were exactly the same.
HB: Yeah.
CM: But we as aircrew had been warrant officers. We’d been so used to all this you know.
HB: Yeah. Exactly.
CM: But It was just taken over, three stripes, three stars and a crown, the same as a flight sergeant.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And they wouldn’t have it —
HB: Yeah.
CM: The aircrew who served they wouldn’t have it. That’s what buggered that up.
HB: What do you, do you think? Do you, when you look back now for that time during the World War? Do you think the public really understood what you were trying to do?
CM: I didn’t think. No. I don’t think they even thought about the things I’ve been telling you about now. The murders. That’s what they were. They were murders. And the best way that they used to kill and this comes up time and time again. Butchers. Butchers actually decapitate theirs. They set them in a line and one after the butcher would take their heads off. So called ISIS.
HB: But the public. The public back home here.
CM: They never found anything about that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Never let anything be published.
HB: But in general terms though your, your service in Bomber Command.
CM: I tried to be a bomber.
HB: There were lots and lots of you.
CM: Yeah.
HB: As you came to the end of the war the public in this country had a view about the Spitfire boys and, you know the Navy and, and what not. Did you, did you — what did you think the public thought Bomber Command had achieved in the war?
CM: Well, I think that they pretty thought, and don’t forget and I came from a steel town and I used to and meet with a brevet and my stripes, you know. I was some sort of particular to the girls, I was a hero of Bomber Command. Because a lot of that on the radio all you got was, nothing happening in the war. The war years. The war world. But Bomber Command — last night’s operations. This. There. Bombers bombed shipping.
HB: Yeah.
CM: [unclear] what at the end was always the same. Of all, out of all these operations thirty five, forty four, sixty five, ninety seven in one case —
HB: Yeah.
CM: Of our aircraft are missing.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Now, you don’t have to be an intelligent member of the community to say ninety seven. Ninety seven, down the road. That’s from here to —
HB: Yeah.
CM: But there was a town up there. [unclear]
HB: But, so, so in general times you felt that the public were with you.
CM: Oh yes, really. There were also the liberals and the communists and the whatsanames. They wouldn’t be of course.
HB: No.
CM: But we were, as far as we were concerned we were being instructed. We willingly went into Bomber Command because in Bomber Command you bombed civilians. You couldn’t go to war like that.
HB: Yeah. And what, what was your view? Did, or did you even have a view of the government’s position at the end of the war towards Bomber Command?
CM: As regards the treatment of Bomber Command. It was absolutely atrocious. I’ve just explained to you about that.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Within, within on year of the war ending we were no longer flight sergeant or warrant officers. We were signaller 2s and signaller 1s and engineer 1s and engineer 2s, and pilots even. Pilot 1 and pilot 2s and pilot 3s and pilot 4s.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Because if you had one star you’re a pilot 4. For two stars you’re a pilot 3.
HB: Yeah.
CM: If you had one star you’re a pilot. No. You’re a pilot, a signaller 2 or pilot 2 with one star. No. Three stars was sergeant. Two stars — three stars and a crown was a flight sergeant. Three stars by itself was sergeant. Two stars was corporal. And one star was lance corporal.
HB: Right.
CM: That’s how, that’s how they looked at it.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: But the lance corporal couldn’t go.
HB: But the thing.
CM: Lance corporal couldn’t go in the sergeants mess.
HB: No.
CM: So they had to have separate messes and everything else.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So it was a complete and utter — it didn’t happen to the officers like that.
HB: No.
CM: They weren’t even mentioned. But we were treated badly.
HB: Politically, what, what was, what do you think was coming across politically from —
CM: Oh I think that at that time.
HB: Churchill and people like that.
CM: Don’t forget Bomber Command was the only way we could hit the, hit the Germans at all.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: Where could we hit? Where could we hit the Germans except in their homelands.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
CM: We destroyed their cities one by one.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Until only one was left.
HB: Yeah.
CM: Dresden. And in the last few days of the war we destroyed that as well.
HB: Yeah.
CM: So we did an incalculable addition to the winning of the war because they, whatsanames the people would be dehoused. Had no where to live. The slave labourers were living in terrible conditions in mountains. The whole system was run by slave labour.
HB: Yeah.
CM: And that was because of Bomber Command. They literally — the population were bombed out of their homes.
HB: Yeah. Well, Kit I think, I think we’ve come to a natural conclusion.
CM: That’s right. I feel as if I’ve, I feel as if I’ve monopolised the conversation.
HB: It’s not a conversation. It’s your story, Kit and it’s very very important.
CM: So you learned about the way that the way that Bomber Command were treated at the end of the war.
HB: Absolutely.
CM: You’ve seen my logbook. You know I’m a genuine person. You know that I’ve done well for myself.
HB: Yes. You certainly have. Its, it’s ten to three.
CM: Dear God have I been speaking for two or three hours?
HB: We, we started —
CM: You must have —
HB: We started before 1 o’clock.
CM: You must have put it to at least a half an hour of that Harry.
HB: I’m going to terminate the interview now. Thank you very much Kit. I really do appreciate that.
CM: But you will come back.
HB: Yes.
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 Christopher George McVickers
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-06
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMcVickersCG171006, PMcVickersCG1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:08:19 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Christopher ‘Kit’ McVickers was working at the steelworks before he volunteered for aircrew. He trained as a wireless operator and was posted to 218 Squadron based at Woolfox Lodge. His pilot refused to fly and was replaced with a new pilot. The crew found the incident upsetting because they loved their pilot and worried for him. Kit went on to complete his tour and then after a short time out of the RAF he re-joined. He went on to serve overseas including the Indonesian Confrontation. He flew in various aeroplanes including Lincolns, Shackletons and Lockheed Neptunes. He ended his career as a missile controller at RAF Neatishead and Patrigton.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Gibraltar
Singapore
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Dresden
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1952
1956
1963
101 Squadron
12 Squadron
218 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
B-29
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crash
forced landing
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Binbrook
RAF Compton Bassett
RAF Hemswell
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Yatesbury
Shackleton
Stirling
training
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/PLeedhamHJL1801.2.jpg
fdabc281256a5511e83607203749a467
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/ALeedhamHJL181212.1.mp3
eca92a44a63ba05981df7098454718ac
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
Leedham, Bob
Herbert John Lewis Leedham
H J L Leedham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Bob Leedham (b. 1922, 1183577, 160986 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 90 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Leedham, HJL
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview between International Bomber Command Centre volunteer Harry Bartlett with Mr Herbert, Bob, Leedham, who lives at Ashbourne in Warwickshire. He joined the RAF in 1940, but we’ll no doubt will come to that shortly. Bob, if I can just ask you what were you doing on, in the few years before the war?
BL: My family, my father was a skilled carpenter, but on my mother’s side, she had three brothers all of which were very keen engineers and one of which was exceptionally keen and he worked for a local motor company and he was involved in motor bike racing at Donnington, mainly, and it was him that inspired me with a heavy engineering interest, and consequently when I left school, I was educated in Burton on Trent, the dear old brewing place, I finished up there, I was, won a scholarship to be educated at the main system, which was the central system and the grammar school and so on in Burton and I survived that. And on leaving I decided my real choice was to follow my uncles as it were, into the motor trade, which I did. And I was trained fairly quickly as an apprentice in the motor trade and of course when the war started most of them were already on the reserve and they were the first people to be called up. So myself and a couple of my colleagues of my age, and at that time we are talking about an age of seventeen, sixteen to seventeen, I had already passed my driving test and was driving of course and we were left to run the very large garage very quickly after all the others had been called up, and so it was hands on experience with a vengeance. We were left to run the garage and carry on operations and consequently even a relatively short time I had a good engineering background. However, when I got to seventeen and a half, all my mates that I knew and went to school with and so on had all got into the air force, they’d volunteered in some way or other. In fact some of them were actually called up and I knew that sooner or later I would be called up as soon as I got to the age of I think it was eighteen or nineteen and the chances were that I would maybe put in to the Army. Well I had no interest whatsoever of going into the Army. My first choice was always the air force. Unknown to my parents, at seventeen and a half, I went over to the Assembly Rooms in Derby to the recruiting centre and signed up to join, but I had to give my age as eighteen. They probably accepted this with tongue in cheek knowing that I’d lied a little bit about my age. However, I was accepted and instructed to come for a medical a couple of days later. Very amusing and perhaps interesting thing was, that bearing in mind I had been brought up in a relatively conservative sort of area in Burton on Trent as opposed to big cities and so on, so we were living in a relatively closed environment, despite the fact we were all qualified, and highly qualified tradesmen then. So I went over to have the medical. There was about twenty of us lined up. The doctor came in, he says, ‘right, take your shirts off boys, I’m going to check your hearts.’ So he went along, checking everyone, all the way along, and when he got to the end he says, ‘Right, put your shirts on boys,’ then waited a few minutes, said, ‘drop your trousers then.’ I thought ‘drop my trousers!’, bloody hell! I’d never been exposed to anyone in my life before, you know! And I feel that at that moment I changed from being a boy to a man. That’s the way I felt about it, I couldn’t believe, having to drop my trousers and expose myself even to a doctor. That was the sort of background we were brought up in of course, in those days. It’s totally different now of course. So really from then on the next few days I was down at Cardington for the, attestation and so forth and then I was allocated for training. So initially because of my engineering background the RAF at that time were quite short of experienced engineering people, and they’d set up training units and so on but, they were very good from a theory point of view but nothing in the way of hands on. So I was immediately shuffled into training as a fitter 2E. But I wasn’t happy that, I wanted to fly. So it didn’t last long, and I managed to wiggle my way in to ITW at Blackpool, and found myself on a pilot’s course.
HB: ITW?
BL: ITW: Initial Training Wing.
HB: Right.
BL: Which was at Blackpool in those days and that’s where they carried out the tests as to whether you were suitable to fly in an aircrew capacity. So I was accepted to fly an aircrew capacity to be decided specifically by the selection board’s requirements. And the next thing was, at that time the pilot training was being geared up dramatically. The original pilots in the air force at the start of the war and going right up to probably about the end of 1941, were pre-war pilots, mostly people who’d come from quite wealthy backgrounds who could afford to train them as pilots and by the end of 1941, these were the people that the air force had to rely on in the early days. When I look back historically on some of the situations, bombing raids and that sort of thing using obsolete aircraft like Lysanders and stuff like that, it was dreadful really and by the end of ’41 most of these boys had disappeared: they’d either been shot down, been killed, they crashed or were POWs. Result was that there was a colossal demand for fully trained new aircrew. This was done from a pilot’s point of view in Canada, or America, or Southern Rhodesia as it was then, which is now Zimbabwe, of course. Those were the three, main three areas where the pilots would train from about 1941 onwards. And they set up very, very good systems. But there was a difference between Rhodesia trained and particularly American trained. The American instructors were extremely, quite different to us: they were very hard, very dedicated and they set up a system for training pilots, that if you didn’t go solo in twelve hours, you were thrown off the course. You were downgraded to either a navigator or a bomb aimer or anyone else that had any sort of background which would be useful to the air force, in my case an engineering background. And when you consider, you know, people, ex bank managers if you like, and people from a whole variety of trades in civilian life, there they were, shipped over to America to train as pilots and expected to go solo in twelve hours. Just dreadful really. However, that was the way the system worked. It wasn’t quite so severe in Canada, but nevertheless it was similar to the American system but the ones trained in Southern Rhodesia of course, it was very much more realistic, and they didn’t stick to any specific hours to go solo and things like that you see. So the result was when finely trained aircrew of any category then came back to the UK, the usual routine was Initial Training Wing and then on to type training unit and so on and find a way into things like Wellingtons and Hampdens and Lemingtons, er Wellingtons and things like that.
HB: Can I just take you back a little bit Bob? [Cough] excuse me. When you joined up, you started your initial training as a fitter.
BL: Yup.
HB: But you then went for aircrew training.
BL: Yes.
HB: Did you go to train as a flight engineer, or did you go to train as a pilot?
BL: No, I went to train as a pilot initially.
HB: Right. And where did, which you, where did you actually go train as a pilot?
BL: I went to 32 SFTS in Carbery Manitoba, Canada.
HB: Canada, right.
BL: But I didn’t make the twelve hours solo so I was downgraded, the same as three quarters of them. There were very few, at that time anyway, who were competent enough after twelve hours to go solo. So it was a very hard path really. I came back to the UK, together with many others, who’d been diverted then in to training as a navigator or a bomb aimer or a gunner – I’d forgotten that one – and, but in my particular case the fact that I had the engineering background, which they wanted, they downgraded me to co-pilot and flight engineer. So predominantly I was trained as a full flight engineer, despite the fact I was accepted that on aircraft for instance like the Stirling I had to act as co-pilot as well. So I had to take link training and all that. I was never allowed to take off and land, but I was there to relieve the main pilot and to act as co-pilot duties. And that applied pretty well throughout: Stirlings, Lancasters, Halifaxes and so on. So we were always virtually the number two so far as the mechanical operation of the aircraft was concerned. As opposed to the gunners who had their job to do, bomb aimer had his job to do and the navigator. A number of the early bomb aimers of course were also trained as type of navigators but very few of them flew as navigators, they flew mainly as usually as bomb aimer come front gunner. There was always a front turret, gun turret on the Lancs and the Stirlings and Halifaxes, so the bomb aimers were expected to man the front turret and also act as the bomb aimer so far as the targets were concerned. And the navigators of course, they did the actual navigation guidance to the pilots.
HB: So you came back to England and you went to do your flight engineer training for aircrew.
BL: Yes. At St. Athan.
HB: At, St Athan, right. So at the end of that training, where did you sort of stand in the scheme of things?
BL: I was at training, already I’d had my link training as a co-pilot as well, before I went to St Athan, when I left St Athan, fully qualified, the next thing then was to join a crew on either Lancs, Stirlings or Halifaxes. In fact in my particular case I was posted to Stradishall which was a main training base for Stirlings and then the crew of seven were created. There was nothing directed, they put us all in hangar and between ourselves we had to get to know each other and put ourselves together as a seven man crew, which is how it happened. Once that’s established as a crew then your flight training started, which we did at Stradishall of course, on the Stirlings in our particular case.
HB: Where did your, is it all in this hangar, did somebody come to you or did you think oh I like the look of him, I’ll go with him? Or? How did it work? What were the mechanics of it?
BL: It’s a variety really. Our captain, our skipper, was an ex Birmingham policeman and personally, personality was absolutely first class, but he was a strict disciplinarian being ex-police, of course, and so he was highly respected despite the fact he was definitely one of us, but very highly respected. And we got to know him, chatting away and he said well, he says ‘I’ve just come from OTU from Wellingtons,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a navigator and I probably have a bomb aimer.’ He says, ‘I’m looking for a couple of gunners and a flight engineer co-pilot to get the seven man crew together,’ and so from then on it was a question of who you knew and whether you thought they were capable, and see whether they were already in a crew or not that was how we all created seven together. It was done quite amicably, in various reasons, various forms, whether you knew each other or you say well I know old so-and-so, he’s a bloody good navigator, try and get him on our crew, you know, and that sort of thing. So we finished up as a very tight crew and it so happened, subsequently, that when we were doing our ops on the squadron, the camaraderie within the seven man crew was very tight indeed. The result was we found that we had seven first class crew members. Everyone worked together, helped each other and that was the way it went on the Stirlings. Unfortunately the Stirlings of course had a very bad reputation subsequently. The reason for this was because in its early days, [cough] it was built pre-war of course, a long way pre-war, and was a very good four engined heavy bomber when it was produced, extremely good, but unfortunately it came under the influence of the political decisions, the politicians came along and said that aircraft’s got a wingspan of a hundred and sixteen feet! We won’t get it in to the hangars at Cardington, they’re only a hundred feet, you’ll have to take sixteen feet off the wings. So, reluctantly, they put pressure on the manufacturers and the Stirling was modified to have sixteen feet, either, eight feet either side taken off the wings. Not only that by doing that they had to alter the structure quite considerably and raise the undercarriage very high in order to cope with this. Disaster so far as performance’s concerned, the result was the Stirling was always very, very much – what shall I say - the underdog as far as the heavy bombers were concerned. Result was the highest we could ever get to bomb was about twelve thousand feet. The Lancs and the Halifaxes were up above at twenty two thousand and frequently if your time was slightly out we were bombed by their bombs from above us. Frequently happened, there was a lot of aircraft were lost that way. Just one of those things. So really, although at that stage, when you think that the Lanc didn’t come in to service till towards the end of ’42, so in the early days the Stirling was the only heavy bomber and he was restricted in its performance by this political intervention and consequently it had a reputation of being something of a, I won’t use, I want to use the words death traps, but Bomber Harris had his own ideas on this and he was fully aware of it. In fact as ‘43 went on we were doing the Ruhr bombing and then of course Hamburg and then the start of the Berlin offensive which was in the autumn of ’43, and at that stage our losses were running on average seven, eight percent, we had one occasion when our losses were seventeen [emphasis] percent. And it got to the stage where Bomber Harris, he couldn’t stand it any longer, he was at war with a lot of the politicians himself of course by his insistence that Germany had to be bombed in order to minimise their war effort, and consequently it’s on record in one of, I think it was Max Hastings’ book Bomber Command I think he mentioned it in there, the extract of a meeting that Harris had with Churchill in round about October, I think, or maybe November ’43, and he was thumping the table and he said to Churchill, he says, ‘if I send my boys out [thumping] to get lost any longer in these bloody death trips, death traps called Stirlings they’ll call me a murderer.’ He says, ‘what I want is Lancasters, Lancasters and more Lancasters.’ there was a hell of a row went on and Churchill didn’t say a word. But finally he leaned across and said you’ll have your Lancasters. And it was then that the production on Lancasters was even, set up considerably higher than what it was already.
H: So when [cough] -
BL: So really, just interrupting,
HB: No, no.
BL: so going back from our training at Stradishall as a crew were posted to 90 Squadron to a little place called Ridgewell which was in Cambridgeshire, and not terribly well known and we were the first people in. A couple of farms that had been demolished and replaced with an impromptu quickly built runway. There was no, shall we say buildings, which were you might say were suitable for an operational squadron. There was mud everywhere, conditions were foul. They put a series of nissen huts up for us to live in and also for headquarters and the conditions there were not terribly good at all. However, there we were in the spring of ’41, er ’43, expected to use that as a base to operate, operationally against the various targets which were set out. We were at Ridgewell I think for no longer than about three months, four months, something like that and we moved then to a place called, it was West Wickham when we moved there but it was renamed Wratting Common, and consequently conditions there were far better. Again, it wasn’t a wartime, it wasn’t a peacetime airfield, but it was a good airfield and conditions there were far better airfield than Ridgewell. I don’t quite know what happened to Ridgewell in the end, whether it survived or not. I shouldn’t think it did: it was foul. But nevertheless we went to Wratting Common and we continued to fly our ops from Wratting Common on 90 Squadron, until, as I say, the autumn when the squadron was destined to change from Stirlings into Lancs and consequently they were moved to just outside Mildenhall at Tuddenham.
HB: How many ops did you actually fly in Stirlings for your tour?
BL: On Stirlings alone I think we did about twenty one I think it was, on the Stirlings, before we went on Lancs. As I say during that particular time conditions using the Stirling were very difficult, to make an understatement. Our losses were constant and it was amazing really, I mean for instance there was a Canadian pilot called Geordie Young. He was the senior pilot on the squadron, he’d got a lot of experience, and they went off on their last trip, their thirtieth trip, and they got blown up over Dusseldorf on their very last trip and that was, had a very, what shall I say effect on morale on the squadron, because they were regarded you know, the top boys on the squadron. One of the problems, in those days throughout Bomber Command, not just 3 Group which was a Stirling Group, but all the other groups as well, is that when Don Bennett set up the 8 Group, Pathfinder Group, he got old Hamish Mahaddie who he took on as his recruitment boss to collect all the very best crews off the different squadrons he could get hold of, to go into Pathfinders, and of course there was a colossal amount of opposition to this from all the squadrons. No squadron commander wants to lose their best crews, and consequently there was a war going on particularly on 5 Group, with Cochrane was the AOC on 5 Group in those days, based at Swinderby and he was very, very strongly opposed to it. There was open warfare going on the whole time, and despite the fact that 5 Group at that time of course, was the elite group which contained all the 617 boys and various other specialist crews for specialist bombing trips and he obviously didn’t want to lose any of those. And consequently he managed to get some political background particularly from Arthur Harris two of the Pathfinder squadrons in 8 Group would be transferred back to 5 Group. So he eventually had his own Pathfinder boys. Of course then when Gibson set up 617, that was also again from selecting top quality experienced crews. In the early days that was, but before the Dambuster raid, but not so much later on when they were really struggling to get replacement crews from the various crews they’d lost. So really Bomber Harris, Arthur Harris, he was very much supporting the 5 Group people, it was his elite group in Bomber Command and he always gave it sort of first preference on everything. There’s one, a very amusing aspect came at a conference they were having at Swinderby when at the time Princess Margaret was having this affair with Fighter Command Townsend and there was all speculation in the press about whether she’d marry him or whether she’d marry somebody else, and so on, and at this particular meeting, this conference of crews at Swinderby, it was a bit of a hilarious topic and someone was saying, ‘well it’s unknown who she’s going to marry, but it won’t have any effect on us here in 5 Group.’ And somebody stood up and said, ‘well there’s one thing for certain, whoever she marries, it’s bound to be somebody from 5 Group!’ [Laughter]
HB: Yeah. Can I just take you back a little bit Bob.
BL: Yes of course.
HB: I just noticed in some of your notes, I know this is jumping right back, it says you [cough] were posted to Coastal Command, 86 Squadron and flew on Sunderlands.
BL: Yes. That was when I was on 86. We were, we did a detachment down to Gosport actually.
HB: Oh right.
BL: And then to St, St Athan, when the two battleships Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst were at Brest and they were trying to get up the channel to get away and consequently we went down there with 86 Squadron to carry out operations against the two battleships. But for some reason or other, some of the squadron was detached to, in Coastal Command, to a flying boat squadron, which was 10 Squadron based at Mountbatten, at Plymouth. I don’t quite know why this happened, it was only a very short time, but I was one of the people that went on the flying boats for about three months.
HB: So you were there as a co-pilot engineer?
BL: Yes, on the flying boats. And again, bearing in mind our engineering background was what they wanted more than anything because we had to get involved with the maintenance schedules and so on as well. So I only had three months, I didn’t like it at all. Flying boats was not for me, and that was the main reason I thought that there must be a better way that I enjoy so I volunteered while I was there for Bomber Command. That’s where I started into Bomber Command
HB: Right. It’s all right, I was just trying to get the sequence of events into some sort of order.
BL: That was really how the sequence went through. Of course in Bomber Command, very lucky with our crew to survive a tour on 90 Squadron.
HB: What were the operations, you know, you’re flying operations into the Ruhr in the Stirling, and you’ve very clearly explained the shortcomings of the Stirling. What was it, you know, what was, what were your experiences of those, those individual sort of operations?
BL: Well it varied actually. But the Ruhr targets at that time I can remember them vividly. Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Krefeldt, Essen. And Essen was the one everyone hated [emphasis] because at that time that was the home of Daimler Benz, Krups and all the munitions factories, and they had a ring right the way round Essen, three thousand anti aircraft guns and radar controlled searchlights and when you’re flying towards Essen and you looked ahead, you think, ‘Christ you’ve got to get through that to get to the target point,’ and usually at briefing when the curtain was finally pulled back - we were never told what the target was until the very last minute of course - and when the target was pulled back you see Essen area, ‘oh Christ, not Essen,’ you know. However, going from what I say, first five trips Essen, then we went on to Gelsenkirchen, Wuperthal, Mulein, Bochum, Cologne, Munchen Gladbach. Now in my history of 90 Squadron book, there’s various aspects of the work that we did, and there’s a typical battle order printed there as an example. And that was August the 26th I think it was, on Munchen Gladbach and we were on the battle order for that particular night. I think the squadron was putting up something like thirty two aircraft or something that night. There was eight hundred and fifty on the, the full main force. And at that time the procedure on ops on the squadrons was that you didn’t do, as a pilot or co-pilot or anything like that, you didn’t go out with your own crew until you’d done a familiar flight with an experienced crew as a supernumerary and it just so happens that on that battle order I had one under supervision and there was one other crew with another one under supervision. It was on the 31st of August ’43. And these two chaps, I had one of them under supervision, and another crew had the second one. Out of curiosity, in the back of the book there’s seven pages of casualties on the squadron, and when I looked for the names down, both these boys’ names were down on the casualties, one, bear in mind, was on the 22nd of September bear in mind that was just 22nd, twenty two days after we had taken them on the supervision. One of them went on the 22nd, the next night the second went on the 23rd. So they only survived twenty three days on the squadron. And that was typical, absolutely typical. We used to live in a long nissen hut, seven beds each side, two crews in there. Three times we had a new crew come in, and three times we’d wake up after an op the night before, about midday, be woken up by the military police going through the, collecting the bits and pieces, belongings of the other crew who had got the beds on opposite. Three times we had new crews come in and three times we lost them very quickly, in two cases within the first three ops, and consequently we had, as a crew, we had a reputation of being a Jonah crew and nobody would move in with us. [Laughter] But in all seriousness that was the way it happened, you know and we lost some very quickly and didn’t even get to know them. There we were, soldiering on and finally got to the stage as I say, when the Stirlings were taken out of service and deployed on other work, mainly glider towing and things like that. Then the Lancs took over as the Lancaster production of course, got higher and higher.
HB: What do you put down to, I don’t want to use the word success, your ability to have got through those twenty something operations?
BL: A lot of people would say you must have been one of the lucky ones. Yes, to a point. But we had a very good crew; highly [emphasis] dedicated crew to the individual job they had to do and it was, there were various aspects of the operation that needed high concentration and dedication to execute that. I mean our rear gunner, Eddie, he’s still alive now in New Zealand, and he had eyes like a bloody hawk; he could spot these fighters coming in and he would control the operation immediately if he saw a fighter, to the pilot at the front, saying, ‘corkscrew, corkscrew,’ and instead of flying at straight and level from a to b to a target on our particular crew, we would fly perhaps just for a minute or so, then start weaving like that, so that there was no chance of the fighters beaming on to us in, as if we’d been flying straight and level they had a much easier job of coming in to us, and under from mid or something like that, shoot us down. But by weaving like that, was one of the things which we did continually, it was uncomfortable but it was very safe. But apart from the anti aircraft of course, it certainly kept the fighters at bay from us and I mean I think three times we were attacked by fighters and three times we got away from them. Largely due to Eddie in the rear turret. Who shot one of them down actually.
HB: Did he?
BL: Yup, He opened up, he waited till he got it in his sights, and let fly and it blew up in front of him, or behind him should I say. So really that aspect of it is the thoroughness of the type of flying and the operation which was necessary, but on the other hand of course, where anti aircraft was concerned it’s a different story. We, in the Stirling we were in the middle of it, weaving through it and if you had a direct hit or a hit which say damaged the aircraft severely you could say right you were just bloody unlucky like Geordie Young on his thirtieth trip, and that sort of thing, so. The worst night of for Bomber Command for all losses was the Nuremburg flight, you may or may not have heard of this, but it was on the Nuremburg trip when the met people made a complete balls of the forecast. They were forecasting plenty of cloud so that you could fly comfortably in and out of cloud and the fighters couldn’t detect you quite so easily. But on this occasion the weather didn’t turn out as they predicted and consequently it was a full moon clear, crystal clear night and the result was that the main force – there was eight hundred and fifty aircraft on that particular target. This was in the autumn of ’44, I think it was, and that particular night we lost ninety four aircraft on that night, and when you think there were seven men in each aircraft. Work that one out. That was the worst night ever [emphasis] for Bomber Command.
HB: And your crew were on that.
BL: No. We weren’t on that.
HB: You weren’t on that one.
BL: It just so happened that we were on leave at the time so we weren’t on it. But that was, that’s the hard statistics of it.
HB: Because I was interested in the, in the thing you were saying about the Lancasters and the Halifaxes going at twenty two and you know, the Wellingtons, obviously the Wellingtons were at eighteen thousand and the poor old Stirling’s down at twelve.
BL: Yeah.
HB: I mean that must have, that must have influenced your pilot and your crew at that point, when you were on, when you were on the bigger raids.
BL: Well, yes, to a point, but you had to admit it was one of those things. I don’t think, it was only when we got to grips with the Stirling and training and so on and realised what effect the modifications had had on the performance of the aircraft. It was not easy to get off the ground with a full load on. For one thing the inertia of the engines meant that it was, always had this sort of pull to starboard, to the right, which you had to maintain correction on, and not only that but the fact that the undercarriage had been raised quite considerably, very high up. There’s a picture here will show: that was our aircraft and the one that saw us all the way through our tour, and it was so high up it that when this sort of inertia from the engines, it was very difficult to keep it straight down the runway. In fact there was numerous occasions when the aircraft just couldn’t control it with a full bomb load on and it crashed or something and numerous messy situations like that developed. But this is why as I say, I meant occasionally that when I went from Stirlings up into 5 Group, I was posted up to the elite group. How that happened was, that at that time the Lancs were coming on stream and 5 Group at Swinderby was the training base for the Lancs, but again they needed them on the squadron so rapidly that they were pushing the crews through probably too fast, not quite enough training. And the result was that a lot of the crews had been trained on the twin engined Wellingtons and stuff like that, which didn’t give them any [emphasis] experience on four engined stuff. So in the, when we finished a tour on Stirlings, it was decided then by the powers that be as it were – Harris and co – they’d put a few Stirlings up to be based at Swinderby to get, be engaged on the Lancaster training programme so that we could give them experience on another four engine aircraft which was more difficult to handle than what a Lancaster was, and consequently I was one of the eight crews that were, instructors that went up there and that’s how I got in to 5 Group, posted up there on the Stirlings. And I always remember when we got up there about 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening. So we parked the aircraft went over to the officers mess, went in the bar straight away for a drink of course, and we were standing there and there was another group of the instructors and so on and amongst them was Dave Shannon and Mickey Martin – ex 617 – and quite a number of others who’d survived and they were curious as to who we were. And finally old Dave Shannon, who was a big Australian as you probably know from 617, came across and said, ‘who are you blokes then and what are you doing here?’ ‘Oh we’ve brought some Stirlings up to give you some help in the training programmes here.’ ‘Stirlings!’ he says,’ bloody hell!’ He said, ‘have you done a tour on Stirlings?’ I said, ‘yes’. He rubbed his hand over here, says, ‘Well where are your VCs then boys?’ [Laughter] And that was their attitude towards us.
HB: Yes. That tells the tale.
BL: But there again, life’s about winners and losers isn’t it, you know. And what we had we had went out to do the best you can, and as I say, it’s sad really that our losses were consistently high.
HB: So when you’d done, you did, you know, when was you last operation that you did with the Stirling? Can you remember?
L: It was on, I think it was either Hannover or Stuttgart, it was not the Ruhr, north of the Ruhr, but that was my, our last op. We did two Berlins on the Stirling, surprisingly, and relatively quiet trips too, long trips but relatively quiet, for us anyway.
HB: What was your feeling on, you know, you’re going to do your thirtieth or your last tour on the Stirling? What was going through your mind then?
BL: I don’t really think there was any feeling about it. I mean on our crew there wasn’t any suggestion of any feeling of stress or concern or the fact that you might be, the crew expression was – you might get the chop. No, we were a very good competent crew. We operated very correctly and safely as far as we could and I think that had a, that was the predominant factor in the crew. I mean a lot of people today often say to me well what about all the stress and everything? I said well the simple answer was we couldn’t even spell the word. You know, I mean the stress wasn’t there, it was concern. Admittedly we had one occasion when our mid upper gunner, Mick, suddenly went down with something, tonsilitis or something and he couldn’t, he had to go sick and consequently they stopped him flying that night and we were doing an op that night, on, I’ve forgotten where it was now, somewhere in the Ruhr, so we had to have a mid upper gunner, spare mid upper gunner who apparently for some reason or other he’d lost the rest of his crew, he’d done no ops at all, but he was spare, so they said oh you’re joining Cawley’s crew tonight because the gunner’s gone sick so he came to us and was a dreadful situation. He was absolutely petrified of the thought of going on ops, and halfway towards, over the Dutch coast on the way to the target, he suddenly started firing off indiscriminately at what he thought were fighters but they were clouds. And of course it immediately was bloody dangerous because if fighters around they see tracer bullets going out they home in on us. And Charlie was absolutely crackers, he went mad. What the hell’s going on? Go back and have a look!’ And this bloke was sitting in his turret there, absolutely terrified and it happened again, at a very dangerous point, he suddenly started firing off. Anyway when we, we survived the op, we got back and we landed, the crew bus was there to take us back to the base for intelligence and debriefing and he never said a word, wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t get on the bus, he walked back and of course when he was interviewed by the Station Commander he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ The medical people there saw the condition of him and the RAF had a very cruel aspect of dealing with situations like that. They immediately used to braid you, used to name you as Lack of Moral Fibre which was dreadful really. You were immediately stripped of your rank back to basic and sent off to a unit which was down at Brighton to deal with these people who were so called Lack of Moral Fibre and that went on your records throughout your, a very cruel way of looking at it really. But that happened to us on this particular flight and as I say amazing really, the bloke was just absolutely petrified. Couldn’t face up to what he was asked to do, despite the fact he’d gone through training and managed to survive to train to become a qualified gunner, but there we are. Just one of those things.
HB: What did you do when you got back from your last op?
BL: [Laughter] Well I normally drink a gin and tonic but I think I had something a bit stronger than that that night! No. we had a, all went down to the pub locally and had a nice evening and then we knew the next day we’d be posted out, we’d all be posted to different directions and it was a question then where everybody went. It just so happened that in my particular case I was posted, for a very short time, to a place called Wilfort Sludge which is on the A1, but from there of course this deal came up to send some Stirlings up to 5 Group, so I was then posted out of 3 Group into 5 Group. And previous to that I’d, before I finished my tour I’d been recommended for a commission so my commission had come through so I was, and that came through six months late, so I went straight in as a commissioned Flying Officer then and went to Swinderby then as an instructor and it was, the rest of the crew: Johnnie went up to, he was the captain, he went up to near High Ercall, which is up near, in Shropshire somewhere, near Whitchurch to start training Stirling crews up there to tow gliders in anticipation, of course, of the Arnhem offensives and so on, so he went up there on towing gliders. The two rear gunner, the two gears, er gunners, the mid upper gunner and the rear gunner, they were posted to somewhere on special duties. Where they thought they were going on rest they suddenly found they were on ops again, on the special duties, doing, dropping these Resistance guys in France and so on. Harry our wireless operator, the navigator by the way, suddenly when I went to Swinderby I found he was already there and I was sharing a room with him in the mess for a while. Unfortunately, he’s the son of a clergyman in Cornwall, highly religious, he used to spend all his time playing the organ in the local church where we were down the pub having a drink, but he had a heart attack right at the end of the war and died straight away. The bomb aimer, little Barry, little short bloke, he went on rest for a short time and then decided he’d go on a second tour, But got shot down on the third trip of his second tour, but he was lucky. He managed to bale out and he was a prisoner of war for about the last six months. But Harry, our wireless op, his previous job in life he was, worked in the Metropolitan Police, on the vice squad and he was absolutely obsessed on flying against the Germans on Bomber Command, absolutely [emphasis] obsessed. His one aim in life was successful bombing Germany and when we were tour expired and they say, sent out as instructors or rested and so on, and what they called screened as they said, screened from operations. He refused point blank he says, ‘No, I’m not going,’ he said, ‘I’m going to carry on.’ There’s a little bit of discussion with the commanding officer about it and the adjutant and so on, but anyway he got his way was posted on to a Special Duties squadron somewhere, and he carried on flying. He did seventy four ops in the end. And in the end he got shot down over Denmark I think, on one these special, highly secret operations on his seventy fourth. If you go back to Lincoln his name is on the, one of the what do they call it, the metal -
HB: The walls.
BL: The walls.
HB: wall 118.
BL: That’s what happened to all of us in the end. And as I say, the two gunners they survived, despite the fact they were amazed to find themselves on this resistance dropping and that sort of thing. So that was where we all finished up.
HB: So you ended up at Swinderby as the instructor on, you know, giving people experience on four engines.
BL: Yes. So, when I went to Swinderby I was instructing on Stirlings and Lancasters at the same time.
HB: Right. So how did you, how would you relate to the engineering side of the ground crew?
BL: Well, very closely indeed, in fact the whole crew did. I mean our ground crew was our survival in many respects and we respected them, we had a very good ground crew. They kept our aircraft serviceable against unprecedented odds at times. I mean there’s numerous occasions we’d come back with shrapnel holes down the fuselage and that sort of thing, and there was one occasion when there was, we had a near hit, this was Dusseldorf again funny enough, the intelligence people used to say well when the anti aircraft batteries are shooting at you, if you can’t hear on, if you can’t hear any noise you know you’re safe, but if you hear a bang you’ll know it’s very close. We heard this bloody great bang over Dusseldorf and that was very close and it finished up with Norm Minchin, the mid upper turret, with the perspex turret round his head, a piece of shrapnel came up and cut right through the back of the perspex and cut the back of his turret off, and he didn’t know it! Without touching him at all! It just cut through this Perspex and the back, and after we had left the target we were flying back home and he came on the intercom and said, ‘Christ it’s bloody cold up here, have you got some heating on?’ Didn’t even know it had happened! Of course when we got back to base not only that but there was a hole in the side of the aircraft you could damn near crawl through. So the maintenance people had a pretty big job, you know, to patch up all the holes on it. And that sort of thing, but the, yeah, the ground crew were very much part of the team, very important and we had a very good ground crew, very good.
HB: And when you got to Swinderby, you would, you would continue that relationship as you do in the training of the crews.
BL: Well not with the ground crew, not at Swinderby.
HB: Right.
BL: No, I mean we were, at Swinderby all we were concerned with was training the new crews coming through, and the ground crew was general ground crew, not to with, nothing to do with individual aircraft whereas on the squadron each aircraft had its own maintenance crew and its own flight crew and that was our particular aircraft which took us all the way through.
HB: Ah right, yeah.
BL: That finished up by the way, when we handed that over to another crew, actually I read historically in one of the books somewhere it was listed, I forget where the, I think it was the Bomber Command Diaries, every aircraft that was lost they gave indications where they were lost and where they were found and so on and our particular aircraft, the other crew that had it and it finished up in the Zuider Zee!
HB: Oh right.
BL: It was recovered eventually, by the Dutch people, who were, the Dutch people were doing the archive details and so on and there was actually some photographs of it being pulled out of the sea, they’re printed in the Daily Mail I think it was actually, so I couldn’t believe it when I saw this, when I saw the number on the side BF524, that was its serial number. WPNN and it was just being pulled out the water and you could just see the name, the number BF524 on the side of it. Couldn’t believe it. Recovered it and there’s a bloke, a very elderly gentleman, he’s a semi historian based at Alconbury and he’s very much a Stirling enthusiast and he’s got a workshop there full of all the bits and pieces of crashed Stirlings and so on and he works hand in glove with the, his counterparts in Holland and one of the major museums in Holland loan him parts of aircraft which he’s, he’s rebuilt a complete cockpit of a Stirling.
HB: Has he!
BL: At this. Yes, Andrew found this out and took me over there and we had a morning with him. I was intrigued and he’s got this bloody old shed there, old hangar I think it is, a small hangar, packed with all these bits and pieces of a Stirling and in the middle he’s got a cockpit he’s already built. And when we went over there he was sorting out an undercarriage and he was showing us that the Dutch archive people were loaning him stuff out of their museum which he photographed and copied and so on and sent it back to them. He said he had a very good rapport with them. Very interesting this guy. I can’t remember his name. Andrew knows it, but it was at Alconbury where he is based.
HB: Well I think, what we might do, Bob, is we might just have a break now because I’ve just gone to check the battery and we’ve now been talking for over an hour! So if we have a quick five minute break. I’m going to have to change the batteries anyway. So we’ll just stop the interview for the time being.
BL: Yeah. Okay, fine.
HB: Well we’ve had a comfort break and we’re just going to, we’ve had a battery change. So we’re just going to resume the interview -
BL: Oh these bloody things! I hate these!
HB: Just having a problem with a hearing aid battery at the moment. [Whistling]
BL: That’s better.
HB: So we should be go, on the run now. So we’re all settled now for our second part of our interview.
BL: Yes. What I was going to say was, when we were talking about the losses on the Stirlings, the turning point I think, was when it was decided, when Goebbels was boasting that the German fighters and defences were quite adequate against the RAF Bomber Command, he made statements saying that they’ll never touch Berlin or our second biggest city, Hamburg, they’re quite safe with our defences and so on, they’ll never touch them. And that was the challenge which Bomber Harris took up, and decided in conjunction with the naval people, who were very concerned because all these u-boats and subs were based at Hamburg and they were going out into the Atlantic to pick off the convoys and so on, and naval people said we’ve got to get rid of these u-boat pens at Hamburg. So Bomber Harris decided we’d obliterate Hamburg; it’s in July ’43. And at that time, as I was saying, particularly on the Stirlings, our losses were very high indeed and morale was very low and they introduced for the first time this metal foil thing called window. That was these patches of metal things which we discharged through the flare hatch at the back of the aircraft every twenty seconds I think it was, or every thirty seconds, something like that, and these packs, when they went out into the slipstream, developed into a big screen of metallic which completely killed the German radar defences and those, radar, the German defences were based, anti aircraft, were based on the radar picking up the aircraft or picking up the target with a blue, bright blue light, searchlight and once it picked you up, it then brought all the other normal searchlights into a cone and you were in the middle of it, and once you were coned like that, it was curtains it just picked you off then because they had you, and the whole secret of their success was this radar control and when we used this window for the first time it killed their radar. The result was, the first time it was used on Hamburg, it could have been used very early in 1943 but the politicians and defence people were so concerned they thought that if we use it early the Germans will follow this, copy it, and use it against us. So they were very reluctant, but it was only that when our losses got so high they had to introduce it. And our losses immediately on Hamburg dropped to one percent: fantastic! I we went to Hamburg, we did the four nights out of six: I did all four of ‘em. The fourth one was a disaster in that the first three were completely successful and I can remember it now, looking down, a whole wave of fire throughout, it just wiped this whole place out, just like that. The fourth night we went of course the met people again, they were predicting storms, but nothing like as severe as we found. The result was I think of, the storms were so bad, we were struck by lightning and St Elmo’s fire which is on the windscreen, and goes down the fuselage, all the compasses were knocked out and our radar and Gee box was knocked out. We hadn’t the faintest idea how we were, how to navigate back again and I think out of seven or eight hundred aircraft there’s only about twelve or fourteen actually reached the target. All the others had turned back because of the weather, and we were icing up very heavily and on the Stirlings the oil coolers were slung underneath the engines and you know what happens to diesel vehicles in cold weather, the fuel starts waxing and clogs up the carburettors, and the engines stop and that’s exactly what used to happen to us. These coolers which start icing in the middle, and what we call coring, and you had to keep hot air flow going through them in order to keep them serviceable. We suddenly found that we’d got two engines with, suffering from this icing and then there was chunks of ice coming off the wings, battering against the side of the fuselage like, dreadful we had to abandon short of the coast. We jettisoned our bombs into the sea and the only way we could navigate back to the UK was star navigation, and Cyril, our navigator, he was particularly good, he could take star shots with his, with his, my blinkin’ names, what my memory’s going.
HB: Sextant.
BL: Sextant, yes, with a sextant. And a combination of that and following the stars he managed to get us going back in the direction of the UK. When we finally hit the coast instead of being, coming over the coast over Essex or somewhere, we were in the north of Scotland, over the Hebrides and that’s where we came in and of course we immediately identified where we were and we were able to fly back down to, in fact we made an emergency landing ‘cause we were running a bit short of fuel, at Wattisham, in Suffolk. That was on the fourth trip, but the first three were so highly successful, we absolutely wiped the place out, and as I say the losses dropped right down to one percent because of using this window. The rise in morale then was just fantastic, you know after that. Of course sooner or later the Germans found that they could, they changed their system and they found that they could nullify this window by using different types of radar and so on, so it didn’t last, obviously, but we were able to use it for some months actually, and it was very good. We’re just having a new kitchen put in at the moment.
HB: Ah right. That explains the banging.
