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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/3394/ADerringtonAP150715-02.1.mp3
6cd1f162411f8a65aa035d4d1151c5ab
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Title
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Derrington, Arnold Pearce
Arnold Pearce Derrington
Arnold P Derrington
Arnold Derrington
A P Derrington
A Derrington
Description
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Two oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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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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Derrington, AP
Date
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2015-07-15
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Transcription
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AS: It’s 15th July 2015. My name’s Adam Such. I’m a researcher for the International Bomber Command Centre and this is the second half of an interview with Flight Lieutenant Derry Derrington former DFC, former navigator on 466 and 462 squadrons RAF.
Derry first of all good morning thank you for allowing me to come back.
DD: My joy.
AS: Great. I’d like first of all really to take you back to briefings. I know that they weren’t all exactly the same but can you give me a general idea of how long they’d go?
DD: Well a briefing used to last about three quarters of an hour at most. Sometimes it could be done in a quarter of an hour and once we had the briefing the navigator would settle down to make out what his flight plan. Do you know what a flight plan is?
AS: Roughly. But if you’d like to go through it.
DD: It’s on every chart and every log I’ve got here and you’ll see that we knew the complete journey that we had to make and it wasn’t always direct. It would appear that it should be but we had to do all sorts of diversionary courses in order to fox the enemy and I’ve got a chart that I want to give you which shows every target we went to with, as it were, a straight line going from Driffield or our take off point was called Flaxfleet and it wasn’t a straight line as my chart shows but it’s easy for anyone to notice and we didn’t go in straight lines like it appears to be. I’d like to give that to you now while I think about it.
AS: Ok.
[pause]
AS: Now I now have your chart in front of me with your thirty one missions on it.
DD: Yes.
AS: Yeah, as you say straight lines but the doglegs would be quite substantial I suppose depending on where the -
DD: Well depending on the time. We could always lose time. We couldn’t pick it up unless the pilot really stepped on the gas but two minutes was the most that we have to, we mustn’t get there too early or we had to lose some time but we didn’t do that very often but of course once your jigging around like that you’re crossing the path of other members of the stream of aircraft and you were taking a risk. You’ve got to be very alert. You don’t want collisions in the air.
AS: Back, back to the briefing where we started did, did the whole crew go just to one briefing or was there separate briefings for pilots and navigators.
DD: No it was a total, all the crew was there for it and they went back to do whatever they wanted to do with their equipment but we had to sit down and work out our flight plan and the flight plan was a very handy thing because it depended of course on the forecast winds of that time. They may have changed completely by the time we would do the operation but they would have been just about five or six degrees difference perhaps from one course to another and it wasn’t just a case of the calculation course you had. You had to work out deviation and also each aircraft was tuned differently so that you had to amend the calculated course that you were going to steer. You applied correction and deviation but that was the navigators job to do that and well it took some time with the computer working out the courses that we had to go but the bomb aimer might have been with me on these occasions. Jonah our bomb aimer was quite keen and he would be watching what I was doing. And we were great pals. They were wonderful crew to be with.
AS: After, after the briefing and you’d worked out your flight plan it’s, what happened then? I mean
DD: Well.
AS: We hear about the operational meal, the operational egg. What -
DD: Well we had, some of the chaps said they had a good meal beforehand. I only seem to remember a good meal afterwards [laughs] they gave us plenty to eat. Two Eggs on My Plate is, I believe is the title of one book written about our experiences in those days. But they did feed us very well with a good old fry up.
AS: Then out to the aeroplane.
DD: We felt we were very privileged people because in those days were the days of rationing.
AS: Then out to the aeroplane. How long before take-off would that, would that be?
DD: Probably two hours, two and a half hours or so before take-off. And it wasn’t a case of being waved off we just were there and we went and didn’t know who was waving us off or what we were just intent on being there and doing our job.
AS: You were, were 4 Group, in, in Yorkshire.
DD: I was - ?
AS: 4. In Number 4 Group.
DD: 4 group yes.
AS: Now that’s between the 6 Group North.
DD: Yes.
AS: And the other groups South. Did you climb out directly on course or or did you have to avoid the other aircraft from -
DD: Well we had a collecting point to move from near Spurn Head, a place called Flaxfleet and we didn’t set course from the airfield as such we were out warming up and going around, flying in orbit around the area but we wanted to be at Flaxfleet by the time of take-off. TOT time of take-off or time over target TOT. And we set off from there and well we were on the alert all the time to see we weren’t too near other aircraft. I say we - especially the gunners. They were the eyes of the plane and the pilot.
AS: Once, once you had formed up and I presume for daylight operations there was more of a coming together than, than at night time?
DD: You mean the aircraft flying close to each other?
AS: Yeah.
DD: I suppose there must have been. Most of our operations were night time, dark, in the darkness but we did some daylights. The Yanks were daylight people. They didn’t do too much dark, night time flying but we were day and night. And our trips were not quite as long as some people spent a long time. I suppose the maximum length of time you’ll see from our logbooks the maximum length of time on any of our operations was approximately eight hours but some people had time longer than that.
AS: Yes, I -
DD: We didn’t have any very long drawn out operational time. I’m amazed we did what we did in such a short time.
AS: I see Magdeburg probably was, was the furthest you went.
DD: Probably, yes.
AS: On your trips or perhaps Koblenz.
DD: Ahum
AS: Yeah. Coming, coming back now if I may coming back from the trip was there much of a desire to be home first? To open the taps? To -
DD: No. No, we went along steadily the only thing was in the funnel when we were coming to land we sometimes the Germans had a fighter lurking around and we had to be equally alert at landing time as we were taking off. That was that. Have you heard much about that happening?
AS: No I’d like you to tell me about -
DD: Well -
AS: The whole process.
DD: They had fighters in the funnel sometimes and of course our fighters were up to combat them but we had to be on the alert because of that.
AS: Could you talk I know you were inside behind your curtain but could you talk me through perhaps the, the sort of aids to final navigation? The funnel lights, the drem pundits, Sandra - that sort of thing. Could you talk me through the process of coming back to base and landing?
DD: Well I didn’t have much to do with that. I got them back to the area where we had to be and the crew looked after that as a whole. They got their eyes open and the pundits, those are, those are the flashing lights you’re talking about?
AS: Ahum.
DD: Well the pilot had his job to do and the bomb aimer might have been there to help him and be observing with him but as a navigator I’d was, I’d got them back to very near the base and I’d done my job but I was alert to write and record whatever had to be done and I’d hear the conversation of the crew and if I heard anything significant then I’d make a note of it on my log.
AS: Which brings me nicely into afterwards. After landing. You said you’d done your job but perhaps you were the most important man at the debriefing. What was the debriefing like?
DD: We were asked all sorts of questions and were you at the target in time? What opposition did you get there? And of course the crew would say as much as I would about that. If they’d said at the time they would have been on my log recording it. I believe my logs are pretty neat. I’m not as tidy and neat now as I was then but I know you’ll their fairly clear. I did everything printing. I didn’t do anything cursive writing at all. It was fine print.
AS: And they, they would they go through your navigation log either then or afterwards,
DD: Oh they’d have an overview quickly. And after the operation was over the navigation leader would have a look at the log and the chart. They were handed in together. And he’d write a comment do you see there are comments on the front page of it - A satisfactory trip or did you take enough fixes, take more than you do and what they may say what was your opinion of H2S when it came in to us initially. You’ll see one or two of my charts are in a colour different from the others instead of the normal red printing on a white background.
[OTHER: LONG PERSONAL CONVERSATION NOT TRANSCRIBED]
DD: Yes they had a white background and the towns shape is in brown and the brown showed up very good against the white background and if a town it isn’t just a red glowing dot on the fluorescent screen it was a shape on the chart that we had and if there was some projecting point in some way that you could identify then that a bearing on, from that could be taken and that would give me my position. It was, your attempt was to get a position every six minutes at least apart from any visual sightings there may have been and this radar was a wonderful help.
AS: Was it generally reliable?
DD: Oh yes. They did try to jam us but we didn’t have much of that to worry about. They couldn’t jam the H2S but the window that we scattered was supposed to confuse their ground systems for identifying us.
AS: But the actual installation in the aeroplane? Could you be confident you’d go in there and turn it on and it would work?
DD: Oh yes.
AS: And work in the air
DD: Oh yes it was very reliable.
AS: Was that generally true for the aeroplane? You’d walk to your allocated aeroplane and it would be fully functional for the trip.
DD: Yes. Oh yes.
AS: So the standard of maintenance was, was pretty high.
DD: Very good indeed. The ground crews were very helpful. And if we weren’t satisfied they soon knew it. [laughs]
AS: Were your ground crew predominantly Australians by the time you were on ops or a mix?
DD: We were a totally pommie crew with an Australian captain. And I don’t think we were, it wasn’t a case of tolerated we were treated as equals. We had a very good company. A jolly good lot they were too.
AS: The ground crew? Were they mostly Australians?
DD: No I don’t know any ground crew were Australian. They were all British I believe.
AS: Ok.
DD: One thing which was rather interesting I ended up as a lecturer in Manchester University eventually and there was one fellow who came on the staff. He said, [?] ‘My job was I trained as a navigator but they were beginning near the end of the war not to need any more air crew things were going on so well and it was my job to load you up with our bombs, with the bombs. I was doing that job’. So he has diversified to be loading up bombs for us and well we just took off with what they gave us.
AS: When we talked yesterday we talked a bit about the French at Elvington. Did you have much to do with the Free French squadrons?
DD: We just knew they were there and we were just delighted I think that we were cosmopolitan as we were. We had a Maori in our squadron and well we were British and the French were there and well they had the same directions and the same intentions as we did and we were just delighted I think that we were a multinational gang, 4 Group
AS: Yeah. Indeed you definitely were.
[pause]
There we are. So we talked that you were an Australian squadron fully accepted as English people.
DD: Ahum.
AS: The Australians were far from home can you tell me a bit about their life. What they did for leave and how - ?
DD: Well quite a few Cornish people went overseas mining years ago. There’s an adage if there’s a hole in the ground there’s a Cornish miner at the bottom of it. And the thing is that some of these Australians who came over had relatives in England. They weren’t all convicts [laughs] and they went off and had leave and visited relations and well they liked going to London to see the bright lights.
AS: Did your Skipper, did he come home with you? Did he?
DD: No. He has been home since but not during operational time.
AS: On the squadron can you recall any real characters and why they were characters?
DD: Oh there was a chap called Tiny Cawthorne. He was a very big chap. Very tall. There was a man called Ern Shoeman and Ern Shoeman was reputed to be a millionaire property wise and he and I were good friends. He used to write me quite a bit and he knew we had a handicapped daughter. Our daughter Mary is fifty nine, she’s Downs Syndrome and she’s a very sweet, gentle little soul. She’s at a home up in Wadebridge and she’s got a very good carer looking after her. My nephew Michael is very good to her, takes her out for morning coffee and so on. She doesn’t speak because she lost her voice when my mother in law died and she was annoyed. Or Mary’s reaction was, ‘I’m not going to speak any longer ’cause granny’s not here and she didn’t tell me she was going.’ And we’ve had speech therapists for her and she is not speaking but my son David is coming down, takes her off for a walk somewhere when they’re the only two there and she’s able to make herself known. She understands sign language and she’s a great joy and friend to us and we’re very relieved to think that she’s looked after so well because we’re ancient and we shall probably pass on before she does but normally Downs Syndrome people don’t live beyond the age of fourteen but we were told that she wouldn’t live beyond the age of two but she’s still going on ok.
AS: That’s
And they treat her like a little doll up there where she is with the Home Farm Trust. That’s the name of the organisation looking after her at Wadebridge.
AS: And she, she used to interact with this character from the squadron. The property developer.
DD: Oh no, Ern Shoeman -
AS: Yes.
DD: Used to write and ask how she was getting on.
AS: Ok.
[phone ringing]
DD: He was a very pleasant man. He was a pilot I think.
AS: Are there any other characters that you can recall?
DD: Well there was this chap Jackson who used to smoke his pipe through the inside of the oxygen mask [laughs]
AS: That was insane.
DD: Very risky business.
AS: Presumably when he was on oxygen.
DD: I think so.
[PERSONAL CONVERSATION REGARDING PHONE CALL NOT TRANSCRIBED]
AS: So there was room in the squadron for characters was there? Discipline was, was reasonably relaxed?
DD: Oh yes. Yes. We didn’t go on parade very much. I can’t think of many more. We were characters I suppose.
AS: Characters and survivors yeah. So, what, what would a day on the squadron, a non-flying day on the squadron have been like?
DD: Difficult to say. I did some of my book. You’ve seen the -
AS: Yes.
DD: Song of Songs. Places like, let’s see, Mablethorpe. That seems people used to go there for a day out if there was a forty eight hour pass or a stand down I ought to know if I thought of that I could think of that easily I just can’t think of any. They would go to one or two coastal towns between Spurn Head and oh I just can’t think of the names of them.
AS: Don’t
DD: [I ought to. I’m ancient you see [?]
AS: Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. So switching tack a bit. You have the DFC.
DD: Yes.
AS: How did you hear about your award and how was it presented to you?
DD: I’ve got a newspaper cutting about it there. It was in the Gazette. Rotherham Gazette I think and I had a very nice letter from the George VI - Secretary presumably. The king was indisposed. Wasn’t able to be presenting personally as he would wish to do and wished me well in my future career and it came through the post [laughs]. No ceremony or whatever. My wife has the MBE. We went to Buck House to get that and my sister in law and my daughter could go with us.
AS: Fantastic.
DD: But there was no ceremony about it and immediately after the war and for at least twenty years Bomber Command was almost in the dog house. They were thinking in terms of all the damage they did to oh someplace or other. Let’s see which would be the one?
AS: Was it Dresden?
DD: Dresden.
AS: Yeah
DD: That’s the one. Well we weren’t involved in that at all. We don’t know if we injured many civilians. There were bound to have been at times but you couldn’t be that selective. Necessary they might have been injured or killed. We tried to do our best not to damage local human beings but bombing is a very, well not exactly indiscriminate but we had taken, aimed to be as accurate as we could.
AS: You mentioned at Bomber Command as you put it was in the doghouse after the war. Was this a real feeling that, that you and your comrades had that your -
DD: Oh we didn’t feel that. It was the attitude of the general public and Bomber Command wasn’t popular with the national attitude for some time. It was some, afterwards I think people have come around to believe and to know that we were the only ones to really get to the heart of Germany and the industrial heart of it. And if it wasn’t for Bomber Command well the war would have gone on much longer. And of course Guy Gibson’s dam busting that created havoc and that shortened the length of the war, the length of the time of the war finishing.
AS: I’m, I’m really interested in the fact that you think that it’s, it’s changing. For what it’s worth I agree. But do you think things like the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park and what we’re doing up in Lincoln, do you think that is, signifies a change in public attitude?
DD: It was very popular at a time when the green park memorial was the biggest attraction in London and some silly fools went and defaced it with some paint.
AS: Yes I saw that. It was
DD: You saw that?
AS: Yes I was up there for the opening as you were.
DD: Oh it was a lovely day.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Yes they fed us well. They provided positions for us. We booked to go to it in good time to go see it. I went a day or two earlier I was so excited about going and Charlie and I were together and my son and my grandson went with me. They were the two guests I had and they were very impressed and delighted.
AS: There, there was this feeling amongst the aircrew that they weren’t appreciated before that. Is that the case?
DD: We didn’t think or care about it.
AS: No just -
DD: We were there and did the job and it had to be done. We didn’t care what the public thought. I will say this in terms of the public and Bomber Command I’ve been to a few reunions and I sometimes had a taxi to go from Paddington to another station, our reunions were often up in York, and I met a taxi man and he said, “Oh come with me I wouldn’t dare charge you chaps. I know what you went through.” And that was a lovely gesture. I’ve met that on two or three occasions.
AS: Moving completely different track if I may for a moment - use of wakey wakey pills - amphetamines or Benzadrine I know they were in the escape packs but were they ever offered to you before flying?
DD: I don’t recall anything about it at all. I don’t think so. No, we didn’t, I didn’t take any. I knew they existed but I didn’t want any or need any and neither did our crew.
AS: Excellent that’s good. Continuing on with the escape kit theme did you have any sort of escape training?
DD: Yes.
AS: And what did that consist of?
DD: We went to battle school and I seem to remember walking around on my hands and knees and I believe we had details to store a map in our caps or in our shoes in case we needed to make reference to the land to find our way around. We did escape training about a fortnight as far as I know.
AS: In your training before going on operations what, what sort of, of flying did you do? I’ve heard of bullseyes for instance. What were they all about?
DD: Yes they were practice flights to targets and they gave the bomb aimers and the gunners experience and the bullseye was operational experience and the bullseye was operational experience and a part of operational training. We didn’t do that when we were on operations. That was prior to operations.
AS: And did you get involved in leaflet dropping as well in training?
DD: No. I think the wireless operator’s job was to throw leaflets down through the chute and he’d take a handful every three minutes or so and they were in different languages. Some of the leaflets were like little booklets. I’ve got one or two there stuffed away in my general folder but I did have a lovely collection of leaflets and I went out to give a talk on one occasion and I’m sorry to say someone obviously pinched them.
AS: Oh Lord.
DD: I reckon I lost about twenty different leaflets on that occasion.
AS: That’s not a very nice thing to do.
DD: One leaflet I remember particularly was about the flying bomb site Watten that we went to and that’s now a visitor attraction with a coloured leaflet to hand out to people. And we knew that we had an aiming point. There was a great hole beside of the take-off place for these V1s and the walls of it were eight feet thick so you can imagine they needed to give good protection to the missiles which were stored inside.
AS: And you destroyed it.
DD: Hmmn?
AS: And the bombers destroyed it.
DD: Well they shook it up a lot [laughs].
AS: All the way through the crew has been the major part of your experience I think. Since the war I think you’ve kept in touch. Have you had -
DD: All the time.
AS: Have you had reunions?
DD: Oh yes we’ve had reunions. We went to Llanelli where Charlie the, Dennis Cleaver was, he married a Welsh girl. Whether we went to the wedding or what I don’t quite know. I did give an address at Jonah’s funeral. I am a Reader in the church and I wanted to talk about Jonah at the time. He was my particular close fellow ‘cause he sat beside me while we were on operations.
AS: What, what, what form did the reunions take? Would you all go off to a hotel somewhere or go back to Driffield or what?
DD: In York itself I think, mainly. It was Betty’s bar they used to talk about. They used to meet there when - you said what do people do on their day off or when they had free time - Bettys Bar in York was popular. I wasn’t a drinking fellow and that was very popular. They were a very hearty, jolly lot the Australians. Very easy to get on with.
AS: And you’ve been to Australia yourself a number of times.
DD: I’ve been nine times. Not just because of our daughter but there have been reunions in Australia. I did have some reunions to do with South Africa too. The [Hornclip?] Association. [Hornclip?] was a volcanic mountain with a flat top near where we flew from and that Association has packed in now but that was quite a popular meet up. I think we had one or two reunions in London.
AS: I think we’ll, we’ll pause there.
[pause]
DD: I don’t think we were using H2S until the end of our tour.
AS: We have from your fantastic folder here we have a, a collection of souvenirs[?] papers from each mission and one of them we have here - Mission 25 to Cologne does in fact have your H2S map here. Could you, could you talk me through what we’ve on this map?
DD: Well we had a fluorescent screen same size as the Gee was and the shape of the town would come up as a darker pink glow against a faint background and the shape came up like you see here. These different shapes of towns. You see London over there, a big patch, different towns in England and that was a case of navigating by H2S and I could take a fix every six minutes with no difficulty. See the scattering towns look.
AS: Yes.
DD: That’s the Ruhr there. You can see the shape of towns alright there.
AS: But on here you have a number of different coloured lines and writing could you, could you talk me through those. Base at Driffield there with -.
DD: Yes on the track that we wanted to keep there’d be two arrows and the wind that we found would have three arrows on it, the vector with the wind and we took off from Flaxfleet but you see our base Driffield is about twenty miles north of Hull and there’s a place called Flaxfleet not far away. That’d be the start of that thing. It was a village I suppose. I’ve never been to Flaxfleet. I’ve got a, somewhere over in that file over there big file I think I’ve got a postcard with a picture of Flaxfleet on it. Not that it’s very important but that’s the name of it.
AS: And then this, this is your track pre-planned. This is the track you’d planned beforehand.
DD: That’s right. On the way out. That was the wind vector there. That green.
AS: Ahum
DD: The target would have a triangle there.
AS: So you’re routing over, over Reading on this particular occasion.
DD: Yes.
AS: Is that, is that a regular route?
DD: I don’t know. Not often.
AS: But would you, would you always avoid London?
DD: Oh I suppose so. It’s such a sprawl. Anyway so long as I got my fix every six minutes that was all I really needed to have, needed to do.
AS: And you’re calculating a lot of wind vectors. One two -
DD: We were probably wind finders about that time and maybe[?] transmit that to PFF. There’s a rash of towns along -
AS: And as you say they all have different, different shapes.
DD: Shapes.
AS: What was the -
DD: Cologne.
AS: What was the target in Cologne?
DD: Railway. Railway marshalling yard.
3549 Other: Morning.
DD: Morning Abigail everything ok
PERSONAL CONVERSATION WITH ABIGAIL FROM MARKER 3605 - NOT TRANSCRIBED.
AS: So an enormous amount of information on here and you put this, which of this would you put on before you took off.
DD: Nothing.
AS: Information -
DD: Maybe that green, we dropped leaflets or something.
AS: That’s window, says window or something.
DD: Oh yes that might have been put on there before we took off.
AS: Also with your chart here we have a second chart and that’s -
DD: Sometimes we were asked to replot an actual operation and that might have been such a case. I don’t know.
AS: At short notice.
DD: After the operation. Analysing what we did.
AS: Ok.
DD: They kept their eye on us pretty well.
AS: And we also have a flight log. Flight plan, excuse me.
DD: Yes that was, that was target there. Before the target. After the target.
AS: Ok.
DD: What does it say here?
AS: Ok. - KJ Brown , Flying Officer.
DD: Hmmn
AS: So he was -
DD: He improved.
AS: Entirely satisfied with that one, with the Cologne trip. Can you, can you talk me through some of this. Here where it says watch - fast and slow. What’s that all about?
DD: Oh by watch when they gave us the time signal. Was it four seconds ahead of the actual Greenwich time signal or four seconds behind. That would be recorded there and the time would be important if I was doing anything to do with astro navigation but to the nearest minute well in terms of astro navigation a minute meant, a minute in time meant a four miles position difference and we had to correct for that.
AS: So you were navigating to that, that degree of accuracy?
DD: Yes.
AS: Ok. Here we have - is that required track?
DD: Yes, and those were the different winds we used.
AS: These would be given to you before the op would they?
DD: Yes. Yes that’s right.
AS: And then is this after take-off. This section of the form is
DD: That’s right
AS: After take off
DD: Yes.
AS: What actually happened rather than -
DD: That’s right. Watches synchronised so my time was what the pilot had in front of him. Why did I underline that I wonder. Is that take off time?
AS: Airborne. Yeah.
DD: Yes.
AS: Climb to six thousand over base. That must have taken quite a long time with a -
DD: Heavy aircraft.
AS: Heavy aircraft.
DD: The pencil’s a rather light colour. You can read it anyhow.
AS: Ahum [pause] and what’s that say?
DD: Master switch off. The master switch meant that the bombs couldn’t be released afterwards once it was off. We had a hang up or two once or twice with bombs. It’s not easy landing when the bombs are held up.
AS: Can, can you recall what size of bombs they were?
DD: Oh there’s a list of it. I’ve got a list of it on, let’s see, I think in the logbook there’s a list of the weight of bombs which we carried. You remember you’ve got the logbook?
AS: Yes. Yes, we can, we can have a look through that but this is marvellous this is a record of every single thing that happened isn’t it?
DD: Well that’s what the navigators job was you see. Not that we were going to do a post mortem or anything like that but at the debriefing they may have had questions to ask us.
[pause]
AS: And also you have a target photograph.
[pause]
DD: Cologne.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Anything on the back? No.
AS: What’s that telegram say?
DD: Best wishes and love, Helen.
AS: Fantastic.
DD: And that was the envelope the telegram came in. You don’t get greeting telegrams, you don’t get telegrams at anymore I suppose.
AS: And what’s the address there? Is that something Hall? Is that your officer’s mess?
DD: [Arley?] House, Marazion. That was my home address.
AS: Ah ok. Right. Shall we?
[pause]
Derry in amongst the things that you’ve kept is this Gee lattice chart here.
DD: Yes.
AS: Gee lattice chart North German chain. Could you talk me through what Gee was and how you used this chart?
DD: Well Gee was signal which came to us from a ground station and sometimes of course those did get attacked but we were delighted to be able to pick up these transmissions and we had a screen in front of us and we could find out where we were and the position lines as you see had certain values written on them and the value on that it made sure we were keeping to the same signal all the time and we had to record our position and we wanted to get two signals. One signal to cross the other and the better it was in terms of being a right angle it was more spot on. If it was say a thirty degree angle between the two position lines it wasn’t very satisfactory so we had to pick out the signals that were the most suitable to give us an accurate position and when we got our fix we used to make a mark with a cross on the chart according to where we were and it was my hope all the time to take a fix whichever method we did it every six minutes because six minutes being a tenth of the hour it was easier to work out by moving the decimal point the speed that we were doing and the Gee fix that we got showed us our ground position. By joining the air position to the air position we got an angle, a vector from which we could work out the wind direction and speed and that was the navigator’s job. The duties of a navigator are shown very well in the AP1234.
AS: Yeah, we, we’ll come to that.
DD: Does that tell you a lot?
AS: That does tell me a lot thank you and I can see here the crosses that you, some of the crosses that you’ve made.
DD: Yes.
AS: The lines are the Gee lines, the lattice lines are in green, red and purple. So were they different lines for different stations?
DD: That’s right. Yes.
AS: Ok and what would you see on your instrument, your Gee instrument? Would you see the values or -
DD: No I would set with some little tuning knob which station I was on which, and then take the reading for the position line and transfer that on to the chart I was navigating on.
AS: Ok and on here also apart from the crosses we have this pencil line coming down from [Maesemunde?] along the Dutch coast and then inland to by Krefeld.
DD: Yes.
AS: What, what was that? What does that represent?
DD: I don’t know. It might be if we were flying in that area whether we would be dropping window or whether we’d be dropping leaflets. It should be labelled but I’m not aware of it if it’s not labelled.
AS: Ok
DD: Is it a man-made line or a printed one?
AS: It’s a thick, thick pencil but no matter, it was a general query. Do these grid squares do they match up to a GJ there. HJ
DD: Pardon?
AS: They match up to your squares on your -
DD: The transmitting units? Those are different, the transmission would be here.
AS: Yeah excellent.
DD: Well modern laptops, on the computers are quite a frequent things but this is a laptop and it’s a circular side, slide rule and here we set the speeds and we used to prop the wind from that centre point how long it was, each one of these is ten miles and when we rotated this we set on the course that we were going to fly and take the reading off at that point there and I don’t really remember how I used this completely but it was a very useful tool.
AS: Which course would you pass to the pilot? Would you pass the true course?
DD: No. No, it had to compass the deviation and the compass correction and the true course was just, was a mathematical figure but that wouldn’t be handed to the pilot. And that was for converting statute to nautical. Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Indicated air speed.
AS: That’s a remarkable tool. It has a green and red pencil. What, what was the significance of the green?
DD: Well.
AS: And the red end?
DD: We used green for the fixed position and red for the target position but the green was used much more frequently than the red. And you’ll see the different colours on the charts that I’ve got.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Used occasionally but I think more likely than not ordinary pencil is more significant in my calculations than the different colours.
AS: Ahum
DD: I hope I’m talking sense.
AS: Absolutely. Now amongst your souvenirs alongside the computer is this air navigation.
DD: Oh AP1234.
AS: Now that is your bible perhaps.
DD: Yes.
[phone ringing]
DD: The ladies will answer that.
AS: Yeah. Now it -
DD: Somebody will come up very soon
AS: It seems.
DD: Oh she’s got the extension with her I expect.
AS: Fantastic. Quick thinking. It seems incredibly comprehensive
DD: Yes.
AS: Scope of navigation, bearings, compass error - was this a tool you used every day or something like a textbook from, from training or both?
DD: In training time. It wasn’t taken in the air with us. If you look somewhere around page thirty.
AS: Page thirty.
DD: Yeah that’s, that’s the -
AS: The circular slide rule. Excellent. Which is what we’ve just been looking at. The navigation computer mark III.
DD: Yes, I used that which is in your hand if I was giving a talk somewhere and that would have been put on top of that page I expect.
AS: Ok.
DD: These straps were there for a Mosquito pilot who was wearing it. He’d strap it to his knee and it had, it mustn’t move, like that. That would keep it from falling off his knee and being readily found if he needed it ’cause more likely than not he didn’t have a navigator with him and that was, he did his own navigation.
AS: Good Lord.
DD: [mentioned?] about arrows? Yes. Track two arrows the course that the pilot had to go was with that single arrow and three for the wind I think. Yes the vector of all wind velocity. The triple arrow.
[pause]
AS: It’s completely comprehensive isn’t it? The formula and the dos and the don’ts.
[pause]
What sort of examinations on all this did you have in training that you had to pass? Were they very detailed or - ?
DD: I don’t remember at all.
AS: Ok.
DD: We passed those exams that’s the thing.
AS: Yeah. You did your training in South Africa. Was there any anti-British feeling that you came across amongst the Boers?
DD: Oh yes we had to walk out in fours because there was a group of desperate Boers called the OBs [?] the Brothers of the Wagonette they were horse drawn people and they, they would assault air force people because of the pro-Boer feeling. South Africa had apartheid going on out there, colour bar, and that was cancelled later on but we kept together if we were walking out so we wouldn’t be attacked by these desperadoes.
AS: Was there, the other side of the coin was there a lot of kindness shown by other -
DD: Yes. .
AS: South Africans to you?
DD: Oh yes. South African families. Met some very interesting people called Thornton at East London and the lady of the house her husband was supposed to have the best stamp collection in South Africa. He was delighted to show that to us. They had a son and his friend, same age as myself and a friend, and they were training as doctors and I kept in contact with their son Geoffrey until he died about ten years ago and they, they were delighted to look after us. And the lady, Mrs Thornton, it so happened that when we moved to Queenstown from East London they were in a Red Shield Club, Salvation Army there was a friend who’d been to school with the lady that had met us in East London.
AS: Incredibly small world isn’t it?
[pause]
AS: Derry, one of the other the other things you’ve kept is your, your logbook.
DD: Yes.
AS: Observers and Air Gunners Flying Logbook. It’s not a blue one. It’s not a nice blue one. Why is that?
DD: Oh yes well of course the thing the normal ones are issued in England had a cloth binding. This one in South Africa just the bare boards. And this started to come to pieces and the repair I had done with that that blue colour there is the colour it should have been and it’s repaired somewhere in the St Just area. There’s a very good shop in St Just called Cookbook and they, I buy books there occasionally, I sell them books occasionally and they bind books as well and they repaired this for me.
AS: It’s a wonderful job.
DD: That you see there was my log when I went to grading school at a place called Ansty near Coventry flying Tiger Moths. Only small amounts of time.
AS: And these exercises 1, 1a, 2 they’re still used today.
DD: Oh are they?
AS: Yeah. Still used today. Very short time. September the 13th to what, the 26th is there any more on the back. Less than a month. Twelve hours.
DD: Ahum
[pause]
That’s Guy Gibson.
AS: Yes. So grading school and then in October 1942, and then jump straight to Queenstown in South Africa.
DD: Ahum.
AS: In October ’43.
DD: That’s when I passed out.
AS: Ok. Qualification.
DD: Do you know the pewter tankard I’ve got? It’s got a glass bottom in it. Do you know why?
AS: No.
DD: You don’t know?
AS: No.
DD: Well if it was a solid bottom and you were drinking than someone could easily draw a knife or whatever and give you a prong and that’s so you can see what was happening.
AS: I didn’t know life in an officer’s mess was so dangerous.
DD: Hmmn.
AS: Right. This is your result of your ab initio course.
DD: That’s right.
AS: At Shawbury.
DD: Shawbury?
AS: Ahum.
DD: Ahum that was a speck end course we called it. I’m entitled to the letter capital N like people put BA after their name but I don’t use it.
AS: And what, what’s your remarks there? What do, what do they say about you?
DD: Good results on course. With his pleasant personality and keenness this officer can satisfactorily fill a staff position. So you see I was called a staff navigator. They might have called me into a briefing room or something like that and there we are, that’s part of it.
AS: I’m just trying to get a sense of how much flying you did in training.
DD: I don’t think I did more than six hundred hours.
AS: It’s quite intensive Derry.
DD: Ahum.
AS: In South Africa on Ansons. I mean here - 14th of July. Good Lord, that was, 14th of July 1943, that was seventy two years ago yesterday.
DD: Yes ahum.
AS: Yesterday. You did three trips in an Anson.
DD: Ahum. Usually two as first navigator and second navigator. My friend Harry Dunn I was telling you about would be flying with me then and they had all sorts of strange names, Dutch names, these Boer people. South African Air Force they wore a khaki uniform.
AS: And army ranks.
DD: Yes.
AS: I believe. Yeah. In training did you feel it was high pressure and very intense or was it reasonably relaxed?
DD: Oh reasonably relaxed. My terrible feeling all the way along was will I be ready in time to do something worthwhile and we used to blame Air Commodore Critchley who was supposed to be a Training Command Officer and we used to blame old Critchley for not moving us on quickly if we got waiting and waiting and waiting for the next posting and I didn’t think I was going to live long enough to do operations but thank God we did.
AS: So did you get the feeling that there were an awful lot of aircrew in the system by time this time?
DD: No. No, we just accepted the fact we were a course going through and they must have planned well ahead to make places for us in South Africa and in Canada and in Rhodesia. I did write something about our overseas training. The Empire Air Training Scheme they called it.
AS: Was that published somewhere or -
DD: I don’t think so.
AS: Ok.
DD: It might have appeared in, there was an aircrew magazine called Intercom and I believe it was published in that but I’m not sure.
AS: I can look out for that. And then from South Africa by the time you left South Africa you had done what forty two hours day.
DD: Not very much.
AS: No eighty eight hour day flying and twelve hours twenty at night. Total flying. Left South Africa. And how did you get back to -
DD: On a troop ship called the Orduna.
AS: Ahum
DD: A South American boat. And there were a lot of women and children on board being repatriated out of India, service wives and children, and we went up through the Red Sea and we were kept at Tufik on the Red Sea until the Germans were cleared out of Italy and then they were afraid that we might meet some submarines in the, in the Mediterranean so we were well protected. They made well and truly sure that we’d be safely transferred.
AS: Ok. And you came into, to Liverpool?
DD: Liverpool again, yes.
AS: Super. Had you been commissioned by this time?
DD: Oh yes but we didn’t have commissioned uniforms until I’d travelled from Liverpool to Harrogate and that’s where the measurement and fitting of pilot officers uniform came into it.
AS: I hope you got a first class travel warrant.
DD: I suppose so [laughs]. I expect I did.
AS: And then we’re at Number 4 AFU is that Advanced Flying Unit?
DD: Yes, Advanced Flying Unit yes. Was that West Freugh?
AS: West Freugh, yeah.
DD: Stranraer.
AS: Yeah. And this was still, I suppose, individual training for you. You hadn’t crewed up at this point?
DD: No.
AS: And this was on Ansons?
DD: That was Ansons again. To get used to British conditions.
AS: Navigating in the fog. Yeah. Was it, was it a shock coming from the, the bushveld and the plains of and South Africa to what, what we have in the UK.
DD: No. We just took it for granted that it would be slightly different and we coped.
AS: And all the principals and all the training were - you could carry them straight.
DD: Yes.
AS: Straight across. Ok. Right, so we’ve got here a pundit crawl. Can you remember what that was all about?
DD: Travelling from red light to red light I think.
AS: Really ok.
DD: Whether it was the gunner’s point of view or from my navigation point of view I don’t know. Maybe I just had to record what was done. A pundit crawl.
AS: Yeah. And then 21 OTU.
DD: That’s Moreton, Much Binding in the Marsh.
AS: And it seems to get really serious at this point. You’ve got a page of dinghy drills, parachute drills, wet dinghy drill.
DD: We went to the Baths at Cheltenham for that. In the middle of England well away from the sea.
AS: Yeah. And by this time you, you’d crewed up?
DD: Yeah. No.
AS: Ok.
DD: Yes at OTU we crewed up, that’s right.
AS: Ok and you were using Wellingtons.
[pause]
Right.
[pause]
And that is super we did your OTU and crewing up and whatnot yesterday so I think we’ll draw a pause there if we can.
DD: Ahum
[pause]
DD: Turning on now?
AS: Yes.
DD: Occasionally we had a little wicker cage with pigeons in it and I believe the idea was that if we were shot down or if we were captured then the homing pigeons would come back with the news [laughs] and it only happened to us two or three times but I was aware that it did happen occasionally.
AS: And did you carry them on every trip or just -
DD: No. No.
AS: Just a few.
DD: Just occasionally.
AS: What, one wonders how you could release a pigeon from an aeroplane at two hundred miles an hour but perhaps it was if you crash landed.
DD: The crash would release the cage. The poor pigeons.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ADerringtonAP150715-02
Title
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Interview with Dr Derry Derrington
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:08:21 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Date
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2015-07-15
Description
An account of the resource
Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
South Africa
England--Gloucestershire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
France--Watten
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
animal
Anson
bombing
briefing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Ansty
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF West Freugh
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/257/3404/PFraserC1501.2.jpg
1b37fb0db87bcc24ea45c3ca9410d737
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/257/3404/AFraserC151113.1.mp3
c25ed2496f5e21b68df313bc38956864
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fraser, Colin
Colin Fraser
C Fraser
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Colin Fraser (Royal Australian Air Force) an account of his being shot down, a crew photograph and a piece of parachute memento. He served as a Lancaster navigator on 460 Squadron. His aircraft was shot down in April 1945 and he was a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by XXX and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Fraser, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Col Fraser. A 460 Squadron navigator. The interview is taking place at Camberwell in Melbourne. My name’s Adam Purcell. The date is the 13th of November 2015. Col. I believe you have got something prepared. Let’s go.
CF: Yeah. I was born in Melbourne on 5th of November 1922. My air force number was 435111. And when the Japanese came into the war I decided to join the air force but they had many volunteers and the army wanted me so I went into the army on the 31st of December ‘41 and it took me ‘til March ‘43 to get back into the air force at Number 2 ITS Bradfield Park in Sydney. Where I was then classified as a navigator which is what I wanted. By changing Australia where the system was to have a observer, which means you could be a navigator, a bomb aimer or both depending on the size of the crew. I graduated in February forty — oh sorry. It was ‘43. ’44 sorry. Yeah. I graduated, sorry, in February ’44 as a navigator and had leave and then lived in the Melbourne Cricket Ground grandstand for seven days before I sailed off to England. I arrived in Brighton where the Australians were — had a reception centre, in February, sorry in March ’44. And we were told then immediately that there would be a delay because the fact is that the Bomber Command was not losing the people and aircrew were surplus for the moment there. I took leave courtesy of the Lady Ryder Scheme at a farm in, outside York. And I then returned to the new area of the instruction things at Warrington in Lancashire. And I and my mates spent a lot of time from there looking around various parts of England while we were waiting and we had some leave. At that time the RAF stopped the number of pilots being trained and there were empty airstrips and aeroplanes. So they said the pilots had been waiting a long time, for three weeks down to these airstrips and an empty backseat. They sent the navigators and bomb aimers to learn about map reading in English conditions. I finished up at Fairoaks which is in the Windsor Castle area. And we arrived there in early June ‘44 and we could see with flying at only a few thousand feet around the area that the invasion was well and truly on. And a couple of nights later we were not surprised at the amount of aircraft flying around for the invasion date. The — and then about ten days later we woke up to the sound of the V2. The flying bomb. We were not on the direct route from France to London, but the stray ones often were within our sight and two at least came over our area. We went back to Padgate and there we were split up into navigators and bomb aimers and I, being a navigator went up to West Frew in Scotland. And there we were joined by a section from New Zealand boys and I did my first DR navigation for six months while there. Then we were sent to 27 OUT at Lichfield which was the Australian OTU. And there we met up with our bomb aimer mates who we’d trained with, and I crewed up with Dan Lynch for the following day. We discussed having a pilot and decided we wanted one who was big and strong and had to be mature. About twenty three or twenty four [laughs] so we mixed with the pilots and picked out two pilots who seemed to fit the bill a bit. And we were at the same meal table as them that evening and the following morning when we decided that we wanted as a pilot Harry Payne. Known as Lofty because he was six foot three. So later that morning when we all got in the big hall we sat behind Lofty and were chatting to some gunners who’d also paired up. And when the chief flying instructor said, ‘Righto boys. Crew up,’ we tapped Lofty on the shoulder and said would he like a navigator and a bomb aimer and he said, ‘Yes. Do you know any others?’ and we said, ‘There’s two nice gunners over there. So we had them. They in turn knew a wireless operator from the night before so we finished up with a crew which was Harry ‘Lofty’ Payne from West Australia. Dan Lynch, the bomb aimer from Tasmania and myself, Colin Fraser from Melbourne. Our wireless operator was Bill Stanley from Melbourne. And then we had two Sydney boys as gunners. Jack Bennett, upper, mid-upper and Hugh Connochie known as Shorty, as the rear gunner. We then did ground subjects for a couple of weeks. Everybody. And I was then introduced into the mysteries of Gee. The radar navigation aid. We were taken out to the Wellington aircraft with a instructor pilot and he showed Harry how things were done and then said to him, ‘Now you can take off for three landings and take offs and then call it a day.’ Well, we took off and landed twice and the third time as we reached height the port engine failed and we went into emergency drill which for my position was in the middle of the aircraft where I couldn’t see anything. As we went around I pulled a nacelle cock to get rid of some petrol from the plane. And when Lofty turned in to make the landing he instructed me to pull the air bottle which I did and down came the undercart. The original Wellingtons that would also blow all hydraulics. But the pilots had all been advised that all planes on the station had been adjusted. That this would not happen. However, as Harry went to put down the flaps nothing happened. And he finished up banging the aircraft down halfway down the strip and he ran through the fence, across a road, a fence the other side, a bush or two, and finished up in a ditch with the back broken and up in the air. We all managed to get out of the escape hatches with any trouble, no injuries except a few minor cuts. And we took on, went back to flying the following day. And the only one there the one night the heating failed just after take-off and I had to navigate around with frozen hands. Putting them in gloves and out again. Navigation was a bit sketchy. And when I handed the log in, the instructor said to me it wasn’t too good. I maintained that in the circumstances it was quite ok. His comment back was, ‘In Bomber Command there are no excuses,’ which stayed with me for the rest of the tour. We finished there on the 11th of December and then we went in to Poole which meant sitting around for nothing for a couple of months because it was winter and there wasn’t any flying going on anyway. And we took leave to several places such as Edinburgh and there. Then on the 2nd of February we then went to Heavy Conversion Unit at Lindholme and met up with the mighty Lancaster bomber. As the navigator I met up with the H2S which allowed you to look through cloud and pick up the signals from the ground. It was good on the coast but not too good with towns. And one night when we were flying on a decoy raid which meant you flew within a few miles of the enemy coast and then turned back to make them think you were going to attack them. And that night it turned out that my oxygen tube got twisted and I was only getting half the amount of oxygen, and as such I got — cut out a dog leg we should have done and got back earlier to be noted that they were bandits in the area which was code for German fighters. Anyway, we got down. The last crew in to land while a mate of ours at 460 Squadron, Binbrook was shot down on a training flight and two of his crew were killed.
AP: Col.
CF: There were about a hundred JU88s came back with the bombers.
AP: Col. I’ll stop you there for a minute.
Other: I’ve heard this story.
AP: I haven’t yet.
[recording paused]
CF: Ah yes.
AP: Now where weren’t we?
CF: That’s how it goes. Now, where was I in this?
AP: We were talking about bandits returning from your decoy trip I think. Bandits. You were returning from your decoy trip.
CF: Oh yeah.
AP: And there were bandits.
CF: Yeah. Which meant that therefore we landed. I think we said we landed. And got, Binbrook. That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. So we’re as we said before any former on there. We finished on that at Poole, there we’ve got the — ah that’s right we’re at Lindholme. Ok. So Ok. Now where do I start from now when.
AP: Say again. Alright. Have you finished.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Your prepared statement shall we say. Ok. You said you were picked as a navigator and you said you wanted to be a navigator. Why?
CF: Because I’m good at figures. I’m not very good with my hands. I never wanted to really drive a car like all the other kids were fighting to get the steering wheel and I’d say, ‘Give me the map.’ So [laughs] yeah. I haven’t got the co-ordination with my hands. Well the obvious thing is my wife very nicely said to me, ‘You know dear if we lived on what you made with your hands we’d be below the poverty line.’ [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
CF: No. I’m good at maths and I enjoy doing the figures. And secondly to stare, to sit with your steering column in front of me for five, six, eight, nine hours. That’s deadly. I like, I’ve got figures in front of me. I’m working on this time . Doing it there. So all in all the idea of being a pilot, although I had all the things. In those days my eyes were good for landing and everything. I was pilot/navigator category only because I was six feet one and they would not make you a gunner if you were over six feet.
AP: That’s why you’re —
CF: When I went in for my interview as to what I could be and they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘A navigator.’ And they probably looked at each other and said well that’s a change because ninety percent or more say a pilot. And they had a look at my figures that I had done pretty well in the exams. The mathematics and so forth. So yeah. So I was happy with being a navigator, yes. I wouldn’t have liked to have been a bomb aimer. Again, you would be steering there on a bombing trip for hour after hour whereas, you’re working on it. Mind you, at the same time you have a lot of pressure on you because if you’re not there and where you should be the crew look upon you. I always remember reading memoirs of some fella that when he said they got there and he said, ‘But we’re there,’ and the pilot and the rest of the crew said, ‘There’s no markers down. No, nothing. Are you sure you’re right Bill?’ You know. And then all of a sudden some markers went down and the pilot said, ‘Oh well done. The markers are down.’ He said, nobody apologised for all the queries and suggestions that I’d stuffed up really [laughs] yeah. No I enjoyed being a navigator. Yep. Yes.
AP: Very good. Can we — we might backtrack a little bit actually. Your early life when you were growing up. What, what did you do before the war?
CF: What?
AP: Yeah.