BL: And the other thing about the ops on the Stirling, in ’43 when our losses were so high, when you counted the number of ops you’re doing, the way it was calculated by Group headquarters, it was decided that because when they analysed the losses and how it was happening and so on, they came to a system of doing thirty ops in a tour and the total would depend entirely on the type of ops. For instance when 90 Squadron went to Tuddenham on Lancasters in the end of ’44, or half way through ’44, their main job - they did very, very little main force bombing – but ninety percent of the jobs of their work and I’ve got it all listed in my history book of 90 Squadron, was on either, was mainly on resistance work dropping resistance and equipment for low level intervention into Europe, dropping arms and equipment to the French and the Dutch resistance movements and so on, and consequently this was done individual very low level operations and the result was that the ops compared with ’43 were very easy and the losses were very low and consequently because, and the short ops as well, and because of this to count one trip as an op they had to do four trips to count as one on the tour, and consequently this system which was introduced before we finished, was that because of the severity of a lot of our ops on the Ruhr operation were so incredibly high losses and so very difficult that they allocated that some of the ops, because of their severity, would count, you had to do one op was counted as two on your tour, because of the severity of the operation and the high level of losses. So it wasn’t, it didn’t always follow that you did a straight forward thirty trips, you could have done say twenty five trips but they counted as thirty on your log book and the severity of the targets.
HB: Did you ever do mine-laying, gardening?
LB: Mining? Yes. Gardening as they called it. Yeah. We did two actually. One off Le Creusot and one other, I’ve forgotten what it was now. We did, our particular crew we only did two mining operations, those were, they were easy ones too.
HB: Yeah. So. You got to Swinderby. You’re doing the training there. How did you move forward from there? So that would be 1944.
BL: Well it was the end of, Christmas, yes Christmas time ’43 when I went to Swinderby, and most of ’44 and as I said earlier I was a fully qualified instructor on Lancs and Stirlings then and towards the end of ’44, I think it must have been round about September, October, something like that, some of the Lanc squadrons in 5 Group were having very heavy losses and the analysis of those losses, was in many cases put down to the fact that, to inexperience, training not sufficient for them, because they’d been rushed through very quickly because squadrons, with their losses, need quick replacements and so on. The result was that at East Kirkby 57 Squadron and 630 Squadron were both there at East Kirkby, and 57 particularly although they’d been engaged on very difficult targets their losses were astronomically high and a hell of a lot of them put down to pure inexperience. So myself and Dicky, we were both instructors at Swinderby, we were seconded to 57 Squadron for three months to set up a revised training unit there, which we did, to give the training, give the operational crews quite a bit more familiarisation and training and so on to try and cut these, some of these losses down. So I had that period there. And it was whilst I was at 57 and about to go back to Swinderby, ‘cause I was still on the strength at Swinderby despite the fact I’d been loaned to 57 at East Kirkby to do this training programme, 463 Squadron at Waddington, the Aussie squadron, had been suffering a few losses here and there, and the, one of the leaders of the squadron, the co-pilot and flight engineer leader there had been lost, so I was posted to 463 as his replacement and I was lucky to stay there until the end of the war.
HB: So that was back on to operations.
BL: So, yes, so I went back on to ops. Of course when I was at 463, because I was the boss of A flight, I was the leader, I didn’t have a crew, so I could only put myself on to do ops when there was a, somebody had gone sick or something you see, so I did them with any crew, and by extremely strange coincidence, I said to you about Essen earlier, my very first trip on my second tour here was a low level daylight on Essen. [Laugh] I couldn’t believe it! But I’ll tell you what, it was so bloody easy, it was so different to 1943. But, so I stayed there really, and at the end of the war as I said earlier, I went to Skellingthorpe, just outside Lincoln when Tiger Force was set up. I was posted on to Tiger Force.
HB: And Tiger Force was - ?
BL: That was the equivalent to 617 to go to Japan to do the [cough] vital targets into Japan, very similar to what 617 had been doing, because the adjacent to 617 Squadron was 9 Squadron. They were both based then at Woodhall Spa and Wing Commander Cheshire was the, was one of the commanding officers at 617 at that time, amongst others. But so when I went to 463 as I say, I was there till the end of the war then, and doing ops from there, and because I was the leader there the flight engineer leader on 463, I was posted to Skellingthorpe to join Tiger Force and I was promoted then at Tiger Force to be in charge of that particular section to go to Japan and we were half way through their training when the bomb was dropped of course and it all came to a halt then. Consequently I found myself in civil flying.
HB: Yeah. You did tell me before the interview started, you were, you were made an offer by the RAF before you -
BL: Yes, offered a, I was a substantive flight lieutenant then, and for a very short time I was an acting Squadron Leader but only for four weeks! [Laugh] Because it all ended then. But I was offered a extended seven year flying, extended flying committee, er, commission and given the choice. I didn’t know much about, well I didn’t know anything about civil flying. I didn’t even understand what BOAC meant until I got there.
HB: But you were originally offered Transport Command weren’t you.
BL: Yes.
HB: What was your view on that?
BL: But I turned that down. I turned that down flat. But there’s a very, there’s another, a very ironic twist that I’ll tell you about. So immediately because we were then seconded from the air force to BOAC we had to get civilian licences. We had to get civilian licences and then they decided what they were going to train us on, so we had to go through the basic theory and all that sort of stuff to get civilian licences and we were allocated I think it was about either fifty or a hundred block licence numbers in the very early days. Once we’d done type training on, at that time on Avros produced the very first post-war airliner called the Tudor and the first dozen Tudors were just being built and they were destined to go to BOAC to start up to date pressurised passenger aircraft. They were quite nice aircraft actually, very good. So since we’d just, we were the first people to be trained on the Tudors. So we did our training on the Tudors and when they were just about to start to take, BOAC to take delivery of the Tudors, for some reason there was a political change and instead of coming to BOAC, they went to British South [emphasis] American Airways, and at that time was run by the old 8 Group Pathfinder chief, Air Marshal Don Bennett, who was a real press on type. [Cough] Highly successful with Pathfinders of course and he was the boss at British South American. They’d previously been running some converted Lancasters into what they called Lancastrians before long distance flying in South America and so on, and they hadn’t got a particularly good record they’d lost three or four of them I think, for different reasons and so they took delivery of the Tudors. Tudor 1s these were, Mark 1s. And I did quite a bit of flying with the, on the Tudors on the South American routes, down to Bermuda, and the Caribbean and so on, and I was put in charge of training at BSA as well. And then, as things went on, we got as far as 1948 I think it was, ‘46’ 47’ ’48 I think it was, yes, ’47 ‘48. Suddenly the Berlin Airlift comes up, and from nowhere I suddenly found BSA, because of their Tudors, the air force was already in force on the Berlin Airlift using mainly Dakotas, the old C47s and they couldn’t cope with, couldn’t make it that economical to cope with the heavy loads that was necessary so they asked a lot of the civilian charter companies and so on, if they could provide crews and aircraft to come on to the Berlin airlift to increase the load factors, and British South American got one of the contracts to, with two Tudors, to go on the Berlin Airlift and I was one of them selected to go on the first one. So I found myself flying over to Wunstorf near Hannover where we were based, to fly on the Berlin Airlift these two Tudors between Wunstorf and Gatow, Berlin. And ironically, I think, when I think that three years before, when I did my last operational trip with 463, there we were still bombing and knocking hell out of ‘em; three years later, there I was at Wunstorf flying into Berlin to try and keep the so-and-so’s alive. Ironic really, they were three years the difference. Anyway, I stayed at Wunstorf for nearly a year, I think it was. I did nearly three hundred flights between Wunstorf and, there were only three of us on board.
HB: What sort of things were you taking in?
BL: Well when I first flew out there, we were taking huge packs of canned meat and stuff like spam and all that sort of stuff, corned beef, and all that, which was fairly easy to handle, in big cases and so on. And then the RAF were getting a bit uppity about what they were going to do and what they were carrying and bear in mind that the US air force was also on the operation with their C54s and Skymasters and so on, they were based at Schleswigland I think it is. I’ve got maps showing all the different air bases that we used over there but we always used Wunstorf and because we were larger aircraft, they decided that instead of carrying packs of food and so on, we suddenly found ourselves carrying coal, huge packs of coal, great big sealed bags of coal, about a hundredweight apiece. So we spent some months then, this coal at Berlin. Landing at Berlin was quite something. It was the ground force of people doing all the unloading and so on was predominantly very elderly German ladies, old grandmothers and mothers and so on, and it was sad to see them. They were dressed, whatever they could find to wear, and they used to come on board. They did all the work of loading and unloading, all the heavy work and they used to come on board to us carrying these lovely family heirlooms like Leica cameras and stuff like that to exchange. They were desperate for two things: cigarettes and coffee, and you could get anything for a couple of packs of coffee, in fact I got a lovely Leica camera in exchange for two bags of coffee at one stage. They used to come up, had it all laid out on the nav table there when they were unloading and they’d bring these heirlooms up and do deals with us. Anything we could, anything they wanted we could give it to them, you know. Children we gave cigret – we gave sweets and chocolate to the children. The children loved it. The Americans set up, at one stage, when they flew into Gatow, over the Frohnau beacon flying on to finals for landing, all the children used to sit round the lake underneath waving to the Americans going over and the Yanks were throwing out chocolate and sweets to them. At one stage they set up, got large handkerchiefs which they tied up sort of like a parachute, and tied these bags of sweets to them, were throwing them out and in dropping them out and the kids loved it. Absolutely fantastic.
HB: Amazing.
BL: But anyway, as I say, another aspect came up then, some time after been carrying the coal, which was a very dirty operation, dust and everything in the aircraft and they suddenly decided that what they wanted desperately in Berlin was medicinal, what do you call it? Two things they were short of, one was straight run gasoline and the other one was, oh dear me, some large amount of some sort of medicinal fluids. I’ve forgotten what they were now, what they were called. But these were in great big packs but the hospitals were desperate for them. So when it was decided that they’d fly the stuff in, it meant that the aircraft that were going to do this had to be modified with huge tanks in the back to carry it. And the air force said point blank they wouldn’t do it, they refused absolutely point blank to carry straight run gasoline in bloody great tanks down the back of the aircraft, they said its far too dangerous, so they refused point blank to do it. So the civilian contracts were asked to do it and we had then replaced our two Mark 1 Tudors with two Mark 5s which had been built and never been put into service but they were much larger and so our two Mark 5s were then equipped with these bloody great tanks for straight run gasoline and this medical stuff and so for the last few months we were flying that into Berlin.
BH: How did you feel about that?
BL: Oh dear me. Well it was just a bloody big laugh I thought, we thought. Bear in mind we’ve still got this enthusiasm from Bomber Command which we’d brought from the air force to the civilian and it was such a big change, you know, but to us it was more of a bloody big laugh than anything else. But anyway, we settled down to it and it was a good operation, it worked extremely well. When you are turning on to final approach into Gatow, Berlin, you came in over the lake on the outskirts of the city and the final beacon was at a place called Frohnau, Frohnau Beacon, you had to call over the beacon which was virtually the outer marker for final approach and the timing was so accurately it had to be done. The timing of aircraft over Frohnau was every twenty seconds between aircraft.
HB: Blimey.
BL: When you think there was a variety of aircraft, everything from small Bristol freighters to Dakotas and converted Lancs and Halifaxes and anything the charter people could lay their bloody hands on. They buy them for peanuts and take them out there to take part because the airlift they pay very big money and we were no exception with our Tudors and it’s an amazing operation really.
HB: So you went through the Berlin Airlift. Just one thing just I’m just quite curious about. You started off I think, on particular kinds of aircraft as a fitter.
BL: Yeah.
HB: What was, what was the system for re-training you when you went to different engines and different engine management systems?
BL: Well there were various training stations set up. I think the initial one for fitter 2Es, or 2As, that’s the difference between fitter rigger and fitter engines was at Kirkham, Lancashire and that was the number one training base, apart from Halton of course which is still there and still doing it today! And Halton of course was always the base of the so called Halton Brats as they call them. They go there as small, young apprentices and three year training straight away and they’re still doing that today. Yeah, they’re still churning out young lads from Halton.
HB: Right. So when you were working with the Stirling –
BL: Yeah.
HB: And then you go on Lancasters, obviously you’ve got Merlin engines, you’ve got Hercules engines, you’ve got all sorts, you’ve got air cooled, liquid cooled. You’ve got all these different engines.
BL: Yes.
HB: So was there an element of self training or was it all formalised?
BL: Well it was to us, to a point where we were fully trained and fully experienced with a lot of hours in on Stirlings when we went up to Swinderby, the 5 Group elite Group., but we hadn’t been trained on Lancs. So we had, it was virtually self-training on the Lancs there by virtue of working on them and flying on them and training every day. So that part of it, yes, was to a large extent I think we did, there were short courses laid on for us. I did one at Cosford for instance, and places like that, but generally speaking more than anything you were self taught, and as instructors you were expected to be experienced and knowledgeable on all the different aspects, so that was how it worked. But go back to the Berlin Airlift though, when that finished, I came back, by that time British South American, there was a lot of demands because they had a very poor safety record. We lost Star Tiger and we lost Star Ariel, both in the Caribbean. Those were Tudor 1s, from the first Tudors that we trained on. The first one was lost over the Bermuda Triangle as they call it, up at twenty thousand feet, no idea what happened to him; it just disappeared. And the second one was, had flown out of the Azores which at that time was a very difficult operation, flying over the south Atlantic from the Azores to South America and weather conditions and very poor nav and all rest of it was very prevalent round the Azores; very difficult route to operate.
HB: How many passengers did the Tudor 1 carry then?
BL: It varied, on whether, the Tudor 1s, I’ve just forgotten. I think up to about eighty or ninety passengers, something like that. The Tudor 5s were much larger but they didn’t actually go into passenger service after the Berlin Airlift. I don’t know what happened. They were scrapped I think, in the end. But anyway, as I say, because of the loss of the two Tudors and the BSA had lost quite a few Lancs so Don Bennett was criticised very heavily and finally he was forced to resign. So he was taken over by BSA who was then taken over by one of the old traditional north Atlantic BOAC captains, Gordon Storr his name, and it was Gordon Storr who I was with, on the, we were the first two Tudors at Wunstorf when the Airlift started and then shortly afterwards after Bennett had left, they decided BSA would be would up so what was left of it came back into, it came into BOAC. But that stage I was still being paid as a flight lieutenant substantive from the air force, seconded to BOAC so I was paid by BOAC who in turn seconded me to BSAA so I was paid by three companies, very interesting situation. But then of course, having come back to BOAC then, BOAC were operating Yorks and converted Halifaxes called Haltons, and, oh there was still a few Dakotas being used, but generally they were waiting for the next civil airliner which came from Handley Page called the Hermes and that was a very good aircraft. I liked the Hermes very much. Performance wise it hadn’t quite got good altitude performance as such, but it was a very easy aircraft to fly, very comfortable, it was designed specifically for the comfort of passengers and so on. And it was after then that the Comet 1 came in from De Havillands, the DH106, which was designed and built by DHs and was at least twenty years before its time. And then of course to us anyway, a huge attraction to get on the first jet aircraft into service. So in no time at all I was, I joined the Comet 1 fleet. We were flying, first of all flying down to Johannesburg and then it was extended to the Far East and out to even as far as Tokyo and Hong Kong and so on. Then of course you know the story that Xray Kilo blew up over Elba on its way between Rome and London. They were immediately grounded, no one could understand why it had, how it had happened. There was a huge inquiry and after ninety-odd modifications they decided that one of them must have been the reason so they put it back into service. And in no time at all they lost a second one which blew up over Naples Bay. That was flown by a South African crew who were on loan to BOAC. We’d also got French crews flying them, and it, so it was then decided that because two of them had blown up, they couldn’t leave them into service any longer. Unfortunately a third one went. The third one was out of Calcutta and that had just taken over from Calcutta and was flying through heavy cloud and they put that down to the fact that it flew into a cunim cloud and the stresses were so great the aircraft just broke up. So then they were grounded completely and when Farnborough rigged up the test rig there, and put a whole aircraft on this water test bed, and they found out exactly why it had happened. The general opinion from the public and in aviation generally was that the pressurisation caused the windows to blow out but that wasn’t true at all. The fault arose through bad engineering practice on the design of the hatches in the roof. The hatches which covered the radio communication, adf system and these two hatches were like that square like that. Engineering practice is that if you design something that’s a square and it’s put under pressure, you see that little crack there, where that join is -
HB: Showing me on the photograph frame.
BL: That little crack there.
HB: In the corner. [cough]
BL: If a crack occurs, it will always come from a corner, and find its way across and finally disintegrate and that’s precisely what happened to the Comet. It was bad engineering practice because if you round the corners those cracks wouldn’t occur. Simple [cough]. Again, in fairness to De Havillands, they produced some very fine fighter aircraft, put in their own engine, the Ghost 50 engine in them, Vampires and stuff like that but they had no experience ever of high altitude pressurised aircraft, and so they built them to what they considered would be strong enough and so on. But I’ve got a book upstairs which Andrew’s been reading, of the whole story, the whole official story of the enquiry and the way they found out all the reasons for it at Farnborough. The summing up at the end of it, when they said officially you know, that the initial fault was the adf hatches that disintegrated because of the bad engineering practice, how it was designed. The general feeling was that the aircraft was twenty years before its time but it simply wasn’t strong enough, because De Havillands, or anyone else for that matter, had experience enough to build them strong enough, when you think that at forty two thousand feet the pressurisation equivalent in the cabin was only eight thousand feet. That was the highest the cabin pressure was ever taken up to give passengers comfort without having to go on to oxygen. So the difference between eight thousand and forty two thousand across the structure of the aircraft was eight and a half pounds per square inch which is massive [emphasis] from the outside to the inside, and it has to be extremely strong, the sort of structure, in order to withstand these pressures. So you can imagine that it was not only not built strong enough, but of course the fault occurred on the hatches which caused it to blow up anyway. The first one that went, Xray Kilo, I had flown that on quite a number of occasions, got it in my log book in a number of places prior to it blowing up. I think previously I’d, we operated it from Tokyo to Hong Kong only the day before I think it was, before it blew up at Elba, but that aircraft had only done seventeen hundred hours. The second one that blew up over Naples had done just over two thousand hours and the one that disintegrated at Calcutta had done less than two thousand hours. They were all going at the, virtually the same time. That was another factor that the inquiry of course dug up, when they said that, Tom Butterworth I think it was, that because of lack of experience at DHs on high altitude stuff the aircraft simply wasn’t built strong enough. You’ve got to go back to Con Derry who was the chief test pilot at De Havillands a few years before when he was doing demonstrations at the Farnborough air show in a, I think it was a Vampire, he was doing very, very tight turns demonstrating and on one of those tight turns the bloody wings came off. He crashed into the crowd there and killed a few people, including himself. That was another example that under extreme stress conditions, that DHs aircraft wasn’t strong enough.
HB: Yes.
BL: So all those factors, you know. So result was that going back to the Comet days, I was involved very heavily with the whole Comet story because then it was decided that they’d have to, they’d build the new aircraft much stronger and up to date. The other thing was, by the way, that De Havillands had their own engines, the Ghost 50 which only produced five thousand pounds thrust, which was quite adequate for the fighters, but for a aircraft like the Comet 4 Ghost 50 engines, they insisted on putting their own engines in and all the experts said no, we needed Rolls Royce Merlin engines, or Avon engines they were, but they refused point blank, they said no, its our aircraft, we’ll put our own engines in and they simply weren’t strong enough. We couldn’t even do a safe level cruise at altitude, you had to do a five degree climb the whole time to get to top of descent, largely because by continuing to fly like that you’re reducing your fuel flow and consequently you had adequate fuel to start your descent. It was because of the consumption levels and the lack of real thrust on these DH engines, it was extremely [emphasis] critical on fuel, extremely [emphasis] critical. They devised this method of five degree climb. You had to fly, when you flight plan you fly backwards starting at top of descent instead of top of climb and things like that, you know. So anyway, when it was decided then they’d build the new Comet 4 much stronger and it would have Rolls Royce engines of much higher quality and it had Rolls Royce Conway engines. So, they’d, after the 1s, they built some Comet 2s, which were destined to go to the air force. But of course after the crashes they never even got airborne, never even delivered, they were just stuck there at Hatfield. So they decided that they’d have to carry out a two year test flying programme to make sure that everything that was being put into the Comet 4 had been well proved, correctly and properly using these two Mark 2s which were used as test beds. So they modified these two Mark 2s, strengthened them up and made sure they were adequate to do the work. They put the standard Conway engines on the inboards and then the new big 524 engines on the outboards which were destined to go into the new Comet 4. So they hadn’t got any crews to fly these at De Havilland, so they asked BOAC if BOAC could loan them I think it was six, was six crews to fly a two year test flying for De Havillands on these Comet 2s, 2Es as they called them. So I was one that went on to those, on to test flying. The first year we, every day we flew non-stop to Beirut from London and back, every day for a year. The aircraft hadn’t got a certificate of airworthiness, of course it was experimental, so there was only three of us allowed on board, no one, none of the boffins were allowed on so they got all the, all the usual test equipment and everything was loaded all the way down the fuselage and it was all fed up to the cockpit where we were and we used to have, they used to give us a list of things we had to check and write the results down, the results of this stuff as we flew, and we had to fly at thirty two thousand feet and record all this stuff for them which was really interesting. I loved it actually. It was a bloody good programme and extremely well paid as well! [Laugh]
HB: Right!
BL: So the first year we did London Beirut every day and the second year they decided we’d have to do the Arctic North Atlantic trials to make sure it was adequate for very low temperature conditions so then we started a programme going from London to Keflavik in Iceland and then across to Goose Bay and Gander in to the Maritimes and then back to London. So we did that for six months. That was a very interesting programme, I liked that part of it particularly. And then of course decided to try and get permission to fly into America. So the Americans were very keen on noise abatement and the Comet did make quite a bit of noise on take off of course, and so they said yes you can fly in to America but not land there, and not do take offs and landings. So then we had a period where we were flying out to different places around America using the new VOR navigation systems and so on, and then eventually politically we got permission to do landings over there and it was at that time then when a lot of the American airlines were looking very enviously at the jet Comet to replace traditional old fashioned piston engine aircraft and we did a series, we were doing a series of demonstration flights when, at the time when Pan American, the number one American outfit had just received, they’d just taken delivery of the first of the civilian Boeing 707s and they were pushing out a lot of typical American bullshit that they were going to be the very first pure jet passenger flight on the Atlantic, transatlantic ‘Fly American. Fly pure jet’, and all that, you know. Anyway, at the time we were down in Detroit doing some demonstration flights for United Airlines, they wanted to buy some of these Comets, so we were doing demonstration flights there. And it was there when we suddenly got a call to fly back to New York and, for some reason, and we found we got to New York we were going to do the first transatlantic flight the next day. We beat the Yanks by sixteen days! And when the Yanks had put all this, all the usual stuff in the papers, and they got the big banners out: ‘Fly Pan American the first jet flight across the Atlantic’ and so on. And after we beat them like that they had to change it all and where it said, ‘we are the first,’ they had to put in: ‘we are one of the first.’ They never bloody forgave us for it! Amazing story! [Laughter]
HB: Oh dear.
BL: But anyway, as I say I was very, very strongly involved in -
HB: How many people were on -
BL: - the whole Comet programme from start to finish.
HB: How many people were on that first trans-atlantic flight?
BL: I think we had about sixty, sixty passengers, something like that, yes. You’ve seen the menu of course.
HB: Yes, yes. Got a copy of the menu there [cough]
BL: We got back to London and it was a very historic occasion. They gave us immediate take off at New York and cleared all the flights from London to give us number one priority to land. BBC and everyone were all were there in force to welcome us, and it was headed by Eamon Andrews on BBC.
HB: Oh right. Yes.
BL: They got our wives there and so on waiting. There was two aircraft actually. We did the eastbound New York London and the other one went the other way, London New York and we crossed over at about twenty degrees west I think it was and acknowledged each other, but you know, two of them, one going one the other. And when we went through all the procedure at London old Eamon Andrews said, ‘We’ve got a coach here for you, we’re taking you up to,’ um to, I’ve forgot where the studios were now, I’ll think of it in a minute, ’taking you up to, see we want to put you on TV tonight.’ They’d decided to put us on that programme ‘What’s My Line?’ And old, the panel at that time dear old, oh my bloody memory’s going, bloke who was extremely well known on the BBC, was the chairman of the panel there. Anyway we went on TV and on this programme and all that sort of publicity and so on; it was really interesting. And then of course the following year I was picked to go to, one of the flight crew to go to Ottawa, Canada to pick up Duke of Edinburgh, Philip. We went in the Comet; he was very keen to fly in the Comet, so we went there to pick him up. He’d been there doing a series of talks and so on. The Queen was at Balmoral at the time so we were to pick him up at Ottawa and fly him back to Leuchars in Scotland, which is quite close to Balmoral, drop him off there. But anyway, we picked him up at Ottawa and we were just, hadn’t been airborne very long when a signal came through to say there’d, a big mining disaster had just occurred at Monckton in the Maritimes and would we divert to Monckton and so the Duke could just put in a quick royal visit, two hours royal visit to the disaster area. So we dropped him off at Monckton and then we flew down, further down to Gander and we waited at Gander for him to come, come back and then we brought him from Gander and flew him to Leuchars, dropped him off there. Oh it’s here somewhere I’ve got a picture of it. On board on the way back he was fascinated with the Comet 1, he loved to fly in the Comet, oh the Comet 4 I should say and on the way back he got a lot of individual special pictures of himself and he signed one each for us, and a handshake.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: I thought she’d got it up here, it’s been on the wall here somewhere. She must have put it away. But it’s personally signed: Philip.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: Which is, very has, carried a lot of weight, in the years to come. It’ll be worth a few bob I should think!
HB: So when did you actually stop flying Bob?
BL: Well, from then on, after the Comet programme, first BOAC decided to buy the Boeings so they ordered these new Boeing 707s from Boeing of course, from America and in January 1960 the first delivery of, or first Boeing 707 was ready for us to collect. And there was nobody trained on it or anything at that time of course, since we hadn’t got any Boeings. But in America the military version of the Boeing was the KC135 and they’d already built eight hundred of those, they’d all gone to the American air force and the American navy and so on. So having had that number built, all the bugs and problems had all been ironed out, needless to say, unlike so many of our aircraft you see. So it was a well [emphasis] tried and well proven aircraft before it even went into service. So in January ’60 I was, one of the, I was, been an instructor on Comets for some time I’d always been instructing quite a lot and so there’s four instructors, myself and three others were sent out to Seattle to get trained on the 707 and the first Boeing 707 to come off was number hundred and eleven off the line, the production line, so we were still quite a way behind other airlines. Anyway, when we got to Seattle we were trained by the Seattle test flight crew. At that time there’s no civilian aircraft, aerodromes rather, in the UK that could take the 707 except Heathrow and obviously you couldn’t use Heathrow for training but they could use it for service, not for training. Shannon hadn’t got a long enough runway at that time anyway, but they were building a new one. So there was nowhere in the UK where they could train us. So Boeings decided, got permission to use Tucson, Arizona. So Tex Johnson was there, er Tex, not Johnson, Tex Gannard, Tex Gannard was the Boeing Chief Test Pilot at that time and he decided that we’d, he’d take us down to Tucson and we’d set up a training base there and he would train us as instructors and so on, to stay on at Tucson to train the BOAC crews as they were sent out from the UK. So we stayed there to run the training unit [cough] and the crews had come from London, we trained them and they went back and then flew the aircraft in service. So we had a very nice six months so, Tucson and the trainer, super that was. But hard work. I’ll tell you what impressed me more than anything else when I went to Seattle, to Boeings: the difference between the British way of life in [coughing] workload, dedication and that sort of thing in the British aviation industry, was so different to that of the Americans. Soon found the Americans are far ahead of us in their dedication to the work they were doing. It was a bloody eye-opener, believe me. Hard work, but they knew how to do it and it was an absolute revelation to us. For instance when we were doing flight training unit details at London they’re usually about two and a half to three hours at the most, something like that, and then the time we went to Tucson the thing that surprised us was that the minimum flights times were five hours! [emphasis] Bloody long details, oh Christ, but that was typical of the Americans and the hard work they put in. They had three of the test pilots at Tucson with us and a fleet to train us and certify us as being fully trained instructors on Boeing aircraft. And I’ve got a certificate to say that.
HB: Yes. That’s grand.
BL: And anyway, BOAC then got a bit hot under the collar about the cost of running Tucson and all the British bases, so they got permission to use St Mawgan at St Athan, at Newquay. They got permission from the aircraft, from the air force for us to move from Tucson to Newquay and used St Mawgan for training from then on so I then moved, as I say, from Tucson to the Bristol Hotel in Newquay. And being a typical seaside resort, very popular, they didn’t want any weekend flying Saturdays and Sundays, there’s all sorts of objections from the local authority and so on, so it was a bit of a doddle down there.
HB: Good grief!
BL: So it was on the 707 where eventually that was my last flying for BOAC.
HB: I see. There’s a good few years in the air there Bob!
BL: Forty years.
HB: Can I just –
BL: The reason I retired in the end by the way, I was very close to retiring at that time, but I was on training at Shannon at the time on the Boeing fleet. We were doing our winter training at Shannon and one of the details we had to do was to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft at high, high speed characteristics of the 707. The normal cruising in the 707 was point eight one mach, but the “never exceed” was about point eight eight, which you should never exceed on a Boeing and we used to have to demonstrate though as you got somewhere near the point eight eight the flight control characteristics changed aerodynamically and you had to be aware of this to happen should you ever stray up there in flight. So we had to demonstrate this and we used to fly at forty odd thousand feet from Shannon across to five degree west in the Atlantic then back again doing these high speed runs and I was doing one of those with two students and we suddenly hit a bloody air pocket – bang! It threw us up in the air and down again, hit it really hard, couldn’t, didn’t even realise it was there just clear air turbulence, and I got thrown up on the ceiling and when I dropped down I dropped right across the arm of the co-pilot’s seat with my hip like that and it buggered up something in my hip and I couldn’t even walk off the aircraft carrying my briefcase. So I had to go sick straight away. I went through all the usual palavers of different Harley Street specialists and lord knows what and all they could tell you, ‘oh you’ve slipped a disc in your back,’ you know and all this. They threatened to send me off for a laminectomy operation, but the BOAC doctor at Heathrow who looked after the flight crews, he was ex-RAF and he was bloody good doctor, Doc civil and liked gossip here with the boys, and he really looked after us, one of us, you know.
HB: Very much so yes.
BL: He says, when finally I got to the end of my tether, I couldn’t clear this up, the bloody pain was there, could virtually, almost couldn’t walk and he says, ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll pull a few strings for you,’ he said, ‘you’re an ex RAF officer’ he says, ‘I’ll get you in to Hedley Court.’ So a couple of days later he says, ‘I’ve managed it, you’re going off to Hedley Court they’ll sort you out there.’ So I went off to Hedley Court which of course is very famous today because all these guys from Afghanistan are going in there for amputainees and that sort of thing you know, so I went into Hedley for three months. Within three days of being there they found out exactly what was wrong with me. What I’d done when I fell down like that over this arm, I’d stretched what they call the sacroiliac joint in my hip, it’d stretched it and bent it and that was the cause of all of the trouble.
HB: Good grief!
BL: And they found that after three days there! All these bloody Harley Street specialists I went to see kept telling me all I’d got was a bloody slipped disc. But the outcome was that I spent three months there and they cured it ninety nine percent. And when I finally got to, they wanted to discharge me I went to see the old Group Captain medical and he says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ve cleared it up for you,’ he says, ‘you’ll be all right,’ he says, ‘there might be the odd occasions when you get a recurrence but the only thing is,’ he says, ‘I’ll have to put a four hour restriction on your licence,’ and of course BOAC wouldn’t accept that because I was on a world wide contract so they said no we can’t accept that but you’re very close to retirement we’ll give you an immediate retirement on pension. So that’s really how I finished. But it didn’t end there.
HB: Oh right.
BL: Another little facet came. I’d been very interested in act, different aircraft accidents and accident investigation. I was on the accident committee for a few years before that, while I was still flying and somebody at BOAC obviously realised that I’d got experience on them and they said well we’ll keep you on but not in a flying capacity, would you like to become a CAA FIA flight accident investigator. I said yes, so they said right. So they sent me off to the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, to do the full official FIA accident inspector’s course so I had a couple of months over there, and did the course in the university and I qualified, graduated and got my little badge and everything, as an official accident investigator. So I came back to London and I went on two of the accidents actually, one of which was a Boeing which landed with a wing on fire at Heathrow after one of the engines had dropped off into the Staines reservoir. I’ve got a photograph of that landing, with the wing on fire, amongst this lot here somewhere.
HB: Good grief. Yeah.
BL: And anyway after that I found it was a bit boring and of course by that time I’d got a farm in Surrey and I’d got, we were milking a hundred and twenty five Jersey cows, and I’d got thirty thousand chickens, got five vans on the road delivering fresh eggs and cream around London and it was taking up so much time I thought well I haven’t got bloody time to go in so I finally decided I’d quit completely and carry on farming and that really was the end of it.
HB: Yeah, it does bring it to an end, doesn’t it really.
BL: So, quite a lot of various incidents in my career.
HB: Just a few, just a few. Just going back, I meant to actually ask you this ages ago. When you were on 463 Squadron -
BL: Yes.
HB: With the old, the Australians, that would be towards the end of ’45. Did you ever, when you were there on operations did you ever come across the German jet fighters?
BL: Er, no. Not, not the jets, no.
HB: No. All right.
BL: Incidentally, talking about that, of course, when Peenemunde came up, it just so happened, we didn’t, on the Stirlings by the way, the Stirlings from the squadron, I think we put about a dozen Stirlings up on the Peenemunde operation and we’d been briefed from weeks and weeks and weeks that something very special was coming up, no one knew what it was except it was something very special operation but it was tied in very closely to the right weather. It had to be absolutely perfect on weather forecast and of course it turned out it was Peenemunde. And it just so happened that when the Peenemunde trip came up we were on two weeks’ leave. So we missed it.
HB: Yeah. Right.
BL: But it was from then on of course we were very active on bombing these flying bomb sites in France and various parts of Europe. But we never came across any of the jet fighters at all. No definitely not.
HB: Right. Well I think. I think Bob, we’ve come to a natural sort of end, and I just thank you very much. Absolutely fascinating.
BL: Well I hope I haven’t bored you too much.
HB: Oh no! Well I haven’t gone to sleep! [Laughter] No absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
BL: I’ve been lucky really in a sense, that you know, had all these different variants, military and civilian, I’ve very lucky to be on you know, these special products, projects. Rather like the as I said, the two years I was test flying with De Havilland, that was really interesting.
HB: Yeah. I’m going to, one of the things I forgot to do at the beginning, I didn’t actually say at the beginning: it’s Wednesday the 12th of December 2018. I forgot about that at the beginning, I got a bit excited! So I’m going to terminate the interview Bob and get on with the paperwork. Thank you very much again.
BL: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bob Leedham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALeedhamHJL181212, PLeedhamHJL1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:16:46 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Leedham was a flight engineer who carried out twenty-one operations on Stirlings. At the outbreak of war Bob was an apprentice motor mechanic, and along with other apprentices, was left to operate the garage when all the engineers were called up. In 1940 he enlisted in the RAF and following initial training, Bob was selected for pilot training but did not achieve the requirement of flying solo within twelve hours. His engineering background meant he was posted to RAF St Athan and trained as a flight engineer. A posting to RAF Stradishall followed, and conversion to Stirling aircraft. Now part of a crew and posted to 90 Squadron at RAF Ridgewell, operational flying commenced. Bob suggests political interference restricted the performance of the aircraft resulting in a higher casualty rate amongst Stirling crews, and explains how the introduction of Window anti-radar equipment improved this. In Spring 1943 the squadron moved to RAF Wratting Common and in Autumn, converted to Lancasters. With more Lancasters coming into service, there was a lack of experience on four-engined aircraft, and some Stirling’s were deployed to RAF Swinderby for crew training. This move coincided with Bob obtaining his commission and he became an instructor on both Stirling and Lancasters. Late in 1944, Bob was back flying operations with 463 Squadron at RAF Waddington, where he was senior co-pilot/flight engineer. Following peace declaration in Europe, Bob joined Tiger Force in preparation for moving to Japan, but the war ended before this materialised. Bob began a post-war career in civil aviation, initially operating the Avro Tudor, and flying approximately three-hundred operations during the Berlin airlift. He also gives an account of the development of the DH 106 Comet and details the faults which resulted in the aircraft being grounded. While undertaking demonstrations in America, Bob was recalled to New York, where his crew discovered they were to operate the first civilian jet flight eastbound across the Atlantic. In 1960, Bob was one of four certified to instruct on the new generation of aircraft, the Boeing 707. An injury sustained from clear-air turbulence curtailed Bob’s flying career, and he progressed into the investigation of aircraft accidents.
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Azores
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
United States
Zimbabwe
Arizona--Tucson
England--Burton upon Trent
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
India--Kolkata
Italy--Elba
Mediterranean Sea--Bay of Naples
New Brunswick--Moncton
Ontario--Ottawa
Scotland--Leuchars
Wales--Glamorgan
Washington (State)--Seattle
England--Cornwall (County)
Arizona
Ontario
New Brunswick
India
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1944
10 Squadron
463 Squadron
5 Group
57 Squadron
617 Squadron
86 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Pathfinders
pilot
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
radar
RAF Alconbury
RAF Halton
RAF Ridgewell
RAF St Athan
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Wratting Common
Scharnhorst
Stirling
Sunderland
Tiger force
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/939/11298/AMackieGA171222.1.mp3
e9ca13049823098df01cd69c65a59715
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
Mackie, George
George Alexander Mackie
G A Mackie
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with George Mackie (1920 - 2020, 855966 Royal Air Force) with his log books, diary extract, list of operations, battle order and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 15 and 214 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-22
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. 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
Mackie, GA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GM: In that silence, revulsion of what Bomber Command did and a claim for what Bomber Command did, were in that silence, that trivial monument in Green Park is for the benefit of the multi-millionaires that erected it, in [unclear] in Flanders, every name of the dead is inscribed in stone, the only names inscribed in stone at Green Park are the millionaires names, the rest are painted, this cheap, cheap gesture on the part of about half a dozen millionaires, so, if you want to carry on with that knowledge of my opposition to monuments, I’d be
CB: That’s fine. Did you go to the opening of that? Were you invited to it?
GM: Of course not [laughs]. I wouldn’t be seen dead near that monument.
CB: Did they invite you though?
GM: No.
CB: Right.
GM: Very glad they didn’t. I wrote against it. It’s also a hideous piece of architecture. So, let’s talk about the war
CB: OK, we’ll do that, I need to be able to. My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 22nd of December 2017. We are in Stamford in Lincolnshire, talking to George Mackie about his experiences of life and the RAF. So, what are your first recollections of life, George?
GM: I can’t remember. I think
CB: You were born in Cupar, in Scotland
GM: Yes, and I was in my teens, was waiting for the war to begin.
CB: Right.
GM: It began and I wanted to fly so I presented myself in Dundee at the recruiting office. On Monday because the war had started on a Sunday but nothing happened for weeks until I went back to Dundee school of art and then I was called down to a place in the Midlands for medical which lasted two days, Warrington and I wasn’t actually called up until June of 1940 and sent to Babbacombe near Torquay for a month or six weeks square bashing which I thoroughly enjoyed, squad of fifty people being drilled,
CB: Yeah
GM: And from there [unclear] Cambridge, St John’s college, lectures on navigation, meteorology and so on, contrast to Babbacombe and from Cambridge again a contrast to Stoke-on-Trent to begin flying on Magisters, very difficult conditions for flying because there was no horizon. A horizon is very necessary for learning to fly and there was none, was just smoke and no one said the absence of horizon is going to be difficult, so we thought we were [unclear] and but I got through. From Stoke-on-Trent to Cranfield which is a very inconspicuous place compared to today and we flew Oxfords and I started liking flying for the first time. I remember engine failure at a thousand feet [unclear] the fuel and diving down to [unclear] the fuel that was good, good stuff, that was exciting. And from Cranfield onto Wellingtons, a place twenty five miles south of Cambridge whose name escaped me, flying Wellingtons, one day a Stirling through across at a thousand feet, they were very silent, Stirlings, compared to other aircraft, they were huge, very impressive and I went straight to the adjutant and said, I want to go to the Stirling squadron, now, further or not, that had any bearing on the final decision I don’t know but the point was I was posted from the Wellingtons to 15 Squadron at Wyton, one of two squadrons with Stirlings and I have almost one thousand five hundred hours flying in Stirlings which I think is higher than anyone else. You have to switch thing off [unclear]
CB: That’s ok.
GM: So, there I was in 15 Squadron during 1941 and what I didn’t know was how appalling the mess was that Bomber Command was in, we was sent off solo, there was no such thing as a bomber stream, we went off fifteen minute intervals trying to find a target in Germany, we were hopeless at navigation, we were, my navigator had a sextant to try and navigate with, can you imagine?
CB: I’ve used it [laughs]
GM: We weren’t hitting targets
CB: Right
GM: And by the beginning of 1942 the retrenchment of Bomber Command and I was posted to a newly formed Heavy Conversion Unit to train pilots on the new four-engined aircraft, the Stirlings were just coming in and mostfully I was at Waterbeach for eighteen months in which time I only did three ops, they were the thousand bomber raids and I didn’t go back on ops until the Autumn of 1943 in 214 Squadron, so my eighteen months in Waterbeach was a wonderful period of learning to fly the Stirling cause until you instruct on an aircraft you don’t know it and I got to know the Stirling intimately, the most peculiar airplane, take-off, particularly take-off, the talk from the four engines plus the fact that the rudder was out of action until the tail was up in the slipstream meant that the take-off had a colossal urge to veer right off the runway, so the first thing you did was to put the stick fully forwards and open the throttles diagonally, now in Mark I Stirlings, the throttles were parallel, topped by large bulbs, large knobs, which my hand could not encompass
CB: Right
GM: So it was quite tricky trying to open the throttled diagonally nor could my legs reach the rudder bar because they were too short so I had to stuff a parachute behind me to reach the rudder bar so that couple with the Stirlings own eccentricities made flying the aircraft rather tricky. That I got to tell [unclear] sort of course, switch off.
CB: The Stirling was a Marmite type airplane, was it? People either loved it or hated it?
GM: What is Marmite?
CB: You either love it or hate it.
GM: Oh, I loved it because I survived in it and it was [unclear] in design, it was made to be, it was supposed to be the [unclear] version of the Sunderland flying boats with a wing span of a hundred and ten feet, in the event the wingspan was cut down to ninety-nine feet to enter peacetime hangars which were a hundred feet wide, of course, most of the maintenance was done outside anyway, day and night, and that made the aircraft most peculiar, a huge undercarriage and the angle of take-off was absurd
CB: Well, you were sitting twenty-eight feet above the ground, weren’t you?
GM: Well, yes.
CB: So that meant the tail was very low in comparison with the
GM: And until the tail was up, the rudder didn’t work
CB: Yeah, that’s interesting
GM: The [unclear] was switched
CB: Yeah. What sort of speed would you have to get to, in order for the tail plane to get up?
GM: Oh, maybe fifty
CB: Right. And then, when you got to V2, what would you be taking off at?
GM: Oh, ninety?
CB: Right
GM: [unclear]
CB: Right, yeah, oh, one [unclear]
GM: Well, a hundred with bombs
CB: Yeah
GM: A hundred and ten, it depends, it depends on the aircraft, they varied quite a bit
CB: Right
GM: And from Stirling to Stirling
CB: Right. As we were talking about the HCU, what condition were the planes in at HCU, Stirlings?
GM: They were all second hand, they were all ex operational, the groundcrews worked twenty four hours a day, we didn’t give them sufficient credit for what they did, we took them for granted, I’m sure you’ll find this a refrain from aircrew, we took them for granted.
CB: And did, what was the reliability like, as they were clapped out?
GM: Oh, various having an engine failure, no, the Hercules engine was extremely good
CB: You mentioned thousand bomber raids, three of those or three ops to [unclear]?
GM: Well the thousand one which has gone down in history
CB: Yeah
GM: That was a [unclear]. I remember standing by the Stirling while the Wellingtons were going out, dozens and dozens and dozens at about a thousand feet climbing. When we took off, I mean, across the North Sea, you could see a long distance away Cologne bombing, a clear night and we got to the target, we were towards the end of the raid, it was an excellent opposition, next to no searchlights, next to no flak and I had a telescope, I remember trying to identify Cologne through this telescope, we finally got the [unclear] bombed, it was an absolutely easy job, operation but militarily of no significance, psychologically yes
CB: We’ll stop for a mo. So, the reason that the Lancaster and the Halifax didn’t have the yawring problem same was because their [unclear] were
GM: Because they had two rudders
CB: Two rudders
GM: Directly in the slipstream
CB: In the slipstream, yeah, whereas yours was part of the fuselage so it was blanked off
GM: Yeah
CB: Yeah. You mentioned that early on in your ops you flew as second pilot, what was the
GM: Everyone did
CB: Right
GM: Was standard until in 1942 as part of the re-organisation of the Bomber Command was a man called Peirse, was before Harris,
CB: Right
GM: a disaster, a disaster of a man, I can’t tell you how badly organised Bomber Command was in 1941
CB: So how it operate there then?
GM: Where?
CB: In 1941, how was it operating on operations?
GM: Well,
CB: They didn’t use bomber streams, so what did they do?
GM: Well, we went off at endurance, I should write this down
CB: You should, yeah. You’re going to get this back as a written testament anyway
GM: Mercifully Harris took over and he at least organised things, although he finished up there being a quite psychopathic about bombing German cities, that was, you know, in terms of military advantage it was a crazy, compared to what the Americans were doing
CB: So, with Peirse, can I go just back to Peirse? With, you took off at intervals and
GM: Very few of us, I mean, a maximum effort by Stirlings squadron in 1941 would be say half a dozen aircraft?
CB: Out of
GM: Half a dozen
CB: Out of how many in the squadron?
GM: Well, maybe ten and four only on serviceable
CB: Right
GM: I mean, compared to late, the late war, two Lancaster squadron were maybe forty, fifty aircraft
CB: Yeah
GM: That was a form of the fulfilment of Bomber Command
CB: Yeah, a Lancaster squadron would typically have at least twenty, wouldn’t it?
GM: Yeah
CB: Yeah. But in your day, with the Stirlings, much less
GM: The Stirlings was electrical and it was a nightmare to keep serviceable
CB: Eh?
GM: Everything was electrical and nothing but short, short brothers
CB: Short brothers and short circuits. What was the most common reason for them going U.S.?
GM: I don’t know. We took, I took no interest, I just put the thing U.S. and that was [unclear]
CB: So, early in the war, you were still, you were using flight engineers on the aircraft.
GM: Oh yes
CB: And they were busy dealing with
GM: Oh chiefly petrol, tanks, we had fourteen tanks so they kept on manoeuvring the petrol, two tanks for take-off and then after [unclear] minutes changed the tanks and also I believe the flight engineer held the throttles and things like that, never in my time
CB: Right
GM: I did it all, get airborne, get the throttles fully open, undercarriage up, up,
CB: Electrical undercarriage as well, not hydraulic
GM: Seems as they were [unclear] retract
CB: Yeah
GM: If it retracted. If it didn’t retract, it had to be done by hand, it took about fifteen minutes, yeah
CB: Who would do the winding?
GM: Oh, anybody, not the pilot
CB: Right. So, initially, your first fifteen ops, you said were as second pilot, then you became the captain after that
GM: I did two as a captain and then I was posted off ops, as were quite a few of us
CB: Yeah
GM: To become instructors
CB: Right
GM: At the newly formed Heavy Conversion Unit and as I said, I was there for eighteen months
CB: Yes
GM: Before going back on ops and when I did go back on ops, I knew the Stirling aircraft, down to flying it, I mean, intimately, and it increased my chances of surviving my second tour of ops
CB: Yeah
GM: And in 214 Squadron I had the great good fortune to start flying fortresses in a hundred group
CB: Yeah
GM: Radar, anti-radar [unclear], we accompanied the bombers, carrying no bombs and if I were a German night fighter pilot and he’s a Stirling, a fortress full of electronics, and here the Lancaster full of bombs, and go for the Lancaster, so we had very few fatalities on 214 Squadron with Fortresses
CB: Because they knew they didn’t carry a bomb load
GM: There’s a piece of paper with the rotors
CB: Yeah. Here we are. So, we’ve got a piece of paper with your ops on and then
GM: There’s the Fortress losses
CB: Yeah
GM: There’s the Stirling losses
CB: Right, yeah. So how different was the Fortress to fly?
GM: The Fortress was child’s play, the perfect aircraft, from mass production for mass produced pilots, the Stirling was the worst possible aircraft for mass produced pilots, it was like something unique, the Fortress, you pushed the throttles open, the throttles were perfectly attuned to your hand and it just took off like a dream and landed like a dream, child’s play, perfect for formation flying, stable, very stable, the Stirling wasn’t, the Stirling was agile, frisky,
CB: Well, the Fortress was designed in the concept of formation box flying
GM: It was designed for formation flying
CB: Yeah
GM: And it was perfect for formation flying
CB: Yeah
GM: It didn’t want to do anything but [unclear] flying
CB: And on the Fortress, the B-17, did you fly with a co-pilot there as well?
GM: Occasionally
CB: But not normally
GM: [unclear] second pilot just for one or two trips, for experience, the idea of doing fifteen as a second pilot was out by 1942
CB: Yeah. Because of the HCU
GM: Was useless
CB: Yeah. The HCU system dealt with that, HCU
GM: Yeah
CB: So when people joined the Stirlings, they, you said they were difficult to take-off, was there a high accident rate associated with that?
GM: Hundreds.
CB: Which did it, it bent the aeroplane but did it, were there fatalities linked to that or just?
GM: No, just crashed, swing and take-off
CB: What was the best thing about the Stirling?
GM: Agility, agile, remarkable, remarkable manoeuvrability, unbelievable for an aircraft that size. I, mastered a stall turn, which is going up like this, can you imagine a large four-engine aircraft at this angle? And kicking the rudder bar stalled, I got quite a reputation for it at Waterbeach.
CB: Was this proving a point or because it was exciting?
GM: Just showing what the Stirling could do, stall turn, quite remarkable
CB: So, a steep climb and then kick the rudder
GM: Yeah. It had a very bad reputation, didn’t carry more than two thousand pounds weight of bombs, I mean, because of the bomb containers
CB: The size of the them
GM: What the Lancaster does was quite stupefying, the weight [unclear]
CB: Yes
GM: Stupefying, nothing in the world like it
CB: Yeah
GM: At the time
CB: Yeah
GM: I mean, Britain did lead the war [unclear], not like today leaving Europe
CB: What was the crew’s reaction to the, your crew in 15 Squadron, how well did they work together?
GM: They were [unclear], various of camaraderie
CB: What were they frightened of mainly?
GM: Death
CB: But the aircraft or
GM: Death,
CB: Or just
GM: Death,
CB: The raid?
GM: I mean, the whole squadron was infected by fear
CB: Was it?
GM: Oh, I think so. Cause when you are not doing anything positive
CB: Yeah
GM: Just being exposed
CB: Cause this is part of, is it, what you were talking about earlier, the disorganisation of Bomber Command meant that it worked in a very inefficient way
GM: [unclear] If you look at the dates of ops
CB: Yeah
GM: Quite absurd, the Stirlings just in service. July in 1941 the 6th and the 7th, then the 12th and the 23rd, 25th and then a month before August 25, then between August 25 and September 19th, October the 12th, the 24th, why weren’t Stirlings used more often? Yes, it’s frightful indictment
CB: What was your conclusion about why they were not used more often?
GM: Oh, we didn’t conclude anything, we didn’t even know the morale was bad, how do you know that morale was bad at the time? You don’t know
CB: Right
GM: You think, this was my first operational squadron
CB: Yes
GM: For all I knew this was normal
CB: Right
GM: In that respect, I know that morale was bad
CB: So, can you talk me through a raid, starting with the briefing? How would this evolve over the course of the night?
GM: Well, briefing didn’t change, it got more complicated
CB: So the briefing was everybody together in the ops room to hear the target and the route, is that right?
GM: Yeah. Well, that didn’t change, only towards the end of the war there were half a dozen streams instead of one, well, in fact, there were no streams to begin with, just [unclear] the target and the navigator worked it out how to get there
CB: So in the ops room, in the briefing room you would be told what the target was and the route.
GM: Oh yes.
CB: Was the route, the navigator had to work it out but was the route straight or was it?
GM: I think it was, I think it was [unclear] the navigator to work out how to get there
CB: Oh, right.
GM: Which is part of the amateurness of the role
CB: Yeah. So, as the war developed then, none of the raids would have a direct route to the target. So in your day initially, what was the state then?
GM: Well, I suppose, I suppose so. I suppose we knew where the concentration of searchlights were, but I don’t know. Later on in the war, you not only had different streams of bombers but you had dummy streams which 214 Squadron did, we set off on spoofs, half a dozen Fortresses charring out Window
CB: Right. Yeah
GM: To simulate five hundred bombers, that was quite important, quite a safe job too
CB: It was safe because the Window secured the view of your aircraft, did it?
GM: Well, the night fighters were after these real streams
CB: Right
GM: And we didn’t go far into Germany, we just went across Holland and then turned back home. 214 Squadron was so lucky, so fortunate with its Fortresses, that was a stroke of gigantic luck being posted to 214 Squadron
CB: So, the crew is the same, was it? As the one [unclear] flown in
GM: The one [unclear] to 214 Squadron
CB: Pardon?
GM: We were a mixed lot, New Zealand, Peruvian. My flight engineer was called Pedro Honeyman. Obviously of Scottish descent. Didn’t keep up with any of them. We had extremely good adjutant to 214 Squadron called George Wright, what George had done before the war I do not know, but he loved being adjutant to a bomber squadron, the aircrew, he loved the aircrew and they really good for us, so before my ops came to an end, I said to George, when I finish, I want to go on Transport Command. [unclear] Before I got a posting to Transport Command where I finished the war. And that was before I was sent to India and North Africa. It’s interesting. George Wright was seen after the war in 1951. My wife-to-be and I were on our way to Paris and we went into the 1951 exhibition on the South Bank and who was selling tickets? George Wright. [unclear] come down for you. I went back to art school
CB: When were you demobbed? When you were demobbed?
GM: Yeah
CB: In 1946.
GM: Yeah
CB: Yeah. How long were you at art school?
GM: I did my fourth year at Edinburgh College of Arts, post diploma fifth year, then a year of travelling scholarship was six years
CB: How did you finance yourself in those days?
GM: Oh, paid for, paid for. People don’t remember but we were privileged, we got no fees at university, a grant, I had a pension, three pounds, ten schillings a week, [unclear] for ten schillings a week, so I had three quid to spend, were privileged
CB: You received an RAF pension because
GM: No
CB: Was it?
GM: I suppose it was
CB: Yes, because you started the war when it started, when, at the beginning of the war
GM: Yeah, I suppose it was RAF
CB: So, in that context, you weren’t VR, were you? You were RAF
GM: I was RAF VR
CB: Oh, you were VR
GM: Yeah
CB: Right
GM: I’ve got the four-volume history of Bomber Command
CB: Yeah
GM: Which you really ought to know
CB: I’ll just stop there for a mo. Yes. The History of Bomber Command
GM: Harris, he is in this book
CB: Did he?
GM: Oh yes
CB: Noble Frankland, and who is the other chap?
GM: Sir Charles Webster
CB: Yes
GM: They’re both historians. Yes, you promised me your book, your [unclear] for it
CB: I shall put, I shall get hold of it, cause these are really important and this links together with your testimony
GM: You [unclear] and your job, you must have it
CB: I do, yes, need it. They’ve got it at Lincoln.
GM: Have they?
CB: Yeah
GM: It’ll be in the university library
CB: Yes
GM: Or it should be
CB: Yeah. Well, we’ll check actually as you come to ask. Can I just go back
GM: I was once in publishing so I can get things at cost
CB: Ah, right. Can I go back to your comments about 15 Squadron? You said that the crew effectively lived in fear all the time, the fear of being shot down or the fear of the aircraft not performing?
GM: No, the fear of not coming back.
CB: Right.
GM: I think that was general, the morale was low
CB: Yes
GM: When morale is low, you lose confidence
CB: Yes. And what was the RAF doing about it in your perspective?
GM: Nothing
CB: Right
GM: Nothing
CB: And what was the squadron commander doing to get together?
GM: Nothing
CB: Right
GM: Nor the Wing Commander. Everyone was tainted
CB: Yeah
GM: In my recollection. The crew I trained with, what’s the name of that place?
CB: At Wyton, oh, at Bassingbourn
GM: Bassingbourn
CB: Yes. On the Wellingtons
GM: Two pilots, flight engineer, navigator and bomb, gunners, I trained the guy called Metaxi, M-E, M-A
CB: Yeah
GM: So, when we got to Wyton a line was drawn under MA and I went as second pilot to an established crew,
CB: On Stirlings
GM: Metaxi crew went to a newly promoted captain, he had no training with the new captain, they disappeared on their first op, the first op, no training, Pierce, group captain wing commander, why? Of course they went down on their first op, they didn’t know each other. That was my introduction to operational flying. Nobody mentioned it.
CB: No. And in the ops in those days, you went off as individual crews, you said, rather than in any kind of orderly fashion. What was the process of finding the target?
GM: Looking at the ground [laughs].
CB: In the dark?
GM: What you could see.
CB: At what height were you flying in the Stirling?
GM: As high as you could go. Which was sixteen, seventeen
CB: On a god day
GM: Right down to twenty. Oh, what a business.
CB: And how did you, when you returned, you were debriefed by the intelligence officer, were you?
GM: Yes, yes.
CB: And what would you have to tell him?
GM: [unclear] we always thought we bombed the target of course [unclear] the first target I properly identified was Cologne, the thousand bomber raid,
CB: And at that stage you were at the HCU. At that stage you were at the HCU, weren’t you? For the thousand bomber raid
GM: Yes, yes, yes
CB: Yeah
GM: Little diversion from training
CB: Yes
GM: The following day you, circuits and landings, circuits and landings again, I don’t know how many landings I did in the Stirling, it must be ten to hundreds
CB: How did you feel about the student pilot flying it?
GM: Oh, they all arrived in a state of great anxiety, the Stirling had a very bad reputation and so the first thing you did was to show them what it was in the air and then the New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans, all nationalities, the most democratic outfit Bomber Command became, I wouldn’t have missed it
CB: What was the most exciting experience you had on operations or in the HCU?
GM: Well, the most dangerous experience I had was five hours in icing cloud trying to get to Hamburg in which 1651 Unit lost four out of nine aircraft in one night through weather and that was touch and go in cumulus cloud.
CB: So the icing cloud should never have been entered but how was it
GM: We should never have set off
CB: Exactly
GM: Again it was a cock-up and no one of course was never held responsible but to lose four out of nine is quite a shock. But the following day, take off and landings, take off and landings
CB: So that goes back to the point about debriefing, there was a met man who did part of the briefing, was there?
GM: That, the North Sea was [unclear] of clouds and of course we dropped the odd bomb to try and get more height, couldn’t and that was just flying skill to survive that night and one of the survivors was Frazer Barron, to finish that was nineteen ops, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, he lost his life later on of course, he was smaller than me, so how he could get the rudder bar I don’t know. Frazer Barron, one of the so-called Barron
CB: Barn Brothers
GM: Barnel Barnes [unclear]
CB: So, when the crew went back to 15 Squadron, you talked about the low morale, in the off-duty times what happened, what did people do? Cause you are all NCOs in the aircraft, are you? At that stage
GM: We did nothing. After time boring, there was no overall intelligence trying to further our training as bomber aircrew, it’s just, it was, the whole thing was inept. You know, we were losing the war like mad
CB: And what were the senior officers doing?
GM: I never saw them, I was in the sergeant’s mess. I mean, we arrived at Wyton by train, a bus from the station to the airfield, no welcome, put into such and such a fight, didn’t meet the flight commander, no one would tell you hello, this is 15 Squadron, this is what we do, we just arrived, oh, dear, oh dear, that was bad, it was shocking [unclear]
CB: Wyton was an expansion period airfield, so what was the accommodation like?
GM: Nissen hut. We took off from Alconbury, Wyton had no runways, so we flew the aircraft at Alconbury where it was bombed up, and then we went back to [unclear] and got briefly briefed at Wyton and then bus to the station light. I remember the bus going through Huntingdon, people going about their business, going into pubs and so on, where am I going?
CB: Yeah
GM: 21 squadron was quite different cause the war had been going on for years by that time, September 1943, Stirlings would have been taken off German targets, again the luck I had, being posted to a Stirling squadron cause they were being withdrawn and then we heard this extraordinary rumour going on [unclear] and the rumour proved to be true till, we got an American pilot with half a dozen landings and off we went solo, captain of a Fortress, throat microphone, all up to date
CB: Yes
GM: Electric flying suit, all up to date, American
CB: The whole crew had the electric flying suit, did they?
GM: I don’t know about the crew, I took the crew for granted. I hadn’t a warrant officer, my navigator was a flying officer and that was my two fingers up to the system, you see and it didn’t last long, I was a commissioned officer within weeks
CB: We’ll stop now. How often did you get hit?
GM: Once, oh, well, the aircraft got hit more than once of course
CB: Did it?
GM: I got hit personally once, over Leverkusen
CB: Oh.
GM: To an [unclear] squadron to Leverkusen to [unclear] as a souvenir, one of the aircraft came home with shrapnel quite often
CB: So what was the wound that you experienced?
GM: It was?
CB: What wound did you get?
GM: I didn’t get wounded, didn’t even draw blood. Spent shrapnel upper left arm. Colossal braw. If I hadn’t been strapped in, I’d be off my seat.
CB: Was the explosion in the aircraft or just outside?
GM: No, the shrapnel, piece of shrapnel. Flak
CB: Did that hit you hard?
GM: Flak I suppose.
CB: Yeah
GM: Didn’t even draw blood. The arm was swollen of course
CB: Yeah
GM: And that was nothing
CB: What about other members of the crew, did they get?
GM: Nothing
CB: Nobody
GM: No. A nasty surprise flying along in the black, suddenly shrapnel [unclear], flak and this enormous bash which as I say, would have got me out of my seat but for being strapped in
CB: Amazing. This was in the Fortress, was it? Or in the Stirling?
GM: Probably Fortress.
CB: There was a bigger crew in the Fortress, so?
GM: Yes.
CB: That was more gunners.
GM: The Fortress crew
CB: Right
GM: [unclear]
CB: Have a look at that. So, with the Fortress, you, the Americans flew with two pilots but you flew with one pilot in the Fortress in the RAF fashion
GM: Yes, yes. They flew by day, of course
CB: Yes
GM: What the Americans did was remarkable I mean, seeing them go down, we saw them going down in darkness
CB: Yeah. Did you get any planes exploding next to you?
GM: There were things, in Bomber Command we believed in a thing called Scarecrows
CB: Ah, yes
GM: Have you heard this word?
CB: Yes
GM: But there were no such things, they were actual aircraft and we kidded ourselves, another Scarecrow and some could be very close
CB: So, the Scarecrow notionally was an enormous shell when actually it was a German fighter firing upwards with Schrage Musik
GM: [unclear] bomber going down in flames
CB: Yeah
GM: But mercifully we didn’t know. I was never attacked by a night fighter and that may be part of the fact that wherever over dangerous territory I was endlessly weaving the aircraft, endless, to give the rear gunner [unclear] a vision of the area, a vision
CB: You did that on both aircraft
GM: Oh yes
CB: Yeah
GM: Oh yes
CB: Same technique
GM: Endless, gentle weave
CB: And how many reports of air sickness did you get from the crew?
GM: Oh, never. Weaving, that’s nothing, you don’t even know you’re doing it, didn’t know I was doing it, but it’s so far more.
CB: Yeah
GM: I’ve heard a Lancaster sitting a straight and level being shot at, not least by a member of who, by ex-member of my crew, he was shot down later on and we were attacked and the pilot froze, froze, that’s why we were shot down
CB: Froze over the target or [unclear]?
GM: Night fighter attacked, there was no evasive action team
CB: I see, right. But you were trained in the corkscrew?
GM: Oh yes
CB: And could you do the corkscrew with the Fortress or not?
GM: Yes, nothing like [unclear] nothing like this
CB: A big aeroplane
GM: Nothing like this, cleverly, let me have that logbook, thanks,
US: That’s the last, this is the first one. Is this the one you want?
CB: No, he’s just checking
US: Do you want to have a look at it now?
GM: Hey?
US: Do you want to have a look inside it?
CB: I’ll just stop there a minute.
US: [unclear] Air Force for you.
GM: We flew an aircraft from East Anglia to Belfast
US: Right.
GM: You get a cask of Guinness for a party. When you think of the cost of that pint of Guinness
US: [unclear]
CB: Amazing. But you did need that training experience, didn’t you? Was this from the HCU or the squadron?
GM: From the squadron
CB: Yeah
GM: The things were so relaxed. I had the memory of the friend of my father’s came down from Scotland, Ed [unclear], wanted to go up in a Stirling so I just said, an aircraft needing a flight test such and such took off in fifteen minutes
CB: What was the reaction of your family to your flying as a pilot in Bomber Command?
GM: My father and I didn’t communicate, ever.
CB: And you mother’s reaction wouldn’t be cause she
GM: Stepmother
CB: Stepmother, I meant
GM: Stepmother, no communication
CB: Right, ok. Any other members of the family you spoke to? Just stopping there again. Because your father had been in the trenches.
GM: Yeah, I mean Bomber Command is admired beyond reason, the worst that could happen was five minutes in [unclear] alive going down, think of the trenches, think of my father survived after three years in the trenches compared to what I had, Bomber Command was lucky. We lived well
CB: Yeah
GM: You know, it’s over exalted but easy, easier, the troops after the invasion going up through Holland far, far worse than Bomber Command was. I didn’t see a dead body. My father not only saw dead bodies, he saw the remains all around for years, no wonder he didn’t speak about it. Bomber Command too much talk saving your presence. No, it wasn’t all that difficult, it wasn’t.
CB: Now, when you went to 214, you had a completely different crew there,
GM: Yeah
CB: Because you’d come from the HCU
GM: I inherited a crew
CB: Oh, did you? Right, so how well did they gel together?
GM: After
US: You know, I can’t remember
CB: Anyway, professionally as a crew
GM: There was a romantic tosh spoken about Bomber Command crews how they gelled, how they drank together, how they did this together, how they did that, I suspect in many cases that just wasn’t true, wasn’t true in my case
CB: But it also varied, it would appear depending on whether it was an entirely NCO crew or a mixed commissioned NCO crew, in terms of them socialising.
GM: No, in my experience, socialising went on between commissioned and non-commissioned, there was no sense of division. No, no, Bomber Command was very democratic, a great mixture of people, no, no, there was no bullshit. No, no, none. I remember one parade, I can’t remember where, there was no discipline, in my experience, there was self
CB: Self-regulation
GM: Self-engendered discipline, there was no bullshit, no, none. You did your job in the air, you were left alone. Me, when I put that Tiger Moth on the [unclear], I didn’t even get a rap on [unclear]
CB: So, when was that? When were you
GM: Waterbeach
CB: Right. So, what happened there, you borrowed it, did you?
GM: I was in the mess, I had this aircraft flying over and landing and [unclear] and I went down to the flight centre, it was the wing commander giving ATC cadets a touch of flying experience and he saw me and he said, hey, Mackie, you take over. Well, I’d never flown a Tiger Moth and I took over. I took off with the first cadet, flew around and landed after a, a second cadet started getting too cocky, anyway, that’s how I got to [unclear]. It was a lovely summer’s evening and I was quite excited to land, there was earth, [unclear], trees and this great big wide river, flat, not a ripple on its surface, inviting, irresistible, I did a perfect landing, tail down
CB: Yeah. Who was in the back?
GM: I was on the front. I think, we passed over the back, we got to the surface and he was saying, do you mind, look at my dress to dance tomorrow! And I said, you shut up! So and so, I got worries of my own now, the wing commander’s aeroplane
CB: So, were you actually practising an emergency landing or did you feel that you
GM: No, I got in a high-speed stall
CB: So, what were you doing in your manoeuvre at the time?
GM: [unclear] trees
CB: So you were really low, you were going round the trees
GM: Breaking the law and all sorts of things
CB: That’s right
GM: But I didn’t know you had to increase the throttles, [unclear] control, high fifteen tons, you’re supposed to increase the engine revs
CB: Right. In the Tiger Moth
GM: Cocky
CB: But you would have had to do it in the Magister anyway
GM: I don’t remember doing high speeds, [unclear] the Magister
CB: No? So what was the attraction in the river?
GM: The flatness
US: Yeah
CB: But the people, what about the people in the river?
GM: They [unclear] spectacle
CB: So you were busy just
GM: You’re alright? You’re alright? I said, yes, I’m alright, [unclear] job trying to get the parachute on board the, onto dry land, the weight of it [unclear] water
CB: And they helped you pull the plane into the side as well?
GM: No, the plane was just right in the middle of the river, I was completely submerged
CB: And what was the result of this then?
GM: Not, no, nothing happened. I was a confident Stirling pilot, that was the important thing
CB: Right
GM: This, the Tiger Moth just an aberration
CB: So the wing commander said
GM: Nothing. He wasn’t even crossed
CB: And your logbook said
GM: [unclear] somewhere, he was a very good man, he was the best wing commander I ever had, I had some poor wing commanders, he was particularly good, he was called Menaul and he finished up in charge of atomic bombing tests in the South Pacific just after the war and he lived quite near to where my elder daughter lives and she kept on saying, why don’t you look him up? And I kept on saying, no, no, and I wish I had. M-E-N-A-U-L, he’s a good man. I had the worst commander in 214 Squadron called McGlinn M-C-G-L-I-N-N, he didn’t take to me, part because I was a warrant officer I think and froze the normal distances of promotion and once the aircrew were altogether for a talk by him and he suddenly, said, Mackie, what does that mean? And he pronounced a long German word, you know, a multi syllable, multi [unclear] and I said, I don’t know, Sir, and I hope I never do, the squadron erupted. This is still a German prisoner of war camp name, I said what? Anyway, that was my come up and stand up to the wing commander. No, he wasn’t a good type.
CB: So, you reached warrant officer and then when you went to the HCU, you were still a warrant officer, were you?
GM: I became warrant officer at Waterbeach, yes
CB: At the HCU
GM: Not automatic [unclear], sergeant, flight sergeant, warrant officer,
CB: Yeah
GM: A good rank, taken miles
CB: Absolutely
GM: Have you heard that expression?
CB: Yeah
GM: Doesn’t exist [unclear] expression
CB: No. And your commissioning took place when you joined two, joined at 214?
GM: Having more than doubled the hours than any other pilot on the squadron then and the [unclear] ranking, it was this to the system, it was meant to be, I’d finished the war as [unclear] there was anything left [unclear] but they made me take commission
CB: Was McGlinn, this, this CO, was he part of
GM: The station commander intervened
CB: Ah!
GM: He saw, he told me, you’re taking commission, Mackie, which I knew was inevitable and [unclear] didn’t have to ask for it
CB: So what was the process that you went through for that?
GM: Nothing. A new uniform and that was it
CB: But they took you off somewhere for a briefing, did they? Or selection?
GM: I got five minutes
CB: Ah, right
GNM: At Mildenhall
CB: What did they have, a board of assessors?
GM: No, no, just one man, [unclear] after all be all the way as Mildenhall and all the way back for this formality, out of the comedy, tragicomedy
CB: So there you had the opportunity to move into the officer’s mess
GM: I had to and the airfield we shared with an American squadron and the first formal dinner evening took place, when I say formal, peacetime thing, towards the end of the war [unclear], towards the end of the German ascendancy and being the most junior officer, I had to give the royal toast and the toast to his, the president of the United States of America, not a single ring of having lost my [unclear] morale. No, there is one thing I want to emphasize, it was easy
CB: An easy war for you
GM: Easy war, an easy war for most of the crew, if you got shot down, five minutes. I mean, think about it, that’s quite a good way to go, five minutes.
CB: Did you come across Guinea pigs, who’d been burned?
GM: Yeah
CB: And how did they take to flying after being Guinea pigs?
GM: Well, I don’t know, I mean, well actually, I knew them, I met them, I saw them, never knew them personally
CB: Right
GM: But that was extreme. If you got killed, you got killed, in a burning aircraft, you know, you are going down. You see, in 15 Squadron, going out seven, half a dozen aircraft, one missing, that’s quite a lot of proportion, week after week, one again, one again, one again, one again.
US: It is here, Tiger Moth [laughs]
GM: Of course, nobody knew at the beginning of the war. Bomber Command did no night flying in peacetime
CB: No. Were your original ops with 15 Squadron in daylight or were they always at night?
GM: There were two daylight ops on Northern France with Spitfires and Hurricanes, protection. That was so-called circuses, supposed to engender combat between our fighters and their fighters, they never materialised, it’s a waste of time
CB: And how did you feel like flying in daylight bombing on a, in a Stirling?
GM: Well, glad that I missed it. By that time the RAF had learned the sense of not flying by day over Germany
CB: No
GM: To begin with, we thought we could do it with impunity, flying in formations of Wellingtons or, what’s the other aircraft?
CB: Or in Blenheims
GM: Blenheims. 50 percent loss, time after time, sheer incompetence, wasted for nothing, peacetime air force, but by [unclear] what a transformation in 1944, target could be identified and destroyed, terrifying, pinpointed by Mosquitoes, TIs, target indicators, and the [unclear] watching, watching, doing nothing
CB: So in your two and four, flying your B-17 Fortresses, what was the activity going on in your aircraft?
GM: I don’t know, I didn’t know, yeah, I took no interest
CB: What was it supposed to be doing?
GM: Jamming control, jamming communication between ground control and German night fighters, that was one thing, we carried a German speaking wireless op and in a minute he got on to this German night fighter frequency, he jammed it, I believe but there were other, we carried a [unclear] radar which is one reason why operational flying was so infrequent, it was the [unclear] in the world and constantly tinkering new this, new that, but it was so complex, I wasn’t interested. I was interested in one thing, survival.
CB: And these German speaking operators, did they tend to be of foreign origin or were they?
GM: They were German.
CB: On the aircraft?
GM: Yes. But I, when I looked back I missed, actually I should have been more interested in what they were and how they came to be aircrew in the RAF, they were perfect German speakers, I believe. Pedro Honeyman, how did he come to England from Peru? And no one charged him. Cause Honeyman is a Scottish name
CB: He was a signaller, was he? He was a signaller.
GM: He was my flight engineer
CB: Oh, flight engineer.
GM: We all smoked of course, like chimneys
CB: In the aircraft?
GM: Coming back, yes, once you’re over water, down to a thousand feet, open the window, switch off the oxygen, first cigarette, oh, the bliss, the bliss of that first cigarette
CB: So, for non-smokers, explain please what, why it was such an important thing
GM: Well, salvation,
US: You’re a non-smoker.
GM: You were over the North Sea, you’re at two thousand feet, in half an hour you can see the flashing beacons, you’re safe, you survived, you’re off the scaffold, that was why, and the nicotine in the blood stream. Oh, I was a confirmed smoker. I regret having, had to give it up, but I wish I hadn’t. My father smoked forty a day until his late eighties when he died. He had the right answer. Were you an ex-smoker?
CB: No.
GM: You’re both non-smokers?
US: I smoke
GM: What’s that? Pack?
US: Rolling.
GM: You’re rolling [unclear]. Oh yes, so did I. I used to have brown paper, cigarette papers, I’ve [unclear]
CB: What made you start smoking? Did you start because of the flying?
GM: No, before the war I started.
CB: Right. And what made you give up?
GM: Oh, slow asphyxiation. [unclear] for five before the war, the day’s ration. [sighs] Well, Chris
CB: So you, that’s really good. We’ll stop for a bit.
GM: Yeah. Fifty percent of Bomber Command aircrew died for nothing. There’s no way of proving it but that’s my feeling.
CB: Do you mean particularly in the early days, do you mean? Because it was so disorganised
GM: Yes, but it extended into the, towards the end of the war, how many aircrew did damage to Germany? One [unclear]. I’d have had been killed, the damage I had affected on Germany was minimal, minimal, at what expense?
CB: Well, in your two and four days with the Fortresses, you weren’t carrying any munitions, so any bombs.
GM: Were not very successful,
CB: Oh
GM: It was a colossal enterprise involving fighter squadrons, Halifaxes, Fortresses, but it never did enough damage, I suppose was expected. I mean the hundred fighter squadron used to go out at night and circle German airfields
CB: The Mosquitoes, the Mosquitoes did
GM: Yes
CB: Yes
US: Interesting
CB: Interdictors
GM: And they weren’t successful, I believe. And then Transport Command, when I think about the expense, six thousand feet all the way to Germany, straight to India, four days, bed and breakfast, North Africa, bed and breakfast, Palestine, bed and breakfast, Iraq, Karachi.
CB: And what were you flying in Transport Command?
GM: Stirlings, the Mark V, an extra ten miles an hour
CB: And you wouldn’t want to get there too quickly, with all that nice hospitality on the way, did you?
GM: Oh, just a routine bed and breakfast, you know.
CB: What could the Mark V Stirling carry? What could the Mark V Stirling carry?
GM: Sixteen passengers or so much freight, a lot of postal freight, you know, letters [unclear] was abroad
CB: So, did you enjoy that, overall?
GM: Oh yes
CB: How did you come to be posted to Transport Command after 214?
GM: I’ve told you, George Wright
CB: Yes, but in the mechanism of the system, it just automatically
GM: Well, George Wright got me posted to Transport Command
CB: Yeah, as the adjutant
GM: That was it
CB: Yeah. There’d be a less smaller crew there cause you didn’t need gunners, so what did you have?
GM: Oh, navigator and flight engineer
CB: And that was it. No signaller?
GM: Wireless op, possible, you see they were going a-begging, they weren’t needed
CB: No
GM: [unclear]
CB: How did you meet your wife and when?
GM: When did I meet her?
CB: Yes
GM: I don’t know the exact date although I can recount it in detail but I shan’t
CB: [laughs]
GM: My wedding was in [unclear], 1952 in the registry office in Scarborough, cost five quid, got back to Edinburgh that same day, that was the beginning of our marriage
CB: Where did you meet her in the first place?
GM: Edinburgh College of Arts
CB: Edinburgh College of Arts, right. After the war, in other words.
GM: Oh yes, oh yes,
CB: Yeah
GM: ’48 or ’49, the best thing I ever did.
CB: And how many children have you got? How many children do you have?
GM: Two daughters.
CB: Right. Local?
GM: Two daughters, two granddaughters, two great granddaughters. I don’t want any competition [laughs]. Let the name Mackie die
CB: And no brothers or sisters of yours? You have no brother or sister yourself?
GM: Well, no, my mother died after my birth
CB: Cause you were the first child, right
GM: And my stepmother had no children
CB: We’ll stop there. Post-war, what career did you follow?
GM: Well, I taught in a college of art for some years, I free-lanced, I became royal designer for industry, designing books for Edinburgh University Press, I am a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters and Water Colour, and now, I don’t know, that’s about it.
CB: So, how did you get down here, in Stamford?
GM: Retirement. Driving from London to Aberdeen, I took the wrong turn at Millhill roundabout, six bloody [unclear], following the A25, and then the A1, and Aberdeen seemed a long way away, roundabout, roundabout, roundabout. I came to a sign saying, Stamford, one mile and so help me. I turned off. [unclear] this is a wartime thing, I don’t know, a monumental thing to do, because it changed my life. The entry into Stamford from the south is the finest entrance to any town that I know.
CB: Yeah, past Burghley.
GM: It’s Extraordinary
CB: Yeah
GM: The George Hotel. So I kept on coming back and found a slum, I’ll let you see what it was like
CB: When is this, 1980?
GM: Yes
CB: Ah, right. It had just been neglected
GM: Completely
CB: Yeah
US: Of course, it’s a lovely building
CB: And you said it was affected by a fire behind it
GM: Oh, that was later on
CB: Ah
GM: When I saw it, I saw [unclear]. The fact is I made it. In Aberdeen I had a wonderful house with twenty, how many years? Twenty-four years there. Wonderful, wonderful. When it came to selling, it was valued forty eight. I said, nonsense, it’s worth seventy. I got in a week [laughs]. Forty-eight to seventy in 1980. And a bloody Scotch lawyer charges a thousand pounds for the convenience for half an hour’s work.
CB: That was a bit much, wasn’t it?
US: Yeah
GM: I had an interviewer here and told him what I thought, he said, I’ve never been spoken like this before, I said, well, it’s high time.
CB: Quite right.
GM: Bugger
CB: Yes
GM: A thousand pounds, in 1980
CB: That was a hell of a lot of money
GM: I mean, I sold it, I did the ad, I did the interviewing, I said, excessive, five hundred, even that, [unclear] enough, that’s a long time ago but still rankles
CB: Yeah
GM: Scotch avarice
CB: Quite right. But you never got the
GM: Anyway, then I could buy this and do tens of thousands of pounds on the house, new electricity, new walling, new this, new that, new [unclear], and it’s been a wonderful house for the family and [unclear] buggered up all went downhill
CB: When your wife became ill
GM: The worst possible conclusion. God, if he exists, is a master sadist. Oh, gentlemen, can I offer you anything now?
CB: I haven’t had anybody else criticize Bomber Command
GM: You haven’t?
CB: No. But that partly for the reason perhaps that you mentioned earlier which is that you were there right at the beginning, when Bomber Command was in a powerless state, and the leadership clearly, from what you said, was lacking severely. The bit I forgot to ask you about because it links quite well with the early comments you made about lack of morale, because this comes out of it in a way, what about LMF?
GM: Oh dear, LMF, how these initials frightened us. We didn’t quite know what it was all about, very effective
CB: Was it?
GM: Oh very, frightening words, frightening initials, and partially frightening because we didn’t quite know what it was. I only came across one [unclear], a commissioned officer, commissioned RAR cause he trained with me this man, the majority of us became sergeants, he became a pilot officer, [unclear] in a flying boat [unclear] blew a tool off and he had a history of early retirements
CB: A pilot?
GM: Pilot
CB: Yeah
GM: I never saw him again.
CB: Do you know where they sent him?
GM: He just vanished. But that was LMF. Poor man, is he still alive? The memory will be constant, he should have died.
CB: Yeah
GM: And of course, LMF was designed to make sure you died rather than anything else
US: That was on the doorbell
GM: Ah, thank you.
CB: What would you say it did to the, what effect did it have on the crew?
GM: Made them bloody sad, they wouldn’t be LMF. Tell me what lack of moral fiber, cowardice
US: Right
GM: Frightening initials. Till today
CB: Sure
GM: That was crude but that was effective and so unfair, it could [unclear] that someone that had done almost a tour and impact in, you know, he proved himself time and time and time again and you’d have reached the end of his [unclear] but LMF had no respect for that kind of achievement, oh, is cruel. We never talked about it. Never talked about it, never mentioned it. You must have found this is the constant in your interviews.
CB: Yes, I have, had a number of people talk about it
GM: Not mention saying what was mentioned
CB: Right, so, it’s been mentioned, yes, by several people
GM: Yeah
CB: And the effect on the crew
GM: Yeah
CB: Because it’s very unsettling
GM: Yeah
CB: And also the deterrent effect, the objective of deterrence
GM: It worked
CB: Yeah
GM: Yeah. Oh God, I’d have died rather than being labelled LMF, oh quite clearly
CB: So, he was commissioned and vanished but what was your perception of what would happen to the sergeants, if they were?
GM: What?
CB: What would happen to the sergeants if they were labelled LMF?
GM: They were stripped of rank of course and just vanished; I suppose. Anyway, I don’t know what happened to the commissioned officer, whether he was uncommissioned or I don’t know. The whole thing’s a mystery.
CB: Yeah
GM: Well, is it Chris?
CB: Yeah
GM: Sorry
CB: It’s alright.
GM: Well, you promised me that you will get access to these four volumes
CB: Yes, absolutely
GM: It’s not the easiest of reading but it’s right up your street
CB: Oh yes, it is
GM: There’s a whole appendix, giving the details about how many bombs fell [unclear] explode for instance [unclear]
CB: Yeah
GM: The bombs were inefficient
CB: Yeah
GM: So many things were incompetent
CB: Yeah. It’s not as though it was new because they had a very high failure rate in the First World War
GM: Yes
CB: Of bombs and shells
GM: My father never once asked me about Bomber Command, very most peculiar, I envy sons who had a good relationship with their fathers,
CB: What was the main stumbling block would you say?
GM: Well, losing his wife when he did, that buggered him, buggered him. Small town [unclear], like his father before him, like his grandfather before him and I would have been the starter, if the tractor hadn’t come, the tractor saved me.
CB: What did the tractor do?
GM: Made [unclear] redundant, no horses, mean this [unclear] two or three [unclear] all gone
US: All gone
GM: My hometown is like, Stamford, you know, agricultural market town. Have you always lived in Stamford, nearby the airfields? [laughs]
CB: In the dark
GM: Yeah, training
CB: Right
GM: Waterbeach, we were sent to other airfields, you see, and I [unclear] all apologetic but five miles apart the circuits overlapping
CB: But it must have been quite difficult, how did you, coming back from an operation or any sortie, how did you identify your airfield in the dark?
GM: Well, the flashing beacons, the Germans knew them all, out, you know, two initials, they never changed, the Germans must have known them all. And the three searchlights intersecting at two thousand feet all over the place, oh God it was a, what a performance! What [unclear]!
CB: So every, when you returned, there was always the searchlight on,
GM: Oh yes
CB: Unless the Germans had followed the bomber stream in
GM: Oh yes, and that should help from the German point of view, why they didn’t do that more often? What an advantage to have their fighters come across
CB: It could’ve been a turkey shoot
GM: It would’ve been a massive one. And they did it, well, they did it, when I was training the Wellingtons it happened once and it scared the daylights out of me, trying to learn to fly and at the same time, knowing there is an enemy aircraft around. Bassinbourn?
CB: Yeah. So if
GM: They missed a great opportunity
CB: If there was a known interdictor, intruder, what did the airfields do, they turned off their lights, did they?
GM: Oh yes.
CB: Then, what did that leave you with?
GM: That never happened to me. No, there was no trouble getting home, I mean, finding one’s way, I mean
CB: Because of all these lights
GM: Oh, the, and you had the radio beams and things, you know
CB: Yes
GM: I took no interest in, QDEM or something
CB: Yeah, did you have DREM lighting as well? The DREM lighting round the airfield?
GM: Yes, of course, I suppose so
CB: They do
GM: Round again that was nothing, I mean, you know, running at night, night flying was easy, it wasn’t difficult, above the weather
CB: And fog?
GM: As [unclear] it is, pilots, well, they know pilots, I when I was in an aircraft going to Boston one day, [unclear] stupid, so I wrote a wee note to the captain, I said, my last flight was from Gibraltar to Lyneham, sixteen passengers, height six thousand feet, and [unclear] speed a hundred and seventy five, can I come up to see you in your office? So the attendant sent up study staring into his cockpit
CB: Ah, this is on a 747
GM: Was it? I don’t know what the hell that was. Anyway, there was a vibration, you couldn’t see a bloody thing and they are all rushing but half a dozen of them, I thought, this isn’t flying, nor is it, we flew through the weather
CB: Yeah
GM: Christ, we, I was flying, you were actually controlling the bloody thing. It was good, you were doing something.
CB: God!
GM: You were in control.
CB: Yes
GM: It was responsive.
CB: How much did you use the auto-pilot on your aircraft?
GM: What you had to do, it was a chore. Invaluable. That night, when I survived the icing cloud, that was thanks to the link trainer, there’s a record at the back of the books somewhere
CB: Of the amount you did on link trainer?
GM: Yeah
CB: But on the aircraft itself, on the Stirling, did they have an automatic pilot?
GM: Oh yes
CB: They did?
GM: I never used it, at least I did in Transport Command, but not over Germany, ever
CB: Because you were always weaving
GM: For a fraction of a second, you know, [unclear]. But the thing is, Bomber Command was never on air, [unclear] my father’s trench war
CB: Yeah
GM: It was boring, can you imagine spending eight hours most of which when nothing was happening, eight bloody hours, Stettin and back, nothing happened, what a bore, all the bombers over over valued because it was dramatic. What the trips, after the raids above Holland, 1944, is undramatic compared to what happened in the air, so Bomber Command was overvalued. Which is why you’re here.
CB: Flying a B-17, how was that different from flying the Stirling?
GM: You couldn’t Make the bloody thing maneuver, it didn’t want to, it just wanted to stay straight and level, which was its job
CB: Yes, absolutely
GM: I mean, the Americans, the Air Force, they didn’t fuck around
CB: No
GM: They [unclear] straight and level
CB: In daylight
GM: Flew it all in daylight, my word, that’s bravery
CB: Absolutely
GM: That’s bravery. Oh yes, we had it easy
CB: And
GM: We had it easy, too much a cream,
CB: And simple comforts on the
GM: All sheets of a kind [unclear] breakfast, drink, cigarettes,
CB: In the Fortress
GM: No, in the Air Force
CB: OH, I see, yes, right, in the,
GM: [unclear]
CB: On the ground, yeah
GM: And too much prestige, too much
CB: In the war
GM: Too much
CB: Yeah
GM: No [unclear], too much. I mean, think what a submarine is like compared to what we did, bloody weeks in the air compared to a submarine, we did a few hours then we were all back to civilisation, so we are overvalued, overestimated. It took me a long time to work this out, I’m convinced of it now
CB: It’s unusual for people to have done more than two, one tour, you did two and then a third one.