CF: Well I grew up at, in Hawthorn you might say. Down near the Quay on tennis courts on Scotch College where we had the Gardiner Creek winding around and like all the little kids along the Gardiner Creek we played down there when we shouldn’t have probably. We even had a bit of naked swimming there when we were six or seven or eight sort of business there in the creek. And somebody asked me once what was the, your memory of childhood? And I said, I thought for a while and I said, ‘Freedom.’ We were free. There was never any worries about anything sort of business there. Admittedly in the Depression I never gave my parents enough credit for the way they looked after us four kids during the Depression sort of business then. But the point was that as I said at my elder brother’s funeral my first memory of him was mother calling out, ‘Take you little brother with you and look after him.’ And that was the way that it acted in those days. Big sisters and big brothers looked after little brothers and I had what you might — and of course there was no TV. And we played games within the family and with our mates, sort of business, there. I had a great mate who died only a few months ago with a sudden heart attack and I went out my back gate and up a couple of houses in his back gate and vice versa and he was just as much — had two sisters he didn’t [pause] but he was just as much an elder brother as I was for the girls. They just treated me like a brother. He was over so often, he was always with us. Yeah. But the freedom was that was it. I could do what I sort of liked. Mother never said ‘Where are you going?’ Or something or other. I would just say, ‘Oh I’m going down to see Bill Jones or something like that.’ There was no worries that there were going to be any strange men or odd people around about. I had the — and there weren’t that many cars on the road either sort of business. That was it. It was freedom type of business that I had on there. And I was in the, one of the higher ones up in class. Again fortunately I had brains. I had nothing with the hands but the brains. I had the brains. And I can remember at state school you had two, what you’d call, very smart bastards, and I was one of the next three or four after that to get fired over two or three or four of us. But those two were outstanding and then we three or four or so were varied from time to time as to who was the smartest bastard shall we say. But that was it. We had freedom type of business of it there. And what was more. To do it there, more we had security ahead of us. It was obvious that if we’d ever thought about it we would grow up and get married and have kids and have a house. And that was, you know, the feeling was there was life ordained and certainly anybody who took a job in the public service would be, assume that they would see their life out in the public service. Again, if you joined a big company like BHP or something like that you would again, would assume that you’re there. So that was also better. But on the other hand of course as you were growing up you didn’t think too much about security. You just assumed I suppose that there was a instruction. And living in Hawthorn black was black and white was white. It was only when I went into the army I found there was a lot of shades of grey, depending on circumstances and the viewpoints of people etcetera. But in Hawthorn where I was, as I said we had all those. We had all that creek and the open land to run and play and fished and so forth etcetera there and I can remember the actual Quay on tennis courts there being built shall we say on it there. But that was it. It was the freedom of doing things. We might, as I say, Depression we might have had a second hand football or cricket bat or something or other. You had something. That was it, sort of business there. You weren’t looking for much sort of business there, and as I say you had a lot of, a lot of kids in that area I suppose moved at the same time and there was always. You walked out the house and walked around to the next over or you’d run into a couple of kids and you sort of business there. Yeah. Yes.
AP: Yeah. [unclear]
CF: A good childhood really. As I say not a very, not a rich one in any way or form sort of business there but a good childhood of freedom. Yeah.
AP: What— was the army your first job. Was the army your first job?
CF: What?
AP: Sorry. Sorry. Your first job. Was, was that — did you come straight out of school and straight into the military or did you do something?
CF: At that stage, Year 10, the intermediate was where everybody except the, the title used recently — only the swots went past Year 10 and they would be the future doctors and so forth there. The only the very, very smart ones you might say, the top ten percent or something went past Year 10. The rest of but again, looking, you went to work in a big company and when you started out they had — shall we say half a dozen new boys started at the end of January or something and you worked in the mail room. And for twelve months you delivered papers and picked up papers all around and you got to know what happened in the company. And then after that or sometime during it perhaps you then got a job of doing — writing something up or doing something and you stepped up your attitude. And you also went to work — you went to night school to learn book keeping accountancy. Or whatever was the thing of it there. So for two nights a week and maybe a bit of time to do a bit of study you were occupied shall we say. You didn’t have much money so you couldn’t go out much sort of business there. You did the things. Yeah.
AP: So why did you want to join the air force? Why? Why did you want to join the air force?
CF: Well I’d never had much to do with the water so the navy was out for a start. The idea of being on a ship sailing around on water had no appeal. The army — well I had read a few books about World War One. In the trenches and such and again the idea of face to face, shall we say, bayonet and so forth didn’t appeal much to me and so I couldn’t see a place in the army for my clerical skills shall we say. That type of business. So the air force and being a navigator appealed to me. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Fair enough. You were, I think you said ITS was at Bradfield Park. Your Initial Training School was at Bradfield Park?
CF: Yes. Don’t ask me why they sent a Melbourne boy, like a fella said to me when he went to do his initial training as a pilot, he lived in Adelaide and thought he’d go to Padfield or something.
AP: Parafield.
CF: And no. No. No. They sent him over to Wagga.
AP: Ask not. Just do.
CF: The mysteries of postings. Yes.
AP: What happened at ITS? What, what sorts of things did you — were you taught. What sort of things did you do?
CF: Well you learned the theory of flight was the main thing there. Why did a plane stay up shall we say. You did mathematics for your because later on your skill. You did plenty of PT to keep yourself in good fit there. Incidentally, the fittest I ever was after the army induction because we did marching, drill there. PT. And then we’d finish up at four in the afternoon with a swim in the [Goulburn River?] And at the end of six weeks of that or something like that we, at nineteen years of age you were very fit when you’d been doing all this exercise every day for six weeks sort of business there. Yeah. The [pause], I can’t really think what else you did in there as I say the theory of flight. The theory of there and as I say mathematics. And PT. Yeah. I can’t think of really much else you did in that sort of days. I didn’t ever keep any records of what we did but certainly when you were on the reserve they would send you homework to do on mathematics. Do that there. So we had a reasonable amount of mathematics in there. Teaching up at there. But now I can’t remember really much other than the fact that we did the mathematics and the theory of flight etcetera up at there. Yeah. They might have had something else up at there. I don’t think if that was the question when you know they would ask you how you got up there. Yeah.
AP: So the first time that you ever went in an aeroplane what aircraft was it? Where was it? And what did think?
CF: It was an Anson aircraft at Mount Gambier which was Number 2 Air Observer’s School. So that was where I go on from ITS to Mount Gambier. And we went on [pause] I think it was an initial flying thing. We flew over the land and we flew over the ocean. And I think that was, you might say, showing us what flying was about. I don’t think we did anything other than fly around and see what was there. Yeah. And the Anson. Yeah.
AP: Did you —
CF: And what was more you had to wind it up a hundred and six turns because you were the, you were there. The pilots wouldn’t wind it up. You were part of the crew who had to wind it up. Yeah.
AP: That’s the undercarriage. That’s the wheels.
CF: That was the navigation. Yes. And you flew two to a crew. Two to a crew. One was the navigator and the other was the secondary one who had to take some notes about the countryside. Yeah.
AP: Did you, did you encounter any accidents or incidents in that early training? Did you, did you see any or —
CF: No accidents in the early training.
AP: No.
CF: Australia had none of the training actually till I was a sergeant and I didn’t actually get involved in any accident that time at all. Sort of business there. No.
AP: Alright. Once you got your wings you passed out as a qualified navigator. You then went to the UK somehow. How did you get there?
CF: We actually went to Brisbane and we caught a American twelve thousand dollar victory ship. They were the ships that they were welding for the first time. They had the, what was the seven thousand tonnes was called the something or other. And I was on a twelve thousand tonne called the Sea Corporal. And we went from Brisbane to San Francisco. And the two things I remember was A) I could see a rain storm and I could see a rainstorm had length and it had width but living where I was in the sort of valley a bit really of Gardiner Creek you only ever saw the rain coming at you sort of business there. You could never see the width or the depth of it but then all of a sudden there you had the ocean. Look across there and there is a rain going across and it’s got width and it’s got length. And the other thing. One day we went into the doldrums when the sea is perfectly smooth. There was no waves crashing. Smooth. There’s no, not a ripple on the water. This was what the old time sailors with the sail used to dread getting. I can imagine. That’s it there. I saw that one day. Yeah. It was eerie to watch this, shall we say, waves — not raising high obviously but, you know, up in the air, yeah.
AP: Very nice. You got to the States. Did you spend any particular time in the USA or was it straight across?
CF: Oh we had six hours. We went to a place called Angel Island in San Francisco Bay which was an American camp and we were given six hours from 6 o’clock in the evening till midnight to see San Francisco. That was our time in San Francisco. Then the next day we caught a train. A train across America. And the great thing about that — on the Pullman carriages they had sleepers. Great thing. Yes. We had to sleep sitting up in Victoria. Well in Australia and in England and then we got to outside New York and we got three days leave in New York. And then we went down to the harbour to there and on one side was the Queen Elizabeth of eighty four thousand tonnes and on the other side was a boat, I’ve forgotten the name, fifty five thousand tonnes. And we had never seen a ship bigger than twenty thousand tons. So eyes opened up big and wide. We didn’t know actually we were going to go on, you see. We actually slept in the Queen Elizabeth. In the third class cinema with bunks three high. And they had something like twelve to fifteen thousand troops on. I understand the American soldiers had eight hours each to sleep. That was it. There was only one bed for three American soldiers when they were taking them across. Six were there. So that was — you had two meals a day. And you had about, I think about half an hour you were allowed up for fresh air once a — once a day you got half an hour on the deck to get a breath of fresh air or something. Because the Queen Elizabeth had done that trip, you know, how many times they had the work down to a fine art. You had to wear a colour patch on your uniform and you weren’t allowed to move outside that colour patch except to go down and have your meal. It was a highly organised thing of it sort of business there. Yes it was. Yeah.
AP: How long ago — sorry, how long did that take. That voyage.
CF: Five or six days it took us to get across. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Not much fun. Not much fun.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Alright. You get to England. This is the first time —
CF: Actually you finish up in the Gourock in the Clyde. Firth of the Clyde.
AP: Ok.
CF: Yeah.
AP: You get to the UK though.
CF: You take the train down and in actual fact you get in the train and you go to Glasgow and then you come to a city that’s got a big castle. And it’s got Waverley. That’s when we asked where we were. ‘You’re at Waverley.’ We couldn’t find Waverley on the map. And of course later on, some a month or two or so later somebody went up to and said, ‘Hey that was Edinburgh.’ Waverley is the station like Flinders Street.
AP: Certainly is. This was the first time you were overseas.
CF: Yes. First time. No. Sorry the army was the first time I was outside Victoria.
AP: Really.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Ok. So as a young Australian, the first time you were overseas wartime England would have been fairly confronting I suppose. What did you think of wartime England when you first got there? What was it like?
CF: Well, wartime. We got there in April which was spring you might say. And we had seen many pictures of England. Of the green land and so forth there. And coming down from Scotland the land was open shall we say and pleasant and the main memory I got down there seeing, for instance all the poles to stop planes landing from the invasion and other matters that indicated there was a war on around the place and England, I read a book. The same thing. It seemed to fit in pretty clearly of what you’d seen in the papers shall we say because you weren’t looking at the slums of London or anything of that nature. We were at Brighton which was the big as you probably know was the big holiday resort with the pubs all along the front. Like something, you might say, like the Gold Coast or something or other like that. And plenty of, actually in peacetime B&Bs behind that, also around places etcetera there. But no England was comforting I would say. There was no problem in there and of course they spoke the language [laughs]
AP: What did you think of the people?
CF: Incidentally, going across to America we had one naive nineteen year old saying to some American officers talking about America and he said, ‘Won’t they think it funny we haven’t got an accent?’ Took the Americans about five minutes to calm down with their laughter.
AP: Fair enough. What did you think of the people in England? Did you, did you have much to do with the civilian population?
CF: Well as they said in the book of, “No Moon Tonight” the author said if there was ever a Commonwealth spirit it was in England during the war. There were no — the Canadian, the English and such and one of the great things about being an Australian was that there were no Australian army troops to stuff it up in England. The air force by and large were ground crew admittedly as well. But by and large the Australians over there were, shall we say middle class and educated and were very popular with the locals and with the girls. That’s it. Yeah. And we were pretty well paid shall we say. Not as well paid as the Americans but we had — yeah.
AP: What — what sort of things, when on leave and these could be at any point when you’re in England. When you’re on a squadron or when you’re in training. What sort of things did you get up to when you were on leave or when you were off duty?
CF: Well, I went on leave with Dan Lynch who — he’d been doing the first year of a medicine course so you might say that we, on leave looked at seeing what we could of England, Scotland and Wales sort of business of it there. So we were always looking for the views and what was there and the old castle and all those types of things of it there. We had a few drinks but basically we didn’t hang around the pubs etcetera there. We, we wanted to see the actual country and as a tourist shall we say there. Yeah. That was my particular little group of, shall we say half a dozen mates and so forth you mixed. In other words you soon found out who wants to, you know, we were friendly with a couple of older blokes who, you know. They were shall we say twenty five or twenty seven or something like that. They’d like to, and they were married they liked to just go down to the pub and just have a drink and a talk. That was fair enough. Whereas we would possibly pop into the pub for one or two drinks and then on to the dance or something of that nature of it there. Yeah. So, like, how things go, when we were at OTU we got a week’s leave and Dan Lynch and I went out and went to hitchhike a ride with the Americans trucks to Brum. Birmingham. And we –they pulled up and, ‘Where do you want to go.’ I said, ‘Birmingham,’ and, ‘That’s ok we’re going to Oxford.’ ‘Could we come to Oxford?’ ‘Oh yes. Hop in the back.’ So we finished up at Oxford. And the following night we went and saw a George Bernard Shaw play which I had never seen one before. But that’s, as I say, a mate of mine. Dan Lynch. He was, that was his culture more so than mine, shall we say, etcetera. Yeah there. Again it was mixed up with you that for instance out of hours, 7 that was what we had to go to get back by the way that we picked up with the English. Bill Stanley and Dan and I would often make a three and go to the dance shall we say. Whereas the navigator Jack Bennett would then be he was a bit of a, he had a couple of other blokes or something. He was chasing the girls and so forth there. And he would, he’d go there and go sometimes with Shorty and the pilot. They tended to do other things shall we say. Yeah. But that was it. You, you soon found the people that wanted to do things that you wanted to do. Yeah.
AP: Did you spend much time in London? Did you spend much time in London?
CF: No.
AP: Not at all.
CF: No. We thought, having had a good look around London on a couple of occasions when we were there. No we didn’t spend, we spent some time there but no we wanted to, when we went on leave we would head down to either Cornwall and Devon or John O’Groats up in Scotland. We never made either place, or land. We didn’t make Lands End. We didn’t make John O’Groats but we would head off with a pass and went off with a thing and we’d stay one day, two days, three days and then all of a sudden realise that we’ve only got two days left. Perhaps we had better in that case make a firm plan where we’d go but that was it. Yeah. We went we made the opportunity. The one little group I sort of mixed around in was to see as much of England, Scotland and Wales as possible in the time. Yeah. In fact, Ireland as well. When the war was over, over there I actually went over to Ireland. Yeah. Where my Irish grandfather came from.
AP: Excellent. What did, what were your thoughts when you finally got out of that Wellington? Or the Wellingtons that kept having engine failures.
CF: Yeah.
AP: And you’re now on four engine aeroplanes. You’re looking at a Lancaster for the first time.
CF: Well, wait a second. When I, when after the Wellington crashed or when we moved in to the Lancaster.
AP: Sorry. In general. When you moved on. So you’ve left the Wellingtons behind.
CF: Left it behind you. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Thank goodness for that.
CF: The old story was that the following day we went flying and that crash was they rolled the Wellington. That’s what happened. We didn’t suffer any and our main thought then was we’d got a bloody good pilot who didn’t panic. He did everything he could to keep the aircraft going and so forth. Safety sort of business of it there. Because as I said they found out that aircraft somehow had not been modified. I never found out why and so forth. Anyway, no, you, we were young. You got on with it and when you got to a Lancaster well let’s face it, let’s say the Lancaster at the Heavy Conversion Unit might have been a little battered but it was better than the Wellington. At the OTU sort of business there. Yeah. And you had four engines too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No. You didn’t worry too much about that.
AP: Can you, can you describe for me what the navigator’s position on the Lancaster is like? What? What’s there when you’re sitting at your desk. What’s around you and what’s it like?
CF: Well a Lancaster you had first of all you were the pilot and the flight engineer stood alongside of each other with the great things in front of them. You, then there was a big black curtain could be pulled across there where [unclear] and you actually faced sideways with a desk in front of you and therefore in front of you you had a compass which theoretically agreed with the compass in the — [paused]. You had to check that there because sometimes it didn’t. And you then had a set for the Gee which you used frequently. You read the thing and you got two, and two things on that and then you plotted on a special sheet which curved and let there. And then you had a, then a thing for the, on the side, for the H2S when you had that equipped on it there. And the rest of the thing of course your tables had your log and most of all you had your flight plan which you drew on as you went along and filled the detail in it there. So you had a couple of pencils and a compass and you had then a, the calculator. I’m trying to think of the name that is that you put your thing on and drew a couple of things on. It was a calculator for navigators to use. I’m trying to think of the name of it now. Yeah. That was it. At that stage you hadn’t, the navigator didn’t have a drift recorder and the ones we had which you had in the Anson and so forth to get there but when you had the Gee in the aircraft you didn’t need that. You had your map on there. Yeah. So as I say you sat on the side and then as I say you had a curtain between you and the, really, flight engineer and then you had a curtain on the other side to keep the light going out that way type of business of it there. So you were in your little cocoon with the light going on. As they said one navigator came out of the second or third raid and had a look at it, and said, ‘Bloody hell,’ and he said he never looked, he never would come out of his cocoon again. He didn’t want to see it.
AP: Did you ever have a look at a target? Did you ever come out and have a look?
CF: No. I went out and had a look. As one navigator said if you’re coming this far let’s have a look. But as they say in my thing that I had down there that on my first trip we were down for a place near Cologne which is in the Ruhr. Where the ack ack is pretty severe and the point was that we got there. We — ok there. Everything was going nice and easily and you’re thinking it’s a nice and easy sort of business there and then you see what’s there. But the bomb aimer’s there and he says everything and then all of a sudden he says, you know, ‘Bomb doors. Bomb doors closed.’ That’s the thing and then he called down a rather, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ I must admit that the rest of the crew including me were feeling much the same way as he was feeling. This is no, no place to be for us nice blokes. That was straight out of there and say, as we were flying across occupied France and Germans had —half an hour later something after we’d dropped the bomb or something, maybe there, a shot come up and went through our wing and kept on going thank God. And it was dark. You couldn’t see outside and our pilot, having already done one trip as a second pilot said, ‘Oh it’s alright boys. A near miss.’ And about twenty minutes later when daylight appeared the mid-upper gunner said, You’ve got a bloody big hole in the wing,’ [laughs]. But that’s it. We got back home and we felt a bit guilty that, bringing back an aircraft another crew normally flew with a hole in the wing. As if we had been a bit careless about the whole thing. Yeah.
AP: That sort of leads on to the next question. The ground crew. What sort of relationship did you have with your ground crew?
CF: I didn’t have much of a relationship because as the navigator I was working up to the last minute finishing the plan we’d been told and so forth. And I was taken out to the aircraft just before it was time to — I never, never really saw the ground crew at all. And of course when we got back there was a no talk for the crew. So I had no relationship with the ground crew for the simple reason, as I say, that I didn’t — I was not there like the rest of the crew had been out doing a check and so forth etcetera there. But I was a late comer because I was there and sometimes you got you had to then finish your flight plan because you hadn’t had time to finish it beforehand. Yeah. So our pilot had a good relationship with the ground staff. I don’t know about the other crew members that were there as to whether they did or didn’t. I have a feeling that we only did seven trips so we weren’t there a long time and I don’t think, I think basically our flight engineer and our pilot had a good relationship with the ground crew but the other members I don’t think they really had much relationship with them type of thing.
AP: Alright. I’ve done that. Were there any superstitions or rituals that you, either that your crew took part in or that you saw in the squadron? Hoodoos or anything like that?
CF: No. No. I heard of various rituals and odds and sods but as far as I know there was no rituals about you always wore a blue tie or a certain hankie or something or other. As far as I know, in our particular crew, there was never any particular ritual, as you said. Some crews there was a ritual something or other but with our crew as far as I know there wasn’t any.
AP: Did you have any nose art painted on your aeroplane or were you not there long enough? Did you have anything painted on the front of your, on the nose of your aeroplane.
CF: No.
AP: You weren’t there long enough.
CF: No. No.
AP: That’s alright. Just thought I’d ask the question. So oh that was what I was going to ask you. As the navigator you’re working pretty hard when you’re flying. I believe it was fixing a position every six minutes or something along those lines. Can you remember much of the process of the actual physical what you were doing?
CF: Well when you were in England and you had the Gee which gave you your position, as you, I think you mentioned, every six minutes. You had to get a reading where you were and from that you had to work out the wind that had blown in the last six minutes and then readjust your flight plan as to whether to tell the pilot to change course if so what to change to. And you also had to check your estimated time of arrival likewise. Every six minutes. Which meant that you were working steadily shall we say? Yes. Yeah. As I say that was the great thing as I was good at mathematics I could, I could meet those six minutes all right shall we say. Yeah. Yes.
AP: And when, when you were no longer —
CF: And then once you, once you got over Germany and your Gee was jammed or you had difficulty getting a good reading because Gee lines were curved and over a certain distance they tended to merge into each so you could you know could be a half an inch deciding where they actually crossed sort of business there. But when you, after that you were dependant on if the bomb aimer can tell you something and sometimes the Pathfinders would drop a light to say this is the turning point to something of that nature there which I don’t remember ever having that myself. And basically we were flying on what information we’d had and anything we’d had in the first half hour or so or an hour or so of flying. And that’s one thing. When we started operations the [pause] see this was the — we started in March ‘45 the actual operations and the, that stage they were getting into the German border which meant that you possibly had a couple of hours of what the actual wind was that you could do yourself, sort of business a bit there. Other than that you flew on your flight plan and if you were over cloud, well, there and there were at times a wind direction might be come over from the Pathfinders. They might send it back if the wind was so and so and you might get a thing from them. Very rarely we did that but I heard it happened at times. We basically flew on DR. Dead reckoning. Once you got past the, into the German jamming and so forth there. Yeah. And of course it was always nice to see the Pathfinders drop the markers and you got off the course. Or you could see them ahead of yourself. Yes.
AP: The [pause] alright, what was the drill if one of your gunners spotted a night fighter and said, ‘Corkscrew. Port. Go.’ From your perspective as a navigator what happened next?
CF: Never happened to us fortunately there but as a navigator you mean when they said, ‘Go.’ Well, as a navigator you just sit there and grind your teeth or something or other. Or say, that there is nothing you could do and the only great thing what you had to do was to make sure that the, your gear on your desk when they flew into a steep curve didn’t go flying anywhere. And particularly because I remember the first time when we’d been practicing doing it for the first time when the pilot flew it down and the bomb aimer for some reason was having a rest on the bed, the rest bed which went along the aircraft. And my compasses flew up in the air and was flying towards him. And he was trying to push away this compass coming at him. At that — so I learned from that that if there was at any time the first thing I would do would be yes to put my hand on my gear and hold it there.
AP: Hold on for dear life.
CF: But fortunately I didn’t have to do that. Yeah.
AP: Ok. You mentioned something when we were at the RSL at Caulfield the other day. At the EATS lunch. You came up and you said something happened on Anzac Day 1945.
CF: Happened on —
AP: Anzac Day 1945. You haven’t told me that story yet.
CF: Well that’s what I’m getting on to later on. That was the, in actual fact that’s the day we got shot down.
AP: That’s what I was hoping you’d say.
CF: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Please tell me about that experience.
CF: Yeah. Well I’ll tell you about the whole story. That’s part of my story.
AP: That’s part of your story.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Well ok.
CF: In actual fact I did that for this group, did one and I got for what turned out to be would I have my photograph taken and I said yes and I turned up like this and the, I found out that there was a team of five or six people. Not just one from the publicity. And one wanted the story and one wanted a photograph and so forth there. And I finished up getting my medals out and having a photograph taken and then they said, ‘Would you say a few words?’ I said, ‘Well a couple.’ A few words turned into, ‘Will you make a ten minute speech?’ So I finished up making a ten minute speech which described what happened from the day before when we were on the battle order which was the, picked like lead teams. That was the team that picked for the following day which was Anzac day. And my story lasted from there till the time that [pause] where does that go? Till the time we got to the Stalag. That’s right. Yeah. Ten minute speech. Yeah.
AP: Well I’ve got to the point in my questions now where we’ve been talking about operations so this is probably an appropriate time to carry on with your story if you —
CF: Yeah.
AP: If you’re happy to do so.
CF: Yeah. Yes. Well as I say. Right. Ok. Well now. Where were we? We’d got [pause] oh we got to Heavy Conversion Unit. I got introduced there, that I forgot to mention the fact that we picked up a flight engineer there. English flight engineer at the, when we got to Lindholme we picked up a English engineer. He had been, he was one of those fellows who’d been trained as a pilot and been sitting around for eight or ten weeks doing nothing and therefore he volunteered to go to go to a six weeks to be flight engineer and therefore get into operations. So we finished up, as I say a bit there that he was happy to fly with an Australian crew and we were happy to have him as a second pilot shall we say because he was a qualified pilot on it there. And he did a little bit of flying of the Lancaster while we were there and while we were at 460 so that he could take over if anything happened to our pilot. It was reassuring to have him. Yeah. Yeah. So then we get to, let me see, then we get to the 460 in March. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Ok. We start on that now?
AP: Yeah. Go for it.
CF: While at the start of our Heavy Conversion Unit we met up with our new flight engineer required for a Lancaster. He — name of Rick Thorpe and he came from Sheffield in Yorkshire. He was happy to join an Australian crew and we were happy to have him as a flight engineer and second pilot if necessary. We finished our training at HCU in March ‘45 and was transferred to Australian squadron number 460 at, near the village of Binbrook in the Lincolnshire. We did a training trip and the [pause] our skipper then did a second dickey trip with an experienced crew over Germany and after he came back about three days later we were on the battle order for that night. And we had the briefing. Found out we were going to bomb [Bruckstrasse?] which was a town close to [pause] what was it? Cologne. Everything went well. We took off at about 1.45 in the morning. Flew to [Bruckstrasse?] Started our bomb run. Everything was going nicely along. Nobody was saying anything. There was radio silence except for the navigator. The bomb aimer giving directions. And then the bomb aimer said, ‘Bombs gone. Bomb doors closed. Let’s get the bloody hell out of this,’ in a rather excited voice. And the rest of the crew felt that they had the same feelings. It was time to go. And on the way back across occupied France the plane got a shudder and the pilot told us that it was a near miss but it was dark at the time. Twenty minutes later when daylight came they found out that they had a hole in the wing that the shell had gone right through. We went back somewhat shamefaced that we’d injured the plane that was usually flown by one of the more experienced pilots. We then did several more trips and went ok. And then we went to Potsdam which was our longest trip to that date and as we dropped our bombs on Potsdam we were grabbed by the searchlights circuit and that’s very dangerous because the guns keep following those searchlights. And we dived very, very smartly and very steeply and heaven knows what speed we got to but we got out of the searchlights and flew back home. We did a trip to Bremen and as we were starting our bomb run the word came over, the code word, ‘Marmalade,’ which means cancelled. No bombs. So we had to dodge over Bremen to miss the flak and come home and land with a five or ten tons of bombs. Then on the 24th of April we were on the bomb order for the following day which would be our seventh flight. And wake up time was 2.15 am. So an early night. Up next morning, breakfast, flight plan, briefing and we were going to Berchtesgaden area. Not the town. In two waves. The first wave of a hundred and eighty planes was to bomb the houses of Hitler and all the Nazi leaders who’d also built their holidays home there and the communication centre and administration buildings. The second wave, of which we were one were to bomb the barracks of the Gestapo and the army that were looking after the Nazi leaders and their communication centre and administration quarters. That was one hour later. We took off just after 5 o’clock in the morning and flew down to the meeting point, joined the gaggle and were flying over The Channel and along over the French countryside. It was a lovely day. Beautiful blue sky. No clouds. Green fields, lakes and rivers down below and on the right was the majestic Alps and with the snow shining on the snow tops. Absolute picture book. We got near the target area and I left my table and moved behind. Ten inches behind the seat of the engineer because on the floor was a parcel of metal strips for [pause] we looked ahead, the flak looked light-medium so no worries. And the bomb aimer took over and he said, ‘Left. Left.’ And then, ‘Bombs gone. Bomb doors closed.’ And as he finished that word we were hit and something flew up past my face and out over the roof. And I looked down and in the centre of the parcel there was a jagged hole. In the meantime the pilot and the engineer were closing down the starboard engine which was a mess and the two inner motors which had also gone. So we were flying on one engine and an empty Lancaster will fly on one engine. The pilot checked the crew and found that everybody was ok. And he then said that the port outer engine, the remaining one was not giving full power and perhaps it would be best if we jumped while he had full control. Nobody wanted to jump. And the flight engineer said, ‘But we can’t do that Lofty. We’re over the Germany.’ At the time I thought that was a very sensible remark. Then we decided that we would try to reach the line of the allied army but very quickly the port, the remaining engine stopped and we were gliding and we had to go. And the drill was to all escape underneath the plane so you wouldn’t get hit by the tail plane. And the bomb aimer was the first to go and the four others all followed in due rate. And then the rear gunner appeared with the parachute in his arms. It had caught on the way up and opened. The pilot told him to get the spare parachute. He came back to say it wasn’t there. Later we found that they had taken it out to repack it and not — failed to replace it. The pilot then made a very very brave decision that rather than leave the rear gunner to his fate he would try and make a crash landing. At this time there was petrol floating around on the floor of the cockpit. His chances weren’t too good but he found that with the five men gone, the petrol also gone and such the plane would glide much better. And he saw a field down below of what looked like wheat and he glided the plane down. Dodged some wires close and put it down on a cornfield. They then both got out of the plane. Ran forty or fifty yards. Threw themselves down on the ground, looked back waiting for the explosion but nothing happened. The earth they’d driven into had apparently put out the flames. But appeared four Hitler youth boys aged about fourteen or so carrying a couple of machine guns which they pointed at the two Australians who were pretty worried. The boys were very excited. Talking to each other. And then along came the Volkssturm. The German Home Guard who took over and took the two Australians back to the regular army. Harry, the pilot, Harry was interrogated by a very high German officer there who said to him, ‘Why are you Australians here? We haven’t got any argument with Australia.’ Harry didn’t attempt to explain it but — meanwhile I had parachuted down to the ground and landed near a couple of houses in which the housewives were standing. Presumably looking at me coming down. And I hastily unbuckled my harness and parachute and left it there and went, walked quickly over to where there was a large clump of trees. The Volkssturm didn’t take long to turn up and no doubt the ladies pointed out where I was. And they were — I thought they said, ‘Pistol? Pistol?’ and patted me. I said, ‘No, and shook my head very vigorously. They said, ‘Parachute.’ and I just raised my eyebrows there and I assume that the couple of German ladies would be wearing silk underwear in the future. They took me to an army camp where there were my, the [unclear] were, was there and in the next couple of hours along came the mid-upper gunner and the flight engineer. And two or three hours after that again the pilot and the rear gunner appeared. The remaining member of the crew, the bomb aimer dropped first. He landed in the snow in the foothills and was captured by the mountain troops who took him deeper into the mountains and he actually didn’t get out of there till two days after the war ended. On May the 10th. The Americans turned up there. We were taken from the camp into the town where they had taken over the hotel as a headquarters and we were put in a room and finally given a piece of dry bread and it was covered in honey and ersatz cup of coffee. There was no hostility there. They were, but they were treating us as prisoners but not close guard. And came the evening light was there and we were put in the back of a covered wagon with the parachute of the, we think, the flight engineer. And we left there with a couple of guards. You might say nominal. Nobody was taking it too seriously. And we drove into the mountains and through the night. There was lots of traffic both ways on the roads. The Germans were using the darkness to avoid the allied fighters who were everywhere. And we then changed over half way across. We changed over to an open truck and we got under the parachute to open the parachute. Yeah. And at 6 o’clock we arrived at the Stalag 7a. Moosburg. Where they opened, a couple of the allied troops actually opened a couple of Red Cross parcels and fed us some breakfast which was very welcome. They then drove us further on to a communication centre at [Mainwaring?] about twenty kilometres away. And that afternoon the interrogating officer had Lofty, our pilot, in and asked him the questions and they got the usual answers there. And they said where, ‘Where do you come from?’ Lofty said, ‘West Australia.’ And the interrogating officer said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I know that quite well. I was an agent out there on several occasions for German firms buying wheat and wool.’ And Lofty said we then had a chat about the west Australian back countryside of which he knew more than I did. And then he said, ‘Well you’d better get back to your crew.’ So he said that was the interrogation. The Germans had given up. And the next morning, we stayed the night there and the next morning we were taken back to the Stalag on a tray, a horse tray with two horses to carry us back to the thing and we did a mixture of walking and sitting on the truck. And we talked to various Australians along the way who had been working on the farms. Where was the question? And we got back to the Stalag and the chief Australian officer said, ‘Do you know what’s going to happen to us prisoners when the allies arrive?’ And our pilot said, ‘Oh yes. We’re going to be taken back to England in the back of bombers.’ ‘Oh,’ said the group captain, ‘How would you know?’ Our pilot said, ‘Well the day before we got shot down they marked twenty five places on our plane where people could sit.’ ‘Oh.’ That was the end of that. The, on the 29th of April the American 14th Division came in and we were free. But it was some time before we got back to England.
AP: And you did go back to England in the back of a bomber. Did you go back to England in the back of a bomber?
CF: Yes. I think that’s about enough there but in actual fact what happened was that was the 29th of May. On May the 1st, yeah the 29th of April, May the 1st two days later General Patton arrived sitting on the front of a truck and at least a hundred correspondents and photographers if not a thousand were there and he announced that we would all be home in two or three days. Back in England in two or three days. And the, some of the Americans would be back in America in two to three weeks. At which the old timers such as me and such were a little bit cynical because of the amount of numbers. And we, yeah, so we sat in the Stalag with the — somehow or other the food was still coming in and the Red Cross parcels were being tapped and so forth. There wasn’t much difference under the Americans than there was under the Germans shall we say because I wasn’t going to go out into the town that I couldn’t speak the language and there were some wild people around. And, yes, I stayed in camp. But the long term prisoners who could speak German went into the town and in actual fact slept in some of the houses because the German, the German civilians liked to have you sleeping in their house if you were well behaved. There was no, any wild men turned up in the middle of the night sort of business, there. On the 7th of May. The night of the 6th of May we were told the following morning at 5 o’clock we would be taken by semi-trailer to air strips where we would be loaded on DC3s. A Dakota who would take us to the main ports, airports where we would then get into either American or British bombers. On the 7th of May we got up at 5 o’clock and duly got on the back of semi-trailers there and we were driven, I reckon forty odd kilometres if not more to an airstrip, a grass airstrip and quite a few. A big crowd. Only a few planes turned up. And therefore that night we were taken back to the German, at Ingolstadt the German. And we did some souveniring of some German wear and tear. And they took us back to the airstrip again the following day. And that was May 8th. Everybody was celebrating. One plane turned up, don’t ask me how they got to one plane there. So at lunchtime, by then the fella in charge of the shipment out said, ‘Go away and have a swim in the river or whatever you do. There’s nothing. Nobody is going to come in today and get it there.’ So an, sorry English long term prisoner who slept just near where I was in the hut said, ‘Oh come into town.’ I said, ‘ Oh ok.’ He said, ‘We’ll go and get, go in to the house and get some hot water for which we’ll give them American cigarettes,’ which were a very strong bartering tool and we’ll take some coffee in. He said, ‘I’ve got some of the stuff that the Americans who got taken out yesterday left on the ground. And let’s put it this way. A long term prisoner never threw anything away. You could, if you didn’t want it you could barter it for something else. And, ‘Yeah. Ok,’ and we went in and I don’t know whether he’d sized it up before we went in this house and we saw them and said you know could we get some water for a wash and a shave and we got some American cigarettes. And yes that’s ok. So we had a wash and a shave and then we said we’d got some coffee and they said yeah. So we were there and two daughters appeared aged, well they might have been nineteen, twenty, twenty one. Some like that age. And we found out that they had married some local boys who had then been grabbed by the army where ever it was. They were taken into Stalingrad. Do you know? Have you heard of Stalingrad?
AP: Yes.
CF: And as such they wondered whether they’d ever see their husbands again, sort of business, there. So that was their message. That we were celebrating the end of the war and they of course weren’t celebrating. And the two daughters were wondering you know just what the bloody hell was going to be the future of them. Anyway we had some nice cup of coffee with them. We having produced the coffee grains there to do it. Yeah. And we went back to the camp and we were taken to a jail that night and there was a bit of a fire about four in the morning or something or other. Some screaming. We got out of that and went and spent the rest of the night back at the airfield and using the overcoats that had all been abandoned by the, because they wouldn’t let you take overcoats on planes. It would make the load too heavy. And that was the 8th. The 9th and the 10th a few planes came in and the English bloke with the German language and so forth managed to wangle himself on one of the planes. So we didn’t go back to the house again and we just filled in the day just walking around. It was nice warm weather and such. So on the 11th there we were having breakfast. Oh we slept out those two nights using the overcoats and so what shelter there was and such so the following morning we’re there and the whole bloody plane, DC3s turned up. So we have to grab what breakfast we could and go and get ready, ready to go and you know make up plans. You had to go and list. Before you got on a plane you had to list everybody who was getting on the plane so if anything happened you knew what was happening . So we got taken to Rheims. To the small aerodrome and then we were taken by semi-trailer across to the major airport which of, was Juvencourt which was, you know, had about, probably had about five runways. Whatever it is. Anyway, we got there and I was allocated to a New Zealand Lancaster crewed by new Zealanders. And the pilot — I’d been in advanced flying unit with him six months before. He looked at me a bit surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘What the bloody hell do you think I’m doing?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Come and sit alongside me.’ So I, I didn’t sit in my designated spot but sat alongside him and got quite a nice view as we flew back. So anyway I was back on the 11th but the rear gunner, the bloke in there, he got back late on the 7th. He was the only one that came through on the one day where we were at the whole five thousand were supposed to do or something or other. Don’t ask me who was doing the statistics and everything around the place. Anyway, he got through on the night of the 7th and he was tired and they slept at some English ‘drome near London. Were there when fighter ones probably saw it and in the morning he and the other blokes hopped in a bus or something or other. He said, ‘What’s all the people wandering around shouting and jumping and everything else.’ ‘Oh the war’s finished. They’re celebrating.’ They said, ‘Oh is it?’ Oh. So he said he got down to Brighton on the 8th. The mid-upper gunner and the wireless operator had got as far as Holland no the 7th in other words but there was no plane to take them back to England that night. And so they got back on the 8th. That’s three. We don’t know what happened to the English engineer, he, after that he didn’t reply to any mail or anything etcetera. That was four. That’s right. So I got back on the 11th when, as I say, I got back to England on the 11th and the pilot actually stayed another four days after this. He didn’t leave the Stalag until about the 11th. Then he got flown to Nancy and then he took the train to the [pause] somewhere near the English Channel. And then flew across The Channel. He got back about the 15th. So if you get the idea that all your POWs are going to be flown back home in two days [laughs] — but I will say this much. We got very well treated when we got back to Brighton. In England. There, we got special treatment from there and when I went on leave I got, I think quadruple rations, I think, to take to the people I stayed with etcetera. Yeah. I got very well looked after. So that was the story of there. That as I say and that’s one thing on the DC3s you get quite a nice view of the Maginot and the what’s the name, the Siegfried Line. And all the debris of war was still spread out across the countryside shall we say. Nobody had had time to clear it up. It was, it’s out of the way, just leave it there and we’ll do it next week or something or other like that. The debris was and the bridges had been blown up and you could see what war had done to the countryside. You know. Yes. Oh yes. So that’s the story.
AP: Well I have three more questions.
CF: Yeah.
AP: Alright. So after that experience you came home to Australia. What did you do? How did you adjust back to normal life again?
CF: I had very little time adjusting back shall we say. And for instance my mate, Dan Lynch, who I, he was Tasmanian but he’d come over to Melbourne and he stayed in Melbourne and did the, went to the Melbourne University and got a degree in biology and then joined the fisheries and game department as their first biologist actually. And I formed a lifelong friendship and so I for the next few years while we were batchelors we saw a lot of each other. As we did with another couple of fellas who we trained with — Frank Kelly and John Hodson etcetera there. Yes. Four bachelors played around and one went up to The Northern Territory and then three bachelors played around. Yeah. So we all, as far, we all seemed, we all seemed to get pretty much, Frank actually I know started to do a course on something. I forget now. But he gave that away and then he got a job with a international there. The motors and so forth with them and from there he moved on to the South Melbourne City Council. I got a job back with a small building firm that I’d worked with and went back there. And went and did my accounting studies and then moved to a job with what was then Vacuum Oil which is now Mobil oil there. And Dan, as I say, got this thing and then he got a job. Those three of us, none of us had any, well as I say Frank had got shot down. And Dan and I had got shot down. And in actual fact the other fellow, John Hodson, he was sick one night. Didn’t fly. His crew didn’t return. So he had to get another crew etcetera. He, he, he sort of felt the war, shall we say, more than he did because he’d been pretty friendly with that crew and did a lot with them whereas we didn’t lose over there the same feeling as he got. And we also adjusted quite well to doing it there and I don’t quite know. By and large aircrew seemed to adjust pretty well back to there. Maybe the fact that we did it at remote distances as distinct to fellas that were there but on the other hand there were like the other day one fellow who didn’t do too well. And I know another fellow who didn’t, for thirty years did nothing because his best mate had got killed on 460 Squadron. I don’t know much about it. His third of fourth trip the plane crashed and killed the whole lot. Now why the plane crashed about twenty miles from base I don’t know. It could have been that something had been frayed and wear and tear over those next hundred miles might have caused something and all of a sudden some control might have snapped and the plane went in before the pilot could do anything about it. If he was flying at only a couple of thousand feet ready to land you don’t know. But that fella wouldn’t just come, for thirty years he wouldn’t come back to the air force. So there were people who were affected by the things but in my immediate knowledge of the people I trained with and saw a lot of in the next few years, none of them suffered from any kind of mental stress that showed in any way at all, sort of business there. So it did appear that being possibly a little bit away from it and so forth there but that’s how it goes on it there. In actual fact my biggest loss was a friend I grew up with who joined the air force before I did and went up to New Guinea. And on his first flight was shot down and he was injured and captured by the Japanese and the bloody Japanese sergeant then bloody murdered him. Which was a nasty one at the time but you know that one of your boys had not only not killed in action but bloody murdered sort of business there and we were told like, and the family afterwards said that they were told that they, that sergeant had been killed and they couldn’t do anything about it as a result sort of business. But that was the only, really he was the only one that was, really hurt me shall we say. My brother was in the army in the anti-aircraft in New Guinea but he was ok. And the other as I said this mate of mine. This is the odds of course. In Berkeley Street which is the next street to where I was in Kooyongkoot Road, Hawthorn. My mate did the thirty trips. The one that was there. Next door to him was a fella called Bob Benber who later became a big dealer in the insurance industry. He did a trip and got his DFC. And exactly opposite them was where Alec Wilde who did two trips — two tours. A tour and then another tour with 460. They all survived. And Kooyongkoot Road where I lived there was this lad I was telling you about got killed by the Japanese. I was a prisoner of war and a little further up the street was a fellow who was captured in the army at Crete. So two streets, three blokes all had tough luck. Next street three blokes who lived as close as you could possibly get all survived Bomber Command which was a dangerous place. Don’t ask me about the statistics. Yeah.
AP: Someone. One of my interview people said, ‘That’s the important thing in war. To have good fortune,’ he said.
CF: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: That, yeah. That’s exactly what you just explained.
CF: Yeah.
AP: I’m getting closer. I have two more questions. You mentioned when, I think it was your pilot, Harry, was being interrogated or when he was captured the German asked him, ‘You’re Australian. Why are you fighting us?’ I’m just curious. If he had attempted to explain why Australia was there what might he have said? What I’m interested in is why was Australia there?
CF: Well Lofty was not shall we say a well-educated man. He was a country boy. Grew up in the wheat fields and then moved into Perth. As such his, I don’t quite know what he might have said actually with his background of it there. It’s a little hard to say what you would say on it there. And whether he might have said, you know, we were fighting for the king or something. I can’t quite, can’t quite imagine him saying kind of thing that er. We were fighting. The best thing I could say he’d say we’re fighting because you Germans are threatening the rest of the whole of the world. Something of that nature is about all I think he might have said at that stage. But as I said he was not well educated in the sense of the word. He was a doer rather than a thinker type of business there. But as for a man in an emergency he comes out much higher than anybody else I know.
AP: I guess he was tested there.
CF: In other words, we said on his eightieth, so much so that both Dan and I worked it out that we would be in Perth around his eightieth birthday and we then took him up to Frasers restaurant, by name. Which is the big restaurant in Perth overlooking the township from what’s its name there? Have you been there at all? Anyway, we went there and we said, I said, ‘Except for picking our wives — Dan’s wife was there so she said, Thank you Colin.’ Picking Harry as a pilot was the best personnel decision we ever made. And he said, ‘Yes. I agree entirely. It was the best personnel decision that we made.’ And as you heard before we just about picked his crew for him. But as I said he was, we were right he was a solid citizen and that was it type of business of it there. He’s the type of bloke thank you want in your back line I suppose, at football. Sturdy. Dependable. And always be there. Yes. Yes a real bloke. A pity of it that they only had one daughter who was a smart lady. In actual fact she didn’t get married. Yeah. You could pass some of his genes down shall we say but there it is. Yes. Yes. He died some years ago and I flew over for his wedding [laughs] for his wedding — for his funeral and made a speech on there. Yes.
AP: The final question and probably the most important one. In your opinion what is Bomber Command’s legacy? What is the legacy of Bomber Command and how do you want it to be remembered?