GM: No, I did less than two. I did forty-four ops
CB: In total
GM: Supposed to be fifty. I came back from a spoof, nothing, and the wing commander said, Mackie, not [unclear], he’d been a [unclear], Mackie, you’re finished. That’s it, [unclear], I’ll never forget, completely, Mackie, you’re finished
CB: George Mackie, thank you very much indeed for a most interesting conversation
GM: Thank you for coming
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with George Mackie
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-22
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. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AMackieGA171222
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:39:10 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
George Mackie served in the RAF as a pilot. He flew forty-four operations, fifteen as a second pilot. Was posted to 15 Squadron in 1941 and critically examines the state of Bomber Command at the time. He was posted for eighteen months to RAF Waterbeach where he flew three operations and took part at the thousand bomber operation to Cologne. Describes the Stirling, its characteristics and performance and compares it to the Flying Fortress. Remembers being hit once by anti-aircraft fire over Leverkusen but without being seriously injured. Was then posted to 214 Squadron, where he flew on Flying Fortresses. At the end of the war, was transferred to Transport Command as an adjutant. Talks about low morale among the aircrew and mentions Scarecrow shells. Remembers his most frightening experience when he flew for five hours in an icing cloud on the way to Hamburg.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
15 Squadron
1651 HCU
214 Squadron
aircrew
B-17
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
fear
ground crew
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
memorial
Oxford
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Cranfield
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Wyton
Scarecrow
searchlight
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/919/11164/ALastRR151125.1.mp3
1549212534df145caa24e82c2fc713ce
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
Last, Ronald Roland
Ron Last
R R Last
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ronald Last (1921 - 2016, 160501 Royal Air Force). Ronald Last flew operations as a bomb aimer with 466 Squadron before his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-26
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
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Last, RR
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: This is an interview with Ron Last, a bomb aimer on 466 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. My name is Adam Sutch and the interview is being conducted at Honiton, Devon for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. Also present is his daughter Sheila. Ron, thanks ever so much for agreeing for this interview. I’d like to set the scene by asking you about your life before the war. Before you joined the air force. Can you tell me a bit about where you were born and your family?
RL: I was born at Wimborne in Dorset. That was where my grandmother lived. My home address was in 2 Waterloo Road, Bournemouth. I was, I left school at fourteen and I joined the Bournemouth Gas and Water Company as an apprentice gas fitter. When I, when I was, war was broke out I volunteered for the Marines. And the recruiting sergeant laughed and told me to go home and grow up. Well, I was only, what? Sixteen or something like that.
AS: Sixteen. What’s your birthday? When’s your birthday?
RL: I went to the army recruiting office and they looked at me and said, well, ‘Go on home and grow up.’ Well, in the end I volunteered for the RAF. Aircrew. They called me up for a couple of days to go to Uxbridge. Uxbridge, where they gave me a medical and it was a rather funny thing. They wanted to know whether my lungs were strong enough and they offered me a U-Gauge. That, yes, they put water in the U-Gauge you see and of course you blew that up and after you’d done that they filled the U-Gauge up with mercury and gave me the tube to blow up. And of course, I can only hold my breath for a few seconds. And then they told me to sit back, you know and take a real blow and I got a good reading on the thing. And they told me I had to hold my breath for a minute. Well, I blew it up, of course and with mercury being a heavy kind of thing — phew. But I passed that. Well, when you think of it mercury is a poison. It’s not exactly the thing to play with. I was sent home with a paper to see a dentist locally. So, I made an appointment with a local dentist, dentist and he gave me some fillings or whatever had to be done. I was then on the sort of a waiting list to be called up. One day I received a notification that I was to report to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. So, saying difficult goodbyes to my wife and things. I got up to Lords Cricket Ground and I go into a Sector L. I was supposed to be given a uniform there but all I received was a respirator and a forage cap. Well, apparently, they never had the equipment to give us but we all had some indication of uniform. Well, we used to go for our meal to Regent’s Park Zoo. And one day, and we were living in the flat by Regent’s Park, well one day we were told we were going to have inoculations and things like that. That was really something. We were marched there to a big house with iron fire escapes and when we got to this base of this thing we were given a cap. Kit bag. And we were told to strip off all our top clothing. Well, we gradually moved up this stairway and we got to the building. Then we got to a room where there was a doctor and a medical bloke. One, the idea, the medical johnny was filling up with vaccines or whatever it was and passing them to the doctor who would put it in your arm. Well, it was just like a factory. Now, if you didn’t move after you had it just as likely you got another one, see. The best part about it there was a cast iron radiator in this room. Well there was a lot of people passing out kind of thing and of course this cast iron radiator didn’t do any problems. Well, we had two or three inoculations and then we had one on the chest. Well, of course when we finished we all went on the town that night to some, well the first time we’d seen, were the Regent’s Park and the ambulance bells were ringing like mad where people were passing out. Well, when you were on a respirator the straps went across where you’d been vaccinated which didn’t, I didn’t have them to call. No trouble. Well, after two or three days in there we got a bit more kit but not a full uniform, you know. One day we were told we were going to be on the move so we found out we were going to Newquay. So, bright and early on Monday morning we were all paraded up here. And we waited for hours before we moved off. And we no sooner got moving and I’ll never forget it, coming towards us was a platoon of Guardsmen. Guardsmen. Now, of course they were in step but we, we were come clattering along you know and these guardsmen just walked on by. Well, we got on this train and we still waited and waited. Then all of a sudden we go off. We got, we got on this train and we chugged off from the town, and [pause] No. I beg your pardon. That’s not Newquay. We went to Pwllheli in North Wales. That’s a correction. And then when we got there it was a gunnery school but they never knew anything about what I was going to do so we, we spent time. They never had a gunnery course [pause] Maybe I’m getting confused here.
AS: Did you go straight to gunnery training or did you do some flying first?
RL: We didn’t [pause] no that’s not [pause] Can I just — that was where you were going to do your training. How to walk properly, how to turn around, who to salute and all that kind of thing. But they must have had the foundation to be able to do anything. They marched up and down like that. Well, the officers in our, like platoon were school teachers. They didn’t appear to have any training. They were just brought in as school teachers. We did arithmetic and English and, like that. Well, that was alright in some respects but it, we used to feed. Now, in Newquay, as a fishing port, we used to live on fish. I’m sure that if I’d have stayed much longer I’d have got flippers. It used to be very annoying to walk around to these empty hotels which are our class rooms and then to come out and you could smell this fish cooking. Well, we used to go in to, to the dining room. You didn’t sit where you wanted to. You just filed in and sat on the — and I was unfortunate to be at the end of a line. And of course, the duty NCO came in with the officer. ‘Any complaints?’ And I didn’t think about being me but I was on the end of the line so I was, ‘Yes sir. We think this fish is bad.’ So, he says to the NCO, ‘Get me a portion.’ So, a fish portion was given to him on a plate with a fork and he daintily pushed his fork in to this fish and he’d only had a tiny bit like that and he licks it. ‘I don’t think it’s bad.’ Three night’s fire-watch for doing that. I never sat on the end of a line after that. Well, it was the, these officers they have never been through an officer’s course. I reckon they were just given the uniform as they’d retired. I mean church parade. Act your age in front. And instead of walking by the main road to the church they took us down the road a bit, left turn, right turn and we went ziggyzag, you see. Well, by the time they got to church they only had a half a platoon because when they went around the corners the back people skived off. Prior to this when we were announced we had church parade a Cockney recruit said he was an atheist. The sergeant didn’t argue with him or anything like that. We paraded, you see. When we got down to this church all the other people walked into this church and the sergeant said to this bloke, ‘Stand over there.’ By a wooden seat outside. So, as soon as the service started, he said to this man, ‘Attention.’ And the bloke had to stand to attention all the way. All through the service. And of course, the sergeant was sat down on the seat with his newspaper and fag you see. Funny, that bloke had religion the next week.
AS: When was this? When did you join the air force?
[pause]
RL: There are some dates there.
AS: Ok. So, this was in April, 17th of April you went to Uxbridge.
RL: Yeah.
AS: And then you went arsydarsy [ACRC] in London in September ’41.
RL: Yeah.
AS: And Newquay in October ‘41. So, in October ‘41 all this was going on.
RL: Yes.
AS: Yes. Did you —
RL: And —
AS: Did you do exams after these lessons of maths and things?
RL: Did we do what?
AS: Exams. Examinations at Newquay. Tests.
RL: Well, sort of but I mean we, I suppose these school teachers made their reports. We were all trainee air crew in those days. Obviously, we were all, all was going to be pilots. As we thought, you know. Let me just have that back again will you, please.
[pause]
AS: Can we wind back a bit?
RL: Yeah. Well, we got then we went from Newquay we went to Sywell. That was a Tiger Moth flying station.
AS: Ok.
RL: It was a private aerodrome. We were all dressed up as airmen. Our flying kit in those days was a silk undergarment, a capote over garment and a canvas over jacket. Goggles. Helmets. Sea boot stockings and flying boots. That’s the first time I’d worn all this. Now, it was a beautiful day and you sat outside this, like, clubhouse kind of thing and all of a sudden somebody would come up and call your name and, ‘I’m your pilot,’ you see. Now, you wobbled out to one of the aircraft, lath and plaster kind of thing and you climbed in it. You no sooner made yourself comfortable, well, semi comfortable. By that time you were sweating. It was running off you. Oh, you had goggles on then. Well, he takes off, you see and, ‘Ever flown before?’ ‘No. No.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m going to do a spin.’ And he showed me, you know, you’ll see the artificial horizon come up. You’ll bring that up,’ he said, ‘And you’re going to stall. And you kick the left rudder and you go to the right,’ or something. Yeah. And then he pulled out, you see. Well, all he was doing is looking in his mirror to see whether you were sick or alright. Course no. I was decided. Seeing this spinning around like this. Yeah. Then come back. Then we did it for the next time. And of course, it was lovely seeing the earth spinning around, you know. You didn’t, you didn’t do anything without being told. So, we landed, you know. Well, we were going through our course when we were, one bloke told us to go back to our classroom. And the commanding officer looks up and said, ‘The air force are introducing another crew member.’ So, we said, ‘What is that?’ And he said, ‘Bomb aimer.’ So, we asked a lot a lot of questions, ‘What’s the pay?’ Right. And that kind of thing. And he said, ‘I want volunteers.’ So, nobody volunteered. They all wanted to be brylcreem boys, you know, and that. So, he said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Transport will be outside. They’ll take you back to your civilian accommodation.’ He said, ‘You’ll collect your kit and we’ll —
AS: How many hours flying had you done as a, as a pilot. Very few?
RL: Very few. There was, oh apart from going into the classroom. There was one fella that was going on his solo and we were all watching him and he landed after a series of bumps but pulled up. But I think he got, went on with flying duties but that’s, as I say. So, we, he volunteered us all for the [pause] Well we got down to this, excuse me I’ve got a [pause] We got down to Penrhos. That was a gunnery school kind of thing.
AS: Ok.
RL: And they had not heard about a bomb aimer you see and they didn’t know really what to teach us. So, in the end we started flying around and dropping nine pound spent bombs on the bay just outside there. It was daft really. Ansons. We had a sight and we had to clip this sight on to a spigot. Well, the pilot would go towards the target and you had to give the corrections. You know. Well, you never had a Perspex panel. You had a metal panel used there. Well, the idea is you drop this bomb and you had to mark on a chart where it hit, according to the floating target and there was also a bloke on the headland there. Well, it shows how daft it was. We clipped on our bombsight on to this spigot and opened this door. Well, to drop your bomb you had to inch yourself forward to there. That released the bombsight on the spigot and of course we lost a few bombsights. So, in the end they decided to give us a lanyard. So that nearly pulled you out of, out of the bomb place. Well, we, we did a few night flying and things like that and we always used to drop a five hundred sand filled bomb into the sand pits prior to landing. Well, we never had such a record of this but I [pause] I passed out on that. And apparently, to my log book I had above average. So that wasn’t bad. Well —
AS: What else did they teach you? Did they teach you navigation? Or, or gunnery?
RL: Pardon?
AS: Did they teach you any navigation or gunnery?
RL: Well, yes but only, how can I say? Basics, you know. We [pause] not really in as much as when we used to go out on sort of bombing runs. Like we flew around the villages and had to take a photograph of the church which we bombed, kind of thing. That was, that was bloody silly. Well, looking back it was a bloody silly training. And see, when we used to go around to these villages or sights. There was eight of them. Eight sights you’d go around. Well, you’re up at the front of this bloody Anson, kind of thing. No intercom. You would go on to the skipper like that and come straight up and you’d get these where you were going to drop your bombs. Well, you’d perhaps give them, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady,’ blah blah. Right.
AS: All hand signals.
RL: Like that. When you wanted to bomb that meant the photograph and you had this bloody great box in front of you and when you’ve got to it, then you’d turn this bloody handle to take the photograph and then when you finished you wanted to say, ‘Bring her around,’ but they wouldn’t come up, you know. No. And of course he’d be bringing it up and the camera would go back into your turret. Well, when you’d done about six of these you weren’t exactly feeling very bright. If you’ve managed to do eight, get out of the craft, out of the aircraft and rest your back up against it and take a breath you were alright. Of course, if you were sick they used to cost you five bob to clean. For somebody else to clean it up or you had to do it yourself. Well, we spent quite a nice time down there. Apart from being in a classroom kind of thing. And at the end of this day we’d missed the transport to send us back to our billets and of course you weren’t exactly feeling like that but we were billeted in garden sheds. The funny thing, it’s a safe bet if you walked down the main street, about the only street there, and you saw a bloke coming towards you it was a safe bet if you said, ‘Good afternoon Mr Jones.’ They were all Jones’ there.
AS: Did you lose any aircraft on training? Crews and aircraft, on training.
RL: No. They were a bit shaky. They had a lot of Polish pilots that were on relief and I think it was an insult to those men to get put back for relief. All they wanted to do was to fly the enemy. They did some crazy things. You’d go out some nights with one man. If we circled around a village and his girlfriend lived in that village there would be a light come up, you know. They were, they were absolutely [pause] well I think they thought of it as an insult to be took out.
AS: Ok.
RL: But —
AS: When you’d finished there did you have a passing out parade and get your brevet? Did you have a big parade when you finished your training and get your brevet?
RL: No. No.
AS: How did that happen?
RL: We went in as LACs one morning and we were just given a brevet and sergeant’s stripes. I know we went up to Harwell next. That was an Operational Training Wing where you were all crewed up. And then [pause] oh you did more flying. Sort of over to the Isle of Man and things like that.
AS: Ok.
RL: That was normal flying.
AS: How, how did you crew up? How did you choose who you were going to fly with?
RL: How did you choose?
AS: Who you were going to fly with. How did you choose your crew?
RL: Well, how can I say? We mucked in together, kind of thing where I’d get in there and you saw different blokes. You mucked in with or, ‘Do you want to be in our crew?’ Kind of thing. It was sort of, well look at the blokes faces and say, ‘Well you’re not a bad chap, are you?’ No. There was no, no official crewing. No. There wasn’t like, well as I said, I was above average. I don’t, I don’t think we looked for above average crew. I mean, we just mucked in. And then we went down to Driffield for a time. That’s where 466 was starting. That, that was a place where well we didn’t do much there and we were moved up to Leconfield. I was in crew number 3.
AS: That was Healy’s crew was it?
RL: No. That was on squadron.
AS: Yeah. Was Healy you pilot? Was that your, your crew? With, with Healy?
[pause]
RL: Yeah.
AS: Ok. Let’s just pause there for a minute and we’ll get your logbook, I think.
[recording paused]
AS: Right. We’re, we’re back after a break and Ron, I’d like to ask you some questions about joining the squadron. What, what was that like when you’d finished OTU and joined the squadron?
RL: Well, we [pause] we all sort of mucked in and did a lot of crewing. I was, a Flight Sergeant Healy was my pilot for a time. But after a time, a very small time, I couldn’t tell you the date, he was taken off flying.
AS: Was he sick?
RL: What is that — Sheila.
Sheila: Yeah.
RL: What was that letters?
Sheila: Lack of moral fibre.
RL: Lack of moral.
AS: Oh. How did that turn up?
RL: Well [pause] we [pause] we flew with him. Well, we did our first op in 466, 13th of January ’43 and he [pause] he put in a rear turret u/s going to Kiel. Then he had a starboard oil pressure return to base. And then he suddenly disappeared. You couldn’t find out what happened to him but lack, lack of fibre we think.
AS: Ok.
RL: I mean he was here one day and gone the next.
AS: He never, he never discussed these things that went wrong with the aeroplane, with the crew.
RL: Well, we wondered whether, well, he faked it or not. And this lack of moral fibre, well you, there wasn’t any information. But we, we wondered whether that was it. It wasn’t, it was as though he was sick. I mean, he would, one, one day he was worse and then the next day he wasn’t. Now, it’s a horrible thing to have been labelled that. But I don’t know whether I had [pause] I’ve got so much bumph here, I don’t —
AS: Did you all live together? Were you all sergeants? Did you all live together as a crew? Were you all sergeants or some officers?
RL: At Driffield we lived in the married quarters. Three of us — the rear gunner, a wireless op and me. We lived in, like the master bedroom. Now, we got a ration of coal to light the bedroom fire up.
AS: Yeah.
RL: But it was so bloody cold. The only time I ever wore my Irvin suit. We used to light this fire up and take it in turns to undress and put on our Irvin trousers and jacket and climb into bed. Well, Kurdy was something to do with transport and the food thing. So, we decided one night, as the coal ration wasn’t enough, we would break into the coal thing and get some more coal. So, off we go with the wire cutters. Real, real professional, you know. Cut the wire. Got in. Filled up this sack, you know, with coal, kind of thing. And then we realized we couldn’t carry it. You know [laughs] Well, all of a sudden the tannoy came on. And you’d never seen anything like it. Kurdy was only a little bloke. He gets this sack on to his shoulder and he scarpered with Bob and me, we were following on. When we got back to the house there Kurdy was by the fire [breathing heavily]. But, I mean, we could have got court martialed for that. We were warned. But I don’t know. You see, when we were called up — like, like on a train. Now Bournemouth is a, was a big town. If you went for a, on a train for a journey to go up to Southampton well you couldn’t afford it really. But once you got on the train and you kept along and you came to the another station and a bloke gets on. He’s as bewildered as you are so you talk, don’t you? By the time you get to the next station you’re friends. I mean, but I mean some of the poor blokes got on. They were, well, like farm labourers. They’d never been in a train. Get in to a train and look at everything going by. That’s marvelous. I mean three meals a day they got. They didn’t get three meals a day at home, did they?
AS: No. Not at all. No.
RL: They thought they were in heaven.
AS: So, you’ve done OTU with your crew and then the whole crew get posted to Driffield. To the squadron.
RL: Yeah.
AS: And then, this is September 1942. And then it seems the squadron did a long time training. A lot of training was it?
RL: Oh yes. Yeah. We had lots of training [pause] I wonder where that got to.
AS: What, what was that all about? Was it because you were all new crews that there was so much training going on?
RL: Well, 1942 [pause] Where have I got that from? Oh, I expect when they went to sign it —
AS: Not enough room for the stamp. Yeah.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Ok. Can I borrow that back? So, it took about three months before you went on operations. This was on what? On Wellingtons you had.
RL: Yeah. Well, we had, most of our training was at, flying training was at Leconfield, wasn’t it? [pause] Captain, crew. January.
[pause]
AS: I’ll just pause it there for a second.
[recording paused]
AS: Back after another pause. Ron, I’d like to ask you about being a bomb aimer. What your duties were in the aeroplane on a, on a mission. What —
RL: Well, I used to sit on the right of the pilot. My duties were — I used to keep an eye on the instrument panel for any, well, any sort of [pause] well —
AS: Deficiencies I suppose. Yeah. Anything wrong.
RL: Any sort of fault —
AS: Yeah.
RL: That arises. With the Wimpy I always had to turn on the nacelle fuel tanks. That meant I used to, well if we were on oxygen I’d take a bottle of, a small bottle of oxygen and plug in because I had to go down the aircraft, over the main spar to where these toggles were at the side of the aircraft. Now, these toggles were connected up by wire to the nacelle tanks and it was my duty to, when the fuel tanks were nearing the emptying point the skipper used to tell me to go down the back and I’d sit down at the back by these toggles. Now, when he told me to switch on these toggles I had to pull on the toggle and engage a ball bearing that was welded on them into a keyhole slot. It wasn’t very clever.
AS: How many pairs of gloves were you wearing?
RL: And you’d no sooner, he’d say, ‘Starboard,’ and you’d pull on the starboard and you couldn’t get the ball back enough in there when you were tugging. And he’d say, ‘Port,’ and you’d have to grab the other one and pull. Well, we used to say to the, on the, ‘Slow down skipper. Slow down.’ Thinking that if he didn’t go so fast the wings wouldn’t bow out and after you’ve got them in you were [reading for gas then?]
AS: Yeah. So, the flexing of wing —
RL: Yeah. Well —
AS: Was making the cable tight.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah.
RL: I mean it was straight down and we used to feel we bleeding wanted him to slow down so that the wings would go back. It was [pause] it was a horrible feeling because when you’ve got both of them you were pulling like mad, you know. And of course it was only like a keyhole that took the ball. It was rather frightening. Now, a thing we [pause] we didn’t do according to regulations. Of course, you all know that you, you know better. Well, when he used to say to us, ‘Right. Go on down the back there. Instead of putting our portable air line on we used to go [breathe in deeply] go down the back there, you know. When you got to this main spar you had to put your leg up over and it’s true when you go to put the next leg down you can’t push it down to the ground. And then when you do get down you get down to the port and your fumbling for the air line. That’s like the electro light. The maintenance panel.
AS: Bayonet fitting. Yeah.
RL: You swear that they’re going into each other but they’re not, you know. But we, and I often thought if I’d have passed out nobody would have known.
AS: What else were your duties? Apart from the tanks what else did you have to do?
RL: Well, I went to, going over the North Sea to the target I would switch on the bombing panel and get the bombs off, off safety.
AS: When would you do that?
RL: Pardon?
AS: When do you take the bombs off safe?
RL: Well, they had split pins.
AS: Yeah.
RL: In these things. And if you got back to camp the bomber, bomb aimer mechanic, he would collect these things. There was a gadget used to come down — and pull. Engage on the split pin on the bomb. Pull it out. But that meant when I dropped them, they were live.
AS: Was this gadget electrical?
RL: Yes.
AS: Ok.
RL: As I say if you got back to camp and you never had these split pins you dropped the bombs safe. I don’t mean they wouldn’t go off but quite a possibility that they wouldn’t go off.
AS: So, you, you made the bombs, you armed the bombs over the North Sea.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Ok.
RL: Well, like when we came back, we’d switch on the panel and if we got the lights on one place we’d got a hang up so we had to get rid of that over the North Sea because we didn’t like landing with a bomb on board. Sometimes that used to be just a matter of jigging up the switch or rocking the aircraft. When the light went out you knew you were alright.
AS: So, you’ve switched, you’ve turned on the bomb panel. You’ve set the bombs. You’ve armed the bombs. When did you take control of the aircraft? When was it your aeroplane to steer?
RL: Well, as you approached the target it was the pilot. We used to drop our bombs on a red flare or green. Whatever they told us. So, if the pilot, should I say aims at perhaps this odd one or clutch of red bombs and then you sort of took over. I mean the pilot [pause] the pilot could see the target so I mean he was going, he was going for it all the time. It was only when, as I say you got near enough to, ‘Left. Left.’ The next time you were there it might be oh just about, ‘Right. Right. That’s enough.’ It was only an adjustment.
AS: How, how did your bombsight work? How did you bring it on to the target? What, what were you looking for?
RL: How?
AS: How did the bombsight work? What were you looking for?
RL: Well, we never had these H2S. We just had a sight. As long as you put the wind on to direct and things like that that’s all you could, that’s all you did. I mean, as the war went on it wasn’t just a matter of bombing some guns or searchlights. I mean [pause] well you see it on television and on the pictures where the target was ablaze but when you see this target in front of you and its ablaze. I mean, I might have been a poor bomb aimer and not, and not should I say, knocked over these factories but there was a lot of people that had to change our underwear. You see [pause] it was just destroy the city or a town.
AS: Yeah.
RL: And then [pause] I mean it’s amazing for someone. We were on the second wave.
AS: To Hamburg?
RL: Pardon.
AS: Second wave to where? Hamburg?
RL: Well we used to go like the first wave and then there’s the second wave.
AS: Yeah.
RL: Was there. Well, when you could see, well, miles of flames leaping up it was unbelievable. The night that I was shot down there was the Germans shooting up flares and it was just, well can I just say going through [Exeter?] main road with all the street lamps on and you were going up to it and you’re going to raid, and you’d spend.
AS: These were fighter flares. Yeah.
RL: Yeah. With all this stuff. I mean they, they couldn’t miss us.
AS: When you, because you flew as Bomber Command was getting better and better and better.
RL: Yeah.
AS: And better at its job. So, did you notice the difference in the effect from when you started bombing to, you know, say the Battle of Hamburg, the Battle of Berlin. Were the fires getting bigger?
RL: Yeah. I mean the first time I saw, saw it, when we went back home the rear gunner was talking like you could still see the glow in the sky. Not a, not just a low glow. A big glow. And when I, when I was shot down it was my turn to open the escape hatch and my turn to go out first. You’d jump out of the aircraft but in a way that would be silly. There was an open gap there and I stepped out in it but my back thing gets caught on the —
AS: On the edge.
RL: The edge of the, and I can remember, ‘Push me. Push me.’ And they pushed me. Well. Then I dropped. I can’t remember counting three and putting on the, I must have pulled it then. And on this day, ‘Oh bloody hell. I’m going to drop in to that lot.’ The bloody fire is burning isn’t it? Then of course the common sense — oh the wind will blow me off and you gradually saw it was. But I mean.
AS: Yeah. I’ll come to when you were shot down. When, when you were flying over these targets could you feel the heat?
RL: No, I can’t say, I can’t say I ever thought of that. Or what the feelings were.
AS: Did you feel, what did you feel about the bombing? The people underneath. Did it worry you at the time?
RL: Well, they’d bombed London, hadn’t they?
AS: Yeah.
RL: And we were only giving them back what they’d done to London. That’s basically what it was.
AS: Yeah.
RL: You, well when I pulled my parachute and I saw, ‘Oh bloody hell I’m going to drop in that.’ Now, we do know that the firemen, if they saw a parachute coming down in the fire and there was a German raid on they would turn their hoses away from him. I mean they would let them drop in the bloody fire. Well, flying, flying kit you never really wore. How can I say? I never wore my flying trousers on then. I flew, I had my submarine sweater, socks, flying boots, an ordinary uniform and an open neck shirt with a lady’s scarf tied in a knot. And if I had [died from it] they were dress clothes. Now, I can remember floating down on my parachute and untying this knotted scarf because we were told the Germans could catch hold of each end and strangle you. I can remember dropping it and letting it float down. My palm of my hand started itching. Take off my glove. Scratch my palm. Put my glove back on again. Going down. I landed in — there was some wires going along as I got closer to the ground and I surmised these were tram wires. So, I pulled on my chute when I got near straight down. I can’t tell you which hand, you know. I landed in the back garden of this house. Well, to release your parachute you had a buckle. You clamp it and turn it. Well, I was doing this but the wind had got into my parachute and taking me back.
AS: Dragging you down the road.
RL: And a German soldier was there with a long bloody bayonet [laughs] I said all three masses [laughs]. And then he got me there and I put my hands up and he released it. Now, we took, we were took into the house. Obviously a mill had been and there was a man and his wife and this huge German. He had the small, small tin hat on a big head and he had this red and black armband. Like a Home Guard I suppose and he started yanking at me and he slapped me two or three times. There was this man and woman. I think it was a man and wife. And you know the Moses baskets?
AS: Yes.
RL: Where the two halves go together. Well, there was a baby in each and I’d thought he was having a go at me for bombing babies and things like that and I’ve never, so. Oh, one of the babies opened its eyes and let out a yell. Oh, that was a beautiful sound but in the end this soldier seemed to be frightened of this man. Seemed as though I was a spar as far as he was. He’d captured an airmen you know and that. But, oh I never oh that baby crying [crying noises]
AS: And were you, were you still in the middle of this bombing raid? Was it going on around you?
RL: I was on the, I was on the outskirts of the thing.
AS: What did it sound like being underneath it? What did it sound like? The bombing raid. When you were on the ground.
[pause]
RL: [unclear]
AS: Did you hear the vibrations and the noise?
RL: I can’t [pause] I was taken to a, I suppose the picket post.
AS: Were you injured?
RL: Yeah. I was injured but that’s, that’s a funny thing. I was injured. Well, a lot of that there was the bang and there was a hole in the aircraft. I didn’t think any more about it. I went down without feeling any pain. I got to this picket post. I was amazed. There was a German soldier and he talked like an Australian — ‘Hi cobber,’ you know. ‘The war for you is over.’ And he searched me. Well, we’re not supposed to take any documents but I mean I had a wallet. A picture of my wife. A few lucky charms like silver thre’penny bits there. That was the other thing.
AS: They worked.
RL: I don’t know whether this ought to be on tv. He saw a little square envelope and he opened it. He puts it in his pocket kind of thing. Well, then the ambulance is called after he took this — name and number. All that. And I was feeling then my wound. I wasn’t in pain but I, there was something wrong and the blood was trickling down my trousers. Well, when this [unclear] ambulance came, they wanted me to lie down on the stretcher. No. No way was I going to. I wanted to be sat up so I can do something if something comes along. And this flaming soldier drove the ambulance down the main road and he kept on saying, ‘Kaput. Kaput. Kaput.’ And all I could see was the front of a building standing and there was nothing behind it, you know. We drove down this main road and we come to the archway.
AS: Oh, the Brandenburg Gate?
RL: Yeah. Just before we come to that archway we saw FW Woolworth’s and that, but you know on seeing Woolworth’s, well we turned left and we go up the road or we got to a part of it. We stopped at a private hospital. And they didn’t want to know. They didn’t give me any treatment. They had enough of their own I suppose. So, we drove into this hospital and they took me through a line of Luftwaffe people and I couldn’t believe it. There was, well there weren’t soldiers that you could put on a drill squadron. I mean there was one bloke who was a hunchback but I mean he was in the German army. He could do something couldn’t he? And they sat me on the corner of a desk and the doctor put a pad or a dressing on my wound. And in came an immaculately dressed Luftwaffe officer. Dagger, and dirk. Everything. Looked beautiful. He introduced to me as a German master at one of our universities before the war. And he talked to this doctor man and then he talked to me and he said, ‘Your name, number,’ and of course I gave it to him. Well, I didn’t know that leading up. You see the next thing was, ‘What were you flying?’ Now, this doctor, whatever he had to do to my wound he did. I’m not, he didn’t hurt me intentionally. He just did what he had to do and of course instead of saying ooh, you said, ‘Oh Halifax,’ you know. Then I realized what I had to do. Every time he asked me a question I had to say, ‘Oooh.’ And you get this after he gave me a pencil and piece of paper, ‘You have to write home.’ So, what can you do? You can’t put down, “Hello, I’m in Germany. In Berlin. Sincerely, Ron.” You wrote a lot of piffle really. That letter got home.
AS: It did.
RL: Yeah. Then that went through the German postal system. Wasn’t anything to do with the POW form or anything like that. Amazing. They took me on to the hospital and apparently linen bandages were like a gold mine and the outer bandages was crepe paper. Well, they’d fitted me out with a nightie. A long nightie, you see. As I say this crepe paper, I was, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and breathing heavy and of course it just fell on the ground. They cleaned me up again and they gave me a shirtie nightie. Well, you go to bed and you think to yourself I wonder what they’re thinking at home, you know. But it was amazing.
AS: Were you obviously frightened parachuting in to Berlin. When did the fear leave you? When did you think that you’re alright? You’re safe. They’re going to not kill you. When was that?
RL: I think, when I got to the Luftwaffe hospital. Now, in the room with me there was a squadron leader and a flight lieu. The flight lieu was a Aussie. Now, he apparently had got blown out of his aircraft and badly wounded his arm and things like that. Well, the ointment that they had to use, kind of thing, it used to stink. Old Smithy used to, well we used to call him Smithy, but he said, ‘Oh cut it off doc. Cut the bloody thing off.’ I bet if that had been in England I reckon they would have took it off. And the surgeon said, ‘No. No. I’ll send you home with an arm.’ Well, this surgeon came in one night and he was dressed up in his dress uniform. And of course we were all ‘whoo ooh,’ and this kind of thing. Well he came in to see Smithy and Smithy did get repatriated with his arm. He can’t use, well he can use everything but he hasn’t got an empty sleeve. They were marvelous. I mean, I suppose it’s the code. If you need attention you got it. But —
AS: Did all your watch and your clothes disappear?
RL: My flying boots disappeared. My, my sweater. No. That was just all stained in blood. We couldn’t have been treated better in that hospital. And there was a nurse. [unclear] a nurse. She did everything for me and on, at home, there’s a picture of my mum’s mum and if you could just remove the head gear on the painting and put the nurse’s uniform in.
AS: The same. Yeah.
RL: That was my grandmother. But she used to do everything. Like, the other two bods complained. They wanted something to clean their teeth with so she appeared with three toothbrushes. Well, a man who has got it, and I had a kiss. But I think she was great.
AS: This was January 1944.
RL: Yeah.
AS: What was the food like that you were given in Germany?
RL: The food?
AS: Yeah.
RL: Well very sparse. I think we got what the German hospital [pause] I was dead lucky in getting into this Luftwaffe hospital. The food. If you had a soup plate with a pattern on the bottom and you had soup in it if you could see the pattern in the soup. Now for the first day, the first two or three days in hospital I was given white bread as my [unclear] but it turned to the black bread. How can I describe it? The soup was very thin, you know. If you say it was chicken soup it was only like a chicken left the water, running.
AS: How long were you —
RL: Various sorts of sausages. We never, we never had any cooked food. The only one that I could say no to was the blood sausage. I couldn’t. But when you get hungry you eat it. I mean it’s gorgeous.
AS: How long were you at the hospital for?
RL: A couple of months.
AS: Really. So, you were quite badly hurt.
RL: And I — but one thing I never had any dog tags.
AS: No dog tags.
RL: It’s a bloody silly thing. You see, you’re on a squadron. One day you look at the notice board and listed up is R Last is commissioned as a pilot officer.
AS: Yeah.
RL: So, you had to take all your kit back in to the stores. They take your dog tags but they don’t give you the new one. You have to sort of wait about. Well you would have thought they would take the old one, stamp the new ones and that’s that. Well, I never, I never bothered with them. I didn’t think I was going to get shot down.
AS: It’s bloody dangerous though. Flying without them.
RL: Well yeah.
AS: Anyway, you had no dog tags.
RL: But the person in the hospital bed, there was a siren goes off and you see these two other blokes. They can’t move in the daytime but they start moving. And you don’t think anything of it you know. They were directly in the bed. Well, apparently, there was one siren that says planes are coming towards Germany. Then there was another siren that said they are coming in our direction. Then there’s another siren saying, well we’re the target. Well, the Germans naturally take their own staff down to the bombing shelter. And of course, if they can’t get us down we’re left up there. Well, it’s not funny laying on a bed. When you say you can’t move you think you can’t move. Then all of a sudden you hear [bomb noise] and the bed sort of jumps up and down. Then the curtains get blown in. Then the windows. Then a fire seems nearer than it actually is. You think to yourself — crying out loud, there was nine hundred bombers on the night I was shot down.
AS: What was the noise like when you were on the ground with all the aircraft over you?
RL: Well, that was them. It was the ones that you heard. Something like, it was only, a falling [pause] like a huge tree coming down, you know. I mean, I could [pause] we, we back to our beds and our skipper had been brought in.
AS: Your skipper?
RL: Yeah. And he had something wrong with his leg up here. And he had had this leg tied up. This was the second night when I managed to get out to the bomb part. And when we come back we heard, ‘Help. Help.’ He’d had the [pulley?] out the bloody ceiling and he’d gone under the bed. Under the bed. He was going, ‘Help. Help.’
AS: Yeah. So, you saw your skipper again in the hospital.
RL: I only saw him about twice.
AS: Ok. What about the rest of your crew? Tell me what happened when you were shot down. When you had to bale out. What happened that night in the aeroplane?
RL: Well the aeroplane went on for another ten miles before it crashed.
AS: But what got you? Was it flak that got you or a fighter? What got you?
RL: It was a fighter.
AS: Ok.
RL: I’ve got a write up there somewhere but I normally flew, or sat right of the pilot. But the night we were shot down we had a second dickie. Now, that is a pilot of a new crew coming in. He comes, he comes for, more or less, experience. Well, that meant that I was in the bomb aimers place. Now, you can’t see much other than in front of you. So, instead of doing my normal duties I was down in the bombing panel [pause] What was we talking about?
AS: What happened when you were shot down? So, you weren’t the second dickie. You weren’t sitting next to the pilot. You were in the bomb aimer’s position.
RL: Yeah.
AS: What happened then?
RL: Well, I can’t see much. And I’ve not got the tie in with what’s gone on with the skipper. I know I’ve got my intercom but that’s only to, that’s not the chattering. That’s how to, emergency if you are on target. So, I didn’t see any of the journey. By that, he didn’t get injured that sat in my place. So, I was down on the bombing panel. There’s the mid-upper turret gunner there and the rear gunner there. Now, the aircraft must have come up from there.
AS: From underneath. Yeah.
RL: Gone in there and into my back.
AS: Ok.
RL: Now, I didn’t hear what was, any — I didn’t hear anything about that. I mean, as I say your intercom is basically for emergencies and I imagine that the rear gunner saw this plane come in, and he fired and the plane killed the two —
AS: The gunners. Ok.
RL: And then it stopped with me.
AS: So, the two gunners were killed in the attack.
RL: Well, we assume so. The wireless operator was injured. Oh the navigator. I think. The rear gunner. Mid-upper gunner. Navigator. They were killed. So, it must have come up from there.
AS: Yeah.
RL: And I was on the last line.
AS: Yeah. So, he attacked from the underneath on the right hand side.
RL: Yeah. You see, they, they didn’t know at that time that some of the German planes had a gun that pointed upwards.
AS: Schrage musik. Yeah. Yeah.
RL: Now, I don’t think the attack came in from underneath. I think it came in from the, that got, as I say there was three members of the crew that were killed. The wireless op, he was a POW. The engineer was a POW. And the navigator was killed.
AS: Did the aircraft catch fire?
RL: Pardon?
AS: Did the aircraft catch fire?
RL: No. All I’ve got is it crashed.
AS: Ok.
RL: Ten miles.
AS: With the bombs still on board?
RL: I’ve got it all. I’ve got so much.
AS: Don’t worry. Just tell me were the bombs still on the aeroplane when it crashed?
RL: That I can’t tell you.
AS: Ok.
RL: I just had, worried me for a long time. I think they’d gone. They must have gone otherwise it would have been burned to hell wouldn’t it? I mean, no, you see they must have gone because we used to carry a lot of incendiaries. It would have blown up over Berlin.
AS: Yeah.
RL: I must have done but I can’t, you know, I often bring it.
AS: It’s not surprising. There were a lot of other things going on at the time.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah. On, on these big raids could you see a lot of other aircraft around you?
RL: No. It’s amazing but you, until you left England you saw a few but no. I mean, I’ve often wondered and it sounds bloody silly but you got four hundred and fifty planes in the air, over a town at one time. Now, it’s bloody dark and I could never understand this but, ‘Bomb doors open,’ and then, ‘Left. Left. That’s right skip.’ Then go on, ‘You’re alright skip. Left, left.’ We’re doing alright. Bombs gone. Bomb doors closed. And then he turns to the left, doesn’t he? As I say, going for home. But every aircraft has got an altimeter. Now, it was supposed to be flying at twenty thousand feet. That doesn’t mean to say that we’re all twenty thousand feet. There are some lower. There’s some higher isn’t there. According to what you left base with. I’ve often wondered how many planes had been lost. I mean, you would have thought that after they heard, ‘Bombs gone. Bomb doors shut.’ They would have gone on for certain, well a mile or a couple of miles before but you see all the aircraft flying and [unclear] and you — bam. I reckon, I reckon we must have had thirty percent shot down by our own bloody aircraft.
AS: Really.
RL: Yeah. Well. I mean, the sky’s full of it and I’m telling you we’re not all level. It isn’t like we were flying, this one could go under. This one could go over, couldn’t it?
AS: Yeah.
RL: It always seemed to me. It seemed as though it was a ritual. Bomb doors, bombs gone, bomb doors closed. Bam.
AS: Did he wait for the photograph?
RL: Eh?
AS: Did he wait for the photograph?
RL: No.
AS: He didn’t.
RL: I mean that was automatically linked with the bombs gone. And the time that we were going to drop. Oh no. I mean it isn’t as though we had to wait for the photograph. I mean that was automatically tuned in.
AS: Ok. [unclear] When you let the bombs go did you have to let them go in a certain order?
RL: No. No. No, they, all the bombs went as one. The load went.
AS: Just drop the lot at once.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Salvoed the lot. Ok. When you were operating I think the master bomber started.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Could you hear him on your, could you, as the bomb aimer hear him or —?
RL: No.
AS: Who heard him?
RL: Every crew might have been in contact see.
AS: Ok.
RL: But I didn’t hear anything about. And they weren’t so good as they thought they were.
AS: No. I wonder because he’s, the master bomber is circling, talking to the aircraft and I don’t know who heard him. Whether it was the pilot.
RL: The, the master bomber is talking to the bombers where they’re dropping the flares. He’s more, he’s more or less more scientifically geared to make his underlings drop the bombs say, to the left more or to the right. But it was a, it wasn’t exactly all that correct was it? I mean, when the Mossies got in to it there was a great improvement. When the Mosquitoes took over like.
AS: Ok. When you were flying, you started flying Wellingtons to Germany. Were you always at the bottom of the heap? Were all the other aeroplanes above you. What sort of height did you fly?
RL: No. I suppose, the only thing was the Wellington is a beautiful aircraft. It’s, I don’t know, it always seemed to be. It was a lovely aircraft, the Wellington. I enjoyed that more than I did with the Halifax. But no. I think we, we all bombed at the same height.
AS: Ok.
RL: I’m sure we did.
AS: Ok.
RL: The only snag with the Wimpy — when we used to go to briefing you’d see the track and you’d see another pin out in the North Sea and that told you when your petrol was finally out. Now, if the commanding officer went on a raid which he only used to do once in a while but they’d sometimes they’d think, ‘Oh let’s have a go,’ and off they went. When they got back to base, they’d be calling out from the North Sea somewhere. ‘Hello. Charlie one. Come in. When is my turn to land?’ ‘Your turn to land number one,’ you see. And when you get back to base you called the base, they’d say, ‘Oh circle at four thousand feet,’ you know. And you were, the rest of the crew knocked some off. ‘Oh bloody hell. What a load of crap. What a load of crap.’ That meant we’d more or less circle. Now, you’d say, ‘I’m on my emergency fuel. I’ve been on it twenty minutes. I’ve only got ten left.’ See.
AS: Just to jump the queue.
RL: Yeah. But the skipper would always, he would wait in the North Sea and we were dancing around waiting to get down. I think that would be with the Wellingtons.
AS: With the —
RL: You were more or less going to drop out of the sky.
AS: With the Wellingtons you did a lot of mine laying as well.
RL: Yeah.
AS: That must have been bloody dangerous. Low level. What were your, did you, did you map read for the, for the dropping the mines.
RL: Yeah. We, we used to go out to the Frisian Islands. We did the first, the first op I did. The first op that 466 did was to do the Frisian Islands. You used to get a landfall and then go [pause] and at landfall it was like you were so many degrees and one minute to drop your mines.
AS: Time and distance. Yeah.
RL: We had one aircraft that flew in to the building. Well, it was lovely, you see. Mine laying you were low flying. What it said on the panel and we’d been flying over the water and the spray had been hitting the underside of my panel. It’s a lovely feeling but apparently one of our aircraft got off the North Sea and he got to the building and he went into a building. So low.
AS: So, you had to trust your skipper.
RL: Eh?
AS: You had to trust your pilot.
RL: Oh yeah. Well, I mean, when we, we were on a test flight. I suppose the aircraft had been in for its usual maintenance thing and we drove along the cliff. You know. Where the girls were sunbathing. I know they were mined, a lot of the beaches but there was gaps open and we were going at low flying, got it so we were and the skipper for some reason decided to go home. He goes home and then there was a hay making cart. You know the bloke in the hay with the forks putting the hay out with a bloke standing on top. I thought we’d cut his head off. Luckily, being so low and so fast they, they didn’t recognize it but I mean, well, we’d have been in Colditz. Or Colchester rather.