CF: Well I’m not too sure where Bomber Command stands at the moment as you said. The thing is that hurt most of all that Churchill deserted Bomber Command. In fact he did it there and the — Harris, the one said he was sitting with on May 8th listening to, with the head of the American bombers and they listened and he mentioned Fighter Command and Transport Command and Coastal Command. Not one word one way or the other was Bomber Command in the Churchill’s speech of the victory over Germany mentioned. And in actual fact a couple of there before that after he was the man who agreed with Stalin that Bomber Command would bomb Dresden and he then sent the message back to the head of the air force — Portal. Who then passed the message down to Harris. And as Harris said all he said was the decision was made by somebody much more powerful than me and he was quite aware that no doubt he had a good relationship with Portal. He was probably mentioned of it there and he [pause] that, that hurt most of all. That later on there but that was it. When the war was close to finishing and all of a sudden shall we say the bishops and the [unclear] were saying oh we shouldn’t have bombed. Oh no. Look. Bombings nothing supposed to be like that. It’s just supposed to be drop a little bit in their garden or something. Look. Look at all the houses you’ve knocked down. Look at all the [pause] No. So in England there was great horror that those nice German people they used to see on holidays had been. Yeah. Anyway. The point is that it should always be remembered that the amount that Bomber Command did for the — well they sunk more capital ships then the navy and as Harris said didn’t even get a thank you [laughs] The army in the war in Europe would go back, instead of calling up the artillery they would call up Harris and say would you drop a few bombs on something or other on the business of it there. And while the, for instance the Americans got — grabbed a lot of praise for stopping the advance the Germans made in December, January sort of business there. Nobody ever mentioned that Bomber Command went and, in the, where there were the roads, two very important roads crossed. That Bomber Command just blasted that crossing out of action and nothing could move through there for another twenty four to forty eight hours. Reinforcements and so forth etcetera. That sort of thing never got talked about. Yeah. Well the thing is that in more recent times they have come around to realising that Bomber Command did a lot of things there. And one of the things that they did was that they bombed the artificial petrol factories there and the German fighters basically from the invasion on, or before the invasion were short of their hundred degree err hundred octane petrol because of the artificial petrol being made from coal — I think it was about eighty seven where they wanted a hundred. So they had to add things to it to make it a hundred and the, from before that the German fighters were not sent up anywhere near as often because they were trying to save petrol and of course the funny thing was that [pause] what is really never said and that is both against the Japanese and the Germans that the code breakers were able to get the messages that had been tracked on the wireless and they could then tell you what was going to, they could then tell you what was going to happen, sort of business of it there, and they never got the accolades. It did sort of business of it there. Because anyway they got the message and Churchill and the head of the army, the head of the navy and the head of the air force and I think about two other leading politicians etcetera there. I’m not too sure. They were the only ones that were allowed to be given the information that was coming through and they knew how it got there. So Portal, as the head of the air force knew that the Germans were short of petrol. Not only for their planes but for their tanks and so forth etcetera there. And he’s wanting Harris to really bomb the artificial factories more, more, more, and Harris who’s been told over the years it’s ball bearings, its gear boxes, there’s something else that was going to win the war was getting this message about it, about this. And in fact that it got to the point when Harris said to Portal, ‘Well if you don’t like my bombing programme I’ll hand my resignation in and you can get somebody who will do it.’ Portal couldn’t say, ‘I’ve got this information.’ You could understand why Harris was irate. So it was a bit tricky for some months there as to a bit of a chill between them because one knew all the information he was right but on the other hand he could understand why the other one was arguing against it there. But oh well it’s like there and I think in the last few years that the Bomber Command has been done there but it will never get the credit because it certainly did the damage and I must admit when you see the damage that Bomber Command did they did it, sort of business. And probably this is the old story of course people say oh they should have stopped it much earlier and you ask people in January ‘45 how long would the war last? You know. January February. Could go on for twelve months or so. And they say well why didn’t they stop doing it etcetera there. They probably could have stopped it a little earlier but it’s very difficult to say. Nobody knew that Hitler was going to commit suicide. If they knew that Hitler would commit suicide. Ok. Sort of business there. But as I say our raid that we got shot down on was completely unnecessary because Hitler was never going to come back to Berchtesgaden but a lot of people thought he was and he did sort of the business of it there. Ah yes I was quite glad as several leading people have said there, said the main character is that, I’m trying to this of his name. He said — he was a farmer in the Wagga area and he and another fella in Wagga further on he said, the war as he saw it was it’s like how you are at home. If there’s a fire or a flood on a neighbours territory you down tools and go over and help him. And he said, that’s what we were doing. Australia. England was in trouble and we were going over to help it sort of business of it there.’ And he [pause] Bill Brill and Arthur.
AP: Doubleday. Doubleday.
CF: Yeah. Yes. They had amazing bloody careers on there and I read somewhere that neither ever had to bring back an injured crew member. Absolutely amazing the fact that they had flown. Each of them had done sixty trips or something or other. Or more. Just one of those things. Yeah.
AP: Well that’s all the questions I have so unless you have anything, anything else to add to the discussion just before we wrap up.
CF: I don’t think so. The business of it there. The great trouble was of course after the war here as you probably knew that the fellas who came back from Europe were blackballed a bit. In fact some of them were accused of running away and actually anyway when the war was over the people who were out here were very annoyed when the people who’d been in Europe came back and told them what a real war was about. And as the fella who later became chief of the air force and the actual Governor General — sorry, the Governor of New South Wales he said he was in the mess and he said and somebody was saying, ‘There must have been forty planes, forty guns firing at me. It was terrible.’ And as this fella said, ‘I didn’t say something but I had had four hundred guns shooting at me sort of business of it there. And that was the thing. The reason there and they appointed the wrong bloke as chief of the air force during the war. They got the wrong diagram or something or other. I forget what it was. Anyway. Yeah. So that was a pity that it took ten years after the war I think to sort of get that nexus between those who had been in the war there. The fella I was telling you about Eric Wilde did two tours now he’s a bit of a character but he went to having got the DFC and the DFM and a flight lieutenant and all the rest of it. He was, went to an OUT, up I think to Mildura or somewhere like that and he was classified as not suitable for flying in The Pacific. And he promptly got a discharge and went and got a very nice job with A&A flying planes and he was made for life and that sort of business there. But some other fella came back, he’d been a wing commander over there and the best they could offer him was a flight lieutenant’s job or something or other. Those sorts of thing. Yeah. There was a bit of a nastiness as well as difficulty that fellas who had handled miles of stuff — when they came back here they would say the people who had the bit of power they’d fought in The Pacific and that was, ‘oh we had to do it. We didn’t have brick buildings to go back to at night time.’ And we had to do that and so forth there. One of the interesting periods of that incidentally was the fact that the fella came over as a wing commander at Binbrook and in that period in December, January when the big war was on. The Battle of the Bulge. And the air was there he said Binbrook when the snow came down he looked at the amount of equipment they had and he thought well in The Pacific we had one ‘drome and that was it. One big strip. That’s all we could make. So he told the bloke in charge of the ‘drome that he was to put his all equipment pick out the main one that was used and keep that one strip open. The other two strips don’t worry about them. Keep that main strip open and keep your, all the equipment on that and as he said at one time, or something or other we had seventy planes come and landed there and he said, ‘Where did you put them?’ And he said, ‘We put the one on strips we weren’t using.’ That was it. In other words where the one fella who had only ever been in England always had three strips tried to keep three strips open. Whereas he had been in The Pacific where, you know that was it. A few little things like that appeared here and there. On their, on the business side of it there. Yes. Yes. Of course there were a lot of politics on it. On the business of it there. But it’s there and the point is that’s true about Lofty Payne on there. That was in various magazines over the time and even in The Sun and it’s in the bomber what’s the name there, Bomber Boys. Lancaster man. Yeah. And I asked Lofty. He said, ‘I have never talked to anybody.’ I think he did talk to the fella who wrote the history of 460 Squadron during the war. He was Australian. I think he might have talked to him. But he said all the others — no. I’ve never talked anybody about that. Where they’ve got the information from I don’t know. But none of them ever come or ring me up or talk to me about it sort of business there. Yeah. It’s irritating slightly shall we say. Sort of business. Yeah.
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Identifier
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AFraserC151113, PFraserC1501
Title
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Interview with Colin Fraser
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:10:16 audio recording
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-11-13
Description
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Colin joined the British Army in December 1941, and eventually moved to his preferred Royal Air Force in March 1943. He went to Number 2 Initial Training School at RAAF Bradfield Park in Sydney as a navigator, graduating in February 1944. His first flight was in an Anson at Number 2 Air Observers’ School at Mount Gambier. Colin then sailed to Britain.
There were some delays as Bomber Command had surplus aircrew. He spent some leave through the Lady Ryder Scheme and went to RAF Padgate. He was sent to RAF Fairoaks and witnessed V2 flying bombs before returning to RAF Padgate. Colin was sent to RAF West Freugh and did dead reckoning navigation. His next destination was 27 Operational Training Unit in Lichfield. Colin describes how they crewed up. He was introduced to the Gee radio navigation system and Wellingtons. He went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Lindholme and encountered Lancasters and H2S.
Colin discusses his impressions of England and his activities. He also outlines how he carried out his role as a navigator.
They transferred to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook and started operations in March 1945. Colin describes some of their seven operations, which involved damage to the aircraft on a trip to Saarbrücken; being caught in the searchlights at Potsdam; cancellation mid-route of their trip to Bremen. On 25 April 1945, they flew in the second wave to Berchtesgaden and were hit, losing all but one engine. Some of the crew baled out but the pilot crash-landed the aircraft with the rear gunner because of a missing parachute. Colin was taken to Stalag Luft 7 at Moosburg. They were freed on 29 April 1945 by the American 14th Division, although it took some time to return to England and ultimately Australia.
Colin gives his views on the treatment of Bomber Command and the politics involved.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Surrey
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Germany
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Potsdam
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Germany--Moosburg an der Isar
Germany--Ingolstadt
Poland
Poland--Opole (Voivodeship)
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1943-03
1944
1944-02
1945-04-25
1945-04-29
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
27 OTU
460 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
C-47
crash
crewing up
Gee
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military service conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
prisoner of war
RAF Binbrook
RAF Fairoaks
RAF Lichfield
RAF Lindholme
RAF West Freugh
searchlight
shot down
superstition
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/258/3405/PGanneyK1714.2.jpg
6fb1840bce686f93c05487b2d52af5e7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/258/3405/AGanneyK170301.2.mp3
36f95d68dd3df62895cef4b33b9aef33
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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Ganney, Keith
Keith Ganney
K Ganney
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Keith Ganney (b. 1922, 1324929 Royal Air Force), his log books, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 57 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Keith Ganney 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
2017-03-01
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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Ganney, K
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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HB: This is an interview with Keith Ganney, flying officer with 57 squadron whose date of birth is 10th of November 1922. His service number was 1324929. Interview is taking place at ****. Interviewer is Harry Bartlett, a volunteer with the International Bomber Command Centre. Good morning Mr Ganney.
KG: Good morning.
HB: Perhaps you could just give us an idea of what you were doing prior to the war starting.
KG: Yes, well, are we recording now?
HB: Yes. Yes. We are on recording.
KG: Do what Max Bygraves used to say, ‘I’m going to tell you a story.’
HB: You carry on.
KG: I’m going to start at the beginning. I met my wife when she was not quite seventeen in 19, early 1942. Her birthday is the 6th of February 1942 and I’d met her through going on a fairly regular basis to a bank on behalf of the company I worked for and I then decided I ought to take her out to lunch because I really fancied her. Is this all right?
HB: Yeah. This is your interview.
KG: I really fancied her so I took her out to lunch and it cost me a small fortune in so far as she said she wasn’t hungry and she had a bowl of soup which would cost about one and a half pence in today’s money. I don’t know what I had. And then a week or so after that I took her to the pictures and we saw a film called, “Ships with Wings,” and she was most impressed with me because I had been given a nice wallet by my parents when I was nineteen in the previous November, November 1941 and I pulled out a shiny, five, a pound note and that seemed to impress her. So obviously at that time she was after my money.
HB: [laughs] A man of substance.
KG: Yeah. Anyhow, we dated then for a few weeks until I joined and I’d already enlisted in the December 1941, the RAF and I was called up in, I think it was February ’42 and we went to St John ’s Wood and crossed Abbey Road long before the Beatles were even born. So we we went there for kitting out and whatever. Make sure we were still alive I guess. From there we went down to Brighton for marching and learning how to salute which is obviously a pre-requisite if you’re flying on Lancasters. So we stayed at Brighton for about a few weeks at the Metropole Hotel in Brighton and from there we moved to Scarborough and at Scarborough, in Scarborough one afternoon I was called out with about four others, my name was first on the list, to be guard commander for the officer, officer inspecting because we were guarding the Grand Hotel in Scarborough which is a grand hotel or was and I said, ‘Well I know nothing about rifles or anything like that,’ and this sergeant, I should think he was the 1914/18 sergeant, he said, ‘Weren’t you in the ATC?’ So I said, ‘No.’ ‘Or the air training corps or cadet corps?’ So I said, ‘No. I don’t even know which side of the shoulder you put your rifle on.’ So he said, ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘Well in that case, number two you’d better be guard commander. You’d better be guard commander until the inspection and then you can take over as guard commander,’ which is what we did. I think there were about four or five of us. There wasn’t a bullet amongst us. If a German had come up we would have surrendered Scarborough plus the Grand Hotel without any trouble at all. So that was a little escapade in Scarborough. From Scarborough we moved to Brough just outside Hull for initial training on flying Tiger Moths and I qualified for flying Tiger Moths after, I think about ten hours and from then on we got shuttled off to Canada. We went out on the Queen Mary, the old Queen Mary and eventually when we came back we came back on the old Queen Elizabeth. And then we went to New York. From New York we went by train to New Brunswick to a town called Moncton where, I don’t know what we did there, we just festered around I think until such time as we were allotted to various places around Canada. It so happened that myself together with I think three or four other blokes were sent to Saskatchewan. A little place called Davidson of about five hundred people right in the middle of the prairies. Nice flat area for flying in and it was lovely going from Moncton out to Saskatchewan by train, one of these big Canadian type trains. I think it took us about two or three nights to get there. Am I doing to much?
HB: Absolutely spot on.
KG: Is it?
HB: Yeah. Absolutely super.
KG: We then went, got to Davidson. There were only about five hundred people, as far as I can remember, in this town, inverted commas and the girls there had never seen an English person because it was way out in the, in the sticks. The thing was, ‘Say something. We think you’re cute.’ So we, I started to fly Cornells there. A two seater aeroplane. A little bit up from a Tiger Moth. A single, single plane and during one of those escapades I was sitting in the parachute room and an instructor came in, I didn’t know who he was, and he said, ‘Where’s your instructor?’ I said, ‘He’s got the day off.’ So he said, ‘Have you, have you done aerobatics?’ So I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well get your chute on. We’ll do some aerobatics.’ Well it so happened that I’d been gorging myself on peanuts so you can imagine what happened when I, when we were doing loops and God knows what and he said when I coughed up, he said ‘Tastes better the first time doesn’t it?’ So anyhow I spent Christmas of 1942 it would be because at this time of year it was around about December and the Christmas 1942 with some people who had asked to take on a couple of RAF people and eventually I went solo on Cornells and did quite a lot of trips on them as my logbook will show you. From there we went to a place called Dauphin, D A U P H I N. Dauphin in Manitoba to fly on Cessna Cranes, twin engines Cessna Cranes. Like a downmarket version of an Anson. So I flew those and, sorry, my train of thought’s going. So after, after that they tested me after I’d done a lot of flying. My log book will tell you how many hours I did there but did a lot of flying, they tested me and found me wanting.
HB: Oh dear.
KG: Which I was, on hindsight I was very, very pleased about. I was kicked off the pilot’s course and because they didn’t think I’d make a very good pilot although I’d done a lot of cross countries by myself and if if they hadn’t had kicked me, if they had kept me going it’s almost certain I would be dead because I would have entered flying a lot earlier than I ultimately did. So I then had to re-muster and I decided well the quickest way to get back home was a short course as opposed to navigation which was a bit of a longer course, I enrolled as a bomb aimer and I went to a place called Paulsen I think it was. Paulsen. And qualified as a bomb aimer there in about 19, early 1943. Perhaps you can tell.
HB: I’ve just come to, in your Canadian logbook.
KG: Yeah.
HB: April 1943 you’re flying a Crane and it’s a progress check.
KG: Yeah.
HB: And then this -
KG: That was in April.
HB: Yeah. And this, this logbook then finishes. I’m sure. Yes. There’s no other entries in there and we move to your smaller A5 size Canadian logbook and that starts May 29th 1943 and you’re on an Anson.
KG: Yes, that’s right.
HB: 8603
KG: We -
HB: With Sergeant Sagar.
KG: We came, we came back, as I say on the Queen Elizabeth and we were posted to Penrhos in North Wales where we did further training at AFU, Advanced Flying Unit practicing bomb aiming with twenty two pound smoke bombs and things like that and the pilots were also practicing. From there we went, from there where did we go?
HB: Well that was, that was, the AFU was number 9 AFU at Penrhos.
KG: Penrhos that’s right.
HB: Penrhos. And so you then went to the 17 OTU at Silverstone.
KG: OTU.
HB: March.
KG: Operational Training Unit and we -
HB: March 1944.
KG: I think it was before that. We flew on, we got allocated to the various crews and there again your life depended on who chose you. It was just like picking up a football team in the playground when you were about ten years old. I’ll have him, I’ll have him and there was no question of what were your abilities or anything. It was just by chance.
HB: Where did you do that Keith? Was that in a sort of like a big hangar or -
KG: I can’t remember where we actually did the selection but it was just a very much of a random selection of a whole swarm of people saying, ‘Well I’ll have him and I’ll have him,’ until you’ve got the seven bods that you need. Then we flew there. I think it, wasn’t it the Advanced Flying Unit? AFU, as I say.
HB: I’m just looking at your logbook here and it’s got you, you’re at the AFU until mid-February
KG: Yeah.
HB: ‘43, sorry ’44.
KG: Yeah on the AFU we, we were flying Wellingtons, this was for the pilot’s benefit, Wellingtons and Stirlings.
HB: Oh right.
KG: Until we, from there we graduated on flying the bigger stuff until we went to the OTU and Operational Training Unit and eventually we went on to what they called the LFS. Lancaster Finishing School.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So by that time I think we were in 1944, early 1944 maybe the end of ‘43.
HB: I’ve got, I’ve got in your logbook here if it helps June the 16th 1944. Conversion Unit Wigsley.
KG: Wigsley yeah.
HB: And it starts, that starts off with Stirlings.
KG: Yeah. That was June ’44 was it?
HB: That was in June ’44.
KG: Then you go on to the LFS I think.
HB: Yeah and then we’ve the LFS up the road at Nottingham at Syerston there.
KG: Syerston, yeah.
HB: July 28th
KG: So that’s where we went first on to Lancasters. Then we got posted. Then we got posted to East Kirkby, to the squadron.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And the skipper was a Geordie lad from around the Houghton le Spring area of Durham and he seemed very keen to get on to operations. I wasn’t all that keen ’cause I thought you could be killed.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So eventually he kept on going to the squadron leader and the squadron leader, ‘No. You can’t go on this one. You haven’t done any daylight trips yet. You can’t go on that one because it’s too far. And it was typical RAF one of the first two trips that we went on Konigsberg.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Which was about eleven.
HB: Eleven hours.
KG: Eleven hours, eleven and a quarter hours and we got caught in the searchlights there. We weaved our way out of them and we had to divert when we got back to the UK. I think we landed somewhere up in Scotland somewhere and had to stay there the night because of bad weather and the next day which was a Sunday we took off to go back to our own base and he was determined to fly over his house because he was more or less enroute so he flew over his house and revved up these four Lancaster engines vroom vroom so you can imagine the noise.
HB: Yeah.
KG: They make and eventually of course his family came out and he did some sneak turns and he could see his family house and his parents apparently. So that was Konigsberg. First trip. Then the following Saturday we went to Konigsberg again.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
KG: We obviously hadn’t done a very good job.
HB: Oh dear.
KG: Not done a very good job. So that was two very long trips.
HB: Can I just ask you something Keith? I’m just looking at your logbook here and you’ve got two night time operations 16th and 18th of August. One is called bullseye.
KG: Oh well those are -
HB: The Hague.
KG: Yeah.
HB: And bullseye. What were the bullseye operations?
KG: Bullseye was a sort of a training flight.
HB: Right.
KG: A pseudo operation. And sometimes when you went on a bullseye you’d, you know, a crowd of you, various aircraft from other squadrons or other parts of 5 group would go out in to the North Sea and whatever as if it was going to be a raid so that was a bullseye.
HB: Right.
KG: But it wasn’t an operation as such.
HB: Yeah.
KG: I think, I think after that what have we got as the next one?
HB: Yeah. You’ve done the two Konigsberg and then you do a daytime raid.
KG: Yeah. That’s right.
HB: To Burgainsville.
KG: Yeah. That was for, that was for these flying bomb sites.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
KG: All the night flights are in red.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And the green flights are day flights. We then carried on. I don’t think there was anything particularly exciting.
HB: Well you did, well you did Boulogne. That, that could be a bit hairy I think.
KG: Yeah.
HB: I’ve been told.
KG: Boulogne. I don’t remember -
HB: Bremerhaven.
KG: Bremerhaven. Yeah, we went to Bremerhaven. I mean we got shot at obviously and, just turn off the tape a minute will you.
HB: Yeah. No problem.
KG: Please. Just a second.
[machine paused]
HB: Interview recommenced just while Mr Ganney had a little cough. Well you had number 6 operation was Bremerhaven.
KG: Yeah.
HB: But then number twelve which would make you fairly experienced then because you’d done quite a few daytime ops, that was Bremen.
KG: I think it was probably Bremen.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Anyhow, when, shall I repeat - ?
HB: Yes. Yes please. Yeah.
KG: We were instructed bomb Bremen docks I suppose and the town and we were told to run up on a single marker on the ground laid by the master bomber and each aircraft was given a different angle to come in at and a different time delay. So the thing was that you do saturate the bombing and because we were an experienced crew at that time we had, I think it was a twenty eight seconds delay and as bomb aimer I lined everything up and I had to shout out, ‘Now,’ when we got exactly on the marker and the navigator was supposed to count twenty eight seconds and tell me when effectively to release the bombs. So after flying through loads of flak and God knows what, the fighters as well I suppose he, I said, ‘Isn’t it that time?’ ‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘I’ve forgotten to count.’ So immediately I let the bombs go. Where they finished up I don’t know and the, when I went for a commission this matter was raised with the commanding officer as to why my picture, ‘cause you always took photographs, why my picture was so far away from the centre so I had to tell him what had happened. So that was a silly situation. So -
HB: It obviously didn’t affect the, the inevitable promotion.
KG: Well no. I mean getting a commission in those days was like going up for a NAAFI ration.
HB: Oh
KG: You know.
HB: Yeah.
KG: If your face fitted you’d be in.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So that was Bremen I think.
HB: You’ve got an entry in here for November. November the 1st, daytime operation against Homberg which was oil.
KG: That was oil.
HB: And all you’ve written in your log, this is what amazes me about these log books, you’ve just written flak hold and then brackets sixteen.
KG: I can’t remember that.
HB: Yeah.
KG: I can’t remember.
HB: But the next one was a night one at Dusseldorf.
KG: Dusseldorf is, is a story in itself.
HB: Yeah.
KG: We went out to bomb Dusseldorf on an absolutely perfect moonlight night. Not a cloud in the sky. We bombed Dusseldorf as an experienced crew for a fairly low level. That was thirteen thousand feet if I remember rightly and we went through the target area, bombed and immediately we came out of the target area we were attacked by an ME109 and with his first burst he wounded, severely wounded the rear gunner so we hadn’t got him firing back and then the mid-upper gunner’s guns weren’t operating correctly and all we had was the mid-upper gunner on the top of the aircraft telling us where this fighter was. Now when you are being attacked by a fighter the thing is to do is what they call corkscrews and it’s up to the mid-upper gunner to tell the pilot when to corkscrew because you know he comes in the rear and you turn and he turns and he’s got to turn a lot more and then you roll and then he comes back in again and this went on. I think it’s somewhere in the archives it was about fifteen minutes ‘cause this bloke obviously knew he wasn’t going to get anybody firing back at him and I couldn’t fire anything from the front turret because I never even saw the chap ‘cause he came in, dived away, came around again and eventually this, according to the mid-upper gunner and I’ve got no support for this thing, he said the ME109 came in quite close, he said, ‘I could see the bloke and he waggled his wings and dived away.’ That was the end of the attack. Possibly he was out of range for operations or he’d run out of ammunition. I don’t know. So we flew on and I think by this time we were down to about five thousand feet and the mid-upper gunner called out, ‘Somebody had better come back and see if Vic’s alright because we can’t get him on the intercom.’ So being the most useless person in the aircraft I was told to go back and climb over everything, over the main spar and whatever. Go back and see what was happening and the mid-upper gunner also gave me great confidence because he said, ‘You’d better put your parachute on because there’s a bloody great hole in the side of this aircraft somewhere,’ and so I said, ‘Well perhaps somebody had better come with me.’ So the flight engineer, all he does really is sit alongside the pilot and look at the instruments so he came with me and he was a nineteen year old lad and he came back with me ‘cause I was, what shall we say, a coward. Right. I didn’t want to go back by myself in case anything happened and when we got back over the main spar there was the rear gunner lying in what I thought was a load of blood. It turned out it was sort of a pinky oil but you know, in the light there you can’t tell which was which. So we tried to give him some morphia which I don’t think we succeeded in doing because I don’t think we did it properly and we actually gave him a cigarette and I was told to stay with him all the way back to base so I sat there and of course when I’m sitting there you could look out the side of the aircraft. There was a big big hole. You could practically walk through it.
HB: Right.
KG: And you could see the tail fins waving a bit in the breeze and so we flew back. We flew back to Woodbridge. American. Do you know Woodbridge?
HB: I’ve heard of Woodbridge. Yeah.
KG: Well Woodbridge was an American base basically and just had one very long runway and all these flying fortress and it they had trouble they just came in depended which way the wind was blown they just came in and landed so we came in to Woodbridge and we’d obviously radioed ahead and the, my memory’s going, so when we landed, just were running down the runway the starboard tyre burst and we tipped over a bit on to one wing. Anyhow, the blood wagon and the fire engine and the doctor and God knows who came out and took us into the medical bay and gave us tots of rum. Well I don’t drink and I can’t stand the taste of rum and I just took one sip of this rum and I said, ‘Oh God I can’t drink that,’ and the wireless operator was a nineteen, twenty year old, again a Geordie who liked his booze. He said, ‘Wahay man,’ he said, ‘I’ll have it.’ So he he took this thing and we were obviously there for the night. The next morning, the next morning we went out to have a look at the aircraft which was semi riddled with holes. Why it hadn’t burst into flames God only knows and there was the tail fin all flapping in the breeze. Just walking around there and I said to the mid-upper gunner, ‘Have you seen your whistle George?’ Well there’s a picture of it in there. There was a big indent in this whistle where I imagine it was the shape of a bullet.
HB: Right.
KG: And of course you wear it around your throat.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And George Hillier realised what that meant. That if it hadn’t hit the whistle he would have been a goner even if it was only a piece of shrapnel it was certainly you could see the picture in there and when he eventually came to leave the RAF at the end of his flying career they had to hand in all their gear, boots and everything they charged him threepence for his whistle ‘cause he kept it. Charged him threepence for his whistle. So that was, that was Dusseldorf and we went a week, or two or three weeks later to the hospital where the chap was and saw him there but if, the thing is, if he, if the mid-upper gunner had been killed and if that whistle hadn’t, shall we say, effectively saved his life then we would never have known where this fighter was and we would have been dead as mutton.
HB: Oh dear.
KG: Anyhow, the skipper, he got the DFC and the mid-upper gunner, because of his commentary he got the DFM and people say to me, ‘What did you get?’ I said I got the screaming abdabs. Yeah so –
HB: Absolutely. Your rear gunner. Did you say his name was Vic?
KG: Vic. Vic Lewell.
HB: Yeah. And did he, did he recover?
KG: He recovered and he died some, oh many years later really but he showed us all the shrapnel they’d taken out of him. There was the nose of a canon shell in amongst his souvenirs.
HB: Blimey.
KG: Yeah.
HB: So, but obviously to carry on you would have had another rear gunner join you.
KG: No. Yes. We did. We had another rear, rear gunner. The other, the other thing is it comes on to the next story. Am I doing too much?
HB: No. No. You’re doing great.
KG: The next story. We went to Trondheim. You’ll see it in there.
HB: I’ve got, I’ve got one marked Trondheim abortive.
KG: That’s right.
HB: That’s 22nd of November.
KG: 22nd of November. Anyhow, we went to Trondheim to bomb the U-boat pens and docks and God knows what and we were then told to abort the raid because the master bomber couldn’t mark the target accurately enough to avoid killing a load of Norwegians so we were instructed to fly back home. I don’t know how many aircraft, we often used to have a hundred, two hundred from 5 Group. So, as I said in that thing there, coming back over the North Sea at the end of November there aint a lot to see. You don’t see any lights. You’re not going to get any fighters around there. There was no flak. So I don’t know whether I dozed off or not, I don’t know but we were flying quite steadily and all of a sudden George Hillier who was the mid-upper gunner called out, ‘For Christ’s sake pull up Jack. We’re hitting the sea,’ and we were literally hitting the sea. You know how when you’re a kid you skim a stone -
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
KG: Over the sea. Well we must have been doing that without, without knowing it so we must have been flying a couple of inches I should think.
HB: Blimey.
KG: So he immediately pulls up and flew up to about five thousand feet and as the bomb aimer I said to the skipper, ‘You ought to jettison these bombs.’ You know you don’t normally want to land with a load of bombs on board or it might not be loads. So he said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘At the briefing we were told that if we didn’t bomb we were to bring them back ‘cause they were getting scarce,’ and I said to him at the time, ‘And so are people like me getting scarce.’ So we, we flew back, we flew back and I said, ‘I bet you’ve lost your tail wheel’. I don’t know what he said to that and so we flew, flew back and as we landed of course, with a Lanc you, or with a lot of aircraft you land on the front two wheels and slow down and the back drops down doesn’t it?
HB: Yes. Yeah.
KG: Well, we slowed down on the runway and of course the rear turret gets dragged along the runway. We had a Canadian rear gunner at that time because, because -
HB: Do you want me, do you want me to just give you a break a minute?
[machine paused]
HB: Right. We’ve all had a cough and we’ve ordered our coffees.
KG: We’ve got the new rear gunner because ours had been wounded a few weeks previously and we had a Canadian at the time and I remember this Canadian calling out, ‘What the hell goes on here? My goddamn ass is on fire,’ because his rear turret was being dragged along the runway, the fins of the aircraft had been cut down to ground level I suppose.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And he’d got all these sparks coming up the aircraft. So we pulled on to the grass and stepped out of the aircraft ‘cause you didn’t have to get the ladder out. You were on the, practically on the ground already.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And the skipper calls down to his drinking partner from the Durham area, George called, ‘Is there much damage George?’ ‘Away man,’ he said, ‘You’ll hardly notice it.’ And of course the instrument bulge underneath, that had gone. The fins had cut down to sort of ground level, the rear turret was a bit of a mess and he said you’d hardly notice it. Well a few days, two or three days later he was told to report to the CO with his logbook and he thought he was going to get a brownie point.
HB: This was the pilot.
KG: The pilot. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
KG: He thought he was going to get a brownie point for bringing the aircraft back after hitting the sea. Instead of that he got a red endorsement. It’s in there, in that folder somewhere, the actual endorsement.
HB: Blimey.
KG: You can, you can have those.
HB: Yeah.
KG: If you’d like to take them with you you can.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Have a look through them if you want to. So where was I?
HB: He’d just had his red endorsement.
KG: Yeah, he -
HB: He was -
KG: He’d got this red endorsement and he got a red endorsement for not flying at the correct height, disobeying, was it disobeying instruction? Not flying at the correct height. Hitting, allowing his aircraft to hit the sea. So it’s not me making up my mind or making a story.
HB: No.
KG: It’s there in sort of, I was going to say black and white, it’s in red and white.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So that was, that was a bit hair raising.
HB: I can imagine. I can imagine. But that, but that, that pilot what was his name? Vasey.
KG: Vasey.
HB: That, that pilot at that time he’s already got the DFC, he’s on his, you’re on your twenty first, twenty second -
KG: Yeah.
HB: Mission. Operation, sorry and he’s got a red endorsement.
KG: Yeah, doesn’t affect him. Didn’t sort of say, in that case you can’t fly.
HB: No. No.
KG: Not like a driving licence if you get a red endorsement they might ban you from driving. They can’t ban you from flying really.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So -
HB: I notice in here you’ve got one of the operations, Keith is December the 8th and it’s Heimbach Dam.
KG: Yeah. I don’t remember much about it. It was -
HB: Oh right.
KG: A standard raid as far as I can remember.
HB: Oh right it’s nothing, nothing special.
KG: Nothing exciting.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
KG: The next thing that happened I think was on our last trip which was to a place called Siegen I think you’ll find.
HB: Yes. I’ve got Siegen that was February the 1st 1945.
KG: That’s right. And we were flying across something like Holland or somewhere like that and this, the navigator, he was pretty old, he was twenty eight. The rest of us were all twenty two and under and we, he said, ‘We’ll have to go back to base because my navigation things have gone haywire,’ so Jack Vasey said, ‘I’m not bloody going back to base,’ he said, ‘We haven’t returned to base yet on any trip,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to do this on our last trip,’ and he said -
HB: Just pausing the tape.
[machine paused]
HB: Right. Coffee having arrived we can restart.
KG: I think it was what they called the Gee and something else, the H2S, I’m not quite sure and he said, ‘Well give it a kick.’ Whether he did give it a kick or not I don’t know but anyhow he said, ‘Keith can map read us from the front turret, from the front nose. Keith can map read us until the, until it gets dark and then we’ll follow the searchlights.’ That just shows you how navigation has changed.
HB: Yeah. Just a bit.
KG: Well today you could put a bomb up a bloke’s exhaust pipe practically.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And blow him up. Yeah. So, we we bombed [Seagan?] and that was our last trip.
HB: Yeah. I’ve just noticed, I’ve just noticed on this one, that’s six hours twenty minutes to [Seagan?].
KG: Yeah.
HB: But you had, you had some very long flights didn’t you? Eleven hours, ten hours.
KG: Yeah.
HB: Munich was ten and a half hours.
KG: Munich. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
KG: We bombed, we did bomb Munich. It was lovely going over the mountains just inside Switzerland.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Really. They didn’t fire at us.
HB: Didn’t they?
KG: No. I don’t suppose they have a gun in Switzerland did they? So we bombed bombed Munich. It was very awe inspiring to see the Alps. I mean we were flying at about seventeen thousand I suppose, the Alps were about eighteen thousand.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Or thereabouts.
HB: Yeah. Not something you want to bump into. So that’s, you’ve got in your book here, finished first tour February 1st 1944. Sorry 1945.
KG: Yeah.
HB: And you’d flown -
KG: I don’t know that.
HB: Two hundred and fifty eighty hours and forty minutes daytime flying.
KG: Yeah.
HB: And two hundred and sixty six hours fifteen minutes night flying.
KG: Oh right. I didn’t know that.
HB: That’s quite a few, quite a few hours that is and then you only get, you must have only, I suppose you had a little bit of leave and then you went off to Swinderby.
KG: That’s right. I went as a so called bombing instructor at Swinderby.
HB: Right.
KG: And that was fine because I got my commission so I was in the posh mess and I festered around Swinderby for some little while I guess and then it all finished and they more or less said, ‘Well where would you like to go?’ So I thought to myself Australia. I think I’ll go to Australia. It’s a nice long way away and I’m not likely to go there again so of course typical RAF where did I finish up? In the Sudan. Khartoum. But that was -
HB: That’s when you left Swinderby.
KG: That’s when I left Swinderby.
HB: Just looking in your logbook here Keith you’ve got one 24th of March 1945 you’ve got an entry here X VX 9 which I presume is exercise and it’s got France X C T Y and H L B I presume that’s -
KG: High level bombing.
HB: That’s high level bombing yeah.
KG: High level bombing.
HB: Yeah.
KG: That would be practice.
HB: Oh right. Right. And then on the next page in July this is just something I don’t know if you can remember about it, the 24th of July 1945 you got yourself with, the pilot is somebody called Daggett, you’re in a Lancaster and you’re going on a Cook’s Tour.
KG: Oh yeah. A Cook’s Tour. At the end of the war they took you around to show you what damage you’d done, you know. Have a look at the mess you made. So we flew around the Ruhr just having a look, a Cook’s Tour of -
HB: Yeah.
KG: Of the damage.
HB: You’ve even written down what you flew over. You flew over [Valkerin?].
KG: [Valkerin?] Yeah.
HB: Krefeld, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Essen, Dortmund, Ham and then etcetera. Blimey. Oh that’s a bit cutting. [laughs].
KG: What’s that?
HB: You’ve got August 23rd with a pilot called Enoch.
KG: Oh yeah.
HB: And you’ve got your duties as air bomber and it just says, Eric brackets waste of time.
KG: Most likely a code name for a practice flight I should think. I don’t know what Eric -
HB: Yeah. Yeah. I just wondered, just wondered if you could remember what X C T Y meant? Is that -
KG: Cross country.
HB: Oh right. Cross country. Right. That makes sense now.
KG: We often did that.
HB: Yeah.
KG: When we got nothing better to do we often do a cross country.
HB: So, so when did you go to the Sudan?
KG: Oh hell. Latish 1945 I suppose.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And I was out there for about six months swimming and playing tennis and I was supposed to be the air traffic officer.
HB: Right.
KG: But it was a little bit of a relaxation and a bit of a jolly really.
HB: Right. So that -
KG: A good experience to go somewhere like the Sudan.
HB: Yeah. So you sort of came to the Sudan and then you’re obviously on the down slope.
KG: Yeah.
HB: Heading towards -
KG: Demob.
HB: Demob. What, what was that sort of process like Keith?
KG: I don’t remember much about the demob process. I must have come back here and reported somewhere. They give you a suit and that’s you out of the air force so to speak and I went back to my old job which was, you see when I enlisted I was nineteen.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Nineteen. Well I wasn’t frightfully academic at the best of times but I did quite well with what nouse that I’d got and sorry my train of thoughts gone, and so I went back and having been a somebody -
HB: Yeah.
KG: I went back to this company where I was, in the eyes of the managing director, a nobody and I stayed with them until such time as the company was taken over by Plessey. Remember Plessey.
HB: Yes. Yes I do.
KG: They took us over and the, instead of us taking them over they took us over and they wanted me to go to Nottingham and offered me more money to go to Nottingham and I didn’t want to go because the kids were in grammar school in Enfield at the time so I then decided to make myself redundant and I was paid redundancy money because they were moving the company.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And I had already been invited by some people that I knew in STC to go and join them.
HB: Right. This is, this is all in the electronics industry.
KG: Well the telephone industry.
HB: Telephone industry. Yeah.
KG: I wasn’t a telephone engineer. I mean I wouldn’t, I know how to pick up a telephone and that’s about all but I became sales manager of a division where they sold the earpieces and mouthpieces, the microphone and the ear piece you know and I did quite well at that and I then retired from there in 1984. Yeah, about ‘84 on the grounds that I didn’t like the set up. It had all changed because people had been coming in and taking over this, taking over that and I thought to myself I don’t really want to stay here so I’ll take redundancy money and I left them.
HB: When did, when did you actually get married then Keith?
KG: 1947
HB: Right.
KG: So -
HB: And that was to your wife obviously.
KG: Peggy.
HB: Peggy
KG: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So but if you asked her now who she married she most likely wouldn’t know.
HB: No.
KG: Wouldn’t know when she was married. As I say she’s upstairs in bed I imagine.
HB: So how, and how many children did you have?
KG: Two. Jane.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Who’s around here somewhere.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And Ian who was a solicitor and then he set up his own business in the holiday world. Timeshare. Made a lot of money and he now plays a lot of golf.
HB: Right.
KG: Does odd jobs up in London for a company but hasn’t got to work.
HB: No.
KG: He come up here last Wednesday and he said, ‘Oh I’ve told you I’m going to America haven’t I?’ So I said, ‘No.’ I mean he’s like that. ‘I told you.’ ‘No.’ I said, ‘What are you going to America for? Because I can afford it,’ he said.
HB: Lovely.
KG: And for the last –
HB: Lovely.
KG: And for the last three years he’s been with his wife, who’s a West Indian girl, pleasant girl and they go, they fly to Florida, get on a ship, one of these bloody great ships.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And they do a seven days, ten days or whatever it is. I said, ‘Which islands are you going to?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘They’re all the bloody same these islands.’ He said, ‘They’re all full of people trying to flog you things,’ you know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. I can imagine. Keith can I just, can I just ask you, can I just something that’s comes to my mind while we’ve been, you know we’ve been chatting and what not I don’t think, I’m just going back over your log. I don’t think we actually know who your crew were. We know the pilot was Vasey.
KG: Oh yeah. I can tell you who the crew were. I’ve got a, I’ve got a lovely big photo, painting and you’ve, if you’d like to take those papers with you -
HB: Well we, what I’m, what I’m thinking we’ll do because there’s some in there, yes I can but what I just wanted to make some enquiries about some of the bits and pieces ‘cause I mean like you’ve got the usual things we all do. You’ve got some photographs but there’s nothing written on the back.
KG: Yeah.
HB: So we don’t quite know who’s who.
KG: Yeah.
HB: But having said that that’s that’s something we can address but no it was just, it was just the names of the crew.
KG: I’ll go through them for you if you’d like to jot them down.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Jack Vasey.
HB: That’s the pilot.
KG: V A S E Y.
HB: Ray Miller, flight engineer.
KG: So he’s the FE. Ray Miller.
HB: Oh dear. I’ll have to think a bit.
KG: That’s alright.
HB: George. George, God, George Hillier, mid-upper gunner.
KG: George Hillier.
HB: Vic Lewell L E W E L L.
KG: Hang on he was rear gunner. Sorry Vic Lewell.
HB: L E W E L L.
KG: Who haven’t, we haven’t got the –
HB: Navigator.
KG: I always remember he said, ‘It’s Edward to my better class friends.’
HB: Yeah.
KG: I’ll have to, I’ll have to look in there.
HB: That’s alright. That’s alright. That’s Edward.
KG: Crowley. I think he name was Crowley. Ted Crowley. C R O W L E Y.
HB: That’s brilliant. So that’s the pilot, the flight engineer, the navigator and can you remember who your wireless op was?
KG: George Hardy.
HB: George Hardy.
KG: From, from Houghton le Spring.
HB: Right. George Hardy, wireless op. That’s great. Yeah. It’s, it’s, did you after, after the war did you keep in contact with your crew.
KG: Well that’s something I’ve forgotten to tell you. We didn’t keep in touch with each other but about -, This is my daughter.
JT: Hello Harry, you must be Harry. Hi I’m Jane.
KG: Right. Just bear with me a second.
[machine pause]
HB: Right. Just turned the tape back on.
KG: About twenty five years after we had been demobbed I don’t know the exact date my wife had a phone call and the person said, ‘Is that Mrs Ganney?’ ‘Yes.’ Was your husband in 57 squadron?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘My name is George Hillier,’ the chap I was telling you about here, he said, ‘We’ve found out that the skipper, Jack Vasey is seriously ill,’ and George Hillier and Vic Lewell were going up to Newcastle or in that area to see him. Would we like to go as well? So we all trooped off to Newcastle or wherever it was and went in to see Jack Vasey and he was so thin. So he was in his dressing gown. It was one Sunday lunchtime and he was so thin and I was talking to him and I said to him, ‘What were you doing the night we hit the sea Jack?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know man but not many people have done it.’
HB: Yeah. That’s true.
KG: Yeah. And he died. He died a week later.
HB: Oh.
KG: With cancer.
HB: Yeah.
KG: But his family were so thrilled that we’d gone up there.
HB: Yeah.
KG: But other than that we haven’t been in touch with each other.
HB: So had you, had you, had you been in contact through perhaps associations reunions or -
KG: No. We hadn’t.
HB: You didn’t do much of that.
KG: No. We weren’t, we didn’t get involved in reunions at that time.
HB: Yeah.
KG: But then I joined the 57/630 Squadron Association because 57 squadron and 630 squadron shared East Kirkby.
HB: Yeah.
KG: They were both on the, on the aerodrome and we joined the Association. We did attend one or two dinners and reunions. We may manage to get to the next one which is something like the 3rd of July at East Kirkby.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Have you ever been there?
HB: I’ve been to Kirkby, East Kirkby, yeah.
KG: And have you seen the aircraft there haven’t you?
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
KG: Because it’s called Just Jane.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And so we may try and make it there depending on how I feel and how everybody else feels.
HB: Yeah.
KG: You know, just to go over there for the, for the day.
HB: Yeah.
KG: With my wife, as you see getting her up in the morning is difficult.
HB: Yeah.
KG: You know, she’ll be alright -
HB: What was, what was, I mean I’ve spoken to one or two people who were at east Kirby but what was your abiding memory of being at East Kirby cause there’s -
KG: East Kirkby.
HB: Sorry yeah.
KG: East Kirkby.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Abiding memory. Well let me just explain it. We joined the squadron and started flying August.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And we’d finished by February.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So we weren’t there for very, I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of any member of East Kirkby at that time because people regrettably used to come and go. They would come in one day and two or three days later on a trip they’ve been shot down or whatever so you didn’t, you didn’t have any friends in other crews.
[ringtone]
HB: Sorry about this. I thought I’d turned it off. I have now. That’s it. Sorry I do apologise for that.
KG: That’s all right.
Jane: Nice bit of music though.
KG: You didn’t, you didn’t make friends outside of your own crew because you know, it was a bit without being over dramatic it was here today gone tomorrow.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
KG: So the, we were in nissen huts with a stove in the middle and a pipe going up through the roof but it wasn’t the most ideal place to stay.
HB: I’ve heard it, I’ve heard it described as cold and windy and draughty.
KG: That’s it. That’s it. Yeah.
HB: It seems to be a recurring theme.
KG: But as I say we weren’t there all that long.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Came in something like July. We’d be gone by February.
HB: Yeah. The, at the end of the war obviously a lot of people have got views on how Bomber Command were treated or viewed at the end of the war.
KG: Yeah.
HB: I just wondered if you’d got a view on that yourself.
KG: Yes. I have really. I can to a degree understand it in so far as fighter planes were there to shoot down the enemy planes and it was very flamboyant and they were quite rightly famous for what they, what they did whereas we were there to bomb them into submission effectively.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And I think at the end of the war Montgomery, Alexander, various other people in charge were all made lords and what’s the name was not offered a peerage.
HB: Harris.
KG: Butch. What’s his name? Butch Harris. So I think Bomber Command got treated very badly but of course they, as it was then we were at peace they didn’t want to upset the Germans any more.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And say, you know well we came and bombed all your places.
HB: Yeah.
KG: But I’m sure in my own mind that Bomber Command were, it was very significant of bombing Germany into submission.
HB: Yeah.
KG: I’m not saying the army wouldn’t, they would have to have done it eventually but no I think they got the thin edge of the wedge.
HB: Yeah.
KG: The only medals I got and I couldn’t care less about bloody medals, they’re surplus and stuck indoors. If I’d have stabbed myself with a pen in Whitehall I would have got the same medals.
HB: Yeah.
KG: As I got on Bomber Command.
HB: Yeah. What medals did you get Keith? Do you know?
KG: Oh. The usual Naafi lot. I think it was the victory medal you’d get.
HB: Yeah.
KG: They defence medal.
HB: Yeah.
KG: I honestly -
HB: Aircrew?
KG: No. No. We didn’t get aircrew medals. I mean I wouldn’t have minded an aircrew medal. If you’d flown before D-Day you would have got the air crew Europe.
HB: Yeah.
KG: After D-Day you all had the same medal which was, I don’t know, was it called the European star? I don’t know.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So all all they gave us eventually after kicking up a stink and of course the person who kicked up a lot of the stink was one of the Bee Gees.
HB: Oh right.
KG: Did you know that?
HB: No. No, I didn’t know that.
KG: You look it up. The Bee Gees. He’s died now. He was instrumental in putting the muck up. I’m not on tape am I? For putting the muck in the fan and stirring it all up.
HB: Yeah.
KG: And got that lovely memorial down at Piccadilly.
HB: Yeah. At Green Park. Yeah.
KG: Yeah. You’ve you seen it have you?
HB: Yes. I’ve been there.
KG: Yeah. It’s a good memorial.
HB: Yeah.
KG: So he was one of the main people getting involved with with that. But all we got was the soppy little clasp.
HB: Yeah.
KG: They call it the air crew clasp or something.
HB: Yeah.
KG: Well, I mean it’s like somebody’s put a little mark on your arm thing.
HB: Yeah.
KG: It’s a pretty pathetic sort of a gesture.
HB: Well I think, I think what we’ll do Keith is, I thank you for very much for that. It’s really, really interesting history of what you did. If we can I’ll turn the tape off. It’s a quarter to twelve now.
KG: Yeah.
HB: So you, I think, I think you’ve done marvellously to get, to get through all that. What we’ll do if you like I’ll turn the tape off. We’ll go through some of this paperwork and I’ll just make a few notes about some of the photographs.
KG: Yeah. If you go through -
HB: And then I’m just down the road so what I can I’ll I can do the copying so I’m going to terminate the interview at 11.45.
KG: Ok. We’re going into South Lodge.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AGanneyK170301
PGanneyK1714
Title
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Interview with Keith Ganney
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:05:18 audio recording
Creator
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Harry Bartlett
Date
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2017-03-01
Description
An account of the resource
Keith was called up in February 1942 and after basic training learned to fly in the Tiger Moth and then sent to Davidson in Canada for further training in Cornells and Cranes. He failed a flying test and was remustered as a bomb aimer and sent back to England to 9 AFU at RAF Penrhos and then to RAF Silverstone to carry out crew training on Wellington and Stirling aircraft.
After attending the Lancaster finishing school at RAF Syerston, Keith and his crew were posted to RAF East Kirby. Their first operation was to Konigsberg, an eleven-hour trip but had to divert to Scotland because of bad weather. Several ‘bullseye’ feint operations were next before a raid on Bremen Docks was a failure due to navigator error.
Another operation was to Dusseldorf, carried out on a perfect moonlit night. An attack by a Me109, left the rear gunner severely wounded and the mid upper turret out of action. After fifteen minutes of corkscrew evasive action, the enemy fighter flew alongside, waggled his wings and flew off. Keith comforted the rear gunner until they made an emergency landing in England. Examination of the damaged aircraft revealed the emergency whistle of the mid upper gunner had deflected a bullet and saved his life. On an operation to Trondheim, the crew were unable to bomb so returned but had a lucky escape when they flew too low and hit the sea, tearing off the tail wheel and causing a crash landing for which the pilot received a red endorsement
Their last operation was to Siegen and in mid flight the navigator wanted to turn back so the pilot ordered Keith to map read the route from the nose of the aircraft and so he finished his first tour on 1st February 1945.
After time as a bombing instructor at RAF Swinderby, Keith was posted to Sudan as an air traffic controller from where he was demobbed.
He worked as a salesman until 1984, during which time he joined 57/630 Squadron association.
Keith feels angry at the treatment of Arthur Harris and considers the aircrew clasp as a pathetic gesture.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Newark (Nottinghamshire)
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Gwynedd
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Siegen
Norway--Trondheim
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/265/3414/AGreggV160720.1.mp3
bebd82b1b8467bdefa782fcc1d82a2f2
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Title
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Gregg, Victor
Victor Gregg
V Gregg
Description
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One oral history interview with Victor Gregg (1919 - 2021). Victor Gregg served in the army in India, Palestine and the Western Desert. He transferred to the Parachute Regiment and fought in Italy and at the Battle of Arnhem, where he was taken prisoner of war. He was present in Dresden when it was bombed in February 1945.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-07-20
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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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Gregg, V
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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PL: My name’s Pam Locker and I’m in the home of Mr Victor Gregg of 13 Springvale, Swanmore, Hampshire SO32 2AU, on the 20th of July 2016. And, Vic, if I can just start by saying thank you very much for letting me come to interview you. And perhaps you’d like to start by telling us about joining the forces and your, your military career, if you like and the experiences you had as a result.
VG: How I come to join the forces? Well, it just happened that it was my 18th birthday and I was out of work which wasn’t an uncommon feature in them days because young boys come out of school at fourteen years of age. They was used as cheap labour in the majority. Especially in the areas that I came from. So, employers used to take on these boys and sack them as they were required according to the order list at the firm I have. So, anyway, I was out of work and I was, I walked down Drury Lane because I was living in King’s Cross at the time. No. I was living in Holborn at the time. In Kenton Street. And I makes me way to the Horse Guards Parade. It was raining. And the idea is to spend half an hour watching the, watching the guards. Watching the army change guard with their horses in Horse Guards Parade which was quite a spectacle in them days. Especially in them days. You could get right up close to them. And I’m watching this and there’s a crowd and this big bloke comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. And I turned around and he’s got all this brass all over his chest and big red band goes down there and he asked me if I’d like a cup of tea and a bun. So, he says, ‘We’ll get out of the rain.’ So, I’d only had a couple of slices of bread and dripping for breakfast so I was a bit hungry so I said, ‘Yeah. Good idea,’ sort of thing. So, he takes me over to Whitehall. The army depot which was just off of Whitehall at Greater Scotland Yard. Marched up the steps. Go inside. He points out a desk where there’s two lads sitting behind a desk. ‘Go and have a chat with them. I’ll go and get the tea.’ So, I goes over and has the chat with them and they ask me how old I am and what’s my name and where do I live. They write it all down. ‘And you’re eighteen.’ I says, ‘Yeah. I’m eighteen today.’ ‘ Oh good. Good, son. Good. Good. Go and see that gentleman over there.’ There’s a bloke with a white coat. So, he says, ‘Take your coat off and drop your trousers and bend over and cough.’ And he says, ‘You’re alright. Button up and then go back to those two gentleman again.’ And I still haven’t — that bloke still hasn’t turned up with the tea and the bun yet but I found out, ‘Sign here,’ he said. So, I signed that and I’m in the army. And the whole thing took about ten minutes. And that’s how it was in them days. In them days the British army was a haven for — like a magistrate would have a bloke in front of him and the magistrate, according to advice from the government if they wanted more soldiers or something, instead of doing five years on Dartmoor you can sign up for seven. Seven and five. So, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I’ll sign up for seven and five. And you used to get blokes who had run away from their wives. Blokes who were riding out. Blokes who had come down from up north to get the treasures of the south which didn’t exist. All sorts of odds and sods they were in the army and they took them all. They took them all with open arms and they took me. And the next day I was on the train from from Waterloo down to Winchester where I spent the next six months at Winchester. Then I came out of there. I was in the 1st Battalion, The Royal Brigade which was at Tidworth. About four months there and I’m on a boat to India and it’s 1938 and Munich has just come about. So, we get to India. Done about nine months there and we were packed up. We’re off to Palestine. So, it was in Palestine and then of course we was on, we was on a patrol in Palestine on September the 3rd and the colonel pulled us all out into this field and told us that we was about to earn our keep because war had been declared. And that’s how I come to join the army. I didn’t actually join. It was, in them days it was an open door. Open door. You didn’t even have to be press ganged. You didn’t have to sign anything. You didn’t have to do any exercises or prove that you could write your name or anything like that. As long as could stand up that was it.
PL: So what happened next? After Palestine?
VG: Well it didn’t. The army didn’t, it didn’t affect me much because I’d already come from an area that if you didn’t stand up for yourself you’d had it. From, from infant school onwards. That’s the sort of area it was. You had to. You learned to stand up. So, joining the army we had the same sort of things that have like that have been reported in the last few years in the British army. What they call bullies. But you always had, always had that sort. That sort of individual who tried to put other people down in order to make a name for himself. But no. That didn’t affect me for the simple reason I knew how, I knew how to handle those sort of people so yeah I thought it was good. Three good meals a day and I had a pair of boots which didn’t let the water in. I was worried about, I was worried about what my mum would think because my mum was on her own. Well she was with my brother and my sister but my mum was being looked after my grandparents. More or less. My mum was like, she was always in work. So, there wasn’t a problem. I think she probably thought it was for the good because we was living in two rooms, the four of us. So, I was out of the way. So, that’s how I joined the army. And from Palestine we went to Egypt and then of course let battle commence and it never stopped. For six years. So, on the way, on the way I lost nearly everyone. Everyone who I’d known. The four lads who came down with me on the train only one of them survived but he died about two years after the war ended. Something the matter with his brain. So, I was the only survivor of the four lads who got on that train at Waterloo to go down to Winchester. But we go down there and they formed a squad of about twenty eight men and boys. Men and boys. Twenty eight. And that’s the squad that’s going to go forward. Train for six months. Learn all about everything and then get put in a battalion. In this case it was the 1st Battalion. So, I can’t say that, I can’t say that I felt out of place. I thought it was easy actually. Simple life. I didn’t have to go, I didn’t have to go burgling or anything like that off Sloane Square. I didn’t have to do that like all the other lads where I lived, you know. They — a lot of them ended up in the nick one way or another or they didn’t lead very [unclear]. Of course, the schooling was so basic. Unless you’d been to grammar school you couldn’t get a decent job.
PL: Did you, did you feel proud or did you feel this is a job? Did you feel proud about being in the army or did you feel it was just a job?
VG: No. No. I didn’t feel — no. No. No. I never felt. The only time I ever felt proud was when we was in Italy and you’re going along. You’re pushing these Germans back and then you go through these villages and little towns and all the people come out cheering and they’re happy and they’re throwing flowers and they’re offering you their vino and stuff like that. You really feel, you really feel that for the first— because this was the first time you, as far as I was concerned — I’d been in the Middle East — this was the first time I’d come into contact with civilians in a battle area because on the desert there are no civilians. It was man against man. Literally. No women. Nothing. But when you, when we got into Italy, of course, it was different. There was women and children and stuff like that and I really felt, that’s the only time I really felt proud is when people have, you know, they [pause] you know jolly well that they ain’t got nothing because you were giving them food but they offered you what they’d got. So, yeah, that’s the only time I ever felt proud really. Otherwise it’s just, just life. Not an existence. It’s life. A subtle difference I think.
PL: Absolutely.
VG: You get, you get institutionalised in to that way of life. Kill or be killed. If you’re in a front line unit. If you’re in [pause] if there’s an army corps, say of about of forty thousand men — fifty thousand men, and out of that fifty thousand you’ve only got about eight thousand that are actually front line soldiers. All the rest are in the chain of command. The line of command. The line of supply. All the rest — and it takes, it takes about, if its reckoned it takes nine men to service one, one soldier on the front line. So, although we all get the same ribbons and medals. Campaign medals. It’s only these few like Rifle Brigade, [Carriers?] the Devons, Northumberland Fusiliers and all those sort of light infantry units and the Tank Corps, the 4th Tanks, the 3rd Tanks. And some of the, some of the artillery units. The light artillery. Twenty five pounders and stuff. They’re the, they’re the only people who are actually in action. And of course, as far as the air force is concerned that was non-existent. They were still using twin, twin wing Gladiators. If they wanted to, if they were flying over and they wanted to drop a message then the gunner, who was sat behind the pilot, used to drop a note tied to a piece of string telling us what was going on. And that was — of course the Germans, the Italians were the same because they had twin engines the same but that was the level of aircraft style because the poor old, the poor old airmen they had these horrible bloody Blenheims and Whitleys and things like that and they used to get shot down as soon as they went up in the air. As soon as they turned up over enemy territory they were shot down because they were so slow. So quite a lot of the lads who got into those planes — they never come back. You get used to it. You get used to it. A lot of people won’t never understand that.
PL: So, when did you feel things started changing? You know, in terms of there being a war?
VG: Eh?
PL: You know, you’d been in, you’d been in the army for a couple of years and then the war started so was there a sort of a moment when you felt this is, everything has now changed and different?
VG: I think I was in, it might have been a couple of years. A year and a half. Something like that. I can’t recall that we felt anything. The colonel got up.
PL: You just got on with it.
VG: He got up on a sort of collapsible chair in this field. He called us all in from this. All the companies were spread out on this manhunt that we was doing over the, over these hills in Palestine. And we were all called together. About, I think it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And so the whole battalion was there and he just told us that we was about to earn our keep. That war had been declared. ‘Cause I don’t think it came as a surprise because certainly it wasn’t a surprise to me because I’d already, I’d already experienced the black shirts and stuff like that in Whitechapel. I knew what it was all about. Even as young as I was. No. A sense of anticipation I suppose. Go down the canteen, have a few beers and you forgot all about it.
PL: So, what was your first battle?
VG: Well the first big battle, the first real big battle was at Beda Fomm. That was after Wavell had started Operation Compass where they drove all these Italians back. The whole Italian army. And we got to this place near Sirte and then we were pulled out. We were pulled out to have a rest. That was, it was a small group consisting of the Rifle Brigade, the second RB, the fourth RHA and I think there was a couple out of, out of the 3rd Tanks or 4th Tanks. Only about six tanks. That’s all. Light stuff. And we was this, at some fort or another, I’ve forgotten the name of it but anyway we had to — what had happened was they’d got some information that the Italians were leaving Benghazi and heading for Tripoli. The whole army. The whole Italian army and we was told we had to cut the road. And the best place to cut it in a straight line was this place at Beda Fomm. So we’d only, and we’d got back, they’d sent back to this area for a rest. We hadn’t even got the tea on. And the blue flare goes up so we’d got to get going and they’d tell us about it afterwards, you know. This is what we’re doing. The 11th Hussars had gone in front and they’d gone on a compass bearing to this point. Whatever was in the way we had to get over it. Very rough. And a lot of the mechanised stuff couldn’t get through. So we find that the next day we landed on this road. So, there’s about five hundred riflemen, I suppose there was about thirty gunners from the 4th RHA with twenty five pounders. And a few with two pounders which were useless. And we’re spread across this road and there’s an army of about forty thousand coming towards us. Complete. Complete with their tanks, guns and everything. But what the forty thousand didn’t know — they didn’t know we were there until, until whoever was in charge, like Wingy Renton — he wasn’t in charge but he was really. Wingy Renton was the company commander of 2nd RB. He, he — these Italians were only about twice the distance from that house over there and they still didn’t see us because we were laying flat, see. And then he opened with the twenty five pounders. That blasted the front ranks and the twenty five pounders demolished, demolished the tanks over open sights. So, and that first salvo there was about ten tanks caught alight, half a dozen lorries and there was about two hundred men laying. They were never going to see the next day. All in front of us. All lying on the ground. And they’d had it. They’re either dead or they’re howling out in pain or something like that. And we haven’t even, we haven’t even moved. We’ve just, we’ve just or we were going to or anything like that. And that’s how it was. That’s how it went on. Through all that day and then through the second day. People do say that the Italians are not good fighters. They’d never been in situations like that because the ground was absolutely strewn with their dead bodies and they still come on. Of course, what was driving them on was the rest of the British army had now caught up with their rear echelons. So, the rear echelons of this Italian force was trying to push forward and they was pushing the front echelons forward into our line of fire. And that was the first victory that England, that the British allies, and the only victory up to Alemein. It was the only complete victory we had and we’d got the whole of the Italian army. Caught the lot of them. And what did we lose? Yeah. We had a, my section commander got, he got hit in the arm. And then we had a lad who come from South Wales. Of course his name was Taffy. Naturally. But he used to make the tea. He was our tea boy and cook. Yeah. A bit of a joke but he used to like doing it and he got hit with a bit of shrapnel and of course that was it. He was dead. So, that’s the only casualties that our section had. But I don’t think we, I think we lost, I think the force as a whole, in that battle, I think we lost about, probably about eighty men. Which is not a lot, considering. A few more wounded. But, and then of course we went on. After that we went on for another couple of weeks and then they pulled us all back and these lads who had come over on the next draft took over. Of course, once they came in, once they came up against the Germans who were there they didn’t stand a dog’s chance. So they pushed them all back and that’s how it went for three years. Backwards and forwards. And one by one — you don’t lose, you don’t lose men. In the sort of unit that I was in you don’t lose, you don’t lose men a dozen at a time or two dozen at a time. They go in their ones and twos. All of a sudden you go over to another platoon. You know, to see a mate who you want to go and see. ‘Oh, where’s Charlie?’ ‘Oh, he got his lot yesterday.’ ‘Oh.’ And then you think. That’s the way it goes on. It’s, it’s so gradual you, you get used to it. Course as the months and the years go by and both sides get more weapons so, it gets fiercer and fiercer. By the time you get to battles like Sidi Rezegh in 1941 it’s nothing short of a bloodbath. But you still, you still soldier on through it. By that time, if you’re in a good regiment, in a good regiment, then if somebody gets a bit bomb happy there’s, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. Instead of like, if he was in the Guards he wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d say, ‘Get up there.’ You know. You’d get shot for cowardice. They wouldn’t do that in these sort of regiments. They’d just quietly send the lad back and because he’s, he’s more danger being with him. It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s a life where, a life in a war is like that. Where you get so used to the ever present danger that it’s a way of life. So, I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen blokes pray. I’ve never seen blokes clutching their beads as some, like the Yanks do, you know. Never seen anything like that. Just take it as a — once they get used to it then it becomes a matter of fact. ‘What do you think they’re doing now?’ ‘Oh, they’ve packed up for the day.’ ‘Well, let’s get the cards out.’ You don’t know what’s going to happen the next day. And then you get, then you see a load of aircraft come over, ‘It’s alright. They’re ours.’ See, but the sods in the planes doing about six hundred miles an hour. They can’t tell. They see a load of stuff down below and, you know, a load of dust and down they come, you see and shoot you up. And then while they’re shooting you up you’re watching bloody Germans shooting their own troops up about two mile away. Complete balls up really. So, yeah. You get, you get [pause] it’s difficult for people to understand how it becomes a way of life. Living on bully beef and biscuits. We actually had biscuits issued to us which they’d dug up from food pits which Allenby had laid down in 1916. It’s the truth. The armoured cars that the 11th Hussars were using were the same armoured cars that Allenby had had in the First World War. These old Rolls Royce, long nosed armoured cars which were — the only armour they had was the 303 Vickers and they were set against the Italians who had forty millimetre anti-tank guns that went through them like a knife through butter sort of thing, you know. We was completely unprepared. The British army. Completely unprepared. They only — we had three weapons that were any good. We had a rifle which was the best rifle going. The Lee Enfield 303. We had the Bren gun which they bought from Czechoslovakia in 1937. And we had the twenty five pounder. And that was the three weapons. That’s all we had which would, which would do any damage to the enemy. And there we are sending troops all over the world. And they pulled through. Not because, not because of these idiots who had been educated at Eton like that who thought they, you know, they were indestructible but ordinary, ordinary English. English sort of men. British. British manpower. British men who had been brought up in hardship. Out of work. On the dole. Stuff like that. And then of course after, after the end of 1940 and ‘41 when they brought in conscription then of course you got all types. But there was no [pause] we wasn’t, we never had any aircraft support worth thinking about until we got to Alemein in 1942. At the end of ‘42. Then of course, by that time, we had superiority. Complete. The air force had all sorts of weapons. They had all these Spitfires, Hurricanes and American planes. And we had the six pounder which could put any German tank out of business. But then Alemein was brutal. Was brutal. You had two armies facing each other. Both dug in. And then we had to go forward and try and break them out of it. And you can bomb them all day long and shell them all day long but if they’re in a hole you’ve got to hit the hole before you do them. Shelling very seldom clears, clears a way through. These light bombers that the RAF were issued with they done more damage than the shells. But if you had — at Alemein they had a gun every twenty yards over twenty mile. There was a twenty mile length of the battlefield and they had a gun every twenty yards and they all opened up at the same time. And when that lot went off the Bren carrier which I was in, the Bren carrier actually lifted off the ground with the shock. We was all told to block our earholes up because these shells were only landing about four hundred yards in front of us. But it didn’t — it looked bad, it sounded bad. It looks impressive but after it had all died down and you approach them it’s as if you had never had anything. Their machine guns opened up and you were in business again. Its [pause] and then you take a couple of prisoners and after a little while you find they’re just the same as you. They don’t — they’re not, the majority of them I don’t think knew a lot about, I don’t think they knew a lot about these death camps. I think the German civilians did obviously but I don’t think the blokes in the army knew. The lads who, the only Germans who were different were the Germans who had been to, had been against the Soviet Union and been pulled back because I think they were dead scared of losing the war because they knew what they’d have to face when they come out of it for what they’d done. Well not what not the actual ordinary Wehrmacht soldier had done.
PL: So, Vic, do you want to talk a little bit about when you were a prisoner of war yourself?
VG: Well, I came home from Italy. Because by that, at the end, at the end [pause] at the end of it, coming up three quarters of the way through 1943 all the fighting in North Africa ceased at Cape Bon. So, they’re going to send the second RB in. They’re going to send them back to the Middle East. Palestine. And quite a lot of us — we wasn’t very happy about this because we knew [we’d been beat. See once you’re in a peacetime area we didn’t want nothing to do with that. So, then they come and asked for volunteers to form this new parachute regiment. And it’s alright. You volunteer and if you don’t like it — you’re going to go down to Tel Aviv and if you don’t like it, you get two weeks leave and if you don’t like jumping out of planes you can come back and we’ll take you back alright. The whole battalion stepped forward. They’d been in the desert three and a half years. So, they get a promise of two weeks leave and a trip back again. Nobody’s going to blink an eye. Nobody is going to be stupid enough to — of course there were a few sensible blokes who through the — because it was still mainly, even after three years of war it was still mainly a regular battalion, filled up with regular soldiers and you never volunteer for anything. You see. That’s the, that’s the first thing. You never volunteer for anything. But they volunteered in that case so they had to take the names out of the hat and I was one of them that came out of the hat. So, that’s how I happened to be in the 10th Parachute Battalion. And so, I ended up in Italy and got, and then after Italy when they brought us home they brought us home as the second front. And of course eventually they used us up — they took us over the channel a couple of times in those early days of the second front when they were going to use us and they brought us back because where they was going to drop us there was so much movement that where they were going to drop us they thought, you know, the Germans were in charge of that area. So, every time you go up there was about twenty or thirty blokes who can’t make it anymore. Their nerves are shattered. But — so eventually we were off to, we’re off to Arnhem and our division was dropped on the second day. The first day was the 18th. We was dropped on the 19th and we dropped on the DZ which was full of the dead bodies. From the blokes who had jumped the day before. Now, three quarters of the battalion had never fired a shot in anger. The only people who knew what it was like was these people who had come from the Middle East and, the colonel in charge, he had the sense to keep them separate. All us blokes, he put us in what was called Support Group. We had the three inch mortars and the machine guns. Stuff like that. So, anyway, over we jumped to get on the DZ and then so there was about five hundred of us jumped and about — I think there was three hundred of us turned up. Made it. Made it off of the DZ. We left two hundred on the DZ — dead. And then on the second day we only had eighty men left standing. And then of course because I was on a machine gun I’m getting put here, there and everywhere and by the second day, by the third day I’ve already been through two crews. For some reason, I’m sitting in the, I’m sitting number one on the gun and I’m sitting up like that. See. And the number, and the number two is down here, laying on his, laying on his stomach, feeding the ammo and the number three is laying on the other side of the gun tidying up the empty belt. They’re lower than a snake’s belly but those are the blokes who got killed for some reason or other. For some reason or the other I lived through it. I don’t know how. Because it just carried on until, you know, on the 6th day, mind you we only had food for three days, two days so we was drinking water out of what was on the road. Puddles. And we run out of ammo so this officer who I’d never seen before who’d been [unclear] to be with his remnant he’s going to go back. A and this is about 11 o’clock at night, he's going to go back and see if he can find some more ammunition. Find another box of ammo. So he goes back and then he comes, after about twenty minutes he comes back. He crawls back and says, ‘There’s nobody there. They’ve all gone.’ And he thinks that we’re surrounded. Completely surrounded by the Germans. There’s no way out so we might as well give ourselves up. But no. No. No. We didn’t give ourselves up. We crawled out of this, some of us. There was about four of us, half a dozen of us I think there was. We managed to crawl out and we lasted the first day and on the [eighth?] day — I think it was the 28th . On the 28th I got captured. And this German — we was in a ditch. Absolutely exhausted we were and this German’s looking down at us pointing a gun at us. ‘Come Tommy. Come. Come. Come. Krieger [unclear]. That’s it. So, I get sent down to this camp. 4B. And this is full up with people who have been there since Dunkirk. Hundreds of them. So you’re wondering, you know, I mean four years. Anybody ever try and get out of here. ‘No. You can’t get out of here.’ Well they was wrong because it was dead easy because they come and ask you if you want to work in a work camp but the NCOs who were in charge of the prisoners they think that they’ve got to keep all the prisoners together. So, they give us a lecture, ‘When they come around to ask you to go on these work camps say no.’ But I didn’t. Three of said, ‘Yeah, why not. Yeah. Let’s get out of here.’ You see. So, we were on these work camps and they sent us down to this camp at Niedersedlitz which was about six kilometres or five kilometres south of Dresden. And this, this little work camp had about, there was about eighty men in it and we used to go out and do all these jobs like sweeping the roads, collecting the cabbages off the ground. It was February. Two feet of snow. Emptying the, doing the [unclear] as the coal come in off the coal. Empty the trains. Anything like that we used to do. So, yeah so three times we, the four of us who had formed a little group, three times we tried to get away. And on the third time, the third time the Feldwebel came up and he has us in a line. He said, ‘I can’t do anything else,’ he said. ‘I’m going to give you a job now that is hard,’ he said, ‘But if you do it anymore,’ he said, I’ve got to report you.’ He was alright. He was alright — the old boy. And so, he sent me to this soap factory. The punishment was not the work in the soap factory. The punishment was the walk to the soap factory which was another six kilometres through two foot of snow in the morning and at night. And so, in order to make it easier for us he issued us with, he’d got these wooden clogs made in the village and he issued us all with these wooden clogs. The soles were about that thick. See. So that was alright. So, I get teamed up with this bloke. This Yorkshire bloke. Big bloke he was. Harry. So, we’re in this soap factory and our job is to shovel all this pummy powder in to a big wheelbarrow and wheel it up the ramp and empty it into the mix here. Now, this was a soap factory but they never had any fat or oil. So the only soap which was available in Germany at the time were these lumps of pumice stone which was, that this factory used to make. But on the other side of the shed there were some Italians building a wall and they had a big pile of cement which is exactly the same colour as pummy powder although the consistency is different. So, we thought it would be a good idea to put two barrel fulls of cement in to the mixing machine. Which we done. See. And it was late in the afternoon so the Feldwebel, the bloke in charge, he’s rubbing this stuff with his fingers and he’s puzzled because it’s too wet. Never happened before. Must have put too much water in it, see. So, he’s going to leave it till the next morning and then I leave it to the next morning. I’m beginning to get butterflies. Harry, Harry’s saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be a joke if it all seized up?’ I said, ‘Well it aint no joke mate,’ I said, ‘We’re the people who put it in there.’ ‘No. Don’t worry about that. No. They’re too stupid to work that out.’ I said, ‘They’re not stupid. They’re Germans.’ Anyway, I go along with Harry all the time, laughing and joking and sure enough, the next morning, half past six in the morning — freezing cold and it’s snowing. And this Feldwebel, this bloke in charge had this big wooden lever on the war and at the end of the lever was a rope and the rope pulled down another lever. It was a sort of old Heath Robinson affair. That was, the electric switch was up in the roof, see. So, he pulls the lever. He pulled it down anyway. And nothing happened. Keeps on trying. Nothing’s happened. Then all of a sudden everybody becomes aware there’s a load of smoke up on the roof. Course the roof is full of fat because this place has been a soap factory for a couple of hundred years. Everything’s saturated. And all of a sudden it all bursts in to flames doesn’t it. So it took them about ten minutes to suss out who was responsible and I give Harry a look, I said, ‘Here you are mate. They’re not stupid,’ so they put us in this, in this sort of, in the meantime they phoned up the police and the police come down. Put us in this black, sort of black Mariah which was [pause] and as we drew away, out of the window, we could see the window, as we drew away, as we drew away all the roof fell in and there were sparks everywhere and everybody was cheering and clapping. I don’t know. They wasn’t cheering and clapping for me and Harry. We was on our way to this bloke who was shouting and screaming at us and telling us all about sabotage and the Fuehrer said that there’s only one answer. Shoot us dead. Firing squad. Tomorrow morning. So that doesn’t sound too — but Harry’s still taking the mickey out of this bloke. He’s blooming speaking absolutely perfect English. He really is. He’s been to Oxford. That’s obvious.
PL: Keep going.
VG: He’s been to, he’s been to Oxford or somewhere like that. He’s obviously been educated in England and I was trying to kick Harry to get him to shut up, see. And I could the, I could feel the earth moving. So anyway, they marched us off and put us in this little car and we drive through Dresden. And then the sun come out. All the snow stopped and it was lovely. Beautiful. And I’m looking around me at this old city. It really, it really looked like one of these things on a Christmas card and just people walking about normally. So, and they take us into this place right in the centre. Right in the centre platz it was. This building. This sort of red brick building. It had sort of a gothic arch and when we got in there it was full up. Full up with people. About five — four or five hundred. Absolutely packed like sardines with these smelly, stinking, unwashed. Individuals of all nations. They were all in there and in the roof was a sort of a glass cupola over the centre bit. So, we’re in there and we kick and push our way ‘til we get near a wall ‘cause we were quite big blokes me and Harry. In them days. I wasn’t a shrivelled up old wreck like I am now. We could handle ourselves. And Harry went walkabout. So, he comes back and he’s brought this American with him. And there’s two of them and they’ve been put in there for looting. They said, ‘It’s alright,’ they said. We tell them the sorry tale that we’re going to get shot tomorrow. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘You won’t get shot tomorrow.’ I said, ‘How’s that then?’ He said, ‘Well they take out thirty every morning. Dead thirty. Every morning. They take them out, put their names down on a sheet of paper, cross them, tick them off, and they go out and you hear a rattle outside. You hear. And that’s them dead.’ They used to shoot thirty every morning. Very methodical. So, Harry says, ‘Oh, that’s alright, Vic,’ he says. Well, he didn’t say Vic. He called me Mac. ‘Cause everybody called me Mac because my name was Gregg. It tied up with MacGregor. ‘Cause in the army you have a, you have a nickname the day you join you see and my nickname was Mac because of that. See. ‘It’s alright Mac,’ he said, ‘There’s about five hundred in here. If they take out thirty a day the war’ll be over by that time.’ But I didn’t go along with that line of thinking. I thought we was in — I thought to myself, a bit of trouble here. But as it happens that was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon when they put us in there and they come around with some food, or some sort of goulash. Without any meat naturally. That didn’t look too appetising. We wasn’t all that hungry so we didn’t eat any of that. And then the guards disappeared, shut us all up, shut all the doors and then everybody tried to get a bit of kip. You’ve got to really push and shove to get, make some space. So, we got away from the centre of the place down to a wall that was right in the corner. And then all of a sudden, around about 9 o’clock we hear the sirens go off. And we still don’t worry about it because we think Dresden’s not going to get bombed. They’re going to bomb, they’re going to bomb some of these big cities that are around, you see. And then, after twenty minutes, everything’s full of light and there’s all these things coming down. You can see them coming down through this glass roof. They’re all coming down. Look like big Christmas trees. Alight. So that’s it. We knew exactly what they were. So, then of course they start. All the bombs start dropping. There’s about six hundred planes I think in that first. Six or seven. Six or seven hundred in the first wave and then at the end, almost at the end of the first wave this big blockbuster landed outside the building and blew all the wall in. Kills nearly everybody. Picked me up. Picked me up and blew me right up to the other side of this place and part of the roof came in — fell on top of me. I’m covered in dirt. In debris. But Harry, when I finally got to him and found him I tried to get clear of it. He was as dead as a doornail. He was killed by blast. There was nothing. Nothing hit him. It was just blast. Threw everything out of him. So, I covered him up and then as like the building was collapsing so there was about thirty of us, I think, got out of that building and I was one of them. And then what you do? You’re surrounded by all this fire. Everything’s alight. Or you think everything’s alight because that’s what it looks like. So you’ve got to get out so somehow, somehow or the other because it’s not too bad. This is only the first raid and it’s just like a normal bombing raid. A lot of people dead. It’s true. A lot of buildings alight. A lot of people down. So — but that’s normal. You don’t think much about that. So nobody can understand it. They’re all foreign to each other — these people in this place. They were all there for one reason only. They’d fallen foul of the German law and they were in there to be shot. So, if somebody forms a line, whoever’s in front I ain’t a clue but they start going forward. You follow them. Now, what saved us was we had the wooden clogs. See. If Harry had been with me he didn’t have wooden clogs. He would have had it because the ground was getting warmer by the minute. Anyway, the raid finished and we landed up in this sort of place where it was a bit open. A bit of open land and the deep depression. There was a little railway line running. It’s still in the centre of Dresden. We hadn’t gone very far but we were away from the dead centre. So, we think, well that’s, everybody thinks that’s alright. That’s alright. So, we’re all settling down to have a rest. None of us know each other and they don’t know anybody. And then this, we see this crowd of Germans coming along. Well not a crowd of them. About a dozen. They’re pulling this big, sort of two wheeler, barrow. Full up with all sorts of things. Pick axes, big drums of water, stuff like that. Ropes. Everything. Crowbars. So, the bloke in charge pulls up. The bloke in charge is the only bloke who ain’t got a helmet on. So, I think he’s in charge. See. So, he sizes us all up. He gets us all to fall in line and he picked out about eight of us who he thinks might have the strength to do what he wants them to do, see. So, get in line. So, three of them tried to run for it. This bloke just calmly got a revolver and shot two of them. Like that, see. And the other bloke came running back quick as possible. Now, believe it or not, I didn’t worry about that because it occurred to me at the time that you had to have somebody in charge because it would be mayhem and if you’ve got to maintain discipline by that method then so be it. It’s better to have discipline than no discipline whatever. Whatever. So, I didn’t take umbridge at that and I began to, you know — after the first hour and the second hour he used to call me Tommy ‘cause any English soldier was called Tommy. ‘Come Tommy. Come.’ See. And I used to call him, I called him [stress] the general. Not the general. The general you see and he used to like that because I don’t think he was a general. So that was our job. His job was to get into the bombed-out areas and try to open up as many of the cellars as possible. Get people out. He wasn’t, it wasn’t his job to fight fires. His job was to rescue these people. And he had these, he had about ten other Germans with him but that’s not enough, see. They were all issued with pickaxes, these whacking great crowbars, stuff like that. Ropes where you tie yourselves together when you go into the buildings. And that’s what we done. So anyway, we just about got back into the, into where it was getting a bit warm again and well it wasn’t warm. It was bloody hot. And then the air raid sirens went off again didn’t they? But the second raid of course, the first raid was only a sort of hors d’oevre. It was the second raid when they killed all these thousands of people. Because the second, you could actually, the bombs were so big you could see them coming down. They were enormous. And the incendiary bombs — instead of being sticks of incendiaries they were big blast bombs of about five thousand pounds. And when that hits the deck anything within three hundred yards is immediately incinerated, see. So that raid went on for about an hour and so we couldn’t do nothing. You couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t get back in there because — mind you we was only on the, we wasn’t outside of the fire. The fire was still raging all around but we were in this middle bit which was like, like a London square. That’s what it was. Which had had trees in but the trees were all burnt out. So, then, and the next thing is that he moves us off, he moves us on, I’m trying to remember now. He moves us off and we get to this sort of place where there’s a railway. There’s a railway line near the railway station. And he has got, he’s got one of these empty carriages which had been craned off and that was going to be where we were going to kip. In this. His crew were going to kip in this. And then of course they came up. They got lorries come up for the workers. They’re full of big barrels of, sort of, stew. I don’t know what. It wasn’t a lot of meat in it but it was something hot and brown bread was their salvation. So that’s alright. We’d got food. We’d got water. And we’re not in much danger now. So, that’s what I’m thinking. Everything might turn out alright in the end. So, but this bloke — he had one idea. He had to get in and get as many of these people out as he could. And after three days we still hadn’t got anybody out alive. And then he had to go off on the fourth day. So, there’s another couple of blokes took over in his place. Two blokes and a young, a young lad in uniform who had a — he had a Schmeisser and he was dangerous because I thought he was going to press the trigger at any minute. But we find this, we find this sort of tunnel. We get down under these houses and we find this tunnel which has been shored up and we gradually break our way through it to the end and we find these four women. Four women. Three women and four little girls. I think it was either that or the other way around. Four women and three little girls. Anyway, that’s what it was and they were all huddled up the in the corner of this room. It was like a bloody oven it was. So, anyway, we gradually get them out. It took us about an hour to get them out and when we get them out this crew of about twenty of us were all laughing and dancing and hugging each other and Christ knows what. It was really great. We brought these people out and none of us, I mean hardly any of them knew — only the Germans knew each other. The others didn’t know each other but the whole crew of us were so full of it. And of course the bloke who was in charge, the general as I called him, he missed that because he’d had the day off. And that’s the only time we pulled anybody out alive. So [pause] it’s — you’re in a, you’re holding on. You’re in this second raid. It’s really set things alight. So, as everything’s burning and heating up and using up all the oxygen and to replace it all this air is being drawn in from outside. And unless you can hold on to anything and you’ve got the strength to hold on you’re going to be pulled out and sucked up and then you get sucked up into the air and then when you get so high up, so far, the pull of gravity lets you go and you all drop to the ground again. ‘Cause you move out with the wind you see and you see these people all alight. Women and children. Things like that. Old people. There wasn’t no soldiers. And, I mean I’m not talking about one of them. I’m talking about dozens because these sorts of things are happening all over the place. These fires. And you can’t — I don’t think you can, you can’t tell people what it was like because they’re, like yourself — because your mind won’t accept it. It just won’t. It’s so horrible. It’s so horrible that your mind won’t accept it. That you see these women dragged along holding on to a little kiddy and they’re both alight. They’re both alight. They’re still alive and they’re being dragged along and then you see them get swept up in to the air like that. They disappear in to all this smoke and of course there’s fires up there. Smoke and red and all sorts. You can’t see the sky and at the same time every time you breathe in it’s like putting your face in an oven which you’re cooking the Sunday roast in and the only way you can survive is to face head on in to these gale force, not gale force — they’re two hundred mile an hour. They’re coming in fast. And you’ve got to face and you’ve got to walk and trying to keep your mouth shut and any air you want has got to come through your nose. So, because if you turn your head away from that you’re going to breathe in. You’re going to breathe in this hot air. You don’t learn this. It comes to you. It comes to you in the first twenty seconds. As a survival sort of system when you’re in a situation like that because what you are, literally you’re in the middle of a bonfire. Now, I mean after, after five days we still couldn’t get anywhere near the middle. You couldn’t get near the centre because everything, everything was hot. We prise open, we prise open this big shelter which was — had big metal doors. It was a proper shelter and locked from the outside so that they would stop the overcrowding. And so we had to break all that out open and when you open that out there was nothing in there. But then after, when you open the door all the dirt outside gets drawn inside because it’s going into a vacuum. There’s no air left in there at all but on the ground there is all this sort of greeny gooey mass of, sort of jelly, which is what’s left of the bodies. Five thousand of them. And of course, you’ve a few bones which haven’t [pause] what you’ve got to try and do if you can do it is any form of identification . This was the job. You had to get the identification. It might be a slip. It might be anything. And then try and bring whatever you could out. And then they put it all — if it was a body they just stacked them up by the roadside. Stacked them up in their hundreds and then what they’d do they’d cart them away and put them on and they had these big, the had these big concrete water things what were never full up. Half of them were empty. The ones that had been filled up, the people who were in the street jumped in the water to keep cool and they got boiled. They couldn’t get out because the sides were concrete. They couldn’t climb the concrete. Couldn’t get a grip on it. So, they were boiled alive. So [pause] so, yeah so that [pause] finally I got away. I got away from there which is another story. Got hardly anything to do. On the 5th day I decided that I was going to, I was going to get away. So, that morning I got way because you know it was all — nobody’s guarding you. I got up at about half past four and started walking east. Couldn’t walk west because there was too many troops. Started walking east. Got over the river bridge. I got over the Elbe and there’s all these refugees coming from the east and they’re coming towards the west and I’m going against them and I was starving hungry. And the second day I bumped into, well I didn’t bump into them I heard them coming through the bushes but I didn’t care about it all that much because I was so hungry and tired. But yeah they put me in a sort of, a sort of a compound and get some bread and stuff, some sort of goulash, until they found, about the third morning I was with them, and they was trying to start this old Chevy lorry and it wouldn’t start. So they were getting ready to pushed it so I just stepped forward out of this place, lifted the bonnet because I knew exactly what to do with a Chev. I knew them like the back of my hand because I’d been in the long range desert group. And I got a bit of cloth, a bit of shirt, I forget what it was now and I just wiped all the, all the distributor head. Got the wet out. Got the damp out. Cleaned the — took all the plugs out. Cleaned them. Put them all back. Down there. Give it a push because there was no electrics. No battery. Give it a push and vroom and away. And after that I was alright. I was alright. Kept me there. Fed me. And I was up with their front line troops. There was no resistance. No resistance. There was thousands of them. Thousands of these Russians. They were like ants crawling over. Nothing could have stopped them. So, when I get, I finally gets to this river. The night before we was in this town and I’m listening to this, there’s another bloke there and a group of ex-POWs they’d picked up and one of them’s got a wireless set. And they can hear Churchill talking about, like — peace. Peace in Europe. And of course, there’s firing going on. Shooting everything all around us so of course. Women getting raped by the dozen. It was terrible it was. So, anyway, the next morning we’re by this river and these Canadians come over in a sort of a dingy and picked me up, took me back, put me on the back of a motorbike and whisked me away to this transit camp. And then I have to go up in front of these young officers because I looked half German. I had all sorts of odd clothes on and all my hair was burned and singed. Everything. I looked a right sight. And they wanted to know who I was and what I’d done. ‘Why did you go east? Why didn’t you go — why didn’t you go west?’ So, I tried to tell them. ‘But you could have gone west. You didn’t have to go east did you?’ ‘Yeah.’ In the end I walked out. I walked out on them. So that was my introduction to [pause] and after that, I mean, I was a complete, I mean, when I got home I was alright for about, I suppose I was alright for about eight or nine months. But even, even then people were shying clear of me. But I didn’t really, I didn’t really understand what it was all — all I know was that if anybody gave me orders they can go and whistle in the wind. I ain’t going to take no orders off of anybody. And I was quite — there was an example where I’d had a row with Freda. It wasn’t, it wasn’t her fault. And it was about 11 o’clock at night and I went for a walk down the Thames where I used to walk when I was a kid. And I was halfway across Waterloo Bridge and I’m I’m looking, I’ve stopped and I’m looking down at the river and I felt this sort of clamp come down on my shoulder, see. So I didn’t think. Nothing occurred to me. I just I put my arm around him, grabbed this bloke and put him on the parapet and I was ready to throw him in the river. Then I realised it was a copper. I realised he was a copper. I had a copper there. A policeman. I could see his number on his epaulet, you know. So I, you know, pulled him up, put him upright. So, I said, ‘I’m sorry mate.’ So he didn’t say nothing so, I said, ‘I suppose you’re going to nick me now.’ ‘No, I ain’t going to nick you,’ he said but,’ he said, ‘I thought you were going to jump in the river.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘No. I’m not stupid like that, I said, ‘I’m just a bit fed up. That’s all.’ So, he said, ‘Well, I can understand it mate.’ So, it must have been a bloke who had been through it. So, I never heard any more of that. He walked with me back to The Strand. Make sure. Just to make sure. So, we walked back to The Strand, ‘You can go home from there.’ But anything like that [pause] anything against authority. When I was finally, when I was finally picked up by — when I was on road haulage and of course I joined the communist party when I was at Battersea. On the Festival site. But I didn’t join the communist party because I was a lover of Uncle Joe. I just joined the communist party because the Daily Worker was the only paper that came out querying the eighty million they’d given to Krupps. They were supposed to give, government was supposed to give eighty million as its part in the rejuvenation of Germany and it all went to Krupps because they said that was the only organisation that they could give it to. And so, I thought that’s not a bloody good thing. And I read all the other newspapers. The Daily Mirror, Daily Express, The Daily Herald. All of it. Good thing. I thought nothing’s good about Krupps. And so that’s when I joined the party. And of course, I [pause] and then they learned, British Intelligence, because of its moles everywhere learned that the Moscow Nordea Bank wanted a chauffeur because the chauffeur they had was retiring. For some reason anyway, they wanted a chauffeur. So, they gets on to the, they get on to party headquarters in King Street and of course King’s Street’s got its moles hasn’t it. So British Intelligence knows. They come around this café where I was working on a Saturday morning when we was waiting for our wages and told me what they, what was going to happen and there was a chance to redeem myself, you know. Take this job on as a chauffeur and I would meet people now and again and I’d tell them who. Where I was going and who I was picking up. Things like this. You’ll be home every night. You can more or less state your own wages. Nice clean job. You don’t want to keep going up the road like a gypsy. You’re going to, you’re going to end up like your last employers. In the nick. They were doing, they were a couple of right rogues they were. They were a couple of old Jew boys and they had a big store room in Silvertown full of stolen goods. They was in league with another, with another firm in Birmingham and they had a warehouse at Ashton-under-Lyne. The two of them stacked up with stuff. And there was about eight lorries and I was introduced to them when I was out of work and I was up at Penton Street at the Labour Exchange. And I went over the pub and a bloke tapped me on the shoulder and it was one of my old mates in the carriers at 2nd RB and he was a right, he was a right rogue he was. Normally, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. ‘I can get you a real good number. I can get you — [pause] while all these clowns are working for thirty pounds a week you can take home a hundred every week.’ Night and day see. And of course, so that’s, I started working for the Moscow Nordea Bank and there it all started. As far as, like what you’ve come, as far as Bomber Command or anything out there it doesn’t really [pause] I respect them. I respect them for the courage of the blokes. I presume it was courage which took them into those planes every night. ‘Cause when they get, when they climbed that ladder into that plane, in to that Stirling, Wellington or whatever it was. They knew jolly well that they’d be lucky if two thirds of them would be back. They knew that and yet they went up night after night. So, I don’t really, I think of my own experience that you can get behind a machine gun and you can hammer away at a line of troops which are, say, five hundred yards away, three hundred yards [pause] and of course you’re killing them but you’re not aware of it until you’re within, you’re within spitting distance and you’re both hitting each other with rifle butts like we were at Beda Fomm and Arnhem ‘cause that was really close quarter stuff. Those lads in the RAF were six mile up. They were always, I mean, already they were, they’d say ‘Can you let the bombs go and let’s get home while we’re still alive.’ You know. So, I’ve never laid any blame on the crews of those planes. What some of them must have suffered later on in their life when they realised what had happened. What sort of things. Trouble has caused. I mean if you take, is it Chichester? Chichester is it? I mean that bloke went right into religion, didn’t he? In a big way. Get started on all these homes for people. But no. No. I blame the people who sent them up there. I blame. I’ve always blamed Churchill and those people who designed, people who designed the bombs who sent these blokes to kill all these civilians. They’re the people I blame. There’s not many of us left to tell the tales you see and people who have been in that sort of situation very seldom talk about it. They don’t. Because one reason is that they think that [ terrible excuse? ] they won’t believe it because it’s not, it’s not part of the natural world but if you’ve experienced it at close quarters. I’m, I’m lucky that I’ve been, I’ve been right through it. I’ve seen every sort of evil thing that man can think up of to do to his fellow man. And that’s the lesson I try to impart. Not self-aggrandisement. I don’t want that. And what I try to portray is what happened to me has happened to a lot, thousands of other men. And probably their families don’t, they’re dead now a lot of them, a lot of the families never knew. Oh yeah, my old granddad he was a bit of sod he was. But they don’t know what they’re old grandad went through because he never spoke about it. That’s what it’s all about.