20105
AS: Colchester. Yeah. How long was it before you got a regular pilot and a regular crew after you’d lost your first skipper? ‘Cause you flew with quite a lot of different people. Were you a spare body on the squadron?
[pause]
RL: Well, I became [pause] I flew from quite a different lot of pilots. When [unclear] Healy got off. I, I stepped in to, like if a bomb aimer was sick, I’d step in. That wasn’t very popular. You see, if you flew with any, any established crew they didn’t like it. They didn’t know how you were going to react, I think. And no, I flew with about seven different pilots. I mean, I flew with the commanding officer one night. The flight was, the navigator was a squadron leader. The gunner was a flight lieutenant.
AS: It must have been like flying with God.
RL: Yeah. Even with the commander called me in, ‘Would you fly with me with tonight’s flight?’ ‘Yes sir.’ And he told me all. I thought what, do I stand to attention? And so they would arrive, you know you but —
AS: I, I should imagine that you didn’t like flying with a spare crew.
RL: No. It wasn’t liked. For the simple reason you’d probably not been mentioned with them. You just, you know, knew that you were one of the squadrons crew and that’s that. If you’d have known one of them it would have been different. But there wasn’t. It wasn’t a nice thing to do.
AS: How did you pick up with Coombs, your skipper? How did you meet him and form a crew? ‘Cause you did a lot of your operational flying with him, didn’t you?
RL: Yeah.
AS: How did you meet him?
RL: You don’t half ask awkward questions don’t you?
AS: That’s my job [pause] In July you, July ’43 you started flying with Coombs and then he became your regular skipper.
RL: I don’t know. I don’t know how we met.
AS: It doesn’t really matter but you then became a part of a crew again.
RL: Well, it obviously came with Andy the wireless op. A navigator. And the rear gunner, Butch. Butch was the only married Aussie, and he died. Well, I think, I think we were just detailed.
AS: Yeah. Put together.
RL: The mid-upper gunner, the engineer, me. We were just allocated to that crew coming in. Didn’t know them. I mean, we were really up in arms against the Aussies.
AS: Really?
RL: Well they used to call us, ‘You pommie bastards,’ you know and we didn’t like it. So, we had to teach them.
AS: Some manners.
RL: Yeah. But no. No, I think that we were just allocated.
AS: Was your skipper an Australian? Was Coombs an Australian?
RL: Yeah.
AS: Ok.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah. Back to when you were shot down. You were, what happened after the hospital? Where did they take you after hospital?
RL: Down to Frankfurt on Main.
AS: Ok.
RL: That’s a, that’s a sort of —
Sheila: Interrogation.
AS: Oh, is that Dulag Luft? The interrogation place.
RL: After they had gathered all of them and then allocate them to the different camps.
AS: Ok. How did they treat you there?
RL: Yeah. Well that wasn’t a very comfortable journey. I only had the remains of my kit. The blood stained jersey smelt stinky. But we, we’d gone down there on our first trip to leave hospital. And we all got in this utility ambulance. People lined up in slings and me laid on a stretcher and then we got down to this Berlin Railway Station and the driver opens up the back door and all these walking wounded type of thing got out and he shut the door. And I could hear this train noises and things like that. I waited some time and he came back, opened the door and he said, ‘We go back there.’ Apparently, this nurse said that I wouldn’t last the journey and she had created such a stink that they brought me back. Of course, I was going to be one of the last taken out of the thing. Well, German trains didn’t have upholstery. They had the plywood seats with all those holes driven through. Well, I don’t think I would have lasted. But that night we went down that’s what we were in. There was a coach with these hard wood seats. It was bad enough to sort of try and keep up. But you know what happens. You go to sleep and when you’re [makes snoring noise] it’s all a moment [unclear] Then there was all the language under the sun. You’re taken up to an interrogation centre. You’re in a cell, eight foot by about four. And if you wanted to go to the toilet you released a metal arm that went down the side.
AS: Like a railway signal.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah. Ok.
RL: And the German soldier who was sat at the top he ought to take you but the snag was he never used to worry about you, you know. If he was reading his paper, well he’d read the page. You know. You were interrogated there by the SS. And I think I was dead lucky again. By then I was in Germany for a couple of months so I was old stuff to him.
AS: Yeah.
RL: My wounds were covered and aircrew in those days, we were given an escape kit. Poly [pause] You there Susan?
AS: Polyurethane is it? Like a plastic.
RL: What’s that, Polyanthus? Polyan?
AS: Polyanthus is a plant.
RL: No.
AS: Never mind.
RL: Pandora.
AS: Pandora. Ok. Yeah.
RL: Pandora pack.
AS: What was in Pandora. Yeah. What was in that?
RL: There was a silk map. A compass button. Vitamin tablets. Things like that to help you escape. Well, this officer, SS officer, took off the bandage to see whether I’d got any of these escape things there. And of course, he didn’t stick the bandage back. Well, in this cell you had an ersatz pallias.
AS: Like a mattress. Yeah.
RL: It’s not like an ordinary sack. It’s made up of, like straw. These things. And of course, the pallias got stuffed with sawdust. So, you have a heater in this room up there. And barbed windows. So, you sit on your bunk and it’s cold so you’ve got all your clothes on. You doze off and it’s hot as hell. They’ve got the heater on, see. Well you take off your jumper and of course you dry yourself off like a towel. And then you go to sleep again and it’s off. Well, that doesn’t improve you. But when, and this fellow, he interviewed me and he said, ‘I’ve seen you.’ And that’s that. I didn’t get asked questions which are two months ago. So, I got away with it. Well, you, then you were released. You marched down the road to a reception centre where they give you a kit of clothes. I mean they gave me a, I only had carpet slippers for walking in the snow, you see. So, they give me a leather belt and I had a pair of American trousers given me. The only thing they didn’t, they didn’t give me was underclothes. Funny thing. I can’t understand that because, I mean, well they’re the things that smell don’t they? They want washing.
AS: Yeah,
RL: And if you’ve only got one pair it’s —
AS: Did you meet up with a load of other prisoners then?
RL: Oh yeah. They were, we were given a medical by this German doctor. They asked if anybody wanted medical attention and I said yes. And when he saw my wound he went bloody mad. Picking, picking sawdust.
AS: From the mattress. Yeah.
RL: I think that hurt more than the wound itself. But they sent us up to the camp.
AS: A POW camp.
RL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah.
RL: I’ve seen, I’ve seen a flight lieutenant that was in charge of that. I’ve seen him since.
AS: Did you?
RL: Yeah. In Bournemouth. There’s a municipal college and I was walking past there one day and I saw a bloke and as he passed I turned and he turned. And that was the bloke.
AS: Good lord.
RL: Yeah.
AS: So which prisoner of war camp was this that you went to?
RL: Stalag Luft III.
AS: At Sagan. Ok that’s the Great Escape camp isn’t it?
RL: Well, they, I got there just before they escaped.
AS: But you weren’t a part of that?
RL: No, no. No. No. They were, oh they were clever. I’ve often wondered whether the men are in prison for what they got up to in those days.
AS: What, the Germans?
RL: Yeah. I mean they engraved. They made rubber stamps. In German. After the Great Escape [pause] The Great Escape was run by what they called Big X. Now, I was in the room where Little X was.
AS: His deputy.
RL: Now Little X coming up and he said to me, there was also in my room a bloke from Bournemouth. Ron. So, I was called Junior. And Little X said to me one day, he said, ‘Can I interest you in helping us with the escape system?’ ‘Well, yeah.’ So, he took me to another hut and I couldn’t help noticing after passing a certain bloke he started going to me like that and pointed here. Sort of strange but of course they was also, they were looking for the German guards, you see. They, they had one type of guard, he was called a ferret and he would go under buildings and all that. So, they were watching him. They were. We got into the bathroom. They had a bathroom in every block with a concrete floor, a soakaway and a shower which was a bit of a pipe up with a tin on the top, you know. All calmly walked in here and there was a bloke in his birthday suit in there. And all of a sudden they lifted up this drain cover and they started baling the water into the bath. Yeah. And of course, I didn’t know. I was watching and all of a sudden they drained off the water in to the bath, dirty water and they pulled up a concrete slab and I could get down there. And when I get down there there was a store room. It was a tunnel, it started off as a tunnel but the Germans built another compound on so that was a waste of time. There was three rifles in there. How did they get rifles down there? And I had to get some ink and I got this thing up and all of a sudden, the slab goes into position see, and the water from the bath is bunged in it. Now, I’m in this place with the candle. Well, one of the goons got a bit near it, you see but then they get rid of him by offering him a cigarette around the corner out of the way or something. And then they pull up the slab and I’m still there, you know. And you see them so they dropped the slab down and the bath that had the dirty water was pulled in. Sealed up. Well I mean —
AS: Can you —?
RL: They made clothes out of, out of blankets and things like that. Made rubber stamps. Documents with a sort of German old markers they’d got. I reckoned if they’d have started up back when they got home they’d be inside.
AS: Can you remember, because you were, you were in the camp when the news came about what happened to the fifty officers —?
RL: Yeah.
AS: Can you remember what happened then? What it was like?
RL: Well, we were all called into the camps and told this. It was unbelievable. I mean they would, we all said what the group captain said, ‘How many wounded?’ So, you know, we were shocked. They said fifty officers were shot. And so, we wanted to know what happened to the other twenty six, seven. Were they wounded? But there was no wounded people. When that, the morning of that escape we were all brought out of our huts and opposite there was this hut where it all happened, and over here kind of thing they set up a German machine gun — pointed. I didn’t like that. They could have, I would have been one of the first to get it. But I mean we were dumbstruck. How could fifty get shot trying to escape?
AS: What was the attitude of the German Luftwaffe officers in the camp?
RL: Well, you see, every camp, that was one of the biggest camps of Germany. They were always escape proof but I mean I think it was only quite bad luck that the tunnel was found. I’ve got an idea it was like a German soldier wanting to take a leak, it was found, you know. I mean, but you wanted guts to escape. I mean here we were in Poland. It’s alright if you were fluent in German language. But if you only knew the basic German you wouldn’t, couldn’t get away. Not from Poland. I mean, they wouldn’t have had a chance. I mean all I knew about was ‘Kaput.’ ‘Ser kaput’ [unclear] I would have been buggered wouldn’t I?
AS: Yeah. Did that stop escaping when that happened?
RL: Well, afterwards, yes. It sort of put the, I think the people regarded it as dangerous. I mean, all you can see, I mean all around Sagan all leave was cancelled wasn’t it? They were all looking for the prisoners of war camp. I know it’s a simple thing but a soldier who’s lost his leave he’d get quite angry wouldn’t he? I mean, I would have in this country.
AS: What was life like in the camp? Was there any homosexuality for instance?
RL: Well there was, they had a theatre. That was marvelous. They had instruments, band instruments. In the cold weather they used to flood the football pitch. I mean the football pitch was only a bit of ground. No grass on it. But they used to flood the place. They had skates and, you know, they played basket, base —
AS: Baseball.
RL: Baseball.
AS: Yeah.
RL: They founded, like different teams like East Canada against West Canada. You know, all that kind of thing. They had, I was in there one Christmas and somebody in the room said, ‘Have you seen the cake they were demonstrating? No, it’s all kind of - height. Thing is beautiful. Cake decorations, you know, cor bloody marvellous. A wooden cake. It was corrugated cardboard down. And they had a wonderful [pause] from the American [pause]
AS: The Red Cross.
RL: American boxes.
AS: Oh yeah, parcels. Yeah. Ok.
RL: They, there was klim powdered milk and they’d, how can I say it — iced a cardboard and the decoration was all in colour. Do you want a colour to be, have a kid’s paint box?
AS: Fantastic.
RL: Yeah. And they’d take some of the blue kind of thing and mix it with this thing. And it bloody marvelous. I’m not a cake [unclear] But you see, I didn’t know until after the war but you could take an OU course there. And one, for some unknown reason if you want to go on exercise around the camp you went anti-clockwise.
AS: Yeah.
RL: Well, when I came out, back out of the service and was a gas fitter I was going up Atkinson Avenue and I had to go into a certain number in this street but I wasn’t sure. So, I pulled up against the curb. Sat on me bicycle. So he locked up the car, you know. He turned like that. I thought bloody hell. I know that ass. So, the bloke mowing his lawn and he was going up that way, you see. So, I waited for him to turn and come back. Yeah, I’d seen him. So, I got off me bike and went up to him, ‘Morning sir. You were a wing commander, were you?’ ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I don’t remember your name.’ But I think he mentioned it. I said, ‘You were in Stalag Luft III.’ ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I think I walked behind you many times, sir.’ I told him. I, as you were like [unclear] we would come out of our hut and we’d join in the, you’d be talking to somebody or walking on your own. I said, ‘Well I recognized your backside sir.’ And I told him and he said do you want to come in here and he called his wife. I don’t know but he didn’t have a peculiar walk or anything but it was just the thing.
AS: Just something that stuck with you. Yeah. So, you were there for over a year in the camp.
RL: Yeah.
AS: What happened at the end of the war? How were you liberated?
RL: Well we were, knowing we were, the Russians were near us. So, we were told that we were leaving the camp. And of course, like everything else, things get altered, don’t you. We’re moving soon. Somewhere. Then another hour. Well we moved out in the morning. Apparently, we were all given a Red Cross parcel. I didn’t get that. I don’t remember that but you see we all went out with what we could carry.
AS: And this was winter time was it?
RL: Yeah. It was snowing outside.
AS: God.
RL: Bloody cold. But we never had plastic sheeting or anything like that. I mean I was in the normal uniform. A sweater and battle dress and a coat, overcoat and a pair of boots. Or socks and boots. Well and we went out in the early hours of the morning and we walked in this slashing snow. I mean the cold, you know. And we stopped on the edge of a moor. And they crowded us into a barn. And somebody said well no lights to be shown, you know because there is straw in there and we could have knocked off quite a few. And I always remember a flight lieutenant gunner. He said, ‘Come on,’ he said. Cuddle up with me.’ And we cuddled up together.
AS: Share warmth. Yeah.
RL: Just to share warmth. And of course, when daylight came we started to get the doors open. Of course, they wouldn’t. But all we wanted to do was get out of the barn and light up for a brew and just to get warm. Had those moments.
AS: So, can you remember what month this was? Was it early 1945 or [pause] It doesn’t matter. It’s just interesting. It was snow on the ground and really cold.
RL: Yeah. Late ’44 or early ’45.
AS: Ok. And how long did this go on for? On the move all the time.
RL: Well, the next day we stopped at a village. I remember, like a corral.
AS: Yeah.
RL: And there was, and there was this bloody horse blanket all made up of all different materials, you know that. There was all these village policemen and, I don’t know — I’m going to grab that blanket, you see. And I got it. You know, I mean, when he wasn’t looking I’d swiped it. I smelled like a horse but I was warmer. Then we, well I’ve got it in a write up there. We went on to another place. They turned out a cinema, and they bundled us in there. Well that was out of the wind but then the toilet facilities was a bit overdone. Then we made it down to a station where they put us on a train. In the cattle trucks. That wasn’t fun. You only had room to sort of sit down. Somebody’s legs would be up the side of you. If you wanted to go to the toilet that was horrible. You see you had to step over bodies and you could, well there wasn’t a place where you could put your foot down. That was, you moaned and groaned. Then the outer, they could open a shuttered door but there was a feeling you shouldn’t pee in the wind.
AS: You get it back. Yeah.
RL: But the poor blokes that were by that door. They were in trouble. No, but you see I’ve heard, like when we were in that barn or when we were in German hospital, people were crying out for their mums. And you can’t do anything can you?
AS: No. And people who were sick and couldn’t keep up. What happened to them?
RL: Well, they had some German party picking them up. I think we had [pause] I think our guards were friendly. I mean even on the march if somebody had a cart there were a half dozen on the other cart and there was a German soldier whose rifle and pack had been put up and he’d be pushed with us. I mean, it got, I think it got to that stage that they really knew they’d lost the war. And I mean we were on a farm when we were released to the British army and these German guards had given themselves up, you know. I mean, I think they only took away their guns and said, ‘Well, muck in,’ you know. I mean, one or two were quite slobs. Friendly enough. They were seen to.
AS: So, you were, you were liberated by the British army.
RL: Yeah. Well, not the British army. A motorbike and sidecar, you know. No fighting. Just come out. It was an ideal farm or an estate. You know. The Russians were all the working labour you know, but [pause] no.
AS: How did you get back to England? Did you fly or go on a ship or what?
RL: Well, you will, you were told you would go on a lorry, you know. Convoy. You were going to. Well at the end of the day you stopped and you were put in a field. British army gave my mum and my wife enough sheets, enough towels and soap. We got a town so that every time we stopped, no food.
AS: Yeah. It sounds like the army. Sounds like them.
RL: We never, we got to Lunenburg and then there was like a big barn sort of with the army. We were told to put down all your gear you don’t want. Go over there and get a meal. A meal. So, people just dropped their bag and when we got over there it was a white bread sandwich. And it was horrid. We’d been used to this black bread which filled you up. When we got back to the shed all our kit had gone. British army stole it. So we formed a band and we went out looking for them.
AS: Did you find it?
RL: We found it.
AS: Yeah.
RL: We were absolutely starving. A lump of black bread would have been a treat, you know. In the end they took us by Lancaster.
AS: Oh wow.
RL: Over to an aerodrome in England and of course put the usual spray up [unclear] and they’d laid on tea, you know. Afternoon tea. Well, little cakes. But I mean while we were waiting for the planes to come there was a British airman there who gave me a tin of peaches. Well, I got the tin open. You know what peaches was like, don’t you? Went in your hand.
AS: It’s all the syrup isn’t it and the juice. Yeah.
RL: [laughs] It’s greasy, you know. You wanted something to anchor it down. And of course, it had gone on the ground. I picked it up slid it up. It was lovely peaches after you’d eaten them but —
AS: Yeah. So, you flew back to England. What happened next? Did you go back to your family or did the air force take you somewhere?
RL: They took us down to the railway station. Where ever it was. And I always remember when the Dunkirk came they put all these soldiers into schools and they had our soldiers around the outside. So that they were, until they’d been processed they were. They didn’t have to do that. We got sent down and surrounded by British soldiers.
AS: Wow.
RL: We couldn’t talk to the natives.
AS: Extraordinary.
RL: They took us on then up to Cosford aerodrome. Oh God. They gave us a meal and rice pudding afterwards and given a bath and hospital clothes, you know. Dressing gown. And we went to bed. Oh, a proper meal we had. We woke, we woke up the following morning. Now, in the RAF or any service if you move from one station to another you had to get a clearance chit. Well, when we woke up all our, all our dirty clothes had gone, you know. So, you walked around with this sheet of paper. You were warned somewhere along the line you’d have to give a sample. Well you walk around. I imagine they got every service doctor within a certain radius of the thing. So, we walked around. He looked in your right ear. Of yeah, that’ll be alright. Then somebody would look in your left ear. And you were marched into a hut, pay hut. You know, how much do you earn? You know. Well you go on through. You had to give a sample. Well you walked through the hut, wooden floorboards and there’s a huge kitchen table. And there’s jam jars, sauce bottles, any jar, but the snag is they’re all full, you see. So you want to pee and you can’t find an empty one. So, what happened? This is absolutely brilliant. They pour out in there. Pour some there. Some bloke came out and he said, ‘That looks a nice colour,’ and he takes that out as a the sample, see. There was ever so much pee floating off the table on to the floor. Stood up in it. I mean they only wanted an eggcup full. But you couldn’t find one. Then you’d go on and in a hut with blankets held up. A B C D and that. [unclear] stools and the idea was to come out of B. The next one would go into B. And I don’t understand some people were coming out of one hut and [unclear] and he would pass it on down. I didn’t take on. I got back to the mess and a bloke came up to me and he said, ‘Is she in there?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean is she in there?’’ Oh, the WAAF officer.’ I looked. ‘No. I couldn’t see her. No.’ I couldn’t see her. He said, ‘Oh, I’ll come in then.’ Apparently this strip room, where you drop them. And you know what happened there. A bloke hadn’t seen a woman for years and he dropped them and [unclear] a strip through, it perks up on it’s own doesn’t it? You know when I was demobbed you get your kit. You had a brown pinstriped suit or a blue pin striped suit. So, I got a blue pin striped one. So I, when it come to the shorts well I want a white or a blue, you know. It’s either a red or a green, you know. I’d think to myself, well got to take something, you know. We got on this train after about [pause] and there was all this changing out of our uniform into civvies. Well, when we got off in London we looked like gangsters, kind of thing. I mean nothing matched. I mean my trilby was brown, you know. I only, I took what was on offer. I didn’t go in and say bugger it, you know. But nothing, nothing matched. We were going, people were going to the train. ‘Got a new, got green shirt?’ You know, just to, but when we got off it was horrible.
AS: So, you were demobbed very quickly after coming back to England.
RL: Oh yeah.
AS: Did you get a pension because of your injuries?
RL: No. Not then.
AS: Oh ok.
RL: I did it later.
AS: Ok.
RL: A colleague at work, my supervisor but he was a good friend too, he had got a pension. ‘Why don’t you put in for it?’ I didn’t think I’d get it but I put in the forms. The doctor came home to see me. He gave me a medical examination, asked me about my hearing. Well, I lost my hearing in the war. And he looked at my bony knee. I can use it but I can’t throw a cricket ball. I could no more, well I’d collapse if I pick up a ball and throw it. And I got a pension.
AS: Excellent.
RL: And it’s very good.
AS: Did you ever keep up with your squadron colleagues or go to reunions or anything like that?
RL: No. No. Well, I think the attitude I won’t even go on a Christmas one. That was the, I’m back in civvy now and that. I often wish I had but it’s only through my daughter what’s got on to this you know.
AS: When you look back now at that time how do you regard it and the air force? Was it something you’re glad to have done or did it steal your youth or how do you feel about, about that period of time?
RL: Well, I regret sometimes. You see, the war took apart my youth.
AS: Yeah.
RL: I was a boy. I didn’t become a young man. I got thrown into the service. I’ve often wondered what it would be like. I mean, I was what? Twenty I suppose. Twenty to twenty six. That’s sort of lost years isn’t it?
AS: And you married during the war didn’t you?
RL: Hmnn.
AS: Yeah.
RL: Yeah. Well, you see they used to say if you get married you’d go for a burton.
AS: Yeah.
RL: Comes to a hard [pause] well, decision. Yeah. We wanted to get married. I didn’t think about prisoner of war. I suppose I thought I could get killed. But in, you see a lot of us kids got married. Well, we were only kids. Well, the husband can say, ‘Well, I’m flying tonight.’ Didn’t tell her when. Probably didn’t know at that time. And then he’s flying as far as, let’s say, Berlin. Now, those girls that were in digs they would count the number of aircraft that goes off and they would count the number of aircraft that land.
AS: Yeah.
RL: But their first worry is oh perhaps he’s landed but he’s not landed here. He’s landed somewhere else. I mean they’re, they’re only babies really.
AS: There’s a wonderful play by Terence Rattigan called “Flare Path.” Have you seen it?
RL: No.
AS: That’s, that’s about the wives waiting at a hotel near, it’s a Wellington squadron actually. It speaks to that very much.
RL: You see, they’d count the aircraft come back. But then get somebody — is flight lieutenant so and so? ‘We haven’t heard anything at the moment.’ Well that’s just a put off isn’t it. And the you see this young girl, she’s miles away from home. The landlady is perhaps not, not helpful. No. It’s not —
AS: And she has nothing to do all day except wait and worry. Yeah.
RL: Yeah.
AS: How soon did your wife know that you were safe after you were shot down?
RL: A chimney sweep came and told her.
AS: A chimney sweep?
RL: Yeah. He tuned into the [unclear] news and apparently they used to give petty officer so and so was washed up ashore. On the —
AS: On the German radio?
RL: On the Thames Estuary. And they gave out that PO Last was a prisoner of war. And this chimney sweep apparently told my mum.
AS: Wow.
RL: It’s [pause] —
AS: I think we’ll stop there Ron. It’s been amazing talking to you. I’d like to come back and talk again someday but we’ve been going for four hours.
RL: Have we?
AS: Yeah. I think we’ll, I’ll thank you very much.
RL: Bloody hell.
AS: We’ll pause there.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ronald Last
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Sutch
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALastRR151125
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Ronald Last grew up in Dorset and worked as an apprentice for the local Gas and Water company before volunteering for the Air Force. He attended the reception centre at Lord's Cricket Ground and describes the medical tests and inoculations recruits were given. He trained at Newquay and had started his flying training on Tiger Moths when he was posted away to train as a bomb aimer. He discusses his training in Ansons, dropping practice bombs and the duties of a bomb aimer including the bombing run, mine laying and dealing with hang-ups. He flew operations in Wellingtons and Halifaxes with 466 Squadron from RAF Driffield and suggests that his first pilot was taken off flying due to lack of moral fibre. His Halifax was shot down by a fighter over the target 28/29 January 1944 and three of his crew were killed. He baled out and became a prisoner of war. He describes his decent by parachute, his capture, treatment for his injuries and the conditions at prisoner of war camps including Stalag Luft 3. He describes the escape tunnel 'Dick' and hearing the news that 50 officers who escaped as part of the Great Escape had been shot. The camp was evacuated as the Russians advanced, and he took part in the Long March from Poland to Germany. He was eventually liberated by the British Army and returned to England by the RAF as part of Operation Exodus. After the war he worked as a gas fitter.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Berkshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Format
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03:09:07 audio recording
Contributor
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Julie Williams
466 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
arts and crafts
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
Dulag Luft
escaping
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Master Bomber
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
RAF Driffield
RAF Harwell
RAF Leconfield
recruitment
sanitation
shot down
Stalag Luft 3
the long march
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/909/11151/PKeyEG1701.2.jpg
446f2bc53516f423bbb73e042875614c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/909/11151/AKeyEG170904.1.mp3
71949a9e89b4c7baea15f165aa3da1e7
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
Key, Edward George
E G Key
Ted Key
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Edward Key (1866522 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a newspaper cutting and two photographs of aircrew. After training as a flight engineer he joined 514 Squadron in February 1945 and flew 19 operations on Lancasters with 514 Squadron, as well as on operations Manna , Exodus and other humanitarian flights.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Edward Key and catalogued by Nigel Huckins..
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Key, EG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Monday the 3rd of September 2017 and I’m in Ruislip in what used to be called Middlesex with Ted Key, flight engineer. Ted what are your earliest recollections of life?
EK: Well, as I, as I, well I just said that I can remember my very large family in London. It’s like, you know there was so many of them but that was when we used to come down from Norfolk on holiday to see the rest of the family. But I was always pleased to get back and my father of course was not there because he was in the Navy all his life and of course, in those days they went away for two and three years minimal. My mother thought that having a sister in Norfolk would be a better place to go and to grow up and yes, I I loved the countryside. I got well involved in it too and I started at a junior school up there at about three or four years of age. Went through to the Church School which took me up to eleven and I was in the, associated with the church quite a bit. I was in the choir and as I’ve just said I joined the Cadets as ATC which was the Air Defence Cadet Corps in those days and it went on from there really. This went by and I left school with a school certificate and I just wandered in the Air Force more or less. Of course, they took me over at a fairly early age determined to go flying as it always did interest me. Unfortunately, the waiting list to become a pilot or navigator or bomb aimer was far too long so I said, ‘Well, what’s the next best thing?’ And they said, ‘Well, I think you’d make a good flight engineer.’ Which I pursued and passed out at St Athans and subsequent to that I joined the Royal Air Force. This was a most traumatic time in my life you know. Doing operations one after the other. Terrible things happened there on the station and to the people who flew from, out of the stations and I feel very very lucky to have survived all this trauma.
CB: Ok. We’ll come back to that. What were the most terrible things that you are talking about that happened on the station?
EK: On the station? Well, one of the things quite tied up with my village in Norfolk too which is old. We were on ops that night and I was up with my old station bike cycling around the perimeter and there was a fantastic explosion which blew me off my bike and bowled me up the road. I could see that one of the Lancasters was on fire and had been blown to pieces with two others, one each side. Apparently, they had been preparing the aircraft for our night’s operation and apparently a long delay fuse that they were fitting had got stuck and they tried to bring it out and they assume that it blew the bomb up. Eleven people were killed there and it wasn’t a pretty sight when I arrived. But it’s a small world. I, I was on leave about three or four weeks later and I went and saw one of my old ATC instructors who was there. So I said, ‘How is Geoffrey?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘He got killed in a flying accident.’ I said, ‘Oh, where’s that?’ So he said, ‘At Waterbeach.’ And it’s so extraordinary really. His father was, his father was putting it on a bit. It wasn’t a flying accident. It was a bombing up job, you know that they were doing. And he only lived a hundred metres from me in the village and yet, we almost, at Waterbeach we never came across one another. Primarily because I was a sergeant I suppose and he was a young rigger on radar. But what a close thing that was. Yeah. But terrible really. And there were several other accidents you know. People getting killed on operations. Yeah.
CB: What other things happened on the airfield?
EK: What?
CB: What other things happened on the airfield?
EK: Well, there was, we overshot one day. Hydraulics and pneumatics were badly knocked about on one of the, on one of the Lancasters and we overshot, went across the main Ely Road at great knots and into a potato field. It was quite funny really because all the escape hatches I had to discard and it dug it’s nose in and all these potatoes were whizzing around. It’s like [laughs] being picked up like a gigantic soup. Soup, you know [laughs] and in fact more dangerous than most of the flak that we had over there on the other side. But the farmer was very indignant. He was most upset about it all. I think one of our boys was going to put a right hand on him you know and all the rest of it but he calmed down and I think he got his compensation. But that was, that was quite a hairy moment [laughs]
CB: What happened to the crew members? Were they —
EK: Well, I don’t think they stopped running ‘til they got to Cambridge. No. That’s, that’s a joke. No. We just come, we all got out you know.
CB: I was thinking of the bomb aimer sticking in the nose.
EK: No. He was on the rest bay because we took up crash positions you know.
CB: Yeah. Right. So on landing he would be at the back.
EK: I think he was out of there.
CB: Yes.
EK: Oh yeah. It was full, the bomb aimers compartment with King Edwards [laughs] Yeah. And then of course you had collisions in the circuit. I remember those. Two or three of those collided with one another.
CB: What would be the result of that?
EK: Yeah.
CB: What would be the result of a collision in the circuit?
EK: What would be, well —
CB: The result.
EK: Mis-interpretation from flying control on different things where aircraft were.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And you were very tired and exhausted and, you know thought you were back. Back home. Yeah.
CB: But were they always fatal or sometimes were they, did they get the aircraft down?
EK: Most of them were fatal. Yeah. One or two got away with it but yeah. Yes.
CB: What would they be doing? They’d be, would they be in the circuit?
EK: In the circuit ready to land. Yeah.
CB: Or they’d be joining the circuit? Say again.
EK: Yeah. They’d be in the circuit to land.
CB: Yes.
EK: And sometimes you’d have, what? Fourteen, sixteen aeroplanes in the circuit.
CB: Coming back from an op.
EK: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: And how was the ground communicating with the aircraft?
EK: Pretty good. It was. The Flying Control were pretty good. Yes. Alright. Yes, they used to have RT, you know.
CB: And they did use RT.
EK: Oh yeah. As well as aldis and that. Yes. Very good.
CB: So before take-off they would only use the aldis light.
EK: The green. Yeah. They’d give you the green.
CB: On landing they would be talking you down would they?
EK: They would. Yeah. Yeah. Not always. I mean I remember our satellite station at Downham Market which had FIDO.
CB: Yes.
EK: And I landed on FIDO once and they talked us down you know. It was very foggy. We got fogged off at Waterbeach but it was alright at Downham and you know he gave us a countdown. He said, ‘You’re lined up all right. Four miles.’ ‘Three miles.’ ‘Two miles.’ And then the next one, ‘Look ahead and land.’ And you still couldn’t see a bloody thing [laughs] But it did break at last when he went and you had to keep going straight because that was paraffin that was burning you know.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Under pressure. But we got down. Yes. Very hairy.
CB: This was the —
EK: Yeah.
CB: Origins of the airfield landing system.
EK: Oh yeah.
CB: Autumn.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Right. Going back to your earlier days what significant point was there with your family?
EK: Significant point?
CB: Your grandfather. What did he do?
EK: Well, my grandfather, well my other [laughs] my other grandfather on my father’s side was a school teacher at one time but instead of teaching he preferred to drink his wages away.
CB: Right.
EK: So he got the sack. And then, I thought it was rather funny he then joined the horse, he was a horse bus driver which I thought was rather funny having got the sack for drunkenness there they put him on the horses. And in the end he finished up as a porter on Waterloo Station. A lovely little man he was but you know the dreaded drink got to him I’m afraid as it did quite a lot of people.
CB: But the other grandfather? He was —
EK: Well, he was in Royal service.
CB: What did he do there?
EK: He was looking after the pictures, upholstery. A general factotum you know. If anything wanted polishing up and that kind of thing. Yeah. He was quite a —
CB: Was he there all his life or was he only there for a short time?
EK: As far as I know he was their apprentice. That’s a good question. I don’t know. He was a Huguenot, you know. We were French extraction that side —
CB: Yeah.
EK: Of the family.
CB: Right.
EK: And a very smart man. He used to go off to work I remember with his spats and pin stripe suit and his bowler hat you know. Yeah.
CB: And did he talk about what he did at the Palace? Or —
EK: No. I was only young really.
CB: He kept schtum. Yes.
EK: I was too young.
CB: Right.
EK: A very generous man. In fact, when we used to return to Norfolk from London he always used to give me two shillings you know which was an awful lot of money in those days and he hadn’t given it to me. And the train was about to go and I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Have you got my two shillings then?’ And I realised afterwards he was probably broke, you know. The poor old devil was probably down to his last couple of bob. Yeah. Yes. But my mother of course you know in retrospect after the war she had two of us. My father was sunk at the [unclear] , injured. There was me on operation. I used to tell her in lurid detail and I think afterwards, God that poor woman. She must have worried herself inside out. But you know she got through it all right. Yeah. Two of us away. Yeah.
CB: Your older brother or older brother?
EK: Pardon?
CB: Your brother?
EK: I had a —
CB: Just father.
EK: My father. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. Did you —
EK: Well, when he was sunk and injured he went up to North Wales as an instructor on the new entry HMS Glendower. We got mentions in books. I’ve got pictures of him but that doesn’t interest —
CB: But he joined in 19 —
EK: ‘12.
CB: ‘12. Right.
EK: Yes. Saw both the Battle of Jutland and Heligoland, you know.
CB: So fast forward now into your schooldays. To what extent did you learn about what your father was doing when you were as young as that?
EK: Not very much. Not very much. I knew that he was in the Navy. I knew he was a chief petty officer and that he was away an awful a lot. Quite a hero to me.
CB: Yeah.
EK: I mean I wanted to join the Navy, of course. My father, and of course he wouldn’t have it.
CB: Oh.
EK: No. And he said, ‘No. If you join,’ he said, ‘You can join the Royal Air Force which —’ As a King’s Honorary Cadet by the way. Which sent me up to Cranwell.
CB: Oh.
EK: But I passed to go and then they changed the system, didn’t they? They trained all the pilots overseas so I missed out on that one. Yeah. I would probably have been an air marshal by now [laughs]
CB: So you joined the —
EK: Pardon?
CB: You joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Because of father’s suggestion or did you decide yourself?
EK: No. My own. My friends were joining you know and we all sort of went together. I mean we really got stuck into it you know. We used to travel from Hull to Fakenham where our headquarters was. Twelve miles twice a week.
CB: Did you?
EK: There and back you know. Twice. And then they opened up in Holt so, yeah. But it was a good grounding. It was a very good grounding for the Air Force. Get a bit of discipline and you know, marching up and down etcetera etcetera. In fact, there was one funny episode that we used to do the summer camps and guess where we went to on that summer camp? I went to Waterbeach. Went there because I hadn’t been there. And of course all we, we had a real good time and two years later the young fellow there, Waterbeach. And of course, the Cadets used to come again and they used to come and knock on the flight commander’s door who was my skipper and, ‘Any chance of a flight, sir?’ ‘Of course, there is young man. Come in.’ You know, because I’d been through the, you know we used to take them up on the flight testing and that type of thing. I loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Used to tell us our jobs actually a lot of them.
CB: How many of the colleagues of yours in the Air Defence Cadet Corps joined the RAF?
EK: Yeah.
CB: Did all of them?
EK: No. No. Some actually went in the Navy. Some in the Army. But most of them went in to the Air Force.
CB: And what was the feeling that was motivating them to join the RAF? What did they want to do?
EK: I don’t know. Possibly uniform probably [laughs]
CB: What did you want to do?
EK: Well, I, I liked flying and so I did get motivated towards that. Yeah.
CB: Because you got flying as a Cadet.
EK: Yeah.
CB: As you just said. On air tests.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yes.
CB: So what was the first thing that happened when you joined the RAF? Where did you go?
EK: Well, as, well I went to Bridlington of course from that LCAC at St Johns Wood.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Up to Bridlington. That was where we did our square bashing and —
CB: What else did you do there other than square bashing?
EK: That was about all. That was about all.
CB: Morse Code?
EK: That. That and we were told that what we were going to do and then sent on leave. And then we were posted as I said back to Stradishall and Lakenheath. Yes.
CB: So you went in to [pause] they asked you did they what type of flying you wanted to do and what did you tell them?
EK: Oh yes. Yeah They did ask me. Of course everybody wanted to be a fighter pilot.
CB: Yeah.
EK: [unclear] and there you are.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Well, it was not for me. It was like the heavies as well. I mean I don’t think people wanted that but they grew to enjoy it I think. Well, not enjoy it but [pause] yeah.
CB: But they, what options did they give you? So, you said you wanted to be a pilot. Then what?
EK: Well, you’d have to come down. You’d have to be wireless operator, flight engineer or an air gunner. They were the cream, the pilots, navigators and bomb aimers.
CB: The PNBs.
EK: PNBs, yeah. Yeah. Very good.
CB: So how did you come to be an engineer?
EK: Well, that’s the only option there was open to me.
CB: Right.
EK: Because the waiting list was too long for a pilot. I thought Christ the war will be over and, but so I got in alright. Yeah. Yes.
CB: So —
EK: The skipper was a flight lieuie.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And the navigator was a flight lieutenant as well.
CB: Right.
EK: The bomb aimer was a flight sergeant.
CB: Right. So you’re, just going back to your speciality your decision was made for you because, is that what were you saying that flight engineer was the only one available at that time?
EK: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.
CB: So, where did you go from there?
EK: What? To school.
CB: Yes. So you went —
EK: 4 SFTT St Athans.
CB: Yes.
EK: South Wales.
CB: And before that you went to Locking.
EK: That’s right. Well, that was part of the same course.
CB: Oh, was it? Right.
EK: Because it was, they couldn’t cope with us all at one place so they had to open up Locking.
CB: Right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So what engineering experience, knowledge or interest did you have before that?
EK: Well, I used to like motor bikes quite a bit. A bit of speed you know. That seemed to go down quite well with them [laughs] Yeah. There you are. But that was it really.
CB: So you joined. You went to Locking and also St Athan.
EK: Yeah.
CB: What did you actually do in the training process? What did you have to do?
EK: Well, you had to know the aeroplane inside out. All the safety features and the operational standard of the bits and pieces. What you could do and what you couldn’t do, you know. That was about it really.
CB: But —
EK: Yeah.
CB: These were state of the art aircraft.
EK: Pardon?
CB: They were state of the art.
EK: They were.
CB: So hydraulics was a new idea.
EK: That’s right.
CB: The engines were pretty advanced.
EK: Yeah. They were very good. Yeah. The Rolls Royce. The integrity of the Rolls Royce engine even at the latter stage when the SU carbs on the Merlin 20s had the flow chambers and if you did anything untoward the floats would drop and cut the fuel off. But with the SU carbs, not the SU, the fuel injection carbs you didn’t have any problems like that and they kept going and all the years that I flew I had very little problems with engines, you know.
CB: So the training put a lot of emphasis did it on hydraulics and engines? How did they do that?
EK: Well, safety really. Yes. And all, all the systems. I mean the hydraulics. There was a backup system to the hydraulics and the pneumatics and things like that. You had to know where all the fuses were. Quite extensive. Yes.
CB: But all the training was there. You didn’t go out anywhere else. You didn’t go to Rolls Royce for training for instance.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Oh, you did.
EK: Yeah. We went up to AV Roe’s for a fortnight. A maintenance course and that was very good.
CB: The Lancasters in other words.
EK: Yes. Very good.
CB: And the hydraulics. What were they being used for in the aircraft principally?
EK: Flaps. Flaps mainly and undercarriage.
CB: Turrets?
EK: And the undercarriage.
CB: How were the turrets powered?
EK: And yeah, now they weren’t hydraulic. I think they were part electric, I think. Yes. I think so.
CB: Right. So during this time you were an LAC.
EK: Yeah. Halfway through the engineer’s course they made you an LAC.
CB: Yeah. And then what?
EK: Sergeant.
CB: When?
EK: At the end of the course you passed out as a sergeant.
CB: Ok. And how did you get your brevet?
EK: Oh, a big parade. Handed them out. Yeah. Very good.
CB: Marched to the front.
EK: Pardon?
CB: You had to march to the front.
EK: That’s right.
CB: And who would award the brevets?
EK: Well, it was the air commodore who was in charge of the technical chiefy there. He was the one who handed it all out. But they were so cruel the RAF I found. I mean I passed all right but I mean there was, oh say five or six of them in our hut failed the course and they watched us sewing our stripes on and our brevets and the next day they were off the case.
CB: And they didn’t get recoursed.
EK: Well, you could do if you were near the, near the margins but not very often. Failed, you know. Bang.
CB: So what would happen to them after the course? Where would they go?
EK: Join the Army or cooks or what I don’t know.
CB: Wouldn’t they go on to the flight line for the servicing of the aircraft?
EK: No. It was quite a long course you know if you’re a fitter and all the rest of it. Yeah.
CB: So after you finished at St Athan where did you go next?
EK: After St Athan. That was Stradishal.
CB: And what was that?
EK: That was Stirlings.
CB: Right. So that was the, what unit was that?
EK: That was a Heavy Conversion Unit.
CB: Ok.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So this is your first experience of flying is it?
EK: That’s right. The big boys. Yes. Very complicated fuel system too you know which I’d never been taught. But there you are.
CB: But you got instructed, you got taught on the airfield.
EK: Oh yes.
CB: Yeah. What was so complicated about the Stirling fuel system?
EK: The electrics. Anything that’s worked by electricity I try and stay clear off. But you see the undercarriage on a Stirling for instance if it didn’t come down you were in trouble because you had to manipulate it down with a handle. Each motor by hand. Seven hundred and fifty turns on each one. Yes.
CB: Did you practice that?
EK: No. No. We had to do it a couple of times because they weren’t down. We didn’t get the green light on somewhere. Shut them down and once I came in cross landing we nearly tore all the port undercarriage off completely. And we went about three circles.
CB: So was that because of the, why was it a cross wind landing?
EK: [unclear] yeah.
CB: Yeah, but why was that? Was there something wrong with it?
EK: No. There was something wrong with the airfield controller which, which the screened pilot made doubly sure. He said, ‘Unfortunately I’ve damaged the aircraft with regret and it’s your bloody fault,’ he said [laughs] Yeah.
CB: So they couldn’t repair it or that was just an exaggeration?
EK: No. Because the trouble with the Stirling was the wingspan was ninety feet and they cut it down from a hundred and two which the Lancaster was because it wouldn’t, the Stirling wouldn’t fit in a service hangar.
CB: The original size. Yeah.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So how long were you on the Stirlings?
EK: Pardon?
CB: How long were you on the Stirlings at the HCU?
EK: Oh, not [pause] Six weeks. Something like that.
CB: Then you went to —
EK: Oh, then I went on to the squadron.
CB: No. You went —
EK: No. LFS.
CB: Ok. What was that?
EK: Lancasters.
CB: Lancaster Finishing School.
EK: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So, you were used to the Stirling. How different was the Lancaster?
EK: Well, it was desperately underpowered the Stirling. Nice aeroplane to fly. A nice aeroplane to work in. You’ve got plenty of room. I mean you’ve been in a Lancaster. You know —
CB: Yeah.
EK: You’re squashed in.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And quite different. But that was, that was the reason. Yeah. A lot of people thought they were very good.
CB: A number of people were very enthusiastic about Stirlings. The, when you got to the Lancaster though how different was it in terms of the engineering work you had to do?
EK: Well, the integrity of the whole thing, the bits and pieces, you know were ten times better than the Stirling. You always had mechanical problems you know. Yeah.