PL: So —
VG: Swallowed all that drink have you? How would you like a little drop of gin.
PL: I think I need it now Vic.
VG: Eh?
PL: I think I need it now. So [pause] so how do you think, I mean I know that you have very strong feelings about how, and you’ve written about it. About how men were affected psychologically because of war. Do you want to record any of your thoughts about that?
VG: I’ve got [pause] it was about 19 [pause] four years ago, three years ago now. No. Two years ago that was. Two years ago. No. I was working in Taunton ‘cause me and Bett had gone to Taunton. Moved out of London. And I was working at Anglia Point because I had my own little business and I used to put sort of protective coatings on all these areas that suffered from radiation. And I was coming home one night and this, I was on my motorbike and this bungalow was alight. And it had a thatched roof. And there’s a couple of fire engines there. It wasn’t in the town. It was outside. At Bridgewater. And there’s this woman and she’s hanging out of the window and her hair’s alight. And I didn’t think much of it at the time. I didn’t even stop. I went straight up. Carried on up and I went to bed that night. And I never knew nothing after that until four days later and I woke up and Bett’s there and there’s a couple of nurses there and a doctor and I’d been like it for four days. Ranting and raving and screaming and shouting and sweating. And then, so after that I thought, I thought well I’m better now and the quack I went to see, he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’ve lived with it inside you all these years. You’re probably better now.’ I wasn’t quite sure whether I was or not until about, it was about two years ago now, and I got a letter from the Dean of, the Dean of Coventry and he wanted me to go up to the cathedral on the 13th of February to give a talk on Dresden you see. The anniversary. Because they’re twinned. They’re twinned with Coventry. Dresden and Coventry. So, I wasn’t going to go see because I’d got nothing in common with the church at all. But I thought oh well if all these people were coming from Germany there I thought, ‘Oh well. No. I’ll go.’ So, I went. So when I went there I said, ‘Well what do you expect me to do?’ ‘I want you to climb the stairs up in that pulpit and talk about twenty minutes about what you experienced in Dresden.’ I said, ‘Well can’t somebody else do it?’ He said, ‘There’s nobody who’s, there’s nobody who’s — there’s nobody.’ I’m the only one. The only Englishman who was in Dresden that night and who survived. So here you are. Give a talk to all this congregation. The cathedral’s full up. I went on for about twenty five minutes and then all of a sudden, I stopped. Just like I stopped just now. And then they give me a standing ovation. Never been known before in a church, see. So then after that I came down off the pulpit and they were all, and what the Dean wants them to do, he wants them all to hold on to each other and cuddle each other and talk about all these different nationalities. We were all at peace at last. And this old girl come up to me. She was German. I think she was as old as I was and she was hugging on to me and tears are streaming down her face. And I put my arms around her sort of thing and I really, I really hugged her and I really felt as if there was one person there. Not two. And I think that’s what really cured me. That. After all that time. Fifty years. Fifty years I went and you don’t know, you don’t know. What it is it’s a Jekyll and Hyde sort of life where there’s one side of you is really evil. Well it’s evil to outsiders. You don’t think it’s evil and you’ve got the other side which what do you want. You want this loving life. You’ve got this woman who you’ve known donkey’s years. You’ve got three kids and you’ve got everything there and you want it. You want it but then there’s this other side which butts in, keeps butting in. And somehow you can’t [pause] somehow the good side can’t control the bad side. And it’s difficult to talk about it. It’s difficult to explain it. I think you’ve got, I don’t think you can explain it by going to college. I think the only people who can explain it are the people who have suffered from it. I think with the best will in the world, go to college and all this. Like you’re going to go there, people are going to listen to it but whether they are going to absorb it or not is another thing. I don’t think they’re capable of it. I don’t think people, I don’t the human mind is capable of absorbing those kind of horrors ‘cause otherwise they’d just, I think they’d all turn into animals. If they were capable of absorbing that then you’re not a human being anymore. You’re something else. So, yeah, so what is it? People haven’t learned. They’re still. They’re still. I wrote a piece for the paper about, I think it was eight years ago now. There was a British cruiser at Libya, Benghazi, and its shoving these tomahawks into Benghazi. Eight hundred thousand pound a time. And one of them missed the target and hit a boy’s school. But it was alright because it was in the dinner period and there was only four boys in there. Instead of eighty boys. So there was only four boys killed. So that wasn’t too bad. That really got me that did. Four boys. Four boys were worth eight hundred thousand pound. And they’re still doing it. They’re doing it in Palestine. They’re doing it in Gaza. And they’re doing it on people who are absolutely helpless. Who’ve got nothing to do with the troubles of which they’re living through. And we applaud them. We sign deals with them. Their prime minister comes and has dinner with the queen. So, you can see that I still haven’t altered. The thing with me, I’ll take my [hatchets?] down six foot under with me. And I’m sure there are a lot of other people who are taking it down with them as well. I’m not alone in that. Now, what we — so for all that suffering what do we get? We get idiots. Idiots and clowns and buffoons who are supposed to manage our foreign affairs. If I was younger of course I would be on the streets but young people today what have they done? All that struggle over the last, all during the period from the First World War. All we had — the struggles for the forty hour week for a living wage. For equality between the sexes. For stability. And to get away with, do away with the slums. Its all gone for a burton. Now they’re reduced to working for zero hours. ‘Oh, we haven’t got enough work for you. There you are. We’ll put you off.’ ‘But I’ve got to pay the rent.’ ‘Oh, can’t help about that.’ They’re better off in bongo bongo land [laughs]
PL: Vic, is there anything else that you want to add?
VG: No. No. No.
PL: That’s it.
VG: Cup of tea.
PL: Cup of tea. Vic Gregg it’s been —
VG: A cup of tea, a cup of splosh is the eternal medicine. Don’t have to have all this foreign muck like all these different types of coffee like they have today. You go into a coffee shop. Work out what you want. ‘Coffee.’ ‘Yeah what type?’ I say, ‘I want coffee with milk. A gallon of milk and a half a tonne of sugar in it.’ ‘We don’t make that sort of coffee.’ ‘What do you make?’ ‘Mocha.’ ‘What’s mocha?’ What’s a mocha?’ ‘I ain’t got a clue.’ ‘Is it coffee?’ ‘Well, yeah, it’s a sort of coffee.’ ‘Well, what is coffee? Is it a coffee bean?’ I ain’t got a clue where it comes from mate.’ I say, ‘Well it probably comes from Brazil because that’s where coffee came.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ I said, ‘There’s a song about it.’
PL: Vic, it has been an absolute honour to speak to you.
VG: It’s not an honour my darling.
PL: It really has.
VG: It’s been a one off.
PL: It is. It’s been a lovely experience
VG: It’s a one off. It’s a one off.
PL: Thank you very very much.
VG: Yeah. Yeah.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AGreggV160720
Title
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Interview with Victor Gregg
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:30:49 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-07-20
Description
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Victor Gregg joined the army on his 18th birthday. He was stationed in the Middle East when the news came that war had been declared. His first major battle of the war was at Beda Fomm. He later volunteered and was posted to 10 Parachute Battalion and landed at Arnhem. After several days of fighting and enduring critical conditions, he was eventually captured and became a prisoner of war. He was in a work camp near Dresden and was sent to work in a soap factory which he and a friend managed to sabotage. They were sent to a prison in Dresden and told they would be executed. The prison was full of inmates awaiting execution and executions were taking place daily whilst the city was being bombed. Victor and other survivors helped with the rescue of civilians. Then he experienced the Russian advance in Germany before finally being repatriated.
Coverage
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British Army
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
India
Middle East--Palestine
Netherlands
Germany--Dresden
Netherlands--Arnhem
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
Contributor
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Julie Williams
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
displaced person
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/268/3419/PHarrisB1604.1.jpg
4d93a86a74881c8fecbe08584fd4d043
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/268/3419/AHarrisB160626.1.mp3
b2fdeeb3d2a420c4b51393c6b2ae8f14
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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Harris, Bernard
Bernie Harris
B Harris
Barnard Harris
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. Two oral history interviews with Bernard 'Bernie' Harris (b 1925 - 2017, 1863168 Royal Air Force) an air gunner who served at the end of the war on 622 Squadron flying Lancaster on Operation Manna. In addition a photograph of four trainees.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bernie Harris and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-09
2016-06-26
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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Harris, B
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TO: Ok, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever
BH: That’s a quick day, yeah [laughs]
TO: Whatever the case may be.
BH: Yeah.
TO: We’re recording, we’re filming this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. The gentleman I’m, that I’m interviewing is Mr. Bernie Harris. My name is Tomas Ozel and we are recording this interview on the 26th of June 2016. Could you please tell me what year you were born in?
BH: What?
TO: What year were you born?
BH: 1925.
TO: And were you interested in aircraft as a child? Were you interested in aircraft as a child?
BH: Oh yes, yeah. Yeah, my father was in Royal Flying Corps, he passed it on. But always interested in aircraft, anyway.
TO: Did you collect model planes?
BH: Yeah. Spitfires, Defiants, Lancasters, yeah. Defiant were made with Balsa wood. These days they are more sophisticated but it was made with Balsa wood and coverings. They even put a little turret on top of the Defiant as it was then fighter aircraft with a turret for night fighters.
TO: And did your father ever talk about his experience in the Flying Corps? Did your father ever tell you about his time in the Flying Corps?
BH: Not very often, no. He kept it, like most air crews today I think. He didn’t talk about it much. Nor do air crew today, it’s only in the recent years where there’s not many of us left now become more interested but it’s taken 60, 70 years to recognize Bomber Command in the RAF.
TO: And what was your first job?
BH: My first job was to be apprenticed to tool making and I lived in Forest Gate in East London and I was apprentice to an engineering company in Islington and I was apprenticed to become a tool maker. But after six months, on a drill, right, I thought I was been taken advantage of, so I left and went off somewhere else and took a couple jobs [unclear] and finally I volunteered at sixteen and a half. In a nearby recruiting place, which is still there, Romford in Essex and in between I had a job in a shop one thing and the other. My father was a tailor and he wanted to teach me and he said, right, you start right from the bottom and you sweep the floor, and I said, ‘no, I don’t’, and that was the end of that [laughs] ‘Til finally I got myself in a job in a shop, which wasn’t bad, it was a tailor’s shop, actually, and I said, I volunteered with sixteen and a half and eventually, father had to sign for me really, I can still remember, father sitting at a table with a form in front of him, my mother leaning over his shoulder saying you’re not going to sign that are you? And he said, ‘if he wants to go, he goes’ and he signed and that was that. And then from on I went to Carding, Cardington [unclear] a test station you probably know about, and if you passed that in three days you were good and you came out there and you were graded PNB, pilot, navigator or bomb aimer and just waited for the call. And it was just before my eighteenth birthday that I got the call and that was that. I was in.
TO: Do you remember what medical tests they gave you?
BH: A1.
TO: And do you remember the things that they tested?
BH: The what test?
TO: The thing that they tested like your eyesight
BH: Oh yeah, everything. If you came out of there Cardington you knew that you were sane and you knew you were a hundred percent fit. No problem. 20/20 vision, hearing, everything, you were, I mean aircrew were the fittest of the lot I think. Examinations of course not only medical, physical, eyesight, hearing, mathematics, it was a three-day course with, when it was completed you got the badge RAFVR and that was that.
TO: And in the 1930s did you hear about Hitler’s aggression in Europe?
BH: In the 1930s I was aware of fascism in this country, I was eleven and also the Spanish civil war, I remember the placards with planes, with swastikas on them dropping bombs and flames in their placards. I’m Jewish, my, and even then I thought, you know, things are not so good. I knew what was going on in Germany through the [unclear] and but not to the extent about concentration camps or anything like that but I was aware of Moseley and his mob, saw them marching, you know, one thing and the other and also the Brady Street march in which he was stopped, yeah, I was aware. And all the more reason to get in the fight.
TO: And what did you think of Chamberlain? What do you think of Chamberlain appeasing Hitler?
BH: What?
TO: What do you think of Chamberlain and his plan of appeasing Hitler?
BH: I don’t know really. But can you say that again?
TO: What do you think of Chamberlain when he signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler?
BH: Oh Chamberlain?
TO: Yeah.
BH: Well, I wasn’t politically motivated at that age but it, I mean, from listening to the parents and other people they thought, maybe he’s avoided a war, but as it turned out he didn’t, so. So, my opinion of him was neutral. Well, I wasn’t politically aware. As it turned out, he was wrong.
TO: And do you remember the preparations that were being made for the war?
BH: Ah yeah, very well because I was fourteen and I’d left school but I got, I had, I’ve two sisters and a brother, who are younger than me, and my mother for some reason said, ‘stop work, I’m getting you evacuated’. And we were all evacuated to Chelmsford and guess what? Right next to the Marconi radio factory right, prime spot, yeah, I remember the guys being, territorial was being called up, preparations for the black out, the first air raid siren and I remember that vividly, yeah, I suppose it was more of a thrill than anything else, [unclear] something different, right? Yeah, I remember that vividly, but it wasn’t long before I got the bus and came back home, used to be an eastern national bus, used to go from Bow to Chelmsford and from Chelmsford back to Bow, I lived in Forest Gate was on the route so that was that back home. Eventually my mother took my young, my younger brother, sister, and two sisters to Wells, she evacuated to them there. And I was left at home with my father.
TO: Were you surprised when the war started?
BH: No, not really. I did read, at that age I read newspapers and I wasn’t surprised, I don’t think I was even fearful in that sense. More of an adventure, I think.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day the war started?
BH: September the 3rd, 1939. No, I don’t actually remember what I was doing then but I remember the first day of the Blitz, the day Blitz vividly because my brother and I, we went to the local cinema called the Coronation in Manor Park and they were showing Gone with the Wind. And during the course, that the raid started and all the lights went up, they said, ‘you all [unclear] to leave if you want but you can go back, if you want to stay, go back under the balcony which is safer’ so we decided to do that. When we came out there was rubble everywhere and in the distance was my father saying where you two so-and-so’s have been, we’ve been looking for you. And I remember that was the first day of the Blitz. But September the 3rd, I can’t really remember was it, I think was a nondescript day.
TO: Do you remember Chamberlain’s speech?
BH: Yeah, ‘cause there was no television in those days. There was television, but only for the few that could afford it. But as soon as war had broke out the television stopped, anyway, yeah, peace in our time. There is a little piece of this, and a little piece of that, and I’ll have the whole lot.
TO: And you remember the speech where Chamberlain announced that we’d declared war?
BH: Yeah, that was on the radio, there was sort of quietness everywhere, everything seemed to have gone quiet.
TO: Did you have any relatives who were in the armed forces?
BH: Yeah, I’d two cousins. Actually he was, the first into Paris with De Gaulle and another one, he was a Spitfire pilot and finished up ferrying aircraft. My brother went in as a boy, because he’s two years younger than me, he is dead now unfortunately and he was no higher than this and because I went in he went and volunteered as a boy and he also volunteered down at Romford, anyway he went off, my father realised what he’d done, chased after him, when he got to Romford he asked what, oh, your son has just gone to Romford Station and he’s off to Abedon, Aberothy something or it’ll come to me in a minute and the tale is that he got to Waterloo and he said, went up to a military policeman and said, ‘we are so sorry’, he said, ‘why have you joined his Majesty’s service?’ He said, ‘yes’, he said, ‘well, come with me so’. And that was that, so my brother was in the service as well but he wasn’t involved in the war, he was a boy entry and that was that.
TO: Did they allow boys then? Did they allow boys in in certain roles?
BH: Yes, he was trained in [Reemey ?] and what killed him off was that he was finished up after the war, going to the hospitals repairing x-ray sets, and they didn’t do him any good at all. They didn’t have the facilities to have the protection in those days as they have now, so that unfortunately killed him.
TO: And did you have an air raid shelter at your house?
BH: Yeah, Anderson, the Anderson in the garden. There was a nightly call.
TO: [unclear] camera back so.
BH: You’re alright?
TO: Yeah, just checking the shutter. Yeah, it’s fine. Sorry about that. And did you consider joining the army at all?
BH: I did the air force.
TO: What appealed to you about the air force over the other services?
BH: Well, you go to the air force, you can fly. And then again, in those days, it was the only force that get in touch with the enemy. Especially after Dunkirk.
TO: And how did you feel when you heard about the Dunkirk evacuation?
BH: Pardon what?
TO: The Dunkirk evacuation. How did you feel when it happened?
BH: I can’t really explain really. It’s, it’s a mixture of excitement, in one thing or the other, and getting away from the humdrum.
TO: And were you ever worried that Germany would win?
BH: Never doubted it. Never doubted it.
TO: Can you tell me a bit about what you remember from the phoney war?
BH: The phoney war? Well, the phoney war was [emphasis] phoney. Everything was quiet, everybody going on their normal business. The only difference was the blackout. But, no, everybody went about their normal business. The phoney war stopped of course with the episode of Dunkirk and then the day bombing and then into night bombing by the Nazis, but the phoney war was phoney. Everybody went about their normal business.
TO: And what kind of rations did you have when the war, what kind of rations did you have when the war started?
BH: I really don’t know in a sense because I wasn’t politicised in any sense, I knew we had to fight Germany and I wasn’t really fearful or anything like that at all. My parents were worried ‘cause they knew what could happen that’s why I suppose being a bit thick it didn’t worry me but I mean fourteen year old what do you know? Yeah, but I know the phoney war and it was phoney, as I say, until after Dunkirk.
TO: And there were people, were your parents worried that Hitler would invade? Were you worried that Hitler would invade?
BH: I wasn’t worried, wasn’t worried at all, but I knew if they did and I knew their reputation as far as Jewish people concerned, right, where could you go? Into the hills, Wales, Scotland or anywhere like that? ‘Cause there was nowhere else to go. So we were in it, and fight. That’s it.
TO: And do you remember what kind of food you had during the war?
BH: What kind of what?
TO: Food you had, what kind of food you had during the war?
BH: Food?
TO: Yes.
BH: Well, my mother was the innovative and it was mostly vegetable stuff and little bits of chicken, ration meat and things like that, but she probably went without herself, lots of vegetable soups, vegetables, home grown vegetables, she kept chickens for eggs and even when we had visitors she found something, you know, to make a meal with, so nothing elaborate, I mean, cakes, we had home-made cakes, chocolate was, couldn’t get hold of chocolate, things like that. Meat of course was rationed and the ration books, [unclear] but she made do, like most women and housewives in those days they made do. Comes the occasion, comes the person.
TO: And what did you think of Churchill?
BH: Brilliant, could do with him again. I wish he would be reincarnated. Man of the moment. Didn’t think much of him after the war, he’d become a real Tory after the war but then again after the war there’s a great movement for Labour. People have had enough, I mean, people were returning from the forces so right, we’re not lackeys anymore, might be on better things. So, his speech as far as communism is concerned killed him politically but as a war leader second to none.
TO: Did you listen to his speeches much?
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
TO: What in particular did you like about him as a war leader? What, what, what in particular did you like about him as a war leader?
BH: He hated Germans.
TO: You already told me about the first day of the Blitz. Do you remember, are there any other days of the Blitz that stand out to you particularly?
BH: Yes, as I explained, the first day of the Blitz.
TO: Yeah, yeah.
BH: We were in the cinema, me and my brother. And when we came out, there was rubble all over the place, houses had been knocked down, something, so that was the first day of the Blitz.
TO: Do you remember other days of the Blitz?
BH: No, we just took it in our stride, went to work as normal. We used to get on the tram at seven o’clock in the morning to get to this so-called apprenticeship by eight o’clock. I was fourteen, I was working five and a half days a week, guess how much for?
TO: I don’t know.
BH: In out of thirty seven and a half p a week. I can remember my first wage packet bringing it home, and my mother pinned it on the curtain, it was [file missing] six pence for five and a half days work. No allowances for my age, so thirty seven and half p in today’s terms.
TO: How did the people behave during the Blitz would you say?
BH: All as one, helped one another, didn’t see any general fear whatsoever, I mean the patriotism was great. People helped one another. I remember when the night bombing started at five o’clock every day, people used to pack up stuff and we used to go to a communal bomb shelter, just across where we used to live and then eventually we want back to the Anderson but the first, pack up, be there by five o’clock, come out by six o’clock next morning amongst the rubble, hopefully your house was still intact.
TO: Did you ever see anyone behave badly during the Blitz?
BH: No, no, no, not at all.
TO: Was there a lot of bomb damage near where you lived?
BH: Yes, because the Forest Gate is not far from the docks and the first day of the Blitz was the whole dock area because the pool of London was the great entry into Great Britain, England and all the shipping used to go in there anyway. Most of the bombing in the surrounding areas but when they started bombing civilians that was another matter.
TO: And did you ever watch any of the dogfights that were going on, did ever you watch any of the dogfights that were going on?
BH: Yes we used to watch them coming over because we, actually we knew when raids were about because the balloons used to go off and they stationed all around us, there is a place called Wanstead Flats not far behind us where ack-ack guns were on and the, the balloons used to go up, to deter low flying, but the whole mixture of things really but I remember when, they brought in, like rocket fire, the ack-ack and everybody cheered because it used to be a one-off shell [mocks the sounds of gunfire] and then they brought in these, like rockets with massive, right, and everybody stood and cheered, at last we’re doing something, rather than the old pop-pop.
TO: Could you hear the anti-aircraft guns firing?
BH: Oh yeah. Yeah. In Forest Gate as I say about two miles behind us an area called Wanstead Flats which is part of the Green Belt and the ack-ack were on there.
TO: Did it, did it feel encouraging to know that the German bombers were being fired at?
BH: Oh, absolutely, yeah. But don’t forget the Luftwaffe was really indiscriminate, I mean, even today you know, people say about Dresden, but what about Coventry, Rotterdam, every city in the UK, Bristol, Plymouth, London, they didn’t care.
TO: And do you think France let Britain down in the war? Do you think France let Britain down?
BH: Well the trouble with France, they had the Maginot Line, didn’t they, and it was facing the wrong way, so that was a big mistake. Vichy France of course was fascist, so, as an ally, mediocre but not impressed with them.
TO: And so, when exactly, what year of the war did you join the RAF?
BH: 1943. I went in April 1943, just before my eighteenth birthday.
TO: And how did you come to be a rear gunner?
BH: Ah, as I said, I went in Cardington and came out as PNB graded, so, I, when I went, was called to ITW, Initial Training Wing, which was in Newquay and that’s a three month’s course which in peacetime is three years, so it’s condensed from three years, I did there for three months and from there I was sent to Elementary Flying Training School in Derby, which [unclear] factories on it now in a place called Burnaston. Unfortunately I had a Tiger Moth I was as others on Tiger Moths for a while and the weather was so bad I couldn’t get my flying hours in so to go solo but they didn’t determine the fact that so from there we were sent to Heaton Park. Now Heaton Park was a holding centre for aircrew to go to the Empire, you’ve heard about this, to the Empire Training Scheme and ‘cause it was near the Manchester ship canal as well. So we were stuck there for a while and we waited and waited and three of us went to the CO and said, ‘you know, what’s the problem?’ In a nice way. We said ‘there’s a hold up and we don’t know when you’ll be going’ so we said ‘what’s the quickest way getting to the war?’ He said, ‘go as gunners’, so we did. Others went, sent, who decided to remuster in the navy and that’s how I’ve become a gunner. So you become a rear gunner is because when you go to OTU, Operational Training Wing, which was Hixon, a place called Hixon in Staffordshire, which is on Wellingtons, then you crew up together and then you all meet up, either Australian pilots, Pete and we all met up and the other guy, there was the other gunner, he said, ‘I don’t want to be a rear gunner’, so I said ‘Okay, I’ll do it, it’s fine’, that was it.
TO: And could you have been a pilot? Could you have become a pilot?
BH: I could’ve, well if I’d stayed on, I’d have become a pilot, I’ve gone overseas but I’d have missed the war. As another guy did say, I met him later on, but he got his wings but he missed the war. That wasn’t the purpose, the purpose was to go and kill Germans.
TO: And so what was the first bomber that you flew in on as a rear gunner?
BH: Well there again, we were, as a crew, we go to, from Wellingtons, we’re six of us, go to a heavy conversion unit onto Lancasters, which is a place called Woolfox Lodge between Stamford and Grantham and you pick up a flight engineer. And the flight engineer, he’d got his wings but they didn’t want him as a pilot so they made them flight engineers. And then we, with various things of getting to know your Lancaster and one thing and the other, we didn’t get to the squadron till late which was in Mildenhall and then we was, we were sent on to various things, they put us on some secretive work and even in OTU the other guys would tell you we used to go out on Window dropping, a diversion raids, save the main forces going that way, we would go that way to get the Luftwaffe up in the air of the pundits, drop the Window, metal strips, as if the big force come, then come back and the other force would go through. So [unclear] they put us on secret [unclear] and testing one thing and the other, finally got onto Operation Manna. So that was my only operational, real operational side. Which was disappointing in a way. But we had to obey orders, didn’t we?
TO: And did you ever wish that you were anything other than a gunner?
BH: Well, as I say, I went as a gunner because I wanted to get in the war but my aim was become a pilot or navigator or bomb aimer, the PNB, that was my aim. But as circumstances would show, as I said, I missed the war, probably gone to Australia, to Canada, Texas or South Africa. But as it happens, when the war ended, we were earmarked to go to California as a crew to convert onto Liberators for the Far East but the [unclear] said, no we want the boys to go home. So the whole crew was split up and that was in August 1945.
TO: And what did your relatives think of you being in the Air Force?
BH: Oh, quite proud in a way. My mother was concerned ‘cause I remember going home with all my kit ‘cause we’d be going from one station to another and she spotted my helmet, oxygen mask to the top so she had a little cry but they were concerned, rightly so, I suppose really.
TO: And how did you feel when you first heard that the RAF had started bombing Germany?
BH: Elated. Couldn’t get in there quick enough to help them do it.
TO: How long did your training last in total?
BH: Our training, well the training started right from 1943 right through to ‘45. I think I joined the 62 Squadron in March ’45 as I said, they sent us on various things and one thing and the other.
TO: And were you on board Lancaster bombers?
BH: Yes.
TO: What were the conditions like on board the Lancaster?
BH: Better than the Wellington, actually I flew Tiger Moths, Harfords, Wellingtons, Lancaster and of course, yeah, the Tiger Moth, which is the nicest plane I’ve ever been in, or ever flew in. There there was if you were coming down the landing, the instructor used to say, watch the grass is grass then cut back [unclear] head over the side watching, but that was flying, that’s different, that only got you into next grade but it wasn’t pleasant especially when you were flying at height when icicles were forming on your oxygen mask, you had to break them off, we had the heating closing as well.
TO: Was it colder in the gun positions than in the main cockpit?
BH: Very tight, conditions were very, in the turret, the rear turret, cramped, very cramped, but then, you know, you’re in it, you’re in it, and that was it.
TO: Did you feel glad when you started going on missions over Germany?
BH: I didn’t really go on missions over Germany. They got us on all the experimental and secret stuff and then finally got onto Operation Manna, which we dropped food, have you heard of it? Obviously, so no need to go into that.
TO: Well, No, actually, if you can explain it but.
BH: We dropped, it’s three hundred feet, the old German airfield Epinburgh and after that we formed the Manna Association. Which I eventually finished up as secretary and treasurer. Now of about forty, forty five of us, is six left now.
TO: And, did you ever, did you have to fire the guns in training?
BH: Oh yeah, yeah. And tested the guns coming over to Holland over the North Sea, test them just in case but yeah, we had to fire drogues. In fact when I was, when the war was over I was sent to Italy and I joined the Centododici Squadron, this is 112, Sharks Squadron, they had sharks under the cowling and I used to fly with the air craft towing a drogue so they could fire at it, hoping that they would fire at the drogue and not at me, so, so that was alright but a bit of fun, but can I tell you an interesting story though? In 1945 the squadron was broken down, broken up and everybody went their different ways and were all made redundant and that was in ’45. So 36 years later this guy turned out to be a great friend with it, is Ted Livingstone and another guy, Phil Irvin, decided to put an advert in all, like the fly, all the journals for aircrew who would be interested in going to see the dropping sites in Holland? It cost a hundred pounds and get the coach from Graves End. So I said to my wife at the time, would you like to do it? Yeah. So, put my name down for it. Now I had my own business in those days and I’d been to an exhibition and I got home rather late, my wife said to me, you had a phone call, I think it’s the guy that’s organizing the trip to Holland. So I said, yeah, what’s his name? She said, Hallem. I said, Arthur Hallem? My own navigator. Anyway left his phone call and of course got on to him, chatted and he was going, right, with his wife. And we chatted, and during the course of the conversation, I said, he was articled clerk, I said, did you carry on with your accountancy? He did, yes, I am now the director of Wickbrits pension fund and I said, in Chiswell Street? And when I said in Chiswell Street, my wife said, Arthur Hallem? I’ve been dealing with him for years in the Abbey National round the corner in City Road what do you think of that?
TO: When you fired the guns, did it leave a smell of cordite in the air?
BH: Pardon?
TO: When you fired the guns, did it leave a smell of cordite in the air?
BH: Yeah. ‘Cause your shells used to drop off the side, you spew out anyway. But also in the training for gunnery you had to put a gun together blindfolded. I don’t know if any of the guys have told you that, yeah, during the training, you had to be blindfolded and then put the guns together, in case you had a stoppage or something like that while you’re out flying so it’s dark, it’s black, can’t put a light on, so you had to do in the darkness, take the bridgehead out, clear it, put it back in.
TO: Do you think it was hard to learn that?
BH: To be honest no and I’m not being snobbish in any way when a few of us came from our previous training, the guys up in Morpeth it was, the instructors had a bet that we [unclear] we would beat everybody and we did. Not because it’s snobbish or anything but we knew our way around so as I said [unclear] I’m not degrading the other guys in any way whatsoever but anyway they had a bet and they won.
TO: And what was your, I think I’ve already asked you this but what was your, was the Tiger Moth your favourite aircraft to fly in? What was your favourite aircraft to fly in?
BH: Tiger Moth, oh yeah.
TO: And were there any planes you flew in that were, that weren’t very reliable?
BH: There was what?
TO: Were all the planes that you flew in reliable?
BH: Yeah, expect the Wellington. ‘Cause Wellington was, the OTU operational training unit and we used to have in it Gee for navigation and I used to pop out and help the navigator, Arthur used to, I used to do the Gee and everything else, and we lost the Gee, and we got lost and we were in cloud and the aircraft started to vibrate violently so we had a discussion whether we should pop out or not, ‘cause we didn’t know where we were, anyway decided to leave and when we got back to base we went to the hangar, the chief engineer said, said to us, you had one minute before the port engine blew up. So we were rather lucky. So the whole aircraft was vibrating.
TO: So, did you have to bale out then?
BH: No, we did considered it but we didn’t know where we were, so we are sticking out, so eventually the weather cleared and we got down and it was a place called Gamston,’cause we’ve been moved there from Hixon and the chief engineer when we went to the hangar the next morning to see what’s the problem he said you had one minute before that engine blew up, in his opinion. So we considered it a lucky escape.
TO: Did Wellington engines have a reputation for doing that?
BH: Yeah, they were Bristol radials but as a [file missing] Merlin [unclear] different proposition altogether but of all end like anybody else the Lancaster was the favourite aircraft.
TO: Were the guns different on as Lancaster to another aircraft?
BH: No, 303s, the mid upper had two guns, is it alright?
TO: Yes
BH: The mid upper had two guns, as you know, the rear turret had four, later in they brought in 2.5s because the 303 only had a range. And the Luftwaffe knew it, if they stood off, right, the 303 were going then would start dropping, didn’t have the range until they bought the .5 which the Americans had, which was a different thing altogether and that’s why they introduced corkscrew, have you heard about the corkscrew? Yeah, that was violent.
TO: Did you have to practice the corkscrew?
BH: Yeah. That’s one of the things that we had to do on 622, they brought us in a new sight, gun sight, and it was like a square like that oblong, and there would be crystals and you had to recognize the aircraft like Messerschmitt and you set that in and if you got the aircraft in those crystals you couldn’t miss so we had to do an exercise with a mark 8 Spitfire and he did his attack and I got a hundred percent hits by then. My mid upper he didn’t want to do it so I did his and he got ninety-nine percent and the whole thing went to Air Ministry but we also did a corkscrew now a corkscrew, I don’t know if they told, how we get into it and why, I mean you just, an attacking aircraft who lay off you and he put your speed in and if he is on the starboard side which is [pause] to the right of the aircraft, right, so we called our pilot Pete, the corkscrew starboard so he’s got his wheel like that ready and as the aircraft comes in, he’s got to come in like that, and he’s got to come under the back he said, corkscrew go and he goes [mimics the noise of incoming aircraft] down like that and up again and then down again and his stomach comes up here, goes down there, good fun really.
TO: Was anyone aboard the plane actually sick, by those manoeuvres?
BH: No. Fortunately.
TO: And do you think the guns of a Lancaster would have been enough to take down a fighter?
BH: Oh yeah, if they got in range, as I say, the 303, as the other guys will tell you, the only, limited in range, they would drop down and the Luftwaffe knew that.
TO: And were people more afraid of night fighters than anti-aircraft fire?
BH: Mh?
TO: Were people more afraid of night fighters than anti-aircraft fire?
BH: I don’t think so but towards the end of the war they did have intruders. I don’t know if you were told about that. The Focke Wulf 190 used to follow aircraft back and as soon as you got in landing position, what they called funnel, there you’re lined up, your undercarriage is down, your flaps are down and you are more air worthy, you’re more or less, your air speed is down and it happened to where I was in Woolfox Lodge one of guys got shot down because they used to come in, follow the aircraft and while you’re in that position they were vulnerable and shoot them down. In fact to this day they haven’t found the air gunner, the rear gunner, so we used to get the signal to be sent out over the North Sea, Irish Sea, all clear but then that was towards the end of the war and it claimed quite a few victims, so.
TO: As a, sorry, as a rear gunner, were you in the most vulnerable position? As a gunner, were you in the most vulnerable position?
BH: Yes. Because I explain the line of attack would be, they would lay off, turn in and come round like that and then
TO: Come.
BH: Come to the rear so the rear gunner was really the first form of defence and the first to receive attack. As soon as they introduced these Dorniers with guns they called firing from underneath, I don’t know if you were told about that, right, they had these Dorniers and they were equipped with a gun who used to get under the aircraft and fire upwards, couldn’t see them until you exploded.
TO: And what kind of bombs would a Lancaster carry?
BH: Oh, the big ones. Yeah, sit [?] incendiaries, thousand pounders. And also the big one. It takes up the whole of the bomb bay.
TO: And what did you think of RAF leaders, like Arthur Harris?
BH: If anybody started on me outside, I’ll tell my uncle of you. But he’s brilliant and he liked his aircrew. He went to South Africa because he was contemptuous of the government for not demobbing the aircrew, made us all redundant. And that’s a story in itself, stupid. As I say, when the squadron broke up, we made redundant, send up to a place called Burn, up in Yorkshire, an old ex airfield here and are you ok for time?
TO: I’m fine. I’m just checking there be, yeah, I’m just checking the [unclear].
BH: And I get there, masses of ex aircrew walking about doing nothing and what it was it went there before a panel and you had three choices of a trade: radar wireless, wireless mechanic, driver or radar operator. So, and you got all ex aircrew sitting back, what do you want to do Bernie? Sort of thing. I said, ‘well, I’ll go as a radar wireless mechanic’, ‘nah, you don’t want to go, it’s a year’s course, you will be out by then’, so then, ‘I’ll learn to drive’, ‘No, no one is gonna teach you to drive, you’ll be able to, you go as a radar operator’, so ok fine. In the meantime I was sent to a place as a clerk. So they got that all wrong until I said ‘I’m not a clerk, I’m going as a radar operator’. So finally they realised because when I reported to St John’s Wood, when I first went in, there’s another guy named Harris and he starts three numbers 168 same as mine, but his other numbers were different, so they got him mixed up with me ‘cause they didn’t look any further until they realised their mistake. So that was that, so eventually after much arguments I was, ok go down to in Wiltshire and you will become trained as an operator. So about twelve or sixteen ex aircrew we’re trained as radar operators, yeah, for six months. When we finished the course, the signal came from the Air Ministry, all the ex air crew that had taken the radar operators are now redundant, report back to Burn. So we got back to Burn, said ‘what happened?’ I said, ‘I want to learn to drive’, ‘ok we’ll teach you to drive’. So that was that.
TO: And what did you think of other RAF leaders? What did you think of RAF’s general leaders?
BH: In general, loved it. You see, the pysco is this, with aircrew, all volunteers, no one conscripted, they all had the same state of mind, they all wanted to fly and kill Germans. So we had all that in common and air crew is like a big family even today. Even with so few of us left. Silly contact, so, although it was a war it was a great experience, [unclear] my teams.
TO: Were there any ever occasions where weather at your airfields damaged the aircraft?
BH: No. The only laughable thing is that the weather, one briefing we had at OTU we head to normal briefings what you gonna do and end of which is the met man, I can see him now, tall man, long neck, big Adam’s apple, when he’s going all through the [unclear] and he says, ‘you got five tenths cloud’ and all that, but we said ‘it’s raining outside’ , he said ‘not according to my map it’s not’, and it was, it was bucketing down, not according to my map, he said, and that’s true.
TO: And what kind of information would you be given at the briefings?
BH: On a normal target, what you got to do, courses, the courses, navigation, radio codes, gunnery, the whole lot and then finish up with the met report.
TO: What kind of gunnery would you be, what kind of gunnery would they cover at the briefing?
BH: What kinds of what?
TO: What aspects of gunnery would they cover at the briefings?
BH: Just to make sure that your guns are ok, your belts are ok, the gun belts ‘cause they run on the side and your gun is fully charged and everything else. And also the height you’ll be flying at, in most cases more than about ten to fifteen thousand feet, then up to twenty thousand.
TO: Did you bring any rations with you aboard the bomber?
BH: Yeah. There was chocolate of course, gum, I think the gum, I’m not sure, certainly chocolate, apple, I think, what they called the flying breakfast you had to have a pint of milk, there’s an urn of milk on the side, and you had your flying breakfast going and coming back whatever you did. Yeah, there was a chocolate, I don’t remember any of the others ‘cause I don’t think I used it. I did use the chocolate once, it was like a block of ice, it was frozen, nearly knocked my teeth out. So I used to have it, everybody had a flying ration.
TO: And what kind of rations did you have at the air bases?
BH: Very good, very good, at Heaton Park, where we were waiting to go abroad, they had a most brilliant chef there and he made trifles every Sunday, now if I was out on the site I would make sure I go back, he was brilliant, but the food was good.
TO: Did you have more in the air forces food than as a civilian?
BH: Then what?
TO: Than as a civilian?
BH: Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah.
TO: And do you remember, sorry I’m going back slightly but, do you remember how you felt when the RAF won the Battle of Britain?
BH: Yeah, elated. Absolutely, that was a turning point of the war. But that’s set off the Blitz, then he resorted to air bombardments by the Luftwaffe and when he was beaten in that, in the Battle of Britain, he resorted to night flying, bombing.
TO: And do you remember hearing about the attack on the Ruhr Dams?
BH: Yeah, 617 Squadron. Yeah, that was May 16th, 17th, and May the 17th was my 20th birthday. So, I remember it well.
TO: Was it widely reported in the press?
BH: Mh?
TO: Was the attack on the dams widely reported in the press?
BH: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. See, don’t forget, the Battle of Britain was the only real victory that we had, I mean, the desert warfare was going backwards and forwards with Rommel, so that was the only real victory and the bombing of Germany was applauded because we’d had enough, we, it was a turning point, it was, it was as if the Germans were invincible, that was a feeling, but when we had these victories, they weren’t invincible, they realized we could do something about it.
TO: Did they report much about the campaign in North Africa in the papers?
BH: Well, the campaign in North Africa, was, until Montgomery came on the scene was backwards and forwards, Rommel came, forced the British back, [unclear] finished up outside Cairo, at El Alamein and he stood his ground there and he beat Rommel but a lot of people don’t know if you get into modern history of the Middle East, that Sadat who was president, became president of Egypt, plotted with the Arabs to attack Montgomery from the rear to help the Germans and he was arrested by the British, yeah. I won’t go into modern history about the Arabs or anything else, but yeah, he plotted as the others, the Mahdi of Jerusalem went to Berlin so Montgomery had a lot against him but he fought through and he’s held at El Alamein and that was a good victory there. And that was another turning point of the war but you couldn’t rely on the Arabs nor could you today, I have to say, but anyway, scrub that. But yes, so, Battle of Britain and El Alamein, the bombing of Germany. Dresden, right, you take Dresden, Canon Collins who was anti, against the atom bomb and everything else CND he used to go around preaching to aircrew not to bomb Germany and he was allowed to do it for some reason. However, that’s another story, but if you take Dresden with Stalin who was advancing, Dresden was no longer an open city, before that they were making gun sites as well, had a big industry in gun, opticians and, Stalin said to Truman at that time and Churchill that Dresden, the troops, German troops are massing in Dresden and I want them seen to, I want them cleared, so both the Americans, us, the RAF, bombed Dresden. Dresden was unfortunate but there was twenty five thousand casualties, Goebbels put another nought on the ending, it made two hundred and fifty thousand but Dresden was needed because Stalin wanted it, it was in the way of his troops to get into East Germany so no matter what anybody said about Dresden, I will always say Dresden was needed unfortunate. You tell me about Coventry, you tell me about Rotterdam, you tell me about Bristol, Southampton, Bristol, you tell me about those cities, don’t tell me, don’t talk to me about Dresden.
TO: And then, what did you think of the German aircraft of the war?
BH: Never flew one [laughs]. Well, they served their purpose, the Heinkel was the most hated, the 101, no 111, no 101, because they used to desynchronize their engines, whether they did that to avoid radar or not but you could always tell them, the Heinkel 11, they desynchronized [mimics the sound of engines] so that was a horrible sound. The 109s they were ok, the Focke-Wulf was alright and then they brought in the jet towards the end of the war, the Messerschmitt jet, yeah, fighter aircraft, [unclear] aircraft.
TO: And were you quite friendly with the ground crew?
BH: Oh yeah, yeah, especially the WAAFs. Yes, yeah, always had contact with the ground crew, and they’d always be at the end of the runway when you’re taking off.
TO: Did they see you, were they cheering at you?
BH: Yeah. [unclear] together two fingers back.
TO: And do you remember hearing about the first thousand bomber raid on Cologne?
BH: No, I wasn’t involved in it.
TO: But did they report it?
BH: Yeah, they’re good [?]. Actually they brought in aircraft from OTUs, Wellingtons as well, from OTUs and heavy conversion units, they brought everybody in, it was unlucky not to be called. Took tinsel instead. Window.
TO: And when was Window first developed?
BH: I think by Barnes Wallis, he designed the Wellington, I think it was one of his ideas. He just put it down the chute, the flare chute, just bundled it down. And of course, the Germans on their radar, swamped their radar.
TO: And you mentioned sometimes you went on these, was it secret operations or special operations? You said you went on operations to deploy Window as a decoy?
BH: Yeah.
TO: Would you deploy it around the North Sea?
BH: Yeah, I was [file missing] over the North Sea, yeah. The idea was if the main bomber, the main route was through Holland, from the East Coast to Holland. So, if a main group was going, say, across The Hague, we would go with the Window south of that because the German fighter group were patrolling round [unclear] so if they were sent off that way to find us with the Window, they used up their fuel so they had to come back to refuel and in the meantime the main forces got through. Coming back was a different story of course but the main force had got through.
TO: What do you think of the American aircraft of the war?
BH: Was a big aircraft with a little bomb bay. Didn’t have much to do with them really. I mean Mildenhall 3 Group where I was in, I was surrounded by the Americans, Norfolk and all around that. And the only thing against them was that, when they took off, they wouldn’t go over the coast until they got to their operational height and then they went, so if we had a [unclear] right, we got this humming guide on all the time and once they got their operational height, then their fighter escort would go off, and then off they would go, so we called them as a bloody nuisance. But they are good guys, I mean, they took a hammering, they really did. Their graves, memorial in Cambridge, massive, the graveyards there, massive memorial. Took a hell of a pounding.
TO: Did you, were you ever escorted by American fighters?
BH: No. No.
TO: Or Spitfires at all?
BH: No. The only time had contact with a Spitfire was that one they tested the side.
TO: Did you ever, did airfields ever run low on supplies like fuel or bombs?
BH: The airfields yeah, bomb dumps and fuel dumps, yeah. Yeah, self-contained, yeah.
TO: And did they ever run low on supplies?
BH: No, well planned. It was mostly worked by the Royal Army Service Corps. It was the same Royal Army Service Corps bloated our aircraft with food for Holland. Stacking up the bomb bay.
TO: Can you tell me how Operation Manna worked?
BH: Worked? I’ll tell you how it came about and worked. Yeah.
BH: Operation Market Garden, Arnhem was unfortunately a disaster. The idea was to shorten the war and go through [unclear] backed by the Germans. The Reichsmaster, it was a Hungarian, Austrian Nazi commander in Holland by the name of Arthur Seyss-Inquart was so incensed that he stopped all food coming into Western Holland from the agriculture part of Holland itself. Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard were here in England, in the UK, in exile and in January 1944 she called the railway workers to go on strike in Holland. Well this Nazi Reichmaster in retaliation ordered the sea locks to be broken, flooding Western Holland from Utrecht right round to The Hague. So, the dykes were broken and it was flooded. There was a population of three million nine hundred thousand in that area and this is a fact ‘cause I gave a talk on it to 622 Squadron which was reformed in Brize Norton in May, anyway. So out of three million nine hundred thousand, eventually twenty thousand died of starvation and malnutrition was rife, people were starving, so Queen Juliana appealed to Churchill and Truman and Eisenhower. Eisenhower said, they will have to wait, he is not committing his troops, while there are six hundred thousand Germans in Western Holland. Anyway, so Queen Juliana said, finally Eisenhower said, [unclear] find a way of delivering food. And he brought in Air Commodore Andrew Geddes, who was on tactical air force in main headquarters of the Allies, so cut a long story forward, he was met Bedell Smit and Bedell Smith to him, we have a situation, we got people starving and they have to be supplied by food by air. You devise a plan and you come and tell back and tell me what you gonna do. So, apparently, Andrew Geddes went away with others to tactical air force and he devised a plan for dropping food in certain areas in Western Holland by air incorporating the squadrons of Lancasters and also Pathfinders and he got hold of this Nazi [unclear] and in a school called, they met in a school called [unclear] and they explained the plan. The Germans didn’t like it, he said, not the case of you liking it, it’s what we’re gonna do. And if you interfere in any way in what we gonna do, you’ll be arrested as a war criminal. So, on April 29th, the 28th it started but the weather was too bad, so on the 29th of April Operation Manna started without the agreement being signed until the next day. And quite legally they could’ve been shot down and we’re going three hundred feet, hundred meters, something like that, we did a designated area, if anybody went outside that area they’d be warned by red flares and shot at and shot down. Anyway, so, it went off without incident and that was the start of Manna and it went from April the 29th to May the 8th. The Americans came in, they called it Chowhound, the next day and they finished on May the 7th. So in a total there was twelve thousand tons of food dropped overall, the RAF dropped seven thousand and the Yanks dropped four thousand. And to this day in Holland it’s taught, as history, by survivors and when we’ve been back there before we’ve been invited back, as I say, in 1981, we went in 1982 on that first trip, we were overwhelmed, we didn’t realise, people used to come up to us and still do when we go there, thank you for saving my life, thank you for saving my parents life, children are growing, it’s very touching. And that’s how it came about.
TO: And what do you remember the most when you were participating in Operation Manna?
BH: But we went in, I think about two or three thousand feet and dropped to three hundred when we got over to Holland. My first, I’m the last to see anything ‘cause I’m at the back, there’s this boy on his bicycle, on top of the dyke, flooded all around, astride his bicycle, waving a Union Jack and a Dutch tricolour, right and we were flying in just below the roof of a hospital, they were all waving sheets and God knows what else. And we went between The Hague and Rotterdam to drop at Eppinburgh and straight out again. But we could see people waving, they were warned to keep away, one guy whose pony rushed onto the dropping field, got hit by a sack of potatoes and that killed him. But other thing and the Germans were told that if they touched the food in any way they will be arrested as war criminals but this Nazi, he was eventually tried and hanged as a war criminal because not only was he involved in Holland, he followed the German army through the occupied areas organising transportations and everything else, he was a real, real Nazi and he was strung up.
TO: Is there anything else you remember in particular about Operation Manna, which sticks out to you?
BH: There is a guy named Hans Onderwater also a [unclear] historian, he wrote a book called Manna Chowhound, still very friends with him, right, and he organised a hell of a lot, what we, with the Manna Association, what we used to do, together with Americans, they used to come over here, we meet up in Lincoln, right, on the weekend, and we had four coachloads to go to various, entertained by various airfields the RAF Coningsby, Scampton, Waddington, places like that, and they used to, the fifth year we’d go to Holland, and boy! We didn’t know where were going and we were hosted all over the country, memorials, dining, visiting, schools, lectures, concerts, incredible, absolutely incredible.
TO: And the food supplies that you had on board the plane, were they, did they have parachutes attached to them?
BH: No, just dropped out the bomb bay. Just open the bomb bay, they’d fall down. The Pathfinders went in first who did the markers because they were told, the Dutch were told, the aircraft would be coming in and dropping red markers and then after that on their radios ‘cause they were all hidden, radios were all hidden, [unclear] anyway, the aircraft are leaving England bringing you food and of course all out on the streets waiting for the aircraft.
TO: Was there anyone that you know of who actually got fired at during Operation Manna?
BH: Yeah, one guy got a bullet through his foot because some irate Germans, we followed the guns, the anti tank guns, they were following us, could see that clearly and I tracked them as well, but of course we were vulnerable at that height, there were a few rifle shots, one guy got a bullet through his foot, and you could see that, that sort of things that were given there [emphasis: sound of papers rustling] [unclear] in there, a card from Prince Bernhard, he was our, he was our president, and that’s a card from from Bernhard when Queen Wilhelmina died I sent a card, a condolence card, got load of medals in there, as the other guys from Manna. Now, there is only six of us left and the guy, Bob Goodman, he was the leader of Chowhound, he died this March. So, like all good things come to an end, don’t they.
TO: When Operation Manna began, and you had the briefings,
BH: Yeah.
TO: Were you or anyone else surprised when you heard you would be dropping food?
BH: Not surprised, more of an adventure I think. I mean, it was humanitarian. No, it was a surprise, something we wanted to do and like all operations, when you go for briefing, the whole airfield is closed down, the gates are closed, RAF police on the doors, it’s a lockdown. You only go and get your gear and get your breakfast and go.
TO: Did it feel strange to have, to be carrying food rather than weaponry?
BH: Well we knew that, why we were doing it, I mean, three million nine hundred thousand people, I mean we got photographs of kids [unclear] walking about with large spoons, so when they went by these areas where the, kitchens, common kitchens, they’d scrape out the bottom of the urn, we got photographs of kids dying in the streets.
TO: Do you think Operation Manna could have been launched sooner than it was?
BH: I think it was in a timescale it should have done. Because they did know the seriousness after the what happened to, after Arnhem and this Nazi what he would do. He was rightly strung up as well anyway.
TO: And did you hear, was there much reporting on what was happening on the Russian front?
BH: Yeah, oh yeah. Well the Russians, you know, they took quite a beating until they got to Stalingrad, they could have gone, if they had gone past Stalingrad it would have been another story, but the winter of all things killed them, hope, unfortunately and the Russians, I mean, their hatred of the Germans, you couldn’t describe it, so, yeah, right, that’s why there was a great Communist movement in this country as well, because Communism as against, never mind what Stalin did with Holland he made the deal in ’39 didn’t he? With him, but regardless of all that, the British public could see the only real enemy and allies, as far as we were concerned, allies were the Russians. If it wasn’t for the Russians, the Germans would have been here. There’s no doubt about it.
TO: And when did you or when did the news of the Holocaust reach Britain?
BH: What?
TO: News of the Holocaust reach Britain?
BH: Well apparently, well being Jewish I know [unclear], we knew there was concentration camps and what the Germans did before the war with Jews and everything, with the refugees and everything coming over and telling their stories of what was happening. But apparently the leaders of the Jews in Germany were begging for the Allies to bomb the [unclear], but we were, with Enigma, Churchill’s excuse was we know but we, we don’t want the Germans to know that we have Enigma, that we’ve been broken their code, that was his excuse. There was one flaw, they were begging to be bombed because what was happening. But he didn’t want the Germans to know that we knew all about Enigma. So his excuse was no, if we know about concentration camps we would know their secrets. But they took no notice of what was coming out through the Jewish movement, with the concentration camps. Only it wasn’t only Jews, yeah, there’s the only fly in the ointment.
TO: And when did you personally first hear of the Holocaust?
BH: Not until the war ended actually.
TO: And what was your rank when you were in the air force?
BH: Flight sergeant.
TO: Flight sergeant.
BH: I was just coming up to warrant officer.
TO: And were you actually ever on bombing missions or was Operation Manna your first proper
BH: Operation Manna was only one, yeah. As I say, we were involved in experimental stuff.
TO: Did you ever experiment with stuff that turned out not to work? Did you ever experiment with equipment that didn’t work?
BH: No, no, the only thing we were doing was with that gunsight and also we were experimenting with things, high level bombing as well. I’ve got in my log book high-level bombing, which certain things had to be done and navigational things but as a person who wanted to get in the war I still regret not having a good run at the Germans by getting in to bombing raids. But then the powers above gave the orders. Couldn’t go off on our own. Have you ever met a guy named Harry Irons?
TO: Harry [unclear]?
BH: Irons? Harry Irons?
TO: Irons, I think I’ve heard of him but I have not met him.
BH: Oh, he’s local, he lives not far [unclear], he’d done two tours as a rear gunner. I was with him on June the 4th.
TO: Yeah. Of this year?.
BH: Yeah.
TO: Does he live that far from here or?
BH: Mh?
TO: Does he live near here?
BH: Yeah.
TO: Maybe you can put me in touch with him later perhaps.
BH: You want, well, do you want to see him?
TO: Well, maybe, if he wants to talk.
BH: He wants to, yeah, I only, I haven’t got his phone number. I got his phone number but it’s all wrong.
TO: Oh, ok.
BH: I’ve got his address.
TO: Maybe I could send him a letter or something.
BH: Do you want the address?
TO: Well, we can sort that later. It’s fine.
BH; Yeah?
TO: We can sort it later. It’s fine.
BH: Ok.
TO: So, where would you keep the parachutes on board the plane?
BH: Just inside the fuselage, behind the turret. You had to open the turret doors, get the parachute, click it on, turn the parachute, the turret to the side, open the doors and fall out. But you had to get to your parachute first, because it was in the fuselage. And if you couldn’t open the doors, hard luck.
TO: Did they have a steep hatch [file missing]?
BH: Yeah, further up. Yeah.
TO: And were there any occasions where you were flying over Europe and you got lost?
BH: Only in the one I told you about. We were actually fired at over the, over Jersey, we were doing a trip over there, a sortie over there, Northern France, experimental and we were actually fired at and I see this [unclear] coming up, but it missed, as you can see.
TO: Was the fire anywhere near the plane or?
BH: Not, it was why they missed, they went away. Just watched it coming up, this flame.
TO: Did you, were your missions mainly during the night?
BH: Mh?
TO: Were your missions mainly during the night?
BH: Yeah, night training yeah, most of my flying hours were at night.
TO: And how long would a mission tend to last?
BH: Well, it be anything, an hour, an hour and a half, if you are doing circuits and bumps it could be an hour, we say the circuits and landings, circuits and bumps we called them. But one and three quarters hours, something like that.
TO: Cool. And what was the procedure for a squadron’s aircraft to take off?
BH: Well that was controlled by airfield control. Would you like a drink?
TO: No thanks, I’m fine, my eyes are a bit sore. [unlcear]
BH: You’re alright?
TO: Yeah, I’m fine. Yes, so, do you remember what the procedure was for taking off?
BH: Yeah, first of all you went out to dispersal by the crew bus, then you, you got in your positions, everybody in, everything was tested, the ailerons, rudders, flaps, not the flaps but the, certainly the ailerons, then the engines were started up, first the hydraulics, I think was the port outer then the port [unclear] in [unclear] and so forth. Get them running up all ready, then you got the call from aircraft control and you taxied out. And you waited on the tarmac and then as you were called from the air control on the end of the runway, right, give you the green light, you just went round and off you go.
TO: And what about landing, what was the procedure for that?
BH: Same thing, they called it, what they called the funnel, you’re in, pilot called out ‘funnel funnel‘, and they’re calling and said, ‘you do a circuit of the airfield and you come in’ and then, landing in like that there, one after the other and they called that funnel. That’s when you’re most vulnerable, the flaps are down, undercarriage is down, you have slow airspeed and that’s when they took advantage with the intruders.
TO: Were landings and take offs ever nerve-racking at all?
BH: No, I loved them, it’s the best part of it, landing and taking off. Even now, with commercial aircraft, the best part.
TO: When you were flying, could you, were you always above cloud level or?
BH: Yeah.
TO: Or could you ever see the land below?
BH: Only when it’s what they called ten tenths but if it’s like this you couldn’t, probably the height of the clouds at the moment thirty, thirty five thousand feet so if you did it in twenty you could see, but as I say, most of it was at night and don’t forget blackout everywhere. So, it’s all done by navigation and Gee.
TO: And how did Gee work?
BH: It was a series of signals and it was like a small television screen and they had two bars running, one across there and one underneath it, with like “V”s on them, like that, and then as you match them up, you press another button, up come a map where you were, showing you exactly where you were. But that time we got lost somewhere over the Midlands so it didn’t work so we didn’t know where we were but yeah I used to enjoy doing that because when we knew we were quite safe I used to get out of the turret and help Arthur with his navigation ‘cause one of my pet subjects that was when we at ITW.
TO: Were you allowed to leave the turret or were you supposed to stay there?
BH: Unofficially. No once you’re in there, you’re supposed stay in there, but there you are.
TO: And how, how much, was it very noisy aboard the planes?
BH: Very noisy, drumming. A lot of guys suffered, I still have a bit of tinnutis, a lot of guys got pension for the tinnitus, the constant roar of the aircraft, the vibration as well.
TO: And did you, did you have radio sets to talk to each other?
BH: Intercom. They had what they call RT, radio transmission, which another funny story. Stan Fig [?], our radio operator, he could swear for twenty minutes without repeating the same word twice and at one time, we were coming back, on OT on Wellingtons, and we were in a circuit and down on the starboard side to me, which is the port side, ‘cause I’m in reverse to the pilot, I called up with his [unclear] ‘Pete there is someone trying to muscle in on the circuit’, right, on your port side, right, now before that he puts, he switches the RT on, asked for permission to land, now that goes everywhere. So Stan, he puts his head up then and he starts swearing about these guys trying to muscle in. When we got down in the crew bus, picked us up and then he went and picked the other crew up who were Canadians and they go, who is that so and so and so swearing at us? Pete the pilot forgot to switch off the RT, yeah, and it’s gone everywhere, the Germans must have thought it was a foreign language or code, when we, had to report to the air control right and the WAAF at the air control she had a fit with all the swearing and everything [laughs], so, everybody knew about it, right, so anyway we got roasted over that.
TO: And whenabouts did that occur? Do you know what year and month that occured?
BH: Ah, that was in ’43, ’44.
TO: And this was during a training mission, was it?
BH: Yeah.
TO: Could you ever see the cities below you when you were flying over them?
BH: No, that’s all blacked out.
TO: And did you hear about the D-Day invasion?
BH: Oh yeah. Yeah, because when it happened when they said it was a delay in pilot training they sent us back to St John’s Wood where we originally, all the aircrews reported to St John’s Wood. My first day I reported to St John’s Wood to have an inspection in Lord’s, I dropped my trousers under the portrait of W.G. Grace and again, I’ll tell you what, a plate of oxtail soup and we were billeted in St John‘s’ Wood so we were sent back to St John’s Wood and while we were still there the D-Day was on. We saw the aircraft going over. So, I remember that very well. June the 6th 1944.
TO: Were those have been the airborne troops or bombers?
BH: Yeah. Yeah.
TO: So were they airborne troops?
BH: Yeah. Were going over London from all round, from the South Coast, Sterlings were taking the gliders.
TO: What do you think of the Sterling?
BH: I’ve never got in touch with it, it was older and all but 622 Squadron they had Sterlings at first ‘cause it was a peacetime build up, peacetime field which 622 was born out of C flight of 15 Squadron which now flies Typhoons chasing German, Russian bombers. And they reinformed, we reinformed in Brize Norton three years ago and that’s why I was invited three years ago and also in May this last, this May to go there to give a talk on Manna. That’s why it’s all there.
TO: Did they enjoy the talk?
BH: Yeah.
TO: Do you know of anyone or meet anyone who ever refused to go on bombing missions?
BH: Oh yeah, yeah. Couple of Jewish friends, Harry Irons, who I mentioned, he was a tailor, he went in as a gunner straight away and, yeah, a lot of guys from Manna, who were wing commanders, one was a group captain, and we were as one, there was no rank then but great guys. One was Des Butters [?], he was a pilot on Pathfinders so yeah. Another one, I know very well, friend as well, David Fellowes, he is still very active, goes round signing books and he’s older than me.
TO: Were there any other times where someone refused to go on a bombing raid?
BH: Well, the only contact I had with anything like that is our first navigator, who was married and he couldn’t take it anymore and in those days they called it Lack of Moral Fibre. Today you’d go and see a psychiatrist and you’re just whipped away, away, demoted, taken to a place like Christchurch or something like that and demoted him and they treated you like dirt, where it’s a mental condition, I mean, they just didn’t want anybody contaminated, so we had to have a new navigator, a bomb aimer, sorry, he was a bomb aimer, a new bomb aimer.
TO: Did they ever, did he ever talk about what, the problems he had?
BH: Mh?
TO: Did this man ever talk about the problems he’d faced?
BH: No. No. Kept it to himself and then suddenly it’s gone.
TO: What is your best memory of your time in the RAF?
BH: My best memory is after the war when I was sent to Italy and I was on a Squadron, Cento, 112 Squadron and flying in a harbour towing drogues and they had the wing had it’s own rest centre with a hotel, the place called Grado and they want somebody to run it ‘cause the guy was going home. So I volunteered, so all I had to do was go there, make sure it was run properly, make sure it had all the rations and everything else, saw that the staff got paid, got myself a big ‘Q’ time dinghy, go down on the beach. Go back for lunch, go back to the beach again and make sure everything was alright. So until the winter set in then I couldn’t do it anymore and came home in January 1947. But there was the best time in the RAF [laughs].
TO: And, sorry to ask this, but what is your worst memory of your time in the RAF or of the war in general?
BH: The worst memory is the ones that I told you, when the aircraft was rattling and we didn’t know where we were. Everything else is taken in stride.
TO: What did you tend to do to keep up morale?
BH: Morale didn’t come into, as I said, we were all volunteers, we knew what we were in for, so we used to go drinking together as a crew when we had nights off, each one bought a round of half a pint , so that’s three and a half pints, twice, seven pints, so we used to roll back, go to somebody else’s aircraft and get a wick of their oxygen and go back to bed. And they probably did the same to us.
TO: How did the oxygen help?
BH: Well, it livened you up really, it sobered you up.
TO: Were there any occasions where you oxygen supplies froze up?
BH: Mh?
TO: Did your oxygen supplies ever freeze up?
BH: No, no. Not that I know of.
TO: And how did those heated jackets work that you mentioned?
BH: Very good, in fact they ruined my feet for a while. You had, first of all you had silk and wool underwear, vest, long pants right the way down to the, then you had the uniform. Then there was, as far as the gunners were concerned, there was this heated suit which plugged in, so you had slippers, heated slippers that plugged in and all connected, all the way up. Then, your flying suit on top of that, your gauntlets, inner gauntlet was a heated one and all studded to this inner suit and then of course, your, mae west and then your parachute harness on top of that, so you were really lumbering. They brought you at one time what they called the tailor’s suit, it was massive, I don’t know why they got it, we couldn’t get into the turret with it so we quickly discarded that. It was huge like, huge, you know, God knows, anyway it was a bad buy, called it the tailor’s suit. So, yes, we had a heated suit but the heated slippers created havoc with the sole of my feet, burnt them, and it took two or three years after I had come out of the air force to get it right and after that out of habit I still wear white socks.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day the war ended?
BH: Yeah, I was over Holland dropping food. It was the last flight and then the war was over. May the 8th 1945.
TO: And what kind of entertainment did you have at your airbases?
BH: Well, some of them had ENSA concerts but there was not on the base, you had to go outside, at Mildenhall there was a cinema in the town. Some places had ENSA, where the singers and dancers used to come, they would do a performance, some were horrible, sometimes the cinema. One had a cinema that had broke down, halfway through the film, with Cary Grant, don’t remember the title but anyway broke down and that was that so went to the pub but entertainment mostly go to the pub, local pub.
TO: Were there any particular songs that the RAF liked to sing?
BH: No, not really. We used to sing flying, flying fortresses, fly never so high, go round [unclear] in circles finally finishing on their own, up their own backsides, something like that. Well, we put a girl on a bar in a pub and the song is, this is your ankles, this is your kneecap, this is your and this is r, r, r, you know, all that palaver and the girls loved it. But apart from that, made our own entertainment.
TO: And on days when you were just stationed on the airbases, not on operations, could you hear the drone of other bombers flying around?
BH: Well, the Americans. Oh yeah, well at Mildenhall because they used to start four o’clock, five o’clock in the morning. ‘Cause they would totally fly in day, in daylight, which they could, you know, they were vulnerable, very vulnerable.
TO: And do you think the war was worth the price?
BH: Mh?
TO: Do you think the war was worth the price?
BH: I’m sorry.
TO: Do you think the war was worth it?
BH: It was essential. You wouldn’t be here today. Nor would I. It was essential. The biggest mistake was, when Hitler came to power, I think, Churchill warned, war was coming, nobody took him notice until finally 1938, ’36, the Spanish War, which was a rehearsal for the Germans, they should’ve start rearming then, ‘cause the writing was on the wall. But there were a lot of vested interests in this country like Lord Halifax at that time, who was, he wanted to negotiate with the Germans. Churchill sent him to America as an ambassador, he was a German lover and there were a few others in the arms industry as well, them German lovers, vested interests. So in 1936 the writing was on the wall. So, Churchill was the only one who could see it. And they called him a warmonger. But they say, comes the moment, comes the right man.
TO: And how do you feel about Germany today?
BH: The old generation I don’t want hear anything to do about. The new generation are different ‘cause they don’t want anything to do with their own teutonic ways of life, they’re youngsters, you can understand, they’re a great help to Israel, lot of Germans used to go to Israel, kibbutz and all that, I’ve been there, they’ve been there, right, and no, from what they doing I admire them but the only thing now is, I mean, now we got this exodus, well, I call it the exodus, Brexit, coming out of Europe, my opinion is that in time that Germany will be the dominant nation in Europe, who don’t like the French and the French don’t like them. I just hope [emphasis] that it all works out, we don’t get sucked into another war. Because the idea of a united Europe in the first place was to stop wars. So, I’m sad at the outcome. But as far as the Germans today, I admire them in a way, they’re doing well, very well. In part of course they got right wingers again, which has clouded the whole issue with the referendum, I mean immigration has clouded the whole issue, people can’t see further than, so I won’t go on to that. ‘Cause there is one man I blame, it’s the worst president at the wrong time, at the wrong time, Obama. You can edit this but I’ll tell you, when he said to the Syrians, yeah, that if you use chemical weapons on your population, that is a red line, and he’d become a puff, a puff of a pink line, he’d done nothing and that was the signal for them to do whatever they wanted to do. What general tells the enemy or, I’m not going to send an army in, there will be no boots on the ground and that caused what is happening now and that’s caused, who wants to leave their home really, and that’s caused a desperate refugee problem in Syria. I put it down to, the quicker he goes the better, he’s out anyway, so. That’s my opinion.
TO: And what do you think of Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?
BH: I think it was the right one. I really do. With Afghan it’s been going on for years, when I mean the Russians and all they’re interested in doing there is killing one another and killing everybody else. I mean, it was going on before the First World War, our Bomber Harris used to fly biplanes, and they used to fly with I think it was a pot of gold ‘cause if they were captured, they gave it to the Afghanis, the tribesmen otherwise they cut their testicles off. So, that’s pre 1914. So that’s [unclear]. With Iraq that was a different story, yeah. The biggest mistake with Iraq when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, yeah, and Bush senior invaded, don’t forget Palestinian also, Palestinian terrorist also sided with and in they went into Kuwait as well, right, thought that was a good thing. But when George Bush senior and the Allies went in and pushed them out of Kuwait and on the road to Baghdad all the goodies said stop, you mustn’t do it, said stop, that created the next problem and the next problem was, who knew, he did have gas, he gassed his own people. Of course he had a secret weapon. All these do-gooders, yeah, what happened if they did have them? But the biggest mistake was and is, the Western world does not understand the hatred between the Sunni and the, oh God.
TO: The Shi’a. The Shi’a?
BH: Shi’a. They hate one another. And always will hate one another. They didn’t understand the enmity. So the Shi’a were the governing body in Iraq and the Sunnis hated the sight of them. ‘Cause you got Iran fostering them all up as well. But the bigger to say was they used to call the Foreign Office the camel brigade, Arab lovers ‘cause most of them used be educated in Lisbon, they don’t understand the hatred between the Shi’a and the Sunni and that will never go away. There will never be peace with them. That’s the biggest problem. Don’t blame Blair, blame his advisors who knew the Arab mind, they knew about Islam, they didn’t advise him properly. You go in, make sure you got a proper government. Don’t leave it to the Sunnis or the Shi’a. And that will go on.
TO: I think I pretty much asked all of my questions, so. Thank you so much, I really enjoyed.
BH: You are welcome. Do you want a cup of tea or something?
TO: Ah [file missing] So.
BH: Did the museum supply you with that?
TO: No, it’s my own.
BH: Really?
TO: I brought my so, I do film interviews. And, have you ever watched films about the war?
BH: Yeah.
TO: And what do you think of them?
BH: Yeah, quite good. Glorified, you know, made for the screen, a couple of, a few things they say makes me wince, but for instance pilots always have to be commissioned, right, but, in actual fact you could have a sergeant pilot and a squadron leader rear gunner, right, but films glorify, I mean, as far as a pilot is, ‘cause he’s, the officer he’s the only one to talk about, so. The best film I ever saw was “Journey Together”, where, it takes Richard Attenborough, when he was very young and somebody else, can’t remember his name, where they come together in the ITW and it goes through their course and Richard Attenborough, and then he’s gone overseas, and so is his friend, his friend come to pilot, Richard Attenborough can’t tackle flying, crashes the plane [unclear] and he doesn’t like it, he has to be a navigator, so it is a very good film, so they put him to the test, right, so the screen pilot is flying an Anson which is the one of the planes I was trained on and says I’m not [unclear] and Richard Attenborough, I can’t get what, you know, he want to be a pilot, anyway he says I’m not [unclear] something then they got him, he actually got up, worked it all out then where he were and he realised then that he is just as important as a navigator as all the rest of the crew. Each one has his job to do, they are all important, so, I think that was the best one ever. Another one was the “Journey to the Stars”, we see again only officers please, yeah, otherwise worth watching but that with the “Journey Together” was the only one that I really liked. The other was, you know, we only serve officers if you don’t mind.
TO: What do you think of the Dam Busters film?
BH: Well, that was quite factual, and they couldn’t mess about with that. So, that was quite good, that was quite factual. In fact, in matter of fact, we met his daughter, Barnes Wallis’s daughter up at Coningsby year before last.
TO: Yeah.
BH: Was Open Day up there. I don’t if you went.
TO: No. And do you remember hearing about Japan attacking Pearl Harbour?
BH: Yeah. Yeah, 1941. Of course.
TO: And what was your attitude when you heard that that had happened?
BH: Well, this is the Axis, the come together the Japanese and the Germans, and the Italians of course. No, it was all part of the war process, wasn’t it?
TO: And what do you think of America’s use of the atomic bombs?
BH: Absolutely right. The war could have gone on for ages. Could have gone on for years. Are you tried to sorting out all those islands full of Japanese soldiers and the poor people in the camps? Right? Building the railways, slave labour, starving to death, of course it was right. Absolutely. Don’t call me a warmonger.
TO: I’m not.
BH: [laughs]
TO: And what do you, do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly?
BH: Bomber Command was not?
TO: Treated unfairly after the war.
BH: Sorry?
TO: Do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly after the war?
BH: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s why Bomber Harris went to South Africa. He didn’t want us to be redundant. Don’t forget a lot of them had to cover up their chevrons, they had to cover up their rank, I mean, that was degrading.
TO: Why did they cover their chevrons?
BH: Because they were given [unclear] office work and things like that, yeah, and so they couldn’t work amongst people, all the aircraftsmen so they had a thought, oh well, they cover up their chevrons, after all that, the thinking of some of them in Air Ministry that’s why Bomber Harris went in disgust, he wanted us demobbed.
TO: And do you remember hearing about when the Cold War was starting and Stalin was taking over Europe?
BH: [unclear] sorry?
TO: Do you remember hearing about when Stalin was taking over Eastern Europe?
BH: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, first of all there was a treaty between him and Germans over Poland which the Germans broke fortunately, they brought Russia into the war, but he was just, to me, you know, Fascism and Communism in it’s rawest form are just as bad as one another, even to this present day, I mean Putin, he is just mixing it all up and that’s the Russian way of going. And we again in the West are too weak, Crimea, he got away with it, as he gets away with everything. ‘Cause he’s too powerful, he’s bombing civilians. In Syria no one takes any notice but I bet you, because personally, right, if the Israelis done anything like that, it’d be like that on the headlines. Which they wouldn’t. Are you with me?
TO: Yeah.
BH: But Russia, no protest from anybody. He’s moving children out there in Syria on the pretext ‘cause he’s shearing up Assad, ‘cause he wants the Mediterranean Tripoli port for his Mediterranean fleet. It’s the only reason. But he’s a murderer. So he’s as bad as any Nazi.
TO: And do you remember, were there any particular celebrations when Japan surrendered?
BH: When what?
TO: When Japan surrendered, were there any particular celebrations?
BH: Oh yeah, well that was in, what was it June, was it, ’45?
TO: Yeah, August/September.
BH: Yeah, ’45, oh yeah, but that was a sort of a sideshow, as to the war in Europe. But the emancipated people that came out on the, terrible, I mean, they’re animals to do what they did. So, that’s all behind us now, was it?
TO: And how do you feel today about your wartime service? How do you feel today about your wartime service?
BH: I’m quite proud of it. I wish I could’ve done more. Yeah.
TO: And what was your career when you left the RAF?
BH: Irregular [laughs]. To own my own business, owned my own business, had that going. Don’t forget that, you know, I’m not the exception but a lot of people, thousands of people, I mean, come out the forces, they didn’t know what to do, right, some had been in five years, four years, three years, I was in four years, four years out of your teens yeah, so you don’t want to be regulated if you know what I mean, right. You are really unsettled until you find your niche and yeah, unsettled, ‘til finally I founded my own business and that was that. Then I knew what was about.
TO: And, sorry I didn’t ask, during the Blitz, whereabouts in London were you living?
BH: In East London, Forest Gate and then we moved not far from here, to Chapel Heath, which is further up the road there and bought my own house, we had a great time there. The only reason I’m here is ‘cause the house was too big for my wife, she was suffering from emphysema, so the best thing is to get a retirement flat like this. I’ve got a sister who lives in Arizona, we’ve done three months there. I got a son and grandchildren in Israel, we’ll have three months there and the rest of the time in between summer months here. But as soon as we retire, that’s what we’re gonna do. So we bought there [unclear] outstanding [?], you tell him upstairs what’s going on, and what your plans are, he’ll laugh his head off. Didn’t work out. Within two years she was dead. So I’m here, don’t particularly like it, I make the best of it, so I go to Israel a few times, my son is now living down in the Negev but it is too hot for me, I was there last October, [laughs] hit a hundred and four Fahrenheit, so a bit too hot for me, it’s alright further north, Tel Aviv and all around there, Jerusalem, but not where he is. So that’s the name of the game but always say, tell him up there, your plans, laugh his head off, he’ll make sure it doesn’t work out, and you know what I mean.
TO: Is there anything that was important to you during the war that you’ve not talked about, which you think is important?
BH: What?
TO: Is there anything that was important to you during the war which you’ve not mentioned so far, which you think is important?
BH: No, not really, I can’t think of anything. I certainly know when the V1 was about because we were training over the, flying over the North Sea, and we were told, if we see anything like that we shouldn’t mention it to the public, and when on leave with the V2 we just walk, suddenly there’s a thump, it’s the rocket had landed, but then again you know, you’re immune to these things, coming conditioned I think.
TO: So did the V1s or V2s have any impact on public morale?
BH: Concerned but they weren’t frightened of them, they knew, you know, it was the end of the war anyway. Everything was going right and that was the last throw of the Germans, Peenemunde was known about and bombed, but the V1 was transferable, they could move it around, with the V2 rockets had to have their own base and they were bombed out of sight, but a few got up and dropped but people took it as they did in the Blitz.
TO: Did you ever visit any of those places like Coventry or?
BH: Only on business, yeah. Places I built. Portsmouth and Plymouth, Plymouth, new town, new city. Rotterdam new city, absolutely new.
TO: And what do you think was the biggest mistake that the Allies made during the war?
BH: I don’t think they, I think it was circumstances, I don’t think there was any mistake. They had to respond to circumstances and the main thing they had to keep in mind was defeating the Germans. So, if there were a few mistakes, when they tried Dieppe, it didn’t come off but they were probing and they had to do these things to test their defences, so I wouldn’t put that as a mistake, it was unfortunate.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
BH: Mh?
TO: What do you think was the most important battle of the war?
BH: Well, two. The Battle of Britain and the North African campaign. Because they cleared that, there was a jumping off to get into Southern Europe via Sicily and Italy. So, two. The bombing campaign was a consequence of war, that was to stop Germany getting too strong by manufacturing armaments and things like that and also the psychological part of it was giving a bit of their own medicine because the public was screaming out for something to be done in revenge and the Germans, a part from being a planned objective, is also a moral and psychological one, giving them back as good as they get, as they’re given. That’s my opinion.
TO: Anything else you want to add to anything you said earlier at all or?
BH: No, I don’t think so.
TO: Right well.
BH: Just nice to have seen you.
TO: Thank you very much, it was
BH: Give my regards from up there.
TO: Was a pleasure to talk to you, thank you very much.
BH: Yeah. Nice to see you. And be well.
TO: Thank you, you too.
Dublin Core
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AHarrisB160626
Title
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Interview with Bernie Harris. Two
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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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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:19:14 audio recording
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Tom Ozel
Date
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2016-06-26
Description
An account of the resource
Bernie Harris joined the Air Training Corps and volunteered for the Royal Air Force, joining in April 1943 and training to become an air gunner. Mentions his father serving in the Royal Flying Corps. Witnessed the London Blitz as a young boy. Describes training and operational flying conditions. Gives a vivid, detailed, first-hand account of Operation Manna. Expresses his view on wartime events, including Chamberlain’s speech, the North African campaign, the Phoney War and the Russian contribution to the Allied victory. Explains why, in his opinion, the Allies decided not to bomb the concentration camps during the war. He was de-mobbed in 1947, after a final posting to Italy with 112 Squadron. After the war he set up his own business leasing vending machines. He later became involved in an association of ex-servicemen who were involved in Operation Manna.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Temporal Coverage
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1945-04
1945-05
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Carolyn Emery
515 Squadron
622 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
entertainment
faith
Flying Training School
Gee
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Holocaust
home front
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Hixon
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Stalin, Joseph (1878-1953)
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/271/3424/PHenwoodP1701.2.jpg
5bd36850f41a574b0a6cb559380241aa
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/271/3424/AHenwoodP171125.1.mp3
7d85bbdcc9253696b663f18de3fe16fd
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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Henwood, Priscilla
Priscilla Henwood
P Henwood
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Priscilla Henwood (b. 1921, 21397/2618 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-25
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.
Identifier
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Henwood, P
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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MC: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Margaret Carr. The interviewee is Priscilla Henwood. The interview is taking place at Priscilla’s home in Helderberg Village, Somerset West, South Africa on Saturday the 25th of November 2017. Priscilla, thank you so much for seeing me today. I really appreciate it. Would you like to tell me just a little bit maybe about your early life, where you went to school and your family.
PH: Thank you, Margaret. Thank you very much for taking time on your two day visit to come and visit me. I feel very very honoured. Truly honoured. And it’s lovely to meet you and your family. My early life. Well, my early life. My brother and I were twins. Our parents lived in, were stationed. Well, my father was stationed in the Royal Air Force, or Royal Flying Corps in Palestine in the 1916/17 I suppose. And then my mother was stationed in Salonika in Greece — working with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. And they all wore grey and scarlet and they were very, very elite nursing sisters. Anyway, she was there until the end of the war and then she went. She somehow managed to go from Salonika to Palestine to meet my father whom she’d known before in her early life in — down in the New Forest. And so they were married in 1919 in Cairo. In the riots. Always riots in Cairo. And I see today two hundred, six hundred people have been killed in Cairo. This is today. Saturday. In November 2017. It’s a tragic country. Anyway, they were married there and went back. Eventually they went back to England. And my brother and I were born at Farnborough. One of the first RAF stations in, in Hampshire. Royal Flying Corps. We were born in October 1921. And my father was stationed near. Then, it all changed then and people were re-routed and reconnected. He left the air force and eventually we lived in London. All sorts of post war problems that we recognise today. They were the same problems back in 1920s and ‘21s. In fact they call the 1918 to 1939 “The Long Armistice.” And so anyway there we were living in Sussex for a while and then my brother and I grew up in London. In Maida Vale and St John’s Wood. And we had a happy time visiting, with going to museums. The Science Museum or the, always Westminster Abbey, the unknown warrior. And so we, we went and we grew up there. I went to school in Maida Vale and then to secretarial College. My brother went to school at Monmouth. And then just before the war in about 1938 I had a great friend whose father was in the War Office and he recognised this war was coming. He recognised that women were going to be recruited in to munitions or farmer’s labourers and all sorts of things. So he arranged for my friend Joan Morgan and myself to join the 600, City of London Squadron. That was a fighter squadron in London obviously. And they wore, they wore red and scarlet cloaks. Or their cloaks were lined with scarlet. They were an elite but they were stationed at Hendon. And this is a bit, this is an interesting part. We used to, I used to go about once a week. I never actually went down to Hendon but they had meetings in the HAC headquarters and at Finsbury Barracks in London. And the idea was that we were to be as a group. We weren’t really the WAAF yet. We were going to be the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and we were going to do exactly what everybody had done in the first war. We would go with the squadron, 600 City of London Squadron. We would go and be typists or telephonists or cooks or drivers, or whatever. Medical assistants. And so then we went to various lectures. Very interesting people from the first war. And learning about how it would be in trenches and stations in Europe when we were conquering Europe. But it was not to be. The training went on. My brother was in the Royal Fusiliers in that time. So we were pretty well prepared for the war when it came. In fact, I was called up before the war. And we went. We were then based at Finsbury Barracks in London and did recruiting. The great thing was we used to recruit young women for the air force and then they’d say, ‘Yes I want to be, I want to be in the air force. I want to be in the secret service. That’s what I want to be.’ So we said, ‘Well that would be nice.’ I said, well we must have, one of the first things we had to do is to go for a medical. And there at Finsbury Barracks we used to take, one of those places to be — ‘No. I can’t go for a medical today. I was out at a party at the nightclub all last night. So can I come back and have a medical later?’ [laughs] In fact one particular person did come back and had a medical and she passed. And the big passing was that I remember my [unclear] — fit, brave one, mentality alert. And so we were launched. And so I did various tasks in Finsbury Barracks. Including working on the telephone exchange at Clerkenwell. And then in October 1940 I was posted. And I went off with a rug in a rug bag and ready to go to the trenches really. That’s what we thought would happen. But anyhow off we went to Royal Air Force Station Bassingbourn. B A S S I N G B O U R N. Which is near Royston in Hertfordshire and Cambridge. And that was an Operational Training Unit for Wellington bombers and we, I was in the equipment section and typing on a Royal machine. And you see, I mean, they said, ‘You’re setting that machine on fire.’ There was a lot of nonsense going on. We were all very young. And one of the people who was stationed there was Hope Embry and her husband Basil Embry became a most highly honoured and significant member of Bomber Command. And he survived the war. I think you can read more about Basil Embry. But he was a lovely person. Obviously, I was all of seventeen and thought I was, I’d conquered the world, you know. I had arrived. But he was, I suppose much older. Probably twenty five you know. And there was Corporal Bates who was in charge of equipment in this Operational Training Unit and he used to tell us a story of how he was in charge of, of parachutes. And his parachute, what it did, what happened was they decided to change where the parachute, they had the rip cord here but then they decided it was awkward, and fear. And he used to tell us this gruesome story of a pilot who used his parachute, forgot it was on this side and they said he’d scratched himself to nothing on the way. We always used to be horrified by that story. And so it was very, very interesting and we saw the Wellington bombers. We met a lot of sergeant pilots. There was one man called Wally Walsh who was from Toronto. And I remember another, Len Day from London. There was several of them. And what we used to do as we became a little more used to Royal Air Force life we’d walk up to the pub at Royston. It was probably not as far as Royston — Bassingbourn. A local pub. Well I always remember before I left to join the air force or to go to Bassingbourn my mother said, ‘Now, Priscilla, you may, you must be very careful what you drink.’ She said, ‘You may have a shandy. Ginger beer shandy. You may have a little sherry, but no cocktails. Don’t you ever have cocktails,’ and since then I never had a cocktail. Now I never drink cocktails [laughs] but it was all very innocent. Two or three of us used to go with these dear men. They were just that much older than us. They never took advantage of us. We all went up to the pub and had a shandy and played shove ha’penny and had a lot of laughter. And those were those early days of the war, before Christmas in 1939. And then I went, I remember I went home for Christmas. Some of the, some of these pilots had had a car and one of them drove a lot of us up to London where my mother was now living in a flat. And so that was the first Christmas of the war. And my brother came down, still in the army, from wherever he was stationed. Bushey I think. And so life was very interesting and we learned a lot. Bassingbourn. And it was very, especially good for me because my, my cousin was still at University in Cambridge. And so I could cycle to Cambridge. In fact one day I walked from Bassingbourn to Cambridge. This was lovely. It was fun. So we did that. And there was talking about photographic interpretation. There was a Photographic Interpretation Unit at Benson just near, and I had never went to Benson but I met people who were there. And it was wonderful work they did interpreting a little dot in the sky. In those days with no, no modern facilities. And they did wonderful work those photographic people. And then we used to go into Royston. So then, in May 1940 a message came, or a signal came. My name was Welsh then. W E L S H. That was my maiden name. I meant to tell you that going to Cambridge I met, I’d already met him but I met Paul who I was eventually to marry or who would marry me. But he was a great friend of my cousin. They were having their last year at Cambridge and then they both went off. He into the army and Paul was, who I married, into the navy. But that’s another story. Anyway, that was so, I didn’t waste much time when I was at Bassingbourn. But I enjoyed every minute. It was all an education. Like a university education I suppose. And so then I was stationed, sent to London to the Air Ministry War Room. W A R room. In, in Whitehall. Near the [pause] I think it’s a, not the Home Office [pause] I can’t remember but it was that end building at the end [unclear] at Whitehall. And the Spanish, the St James’ Steps, King Charles Steps below, in to Green Park. Anyway, I went there as a rookie little WAAF and was put in to a correspondence. What do you call it? Just give me a minute.
MC: Secretarial. Typing and —
PH: Just put this thing off a minute.
[recording paused]
PH: Well, I was in the room where all the correspondence came. And in those days in The Air Ministry in 1940 it all came through on tubes. Like you have at the grocer’s shop or the haberdashers. You know ,they all had these tubes coming in, down and these messages would come in. So really it was a very responsible job because extraordinary messages came. One actually I remember was Amy Johnson. Amy. She was the wonderful pilot. And she had been, some said she’d been shot down into the Thames but she, she had crashed in to the Thames in London at that time. That would be about probably June 1940. So this, then I was to be there in the Air Ministry War Room for the next year and actually it was May 1941. We used to go up to, walk up to Westminster to Trafalgar Square for lunch. And Myra Hess played and it was quite peaceful. Then of course the Blitz started. And so then I had very interesting work then but we seemed to just take it in our stride because we did twelve hours on, twelve hours off in the War Room. And we’d have just a, right down in the bowels of the, of the War Rooms. The War Office I’m sure. And we used to have time off and we’d go up and amongst the ramparts of the building. Churchill and Clemmie would be walking about too because he had his secret place down below. Quite close to where we were. And the whole idea, object of the War Room, Air Ministry War Room was to supply the Cabinet War Room with up to date information. So all the correspondence came in and then we distributed to the, to the necessary parts. One of the very important parts was stats. Statisticians. How many tons of bombs had been dropped. Tons of bombs and then piles of bombs I think they called them in America. So stats was very important. And somebody was working at the back at the war room on them and it was very interesting because they were also working in the Battle of Britain. So messages were coming in and they’d, rather like the cricket scores. Twenty four for two. Six for eight. You know. They were counting it all. So that was a very interesting time for me. But then suddenly when I could go into all sorts of details but there was a great feeling of, of confidence and hope. You know, we never thought of any other way but we did realise that by then, by 1940, the end of 1940 just before the Blitz ended, the big Blitz ended there were no more planes. No more pilots. Just one more and suddenly Hitler had a brainstorm and decided he was going to attack Russia. Do something extraordinary. So my part as a WAAF, I was still a WAAF, they suddenly said I must go on a corporal’s course. I said, ‘Oh that’s lovely.’ I can’t remember where I went to that course. It may have been to Alnwick for that. I know I went to Alnwick in South Shields later but, so I did a corporal’s course and came back with these two stripes and was sent. I can’t, I can’t remember. Oh yes. I was sent to Tangmere but to be down in a little GCI station, Durrington near Tangmere. Anyway, I wasn’t long on that course and somebody said I must go on an officer’s course. Oh I know. Sorry. I did go from that corporal’s course. I went up to Chester. To Cheshire. To Honington. RAF. That’s it. From the corporal’s course that other bit. I never went, I didn’t go back to the War Room. I was sent to RAF Honington in, in Cheshire. Near Liverpool. So there I was with a, with a very nice sergeant. Woman sergeant. And she and I became great friends. And we had a big challenge at, as you were, it was not Honington. Honington was where my bomber friends went. It was Hooton Park in Cheshire. And that’s where I was stationed for, from April 1941 ‘til about July I think. And my promotion to sergeant came through and then in the same correspondence I was told I must go to an officer’s course at Loughborough. I remember saying, ‘Can’t I be a sergeant first and then go to Loughborough?’ They said, ‘No. You must stay as a corporal then you go to Loughborough.’ So I went to do the officer’s course at Loughborough and I was there for six weeks I suppose, whatever. And somehow or other I passed and I went to, I was posted to Tangmere. But going back a while I haven’t said enough about that time that I was in Bassingbourn. Can I go back to that? Because these, I told you about these, these chaps who were, they were all sergeant pilots and very fine men. Then they went off to — one went to Honington in Bomber Command and the other one went to Marham. I think he was 215 Squadron in Honington and 9 Squadron in Marham. Also up near Bury St Edmunds and there they flew and then I lost touch with them really but I know that Len Day went to Malta with Bomber Command. And while he stayed in London and then as war went on one lost touch. But I knew they did wonderful work. But I never really found out what happened to them but these people were the salt of the earth and so steady. And so that that time in in Bassingbourn which I just spoke about earlier made a very strong impression on me. It was a short time really but it was, it gave me inspiration and confidence and as I said earlier one always felt secure. They weren’t, there weren’t problems. At least I never found them. Probably there were too. So now I go back to my arrival at Tangmere. The day I arrived at Tangmere everybody was in mourning because Bader, the famous legless pilot, had been shot down that day. That was in August 1941. And there’s this famous story about his legs. They wanted to, the Germans said they’d give safe passage for his legs. And Fighter Command said not on your life. We’ll bring them over, as it was [laughs] if you catch us you catch us. We don’t want any special courtesies. We’ll just bring his legs. And they did. They flew them over. I think they parachuted them down. And Bader went on to have an extraordinary career too as a prisoner of war. But it was very interesting for me to be at Tangmere. There were Hurricanes and Spitfires and they’d had a tremendous bashing in the Blitz and a lot of people were killed and a lot of WAAF were also injured. And some of them were, were honoured with medals for bravery in that Blitz. But this was in 1940 when I was in London. So I, I went after that so all was so called peaceful then. There was no more bombing there. And then they, they had, this was what I was saying earlier. It was a little station near Ford, near Arundel, also in Sussex. Down from Tangmere. And I was put in charge, only having been on a course as an adjutant. And I was put in charge of this little station which was GCI and doing, working in radar. This favourite vital work. So we had this little office down below then, up at the top of the hill where these people were working on the radar. And wonderful things that came from, from that radar time. Interception and all that and I knew the [pause] when I was at Durrington it was probably early in 1941. There was a, it would be probably September ‘41 there was a warning that the Germans were coming to Durrington. They’d be parachuted in to, to get the people who were doing the radar work up at the top of the hill and kidnap them and take them back. And so they said, ‘Now, you people here below who are looking after them, you are going to be getting issued with Tommy guns so that you can protect your people.’ And along came a Home Guard. A Home Guard chap with a Tommy gun and he said to me, ‘I want you to learn to fire a Tommy gun. When the Germans come you’ve just got to pick this thing up and go boom, boom, boom and he’ll be dead and then you,’ [laughs] and then I put it on my shoulder and tried and I couldn’t do a thing with it [laughs]. I said, ‘I’m very sorry but you’ll have to have a bigger chap than me to protect these people.’ So there was a lot of laughter about that and of course the, again Hitler changed his mind and they didn’t come. So then, when I was there in Durrington and got married in the middle but that’s another story. A lovely time. It really was. My brother was, by that time, in the air force and he’d been shot down in the North Sea but rescued after two days and my husband Paul had been in the Malta convoy. He’d been in a Russian convoy but at this time he was in a Malta convoy relieving with The Ohio which was a ship with supplies for Malta. And anyway while he was in this convoy in Italy somewhere they were very upset. They were bombed by an Italian plane which was very interesting, and they said the plane was badly hurt, the ship was destroyed. They’d lost a whole keg of sherry they’d been given somewhere. That upset them. Anyway, he, he survived and we were married in 1942. In the war. Again near Cambridge, near Bassingbourn. So I was stationed. I went on to be stationed at Durrington and then went on another course and my, my husband left South Shields in his destroyer, a new destroyer to go to the Far East and he was away for three years. And I was on another course at Alnwick and enjoyed that. And I was stationed. Then I was sent to Biggin Hill. Stationed at Biggin. Again as adjutant. Sailor Malan was a famous South African pilot. And a lot of the Free French Air Force were there. And they were famous because they had at Biggin Hill, the squadrons there had shot down a thousand bombers. There was a tremendous publicity stunt with the papers. There was a big ball at the Dorchester to which we all went. All the, all the Windmill Girls were given open invitations to come to Biggin Hill for that weekend so there were high jinks with the Windmill and the other, I suppose night club characters would come. And Biggin Hill was the talk of every Sunday newspaper and everywhere in the world. They shot down a thousand planes and all the wonderful men which of course they were wonderful men. There was no doubt about it. And then they were to have a reception at [pause] in, at Biggin and Lord Trenchard was to come. Lord Trenchard, one of the founders of the Royal Air Force. Royal Flying Corps. And he came and the pilots told me that he, he came very much in his military Royal Flying Corps sort of uniform I think. Very impressive. He came and he said, ‘Good day gentleman,’ he said, ‘I come here to give you one message. It’s the bomber’s boys who is going to win this war. Good day gentlemen.’ And he turned and left. All the deflated people who were not really. That was, that was the big thing was the bomber boys who were going to win this war which of course we remember very well happened. And that, the tragedy of that was that the bombers did the job they had to do as we well know with, and I had many friends there and people to do with it and the casualties I knew. But after the war they were treated like [pause] like rats had left the ship. It was disgraceful. And people said, ‘They bombed Dresden. Dresden. With all that china. Look what they did,’ and I’d say, ‘Well Dresden was a route for those bouncing bombers to go thorough.’ They were, they were transporting all these bombs to go through to wherever they did. So those bombs were based before they bombed. These wonderful men who of course I can’t even think of the names as I’m talking but everybody knows them and they, well they saved, saved England really. Saved the world. And we all said if it had not been done, if the bombing had not been done successfully we would all be speaking German today in England. Nobody really saw that. People still don’t realise the precarious critical situation we were in because Churchill would always talk and buoy us up and life went on. And those bombers and the fighters. We all needed each other. And the Coastal Command and Transport Command, and balloons we all needed but it was the bombers who were the vital factor in any war. And their bombing saved Britain and to me it is, one feels ashamed that they’re only now being recognised and still people say, ‘But they bombed Dresden. How could they dare to bomb Dresden?’ Never mind they bombed London and would have absolutely finished us if they’d had their way. So, so where did we go from there? Let’s have a rest.