CB: And when you were on the Lancaster did, was it the same as the Stirling that you had to synchronise the engines?
EK: Yeah.
CB: And how did you do that?
EK: You just look along the blades.
CB: Yeah. And how did you —
EK: They come up.
CB: How would you adjust the location?
EK: On the throttle. RPM levers.
CB: Right.
EK: Right. You could look along the [pause] and we used to do that on the Lancasters the same. Yeah.
CB: So were you balancing the two engines on each wing or in the end did you balance all four?
EK: Balanced all four.
CB: Right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: And did you use a pitch change to do that as well?
EK: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: And why was it so important to balance the engines?
EK: Well, I suppose [pause] I don’t know. We just, not, the noise level went down of course as they got out of sync as well. But —
CB: And the vibration was reduced.
EK: Well, vibration. Yeah.
CB: So you got to the squadron. How did you feel about that?
EK: Very good. Yes. I was [pause] I always remember going on the first one or two ops which was Krefeld and they were [pause] the flak, we went into flak and I thought, I couldn’t believe it that they were trying to bloody kill me. I thought my this is a bit much, you know. This was for real and you know pretty hairy at times because we had to throw out the Window, the aluminium coated stuff which diverted the flak and I used to take, take a couple of slices with me and sit on them in case I got hit up the back side [laughs] yeah. Yeah.
CB: Where did you sit in the —
EK: Pardon?
CB: Where did you sit in the aircraft?
EK: Alongside the pilot.
CB: Right.
EK: The pilot.
CB: On a folding seat.
EK: Yeah. A folding seat which was, you could make permanent.
CB: So, thinking of take-off then what was your role during the take off?
EK: Well, my role was to see that all the temperatures and presses were ok. Then we’d do a mag drop. You’d have the right settings for the flaps and away you went. But that was one of the most hairiest things, you know. Sometimes if you were on a short runway at Waterbeach you could see Cambridge coming up to you very rapidly, you know. And you’ve got eight and a half tonnes of bombs underneath you. Quite exciting [laughs]
CB: Yeah. And you were helping with the throttles, were you?
EK: Yeah. What happened was of course as you know there’s a, there’s a [unclear] to the port with the propellers so what you want to do is get the ass end up so you can get rudder control and straighten it out on your rudders you see. And then when you’re halfway up the box he would say to me, ‘Full power.’ And then I’d take the throttles over and I push them right through the gate to go and that was it and then you draw the flaps in slightly. Not too much or you’d drop out the sky. Yes.
CB: Were they progressive adjustment? The flap, the flaps or were they in notches?
EK: They were progressive. There was no notches. No. You could, you could pull them and the rest [unclear]
CB: Just come out gently.
EK: That’s right.
CB: How long could you keep the throttles through the gate?
EK: Well, I don’t know. Some went quite some way because if you started to lose power on one of the engines you would have to keep the power on then. Yes. There was right hairy incidents in that respect. Yeah.
CB: So you’re heavily laden when you take off.
EK: Eight and a half tonnes. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And we’re in the Lancaster now.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So how did the operations go? What were the difficult ones there?
EK: Well, there was, there was never an easy one. I’m afraid I don’t lose any sleep over Dresden or anything like that which I was on. Chemnitz. But weather was a big bugbear because I remember going to Chemnitz, I think. Something like that. We got the wrong winds and we popped up through cloud and there were mountains there and we’d come out over the middle of Switzerland instead of well to the left of it, you know. Yeah. And the rear gunner said, ‘There’s bloody mountains down there. What’s all the —’ ‘What are you talking about?’ He said. ‘Oh God.’ You know. Fortunately, the Alps were about seventeen thousand so we were alright. You could get well above. Yeah.
CB: So on your, on each op what after you’ve got airborne then you fold the seat and you’ve got other things to do.
EK: Yeah.
CB: What else do you have to do?
EK: Well, every twenty minutes —
CB: As a flight engineer.
EK: Yeah. Every twenty minutes you would monitor the pressures and temperatures of all the engines and various adjustments to different things you know. There was the oxygen system, nitrogen system and then the manipulation of the fuel. You had to take the fuel out in a certain pattern you know. You’d turn four tanks. You would empty the outboard ones in to Number 2 and then you’d go on the big one. Then you’d do an hour each or something like that, you know. It was, it was quite complicated and you’d keep your eye on it.
CB: So you’re draining from the outboard tanks into the tank that’s between the two engines are you?
EK: That’s right.
CB: First.
EK: That’s right.
CB: Yeah. Right.
EK: Yes.
CB: And then the main tank is the one inboard.
EK: That’s right.
CB: Of the inner engine.
EK: Five forty that was. The other was two eight something and the outboard ones were one one four. A hundred and fourteen gallons. Yeah. But we had some exciting times if you see one of those operations there we we had an aircraft blow up just to our starboard side and it tipped us upside down.
CB: Oh, it did.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Right. So —
EK: And we came down in a spin and we pulled out just under three thousand feet from that. We thought that was a good night you know. Fortunately, we managed to regain control and went out of it. One of the engines was packing up but we made it back home.
CB: So when you became inverted what was the state of the crew because you’re just standing at that moment aren’t you?
EK: Oh screaming. Well, some of them were screaming and, because the only thing that saved us in this particular instance was the skipper said to me, ‘Oh, Ted,’ He said, ‘Will you take my chute to be packed?’ So I had to sit on that type chute.
CB: Yeah.
EK: We had the clip-on observer type ‘chute. I said, ‘Yeah.’ And I took it in and of course when we got into this disaster he said, ‘Ted, we’ve got to bale out,’ because we were manipulating this. He said, ‘What can we do?’ He said, ‘We’ve got to bale out,’ he said. He said, ‘Hand me my ‘chute.’ I said, ‘I can’t get mine.’ And I said, ‘You have got the same type of ‘chute as I have at the back here.’ Because when we went upside down, you know everything fell everywhere you see as you could well imagine. And so he had to stick in his seat and fortunately you know opposite rudder stick fully forward it came out. Came out. Which we were very very lucky.
CB: To what extent would you be monitoring speed because you’d be cruising at what when that happened?
EK: About two thirty.
CB: Ok. And then when you were in the dive what speed were you doing then?
EK: Well, we wrote the aircraft off. The main spar was bent nine inches from the tip to the inside. The, the manufacturer’s boys came and saw it and they just winced. They said, ‘I don’t know how it stayed on.’ [laughs] Yeah. We lost one or two bits and pieces. There you are.
CB: But in your case were you standing at that moment? You weren’t strapped in were you?
EK: No.
CB: So —
EK: I fell into the roof.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So the plane’s upside down. What was the first thing he did to get it back because you’re effectively in a vacuum?
EK: Well, I couldn’t see much but we were struggling with our throttles.
CB: Yeah.
EK: All the time.
CB: You then moved forward to the throttles did you.
EK: That’s right. Then we, yeah.
CB: Right.
EK: And between us we sort of went, you know full fire he said, ‘Oh, bring in these,’ and, ‘Look at that.’ You know. Yeah. What happened was that that aircraft, it was one of ours too blew up. We came in and it must have got hit by something or other because when you go onto the target of course you all tend to go in.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And you’d got to watch the guy up top as well who was about.
CB: This chap was just underneath was he? That’s why it tipped you over when it exploded.
EK: Just to the right hand side underneath. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Right. So I’m just trying to get a grip of what actually was happening with the pilot and you because the aircraft is upside.
EK: [unclear]
CB: Yeah. The aircraft is upside down.
EK: Yeah.
CB: How did he, did he right it or did he simply pull back on the stick to go down?
EK: Yeah. It came out. The stick fully forward opposite rudder.
CB: Yeah. But did it —
EK: Yeah.
CB: You were upside down at that moment.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So he wouldn’t pull the stick forward would he?
EK: In a, I think it was a —
CB: Because he’s upside down so he’s got to pull it back.
EK: I can’t remember.
CB: Anyway, you got —
EK: Anyway, they —
CB: You went into a spin.
EK: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: And how, how intense is the spin in a thing like that because it’s really big?
EK: Well, G forces. You couldn’t move.
CB: No.
EK: I mean, he says move, you know, ‘Bale out.’ You’re sort of clamped.
CB: You never moved. No.
EK: Around here you know. It’s, well more or less given up. My wireless operator said, I said, ‘What did you think of that, Ken.’[laughs] He said, he said, ‘I thought my poor old mum opening up that telegram in the morning to say that I’d gone.’ You know.’ We got away with it. Yeah.
CB: How many spins do you reckon you did before it came out?
EK: I don’t know. We were down to under three thousand feet.
CB: Yeah.
EK: We had bits of fir tree stuck on to his aerial. The wireless operator, ‘Look at this,’ he said. It was lower than bloody three thousand feet. He said, ‘What’s this?’ Because I remember looking out the window and I could see flames coming out of a high rise building so that must have been, we must have been very low.
CB: Yeah. What was the ground level at that time? Were you in high ground? Or —
EK: We were at pretty high ground.
CB: Yeah.
EK: But you know of course we came out and away we went.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Very very lucky to get back but —
CB: So was this, this was after you’d actually released the bombs was it?
EK: Yeah.
CB: Right.
EK: Thank God.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. And it was going to be an easy target. Gelsenkirchen. A small oil refinery business, you know.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. Some of the, some of the ports we did like Hamburg, Kiel, Bremen [Bremerhaven] were very very heavily defended. Yeah.
CB: How often did you collect flak?
EK: Every time. Every time. We always, I mean the most we had, we had thirty six holes in the aircraft. Yeah.
CB: So when you got back to your station at Waterbeach what was the reaction of the ground crew to all this flak?
EK: Oh yeah.
CB: Damage? What did they say about that?
EK: Well, they thought we were all crazy and they thought a lot of us. They thought we were you know good eggs. We used to take them out and buy them a couple of pints. Yeah. And I used to sort one or two of them out too which was good. I used to say, ‘You coming with me today?’ I said, ‘We’ll take you up on a trip.’ I thought well he’s put all the screws back in the right place if he did. Yeah. He was quite pleased.
CB: After a trip whose job was it to brief the ground crew about the state of the aircraft?
EK: Mine and the skipper. The pilot. He had to sign what they called was a form 700B I think it was and that would give clearance before he went and also when he came back he would write a little report and so would I.
CB: Right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: But you would actually be telling the crew on the, on the hard standing would you?
EK: Oh yeah.
CB: The ground crew.
EK: Once my navigator who was, who was six foot eight and a half. Can you imagine someone that big and he was a very tall man as I just said and he was leaning forward to get to some maps and he pulled his oxygen mask out. His clipped on tube. And we were going along there, you know minding our own business and all of a sudden the curtain opened and he was there with everything packed up. He said, ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he said, ‘I’m packing up and going home.’ I said, ‘I hope we’re all going home.’ And it was a lack of oxygen to come through.
CB: Amazing.
EK: I saw what had happened and we plugged him in and he came around and he didn’t know what the hell he’d been doing. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: When you got back from the experience of the aircraft being inverted and then getting out you were lucky to get away with it.
EK: Absolutely.
CB: What was the reaction of the crew when everybody got to the ground?
EK: Well, you know I can’t remember really. Elation I think to a degree. But yeah, we all thought, I thought it had gone and we’re not going to control it. Yeah.
CB: I was wondering whether you were so exhausted you went straight to bed or you went to celebrate at the local pub.
EK: Well, you had to be debriefed.
CB: Yes.
EK: You had all the people in there asking you this and that. Which you wanted to do. You wanted to go to bed but there you are. Of course, we had a lot of Canadians and New Zealanders with us so some tough lads. Yeah. Good lads.
CB: But in your crew were they all British?
EK: All British. Yeah.
CB: Right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: What other experiences did you have? What about fighter [doorbell ringing] fighter attack? I’ll stop this for a mo.
EK: Yes. Oh yes. We had that.
[recording paused]
CB: So, what about fighter attack?
EK: Oh yes.
CB: What happened with that?
EK: We had one determined guy. A JU88 who gave us a couple of squirts but our boys fought him off. I assume we did the normal, you know.
CB: You did a corkscrew, did you?
EK: What do they call it now?
CB: The corkscrew?
EK: Corkscrew. That’s right. And we lost him but two or three others took an interest in us[laughs] you know. I mean if you’d got a daylight raid some of them would be sitting up there waiting with you. Watching it all, you know.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. They were pretty good too the Germans let me tell you.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yes. Very clever.
CB: So how many times did you actually get attacked by German fighters?
EK: Oh, only three or four which were sorting us out, you know.
CB: How often did they hit you?
EK: Not very often. Once or twice.
CB: What sort of damage?
EK: They had .5s on them too. If they did hit you it was fairly lethal.
CB: Yeah.
EK: That was a bone of contention with us. That the armament just wasn’t there.
CB: No.
EK: 303s I mean.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Were like peashooters.
CB: Of course.
EK: That were there.
CB: And they’d got twenty millimetre cannon.
EK: That’s right. That’s right. Yes. Very good.
CB: Yes.
EK: Yes. It was quite exciting and they had some very good radar you know that they could do with our H2S system. They could pick that up and come up. Come up the beams underneath and they always attacked underneath, you know. They were coming in and give you, they’d got their own and give you a squirt and they were gone.
CB: So they’d got their upward firing —
EK: That’s right.
CB: Cannon. Their Schrage musik
EK: Music. Yeah.
CB: Yes. You knew about that.
EK: Yeah. Oh yeah.
CB: Yeah. Were you briefed about before you set off on ops?
EK: No. Not very much. I think they didn’t want to tell you too much. Might pack it in [laughs]
CB: Yes.
EK: Yeah.
CB: And the plane next to you that exploded.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Was that caught with that do you think?
EK: That was [pause] we don’t know. We don’t know. We knew the crew of course. I knew the wireless op was a very good singer.
CB: Oh.
EK: Poor little bugger.
CB: So none of them survived that one.
EK: No. No. No. It’s like that one I was telling you earlier about. About the explosion on the airport. I mean they couldn’t find a piece bigger than a postage stamp. I mean you know when a four and a half thousand pounder goes off it spreads over. Dreadful.
CB: On that topic of the bomb load what combination of bombs would you carry?
EK: Well, they were all down there if you want to see. Normally [pause] normally you’d got a cookie.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Which was a four and a half thousand.
CB: And that’s just a barrel.
EK: Yeah. It is yeah.
CB: Yeah. Has no fins anything.
EK: Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes we’d got —
CB: And what about the other bombs? The [iron?] bombs.
EK: Yeah. Depending on what target you were going the incendiaries. A lot of incendiaries.
CB: Yeah. What size were incendiary bombs?
EK: Yeah. Oh —
CB: What size were they?
EK: Bigger than the German ones. I would say they were about, you know.
CB: I’ll get it. I’ll get it.
[pause]
EK: Yes.
CB: What sort of size?
EK: They were about that high and big. Oh, you know [unclear] basically, yes.
CB: But the bigger ones that were high explosive. What sort of size were they?
EK: Two fifty, five hundred and then there’s the cookie. Four, four and a half. And then the double cookie. The ones that were stacked together.
CB: Right.
EK: So, they were, they were quite big. Yes, and they had, some had some special fuses on. They had biometric fuses that if they contact the earth they go. And pretty lethal. The trouble is they were between my legs all the way out there [laughs]
CB: How did you feel about that?
EK: Yeah. Oh, we had a funny little incident there. Well, one of our jobs with the bomb aimer and myself you had to go down in the compartment, there’s a little one and you shone your torch right down through the bomb bay. [coughs] Tom [unclear] ‘Bombs all gone.’ So and so and put his down. There’s a two hundred and fifty pounder hanging there. I said, ‘Tom.’ Oh dear. He tried to wrestle it free but he couldn’t get it. He went down the back of there. So in the end we decided to land with it. Well, we couldn’t do much so we got, we got undercarriage down. We had a green, not two greens but a bloody red light shone there. It couldn’t be worse could it? Still there. So I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ You know. He said, ‘Well we’ve got to land with it on and hope it’s just a faulty electrical switch and not —’ so. So I said to the skipper [coughs] ‘When you taxi in don’t open the bomb doors bays.’ Because we always used to to take the pressure of the hydraulic system. Anyway, we got there [pause] psst and this bomb fell out. Right. Two hundred and fifty pounder. It wouldn’t detonate because they had to fall quite a few feet before they become fused. There’s a little spinner on the front and that spins and falls off and then it detonated. But they didn’t know that, you know and we didn’t really know. But to see this thing fall on the floor God [laughs] they dived everywhere. I said, ‘What did I bloody say?’ You know, ‘Don’t do it.’ ‘Oh yeah. Sorry.’ Yeah. So we got away with that one all right. Yeah.
CB: But when you load up with the bombs then they are normally secured without priming —
EK: That’s right.
CB: At what point are the fuses effectively primed? Is it when you cross the coast?
EK: By the point that. Eh?
CB: Is it when you cross the coast? Is it on the run in?
EK: No. No. No. No. No. They are primed all the time.
CB: And then. Right.
EK: So when you release them.
CB: Yeah.
EK: They become —
CB: The spinners.
EK: The spinners. Have to drop it.
CB: Right.
EK: The spinners drop off probably a thousand feet. Something like that. Yeah.
CB: This one that’s been found in Frankfurt.
EK: Oh yeah [laughs] Probably one of mine.
CB: Yeah. So what size was that? That was not a cookie ‘cause it’s not that big.
EK: No. No. No.
CB: They’re talking about one and a quarter tonnes. Well —
EK: Yeah.
CB: What size is that as an iron bomb?
EK: Yeah. About two hundred and fifty pounders, five hundred pounders. Yeah.
CB: They probably —
EK: Apparently, there are hundreds of them out there still.
CB: There are. Yes.
EK: Right. How are we doing? Are we nearly there?
CB: Right. So what we’ve done is to just talk about some of the highlights.
EK: Yeah.
CB: But what other highlights were there in the raids?
EK: Yeah.
CB: Did you get any other? What about collisions with other aircraft? Did you see any of those?
EK: No. No. Oh, I’ve seen collisions.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Oh yeah. Because it was a big bone of contention that there is what they called scarecrows.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Have you heard that?
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
EK: Well apparently the Germans were backing up there was no such thing.
CB: No.
EK: It was aircraft coming down.
CB: Yeah. It was Schrage music.
EK: That’s right. Oh and by the way that is the big fighter, Schrage musik or —
CB: The explosion. Yeah.
EK: Yeah. So that used to happen a lot and they used to say it’s only a scarecrow but it wasn’t.
CB: So you’d see big explosions sometimes would you?
EK: Oh yeah. Coming down like. That’s why I never want to see fireworks again. Turns me off. Yeah.
CB: What about actual collisions?
EK: Yeah.
CB: What sort of collisions did you see?
EK: I’ve seen two or three aircraft hit one another.
CB: How would that be? In the bomb run in or what?
EK: Yeah. Well, on the run in as I say you get this thing where you squeeze up you see.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. If I think of any more I’ll let you know.
CB: And then in the circuit. You talked about collisions there.
EK: Yeah. That was bad.
CB: Simply because of the numbers.
EK: That’s right. And take off as well which not so many but, you know that was always a hairy time. Take off. Yeah. Sometimes you’d do your mag check and you were allowed a four hundred drop on each engine and it would be [unclear] around it and you’d think should I abort? You know. No. We’ll have a go. But sometimes I think I did the wrong thing but —
CB: How often did you have engine failure when you were on ops?
EK: Twice.
CB: And what happened there?
EK: Well, feathered one. Had enough fuel to get back no problem. And the other one I don’t know what the problems were. Yeah. No, they just stopped you know.
CB: Damaged from flak?
EK: They were because the water cooled engine is very vulnerable to flak and yeah I remember one. One. It did get hit by something and the water came out and the vibration in a matter of seconds. It just seized solid at the back you know. That’s why you had to feather quickly. Yeah.
CB: You could always feather could you?
EK: Not always. It depends on where it hit the aircraft. It was, they were pretty good.
CB: So the aircraft is now unbalanced so does it fly slower or do you increase the revs on the other engines to keep going?
EK: You increase the revs but it does. You could trim it out. Yeah. Yeah. The stability, the stability of the Lancaster was very good. If you flew one you know when you operate it was very slow if you wanted to go left. And it would, you’d say, ‘Come on. Where are you going?’ [laughs] Yeah.
CB: Sort of delayed action was it?
EK: Yeah. A little bit.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah.
CB: And in the process of flying the aircraft was the pilot aware that, was the pilot using auto pilot or was that not very effective?
EK: Yeah. He used to use autopilot. He used to use me. I used to sit up there.
CB: You’d sit there occasionally.
EK: Yeah.
CB: While he went back.
EK: Yeah. Yeah. He’d go and have a talk to the navigator or anything like that. Yeah, because it was very much the Air Force in those days and it’s not like that now I’m glad to say. There was them and us you know. The officers and the NCOs they were poles apart. Now Waterbeach for instance the two officers there Bert Alderson and Alan Lacey. I’d never been in the officer’s mess all the time I was with them. Never went in there. Yes.
CB: But did they come in the Sergeant’s Mess?
EK: No.
CB: No.
EK: We invited them in at Christmas I think it was or if we had a game of soccer or something like that.
CB: Right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So but you would go out as a crew would you?
EK: Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Very very tight I would say.
CB: You were the family.
EK: Yeah. We were. We were.
CB: And to what extent did you keep in touch after the war?
EK: Quite tight because as I say the reunions came about but the first few years after the war we’d all got marriages and had kids and education to do so I don’t expect we did as much. We were [pause] And I think aircrew were very badly treated you know in lots of other —
CB: Why do you think that was?
EK: I don’t know. Well, a lot of this saturation bombing and bombing got through you know. Through the papers to the public. And murderers and all the rest of it. They forget they started it didn’t they?
CB: Absolutely. But to what extent did that come to the surface after the war or was it only in later years?
EK: Later years it was. Yeah. Yes.
CB: Now you, the war came before you’d finished your full tour, did it? The war end came.
EK: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Before the war, in other words VE Day.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Which was the 8th of May.
EK: Yeah.
CB: How did you all feel about that?
EK: Well, we were quite elated that it was all over but we didn’t know what they were going to do with us you know. But yeah it was good. Funnily on that day, VE day I went on a food dropping exercise to Holland. Operation Manna.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And on VE Day the skipper said to us, ‘We’ve got work to do. Sorry. No day off.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ And we had to go and drop this food in Amsterdam so we all had our best blues on. Everything on. Dropped the food, came back and I was on the first train out of Waterbeach to London and I opened the carriage door and it was full of Americans there [cheer] Good stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So you were on your way home.
EK: Yeah.
CB: For leave.
EK: Yeah.
CB: How soon did they recall you?
EK: I can’t remember now. A couple of weeks I think. Yeah. Not very long. It was never very long.
CB: Going back a bit your experiences were varied but horrendous.
EK: Yes.
CB: Some people took it better than others.
EK: Oh yeah.
CB: To what extent did you, were you aware of or did you know of people cracking up?
EK: Very few. I know one or two that cracked up. Very ill. But not many.
CB: What sort of circumstances would those be?
EK: Well, they would just have a breakdown. They couldn’t do it anymore. One, one chap I knew in particular, you know. In fact, it was so funny. This guy that packed it in, I admire him really. His skipper was Johnnie Parnell, a Flight lieuie. And I was in British Airways in the design office there and I’m sitting there. I see this figure go by and four gold bands on his arms and I rattled on the, ‘Come in here.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t let you borrow my bloody bike let alone flying an aeroplane.’ ‘I’ve got this,’ he said, you know. He was a captain. Vanguards. Amazing. Yeah. Did very well.
CB: What circumstances caused people to get LMF in this case?
EK: Just scared. Just so. I think I admire a lot of them that did it because it must have taken a hell of a lot to do and in the initial stages it was pretty horrendous. They would take you out on the square and rip your brevets off and stuff. So I’ve heard, you know. I haven’t seen it myself. But yeah.
CB: So what happened to this chap? He was a pilot with Parnell’s?
EK: Pardon?
CB: You said this chap was a pilot with —
EK: Oh, that. That wasn’t the one that went LMF.
CB: Oh.
EK: He was the skipper.
CB: Ah.
EK: The bloke that went LMF was a flight engineer the same as I.
CB: Oh right.
EK: And he used to confide in me a bit you see. ‘I know I’m going to die,’ he’d say. ‘I know I’m going to die,’ and all this, you know. Yeah.
CB: What did they do with him?
EK: I don’t know.
CB: But they took him away did they?
EK: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: What’s the reaction of other crews to that sort of situation?
EK: I don’t know. I can’t say. I can’t say. I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess. I’d only be guessing as I said. Yeah.
CB: But interesting to know the guess because from our point of view we’ve no idea was it like.
EK: Know what?
CB: We’ve no idea what it was like so —
EK: No.
CB: I’d be interested to know what your guess was.
EK: I don’t know. But he was a very very frightened lad and you know he even lost a lot of weight. He was terribly scared. Yeah. Well, he was very scared.
CB: So that was the LMF one. The other one was the —
EK: Lack of moral fibre.
CB: Yeah. The other one you mentioned was, who was later an airline captain.
EK: Oh yes. I —
CB: What happened to him?
EK: Well, he was alright. He was alright.
CB: Later. But what happened to him that made him —
EK: Well, he came out of the Air Force.
CB: Yes.
EK: Joined British Airways.
CB: Yeah. But what happened when he was in the RAF to cause him to —
EK: No, he was alright.
CB: Oh, he was.
EK: He did his tour.
CB: Oh, I see. He wasn’t an LMF type.
EK: No. No.
CB: Ok. Right.
EK: No. No.
CB: No.
EK: No.
CB: Ok. Right.
EK: Well, I mean, losing, I’m losing my voice.
CB: Yeah. I was going to say we’ll pause there for a bit.
EK: Yeah. That’s alright.
[recording paused]
EK: From there.
CB: What, the flash?
EK: It went over anyway.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. It is a big aeroplane.
CB: Pardon?
EK: It is a big aeroplane.
CB: Yes.
EK: Now my mate, old Brian Hallow of 44 Squadron he was with Nettleton on the Augsburg.
CB: Oh, yes.
EK: Daylight one.
CB: Yes.
EK: He got a DFC. Mad as a hatter. He used to fly Manchesters and he wouldn’t have anything said about them. He said to me, ‘There’s nothing wrong with them,’ he said and he used to do an upward roll in a bloody Manchester. I said, ‘Alan, what was that like? ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It was alright.’ He said, ‘But all this shit on the floor came all around me.’ He said, ‘It was most uncomfortable.’ While he’d done an upward roll in a Manchester all he could talk about was the dirt that had accumulated on the floor all around him [laughs] Yeah. Yes, he was a character he was.
CB: Some people probably had to be mad to be able to do the tasks.
EK: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I saw [pause] I saw a picture of his medals the other day in one of my magazines.
CB: Nettleton.
EK: Not Nettleton. Nettleton was killed.
CB: Oh yeah.
EK: Shortly after the Augsburg one.
CB: Yeah.
EK: But no, Brian Hallow.
CB: Brian Hallows. Yes.
EK: Yeah. He [pause] I’ve forgotten what I’m bloody talking about now. Oh, his medals.
CB: Yes.
EK: They’re up for sale.
CB: Oh.
EK: Now God knows. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have sold them.
CB: No.
EK: But he got DFC, CBE and a whole, of course, he was promoted to wingco and was an air attaché in Washington somewhere.
CB: Oh right.
EK: And a lovely bloke. In fact, we used to meet on leave and I was only a flight sergeant then and he was a flight lieutenant and he’d say, ‘Come on Ted. We’ll go and have a drink. Go to the Feathers.’ I said, ‘I can’t go in the ruddy Feathers.’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘That’s officers only.’ ‘What a load of bullshit,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’ So in we went, I got behind him, he strode in and the manager was there. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘We can’t serve your friend.’ So and so. Oh, a tirade came out you know.’ He said, ‘You ‘f’ing pom. You’ve been sitting on your fat asses there doing bugger all —’ he said, ‘While we’ve been fighting the war,’ he said, ‘Us two.’ He said, ‘Now get the bloody beers in.’ Oh, he had them going around you know. It all went quiet and then it was alright. Cheers. Same again? All the best lad.’ [laughs]
CB: And the whole pub reacted well, did it?
EK: Yeah. It was alright. Well, they were all servicemen.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Mostly. Yeah. Old Brian. Grand fellow he was.
CB: What happened to him in the end?
EK: He just died of old age.
CB: Right.
EK: He got through it all. Had tonnes of money. His father had a stream of steam laundries you know so he wasn’t hard up. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I’ve got to do this.
[recording paused]
EK: You know, to bring them back.
CB: Oh, this was Operation Exodus was it?
EK: I think it might have been called that.
From [unclear]
EK: I know he said, he said to my skipper, he said, well he said to me, ‘Have you got a couple of people who can help me on with my luggage on to the aeroplane?’ My skipper was there. He said, ‘This is a crew member,’ and so and so. And he said he’s eight hours work to do on this aeroplane to take you home.’ He said, ‘I’m sure you can find someone to load your stuff on.’
CB: Who was this chap?
EK: He was, he was a colonel or something you know. Oh yes. He thought he should have pole position. So we stuck him right down at the back on a number painted on the floor and said, ‘Bloody well get on with it.’ There were some nice little jobs.
CB: He’d been holding —
EK: I always remember when we were bringing troops back from Brussels and all the, all these prisoners of war had been going around all over the place and one came up to the aircraft and he had a brand new Mercedes motorbike around there. He said, ‘It’s yours.’ He said, ‘I’ve finished with it now. I’m coming with you.’ I said, ‘You’re joking.’ I couldn’t get the bloody handle bars through the, through the back. It would have been worth a fortune.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Had to leave it there.
CB: Couldn’t stick it in the bomb bay.
EK: No. No. [laughs] No.
CB: There’s no strength in the bomb doors is there?
EK: Oh no. No. They’re purely cover up. Yes.
[recording paused]
EK: Right. But we had a little WAAF behind me.
CB: On the Cook’s Tours.
EK: On the Cook’s Tours and the thing is we used to be in formation and some of the boys [unclear] with some really pertinent remarks they’d make to one another and of course some of these girls could read Morse. I mean we didn’t used to swear in those days and all the rest of it. I thought oh God here we go. But anyway, we went on and this girl was progressively looking very ill. Innocent this and she had and she threw up in this bag as well right behind me. So I said and she tapped me on the shoulder. I said, ‘Oh Christ.’ So I thought I’ll take it and then she went back and I’m standing there. I said, ‘What do I do with this?’ You know the old sliding window on the Lanc? I got that [pause] and it came back like a bloody rocket and my skipper who just had a wonderful moustache and it hit him sideways on and it was all hanging there you know. All those tomato skins and peas and all the rest of it and he went quiet for a little while you know. And I couldn’t stop laughing. I couldn’t stop laughing. ‘You bastard,’ he said. Nothing about this poor little girl on the floor passed out. Yeah. And then, and that was that you know. I said, ‘Unclean.’ I said, ‘You go and get a wash or something.’ Oh dear. It was so funny. Yeah.
CB: Amazing.
EK: It was something I didn’t suffer with but the bomb aimer funnily enough the bomb aimer was put off a pilot’s course, Tom Burns, he was continually air sick. Every time we went up. He’d go to the boundary fence and away. Away he goes. Amazing isn’t it?
CB: How extraordinary.
EK: He persevered. He went on and on you know. Yeah.
CB: It didn’t affect him when he was doing the bomb aiming.
EK: No.
CB: Because he was concentrating.
EK: Oh yeah. Well, I hope to think he was. I said, ‘Tom, why don’t you sort this throwing up?’ ‘It’s a piece of cake.’ He said, ‘You just look up,’ and he said, ‘That’s high level,’ he said, ‘And that’s low level.’ [laughs] I think it’s true you know. [unclear] yeah.
CB: What height would you be flying for on the Cook’s Tours? On Cook’s Tours.
EK: Oh, pretty low. Pretty low. Five or six thousand. That’s right. Something.
CB: Oh, as high as that. I say as high as that.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Because I was thinking of you being —
EK: Yeah. Yeah. They could see all the devastation.
CB: That was the idea.
EK: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: So what was the mix of Air Force people and others on the Cook’s Tours?
EK: Oh, all erks, you know.
CB: All erks.
EK: All LACs and, yeah.
CB: So —
EK: All just ordinary people.
CB: Did all your ground crew go on a Cook’s Tour?
EK: Yeah. Oh yeah. We took quite a lot. Yeah. Yes. I always remember that schloss.
CB: Yes.
EK: Yeah. Yes. It’s funny we’ve got this building here. Along my corridor is an ex-RAF guy and his granddaughter believe it or not she comes to see him quite a bit. Air commodore. What about that?
CB: Really?
EK: Yeah. In fact, Ken down on the gate where you came in and he said, ‘You’re not to let anybody in here. It’s for the security.’ This is to an air commodore. And my wife comes around you know and she said, ‘I live here.’ [laughs] And that’s it. Fortunately, Ken came in and she opened the door, you know and she said, ‘My grandfather said I’m not to let anybody in.’ That’s right. ‘Oh, very well.’ And she slipped her jacket on as she went out. The old big ring. She’s in the headquarters here. She’s head of, she’s a barrister.
CB: Oh.
EK: But she’s head of security and a lovely girl.
CB: And what did he do?
EK: Pardon?
CB: What did her grandfather do?
EK: He was, he was some clerical function, I think. He was, yeah.
CB: In the war?
EK: Yeah. Oh yeah. He’s an ex-brat. He was a Halton boy.
CB: Oh right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So we need to talk to him.
EK: Very good. Very good training that, wasn’t it? Very good training. Yeah. Yeah. So I met her two or three times now and I’ve been doing the mornings up down the British Legion. I said, ‘I bet you never kissed an air commodore.’ [laughs] ‘Or a station warrant officer.’ [laughs]
CB: Not with their uniforms on.
EK: Yeah. That’s a lovely rank isn’t it? Air commodore. Her husband has just retired. He was a captain in the Army and so don’t quite [coughs] In fact, my nephew worked for her.
CB: Oh.
EK: He’s a lawyer and he joined the RAF. Got so fed up with Civvy Street, you know. The mundane —
CB: Yeah.
EK: Life of a lawyer, you know. And he loved it and I met her and I was told, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I know him well. He’s a very good athlete. I said, ‘He is. Yes.’ And of course, he skis for the RAF and this, that and the other and of course Tracey said, ‘I’ll tell him I met you.’ To me you know. So he went in his office and he said, ‘Who’s that.’ And it says, ‘Air commodore.’ ‘Jeez. What have I done?’ [laughs] He said he nearly dropped the phone. And it was her just saying that she’d met the day previously. He came on the phone, ‘You bastard,’ [laughs] he said. He said, ‘I thought I was in for the bloody high jump,’ he said. You know. A flight lieutenant against an air commodore. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Good laugh.
EK: Yeah. A nice rank. I mean these officers of air rank they tell me that when they retire they retire on full pay.
CB: No. They don’t.
EK: No.
CB: No.
EK: They don’t. Ah well, you’re probably right there.
CB: They get their RAF pension.
EK: What?
CB: Commission pension assuming they’re on a PC. Then they get forty eight points. Forty eight point five percent of the salary they were on when they retire and a lump sum of three times their pension tax free. It’s not bad is it?
EK: How do you know all this? Do you know someone?
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah
CB: My job.
EK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: What celebrations did you have with the end of the war?
EK: Well, as I said I went to, I had a couple of days in London drinking too much. We then came back to Waterbeach. Yeah. Yeah. Long while ago now, isn’t it?
CB: Yeah. Then you, then you got on to the Exodus thing.
EK: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: How many people could you put in the plane at the same time?
EK: About [pause] about fourteen.
CB: You know that —
EK: All they had was a number on the floor and a bit of a rug to sit on or a blanket.
CB: Yeah.
EK: I remember that. That was a nasty one as well. That, that was on Exodus. That was at Brussels. We were just lining up to go forward. The one in front of me went, the next one went, then the next one. He went down the runway as we were and he went up. He went straight in. Bang. And the whole lot they were blown apart.
CB: Right.
EK: I don’t know what it was. I reckon that someone had moved about in the aircraft or got CnG wrong and were fat assing around. I don’t know.
CB: It’s interesting you say that because I had another person tell me —
EK: Pardon?
CB: I had another person tell me about that.
EK: Did you?
CB: And the theory was that the people moved to the back and that leads to the question as you were in there on the task.
EK: Yeah.
CB: What briefing did you give to the people who came into the aircraft? Were they told they must stay where their number was?
EK: Yeah. I think they —
CB: Or were they allowed to move about?
EK: Oh yeah. We were alright once we were airborne. Up and away, you know and everything was there but —
CB: No.
EK: On take-off, you know.
CB: Yeah. That’s what I mean.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So you’re fully laden and somebody moves back. They wouldn’t understand the CnGs. C of G shift.
EK: Yeah. I wonder if they’re going to get this Lanc repaired. This one that’s in dire straits.
CB: I’m sure they will.
EK: Eh?
CB: I’m sure they will.
EK: I hope so.
CB: Yeah. But yeah. To Coningsby. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
EK: That’s right. That’s right.
CB: So after you’ve done those things then the squadron, what happened after that?
EK: Well, they just all went and I then, as I said I then went out to the Middle East to, to Egypt and as a spare bod more or less you know flying there, flying there. And then —
CB: What were you flying in then?
EK: Well, we had —
CB: Still in Lancasters?
EK: Yeah. Lancasters still there, I think.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. But then you know everything just went down the pan. And as I was very good at cricket they had me playing cricket most of the while.
CB: Brilliant.
EK: Yeah. That was them and us again. There was nine officers, myself as a warrant officer and the opening bat for Cambridgeshire who was an OAC and better than anybody. Amazing it was. And I did, there was a Lanc there because I had the misfortune of flying with the, he was an air commodore. He was the AOC. Grey his name was and he used to come and watch us play occasionally and if I scored a run he wouldn’t come up at all but any officers, ‘Well down old boy.’ You know. I thought. Put me off the RAF. Yeah. I did sign on for three years.
CB: Yeah.
EK: But I got so, waited around for this to go through. I had a row with the wing commander flying and, ‘Don’t be impertinent, Key. Get out of my office.’ I said, ‘Yes. It’s the last time you’ll see me, you know.’ And I just came out then. But I would have stayed on as long as —
CB: What was the bone of contention then?
EK: Pardon?
CB: What was the bone of contention that caused the argument?
EK: I don’t know.
CB: Oh.
EK: They just seemed to put me in a corner and didn’t bring me out and dust me down with a commission you know.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And I ticked all the right boxes I think, you know. But today it’s so funny because you go to Northolt and you get the officers and the men you know sort of like talking to one another. Yeah. That’s the bits I find very good. Yeah.
CB: So you got to the end of your service —
EK: Yeah.
CB: And this is still 1945, is it?
EK: Yeah. I think so.
CB: And you go into ’46. You’re still in the RAF.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Because you then went to Nairobi. Why did you go there?
EK: Well, primarily to play cricket mercifully and a little bit of flying I used to do. I waited around to get this commission.
CB: Which never came.
EK: No.
CB: So —
EK: Were you commissioned, were you?
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So the question really is why you were flying all these other aeroplanes because you were in the Liberator, Dakota.
EK: Oh that. Yeah. That was.
CB: Baltimore.
EK: They were mates of mine they were.
CB: Oh.
EK: Yes. We had a wheel around.
CB: So you weren’t there in your professional capacity.
EK: No. No. But a lovely posting. Yeah.
CB: And then Mogadishu.
EK: Yeah.
CB: So, in theory what were you supposed to be doing?
EK: Well, they put me in to MT at one time. Doing a bit of you know. But there were so many others sort of floating around. Redundant aircrew.
CB: Yeah.
EK: You know. So that was that. So I ended up —
CB: Because if you flew in a Lancaster then you flew as an engineer.
EK: Yeah.
CB: But if you flew in anything else.
EK: Yeah, No. I wasn’t.
CB: No.
EK: So this went right on. Then you went to Upwood to 148 Squadron.
CB: Yeah.
EK: So what was that then?
CB: That was when I was at college.
EK: Right.
CB: That would be —
EK: So you’d come out of the RAF.
CB: Yeah.
EK: In the end of ’46 was it?
CB: Yeah.
EK: Middle of ’46?
CB: Yeah.
EK: And that was it.
CB: What made you decide to go to college?
EK: Well, because I more or less straight from, straight from flying and I didn’t know anything about the nuts and bolts of the aeroplane you see so I thought I had to go and take a course.
CB: And what was the course you did?
EK: Eh?
CB: What was the course that you did?
EK: Aeronautical engineering.
CB: Right.
EK: Per se.
CB: Right. At where?
EK: Yeah.
CB: Where was that?
EK: The College of Aeronautical Engineering at Chelsea.
CB: How did you support yourself financially during that time?
EK: Came with a grant.
CB: Right.
EK: Yeah. Quite generous. Quite good.
CB: Was it?
EK: All ex-RAF people there. Good fun. Yeah.
CB: And they’d all been engineers had they?
EK: No. Pilots and everything.
CB: Oh.
EK: Some of them got some very good jobs [unclear] there were some very bright boys, you know. Yeah.
CB: Meanwhile you joined the Reserve.
EK: Yeah.
CB: And what did that do for you?
EK: Well, as I said it gave me thirty pounds a year plus, plus a fortnight away. Yeah. Flying.
CB: And you, and what, you converted to a different aircraft. What was that?
EK: Yeah. Converted to Lincolns.
CB: Right.
EK: And I went on one or two. I went out to Gib on a Lincoln.
CB: Oh.
EK: Yeah. Flying out there. Yeah.
CB: So how would you describe the Lincoln in relation to the Lancaster?
EK: Well, I mean the Lancaster was the Rolls Royce of the heavy bombers. The Lincoln, now they prostituted the aircraft by doing all kinds of things but, you know, serviceable.
CB: It was bigger wasn’t it?
EK: Oh yeah.
CB: How else was it different?
EK: Yeah. Yes. It was bigger. It had all this armament on of course. 3.5s. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Was the fuselage bigger?
EK: Eh?
CB: Was the fuselage bigger?
EK: Yes. Slightly.
CB: So what did that do to your position as the flight engineer?
EK: No. The same position. Exactly the same. Stirling was totally different.
CB: Yeah.
EK: Yeah. How long were you in the RAF?
CB: Oh, less than two years.
EK: How much?
CB: Less than two years.
EK: Oh, it was. Oh. National Service.
CB: No. No. Volunteer.
EK: Pardon?
CB: Volunteer.
EK: Oh, and what happened?
CB: I’ll tell you later.
EK: Oh, you’ve got a story to tell have you? Yeah.
CB: So was there a second pilot’s seat in the Lincoln or did they still have only one pilot?
EK: Only one pilot. Yeah.
CB: Right.
EK: And in those days it was amazing really that year when they were all non-commissioned. Not many officers. They were all flight sergeants, sergeants you know. And then of course they had this terrible mix up when they regraded all the crew Master Aircrew, Aircrew 1, 2, 3 and 4. Yeah.
CB: The master aircrew being the warrant officers.
EK: Yeah. But you had to have all that goes with it. As a master aircrew you had to do thousands of bloody hours and flown on [unclear] you know. Yeah.
CB: Did they downgrade any of the aircrew then from warrant officer to flight sergeant?
EK: Oh yeah. They, they —
CB: When the war ended.
EK: Oh yeah. Fortunately, I was, I was going to go on commissioned flying so they didn’t touch me. But that was bad you see. You’d got blokes there with DFMs and warrant officers. All of a sudden they were knocked down to bloody sergeants. Dreadful. Why couldn’t they wait just a few months and let them all go home?
CB: Strange. When you, how long did your degree course last?
EK: Three and a half years.
CB: And then what?
EK: I went to British Airways.
CB: Did you know that before you finished the course or did you have to look after you’d finished it?
EK: No. I had an interview there and went straight in. They wanted me to bloody fly again.
CB: Oh, did they?
EK: Yeah. As an EO. But I did quite lot of flying funnily enough here and there giving extensive modifications to different aeroplanes and let us go and so it wasn’t bad.
CB: Then after a bit?
EK: After a bit I took the money and ran and retired.
CB: What age did you retire?
EK: Forty eight. Not bad is it?
CB: Then what did you do?
EK: Nothing [laughs] Oh yes. I did. I went, a friend of mine said, ‘Why don’t you come and join us in the Transport for London?’ So I went and I quite enjoyed counting motor cars and cars and all these different things that they used to do in the city. Yeah.
CB: What did that involve?
EK: Eh?
CB: What did that involve?
EK: Well, it involved up getting very early in the morning and then going out and counting cars on different routes and what was using who and what they could do. Yeah. It was alright [pause] Well, how are we doing? Are we nearly there?