MC: Do you want me to turn this off for a short while?
[recording paused]
PH: I’m talking with Margaret about Bomber Command and at Hucknall and Scampton and others that I can’t remember, some of those. I was never actually stationed again on a Bomber Command station but we knew about them and recognised them and honoured them and a lot of the, it was an extraordinary life they lived because they lived in a nice cosy little English town where they’d be in tea rooms and life would go on and the station, people stationed nearby and some of the pilots —
[doorbell rings. Recording paused]
MC: Ok.
PH: Can you go back to what I said?
[recording paused]
PH: I was probably talking about, have you been to the War Room in in —? Cabinet War Room in —
MC: In London.
PH: King Charles’ Steps there. And you know how they said there’s nothing more. There’s nothing we can do. And then Hitler, you know, we believe in prayer. I don’t know, we’d had, we’d had a World Day of Prayer and suddenly Hitler changed his mind, we don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not telling anybody what they should or should not do or how they should be but there is something more than we know. It’s not just, it’s not just the computer and wireless and all these wonderful new ways of [pause] somebody said I’m watching a good film. Somebody gave me a stick. You get a stick and you put it in your television and then you watch a film. So we’ve got all these wonderful contraptions and things but we still can’t regulate the weather. We can’t regulate the tides and we can’t regulate the eclipses of the moon and the sun. And what happened two thousand years ago at such a time suddenly happens again two thousand years later, whatever, at such a time. There’s something more than even our brains can do. But so there we are. So I was talking about the faith and they had the, there was faith. We couldn’t have managed without faith in those days of war and I think maybe we might have done better in these last ten years if we hadn’t been prohibiting people from praying at the school. And you mustn’t mention Jesus and you mustn’t talk about Christmas. You talk about the holiday. Anyway, somehow and then other people come and say what’s what about this God? He doesn’t do anything for us. Well poor chap he doesn’t get much chance. He’s not allowed. So I’m not into religious talk but I do believe in faith and I do believe that it was the faith and prayer that brought us through that war. Maybe without, it would have happened, but we haven’t come through very well this lot. So where are we back to? Can you just stop a minute?
[recording paused]
PH: And then the pilots would get married and their wives would come down and stay in the local hotel or boarding house or get a house and next to the RAF station so they’d live a normal sort of life. But then at night time they’d hear boom boom. The bombers going off. Counted them and when they came back five, six, sixth where’s the sixth? And they’d be off to the station to see if their husband had come home. So there was an extraordinary artificial but normal life living right in a war. Yet going as I say, you would go to the flicks. Everybody went to the flicks in those days, and going to the pub. So that I think the wives and the mothers really suffered. Even if they were in a town where they didn’t have a husband or son or somebody they heard the bombers going off and they would listen for them to come back and there would be one short or none would come back or something. And they would be very much aware of these people. So there was a strong [pause] a feeling of rationing, of letters to the Far East. Air letters we did, air letter cards we wrote. And they would be they would be minimised and sent off. And I think that people like myself who were privileged to be in the air force it was a full interesting life. We were all in it together. But for the mothers with the children and the one egg and a couple of potatoes a week and maybe some, a bit of meat — it was, it must have been terrible. And those cold, cold winters. One, one good thing that came in the war at that time was Lord Woolton and his feeding. All those children. They were very bonny — the wartime children. He had a special orange juice sort of proceeded so that all every child had on their ration card — orange juice. No bananas. They didn’t know about bananas in those days. So that the children were well cared for but the mothers had a terrible time. And other people who came into the war at that time and did a lot of, a lot, a great job, were the land girls. And the Land Girls were often employed on, on farms and learned to milk the cows and to make up the hay and all the rest of it. But some of them of course were misused and used as maids. They would milk the cows and then come on in and make the breakfast for the farmer and his wife and his children. And they’d wash up afterwards and then go back to the fields. So the Land Girls were magnificent and did a great job. And the other people I always feel we’d never, they’d never been, to my knowledge, been recognised as they should have been were the mechanics. When those fighter planes landed the mechanics were there. They bashed, probably had some shooting, and the pilot would go off and have a shower and had some breakfast. Meantime this chap would be working on his plane so it was ready and he could take off again. Take off. And it’s the same with the bombers. Those chaps who looked after the — the engineers and the, all the people who worked on the planes. One has never really heard enough recognition of them, or for them. I think that is something that is missing. Maybe you could mention that to your people in Bomber Command. And Fighter Command too. Because they were, they were on the job and of course suffered terribly when their pilot was killed. And they, you know became, you know mates. Worked together. Worked on the plane. And so that was that. So then I told you I was, I did the officer’s course at Loughborough and I went to Tangmere and then did where I’d been. I’d put Hooton Park as well. But then I went to Biggin Hill. I told you this and as I said Sailor Malan was there. And Churchill lived nearby at Chartwell. And Sailor Malan’s wife was there too and she had a baby and Churchill was the baby’s godfather. He was there. It was a wonderful station Biggin. In spite of it being rather choked off by Lord Trenchard telling them that it would be the bombers who would win the war. Separate from Biggin Hill I went, I was sent on another course. Of course they loved to send us on courses. So it was very like being at university but you’re not. And a lot of legal work too. Not that I can remember any of it now, as you can hear. I can’t always remember the names of the stations but from, from Biggin Hill I went on this course and it was and I went to Shrewsbury, Shropshire. To Montford Bridge. And that was another training station. Rather like Bassingbourn had been originally. And I was stationed there as adjutant near another big RAF station — Oswestry. All near Shrewsbury. And the, and at Montford Bridge there were Czechoslovakian and Polish pilots all waiting. Doing circuits and bumps waiting to go. To go off, to fight. They were waiting to go off but the weather was dull all the time. and they were frustrated. And the Poles and the Czechs were not good friends so there wasn’t always a very good atmosphere there. But they were lovely. They used to call me — the Poles used to call me mamushka [gihana?] — little mother. And I, because I had to sort of tell them what to do. ‘Oh Adjie, can’t we do —?’ They wanted to fly but they couldn’t. They nearly went mad because the weather was so bad. And that was in, I’m talking now about 1943. October. That sort of time. And while I was stationed, while I was stationed there I had a phone call to say that my brother had been — it was an accident I think in a Mosquito night bomber and his plane had crashed. And he was alright but his observer wasn’t, and he went to try to rescue him and he was also burned. That was my twin brother. November 1943. Seventy something years ago now, just this week. So then somehow or other I didn’t apply so I left Montford Bridge and I went back to the Air Ministry of War Room in 1943, November. And I was in the Far East operations and was there ‘til the end of the war. ‘Till ’45. But my job there was to monitor signals that came in. And they came in then for one and we had to read them and work out the tonnage of bombs that had been dropped. This was all in the Solomons, in the New Guinea. All near Australia. All the fighting of the Japs which were impossible really. We’d never beat them as it seemed. Anyhow, we had to have this report ready by four in the morning to go through to Churchill to go to the Cabinet War Room where Churchill would be with, of course, all his people. And it had to be accurate. And I remember I made a mistake of saying Zagreb was [pause] and they were dropping bombs, dropping bombs on Zagreb which was west of, of the ocean. Of course it was east. Whatever it was I got it wrong and Churchill in amongst all the other things he picked up this mistake and it came back. He didn’t miss a trick. But it was very interesting time in the War Room with the Far East and the war going on in Italy. That was a new one. Remember we were fighting in Italy. That was an unnecessary tragedy too. And that was the time when I was in London of the bomb. What did they call them? Dropped bombs. I can’t remember. They came through silently and they dropped.
MC: Oh I know.
[pause]
MC: I know what you mean. Yes.
PH: I had a few adventures with that. And we were stationed in London again and it was a very exciting time in a way waiting. Waiting for D-day. Buzz bombs they were called buzz bombs. And they were the ones that were boom boom boom and then you heard them when it stopped that’s where they dropped. And then they had an even worse bomb that just came silently and it just, you didn’t know and the next thing was chaos. I experienced a bit of that when I was living by then at, when a whole group of us WAAF worked for officers all together in Chelsea. We had, there was a flat and somebody else had a room and we all used to get together. And there was quite a bit of bombing then in the night again. And I remember one of our, one of our friends had a flat in Chelsea. She had a lovely flat upstairs which she’d had for some years, it was her home. We were down, we were down below. A couple of us were down below in more the basement. So we would all come down to the basement for the night when the bombing was on. And then next day we’d go up onto the, into her flat when the sun was shining. And a big fruit to have in those days was rhubarb. We’d always have rhubarb. And I remember we had rhubarb at the top of the nook for pudding and he used to call them — we always heard, none of us had had babies but we always heard that the, after your baby you have a wonderful sort of party. You forget all the pain, all the problems, and just sit down and enjoy it. We used to call them our post baby, post bombing breakfast. Then I can remember going back again. Way back to when I was in the War Room in 1940. Again, we were caught one night going somewhere. A friend had had a flat in Ebury Street in, near Victoria Station. So the bombing was pretty hard that night but she had one of these records playing the Warsaw Concerto which had just come out and some Beethoven and boom, boom, boom you know, the sign from France when the code Beethoven’s fifth. So I can remember those days. We were really in trouble but it was alright. We were all in it together. And that’s, as I said earlier was how I felt sorry for the mothers who were left behind with the children and rationing and clothing. Maybe their own sick mother with them. Their diets were not easy. Neither, as I’ve said earlier, were the lives of the people that maintained the aircraft and the ships and the guns in the air force. We have a very fine young woman. Well, she’s not young any more, she’s my sort of age. She was on searchlights in London, and in the park and they used these lights all the time. And that must have been a big, big strain because they were right out on Hyde Park and I suppose Regent’s Park with these lights going, so they were a certain target for the bombers but she survived it all. She’s written her book about it. Then came, going back again now to the War Room and there was D-Day which we were all involved in in the War Room of course. And still the Japanese war going on I was very much involved in that. There were reports coming in. And we, the [unclear] then there was that sudden war. Somebody decided to fight in Holland between Holland and Germany and a lot of casualties there. I can’t, I’m trying to think of the name. We can probably think of it afterwards. But where the army obviously were involved. I’ll think of it, and tell you later but it was in, it was in Christmas 1944 because the, it was D-day was June ’44. 6th of June. But this was another little war that somebody seemed to start and it was on the Holland/German border, and we had a lot of casualties. And then after that came, came May and the end of the war. And I remember we were all, we were, I was on duty in the War Room that night and so we phoned Buckingham palace and asked, ‘Would the king and queen be out?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ So we all went down to Buckingham Palace.
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Identifier
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AHenwoodP171125
PHenwoodP1701
Title
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Interview with Priscilla Henwood
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:00:01 audio recording
Creator
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Margaret Carr
Date
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2017-11-25
Description
An account of the resource
Priscilla was encouraged by a friend’s father to join the 600 Squadron in anticipation of the war. She was called up and was based at Finsbury Barracks, involved in recruitment. Priscilla also worked on the telephone exchange at Clerkenwell.
In October 1940, she was posted to RAF Bassingbourn, an Operational Training Unit for Wellingtons. Hope Embry, wife of Basil Embry was stationed there.
Priscilla was sent to the Air Ministry War Room in Whitehall and received correspondence in pneumatic tube system. She recalls an extraordinary message about Amy Johnson crashing into the Thames. She would see Churchill and his wife. They provided the Cabinet War Office with information, including statistics.
Priscilla went on a corporal’s course and was stationed briefly at RAF Hooton Park. After promotion to sergeant, she was sent on an officers’ course at Loughborough and then posted to RAF Tangmere and the ground-controlled interception (GCI) radar station at RAF Durrington. Priscilla was put in charge of the GCI station near RAF Ford. She did another course at Alnwick and was then made adjutant at RAF Biggin Hill.
Priscilla expresses her disappointment with how Bomber Command was treated after the war. She praises the land girls and mechanics, who were often overlooked.
Priscilla went to RAF Montford Bridge and was an adjutant at RAF Rednal. She returned to the Air Ministry War Room in 1943 and was involved in the Far East operations until the end of the war, monitoring signals. On D-Day they all went down to Buckingham Palace.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cheshire
England--Sussex
England--London
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1940
1941
1943
1944
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
600 Squadron
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
faith
ground personnel
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Biggin Hill
RAF Hooton Park
RAF Tangmere
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/3430/PIronsH1501.2.jpg
62e8999adc6227a8e1dcf9d08e401fbc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/3430/AIronsH160730.1.mp3
85d919719d33d75444cec9637cafc6f9
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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Irons, Harry
Harry Irons
H Irons
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Harry Irons (1924 - 2018). He was an apprentice tailor in London, but lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 158, 462 and 9 Squadrons.
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
2015-07-23
2016-07-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Irons, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TO: I just have to do a short introduction first as well.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Good morning. Good afternoon. Or good evening. Whatever the case is. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre and the gentleman I’m interviewing is Mr Harry Irons. My name’s Thomas Ozel and we’re recording this interview on the 30th of July. Could you please tell me what year you were born?
HI: 1924.
TO: And –
HI: January ’24.
TO: And where — were you interested in aircraft as a child?
HI: No. Not really. No. You never see no aircraft anyway [laughs] in those days. The reason why I joined the air force because we lived in a place called Stamford Hill which was on a hill in London. And we had a grandstand view of the bombing of the City of London which was well alight. And four or five of us said we’ll go and join the air force. I was only sixteen. I told them I was seventeen and a half and they, and they didn’t even query me age. And they said, ‘Alright. You’re in the air force.’ And that was it. I was just sixteen. They assessed me and they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘I want to be a pilot.’ And they said, ‘We’ve got a hell of a load of applications for pilots but we’ve got vacancies for wireless operator/air gunners.’ So I said, ‘Alright. I’ll have that,’ and I became a wireless operator/air gunner. And I joined the air force in nineteen — the end of 1940. And the following year — I had to wait for an application to become a wireless operator. Well, I was in the RAF and I went to Blackpool in August 1941 and while we was there we got to twelve words a minute and they got us out on a squadron and said, ‘You’re not going to be wireless operators you’re going to be what they call straight AG’s. Rear gunners. So that’s how I became a rear gunner. So I waited a few more months and then I was posted for gunnery school. A place called Manby. RAF Manby in Lincoln. And I done six weeks training there and we should do another three or four months training at OTU which I’d never done. They sent me straight from the six weeks gunnery school straight onto a squadron. Number 9 Squadron at Waddington. And when I arrived there I was sitting in the mess, because I was a sergeant then, I was sitting in the mess and when I came out the mess there was a flight lieutenant pilot there and he said, ‘You’re going to fly with me as a mid-upper gunner.’ Because what had happened the squadron had converted from Wellingtons on to Lancasters and Lancasters carried an extra gunner and a flight engineer. So there I was at 9 Squadron in May, no, June 1942 and we were just converting, just finished converting from Wellingtons, the twin engine bomber on to Lancasters. And that’s how it started and what we had to do was get used to flying a four engine bomber which we did do, and in September we were sitting in the crew room and they said, ‘Ops tomorrow night.’ And that was in September the 9th 1942. I got that right. And so what you have to do is take the aircraft up for half an hour. Test the engines, make sure they’re running right. The bomb bay opens and closes. The bomb sight’s working. The guns are working. The ailerons are working and the undercarriage is working. You do that in half hours flight. When we landed the bomb aimer had already done about seventeen trips on Wellingtons so he was an old sweat. To do seventeen bombing trips he was really a real veteran. And as we landed there was a big tractor come along pulling up a four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. So the bomb aimer said to me, ‘That load means that we’re going to Happy Valley.’ And I was pretty, well I didn’t know a lot anyway. So I thought well that doesn’t sound too bad. Happy Valley. And there you are. We got briefed. We went, we always had bacon and eggs before we went to the briefing. We had the briefing and that and when we went into the briefing room there was a huge curtain over the map and we were waiting there. The CO comes in, immediately pulls the curtain down and it shows you exactly what bombing raid was on. There’s a red tape running from England to the — and the town was Dusseldorf. So I still didn’t twig on a lot so the bomb aimer was there. He said, ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘We’re going to Happy Valley.’ And I thought well it don’t sound too bad. Happy Valley. And we went down to the crew room. Got dressed. And being gunners we have to be heavily heavily dressed. There was pure silk long johns and a vest. And your shirt, uniform and a huge fisherman’s pullover we used to put on. Then we put the electrically heated suit on. Is that alright?
TO: Do you mind if I just put this light on? Sorry.
HI: Put that light on.
TO: Yes. I’m very sorry but — sorry about that.
HI: How’s that?
TO: Yes. That’s better — sorry half your face is in shadow. Sorry. Ok. Sorry you were.
HI: Oh that’s only the, I’ll switch that one on as well.
TO: Switch that on.
HI: Yeah. Switch that on as well.
TO: Ok sorry about that.
HI: So we got dressed and then we had huge heavy furs. Fur jacket and fur trousers on top. The temperatures in those days was about thirty five, forty below zero. We had no heating whatsoever. And we went out to the aircraft and the ritual was we always pissed on the rear wheel for good luck. Anyway, we got in the aircraft and we was at Waddington. And they had no runways there. All they had was grass. And even on my first trip with this bomb load on we just managed to lift off over the, over the hedges to take off. And then we got, we, we flew around the aerodrome until we got up to six or seven thousand feet and then we headed east. We crossed the North Sea and then the bomb aimer who lays in the front, lays flat down at the front said, ‘Enemy coast ahead. Flak.’ So we was up about sixteen thousand feet then. Mind you this pilot was a very seasoned pilot. He was on his second tour so he knew all the tricks and he knew that to get over Holland you had to be above twelve thousand feet because of the light flak. There was hundreds of these light flak guns on the Frisian Islands what we had to pass over. Anyway, we was well above it and I looked down. I see these beautiful colours. Blues, greens, reds. Tracer coming up and dropping down and I thought to myself if that’s flak we’ve got nothing at all to worry about. We was well above it. We flew across Holland. We was up to about nineteen, twenty thousand feet then. We flew across Holland. We never see a lot. Only a few star shells and a few lights on the ground for the night fighters who used to circle around waiting to come after us. Anyway, we crossed over Holland into Germany and then the bomb aimer said, ‘Target ahead skipper.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’ll have a little see what this target’s like. And being the mid-upper you could swing the turret a hundred and twenty degrees all the way around. So I swung it around facing the forward position and I had a shock of my life. In front of us was one huge massive explosion of shells. And I thought to myself, ‘Cor blimey, surely we haven’t got to go through that.’ There was hundreds of shells exploding. You’d see aircraft blowing up in the sky, some on fire. And the skipper said to me, being on me first trip, he said, ‘Mid-upper make sure you look above you and there’s no aircraft flying above you ready to drop its bombs.’ Which did happen. And a lot of our aircraft were badly damaged through aircraft dropping their incendiaries and bombs from a different height. Anyway, we, I said to the skipper, as I looked up there was a Lancaster above us with its bomb bay open. The bomb bay was enormous. It’s about from that there to about here. That’s the length of the bomb bay. It was enormous. And I said to the skipper, ‘There’s a Lanc above us with its bomb bay open. Dive port.’ He dived port, straightened out and started flying again towards the huge barrage and the bomb aimer said, ‘We’re on the wrong course.’ He said, ‘We’ve got to go around again and make another approach to the target.’ Because the most important thing on a bombing raid was to bring back a photograph. If you didn’t bring a photograph back they never counted for it as a raid. The camera was enormous. Like that. Huge thing it was. Anyway, we run. We went right through that lot with our bomb bays shut. Turned around, made what they called a dog leg and come back on the rear of the formations that were flying in and by that time Jerry had cottoned on to us. And don’t forget, another terror of bombing was the searchlights. If one of those searchlights hit you it completely blinded you. They were so powerful. They had what they called a radar operated searchlight and that was blue. It wasn’t white like the ordinary searchlights. It was blue. And it never missed. It went bang, like that and it hit you straight away and once that hit you about ten or fifteen searchlights would come and cone you. And then all the guns would open up and the fighter would come straight in on top of you. So you had to very very wary of a searchlight. Anyway, we made the dogleg around. Came and we was at the back of the bomber formation then and we could see, I could see from where I was the town was getting a real hammering. At that time, that period, there was no Pathfinders. That’s why we had to go around again — because we had to select our own target and bring a photograph back, more or less on that area. It did, when the Pathfinders was formed it did make bombing, not easier, but we could get in and all we had to then with the Pathfinders was bomb the flare. We didn’t have to look for a specified target. We just bombed the flare. Go in, bomb the flare, slam your door shut, dive and get out quick. And you had to get out quick believe me. And we made our approach around and we made the bombing run and, once ‘cause this was my first trip and I was amazed. Directly we dropped the bombs we went up like a lift because the weight, the huge weight of the bombs being dropped suddenly the aircraft went up four or five hundred feet. Anyway, we slammed the, we slammed the bomb bay doors shut and then we, what we used to do was either go port or starboard, dive down and get enough speed as we could to get away from the target. Anyway, as we’re coming home, and this was on my first trip, as we were coming home the bomb aimer and the wireless operator said, ‘We can’t breathe. We’ve got no oxygen.’ Apparently the shrapnel had come through, which it always did and cut the leads from the oxygen bottles to the line to where they were breathing. Anyway, so we had to go to below ten thousand feet and then we could take our oxygen masks off and breathe normal. And as we passed over the Dutch coast which we’d seen coming in, beautiful coloured lights. I had the shock of my life. These shells were whipping past us. I’ve never seen anything like it. How they never hit us I don’t know. There was hundreds of them. All coming up. Anyway, we got over the Dutch coast, the Frisian Islands it was and made our way home, and landed. Had a look at the aircraft which always had shrapnel holes in the aircraft. Always. And we landed and I thought, that’s it, that’s one trip. I’ve got another twenty nine to do. And I mean by twenty nine means you had to bring back a picture. If you didn’t bring back a picture it didn’t count as a trip so you did it again. So instead of doing thirty you had to do did thirty one, thirty two or whatever. How many pictures you missed. And that was my first. First raid and it shook the life out of me. I never realised what it was to go all that way and the fantastic bombardment of German guns was incredible. And you had to be careful even then, coming home, because they had what they called radar operated guns on the way and they were so accurate. They never missed. Even at twenty thousand feet they could hit you as easy as anything. So you just used to do a little gentle weave to keep, well to help you to keep out of the radar. That was my first trip. We went down. We had the usual bacon and eggs, cup of coffee. Told them what we’d seen and went to kip. And the next morning we woke up and we was on bombing raid again. I should bring, I’d better bring my logbook down I think.
TO: If you want. Yeah.
HI: Yeah. Two seconds. How’s it going?
TO: Can you just sit back down again sorry. The lighting seems ok actually. Yeah. I think you’ll be alright.
HI: Alright.
TO: Yeah. Sure. You sure you don’t want me to help you get it?
HI: No. I’ll go and get it. Don’t worry.
[recording paused]
HI: I should have put exactly what was happening in my logbook but the reason why I never done that as you see. That was my first trip.
TO: Dusseldorf.
HI: Dusseldorf. And I put target found and bombed.
TO: Yeah.
HI: And the officer, he said, ‘Don’t start putting down what you done and what you didn’t.’ Just put down the target.
TO: Wilhelmshaven.
HI: Yeah. See.
TO: Bremen.
HI: And then two days later, which was the following day we went to Bremen. That was where they was building the submarines. How’s that? Is that alright?
TO: That’s a lot better. Thank you.
HI: Yeah. They was building the submarines there and we gave them the right goings. Mind the flak was absolutely horrendous there in Bremen. And believe it or not the following night we went to Wilhelmshaven. The other submarine base where they was building the submarines. And the biggest, the biggest thing at all about bombing was the flak. It was absolutely, and it was terrifying. I’ll tell you that. It was absolutely terrifying. The night fighters you never see until they hit you and we was useless really. We had only 303 calibre machine guns and the Germans had twenty millimetre cannons and we didn’t stand a chance. Never stood a chance. And the thing that done us, that the Germans brought out a simple, unique thing of placing two cannons behind the pilot on the JU88 and the M10 and all they used to do was pick you up on the radar. Drop down two or three hundred feet. Then come up underneath and go straight for the petrol tank. At first they used to go for the actual aircraft but a lot of those aircraft had bombs on board and they’d line up the fighter as well. So what they had done they used to come up underneath and they could see from the fire from the exhaust, the engines and they had a beautiful view of the petrol tank. They used to give it one quick squirt and the bomber would just used to literally blow up in the sky. I mean literally. Literally blow right up in the sky. That’s why we got thirty thousand names at Runnymede. We don’t know what happened to them.
TO: Did you ever actually see that happen on a Lancaster?
HI: I see it, yes. I see, well actually, didn’t actually see the fighter hitting the Lanc but we used to see the, see the bombers blowing up and we didn’t know why. There was no flak. All you used to see was a huge explosion and up it went. And that went on. We lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers. But the thing that annoyed me the RAF knew what was going on. They knew what was going on and not once did they ever warn us about this method of attack. Never. ‘Cause before all we expected was them to attack the rear. The rear turret. They always went for the rear turret and before they got this idea of coming up underneath. And they literally shot down hundreds and hundreds of our bombers and not once at any briefing did they warn us that we were being attacked from underneath and it went right on ‘til the end of the war when the Air Ministry admitted that’s what the Germans were doing. They never warned us. And the only reason that I think why they never warned us is because they wanted us to fly straight and level because if we’d had known what was happening we’d have weaved our way right the way through. We could have at least seen what was coming up underneath us. But we never knew. And we lost thousands of bombers over there, and that went right on till the end of the war. All those boys were lost. Yeah.
TO: Do you mind if we talk for a bit about your time before joining the RAF?
HI: Well I didn’t have a lot of time really. I was only a kid. I told you I joined when I was sixteen and I was an apprenticed tailor because living in the East End you had two jobs. You either became a tailor or a cabinet maker. You done your apprentice and that was the two main employers in the East End was tailoring and cabinet making. And I was just, I worked for a firm called Polikoff’s. A huge firm. I was apprentice there ‘til I got, till I was called up. Well, ‘til I joined the air force. And the reason I joined the air force really as well the firm I worked for got badly bombed. And one morning we went to work and there was hardly any bloody factory left. But it’s, it was a terrible, terrible time. When you think that in 1943 the average, average length of time for a bomber crew was five trips. But I carried on. I don’t know why I carried on. Why I seemed to miss it all but there you are. But I know that the RAF knew about this underneath attack because I finished my first tour. I done about, thirty — actually I done thirty nine trips on my first tour. That was because we couldn’t bring back the photograph on nine trips. So they didn’t count. And I went as an instructor instructing air crew coming back from Canada and America and Rhodesia. They was raw. Raw kids and they, you know, they had the shock of their life when they came back to England and had to fly on these terrible misty days and nights. We lost a lot of blokes killed through lack of experience. And we had to bloody well fly with them as well. Anyway, after a while they said you’re being posted back to operations and they posted me to 77 Squadron at Full Sutton in Yorkshire and when I arrived there the CO, when I arrived they said, ‘The CO wants to see you.’ So I thought, hello. I was a warrant officer then. And I went down to the office and he asked me to come in the car. We went out to the Halifax and the Halifax had a big hole in the fuselage underneath and there was a .5 been placed there. And the CO said, ‘When you go on the bombing raid you’ll be sitting there and if any aircraft come up underneath you’ll have a good view of the aircraft coming up underneath you. So therefore they knew what was going on. And we took it to a [pause] I think it was Duisburg I think.
[pause]
Yeah. Took it too Duisburg on a daylight. That was on the 14th. That was on my second tour. And I took it to Duisberg and it was so bloody cold. They made a great big hole in the bottom of the aircraft and the cold air was coming through. Not only us but the pilot, the navigator. They was frozen and they never used it no more. What they should have done was put a proper turret, enclosed turret underneath. All they had was a bloody big hole. All the slipstream used to come through the aircraft and it was impossible really enough to fly with it. Anyway, they never used it no more. Just carried on as we did. Anyway, that was on my second tour on Halifaxes. But where were we? Some very interesting raids here. Right. Went to Dusseldorf on the 13th of the 9th I think it was.
TO: Yeah.
HI: The 13th of the 9th and then on the 13th of the 9th we went to Bremen after submarines. And that was very heavily defended. And when we got back we went in bed. They said, ‘You’ve got to get up early because they’re a night flying test for tonight’s raid,’ which was on the 14th. We’d already been. We’d already just come back from Bremen. On the 14th we went to a place called Wilhelmshaven. And it was the same thing. They was producing all the submarines. And it was very important at that time because the submarines were sinking most of our ships. So they had to blast. And they did blast it. And on the 16th we went to the worst, worst place you could possibly go to. Essen. Essen was the worst place in Germany for flak and fighters and we lost literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers over Essen. There was a major Krupps factory there and that’s what we was after. We destroyed it eventually but it took a while. And we lost a hell of a hell of a lot of men.
[phone ringing]
TO: You can answer the phone. That’s fine.
HI: Ok. I won’t be –
[recording paused]
HI: That Memorial is exactly where we took off at Waddington. That was at the end of the runway but that Memorial was right bang in the middle where we took off from our aircraft’s runways. As we took off, right in front of us was the — right in front of us was the Cathedral and that is where the Memorial is now. Yeah.
TO: Sorry, you mentioned you’d been on raids to Bremen and Wilhelmshaven.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Did you actually find out the damage to the submarines you were causing?
HI: Yeah. We actually, we’d done a hell of a lot of damage there. Especially at Bremen. Apparently they really wrecked the submarine bays, well not the bases, where they was actually producing the submarines. And that’s why we went back the following night to hit Wilhelmshaven because they were sinking so many of our ships. It did slow them down a bit. How much I don’t know. But we did make two successful raids there. Because we could tell that by the photographs we brought back. Of the actual bombing. As the bombs went the camera ticks over and the photoflash was in the fuselage. It was a huge, like a huge drainpipe and that was released exactly the same time as the camera clicks over. And it was a big white burst of light that lit up the area where the camera was pointing. And you could see all these photoflashes going off on your bombing run. Apart from all the bloody aircraft that was on fire going down. Yeah. Which was many many many. Yeah. The thing that they used to kid us. They did used to kid us. We used to say we seen so many bombers going down. They said, ‘No you never.’ This was a bloke who’s never flown in his life said, ‘No, you never. What you see was Scarecrows.’ The Germans were firing up shells to mimic a bomber blowing up. And after the war they admitted there was no such thing as a Scarecrow. All those explosions were actually aircraft blowing up in the sky. And they did used to blow up as well. Yeah. Especially with a bomb load on. I think I was very very very fortunate to, to do one tour instead. And then I went on another tour. And I never, never really got myself in any trouble at all. We used to see them going down. And anyway we went to Essen and that was the worst. That is the worst place ever to go. Essen.
TO: Worse than Berlin?
HI: I think it was worse than Berlin. Yeah. Worse than Berlin. Yeah. The amount of guns there was incredible. And the amount of fighters. But that Berlin, when they done the Berlin raid they’d done, they lost nine hundred. Nine hundred bombers, didn’t they? In that period of about six weeks. They didn’t care. Anyway, on the 14th of the 9th we went to Munich. And what actually happened — on my squadron we was losing a lot of aircraft. Even at that period it was a hell of a lot of aircraft. And two fellas come down from Cambridge. They said they were scientists and said, ‘We’ve got a new device we’re going to put in the turret. And when a German night fighter approaches you from about six hundred yards away you’ll get a red light come up in your turret warning you there’s a fighter in the vicinity.’ Which was brilliant because what we could then was start weaving and not fly straight and level. Anyway, but what happened, the squadron on the raid previous to Munich two of our boys were shot down and apparently the Germans, they went for all these aircraft and must have found this instrument in the rear turret and they probably got the wavelength of it. And this is what happened. We went to Munich and we flew, ten tenths cloud all the way so we flew on top of the cloud. If a fighter came we just went straight in the cloud. We was pretty much safe. Not from flak but from the fighter. Anyway, we got to Munich and the cloud broke and there was Munich wide open. Beautiful moon and we did give it an hiding. Apparently Hitler was there giving a little talk. That’s why we went there. On the way back the skipper said, ‘We know our course back home so we’re going to fly ten tenths through the cloud all the way home so we won’t be interrupted by fighters.’ We went for about three quarters of an hour, an hour through ten tenths cloud and all of a sudden the cloud broke and I looked through the, I was in the rear turret then, I looked through the turret and there, from just where my car is was a JU88 had been following us through that cloud. And it must have been through their radar. And he opened fired and we was going, when you say flying straight and level you’re like going up and down as well. You know. Anyway, as we went down he opened fired and he just, his cannon shells went just over the top of us. We never hesitated and we couldn’t miss him. He was right bang — you could see his face even. We just opened fire. Me and the mid-upper opened fired. He swung over and down he went. That was one of my luckiest occasions I’d ever known. I’d only done about six trips and then we came back and that was it. But that’s how lucky you had to be. How he never, how he missed us I still don’t know. It was point blank range and his cannon shells went just over the top of us. Yeah.
TO: Do you think maybe he might have been low on fuel?
HI: No. I don’t think he was low on fuel. He was — I should imagine, when you say you’re flying straight and level you do but you’re going like that. Up and down like that sort of with the turbulence of the slipstream. And probably as we went down he opened fire and missed us. But we never missed. We hit him. We couldn’t miss him. He was right bang — oh he couldn’t have been no closer.
TO: So was he shot down?
HI: He went down, yeah. Yeah. We couldn’t claim it because we couldn’t verify whether he, whether he exploded on the ground or not because we went back in cloud again then. The cloud broke, we went back in to it again and came home.
TO: So you were in the mid-upper turret at this point.
HI: No. I was in the rear turret. And me and the mid-upper open fired. Yeah. I was only in the mid-upper for the first trip. Just to get used to the, to the, what the bombing raid was. The rear turret was manned by an Australian but he was very very tall and he had a bit of difficulty in the rear turret so he went into the mid-upper after the second raid and I took over in the rear turret. I wasn’t this size. I was only about nine stone then. And but he was a big tall Australian. He was too big for them. And that’s how we carried on. And after Munich we went to a place called Wismar. Am I alright?
TO: No. It’s just there’s a fly buzzing around. That’s all.
HI: A fly. I must have no flies in here, you know [pause] We went to a place called Wismar. They had a big Condor factory there and it was our job to attack this factory which was specified that it was a factory we had to bomb. There was still, you must remember there was no Pathfinders then. And we went in and I think we made a direct hit but unfortunately two of our aircraft that was with us were shot down over Wismar. So that was unfortunate. And then from Wismar there was September. 23rd of September [pause] The thing was with Bomber Command life was expendable. They didn’t care what the losses were. They’d just sent us out and sent us out and sent us out. Well, strangely enough this Wismar was a seven twenty hour trip. So we went there on the 23rd of the 9th and we had a little rest. And then on then on the 1st of the 10th we went back to Wismar again. They said go back and make sure it’s flattened. Which we did do. And then the following night, believe it or not, we’d already done a seven twenty hour trip. The following night we went to Essen. And on the way to Essen two of the engines on the starboard side shut off so, yeah the flight engineer changed the petrol tanks over to the outer tanks and immediately the two engines on the starboard side packed up. So he changed the petrol tanks over to the outer tanks and we were still flying and all of a sudden the four engines just cut. Just like that. And we just fell like that. Luckily enough the flight engineer was right on top of it all and managed to change the tanks over to the right. To the wing tip tanks and the four engines started off. And we couldn’t go to Essen because we didn’t have enough fuel. We couldn’t use all the tanks. So we turned back and we just managed to land at Waddington before all bloody four engines packed up through lack of fuel. So that’s how lucky I was. But what it was in the petrol tanks they had what they called the immersion pumps, electric immersion pumps and what was happening they was packing up on all the aircraft. So what they done they changed the immersion pumps to gravity fuel. So there was no pump there. The petrol was just dropped in gravity. And it solved a problem but before that we lost a lot of aircraft through these petrol pumps packing up. And then we went to — I think we had, I think we went on, yeah we must have gone on leave because [pause] yeah. Yeah we had, yeah we had NFT. We never done anything and then we, on the 15th of the 10th, in October we went to Cologne. And I always remember Cologne because the thing that always struck me in Cologne was the Cathedral. The huge Cathedral. And every time we went there we see that Cathedral. It never got bombed. The whole of Cologne got flattened apart from the Cathedral. There was damage but not too bad. But I don’t think through we were going to miss the Cathedral. It was just sheer luck that we did miss it. But we did hammer Cologne. It really took a terrible hiding. That was on the 15th of the 10th ‘42. October.
TO: Sorry.
HI: Yeah. Go on.
TO: Did you hear about the, what did you think of the thousand bomber raid on Cologne?
HI: That was just before we started. Actually speaking, all it was was a propaganda raid. They got every single aircraft. All from OTU and that’s where the losses were. They lost more bombers from the Operational Training Units on Wellingtons than what they did the main bomber force. They got every aircraft that could fly to make up the thousand. It was only a propaganda rout anyway because we’d done much much more damage with about two or three hundred Lancs then what that thousand bomber raid made. And most of the losses were with OTUs. The inexperienced crews training. And it was only, it was only a propaganda raid I think. They wanted, he’d only just come into office hadn’t he? Harris. And that was his first big raid and he got every bomber from OTU, Conversion Units. Anywhere he could find a bomber and as I say made up his total. But the big bombing raids started really when the Pathfinders moved in. Because what we was doing then we was bombing, not the target, we was bombing the flare. And if those flares were accurate a whole town got wiped out. Which happened quite often. At Hamburg, Dresden, Essen. The towns were open. Once they got the Pathfinders right. Perfect. All those towns were completely open. And I don’t think, I personally think this country would never have stood the bombing like the Germans did. When you think five or six hundred Lancasters each carrying one four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. Going over the target and out again within fifteen minutes. You imagine the hell that must have been there. Anyway, that was war. And then — this is a very interesting raid. On the 17th of the 10th — no, before that we was told. What actually happened was when we arrived at Waddington 44 Squadron was the first squadron to be issued with the Lancaster. What they called the Rhodesian squadron. It was all Rhodesians on it. So they decided to test out this Lancaster and they sent it to, on a bombing raid to Germany. Right into, six Lancasters and they sent right into Germany to bomb. What was the target? Anyway, on the way there the Messerschmitts jumped them and out of the six they shot five down. And only one returned. Nettleton. He got the VC. So when we was in the mess talking to the aircrew that, the one crew that come back they said never, no more will we do daylight, low level raids because it’s suicide. So in September [pause] October. Yeah — October. About the 15th they said we’re going to do some low level daylight flying and we was flying over Lincoln. Nineteen Lancasters. That’s all there was at the time at thirty or forty feet above ground. And we wondered. Surely they’re not going to have another daylight raid which did happen. On the 17th of October. The target was Le Creusot. The time, the time in the air was ten and a half hours. So you can see it was a big schlep. We went right across the North Sea. Right across France at a height of about the height of this house. Ninety Lancasters. Each carrying six one thousand pounders. We flew right across France. All the French people were out waving to us and throwing us kisses and whatnot. We were still looking for the fighters. We never see no fighters. We went right to Le Creusot. And the reason for the bombing of Le Creusot in daylight was that the whole factory was surrounded by workers dwellings and they were frightened if we bombed of a night time there’d be a heavy casualties amongst the civilians. So they decided to do it on daylight and we went right across France. Ninety two of us at about thirty feet off the ground carrying, each carrying six one thousand pounders. What actually happened at the briefing we had to — six aircraft, six Lancasters, had to break off as we reached the Le Creusot and bomb the power station just outside Le Creusot. And on our port side was the Dambuster — Gibson. And he took a picture of us, of our aircraft as we were going in to attack. And as we were going to attack this power station an aircraft on my starboard side just went straight in the deck and blew up. So there was only five of us left attacking the power station which we did attack. And we flattened, literally flatted it. And last year me and my friend was in France. I said, ‘Let’s go to Le Creusot and see what the damage was.’ And we went to the Le Creusot. There’s a huge factory there even now. And my friend approached the manager and said, ‘This bloke. I’ve a bloke out here who bombed you during the war.’ He said, ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘We want to see him.’ So they invited us in and they gave us lunch and we went around the factory and we explained what we’d done. I said, ‘But we didn’t bomb your factory. We bombed the power station,’ I said, ‘One of the aircraft was blown up on the on the approach to the power station.’ He said, ‘Yeah they’re buried. Not in a military airfield but just outside, in an ordinary field where they crashed.’ So I said, ‘Can we go and see?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ So we went out there and there were six graves and I said to the Frenchman, I said, ‘No There were seven men in the aircraft. There’s only six graves.’ He said, ‘Oh, no.’ He said, ‘The rear gunner survived and was taken.’ How? I don’t know. I’d seen the aircraft literally blowing up in the sky, no, blowing up as it hit the ground. And he survived and was taken prisoner of war. But we actually flattened the place. If you imagine ninety Lancs. Daylight. No opposition. So we come back and we were very relieved that we went all the way there and all the way back and never seen a night, never seen a day fighter. And there must have been hundreds of them there. So we were very relieved and we thought well that’s it. So we started having night flying tests to follow all that week. And then on the 22nd of October we went to Genoa. We went to Genoa in Italy which is a long long long schlep and we wondered why we went there. Because, you know, what was there? I know there was the big battle was going on in the Middle East — El Alemein, at the time because all the supplies were going from Germany through Italy. Anyway, on the Saturday, to our surprise, on Saturday morning said there’s a briefing. This was Saturday morning. So we thought that’s strange. When we went down to the briefing the biggest surprise of the lot. We was going to a do a daylight. A low level daylight raid on Milan in Italy. And that was on the, that was on the 24th of, 24th of October. Operation Milan. Ten and three quarter hours. A long schlep. And we went all the way to Italy at low level, you know, just like that until the Alps. We couldn’t go over the Alps because we were so low so we weaved our way through the Alps. Came out at Lake Como and went straight down to Milan. And I always to this day I think about it. As we approached Milan they never had no idea that there was going to be an air raid. There was no air raid siren. Nothing. So a beautiful Saturday afternoon and as we flew over Milan and made our approach to the target all the people were out in the streets walking about. In the restaurants. And then we opened up and if you imagine ninety Lancs with six one thousand pounders. We just dropped them in the town and we came home. We lost about four that day to German fighters on the way back. But I don’t know how we went all the way to Milan in daylight and come all the way back again. Incredible. And that raid was, that was a ten and three quarter hour trip. I tell you my arse was sore when I got out of that plane [laughs] We never flew no higher than about thirty or forty feet off the ground until we got to the Alps. We had to go a bit higher and then down on Lake Como right into Milan. And then there was no air raids sirens and no guns. We just literally took the whole town by surprise.
TO: Do you remember what the target was? Specifically. In Milan?
HI: No. We just, well there was no target really. We just bombed Milan. We just went in. From what I could see we just bombed the centre of the city. There was an aircraft factory that I think they were supposed to been after but they didn’t bother. They just, and actually I did see a few Lancs opening up their machine guns over the town. Yeah. I did see that. There you are. That was war. And I was, I was a veteran then. I was. We was the only crew left out the squadron. The original squadron. And then we had a little break for about [pause] that was on the 24th of the 10th . Yeah. We had about a week. Must have gone on leave. And then when we come back on the 18th of the 11th we went to Turin again just to liven them up. And believe it or not that was a seven, eight hour trip. And the following day we went back again. To Turin, and done the same again. It was a long long time. We only had about seven hour break between the two raids. And then we went to Stuttgart. Stuttgart. We never made it. You know, we had trouble with the engines and we had to come back. So it didn’t count as a raid. And then this is what happened there. Then we went to Mannheim. That was in the, oh look, you’ve got the bomb load here. One thousand, one four thousand pounder, nine hundred and eighty incendiaries and nickels. Nickels were pamphlets. You know. Propaganda. What we used to do was over the North Sea we used to throw the bleeding lot out. We didn’t want the bother of throwing them out when we got over [laughs] we were supposed to throw them out over the target. We just used to throw them in the sea. Then this, this was when the battle of Alemein was on so we went back to Turin. Nine hours. Next time we was iced up terrible with engine trouble as well. We only done three hours for that one but that didn’t count as a trip. And that was it. And then we went to — this. This, see this raid here.