CB: No, we’ve done well. Just nearly finished now.
EK: Oh good.
CB: So when did you finish altogether in work?
EK: What? Work?
CB: Yeah.
EK: Oh, about [pause] about forty years ago. Yeah.
CB: Well, Ted Key, thank you for a most interesting conversation.
EK: Well, I hope it has been. It seems a bit disjointed and some of it is a bit faded and I could think of a bit more.
CB: Ok.
EK: Yeah.
CB: You need a rest.
EK: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: The bomb.
EK: Yeah.
CB: They were disgorged as well.
EK: The photo flare?
CB: The photo flare.
EK: Yeah.
CB: And they dropped away and at a certain time they would pull them up and the whole line would light up and they would take pictures.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
EK: So that was on a programmed arrangement before the plane, before the sortie was it?
CB: Yeah. And sometimes they used to stick.
EK: In the ‘chute.
CB: And if you weren’t careful they went off in the aircraft and blow the bloody ass end off.
EK: Right.
CB: Yeah. In the ’chute. Yeah.
EK: They were quite —
CB: Who operated the camera? Was it done automatically on a timer or after the bombs went?
EK: That was done automatically but the wireless operator was in charge of the photo flares.
CB: Oh, was he? Right.
EK: Yeah.
CB: You mentioned earlier about trying to dislodge this large bomb. A two fifty pounder was it? So was there access to the bomb bay from the floor of the aircraft?
EK: That’s right.
CB: Every so often was it? Or —
EK: A little plate. Pick it up like a hook. You pulled it.
CB: Yeah.
EK: And it dropped it out.
CB: Right.
EK: If you were lucky.
CB: Right.
EK: This didn’t drop out.
CB: But there were several bits in the floor.
EK: Yeah.
CB: Hatches were there.
EK: Yeah.
CB: That you could use inter bombing.
EK: Where each bomb was.
CB: Yeah.
EK: I mean.
CB: Right.
EK: Dependant on what configuration you had.
CB: Yeah
EK: Yes.
CB: But having hang ups must have been quite a —
EK: Yeah. Yes.
CB: Worrisome.
EK: That’s it —
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 Edward George Key
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKeyEG170904, PKeyEG1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:35:14 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Ted Key was a flight engineer. He was born to a large family in London which he remembers coming down from Norfolk to visit. His father was in the Navy as a chief petty officer and away a lot. Ted was in the air defence cadet corps before he joined the Royal Air Force. He had hoped to become a pilot but settle for flight engineer due to the waiting list being too long. He trained in South Wales during which his previous fascination with motorbikes helped. While training to be flight engineer, he had to know the aircraft inside out, its safety features and capabilities. He was on Stirlings at the heavy conversion unit for six weeks and then went to a Lancaster finishing school.
After training he was posted to RAF Waterbeach. One day prior to an operation Ted was cycling are the perimeter track when a huge explosion threw him from his bike. A Lancaster had exploded while being bombed up. Among those killed was someone from his village who he didn’t know was on the same station. On another occasion the hydraulics and pneumatics failed and they crashed into a potato field scattering potatoes inside the aircraft. On one operation the plane flying next to them exploded turning their own aircraft upside down and into a steep spin. They managed to right the plane and although they were so low there were tree branches stuck on the aerial they did survive. On one operation the navigator accidentally pulled out his oxygen pipe. He packed away his gear and announced he was going home. Ted realised what had happened and managed to reconnect him to the oxygen and he was fine with no memory of the incident.
He recalls that Stirlings were less powerful but more comfortable to work in. He also claims that Lancasters had much better integrity in terms of engineering. He sat alongside the pilot and his role during take off was to make sure the temperatures and compressors were up to standard. He remembers that he got attacked by German fighters three times and only hit once or twice. Ted discusses how frequent collisions with other planes are due to the large amount. The war ended before he finished his full tour, he took part in Operation Manna, immediately going to London to celebrate after. After this, Ted later when to the Middle East where he continued flying.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
William Evans
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Wales--Glamorgan
514 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing up
crash
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
military service conditions
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF St Athan
RAF Waterbeach
Scarecrow
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/900/11140/PJarmyJFD1703.1.jpg
d79a334eec7e8edd1dfa7ded9dc46172
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/900/11140/AJarmyJFD170726.2.mp3
f54aa76abd3793861cf39e00fcebb13f
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
Jarmy, Jack
Jack Francis David Jarmy
J F D Jarmy
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. And oral history interview with Jack Francis David Jarmy DFC (b. 1922, 134695 Royal Air Force) his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 75 and 218 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jack Jarmy 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
2015-09-21
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
Jarmy, JFD
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GT: Ok. This is Glen Turner from 75 Squadron Association as Secretary and a certified IBCC interviewer interviewing Mr Jack Jarmy and this is for the Digital Archives to be based at Lincoln. And Jack is with me and good evening, Jack.
JJ: Good evening.
GT: Evening. So, I’m going to ask Jack some questions on the history of Jack’s life with Bomber Command in the middle and Jack can we start please by you describing your title and your service number please?
JJ: Say again, sorry?
GT: Your service number and your title.
JJ: Service number.
GT: And your trade.
JJ: Airman’s number 1337329 and officer’s number 134695.
GT: And your trade was RAF navigator.
JJ: My trade was, originally was pilot. U/T pilot.
GT: Great. Jack, can you begin with us please by stating your date of birth, where you were born and your, your years growing up?
JJ: I was, date of birth was 26th of April ’22 in Romford, Essex and I, from the age of twelve I lived with my grandparents. No. From the age of five I lived with my grandparents because my father had died when I was five. Do I go on then to joining the RAF?
GT: Yes.
JJ: I was very keen to join the RAF and I thought initially as a wireless operator but then at the age of eighteen, the very day I was eighteen I was living outside of Portsmouth, I got on my bicycle without telling my grandparents, cycled down to Portsmouth and volunteered for training as a pilot. And I was accepted on the spot actually but I wasn’t officially called up for about another eight months or so.
GT: In, in —
JJ: 1941 that would be.
GT: Jack, how well did you do at school then before that?
JJ: I did very well actually. My last examination at Ilfracombe Grammar School I was first in every subject except one and when we were having to leave my grandparents had to move away to make some money somewhere as their capital was running out the headmaster told me that I was an absolute cert. There were two university places at Cambridge in those days and he said, ‘If you could have stayed here you’d have, without a doubt you would have got one of them.’ But I didn’t know at the time until we got to Portsmouth that I was having to leave school and help in the family shop. So that was a bit of shock needless to say.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: And I did that for three years until I was eighteen and on the very day I was eighteen as I say I went down and joined the RAF and they accepted me when they saw my Grammar School report.
GT: So, all your subjects were fabulous except one.
JJ: I was first in every subject except one.
GT: And what was that?
JJ: I think that was Religious History [laughs]
GT: Fabulous. So, once you’d gone to sign up and they’d accepted you —
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Please continue that story on how long you waited and where you joined up from there.
JJ: Yeah. I waited about, I think seven or eight months before I was called up for attestation in London and then I was in the RAF. So we went to [pause] I’ve got it here. Sorry. I have it here and I can’t bloody well read it. [pause] Terrible this. I’m on the wrong page. Sorry. Oh. [pause] Here we are. 9 Initial Training Wing at Stratford on Avon, is it? Stratford on Avon. I can’t see the dates. If you want to have a look here.
GT: No. That’s alright Jack. So, you were then —
JJ: Initial Training Wing for pilot training. About six weeks and then we went, I went to EFTS at Swindon, Cliffe Pypard where I soloed fairly quickly. And I had done about twenty hours when we were informed that the system was training. They were introducing grading school for everybody but the training would be done overseas. Either in the states, Canada or, or was Africa —?
GT: Rhodesia?
JJ: Rhodesia. That’s right. So, I went across to Canada and we got on the train for three days down to Florida. And I, the first thing they told us that the scheme we were under twenty, a good twenty percent would be washed out at Primary School, another twenty percent at basic and a further twenty percent the final school because that was the way they got, the American way they got all their gunners, navigators etcetera. So I passed out fine in the Stearman at sixty hours. Lots of aerobatics. A lot more than we did in the UK. You could throw the Stearman all over the skies. It was a wonderful biplane. Then I moved on in Montgomery Alabama for basic training and of course I’d only done about seven or eight hours I think and the course ahead of us did a cross country, their final cross country and they ran into a tornado and about twenty nine out of thirty three aircraft crashed. So I think morale was a bit down that morning and when I landed I had a German instructor, Lieutenant [Kloppenstein] and he just said, ‘Mr, you’ve had it.’ Bad landing. And I was fourteen days leave and then back to Canada.
GT: So, he cancelled you from flying training.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Because of one bad landing.
JJ: An American. Virtually one sortie I think, yeah. Twenty percent were being knocked out anyway around about then you see and I’m sure I was shaking. A friend of mine was [unclear] before so we got fourteen days leave and we went down to New Orleans. Hitch hiked down to New Orleans. Then we went back and up to Trenton, Ontario where you were re-selected. Whilst at Trenton I met two pilots who had been washed out at Carlstrom Field, Arcadia, Florida for not being sufficiently doing well and they went back to Canada then and they put them on a pilot’s course and they got their wings whilst I was washing dishes in the officer’s mess [laughs] Met them. Three months and they’d got their wings. That was the system. Anyway, I opted for a navigation course and did well on it and then came back to the UK on the Queen Elizabeth with about fourteen thousand aircrew. Mostly Americans. And we stayed in Harrogate for a few weeks waiting for OTU. I then went to Operational Training Unit. That’s right. Where we all met in a room. About ten of each grade. Navigators, pilots, wireless operators and they just said, ‘Have a chat around and sort yourselves out into crews,’ which we did.
GT: So, so, Jack if we could just confirm the dates on here.
JJ: Ok.
GT: So, I’m, I’m just looking at your logbooks.
JJ: You’ve got the dates there, I think.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: So as a navigator January 1943 and you were then arrived at number 11 OTU at Oakley.
JJ: Oakley. That’s right.
GT: Yeah. April 25th 1943. So please tell us how you crewed up.
JJ: We just walked around with a cup of tea and chatted to people and mostly the pilots would say, ‘Would you like to fly with me?’ And this New Zealand sergeant came up to me and said, ‘Would you like to fly with me, sir.’ Because I was a pilot officer [laughs] And he seemed a nice fellow you know and I said, ‘Yeah, fine.’ And then we walked around and found a bomb aimer and a wireless operator. You didn’t get engineers then until you got to Dishforth training on to four engine aircraft. We picked up an engineer there. So we did the, the Wellington training cross countries and circuits and bumps etcetera. And then we went to Dishforth. 1335 or something HCU. Heavy Conversion Unit to convert on to the Stirling.
GT: Ok. Now, again looking —
JJ: Did I say Dishforth? Sorry no.
GT: From your logbook Jack can I just help you for a moment there? I’ve got there —
JJ: Near Cambridge.
GT: Yeah. Now, you, you completed with the Wellingtons forty seven hours day and twenty eight night and then you moved to 1651.
JJ: That’s right. 1665.
GT: 1651 Conversion Unit at Waterbeach.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And there —
JJ: Waterbeach.
GT: That was July 1943 and you converted to what?
JJ: Converted on to the Stirling at Waterbeach and then we were posted to 75 New Zealand Squadron at Mepal.
GT: And your logbook says July 25th 1943.
JJ: Was it as late as that?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: I thought it was earlier.
GT: And then, then you became —
JJ: That was probably the first flight.
GT: You began your operations then did you not? So —
JJ: Immediately. Yeah.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: And who was the —
JJ: You just —
GT: Commanding officer at the time, Jack.
JJ: Pardon?
GT: Who was the commanding officer at the time for you?
JJ: Roy Max I’m sure. A wonderful fellow. Absolutely wonderful. I met him later on. It was the first time an officer had called me by my first name. We just walked into his office and he says, ‘Hello Jack,’ you know, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ No officer of any rank [laughs] and I’d been in for about a year had called me by my first name before. He was wonderful. We loved him. Yeah.
GT: Fabulous. And is there —
JJ: A marvellous CO you know.
GT: And you, you completed your tour of how many operations on 75?
JJ: I think it was about twenty six because we went in to, we called it Prayer Meeting about 9 o’clock every morning which was just a meeting you know. It wasn’t no prayers or anything and the CO said, ‘Flight Sergeant Mayfield —’ and there was another crew, ‘You’ve finished your tours.’ And we sort of thought, ‘You’re joking.’ And he said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘3 Group has decided you, you know you’ve done a good tour and they’d like you to, well they want you to finish your tour now.’ So we couldn’t believe it you know. We thought we’re going to live after all [laughs] which you didn’t think you were before that you know. We lost so many crews. I think we lost twenty two out of, two out of twenty two every night.
GT: 75 New Zealand squadron at the time and they were based —
JJ: Yeah.
GT: At Newmarket for you or Mepal?
JJ: No. Mepal. They’d just moved to Mepal when I joined them. Yeah.
GT: That was a brand new airfield.
JJ: A new airfield. There was mud everywhere, you know and we were in Nissen huts but that was alright.
GT: And it had a rather terrible nickname at the time.
JJ: They were known as the Chop Squadron in 3 Group. Everybody knew 75 for some reason as the Chop Squadron because they lost so many crews. But there was nothing wrong with the crews. They were absolutely first class wonderful chaps. Never flown with anyone better and we were just, somebody had to be unlucky and it seemed that we were whether we were the start of a raid or the end of the raid, wave or something we just [pause] I’m sure one night we lost three crews. One had done twenty seven, it sticks in my memory and they were almost finished their tour. One at twenty three and I think the other one was fourteen and I think at the time we’d done thirteen. We were then the senior crew on the squadron. But three best crews like that just went. A fighter or something must have got into them you know. They were close together. But they were first class crews you know. But it wasn’t very good for morale. We lost our radio operator after one trip actually. He went LMF and we had another w/op and two more trips he went LMF. They disappeared over night, you know. You didn’t see them to say, ‘Goodbye mate.’ One was Wally [Gee] I remember. He was twenty seven. We called him grandad. He was older than we were at twenty, twenty one but a nice lad but he got the shakes and he couldn’t do anything when we got back in the circuit and he was gone in the morning and the other one the same. There was quite a lot of LMF at the time. People couldn’t cope, you know.
GT: What, what was the feeling about the aircraft? The Stirling itself. Was there a doubt?
JJ: We liked it you know. We came back several times on three engines and once on two you know and the only trouble was you rarely got about fourteen thousand six hundred feet because you know they’d had this trouble. They’d locked off, had to lop off the wingtips. They couldn’t get them in the hangar before they went in to service. And it couldn’t get the height with the bomb load. You couldn’t get, rarely got to fifteen thousand. I think we got to fifteen thousand on the trip to Turin in the cold air over the Alps. But the rest of the time it was about fourteen six for bombing. Halifaxes at eighteen and Lancs at twenty, twenty one.
GT: Were all your operations at night?
JJ: Yeah. In the first tour.
GT: And did you encounter night fighters at all?
JJ: Oh, a lot, yes. We were, we had some very close deals you know with night fighters coming in but luckily the rear gunners were good. They seemed to go somewhere else you know. Sprayed. We always came back with holes, flak holes in the wings and everywhere. Holes everywhere in fact. But, and I think about three times we had to corkscrew with a gunner coming in and you’d lose about a thousand feet like this, you know. And if you were coned the Germans, had some searchlights that were on radar and if you were coned you had a devil of a job and you were a sitting target for the night fighters then. So you did a terrific, lost a thousand feet or so over ninety degrees down and then up and my stuff on the navigation table would all hit the roof. I was hanging on to the table. I would have hit the roof. But pencils and paper and everything went up and down on the floor but you were lucky. You avoided being shot down.
GT: That was your tail gunner yelling, ‘Skipper corkscrew left or right.’
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did it immediately.
GT: Could you hear him? Could you brace yourself?
JJ: Oh yes. ‘Corkscrew.’ So you grabbed the desk you know and you went over and down about a thousand feet and then up again and it seemed to work every time. You evaded the fighter or the searchlights. It happened I would think on the first tour at least six times because I remember blooming charts and everything going up to the roof. Trying to hang on.
GT: Was your skipper good at that?
JJ: Very very good. He was first class. Cool as a cucumber. No bother. He was. We had the utmost trust in him. He was a very good pilot. Very good. Yeah. Alan. Wonderful. I was so sorry I couldn’t get in touch with him at the end of the war, you know. I’d have liked to have done.
GT: Several, several other chaps have told me of a story of being on the toilet can in the back when a corkscrew happened and it wasn’t very pleasant so —
JJ: No [laughs] it wouldn’t be. No. Had to make your way down to the toilet you know in pitch darkness. Climb over the spar and feel your way down. They used to say take an oxygen bottle with you. I just took two deep breaths, you know and then had a whiff down there and then came back. Usually managed to wait until after the target area to go for a wee. I couldn’t do that nowadays.
GT: Yeah. Fabulous. So —
JJ: But they had a wonderful spirit in the crew despite all these losses. In all the crews you know. The only words you ever heard at breakfast someone would say, ‘Poor old Gerald Smith and Dick Tracey bought it last night.’ And that was what we always said. ‘Bought it last night.’ And that was it. You didn’t talk any more about it. I think you couldn’t. It would have upset you you know where they’d gone. You just hoped they’d baled out but you never knew. We never had the messages back. That was just, that’s all you ever said. So and so bought it last night. Oh God. Hard luck. Then you got on with your job. You had to.
GT: What was it like flying into Newmarket because I understand —
JJ: I didn’t fly from Newmarket. Mepal.
GT: I beg your pardon. Mepal.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: You were flying out of Mepal then and you had Witchford next door.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: So did the two airfields conflict at all?
JJ: Then when we came back we did a circuit around the two airfields. So there were about forty aircraft milling around and sometimes you had to put your lights out because there would be a Jerry around you know. A fighter. And, and often VHF was so bad then, the HF was the wireless operator would get the ok to go in and land, you know on the Morse. The voice communications were terrible then in ‘43. They improved later.
GT: Because Lincoln always had their cathedral to home by. What did Mepal have that you guys could home in on?
JJ: We had a light. A flashing light, you know. What do you call it? I can’t think of the light giving the two letters of the airfield.
GT: The aldis lamp.
JJ: You had, you had Gee. Gee was just starting up. The first Gee we had the Mark 1. It was terrible, of course. It wouldn’t, you would just set it up and ten minutes later it would go off frequency. But fairly quickly after in that first tour we got Mark 2 Gee and that was a great help and that was good for getting back to base. It was wonderful. You could just home down easily. It was really good if that was working and it usually was. It was a wonderful aid that was. We got that going out as far as the Dutch Coast and then you lost it so you could get good winds as far as the Dutch Coast and then you were on dead reckoning and guessing what the winds were from what they’d been wrong. The Met winds were always thirty degrees out and ten miles an hour but they were something to start with. But you usually got a wind, a good wind by the time you touched the Dutch coast from the Gee. We took pictures back I think about every four minutes or something like that while you’d still got it. Wonderful aid.
GT: And what about the the Ely church or the spire from the Ely side of things.
JJ: I don’t think we ever saw that.
GT: You couldn’t see it.
JJ: No.
GT: No.
JJ: No. We did training on it on our next tour with GH. I’ve got a lovely photograph with the tower right bang in the middle because I was the GH leader in the second tour on 218.
GT: Right. Well, I’ve got you completing your tour —
JJ: December.
GT: Well, November 26th was your last flight with 75 New Zealand squadron out of Mepal.
JJ: ’43.
GT: In 1943.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: Yeah. And, and from there where did you move to from there because your crew was —
JJ: I went direct. Myself and my bomb aimer both went to Lancaster Finishing School which was at Feltwell as instructors and my pilot went to another airfield not far away. I can’t remember where because later on one night we cycled over there and then got caught by a policeman coming back. Funny story. Do you want to hear that?
GT: Please. I’d love to.
JJ: Right. Jock Somerville, the bomb aimer and myself got a call from Alan Mayfield one day to say he’d just been commissioned because he was just a flight sergeant when he went to, I can’t think of the name of the airfield. It was only about six miles away. And he said, ‘I’ve just been commissioned. Can you get a bicycle and come over for Sunday tea?’ So we got the out the old [Senda] bike you know and we went off on the Sunday afternoon for tea. We didn’t drink. No one was really drunk in those days you know. All the times on the first tour I never had a drink of spirits or beer or anything. I don’t think the majority of the rest of the crew did. Alan Mayfield didn’t. It was difficult. I was in the officer’s mess and the rest of the crew were in the sergeant’s you see so you couldn’t have much to do with one another other than crew room and what not. But we all got on so well together but so we went over to Chedburgh would it have been? No. Not Chedburgh. That’s where I did my second tour. I can’t think of the name. Six miles away roughly. So we went over and then he said, ‘Well, you know, stay for dinner, you know.’ So we stayed for dinner and I think we did have a couple of beers because he’d been commissioned. So we were on our way back to Feltwell and there was a light ahead of us waving so we slowed up and there was a blooming policeman in the middle of the road. So, I don’t know whether Jock or I said, ‘Go.’ And he went one side of the policeman pedalling like mad and I went the other and we went about thirty yards and there was a barrier across the road [laughs] I had to stop. So of course, the policeman came along and you know we said, ‘Well, we’ve been a year, or you know, months bombing over Germany. We’ve just had a rest now.’ And he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ll have to take your names.’ And we thought that was the end of it. We cycled on and I was lecturing about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. There was a tap on the door and there was this blooming policeman and oh, Jock had said his name was Smith and I said it was Jones [laughs] So he said, ‘Are you Mr Jack Jones.’ And I said, ‘I’m afraid so.’ He said, ‘I’m sorry but you’re going to be summoned.’ And believe it or not we were summoned to the local court for riding a bicycle without lights at 11 o’clock at night on a country road with no, no traffic or anything at all. Well, I went into Ely Hospital to have my tonsils out then. I’d had some throat trouble. Jock went along to the court and he was fined ten shillings. And then they called my name and Jock explained that I was in hospital and the judge said, ‘Fifteen shillings.’ Well, Jock was a very fiery Scotsman and he jumped up and he said, ‘You can’t do that. We were both together and you fined me ten shillings and fifteen shillings for him.’ Well, the judge said, ‘Very well, you can find, you can pay fifteen shillings as well.’ [laughs] You can’t believe it can you? In the middle of the war.
GT: Astonishing. Jeez. So —
JJ: It was quite a joke.
GT: What a joke. Jack, I’m looking through your logbook and you joined Number 3 Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: January 8, 1944 and, and pretty much you spent all year there. Is that correct?
JJ: Yeah. Ten, ten months before I was back on ops.
GT: So how many crews would you have trained or lectured or shown?
JJ: I think the crews came for a month because they did quite a bit of circuits and bumps and then they did a couple of cross countries and then went off. Crews coming mostly from the, from Cambridge you know. There.
GT: So, you’d done a full tour on Stirlings and then went to a Lancaster Finishing School.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Where did you get your Lancaster training from or didn’t it matter?
JJ: Oh, it just, well I mean the equipment was all the same. It was no bother. You just got in. We didn’t do much. Sometimes I flew on a cross country with a crew but that was just finishing. Most of it was circuits and bumps and lecturing in the, you know, ground school lecturing. The information you could give them. How to, you know, be sure and keep on track, not to stray off because they picked up the strays and other little tips you learned from navigating, you know. How important it was to keep in the main stream and not get out of it. Things like that we used to give them. Other odds and ends. There wasn’t a lot of Ground School but they did a couple of cross countries and we had to mark them of course and you know help them with any tips or anything on navigating. It was mainly after you crossed the coast you were on your own. You hardly got a fix on anything you see. You couldn’t get anything. You couldn’t anything in the Astro. I used to do a bit of Astro coming back but not on the way out to the target. Bomb aimer would look out and he would see probably fifteen miles away flak going up. Someone had gone off track and you knew that that was some town you know or other and you could get a bearing. He’d give me a bearing on that on the astrocompass. And that was a good ground speed check or something like that you see as you went out and you just used your Met knowledge mainly to think what the winds had changed to and then you always got a good fix over the target. That’s why I never got into the astrodome except once because you got a fix there and you got your, you could get a good wind for the last three or four hundred miles you see to use on the way back.
GT: So your bomb aimer helped you with a lot of the navigational help.
JJ: With the visual. If we, if it was clear he might be able to see crossing a river on the way just if the moonlight was out. He could say, ‘We’re crossing a river now.’ And that was a great help. You could look it up on the topographical map and that would be a hell of a good help and give an estimate, ‘Oh, there’s a town over — ’ And he’d take a bearing on it with the astrocompass coming up and say I would think it was about, you know just a guess ten or twelve miles away. Well, that was a great help. One of the greatest things was you knew if you got a lot of buffeting from time to time you knew you were in the main stream then, you know. There’s about six hundred other aircraft going that way. So you were delighted to get a bump, you know. You knew you weren’t far away from the from the main stream.
GT: When you were in the main stream did you have aircraft above you and therefore they were dropping their bombs? Did you have any near misses in that way?
JJ: We had a very near miss. I’m not sure if it was first tour or second on Peenemunde. The end of the tour I think. You know there was the rocket range there. It’s the first tour wasn’t it?
GT: So that was the V-1 flying Doodlebugs.
JJ: No. The V-2.
GT: It was the V-2s was it?
JJ: V-2s they were developing there. I think they’d done the V-1 already. Is Peenemunde? I think. I thought Peenemunde was on the first tour.
GT: Ok. So, so what happened there? The bombs went past you.
JJ: We flew up nearly to Sweden and then we were bombing from eight thousand feet coming in and the Stirlings were on the first wave. Have you found Peenemunde?
GT: That’s fine. You carry on telling the story and I’ll see.
JJ: It was the first time I’d managed to get into the astrodome because it was fairly quiet flying in. There wasn’t a lot of flak or anything and I looked up and saw a Lancaster just above us probably not more than sixty or seventy feet, maybe a hundred feet with bomb doors, bomb doors open and I screamed at the pilot, ‘Turn hard starboard now, now, now.’ And he immediately went up and as the wing went up the stick of bombs went down about twenty yards. Where we’d been. And they would all have gone through us. You see, the bomb aimer’s looking ahead. Doesn’t see something here. And that was a Lancaster actually. I reckon he was early on target. He shouldn’t have been above us. We were just eight thousand feet but that was the nearest we ever had of having bombs through the wing. I certainly wouldn’t have been here now if I hadn’t gone into that astrodome. You see the mid-upper gunner is busy looking around at his level for fighters and didn’t think to look up. But it was a very close shave.
GT: Great.
JJ: It didn’t miss us by more than twenty yards I reckon. You could see every five hundred pounder going down.
GT: Your bomb loads that you had was there anything special or everything was just cookies, five hundreds?
JJ: Usually had a cookie. Four thousand. Four thousand and made up of five hundreds and incendiaries depending on what the target was, you know. Occasionally a few thousand pounders but mainly five hundreds.
GT: Did you do any special ops or was it all just standard?
JJ: No, it was all, the first tour was all standard targets. Yeah.
GT: So, from your time with Lancaster Finishing School did the crews come to you brand new from joining up or —
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Were there a mixture of experienced —
JJ: Yeah. No. Virtually no experience. They were all new trainees. There might be the odd pilot or the odd navigator doing a second tour. The odd pilot doing a second tour. But nearly everybody coming through LFS when I was there were first tour people, you know. They’d come from overseas, done OTU, conversion on to the Stirling at Cambridge and then they came to us to fly the Lancs.
GT: So once you’d finished at LFS was that your choice and did you apply for another tour?
JJ: No. You didn’t apply. You just went where you were told. Yeah.
GT: So they put you on a second tour without you asking.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they just came through one day. December wasn’t it? Just before Christmas and said, ‘You’re posted to 218 Squadron.’ And I was off in about a week. Had a week’s leave and away we went. But I was delighted to get on the Lanc you know. Such a good aeroplane to fly. You know the Stirling soared up at this angle and you had a job to climb in. We had faith in the Stirling but we, I don’t know we knew that we’d have been better on Lancasters, you know. We just because the height you know. You got the light flak. You got all everything at fourteen thousand five hundred feet or so.
GT: What was your main height for the Lancaster bombing raids?
JJ: They were more about eighteen. Usually about eighteen or nineteen. You could get it up to twenty one but usually bombing height was eighteen or nineteen. We did quite a lot of daylight raids in ’45 on 218 and we, we qualified as a marker, GH marker so we had two aircraft formating on us. A daylight raid you had one either side. You know, a few yards off and then you had to watch us and push the bomb tit as our bombs went and even though the bomb aimer could see the aiming point he wasn’t allowed to push the tit until I said. On the GH was very accurate. You had two intersecting lines. You kept yourself on one and then said, ‘Bomb now.’ You know and you pushed the tit for the bombs. Lots on bridges and specialised targets. Mainly on bridge crossings it was in the book there, I think. Shorter trips. And of course, we had a bit of fighter cover as well so it was a lot safer. The losses weren’t anything like they were on Stirlings in ’44. ’43/44 was a bad time for everybody wasn’t it?
GT: So, the aircraft numbers for instance. Each, each squadron generally had twelve aircraft per flight.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: So 75 Squadron had three flights of twelve. Did 218 Squadron have that many and how many did you fly?
JJ: No. Two flights I’m sure. 218.
GT: Ok. You might have gone up with twenty four aircraft a night. Or a day trip perhaps.
JJ: Say again.
GT: Did you fly with twenty four aircraft all the time?
JJ: No. You know, there was always two U/S or something or you hadn’t the crews. If you lost two crews and two new crews would arrive that day. I think on average we put up twenty. Twenty aircraft. Sometimes twenty one and very occasionally twenty two but usually it was about twenty aircraft.
GT: Can you describe for me the purpose of a pilot from a new crew arriving and going as a second dickie? Can you describe that for me?
JJ: Well, all the pilot did when you arrived on the squadron your pilot went as a second dickie with an experienced crew just to get the feel of the thing. See what it was like, you know and learn a few tips on flying and corkscrewing and that sort of thing. And then you were on your own. And you always, I think you always did two mining trips. You did what do you call it? Probably got the name in there. You did a mining trip to just off Germany. The islands there.
GT: They did some gardening.
JJ: Gardening. It’s called gardening. That’s right. So you did that low. You dropped them from I think about a thousand feet. They were on parachutes you know and you got to the area, you got quite a lot of flak on that first area. There must have been a lot of ships around us. And we, I can’t remember if it was two or four and then we did a second gardening trip down to Bordeaux and we were coming back fairly low because we’d dropped the things low. And it was a nice moonlight night and bomb aimer was sitting in the nose then and he said, ‘There’s a train down below skipper. Let’s go down and shoot it up.’ So we did and we blew it up. When we got back to debriefing the intelligence officers said, ‘Don’t you ever do that again because they’re equipping most of the trains with, you know machine guns and whatnot because the fighters had been doing a lot of this and the train had got a chap with four Bofors guns or something and you hadn’t got a chance if you flew in at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. So we thought we’d done well, you know. We were thinking everybody was going to say, ‘Well done.’ [laughs] But they said, ‘Don’t ever do it again.’
GT: You got lucky.
JJ: It was quite fun to see this train blow up.
GT: Some crews have told me that they did a whole tour without using their nose guns. Did you in your tours did they use them at all?
JJ: That’s the only time we used it. On the train. Nose and the tail. Yeah. No. We never saw anything in front. Fighters came up behind you and underneath you see. So no bomb aimer never fired those guns. He used to test them and that was all.
GT: And that was going to be my next question. Do those that man those guns in the nose was generally going to be the bomb aimer if —
JJ: The bomb aimer in the front.
GT: If he needed to.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. So going into your second tour then Jack so you were posted off to 218 Gold Coast Squadron.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: And Gold Coast is Australian or South African?
JJ: South Africa.
GT: South African side.
JJ: I think. I’m sure it was South African.
GT: And there was a South African connection like New Zealand had.
JJ: There must have been some connection in, you know a lot earlier. They had Gold Coast in brackets for some reason or other. We never met anybody from the Gold Coast or anything. It was probably the first war. They might have provided some people. Fighters or something and they kept the name going when they resurrected it anyway.
GT: So when you were posted on did you get a choice of a crew or did you just get given?
JJ: No. I was posted. Posted there and arrived and, ‘This is your crew.’ You know. The pilot was a first tour. I was second tour and the two air gunners were second tour. Great chaps. They were a bit older than me. They were thirty one and they’d both been gunnery leaders on different, you know, in between and they were first class they were. So —
GT: Your logbook shows that you, you did, you arrived there in February 1945.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And you continued on from your first tour of twenty one ops and you did your twenty second op on February the 7th. So —
JJ: That’s right.
GT: So was there anything outstanding about 218? Anything that you remember that was of note.
JJ: Well, I don’t want it to go in the book. The CO. Are you recording?
GT: Yes.
JJ: No. I won’t say anything.
GT: Ok. Whatever.
JJ: I’ll tell you afterwards. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. So, so you got various. I can see day and night flights here.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And —
JJ: We had a good, we had a good crew. We had two excellent gunners and we did get the odd other attack. I think I did a Berlin trip there didn’t we? Yeah.
GT: Right. So, I’ve got your second operational tour was completed on the 24th of April 1945 and your total operational hours by day sixty eight hours and total operational nights fifty hours. Total grand operational hours a hundred and nineteen and ten minutes.
JJ: That was a full tour anyway for me and a second tour was, was that.
GT: Now, for your work you were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: Can you tell me about that please?
JJ: There’s not much to say. I think I’d probably been a good navigator. Good results, you know from our bombing and everything. So for some reason or other I was awarded the DFC. Nobody else in either of the crews was actually so I think, I think I was a good navigator. We didn’t have any problems. We had one dicey coming back trip when we were on two engines coming across France and the engineer said we were losing fuel. We’d been shot up a bit. I can’t remember which, I think we landed right at the end. Bradwell Bay. And coming across France and I managed to pick out a diversion airfield and got us there and as we’d taxied around the, as we were going in to land the engineer said the tanks are just about empty. As we taxied around the runway all four engines cut. Another five minutes and we wouldn’t be here now anyway.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: We’d have stalled out but we’d had, we knew we were losing fuel you know and we’d had fighter attacks and whatnot but we couldn’t do anything about it. We just made it to the South Coast so that was Bradwell Bay. So we went, left the aircraft and went back on the train with parachutes and everything else [laughs] nav bags and sextant.
GT: Were your aircraft replaced pretty quickly if you lost any?
JJ: Yeah. We didn’t usually fly in the same aircraft. At 218 we did. We had Queenie that had done about fifty, sixty trips and we did quite a few trips in Queenie. And she features in some of the post-war picture books, you know. That one lasted, oh it was just about the end of the war when we finished anyway. But otherwise, you know we never had an aircraft last long enough you were different aircraft nearly every, pretty well every night.
GT: Your logbook shows Queenie to be LM577 and your total operational tally of sorties was forty one.
JJ: I don’t know.
GT: Now, for me that’s, the use of the word mission was —
JJ: No.
GT: Was not correct and you guys did operations.
JJ: Yeah. We didn’t call it missions. The Americans called it missions. We never used the word mission. No. So many ops was the term. Nobody ever used missions. No.
GT: Fabulous. Alright so and then once you had finished your last operation, your forty first one there and that was April 1945 what happened to you after that? Was it VE day to come?
JJ: I was posted. No. It was just before and I was first tour, second tour you see. The rest of the crew and the gunners were second tour. They told us we’d finished our tour. The pilot and the engineer and the wireless operator hadn’t finished. They were on their first tour so they were left and they, I went on leave for a fortnight and when I came back they started dropping the food to the Dutch. So I went along to see the CO and said, ‘I’m posted up to Catterick, you know to get me out of the way. I’d like to stay and fly with my crew.’ Well, I don’t want this to go on the — turn it off.
GT: Ok.
[recording paused]
JJ: Ok. I think the flight commander or the station commander must have put up for the DFC because I got it just, just before I finished my tour and I was the only member of that crew to get one and my other crew hadn’t either. First tour. So I had to be off to Catterick to Selection Board trying to find someone to take the place of all the bank managers and people who had been doing admin jobs. So I was sent off to be adjutant at [pause] it was near Lincoln. Fighter Sector Headquarters. Wonderful. I thought my God some people have had an easy job. It was a Fighter Sector with about sixty, seventy girls and about ten airmen and a group captain, a wing commander and a squadron leader in charge of it. And they had Group Captain Arthur Donaldson as head of them. A fighter man. Wonderful chap and he insisted on having a beer every lunchtime actually [laughs] And it only lasted about three months I think and they closed the station down, you know. They didn’t need Fighter Sector Headquarters any more. And I went from there to Molesworth which was 1335 Conversion Unit for Meteors. Jets.
GT: Now we’re talking February 1946.
JJ: That’s right. And I was the first navigator to fly in a, in a jet because they converted one on the station. The engineering officer went for the first trip and I went up for the second. That was before they had dual seats in the, in the Meteors. Wonderful. Zoom. I loved it.
GT: I’m looking at your logbook and that flight was October the 16th 1946 in EE229 Meteor 1 and your pilot was Flight Lieutenant Williams. That’s pretty fair for twenty minutes. Yeah.
JJ: Yeah. I was —
GT: So with your DFC, Jack did you get handed it or did you have to go and get —
JJ: No. I got the letter from the, signed by George, you know saying I’m sorry I can’t give it to you.
GT: In person.
JJ: But well done. That sort of thing.
GT: You didn’t have to go down to the —
JJ: Didn’t have to go down to the Palace. No. No.
GT: So, did your CO just pin it on you or —
JJ: No. Just got it in the post I think. I can’t remember the CO giving it to me.
GT: God.
JJ: He might have done but he wasn’t on the squadron, you see. I’d moved on.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Admin jobs and whatnot there.
GT: So after the war had finished were you given an option to carry on? And you were what rank by then?
JJ: I was flight lieutenant then.
GT: Ok.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: So did you get given an option to stay on in the peacetime?
JJ: No. Just with your age they just said, you know, ‘You won’t be demobbed for another year or so.’ So then I went from [pause] I went down to Chivenor as adjutant. I went to I think Molesworth first. That’s right. Molesworth and Bentwaters. That’s where we had the Jet Training Unit. Yeah. And from Bentwaters, oh I had a chat on the phone to the [unclear] people at Command one day. They were very friendly you know and they said, ‘Is there anything you wanted to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, I want to get back on flying.’ They said, ‘We can’t do that but there’s a job going as adjutant down at Chivenor.’ So that was the Spitfire OTU sort of thing you know. They were still converting people then flying Spits. So I went down to Chivenor and I seemed to get on well with the CO there who hadn’t been a flying man during the war. He was a very nice man but we had several Spit accidents you know and I had to arrange funerals and things. Totally new. Never had any experience of all these jobs and one day he said, ‘Would you like to apply for a permanent commission?’ I think I’d been there about six months. He said, ‘I’ll recommend you if you like.’ So I was delighted. Didn’t really know what I was going to do when I went there. I wanted some different job than the one I’d been doing before you know and I hadn’t had any training. And I got a permanent commission while I was there you know. Group Captain Whitfield or something. Something like that. I can’t remember his name. But I don’t think I did any, I don’t think they had, they had an Oxford or something there I flew around in but not very much. I think I did about eighteen months there and I was constantly court martials and things. Talking to the [unclear] people at Command and I always said, ‘When am I going back on flying?’ And they came up one day and said, ‘We can’t get you back into Bomber Command. We don’t move people there.’ From where I was it was fighter I think or something or training but he said, ‘Would you like to go on to Hastings?’ I had to do all refresher courses because I’d been off flying for about three years. So I went to Swinderby on Wellingtons and then Hastings up at [pause] oh dear. By the Great North Road. You’ve got it there. Dishforth. And another refresher course at somewhere. Somewhere near there. Anyway, Dishforth was the Hastings course and I went to a squadron. 511 Squadron at Lyneham on the Hastings and I loved it and I’ve still got a, you know you had a grading system. You had to pass exams. I was sort of a fully fledged passenger and everything else. We did trips to Singapore. The Middle East mainly. Usually did about one trip a month or two months to Singapore. Did lots of trips to the Middle East freight and passengers. A lot of passengers.
GT: Jack, I’ve got you 241 OCU. You were there from December 31, 1949. And you —
JJ: About three months.
GT: You flew right there to the end of March 1950 and then you joined 511 Squadron.
JJ: 511 Squadron.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: That’s right.
GT: April 1950.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: And you flew with them right through to [pause] well your logbook goes on up until 1952. So you were flying all over the world with the Hastings.
JJ: Yeah. Mainly the Far East. Not the world but I think we did one trip to America. I can’t remember now. Maybe not. I think we went to the Azores but I can’t remember. But mainly it was to the Middle East and the Far East. I went to Japan. The war was on then and we took winter vests out for the British who had been sent out in the middle of winter without any winter clothing. And we actually arrived there the day before Christmas and we said, they said, ‘Oh, you needn’t fly over on Christmas day.’ It was an American base you see. And we said, ‘Well these chaps need these vests. We’ll go.’ So on Christmas Day we flew over to Tokyo and we had to orbit for fifty minutes before we landed. The jets, American fighter jets were just around and around you know. The Korean War. We landed. They all came over because they hadn’t seen an aeroplane sitting up like this before [laughs] They were quite surprised. Wondered what it was and then we went back and went into the mess and they said, ‘Sorry they had lunch at lunchtime. There’s no food.’ [laughs] At that time funnily enough I had an American pilot on an exchange scheme, a Polish co-pilot and an Irish wireless operator and we had a bottle of whisky between us and went to bed. That was our Christmas. Christmas dinner. We hadn’t had any food over in Tokyo. You know. Too busy. But that was something to remember.
GT: So then you moved over to, I see Valettas. What squadron were you with there?
JJ: Valettas. Oh, what did I do in between?
GT: In Libya.
JJ: Libya. Yeah. I went out to, I was posted out to Castel Benito in Libya as adjutant and I was promoted there after about six months to squadron leader. So I was posted down to the Canal Zone and I was in charge of the, mainly with the Army dropping paratroops and doing the routes down to Livingstone and all over the place there for a bit. And then for some reason or other, oh that was it the senior admin officer at Shallufa down in the Canal Zone was repatriated for inefficiency or something like that and I was sent down as senior admin officer. There was a wing commander there and we had the Lincolns used to come out and do their bombing on the bombing range there. So I was there until probably about eighteen months. The station closed down and I actually handed over to the Egyptians and they’d all been trained at Cranwell. There was about six majors came along. Everybody on the station had gone except myself then and the Egyptians arrived and our lads, a few left to guard the place were flown home and I handed over to these Egyptians. So I’d laid on a lunch for them and it was a good lunch and the first thing they said was, ‘Have you got any whisky?’ And we brought out, luckily we’d got a crate of whisky left and they all had whisky. Lots of whisky with their lunch. Then we brought the flag down and put theirs up and I was off to Fayid. And I’d left my car. I’d bought a car at Castel Benito and I had to leave it there for eighteen months but the young MT officer used to look after it for me and I arrived back and the family were actually out there then. They did come out to Shallufa. The wife and the two boys about five and six. So we all flew back to Shallufa and I said, ‘I’m not putting my car on a boat and taking it home. I’m driving home.’ And I got the ok to drive all the way. Five thousand miles. North African coast, back through France and I arrived back about two days before Christmas Day. It took us six weeks and lo couldn’t get any film to take any pictures on the way but it all went fine, you know. We’d find a little hotel every night and booked into it. Oh, the young, we had a great help. The young MT officer was going out of the Service and he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You couldn’t find room for me?’ I had the Ford Zephyr. A big car. I had big cases on the top you know and I said, ‘Oh, we can squeeze you in, Norman.’ So he came with us. Well, before we got to Algiers he said, ‘You know, the engine’s making a nasty noise. I think you’d better stop.’ So I stopped and he dipped the, I didn’t know there was a dipstick for the engine oil. The oil. Gear oil. It was dry. So he said if we’d gone on another ten miles it would have seized up. So he went, he hitchhiked about twenty miles into one of the towns. I can’t think of which one. He said, ‘I couldn’t get the proper oil. I got some oil. That’ll get us to the next town.’ And it did and we got, there was a Ford dealer there you know and Northern Algiers. It wasn’t as far as that. No. I can’t remember where it was. Anyway, we got the car checked over and it was ok and filled up with the proper oil and we carried on. Crossed over from Tangier to Gib. My eldest son, it was misty, it was just before Christmas and suddenly Gibraltar appeared. I knew the skipper of the ship because I’d met him when he was on Hastings. He used to come in the mess you see. And two days later we were in what’s the [pause] Malaga. That’s right. David who was about six and a half then. He said, ‘You know dad. I’m going to join the Navy.’ It was this strip across, you know just the thing from, so I said, ‘You’re not joining the Navy until you go to university.’ But he applied to Dartmouth and was accepted. He served a year. He loved it but he said, he came home one day and he said, ‘Dad, I’m not going to be a normal Naval officer.’ It was a bit snotty you know and he liked to do what he liked and when he liked and he said, ‘I think I want to come out.’ So I saw his CO who said, he was doing engineering he said, ‘If he doesn’t come out within three months they won’t let him out because he was doing all the, getting all this training.’ He’d just done the service training. So anyway, we didn’t have to pay much but we got him out and he applied for university and all three accepted him. He went to Swansea and got a good degree in engineering and he’s the one who’s in America now. Seventy years old. Still working. Loving it.
GT: Well —
JJ: Teaching you know modern electronics and whatnot to everybody.
GT: Well, military is obviously in your family Jack and I’m looking at your logbook from 1954 in Shallufa and I can see the aircraft types range from the Hastings to the Valetta, Beaufighter and Pembroke.
JJ: Oh, we had the Beaufighter at Shallufa.
So the, well where was that from?
JJ: Used to go down and the CO flew in and I went with him and we used to go down and get fruit and veg from Akaba because the Egyptians wouldn’t let us buy any local fruit and veg. The NAAFI. So we used to go and fill it up there. Probably got a bit of whisky as well I think.
GT: So, by, by March 1955 you were back in England and it says here you were based in [Khormaksar?]. What aircraft types did you work on from there and where did you move to?
JJ: I went to 18 Group when I came back from first of all from the Middle East. I can’t remember which station. 18 Group were the headquarters at near Rosyth. Pitreavie Castle. That was it. It was the headquarters and it controlled all the aircraft in the Atlantic you know. All the Shackletons and everybody else in the Atlantic. Anti-submarine warfare. And there again I said, ‘Can I get back flying on Transport Command?’ And again the [unclear] people said, ‘We can’t. The Air Ministry do that. But if you like we can get you on to Shackletons.’ So I jumped at it and I went up to Kinloss and did the Shackleton course and I went to Ballykelly as a flight commander then for about two years.
GT: Two years on Shackletons.
JJ: Yeah. Great. We used to do, well fifteen hour trips mainly. One a month fifteen hours which was pretty wearying and you worked all the time. You didn’t just fly around. You had a rendezvous out with a submarine somewhere in the Atlantic you know and probably a ship and you got sonar buoys tracking the submarine. You did exercises with them out, two or three hundred miles out or more in the Atlantic and you used to get the odd ship, trip to Gibraltar as a bonus occasionally. But it was all anti-submarine work all the time you know tracking Russian submarines. Very interesting work photographing them if there were warships out. Fly alongside and wave [laughs]
GT: So, your logbook reads that you were on 204 Squadron for most of that time.
JJ: That’s right. I was flight commander.
GT: And then your last entry in your logbook is from MOTU, St Mawgan.
JJ: That’s right. I was posted down at OC Ground Training at St Mawgan. Again the Shackleton.
GT: And your last flight —
JJ: Operational Conversion Unit. Yeah.
GT: And your last flight showing 29 June 1966.
JJ: What was that in?
GT: Shackletons.
JJ: Shackleton. Yeah.
GT: And your final hours total two thousand two hundred and fifty two hours fifty minutes by day, and night six hundred and ninety three twenty five minutes. That’s, that’s a huge sum of hours there Jack.
JJ: Quite a lot isn’t it. Yeah.
GT: Total.
JJ: Yeah. It was a lovely aeroplane to fly in, the Shackleton you know. It was reliable and and the crew we had five radio, five radio operators and two that rotated the jobs. One on radar, one on tracking the sonar buoys, another one looking out and observing. One probably in the galleys [laughs] And I forget what the other one did but it was enjoyable flying you know. Good crew flying.
GT: So when did you retire from the RAF?
JJ: I went out from St Mawgan to Cyprus as OC of the ops room there. Most of our aircraft we had to control the Vulcans at [pause] what’s the place?
GT: Akrotiri?
JJ: Akrotiri. That’s right. Actually, I had all the Vulcan. I had top secret. It was more than top secret. It was something else. I had the safe with all the plans for a war with Russia. Even the air commodore wasn’t allowed to look at it, believe it or not. The air commodore. And I used to give him, he wanted, he only lived across the road like that in a big thing, you know and he used to come across to the Ops Room every morning for briefing. And then he found out in the UK they had television so they sent me back to Bomber Command to do a quick course on television presenting and we got television in and so I briefed him just across the road. Pointed to the targets every morning on the television. I can’t believe it. Absolute waste of money and we used to like to see him as well because he’d have a chat. He sat in his office with his briefing on the screen. Oh dear.
GT: So the ultimate for you was —
JJ: And from there I was OC. I went out with short notice from St Mawgan. The previous squadron leader was someone I knew. He had been CO of ASWDU, Air Sea Warfare Development Unit at Londonderry. Yeah, where, I did a tour there as well. He was a very efficient chap and he fell out with the group captain and he packed him up one weekend and sent him home. Said he wanted another officer. So I was, went out because they wanted a maritime man out there. I went out at about a week’s notice to, to Headquarters and took over the ops room there. And then I was coming out. I was due out at forty nine. So I put in an application to stay in you know to normal retiring age sixty years and they came back and said they couldn’t give me a flying job, you know. You know, flying. But they offered me to transfer to the supply branch so I went as OC. I did the course, and it was funny there were two of us. Two. A pole and myself had been wartime and the other, I think eighteen students were all university. Fellas and girls and we came top of the course. We didn’t know a thing about it but you see they were out at dances every night and enjoying themselves in the pubs and we were sitting, we sat together and swatted. Anyway, we came top of the course which was very satisfying and I went to the Helicopter Conversion Unit which was good because I never put that in my logbook, you know. I had the odd flight there and worked with them and I found it was the easiest job I’d had in the Air Force. Being OC Supply for a big unit, you know. I thought my golly some people have had an easy time. And from there I was very keen to settle in Scotland and I applied for any chance of a job at Kinloss. About the only place and they said no. But they offered me a job at Carlisle. OC packaging. So I went on another course and learned about packaging and I packed everything from a split pin to an aircraft wing you know at Carlisle. And again it was good. They were all civilian. They just had one squadron leader and then they were all civilians. The rest were people in the hangars you know. But we got on well again and I found it a piece of cake you know from flying days with all the troubles and things that happened when you were flying. It was, it was easy going. Yeah. Quite fun. So that was my career.
GT: And this, you retired from Carlisle.
JJ: I retired from Carlisle.
GT: And what year was that, Jack?
JJ: I tried to get a job, fifty five and thirty two. Seventy seven. I tried to get a job and I thought I’m in packaging you know. Equipment. I went to a big furniture place in Carlisle and I told him what I’d been doing and I said, ‘You know, we’ve got the computer and we put in automatic supply when something is sold and whatever.’ Well, they hadn’t got any and he said, ‘I’m afraid you’re too experienced.’ He was afraid I was going to take over his job. I said, ‘I’m quite happy to do a menial job. I just want a job to do something.’ So he said, ‘I’m sorry. No.’ He thought I was after his. And then I decided well I’d met Joyce. My wife and I hadn’t been getting on for a long time. You’re not putting this on tape are you?
GT: No. So ok, you met Joyce and —
JJ: I met Joyce and we got married after about three years. But the reason I haven’t been, you’ve got nothing on there I would have loved to have gone to New Zealand, you know. All the New Zealand people I knew I loved them. I got on so well with them and I loved fishing and I would have loved to have gone to South Island with a caravan but because I married after I left the Air Force Joyce wouldn’t get any pension from the RAF. They changed it now but not retrospective. So if I passed out you know as I very well could have done at any time on I didn’t tell them why. I just said no. I don’t want to go. She would have got about a hundred and ten pounds a week to live on you know. No pension from the RAF and no pension from her husband who had died. He was a bank manager. So she would have had about a hundred pounds, you know. I threw away thoughts about going to New Zealand.
GT: Did you keep in contact with any, one of the people from earlier crews like 75 or 218?
JJ: No. I tried to but they said their wartime crews you see. I wrote to the New Zealand government to ask for flight, well he’d been a pilot officer then and gave his name and they said they were sorry they couldn’t disclose. Perhaps they thought there might have been something funny. I don’t know. Then I wrote to the MOD about my bomb aimer, Jock earlier than that and they said they couldn’t give me any information and I presumed he’d been killed because he went back. He went back to 75, Jock Somerville for his second tour and I never knew that until I met his son Simon all these years afterwards and he’d survived and we could have seen. We were such good pals you know flying together. So that put paid really to any keeping in touch with people.
GT: Any, any other stories you can think of from your wartime Bomber Command?
JJ: I don’t think so really. Nothing at the moment. No.
GT: So you joined up for Bomber Command —
JJ: There was plenty of, you know, excitement. We invariably I should think every three trips you were attacked by a fighter or you had searchlights on you or something like that you know and you were corkscrewing and pretty worried and short of fuel. Fuel troubles you know from flak in the tanks and whatnot. Losing fuel flying back short. Diverted. Bad weather when you got back. You were always a bit worried. Quite a lot of aircraft they put oil drums out on the, I forget the diversion airfield now. Flare path you know and you could get in there if you pushed the fog out a few yards. But, well, I would think you know one flight in three you were a bit worried when you got back you know getting down and getting short of fuel and that sort of thing. One thing I’ll never understand that our squadron, 75 we only had a tot of brandy on two occasions after a long trip to Berlin. I think both occasions I think it was and yet you hear people from other squadrons used to get it regularly you know. A nip of brandy when you finished debriefing, yeah and went off to bed. But you see we were in Nissen huts on 75. I think there were five either side officers. Well invariably you know you probably got back 3 o’clock in the morning or something like that. You’d just get to sleep and the lights would go on and the adj would come in with the station warrant officer collecting up somebody’s kit. You know. It happened almost every trip you know. You could guarantee it. It was terrible really. So many people. You see there weren’t a lot of, there weren’t many commissioned navigators. The pilots, a lot of them there were still a lot of sergeant pilots you see. I had a sergeant pilot as well. But so there weren’t many commissioned people in Nissen huts you know but most of the pilots, most of them were pilots and they’d come in and just collect. The only good thing was that the New Zealanders used to get food parcels. They used to get oysters and I was afraid I didn’t fancy oysters then. Joyce loves them. I still don’t really like them. I tried one. And fruit cake. And we used to have these lovely fruit cakes around the little fire in the middle of the room you know. Had a job to get the fuel for it in the cold weather but the lads used to dish out this fruit cake all around and, which was lovely. Always remember that fruit cake from New Zealand. But everybody got on so well you know. You were, they were great people. I just loved them all I would have loved to have emigrated to New Zealand. If I’d had, if I hadn’t got the, you know the job, the permanent commission I would have definitely gone I think.
GT: You’ll be pleased to know that Roy Max’s medals have been loaned to us in New Zealand by his wife.
JJ: Oh good.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Good. Marvellous. Wonderful. Now, Dickie Broadbent was my flight commander. Did you ever know him?
GT: I met Dickie Broadbent quite a bit.
JJ: I say I, I only spoke to him on the phone. I’d have loved to have gone down and met him somehow but the following year I think he died. I can’t remember the other flight commander’s name or, the bombing leader was a great fellow. We used to have long chats. He and another fellow before he joined the Air Force they used to go off into the mountains shooting deer. They’d go for about four months and they’d live on deer meat and porridge stuff that they made up for four months. And they said for the other month remaining they made enough money they kept some of the tails or something and others they took photos or what. Anyway, they were able to prove how many deer they’d shot and he said, ‘In that four months we both made enough money —' he wasn’t married, ‘To live it up in a good hotel for the other eight months of the year.’ Wonderful, wasn’t it?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: I saw a programme a couple of years ago. They don’t do that now. They go in helicopters and shoot them because there are far too many aren’t there?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: South Island. Yeah.
GT: Well, the farmer —
JJ: He was a great lad. I can’t remember his name now. He was the bombing leader and gunnery leader you know. I can’t think of his name. I used to have long chats with him about New Zealand you know. Particularly the island fishing. They’d take their fishing rod as well of course up there and they’d sleep on this for four months he said and then live it up in a hotel for the other eight months.
GT: So your aircraft preference? The Lancaster or the Stirling or the Shackleton?
JJ: Say again? The —
GT: Your preference.
JJ: Preference? I think the Lancaster you know. We had the utmost faith in it. I think it was mainly because the losses were so heavy on the Stirling. We still liked it, you know. We were, we were quite heavy on it and it got us back as I say a lot of times. Very often on three engines. More often than not on three engines all the way back. One would seize up or something or get shot up with a night fighter but we always got back alright. And we, we came back on two on one occasion whereas the Lanc would fly on two grand you know. You could almost fly on one once you got rid of the bombs. And of course, two years later or a year and a half later the equipment was more reliable. We had Air Position Indicators, and we had [pause] What did we have on the Shack? The API, the Air Position Indicator was a great help when they brought that out so you didn’t have to give a manual plot all the time you see what you were steering to get your winds. You wanted your manual plot and in a fix that would give you wind. But the API would give you an air position where you’d be if there was no wind you see. Work from the air pressure and whatnot of the pitot head. That was the great thing and we did and the last few trips on the Lancaster we had the oh, the radar. What did you call it?
GT: H2S?
JJ: H2S as well. And that was a great help navigation. You know you could pick up rivers and things like that. Made it so much easier at night. You’d see when you were crossing the river and it was wonderful check on ground speed and everything and small towns as well. You could work out where you were with that. So that was, that was that was the great thing about the Lanc. Having that. Once we got the H2S, we didn’t get it until about halfway through the tour I think but when we got it it was great. But the thing I remember the most was the good comradeship always, you know. No matter rank. NCOs didn’t mean any different you know when you were together. It didn’t matter if you were a sergeant or you were a squadron leader you were all doing your job and fine, you know. In the Shack we used first names for all the sergeant AO operator. You know, air signallers etcetera in the airplane. We used, we’d use the first names and then they brought in you must say, ‘Pilot to nav.’ You mustn’t use your name. That was getting on after the war you see on the Shackletons you’d got the people in Cranwell trained in MOD who said we’d got to get back to the old systems ,you know. Keep people apart.
GT: So Jack you’ve had a marvellous career in the RAF.
JJ: I enjoyed everything too. That’s the great thing you know. I was never unhappy. I wasn’t very happy on the flying you know. When you’re on ops you think God am I going to get back or not, you know. If I’m always thought if I’m lucky I’ll bale out. Try and get back or in a POW camp but I never expected. I wouldn’t have put any money on finishing a tour you know because chaps were disappearing every night really. First class chaps you know. Just couldn’t believe it. It was upward firing young guns cannon that the Jerries had were fatal you know. Particularly in the last year of the war. God. Remember was it Nuremberg we lost about ninety bombers I think, one night. Terrible. They got something wrong. Met winds or something and it was a clear night and they just shot them down. I went to Nuremberg and we did a, Joyce and I last year did a trip on the Rhine and we went to Nuremberg and I must say they showed all the pictures you know and I thought my God I can’t believe how they’d built it all up. Skyscrapers are going, you know. Wonderful.
GT: Did you think about the damage that was happening underneath you? Was it just a job or —
JJ: I didn’t think about the damage. I used to feel for the folks and families down there, you know. You’d think, God, what are we doing this to them for? You know. Because you know although you had, although you had an aiming point and hundreds of people were getting killed and injured as well and you used to think about that. I think night time when you’re in bed you thought oh poor blighters you know. What a crazy world this is. Sort of getting nowhere by pulverising the place to death and families you know getting blown apart. I used to think about that a lot actually. I think probably everybody did but you just had your job to do. Oh, I’ll show you those two pictures.
GT: Now, Jack, what, what did you have? Bomber Harris, he was your leader.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: What was thought of him?
JJ: We thought he was a good man. He was doing a good job.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: And and who did you have visit? Did you have anybody visit you on the squadron like the King or —
JJ: No. I always seem to be falling over nowadays. I lose my balance. No. We didn’t. We had, oh no that was after the war. I was on a fighter station and was it [ ] we got sort of five minutest notice. But annual inspections you know you get a fortnight to prepare and everything was on the top line but this fighter man you’d suddenly get a message to say he’s on his way down in a Spitfire. He just came down and he said, ‘I’d like to go and see the airmen’s mess.’ That was just after the war. He came down to Bentwaters I think. A very cheery nice fellow. But he, you know they couldn’t, you couldn’t fool him what was happening on the station. He did that all over the place apparently. They got the message on the VHF about a quarter of an hour before he arrived. He just walked down and invariably went along to the airmen’s mess and sergeant’s mess and wandered around for a bit and then cheerio and back again. It was good leadership wasn’t it?
GT: Yeah. Did they mention anything about Tiger Force to you?
JJ: No. This was for the Far East wasn’t it?
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Yeah. No. I finished my second tour you see so I, but the rest of the squadron thought they were probably going out. Yeah.
GT: Well, Jack I think we’ve covered a huge part of your —
JJ: I hope its been a help.
GT: Your career.
JJ: But a very good memory now you know for names etcetera but I enjoyed chatting to you anyway.
GT: Well, thank you Jack because this this will go into the archives at in Lincoln.
JJ: I think. And polish it up and —
GT: Yeah and it’s been it’s been an honour to sit and chat with you.
JJ: Yeah.
GT: For the time that you served.
JJ: Thank you.
GT: And it’s been marvellous so —
JJ: Thank you.
GT: I’m going to sign off now. This is Glen Turner who has been interviewing Mr Jack Jarmy and Jack whereabouts do you live?
JJ: Now?
GT: Gatehouse of Fleet.
JJ: Gatehouse of Fleet near Dumfries.
GT: Near Castle Douglas, Dumfriesshire.
JJ: In Scotland. So this is the 25th of July 2017 and my interview with Jack Jarmy is now concluded and this is Glen Turner saying thank you Jack very much for your service.
GT: Ok.
JJ: And your, your time tonight.
GT: Thank you. I hope it’s been useful.
JJ: Very much so.
GT: Ok. This is now the end of our interview.
JJ: Yeah. Yeah. Ok.
GT: Please show me your photographs, Jack.
JJ: My photographs as well.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: I’ve got no photographs of 75 but I’ve got two you weren’t supposed to pinch your bombing —
GT: Oh photographs.
JJ: The flash.
GT: The photoflash.
JJ: I’ve got one there.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: You can see where it is and that was the target. You can see it was.
GT: Obliterated. Yeah.
JJ: Just about.
GT: Flashed out.
JJ: Yeah. And I’ve got one picture of the old that I got somewhere or other. The Stirling. Only one. You know, you just couldn’t get photographs or anything. This is Canada. And there’s one more. That’s right. Is it Castel or something.
GT: Yes. It is. It’s got Castel there. Yeah.
JJ: Yeah. And this was Ely when I was doing afterwards on the Shackletons for the [pause] No. Sorry, 218 Squadron that must have been. Yeah. GH bombing. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. Well that’s March ’45 you’ve got.
JJ: That was the target. That’s right. Yeah. That was the target and we qualified on that. On that picture and I managed to get that. There was something about 75 I cut out. I can’t read it now. My eyes aren’t very good.
GT: Ok. I’ll take a photograph of that tomorrow because it’s quite, quite small. So where you see that’s wrong too because it’s got the wrong crown on it.
JJ: Yeah. I see.
GT: Yeah. So where was this one? In Belgium.
JJ: They must have given us that in Belgium. Yeah. Yeah.
GT: That’s a shame.
JJ: That’s the —
GT: That’s a window with —
JJ: Yes. That’s right. When we went to this Belgian sergeant had resurrected and dug a swamp with a crowd of people obviously and got the Stirling out and they invited us over then, you know. Civic function. And they gave us a lovely time for about four days or so.
GT: What year was that Jack?
JJ: Now, it was the first year we were here so it’s, or the second year. Thirty years ago. Thirty years ago. Yeah. And that was a Stirling but I don’t know from which squadron it was but it was Mepal that arranged the trip.
GT: Ah. Ok.
JJ: You see. We went with a bunch of people from Mepal. That was in the Canal Zone and a Daily Mail reporter. That was when I was OC admin.
GT: Wow. [pause] Great photos.
JJ: Don’t know what those cuttings are. Must be something from the paper. I don’t know what there was.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: Cuttings from the paper. [pause] I don’t know what that was.
GT: It’s great It’s great that you’ve got some photographs. That you ended up on a four engine jobby again. Very good, Jack. And let’s just confirm the time for us. It is quarter past eleven at night
JJ: Ten past yeah
GT: Oh gosh. Well obviously, you’ve got a day tomorrow so we’d better —
JJ: Well just, we’ve got to get this freezer you know.
GT: Yeah.
JJ: No rush. We never go to bed before about 11 o’clock. Joyce is a night bird. She’ll stay up longer that I do.
GT: Well, those are probably —
JJ: Oh, I think that bit fell out.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Jack Jarmy
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Glen Turner
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-26
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AJarmyJFD170726, PJarmyJFD1703
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01:38:26 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Jarmey was born in Romford Essex. At the age of five. following the death of his father, Jack moved to live with his grandparents in Illfracolme. Despite excellent results in all his subjects at Grammar School Jack left school at 15 to work in the family business. On his eighteenth birthday Jack signed up to join the Royal Air Force as a pilot and commenced training at No 9 Initial Training Wing at Stratford-upon-Avon followed by elementary flying training school at Swindon. Flying training continued in Florida and Montgomery Alabama flying Stearmans. Following a bad landing Jack was cancelled from flying training and transferred to Trenton Ontario for navigator training. On completion of training he returned to the UK onboard the Queen Elizabeth with 14,000 other aircrew. Jack joined No 11 operational training unit at RAF Oakley in April 1943 flying Wellingtons and completed his training at No 1651 heavy conversion unit at RAF Waterbeach flying Stirlings. Posted to 75 Squadron at RAF Mepal in July 1943, Jack completed 26 operations. He commented on the much-improved Gee Mk2 navigation system which he said was very accurate up to the Dutch coast. He also recalled being in the astrodome during the operation on Peenemünde and called on his pilot to corkscrew as he could see a Lancaster above them with their bomb doors open, the Stirling he explained had a much lower flying ceiling than the Lancaster. On completion of his first tour Jack trained crews at No 3 Lancaster finishing school at RAF Feltwell for ten months before joining 218 Squadron in early 1945 for a second tour of operations flying Lancasters. Jack commented on the increased accuracy of Gee-H navigation with multiple aircraft in formation with the Gee-H equipped aircraft during daylight operations. Jack had completed a total of 41 operations and remained in the RAF following a permanent commission. He served in a number of administrative and flying roles in the Far East and the UK including Shackeltons at RAF Ballykelly on anti-submarine maritime patrols, finally retiring in 1977.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
United States
Alabama
Alabama--Montgomery
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Trenton
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany
Germany--Peenemünde
Contributor
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Jim Sheach
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-04-25
1943-07-25
1944-01-08
1945-02
1945-04-24
1977
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
11 OTU
1651 HCU
218 Squadron
75 Squadron
aircrew
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Gee
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Feltwell
RAF Mepal
RAF Oakley
RAF Shallufa
RAF Waterbeach
Shackleton
Stearman
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/894/11134/AHyndC171115.2.mp3
7703d85d1a928e6d8f6c63dd70ebb3c6
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
Hynd, Colin
C Hynd
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Colin Hynd (1925 - 2022, 1825158 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-15
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Hynd, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach the interviewee is Colin Hynd. The interview is taking place at Mr Hynd’s home in Dunfermline on the 15th November 2017. Colin, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
CH: Well, I went to the local schools, obviously commercial school and Queen Anne’s school, and when I left school at the age of fourteen just at the beginning of the war in September 1939, I got a job in the local cinema because jobs in those days were extremely hard to find. My wage was six shillings and eight pence per week, anyway, I only lasted there a month and I went on and got two subsequent jobs in the local gents outfitters, but that wasn’t satisfying me so I went to Todds Engineers in Dunfermline and became an apprentice turner, where I did turning until 1943 when I joined the Royal Air Force, but as I was underage at the time I had to wait until I was eighteen and a quarter which was in the November of 1943, when I was called up, and went to Lord‘s Cricket Ground for various tests and what have you, and we- We did three weeks in London being kitted out, medical-ed, the usual, uniforms and what have you, and then from there went on up to Bridlington to the initial training wing up there, and did six weeks up there, doing various signalling, gunnery, of course drill and all that, and then from there, after the six weeks went to St Athans, where we did the, the flight engineers training. Unfortunately, during my early days there I developed scarlet fever, so of course I was in hospital for a month, and when I came out my actual course had moved on that far, anyway [emphasis] I carried on, various entries and anybody that was available to do the thing where you studied engines, air frames, electrics, meteorology, gunnery again of course they just - Dismantling the guns and that, education of course was a big thing in those days as well but, eventually after, something like nine months, I was awarded my stripes and my brevet, my flight engineer’s brevet. After being awarded my stripes and my brevet I was posted to a heavy conversion unit at Marston Moor which is in Yorkshire, where you then actually were working on the real aircraft which were Halifaxes. You then saw what you’d only previously seen on a blackboard, and you did that for approximately two weeks, and as well as that of course you could go get a bit of experience on a crew who were doing a night exercise or, air tests, anything like that that was available, but I didn’t get crewed up, for about three weeks at that time. Anyway, the crew that I joined, unfortunately, they all drank and I didn’t, and I wasn’t very popular because of course I didn’t go out drinking, so the pilot at that time, told the engineer’s leader that I was no use as a flight engineer. Anyway I was duly called into the office, where I was interviewed for approximately four hours over engineer- Flight engineer matters, the subsequent outcome was that I was given the job of teaching the new recruits from St Athans, the pre-flight checks, how to start the engines, how to operate the, the petrol levers and all, all that, from when they came from training school, so of course, the outcome of that was that after some weeks, I was told that- What had happened, and why I’d been removed from the crew and that, I would be offered a commission when I got to the squadron, unfortunately the war finished before we got to that stage in my career [slightly laughs], however, they – The, the aircrew without the engineer, because, people trained at different places, but all came together at the HCU, without the flight engineer because up till then they had been flying in two-engined aircraft to teach them the art of gunnery or navigation or whatever, but then when they went onto the four-engined aircraft, like the Halifax, the Lancaster, Sunderlands, they needed a flight engineer. Anyway there was a bit of a shortage at the time so I was posted to Riccall which was near Selby, where I carried on doing the same thing, teaching the newer lads the pre-flight checks and all that sort of thing and then eventually they had an intake of crews, and in those days, the crews plus the flight engineers were put into this room and the wing commander flying, then gave a lecture but this was just a ploy so that the crews could see who the flight engineers were. Anyway I was approached by one of the crew members, Johnny Prosser, who was the wireless op in this crew which were Canadian, anyway I decided to, to join them, as their flight engineer, so from there on in, I, I did the flying experience which I’d learnt prior to this on my own, I didn’t need anybody with me obviously, so that er- We did air tests, short daylight runs, a lot of night flying, because the pilot of course being new to the four engine bomber always had a pilot with him who had had experience, so of course no aircraft could take off without a flight engineer anyway [emphasis] because it was too complicated where - What you had to do as a flight engineer, so that - We then eventually moved onto the squadron, 158 which was an operational squadron, they had had a terrific loss, of personnel, they had- We had New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, RAF and it was a mixed squadron really, but the flight engineers of course no matter which crew you joined were always RAF, because that was the only place that trained engineers was St Athans, from then on it was just basically doing exercises and that until somebody decided you should go on a bombing trip. When that happened, you were all gathered together, into this building which was secured with armed police surrounding it so that you couldn’t get out [laughs] or the phones were cut off, you couldn’t make a phone call and you sat in this building waiting for someone to come in and remove the curtain from what the target was going to be, you were then shown the target and you were explained the, the route you would take to the target, the route out, the weather that you would meet, where the opposition was heaviest with gunfire, or fighters, things like that was all in- And then it could well happen that halfway through all this, they would decide to change the target so you then had to wait until your new target was announced which could take ages, then they would start again having looked at this new target route and the way in. Again you couldn’t go anywhere, you were, you were all right for a cup of tea [chuckles] but that was about it, and on one occasion they changed the target on three occasions, so - But again it was the old thing, just sit and wait, and wait for the people to tell you what the weather was going to be, or what the target was, the route out, the route in, because you never came back the same way, and of course it was extremely dangerous if you were on night flying because you could have anything from a thousand to fifteen-hundred aircraft in the air at any given time, and of course nobody, or very few ever stuck to the speed they were supposed to be flying at, or the height they were supposed to be flying at, because you were given a height, your squadron would fly at, say twenty-thousand feet but then behind you five-minutes later should be another squadron at nineteen-thousand-five-hundred, and they were supposed to step down like that with the gap in between, so you stopped this overflying which of course it never did because, you could be on your run up to your target, and of course you’d suddenly look up and five-hundred feet above you you’d see a bomber with its bomb doors open, so of course they couldn’t see you, so you had to abort and, well either just carry on or go round which was an extremely dangerous thing to do when you’re turning a full circle in that number of aircraft, but our pilot being a Canadian did exactly that one night, not very popular pilot [chuckles]. Anyway we had to do the run up again, and of course all the time, people are shooting at you, and once that stops you know - You then knew the fighters were up, so you had to watch for them, also of course you had the problem with searchlights, now, when you got a group of searchlights, one of them was blue, and that was the master searchlight and once that got you all the other searchlights hooked on, and of course then the gunners, or the fighters whichever was at the time, then attacked that one aircraft and, that was an extremely dangerous situation. But during the war also of course we had the problem that we had the Americans flying with us, not on the same squadron, but on their squadrons, and they used to join in, they would never fly at night the Americans, at all, but during the day the Flying Fortresses were out in force, which made life even more difficult, because they were rather prone to shoot at you if you- If they, didn’t realise and especially we had one sort of, a new Halifax which was unmarked, we didn’t have the RAF roundels on it and we were a bit frightened that the Americans would shoot us because it was a known fact that if any of our aircraft was shot down in Germany or France, then they were redone and they- The Germans flew them.
JS: Mm-hm.
CS: The other thing of course was that - I forgot to mention, that was before we got to the squadron, when we were at the heavy conversion unit, they- If there was an op on, we at the HCU would be sent in the opposite direction to the bomber force with the object being to draw the fighters, of cou- [laughs] of course the unfortunate part about that was that we never had any ammunition to shoot at the fighters because it was in short supply, but you, you did it and- Best as you could, but, I mean it was just a small force but the i- As I say, the idea was to draw the fighters away from the main force so that they could get a free run at whatever the target was. But anyway once you got to- As I say to the point of where you [emphasis] were actually operating on a, a raid, then of course it was every man for himself, and we unfortunately lost our rear gunner, not through injury or anything like that but, there was two types of fire, there was a projected gunfire and a box gunfire, the projected gunfire was that you could see the rounds coming up behind you and obviously if you stayed at the same height the gunners got your height and then it was just a question of getting closer to you, and of course the rear gunner could see this and I could see it because I was watching through the panel above my station in the Halifax, so of course we had to forget what we were doing and try and stop the, the rear gunner from bailing out which - There was two doors, one in the aircraft and one on the turret, so we had to keep pulling the dead man's handle, to stop the air gunner ‘cause he could operate his turret manually or electrically, and simply roll it round and then fall out backwards, but you have to appreciate that the tail end of a bomber is extremely narrow, and in there you have a huge oleo leg which was the, the rear wheel ‘cause that didn’t retract like the front carriage, so we spent ages, and of course he was trying to bale out panicked, and we were trying to stop him which we eventually did, and that was how we lost him because he was then classed as LMF which is lack of moral fibre, so we then of course got another rear gunner who had lost his crew, but this really was a no-no, that it was taught that it was very bad luck to take on another crew member who wasn’t there at the beginning, and in fact, on one of our last raids we had a whole- A bomb that went through the tail plane of our aircraft from one above, which fortunately it was only a small two-hundred-and-fifty pound bomb, and it just made a hole in the tail plane near the rudder but didn’t effect because we didn’t know that we’d been hit, until we got back to dispersal and saw the hole in the -In the tail plane. But after that, the- Very few raids, because we were getting close to the end of the war in ‘45, and we just carried on the same routine of if there was- You were going on a raid, you had a meal, then you were locked up in this building till the- You knew where you were going et cetera, and then of course, the war finished and all these foreigners, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, the Canadians, disappeared overnight back to their own countries so, the only personnel that were left were RAF. So what we did was a pilot and flight engineer got loaded up with bombs and pyrotechnics and, things like that, or unused ammunition and, and we used to fly out to the North Sea, drop this- And I acted as the bomb aimer, because there was only the pilot and me on board, but after that then, the war finished, we got rid of most of the, the bomb ordinance, and the flame float- Smoke floats, all that type of thing, and we were sent on indefinite leave.
JS: That’s - That was great, can I just take you back a wee bit, on your - That was really fascinating. You spoke about your crew, and interestingly how you, the RAF made crews was to sort of put you all in one room and say ‘sort yourselves out’, and you said you were picked by one of the other guys on the other crew, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
CH: I got on well with them, I never had a problem, apart from one night, we were on a raid and as always if I moved from my engineer position to where the- You had to operate the petrol cocks, which were in the rest position, so I had to move, I would tell the pilot I was going back to change tanks. Now the Halifax had twelve petrol tanks, and you had a sequence, and we were on tanks five and six which were joined, which were big tanks and, I told him I was going back so what I was waiting for, I was waiting for four red lights to come up to tell me that the tank was empty, or the tanks on both sides were empty, and I would then close those levers and bring on the next levers with full tanks. Unfortunately, I fell asleep because it was so cold back there that I stuck the heating pipe up my flying harness which was nice and warm then, and also, we had been on a daylight raid earlier, and by the time we were debriefed and had a meal, and got taken back to our accommodation which was always outside the camp, we’d only had about four hours sleep when the police came and wakened up us again because we were on the night detail. Anyway, I’m enjoying my sleep and I hear this shouting down the earphones, ‘I’ve no petrol, I’ve no petrol’, but I don’t see what the pilot's problem was, we were at twenty-thousand feet anyway, so we had plenty time to remedy the situation. So, I closed tanks five and six both sides and opened tank number four either side, and within seconds he had his petrol, but he never forgave me for that, though he didn’t hold it against me, he gave me a bollocking but apart from that, it went off- That was about the only time we had a, a disagreement actually. In fact it went remarkably well because he landed once - We were on an air test, this aircraft had been serviced and we- It was our aircraft, so we took it for a short flight, and on the way back, in Yorkshire, the pilot decides to land [emphasis], and I said to him at the time, I said, ‘This is not our airfield’, ‘Yes it is, I know where we are.’ I said, ‘No it isn’t’ because each aircraft has its own- Each airfield had its own identification, and the one that was flashing wasn’t flashing Lisset. Anyway, we landed, and suddenly a jeep pulls up in front of us, a flight lieutenant gets out, comes to the aircraft, I go to the door, open it, he says, ‘What you doing here?’ I said, ‘We landed at the wrong air field.’ He said, ‘You’re dead right,’ He said, ‘Where are you from?’, So we said ‘Lisset,’ he said ‘Well you’re just over the road there’ [chuckles]. So, I mean that was how close we were, so he’d turned left instead of turning right, so anyway I told the pilot, so that sort of evened out my, misfortune for the, the petrol incident, but it was one of those things, I was tired [emphasis] and it was cold, and of course with sticking the hot air pipe up my flying harness got me nice and comfy.
JS: You- You mentioned as part of that, that your accommodation was off-base?
CH: Yes
JS: So- So what was your accommodation like?
CH: Well, to say the least, the accommodation was very rough. It was all dry toilets, because you were in a field, and what they’d done, they’d simply put the wooden huts in a clearance place, and then built like, toilets outside. There was no water on site, nothing like that, so you then had to go to the sergeants mess to have your wash and shave, and in fact at Riccall which was a heavy conversion unit, we had to walk across two fields to get to the sergeants mess, and if you were lucky you managed to get a locker to keep your stuff in there, there were- You know, you could locks, otherwise you had to carry it backwards and forwards to have a wash, and of course you used the toilets and that, but they had obviously water, but other than that, it was dry, lavatories and I won’t describe what they were [laughs], primitive to say the least. You were lucky, again, if you had a stove in these because your predecessors had probably knocked out the front of the, the stove, and had nicked some bread from the cookhouse to do toast back in the billet if you could find enough fuel to get the fire going because, in those days people didn’t come round and drop off coke for you, or anything, you had to do the scrounging bit as well. So you had to look after yourself, but there was an awful lot of self-discipline, a lot of self-discipline involved amongst the air crew but, they knew the rules and that was it, you stuck by them, not like the present-day air force you know, so that was the situation.
JS: Thank you. The- I read that were- You spoke about things being seen as not being lucky, about, you said if, if you took somebody on from another crew that the rest of their crew were lost that was seen as not being lucky, I read that there were two, there were two aircraft in the squadron, that by the end, by VE day had done well over a hundred operations, was the number of operations that your aircraft had done, was that seen as being lucky, or?
CH: No, the, the aircraft- One of the aircrafts that you’ve mentioned, did thirty-two ops, which was a lot, and I have a book on that particular aircraft, of course, the crews that manned it over the period of time, and in fact they- Elvington, which I’ve previously mentioned, outside York, they built a Halifax bomber, starting with the fuselage which came from Lerwick I think it was, or a bit of fuselage, which a farmer had bought because a Halifax had crashed in that area and his sheep, or whatever he had in the field at that time, took shelter in it. Anyway it was brought down to Elvington and by a lot of good will et cetera, was built to look like a Halifax bomber, and I had the privilege of being the first person that was allowed in to the actual aircraft, to, to see what work had been done, because it was like all the others, aircraft on view they were all roped off and you weren’t allowed to enter they were all locked, but because I’d been a flight engineer, and in fact I've got photographs of the actual aircraft, that was why I was allowed because as I say, I was a flight engineer on that squadron, with that particular aircraft, though I never flew in it. You were allocated an aircraft, different aircraft, it could be every time, you know, but, no, some people carried things with them which was for some reason special to them. Some of them carried crosses, you know, not on- Not based on a religious thing, other people had other things which they considered to be important and they carried them for good luck charms and put them on- I never carried anything like that, but that, that again, but that was one of the things that was fiercely resisted, that if you took on someone else then you were dicing with death.
JS: Interesting. You spoke earlier and took us up, up to the end of the war, and you said then, everybody- All the folk who’d come from elsewhere in the world, the Canadians and New Zealanders and whatever, they, they shipped home, and you mentioned dumping surplus munitions in the, in the North Sea, so, what did you do after that?
CH: Well after that, as I said to you we, we were sent on indefinite leave, and then we were called back, given a short list of jobs that we could do. I picked one which you- You had to pick something, so I picked an airframe mechanics job, went back to St Athans, did the course, wasn’t very happy with it, it wasn’t my type of work, anyway, I was posted to Desborough after that, and in those days I was a flight sergeant by then, during the day you covered up your badge of rank, so you worked as an airman, but you still used the sergeants mess, which you took you armbands- Your covers off to show your rank, but then in the morning you put them back on again. But there was a shortage of, senior NCOs at Desborough, so I was drafted in to the tech disip[?] office, without the badge covered up, so I carried on in there, and then the, because this was the time when there was many demobs going on at the end of the war, so I suddenly found myself taking over as well, as NCOIC police. So I was doing that job and suddenly I got told I was NCOIC fire section, so I’d now three jobs, and I thought well that’s it, that can’t get anymore, unfortunately I was wrong. We decided, or somebody decided that we’d have some German prisoners of war, though the war was over but, anyway, I had to go and collect these prisoners of war, we didn’t put them any locked compound or anything, I only had an LAC to help me, so I became ICGM and prisoners, and then I thought that must be it, but wrong again. At this time they decided to start the ATC having the summer camps at RAF stations, and Desborough was picked so I suddenly became IC air training corps cadets, in the- On the camp as well. So it was quite a busy time, the way, you had various things like courts martial as well, and of course I got that job, again because of your rank. The down side of all this was that they suddenly brought out two dates, all those who were warrant officers or flight sergeants had to reduce themselves to the rank of sergeant by this certain date, so fair enough, it was nothing uncommon to see a bloke walking round with a warrant officers’ uniform on showing where his gallopers had been on his arm wearing an LAC’s prop. Then the second date, that was when you reduced yourself to your rank in your ground trade, now had I not been lucky enough, I would’ve finished up as an AC1, but I remustered whilst all this business had being- IC Police and all the rest of it. To what were called in those days an aircraft and general duties, that was trade groups one to five in those days, but the trade I was in was trade group one, the air frames, but, five was the aircraft hand, and by doing that of course I managed to, on paper, work my way up to corporal, and then I saw an advert in the air ministry orders for drill instructors, now prior to all this upheaval I had gone to Cardington, and I did a six weeks warrant officers and flight sergeants course, which I passed, so of course that helped me no end. So I applied to become a drill instructor, and because of that of course I got made acting segreant, but the funny part about that was the, course was at- By this time had moved to RAF Credenhill which, subsequently became RAF Hereford, and I was standing outside with the rest of the course, waiting to be interviewed by the squadron commander, a warrant officer walked past, came up to me and said, ‘I know you,’ and I said ‘Yes, you know me’, he said ‘Where was it,’ I said ‘Cardington’, I gave him my name and that, away he went, anyway later on, I was told to leave the queue, so I was made a staff instructor there and then without doing that particular course. So I did that, and I did three years as staff instructor on the school airdrome, we taught weapons and bayonet fighting, admin, drill obviously, and this was training recruits into instructors, so that they could go out ‘cause in those days there was quite a lot of them. Anyway in 1949, I got posted to Padgate which was a school of training, and there I suddenly found myself nominated to set up a course for officer cadets, because the officer cadet school was full, so of course being- My background, I got the job of setting up this course for officer cadets, it was only a one-off thing, but then I did eighteen months there, and then during that time RAF Halton had gone through all the drill instructors in the RAF, we were told, and five of us had been selected from, because there was an awful lot of drill instructors in those days, five of us were selected for Halton, and the funny part about that, I always remember to this day [emphasis] was when I reported to the guard room, the corporal policeman said ‘Don’t unpack, you may not be stopping’ [laughs]. The obvious bit being that if you failed the five days, which was the period that they assessed you, from the air commodore, two group captains and various wing commanders, during the week, you had to do certain exercises, anyway, I was selected and I did three years there and that was where I became a substantive sergeant then, while I was there was seven years but, pay for seniority, so my sergeant went away back to when I became a sergeant flight engineer which made a big difference. So, anyway these blokes I’m still in touch with to this day, these apprentices, they’re in their mid-eighties, and I periodically get letters or phone calls from them, even now as we speak. But that was a hectic three years because I had two-hundred-and-twenty of them, and they were aged seventeen to twenty because they did three years, so if, they were unfortunate to fail their entry and got back flighted, they went back a year. So they then became that much older and more difficult to handle because, even though they were twenty or twenty-one the rules said they weren’t allowed to smoke, they weren’t allowed to go with girls, they had to be in bed by twenty-two-hundred-hours, things like that, but you still had to maintain discipline at that age. In fact, not so long ago I had a phone call from a group captain, who had been one of my, what we called snags, the leading apprentices but they were nicknamed snags, and of course he said, you know, the reason he rang, was that he, when he was a wing commander had been posted to Swinderby as OC training, and somewhere along the line he had either seen my name or heard my name mentioned, and was commenting on the work that DI’s did at square bashing camps, you see, so that, that was how I met him, but he’s still alive to this day, like me but [chuckles] that, that was that. Then, I got posted to Yatesbury by mistake, I was posted to the boy entrants wing, who unfortunately had moved before I got there and had moved up to Cosford, so I then got posted up to Kirkham near Preston, where they had trainees there but unfortunately, the station warrant officer there at that time had been the station warrant officer at Credenhill of course I was immediately in his office rather than sent out, anyway, that wasn't- Didn’t work very well really.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Colin Hynd
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-15
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHyndC171115
Format
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00:44:33 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
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James Sheach
Description
An account of the resource
Summary: Colin Hynd joined the RAF in November 1943. Upon completing initial training, he was posted to RAF St Athan, where he trained as a flight engineer. He struggled to bond with his first crew, so instead worked as an instructor before joining a Canadian crew based at 158 Squadron. Hynd recounts the briefing process and dangers during bombing operations. He also describes why their rear gunner was accused of Lack of Moral Fibre, accidentally falling asleep during an operation, dumping surplus munitions in the North Sea, and the conditions of their accommodation. Finally, Hynd describes serving as drill instructor after the war.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11
1945
158 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
military living conditions
RAF Desborough
RAF Halton
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
RAF St Athan
superstition
training