TO: Is it Hasselunne?
HI: Yeah. What actually happened was we went for the briefing and we said, ‘Where the bleeding hell is Hasselunne.’ It was just a small town just outside the Ruhr valley. Even to this day I remember the briefing. He said, ‘Look’ he said, ‘You’re bombing in the Ruhr valley and none of the workers –’ am I alright?
TO: Yeah. You’re fine.
HI: ‘None of the workers are getting any rest.’ So what they’re doing is they’re sending all the workers out to the small towns so they can get a good night’s rest. You know, the factory workers. So he said, ‘What we’re going to do is liven them up.’ I couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘We’re going to liven them up.’ But they said the reason why there was no bombing that night — it was a full moon. And the full moon when you’re flying is like daylight. There was no cloud so there was going to be no bombing that night but this nuisance raid. There was seventeen Lancasters ok’d at this nuisance raid. That means we had to go in at, this is night time mind you, as low as we could and bomb, bomb the, each was given a small town, a village or small town just outside the Ruhr Valley. Seventeen of us and bomb these small towns and come back home. Just to disrupt the German workers night’s kip. Anyway, in the bomb bay was sixteen one thousand pounders. Delayed action. And then we went to Hasselunne. And it was a beautiful night. Beautiful moon. It was clear as day. We went in about four or five hundred feet with our delayed action bombs. Sixteen of them. And we dropped them right plump right down the middle of the High Street. And I still wonder today if, you know, there was about a fifty minute half hour delay action on the bombs and when we got back we thought it was an easy trip. We went there. Came all the way back at low level and landed. And, but the thing was out of the seventeen Lancasters only seven come back. And we lost ten that night. Well it was fifty percent. Over fifty percent. And that was what I call a terror raid. It was an ordinary open town sitting there like there was, as we flew over, we could see the town. The bombs went and that was it. But then again that was war. And then we went back to our old faithful — Duisburg. And I tell you what — it was getting a bit warm. It was getting a bit warm at Happy Valley. And we went there six hours fifteen minutes. I’ve got the bomb load here. We went one thousand, we went with one thousand one hundred and seventy four incendiaries and nickel. Plus nickels. Six hours fifteen. And then the following day, after we’d been there, as we came back they woke us up in the morning and said, ‘You’re on ops again.’ Munich. So all we had was about five or six hours trip, sleep and was back on the 21st. The 20th and the 21st was at Munich.
TO: Could you please elaborate on this. About training machine guns please.
HI: Yes. We did machine gun a train that night. In the station. It was puffing away in the station and the pilot said, ‘Give it a liven up,’ and we went right along the train. Me and the mid-upper. Blasting it. We see the bullets, the tracer bouncing off the train. Yeah. That was war I suppose. What happened then —
TO: Sorry, if you don’t mind, sir would be ok if you sit back so your head isn’t in the shade. Sorry.
HI: So what happened then? The pilot I was with — Stubbs — had finished his tour. And the crew and they’d finished their tour and I was left without a crew. I was sitting in the mess waiting for new crew and a bloke I knew named Doolan, Sergeant Doolan came up to me and said Harry our rear gunner’s just been killed. We’ve just brought him back dead. Would you like to take his place? So [laughs] I was rather. I knew the rear gunner because I’d have been called up with him in 1940. And his name was Robinson and he came from the other side of London. Brixton. And a night fighter got on their tail. Blasted him out the turret. Literally blasted the whole turret and the tail off. So he said, The aeroplane is being repaired,’ [laughs] Repaired. ‘In the maintenance unit. We’re going to pick it up now. It’s got a new turret on it. A new tail plane. Ready to fly again.’ He said, ‘Would you come as a rear gunner?’ I said, ‘I haven’t got a pilot. I’ll come.’ So, so I flew with this crew. They was all NCOs, and we finished. We finished a whole tour. And we was the only crew that finished a tour all the time I was at Waddington. The nine months I was at Waddington we was the only crew that finished a tour. And we was all NCOs. Where were we? So my first trip with Sergeant Doolan was Dusseldorf again. Look. Went there a few times didn’t we? Dusseldorf. And this was, this was a shaky one. Hamburg. We got to Hamburg and we was prepared to go in for the bombing raid. The flak was crashing about all over us and the plane started going like that. Literally dropping like a stone. So the pilot said, ‘We’re so iced up that we can’t fly the bloody aircraft.’ And I could hear somebody say, ‘Oh it’s coming off.’ Great big lumps of ice crashing against the aircraft. Anyway, he said we’ll have to abandon. So we dropped our bombs where we were. Just outside Hamburg and went down as low as we could and the ice started breaking away and we managed to fly again properly. But when I got back and told them that was a really dicey trip they said, ‘You didn’t you get no photograph then?’ We said, ‘No. We just approached Hamburg, we see Hamburg being bombed but we just couldn’t make it,’ They said, ‘Well, it’s unfortunate. That don’t count. That was another trip that didn’t count [laughs] You know, it was hard in those days I’m telling you. And us all being NCOs and the briefing officer probably being a flight lieutenant or a squadron leader we couldn’t argue with it. We was only bleeding poor old NCOs. And then this is a new year. No. This is the 13th of the 2nd 1943. This was in February ‘43. We went to Laurent in France which wasn’t bad. It was an easy trip that was. And then back to Milan which was a long, long. long slog. And then our favourite. As a rear gunner our favourite was operations to Wilhelmshaven. Back to Wilhelmshaven. And then again to Bremen. Which was unusual I started off there didn’t I? Wilhelmshaven and went the other way around. Bremen and Wilhelmshaven. This time it was Wilhelmshaven and Bremen and I tell you what. There was some flak there. There was some flak. We got badly damaged coming back from Bremen so we had to land at a place called Croft. And then we returned the next morning in another aircraft. And then we went to Nuremberg and that night, believe it or not, we lost fifty that night. Flying to Nuremberg. The next time they went there they lost a hundred and twenty. Yeah. They lost a hundred and twenty. They went back there again a couple of months later and lost a hundred and twenty Lancs in one night.
TO: Out of how many?
HI: About four hundred. Yeah. It was slaughter. And then again on the 26th of February I went to Cologne. Do you want to see it in here?
TO: Yeah.
HI: Have you seen Cologne?
TO: Yes. I’ve seen it. Thank you. Sorry. Is it ok if I ask what did you think of Arthur Harris?
HI: Well, to me personally speaking the man had plenty of guts because after the Nuremberg raid we’d lost a hundred and twenty bombers that night. The following night he sent out another huge force. Now, a man has got to have, you’ve got to have some guts in you to do that. You know. After that terrible loss. But he was the man to do the job. Nobody else could do it. He, only took orders from Churchill. Churchill was the governor and what Churchill said went. Unless it was a diabolical raid and Harris said, ‘No. I can’t manage that.’ But there was, he had an aide de camp, Harris. I forget his name now. And we was going on a bombing raid and the aide de camp said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘It’s too much. It’s too many losses. We’re losing too many people there. We shouldn’t go.’ And he resigned. But Harris still went and we still had the losses. So there was somebody you know up the top knew what was going on. Our losses were, well you can’t, you cannot believe it. You could say you’d go on leave, you’d go on leave and come back in the mess — there was all strangers in there. All the old crews had gone. Within a week. Had a heavy week all had gone. All new crews. Yeah. And the faces got younger and younger and younger.
TO: Did you look young for your age?
HI: Do you think so?
TO: No, did you? Did you look young for your age? Or did you look older?
HI: Here. There I am there. On the wall. You see me. There. Picture on the wall.
TO: Thank you.
HI: Can you see it?
TO: Yeah. I see it. Do you think, did anyone ever find out that you’d lied about your age?
HI: Yeah. They did after I’d — I went, I went in the air force under the name of my mother’s maiden name because I didn’t want — I was stupid. I went in the name of, the name of Galloway. And then when I’d been on 9 Squadron about two months the CO called me in and said, ‘We found out your name isn’t Galloway. It’s Irons.’ He said, ‘We’ve changed,’ he never said nothing, he said, ‘Your name’s been changed now to Irons.’ And I went from Galloway to Irons and nothing was said about it. But it was all kids, all joined . Loads and loads of sixteen and seventeen year olds. There’s me there. When I got married.
TO: Was that, was that during the war?
HI: Yeah. That was just before I went and bombed Dresden. That was about two weeks before I bombed Dresden. 1944. I don’t know what made me get married then. I don’t know. And this here [pause] this, they used to kid us, they used to kid us that was an easy trip.
TO: Gardening.
HI: And it was the most dangerous trip we ever been. Mining. We used to have six one thousand pound mines on parachutes. And the thing was you had to fly over the Baltic and drop these mines at about five hundred feet. Jerry knew this and he had loads of these little fast boats with light flak on them and they shot down loads and loads of our boys. On these mining trips. And they used to call it an easy trip. That’s because it wasn’t the Ruhr valley.
TO: Did they call it gardening?
HI: They called it. Yeah. That was the code name for it. Gardening, yeah. Because you was planting. Instead of fruit you were planting mines. Called it gardening. Yeah. Oh you know. And then believe it or not I was back, back on my old favourite. Oh I went to Munich on the 3rd. And on the 9th we had this gardening and on the 12th back on my old favourite. Essen. I went to the Ruhr valley twenty seven times and I survived. How I done it I don’t know. And then we went to St Nazaire. Went to St Nazaire and that was a dodgy trip. They had a hell of a load of flak. We was in France and had a lot of flak. The thing was we had a, we had a wireless operator and on one of our trips he wasn’t well and he couldn’t fly that night. So he, he was one trip behind us. Say we was on twenty eight he was on twenty seven so he had to make up a trip so what they used to do they used to find another crew who wanted a spare wireless operator and he’d go and make up his trip. He was one behind. Unfortunately, he went on this trip and he never come back. A bloke named Chapel. He was on about his twenty seventh trip. He only had three or four trips to do. And he went on this trip and never came back. Which happened all the time. And then [pause] we ended our tour. My last trip was Kiel Canal which is a shocking place that was. Shocking. Well they was all bad. And then I survived. I survived thirty seven trips and I’m still a sergeant. And they sent me to a OTU. Sent me to OTU as an instructor. And I done that for about six months and was in the mess one night and we’d had a load, I used to drink then. I don’t drink now. And we were already sozzled and we caused a little bit of damage. A little bit of mayhem in the mess. We went in front of the CO the next morning and he said, ‘I’m bloody fed up with you gunners.’ And he said, ‘I’m posting you.’ And I thought where the bloody hell are you going to post me? The two postings he’d already got out was to Scotland. I thought sod that. I’ve got to go up all way to Scotland. And my posting come up. Southend. Just down the road. How lucky could I be? And what I was doing I was flying in Martinets towing a drogue for the flak. And we used to go right from Dover, Ramsgate, Margate, Clacton, not Clacton. All the way along the south coast towing this drogue. And the British ack ack used to fire, but they were so bloody accurate they used to keep blowing the bloody drogues off. So they told the gunners to fire a couple of degrees further back. And you used to watch the flak. I used to watch the flak in a straight line, right coming right along, right. I hoped they’d stop firing before the [laughs] and you could see the puffs of smoke trailing the white, trailing the big white drogue we had. And I’d done that went on for a few months and they said you’re going to back on ops again. And that’s when I went back on Halifaxes. And that was in [pause] that was in — there was a little bit of a rest and I never expected to go back on ops again. These are all towing drogues. The co-op yeah.
TO: So how many ops did you do in total during the war?
HI: Sixty.
TO: Sixty.
HI: Yeah. And then this is when I was telling you about. The beginning, the beginning of my second tour.
TO: [unclear]. Another daylight one.
HI: Yeah. Well that’s when I, when the CO told me they’d put a .5. It was a big hole. A huge hole cut around underneath the belly of the Halifax. And they had the .5 there. And we went all the way to Duisburg. The flak was, the flak was just as bad as when, well it was worse than when I’d been there previous. In the previous months. And I never seen no fighters. And it was in daylight. When we come back the pilot was screaming his head off. He said, ‘I’m not going to fly any more planes with a bloody great hole in the bottom of the aircraft.’ He said, ‘It’s too cold.’ So they, they put a block on it. But the funny thing was as we were going in to Duisburg we was, we was approaching Duisburg the someone, the ones in front had already bombed Duisburg and they were coming back. Like in a U. Coming back. There was about a quarter of a mile. As we was going in like that they was coming out. And one of our aircrafts, I don’t know why he done it, he decided he wasn’t going to bomb Duisburg. He was going to join those that was already coming out. And as he went across from our, from our flight as he went across, right across to join those that were coming out, the flak — because we was on the protection of the silver paper. We was all dumping the silver paper out and the radar couldn’t do nothing about it. But he broke the protection of the silver paper to cut across to join the blokes that was coming out. The flak opened up. It went one — one, two, three. The third one hit him. Right dead centre. Just went like that. It’s a shame. And I’ve seen it at night time. But during the day I’d seen it. I couldn’t believe it. Just went in smithereens. He still had his bomb load on. He must have had. Yeah. Why he cut across I don’t know but he just blew up. Yeah.
TO: Could you please explain how the silver paper or Window worked?
HI: Well, what it was, each piece of silver paper made a blimp on their radar screen. Each piece. So if you imagine millions of pieces dropping down — the whole screen was absolutely flooded. And the guns just stood still because they didn’t know which, which blimp to follow. Instead of one blimp on the screen there was thousands of them and they didn’t — so the guns just stood like that. The searchlights stood like that. The fighters didn’t know what to do, and the fighters — what they’d done they’d put a separate radar in the fighters. Night fighters. Independently. And they could still attack us which they did do. But the silver paper definitely helped us. Really helped us with the flak and the searchlights. They couldn’t do anything. The searchlights just used to stand still like that. But one thing they used to do which let’s say there was cloud cover most of the way to the target. The searchlights used to light up under the cloud and the bombers that were flying above it were silhouetted out against the light of the cloud and the fighters used to go straight in there. You know. Loads and loads of fighters. You had to watch them all the time and directly you see one you went straight into a dive to try to get out of its way. But as you know we never flew in a formation and there was a lot of crashes with our bombers criss-crossing and diving about.
TO: Did you participate in the large raid on Hamburg in July 1943?
HI: No. I missed that one. I went to the one previous. The one previous what I went to. That one was the fire one wasn’t it? That was the first time they used silver paper. That was exactly the first time they used it. We’d never used it.
TO: Did people call it silver paper or did most people call it Window?
HI: Window. Window. It was called Window. Yeah. Yeah. They had that right from the war. They had it but they wouldn’t use in case. They were frightened the Jerries were going to use it.
TO: And ironically Germany had developed it at the same time and didn’t want to use it.
HI: They did. Yeah.
TO: In case Britain used it.
HI: Yeah. Yeah. We used it because we were getting very strong in the air at that time. And they had to use it because the night fighters were getting the upper. And do you know at one period they was going to pack up night bombing? Yeah. They were going to stop it because the losses were so heavy. Yeah.
TO: And what’s your opinion on the Halifax bomber?
HI: Good. The Halifax Mark 3 was a good bomber. It never got the credit it deserved. It was a very very good bomber. They changed the engines and the tail plane and it became a very very good bomber. It was reliable. Got a good speed. Good height. The Mark 2 was rubbish. I think the Germans shot most of them down, like the Stirling. But the Mark 3 Halifax was a good plane. They changed the engines to Bristol, Bristols, and it made a lot of difference. Yeah.
TO: And what did you think of the Wellington?
HI: The Wellington was a good plane but it wasn’t up to it when the war started. It was alright for a few months of the war. My first squadron, number 9, they made the first bombing raid of the war and they lost, I think they lost two or three on their first bombing raid. The Wellington was a good plane but it wasn’t up to the capability of bombing. Night bombing. It was too slow. Didn’t get the height. They did go up to the Mark 10 and we used to see them now and again but they didn’t use them a lot at the end of the war. The Stirling was useless. The Stirling one was a useless bomber. Couldn’t get no height. It was big. It was clumsy. Some of the blokes used to like it but not many.
TO: And the Lancaster. What did you think?
HI: The Lancaster was a good plane. Yeah. Was a good plane. Yeah. And they churned them out. The way they churned them out was unbelievable. Do you know what we’re going to do now? We’re going to stop for a bit. I’m going to make you a cup of tea.
TO: Yeah. Sure. Are we on course?
HI: Yeah.
TO: Yeah. Ok.
TO: Yeah. Are you ok? Yeah.
[pause] [doorbell rings]
TO: Ok.
HI: Right. What do you want? The second tour?
TO: Yes. Start on the second tour I think.
HI: What happened I was doing drogue towing with my Martinets and the CO called us in and said, ‘You’re back on ops.’ And they sent me to 77 Squadron, Full Sutton. October 1944. And when I arrived they said, ‘The CO wants to see you. So I said what’s he want to see me about.’ I bet he wants to borrow a few [laughs] Anyway, he came out to us and he said, ‘We’re just, this is a special Halifax,’ and he said, ‘It’s got a big hole been cut in the bottom of the Halifax.’ It was a big hole as well. And it was a .5. and they put a sort of, I don’t how they expected me to sit on that bloody seat all those hours. And it was a manual. It was a manual .5 and they said, ‘If a fighter, a night fighter comes up underneath you’ll be able to spot it and protect the aircraft.’ So I said, ‘Alright. Fair enough.’ And the strange thing was it wasn’t on a night bombing trip. They sent me on a day trip to Duisburg. And I never see no fighters come up. And we come back. But the crew, the crew was complaining terrible about the hole in the aircraft and the cold air coming through. Anyway, on the 22nd of the 10th ’44 I went up again in this Halifax with a .5 and done a little bit of air firing with it. And I come down. I said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to be very successful because it’s too bloody cold.’ So, so the CO said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with you then. We’ve don’t need any gunners here.’ And they posted me to 462 Squadron at Driffield, Australian squadron. And there I started my, on the 29th of the 10th. 29th of the 10th [pause] where was I there. Yeah. On the 22nd I was at Full Sutton. On the 29th of the 10th I was on ops in 462 Squadron, Driffield. 1942. The pilot apparently had been shot down over France and he made this because it was occupied by the British troops then. And they managed to get back to England and of course he was looking for a new crew and I joined him. And believe it or not as a mid-upper. I don’t know why they put me as a mid-upper. Anyway, they put me as a mid-upper and we went to Happy Valley. A place called Dornburg It was a daylight on Dornburg. That was just outside Happy Valley. On the following day we went to Cologne. Operations — Cologne. That was as a night time. And I couldn’t see them I was beginning to find it was getting a bit easier. The ops were getting easier. The flak was just as bad but the fighters didn’t seem, the fighters didn’t seem such a pest like they used to be. And the thing was every trip I went on. Every trip I went on my second tour. Near enough every one, near every one, was to Happy Valley. The next trip was with Hourigan, an Australian, was to Dusseldorf. And on the 4th we went to Bochum. Bochum. That’s in the Ruhr valley as well. And then [pause] and then we went on a daylight raid. It just shows you. A daylight raid to Gelsenkirchen and — which was unbelievable. You’d never, the year before they would never have dared gone over the Ruhr valley in the daylight. And then we done a bit of air firing in a Halifax. And then we went back to Essen. Hourigan again. I was with Hourigan again and we went to Essen on the 29th of ‘44. And on the 30th believe it or not we was back in Duisburg. And every one of those trips was to the Ruhr Valley. And on the 21st of the 12th ‘44 I went to Cologne. And I was posted from there to the other Australian squadron 466 Squadron. Total operations — I thought it was nine. Then I was posted to the other Australian squadron at Driffield — 466. And I carried, and I went with, wait a minute, I carried on with Hourigan and we went to Saarbrucken in daylight. Which was unbelievable. And then we went to Magdeburg in the, in the Ruhr Valley. And then back to Gelsenkirchen again as a mid-upper. I went as a mid-upper then in a Halifax. But I found that things were a bit easier in the second tour. Wasn’t really because we were still losing a hell of a load of bloody aircraft but it seemed to me a bit, seemed to me to be a bit lighter. And then on the 2nd of the 2nd ‘45 I went to Wanne-Eickel. It’s another — I missed out a page here.
[pause]
And then I was posted to 158 Squadron at Lissett in Yorkshire. And the first trip we went to was to Dresden. That was on the 13th of the 2nd ‘44. We, we never actually bombed Dresden. We bombed the place just outside Dresden called [unclear ] or [unclear] or Bohlem or whatever. B O H L E M. We was told to go in before the 5. We were in 4 Group and were told to go in just before 5 Group and draw the fighters away from Dresden which we did do. We had bleeding swarms of bleeding fighters around us. And the Lancs went into Dresden unopposed and that’s why Dresden took such a hiding. There was no opposition whatsoever there. And then 5 Group just done what they liked. And we could see, well we was right next door to it. We could see the huge blaze at Dresden burning merrily away. And we was at, from this place just outside Dresden. We landed. We had trouble. I think we got hit that night and we landed back at Manston for a couple of hours. Then we went to, then funnily enough I started flying with a Canadian. A Canadian named Cooperman. And strangely enough that was, that was back, back at the Ruhr Valley again. Rohrsheim. And then the following, the following day I was with Cooperman and we was bombing a place called Worms in the Ruhr valley. And I always remember to this day, this Canadian, who was a Jew, was a Jewish bloke and he’d left Germany with his parents before the war. And he was, he was a flying officer in the Canadian Air Force. And as we approached Worms he said, ‘Chaps,’ he said, ‘This is where I was born.’ He said, ‘And now I’m going to bomb the bastards.’ And those were the exact words he said. And we did. We went and bombed it. And the next thing we knew and on the 23rd of the 2nd we went to Essen again and, the times I went to Essen, and the following day on the 24th of the 2nd I went back to the Ruhr Valley and done close quarter — Kamen. And then the following on the 27th — That was our last trip of the war we went to Mainz. And most of those trips were in the Ruhr valley. And unscathed. Unbelievable. And of course the war, the war finished soon after that didn’t it? 27th of the 2nd.
TO: And what are your thoughts on the bombing of Dresden?
HI: Well to be honest with you it was just well after all those trips it just came normal. You know. You just looked down and saw a huge huge fire below you which you normally see and that was it. Dresden was the same. We was, the place we bombed was more or less on the outskirts of Dresden. The idea of us was to draw the fighters away. Just go in about five or six minutes before the main force. Bring the fighters away and of course that’s what happened. And the Lancs from 5 Group went in and done their business. They did do the business. There was no flak there. No opposition whatsoever. There was no flak and no fighters. They just went in, done their bombing and went home. And of course it caught well alight.
TO: Did the fire that you could see at Dresden — did it look any bigger than what you had seen before?
HI: It looked big, yeah. We could see. All the crew said, ‘Blimey that’s a big one down there.’ But then again most, most bombing trips we always had looked down, those targets were well alight. Well alight. The amount of incendiaries we dropped was unbelievable. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them. Yeah.
TO: This is going to be an odd question and I don’t think you may even be able to answer it, but when you were flying over areas that were on fire could you, was there any noticeable change in the temperature when you were flying above it?
HI: No. I wouldn’t have thought so. You was only over the target, it looked like a lifetime but you was only over there minutes. Really minutes. Oh, you’re talking about the hot air coming up?
TO: Yeah. The [unclear] rising up.
HI: I don’t think — they never noticed. It didn’t seem no bloody warmer in the turret anyway [laughs] but all you was, I’d known from my personal opinion was we wanted to get in. Get out. Quick as possible. That’s what we done. But the thing that we never realised but the German fighters told us afterwards, the worst thing we ever done was after we’d dropped our bombs was to go into a dive. We should never have done that because that gave the advantage to the night fighters. They was above you then. Well above you to come in. What we should have done is kept the same height coming out of the target. But we all used to dive. Pick up speed to get away from the target. Yeah. But you used to see on the way home you always see bombers blowing up in the sky. All the time. Yeah. Over the target, yeah. And the thing was to get in and get out quick.
TO: Right. How do you feel about Churchill’s decision when he ordered the bombing of cities?
HI: Well, we never knew it was. We knew it was somebody higher up than Harris but of course it was, was Churchill. He demanded that we bombed the cities and Harris just took his word for it and he made sure we did bomb them. And of course he had the backing of a huge bomber force didn’t he? Lancs, Halifaxes. Probably, if we’d had them a year earlier the war would have finished earlier. But the bomb load was enormous. One four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. Imagine that lot dropping. Four or five hundred bombers dropping that lot on a small town. Yeah.
TO: When you went on missions were you part of a bomber stream?
HI: Well a stream. It was, literally was a stream. There was no formation flying or nothing. You just went over and you had to be in a certain point. More or less rendezvous at a certain point on the map. So that you were more or less was all collected together so you could make one rush to the target. Get in and get out quick. You never doodled about over the target. You went in and especially with the Pathfinders. You just, you just went for the flare. You’d see the flares. Went straight for the flares.
Other: Sorry to disturb you again Harry.
HI: Yes sir.
[recording paused]
TO: You think, you just mentioned to me something about the evasive manoeuvres. The night fighters said the wrong thing to do was to dive.
HI: Yeah. Leaving the target. We found out, well after the night fighters said it was the wrong thing to do was to dive away from the target because it gave them the advantage of height to come in after you. Which, when you think about it, was right. But what actually caused the much trouble for Bomber Command was the up and under. The Schrage musik. That was one that caused all the trouble. The flak you couldn’t, couldn’t avoid. The flak was there. If it hit you it hit you and if it didn’t hit you you was lucky. It was just sheer luck. You couldn’t avoid it. You had to go through it and if one of those shells hit you that was it. Yeah. We used to get huge lumps of shrapnel come through the aircraft. That was the danger. And if that hit you it caused terrible damage. So there you are.
TO: Could you see much on the ground other than fires and explosions?
HI: No. All you could see from about twenty thousand feet you didn’t keep looking at the target because you had to keep active with the fighters. Because they was all around you. All waiting for you. They was like sharks and you had to watch. You had to really watch the sky for fighters. They were the biggest danger. And when they come in they showed no mercy. They went straight in.
TO: Yeah.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Did night fighters take out more bombers than flak?
HI: Yeah. Definitely. Much much more. Especially with the up and under. That’s what done it. Yeah. I think they — I reckon — I don’t know, I’ve got no idea but I reckon seventy five per cent, eighty percent of the shot down were done by fighters. And you know when you think some had forty or fifty bombers to their credit. It was so easy for them. You could come and all they had to do was get underneath the aircraft, press the trigger, press the button, fire the guns and they wouldn’t, the shells that were explosive shells go into the petrol tank. Bang. Up it went. Just like that.
TO: And when you, can you explain to me a bit more how the briefings worked for the missions?
HI: Well, what it actually was we were two squadrons. We were told at the briefing in the briefing room was near enough down to your HQ you know where all the office buildings were. And with a crowd in the room there was always a military policeman on the, on the gate and we went in and sat down. A bit noisy. Everybody was noisy. Laughing and joking. Then all of a sudden — bang. The CO would come in with his adjutant and his armament officer, gunnery officer, bomb aimer officer and navigation officer used to follow the CO in. And they’d go on the platform and we’d wait for the curtain. There was a big curtain over the map. That was pulled down and then you’d see. And that’s when you used to get the ohs and ahs. See the Ruhr. See the Ruhr Valley up and say, ‘Oh blimey.’ But they didn’t, they used to love Italy. Going to Italy. But Munich was a bad target, Nuremburg was, Berlin was. But the Ruhr valley was the place where most of the flak was. The reason for it was because you didn’t have one town. You had about ten or fifteen towns near enough on top of each other. And if you missed one, one town, if you missed one town you had to go over another town and they’d give you a pasting as well. That’s why they used to call it Happy Valley. Yeah. You got a good reception going in and a better reception coming out. You used to see the bombs blowing upwards and the huge explosions down below. You still had to keep one eye out for the fighters. Especially the single engine fighters. They used to come in and they used to go right through the flak after you. Yeah. Messerschmitt. Used to come straight at you. And they had four cannons and if one of those hit you mate it was good night nurse.
TO: What kind of targets were you generally given at the briefings?
HI: Well, we was told an area where to bomb. We were never given an actual target. We was given an area to bomb because very very difficult of a night time picking out a target from twenty thousand feet. You got an area and we would bomb that area. If we could. If it was a clear moonlight night and at that time we were dropping our own flares. There was no Pathfinding at the beginning. And we used to drop our own flares to see where, you know, where the target was. And it got easier when they got the Pathfinders. Because all that meant there was — get to the target and see the flare. Bomb the flare. But the trouble was Jerry knew this was going on and so he used to concentrate all his, all his artillery on where the flares were. And a lot of places were literally burned to pieces. Because I didn’t realise how many houses in Germany were made of wood. It was amazing. Dresden was nearly all wood wasn’t it? Yeah. And there was another place. I forget where it was. Completely burned down. Near the Baltic. I can’t remember the name.
TO: Hamburg.
HI: No. Smaller place than that. They burned the whole town down. That was in about 1942.
TO: Lubeck.
HI: Ah, Lubeck. Yeah. Yeah. They burned Lubeck down completely. Yeah. Raised it to the ground. Incendiaries. They were fearsome things those incendiaries. I think they was about eighteen inches long. Shaped like a twenty piece coin. About four, I think it had four or five sides to it but they were pretty deadly. Imagine that. I mean we used to carry fourteen or fifteen hundred. You imagine a hundred Lancs all carrying that amount load. How many incendiaries were dropped in one night. And then we had the other incendiary with oil. That was a terrible one as well.
TO: And were you ever given, did you ever win any awards during the war?
HI: Yeah. I got the DFC. The reason I think I got that because after, as the war was finishing they asked me how many trips I’d done. I wrote them down. They took no notice of it and then a couple of weeks later they said, ‘Oh. You’ve been awarded the DFC.’ So that’s what I got, the DFC. It was a bit unique because I was a warrant officer. I wasn’t an officer and that’s an officer’s medal the DFC but being a warrant officer they gave it to the, gave us the DFC as well.
TO: Did it go to the rest of the crew as well?
HI: That I don’t know. The war had finished and most of the crews had dispersed, you know. What was left of them. Most of the blokes during the war was awarded the DFCs and DFMs. A lot of them got killed. A hell of a lot of them. Usually and this is what I don’t understand — when I finished my first tour everybody got the DFM except me. That I don’t understand. Then I realised what it might have been. Because I changed my name from Irons to Galloway when I was halfway through me tour. And I think they might have looked at it and just seen Galloway. And Irons was just so many trips. And Irons was so many trips and they never connected the two together. But all the crew got the DFM except me. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, mid-upper except me.
TO: And what was your favourite aircraft of the war?
HI: Well, I think, myself the Halifax. I thought the Halifax Mark 3 was a better aircraft than the Lanc. It was a good bomber. It done its job. Same as the Lanc. I don’t think it carried the same heavy bomb load as a Lanc. It was a good plane. Had no problems with it. We had four machine guns in the mid-upper and four in the back so it was a bit better armed than the, than the Lanc. And right at the end of the war of course they brought out the other turret with the .5s in them. It was a bit late though. The war was more or less finished. We should have had them in ‘42. They made a hell of a lot of difference.
TO: And I know we mentioned this earlier but could you explain again what happened to people who refused to go on bombing missions?
HI: Well I know it happened. I know it happened. I’ve heard, you know, stories of what happened. I never come across it myself but it did happen. And especially not the officers so much which I still don’t understand that. But the NCOs were stripped. Stripped down to AC2 and put in the prison. I think it was in the Isle of Sheppey and they done about two or three months here. And when they came out on their record books, you know the big card box, book thing you all had was right at the top in red letters that they’d refuse to fly. LMF. Yeah. Which was wrong. Some blokes couldn’t take it. Just couldn’t take it. Probably had a couple of bad trips and that was it. And they were bad trips. Yeah. And after the war they just treated us like mud. Didn’t care. Gave us all the menial jobs there were about and that was it. We had to wait twelve months before we got demobbed. A lot of them got, a lot of them had their ranks cut right down to AC1 and AC2. I don’t know why. I never, but a lot of them did. Which was all wrong.
TO: And what’s your best memory of the war?
HI: My best memory of the war was my first bombing trip. To Duisburg. Not Duisburg.
TO: Dusseldorf.
HI: Dusseldorf. That was my first trip and that was the most frightening. It wasn’t the worst one I done but it was my first one and I never expected what I’d see. Never knew. And when we come back after a bombing raid we never discussed, never discussed a bombing trip anyway. We never said it was bad or anything like that. We just, just more or less kept quiet. Because we was all frightened what was going to be the next one I think. Which near enough always happened. The crews. You’d go on leave, you’d come back — all different faces. Yeah. And that went on time and time again. I think they could have treated bomber crews a little bit better than what they did for what they’d done but there you are.
TO: And what was probably the most difficult mission you ever had? If you don’t want to discuss don’t talk about it.
HI: No. The most difficult place to go to was Essen. It was terrible. The flak there was unbelievable. It was all difficult. Every one. You never knew. You never knew your luck. Some went on easy trips. They thought was an easy trip. Like the one who got the VC for the first daylight raid. Low level raid of the war in a Lancaster. He got the VC and he stayed on the squadron but he never done no trips until one came up for Italy which we used to say it was easy. He went on an Italian one and got shot down. So you never knew your luck. Nettleton. That was the VC. Yeah. He went on one of the easy Italian trips and got shot down.
TO: So you mentioned earlier that guy Gibson was with you on that one low level mission.
HI: Oh yeah. Yeah.
TO: Was he with a different squadron number at that time?
HI: Yeah. He was, he was 106 squadron. He was the CO of 106 Squadron. 106 Squadron. He was definitely on our port side. And he took the photograph of us and another crew as we were just going into Le Creusot and that is, and the actual picture now is in the big museum at Hendon. The big photograph of it. Yeah. Because he went on to become the Dambuster didn’t he?
TO: What do you think of Operation Chastise?
HI: Operation?
TO: Chastise. It was the Dambusters raid.
HI: Well I reckon myself, personally speaking they could have got near enough any crew could have done that. It was only just more or less flying low and dropping the bomb at the right height. But they just, they just picked the crews, he picked the crews he wanted. They were all his mates mostly from 106 Squadron. But it was a good raid that weren’t it? A good raid. There was worse ones than that but there you are. You can fly to Essen or on the Ruhr Valley was a much more dangerous target than the — than that.
TO: Did you ever have to attack railway yards?
HI: They did but we never attacked, I never attacked a railway yard. Only in Italy, Genoa. But we attacked the whole town and the railway yard was amongst it, you know. We attacked that because they was having a big huge battle at Alemain and the Germans were bringing supplies through to Genoa down to the Middle East. And we attacked it. The railway yards there. Yeah.
TO: And what do you think was the most important campaign of the war?
HI: Well actually — what? From the whole of —
TO: From the whole of the war.
HI: Bomber Command. I think if it hadn’t been for Bomber Command the war would have gone on for much much much longer. Much longer. So we — so you’ve been to Germany haven’t you? Seen the, did you see the state of the bombing? Oh you never did you?
TO: I saw, I saw the church that they left.
HI: Yeah. Yeah. But the flak, but the bombing terrorised Germany. Definitely. I don’t think we would have stood it anyway. I know we wouldn’t have done.
TO: And did you hear at all — when did you hear about the Holocaust?
HI: Nobody heard about that ‘til after the war. They must have known. They must have had, they must have had reports coming through from the Resistance about what was happening but we never heard about it. We never knew it was going on. The funny thing was I read after the war that the Jewish community in England asked us, asked Bomber Harris to bomb Auschwitz. Bomb it completely. And he refused. Good job he did because can you imagine what would have happened after the war when they found out that they said the RAF had bombed a concentration camp? The thing was the Jews reckon that it was better for them to be killed with a bomb than the suffering like they were. [pause – fly buzzing on recording] Got some flies in here haven’t we? Have you got it all written down have you?
TO: I have my questions on here. See which ones I’ve asked and which I haven’t because a lot of them you’ve answered already in your — in your —
HI: Yeah.
TO: Were clouds over the target ever a major problem?
HI: It was a big problem. Once, well once the cloud was over the target you couldn’t see it so you either had to bring your bombs back or drop them on a near enough target what you see. And once you, if you went over the target we shouldn’t have gone, we shouldn’t have gone on the raid. If the Met officer told us that there was full cloud over the target we shouldn’t go. We had a few cancellations like that. We were all ready to go sitting in the aircraft and then the red light would come up. No ops through, through bad weather. Icing was one of the worst most dangerous things. Flying through cloud with the ice.
TO: And before you joined the RAF can you, do you remember much about seeing the bombing of London?
HI: Oh I seen London. I was, I told you. We lived at Stamford Hill. It was a high, quite a high part of the ground and you had a first class picture of what was happening in the City of London. It was well alright. Really well alight. They caught the whole of the city alight. It was blazing. And that’s when we decided to join the RAF. A lot of the bombs were dropped scattered in London anyway. A hell of a lot of the bombs were dropped everywhere. Not in one area. Just dropped their bombs and went away. You know. It was over London. That was it.
TO: And do you remember seeing much of the Battle of Britain?
HI: Yeah we see a little bit of it. We were about fifteen sixteen then. Sixteen. And we was over the Lea. The big open open field by the River Lea and we had a grandstand view of the RAF Spitfires attacking the bombers and the fighters. We see them going down. Yeah. It was quite a battle. Yeah. And as I say they had a terrific disadvantage. The Germans. Because they had to come all the way over France before they got to England, and our Spitfires were waiting for them when they come here. They didn’t have that huge journey. They were more or less local. At Hendon they were at. Hornchurch. Yeah. Good job we beat them. But the Battle of Britain was no comparison. I’ll tell you now, no comparison to the Battle for the Ruhr. No comparison whatsoever. In terms of casualties anyway.
TO: And can you tell me a bit about the gunnery school course you went on?
HI: Yeah. When we arrived there we was told it was a six weeks course. I think we flew about — I’ve got it here. I know it wasn’t a lot.
[pause]
HI: In all I done nineteen hours flying. Nineteen hours. It’s frightening. And it was all firing at drogues. Two hundred rounds fired. All usual firing at a drogue being towed by an aircraft.
TO: Yes.
HI: Done six weeks there and I was straight on ops which was frightening really. You didn’t know what was happening [laughs] till, till you got there. Yeah.
TO: Is it ok if I close the door to the lounge? There seems to be a bit of birdsong coming through.
HI: Pardon?
TO: Is it ok if I close the door to the lounge?
HI: Yeah
TO: Sorry. It’s just a bit of —
HI: What? A bit of a reflection.
TO: No. There’s a bit of birdsong coming through. That’s all.
HI: Birdsong.
TO: Yeah.
HI: Yeah. Go on. Yeah. You don’t like birds.
TO: No. It’s just it might interfere on the film. That’s all. Sorry.
[pause]
TO: Nothing to do with birds it’s just it might be interfering in the background noise that’s all. I haven’t got a problem with birds. Sorry what was that. I couldn’t remember, what were saying earlier about the propaganda leaflets that you had with you?
HI: Nickel. Every time we took off there was a pack. A big parcel of nickels. Not on every raid but a lot of the raids and it was up to the engineer mostly to throw them through the bomb bay. He had a window at the side of him and he could open up and could throw the nickels into the bomb bay. So when the bomb bay, when the bomb doors opened all the nickels floated out. That was the idea of it. But our skipper say sod it and just used to ask one of the crew to go back and throw them out the bleeding aircraft. We don’t want to — ‘We’ve got enough on our plate without throwing out bloody leaflets.’ And it was a load of rubbish that the Jerry never took notice of. Just a waste of time.
TO: Harris said after the war he never engaged in pamphlet dropping for two reasons. One — it gave the defenders plenty of practice in getting ready for it.
HI: Yeah.
TO: And two it supplied a considerable quantity of toilet paper to the Germans.
HI: That’s right. Yeah [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Nickels they called them.
TO: And did you hear about Hitler’s invasion of Russia?
HI: Oh we heard about it. It was on the news. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It didn’t make no difference to us. We were still building our forces. That was in nineteen forty — in the nineteen forty wasn’t it? Russia.
TO: I think it was ’41. Or around that time.
HI: Yeah. It didn’t bother us but my squadron, number 9 and 617 went to Russia before they bombed the Tirpitz because it’s such a long distance they had to refuel and on the way back they bombed the Tirpitz. And they were successful. They sunk that anyway.
TO: Were your, did you ever see the Tallboy bombs they were using?
HI: No. I never see it. No. Because by the time I was on Halifaxes then. There was only two squadrons that had the tall bomb. There was 617 and my squadron — number 9. They didn’t started bombing, didn’t start using the tall boy until the end probably the end of ’43. They caused a lot of damage. Caused a hell of a lot of damage. But there was only two squadrons that dropped it anyway.
TO: And what were conditions like in general aboard a Halifax?
HI: Just the same as a Lanc I suppose. Bloody cold. And that was it. A little bit more room. You could get out the turret and get yourself, escape a bit quicker than the Lanc. It was a bit easier. You could open the doors and just more or less crouch down and get out. With the Lanc you had to slide yourself out about eight or nine feet before you could get to your feet. You had to slide down and slide out. Of course you know you was locked in the turret. You locked yourself with a clip at the back and just clipped it and that. And if you were probably badly wounded — if you couldn’t undo it you was buggered. You couldn’t get out the turret.
TO: Can you please explain to me the procedure for boarding the bomber and taking off for a mission?
HI: Well it wasn’t a lot in it actually. The crew. The WAAF driver used to drop you at your aircraft. And then the ground crew would be there. And all you would do was. It all depends how long you’ve got before take-off. If you had, if you were on one of the early crews you’d be on the outside of the aircraft. I think nearly everybody smoked them days. They was all puffing, puffing on fags until they got in. And set the fags out and climbed in the aircraft. And the bomb aimer would start checking the — yeah. The flight engineer would start checking his stuff. The two gunners would be make sure the guns are working well and the ammunition was coming up. And then we was just wait for the signal. I’d pull up the ladder. Slam the door and then trundle down to the starting point which was a big cabin. And you used to wait for the yellow light. The green light to go on and off you went. You’d circle the aerodrome till you got to a nice height and then off you went. You was on your own, on your Jack-Jones. We had to keep looking out for other aircraft in case they came too close to you. But there was never never never any formation flying of a night time. Never. Never.
TO: Did you ever do formation flying during the day?
HI: Never. Well, I told you we’d done two daylights. All we were — one big group of ninety Lancs just flying along at thirty foot. There was no formation flying or nothing. There were just one gaggle, what we called a gaggle. And if the fighters had got amongst us we’d have had it. But we were so lucky with that Le Creusot raid. To go all the way there and back without seeing a fighter was incredible. We were right across France. And there must have been hundreds of fighters there.
TO: Was there, I know you mentioned that you didn’t talk about missions but was there anyone who ever said that they thought that the bombing wasn’t - the bombing or the tactics weren’t working?
HI: No. I never heard that ever. Never. All I ever heard was we were going over to bomb the target and that was it. There was never any mention of tactics not working. Never. Only until after the war. And now they realise that bombing was very very important. It was through the bombing that really stopped the Germans. Stopped all their, stopped all their production. All their production.
TO: And what was the procedure for coming in to land at the end of a mission?
HI: That was, that was difficult because you was tired , you were bloody cold, and you were wanting to get down. You’d seen everything. You’d seen some terrible things happening in the air and the trouble was you’d all rush back to try to try to get, try to be the first to land. And the trouble was there would be about fifteen of you all circling the ‘drome at different heights waiting to come in and it was bloody tiring. Because you were tired anyway especially with an eight or nine hour flight. It’s not only the eight or nine hours flight it was the hours before preparing before you went. It could be a long long long day and when you come back everybody was trying to get back first. The first one back landed first and all the others had to queue up. Flying round and round and round until it was their turn. What we called pancake. And you just came down. Once you landed oh, take your mask off and just relax. Yeah. Some of those raids were terrible I’ll tell you. You never knew if you was coming back or not. Never.
TO: And were you ever scared?
HI: Always scared. You had to be. You weren’t human if you weren’t. With that amount of flak that was coming up. You can’t explain to people the amount of artilleries shells that were coming up. Hundreds of them over the target. Hundreds of them. And on top of that you had to watch out for the night fighters. You had to watch out for blokes dropping bombs on you. You had to watch out for collisions. And on top of that you had to find your way home [laughs] and that was a bit difficult sometimes. We’d be flying. Where the bloody hell are we? ‘Skipper I don’t know where we are.’
TO: Did you talk much with each other during a mission?
HI: No. No. All we talked about was the business. Nobody, there was no — I don’t know about other crews but most crews I suppose, everybody kept quiet until they had something to say. Which is most, which is most important. You don’t want a lot of chat in the aircraft while you’re flying on ops. You want to be as quiet as possible. You never know.
TO: And did you socialise a lot outside of missions?
HI: Only with, with the crew. We always went out. If we went out anywhere it was always with the crew on the beer. We was always drinking. Always. Most of the aircrew were drinkers. Except my pilot. Stubbs. He never drank, never smoked and he never went out with women. But by God could he swear when we was on ops. His language [laughs] his language was absolutely vile. What he didn’t call the bomb aimer. The flight engineer. He never swore at me though. And you couldn’t swear back at him — he was a flight lieu [laughs] yeah.
TO: Slight digression here. Bernie Harris the chap I mentioned to you earlier.
HI: Yeah.
TO: He said, I think he said there was a member of his crew who could swear for about thirty minutes without repeating the same word and once accidentally there was some kind of radio error.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Started swearing for thirty minutes straight in to it. When there was some senior officers on the radio or something. And apparently there was, oh sorry, also some young WAAF with them at the time. He nearly fainted when she made the call. Yeah. That’s —
HI: Yeah.
TO: And, sorry you mentioned on the first mission you had to make a second bomb run.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Was that common?
HI: Not really. But this pilot, he was a good pilot and he liked to, liked to have everything right. It had to be straight. And if we’d have gone in and he hadn’t got the aiming point and he took the photograph. We come back with no aiming point. The raid wouldn’t have counted anyway. That’s why we went around again. Second run. It was dangerous but there you are. I always said it was like doing two trips in one.
TO: This is more a speculative question but do you think anything could have been done during the war to reduce the losses Bomber Command were suffering?
HI: Yeah. Had the turret. Had the turret underneath the aircraft. If they’d had the turret underneath the aircraft they would have saved a hell of a lot of aircraft. A hell of a lot. Then again I don’t know where they could have put a turret underneath a Lanc. You had your bomb bay which took up say eight tenths of the area underneath. And then you had your H2S. There was no room for a turret. No room at all unless you took the H2S out or you made the bomb bay smaller. The Yanks had it because their bomb bay was — they never carried hardly any bombs anyway. They only had a small area for their bombs. And we had a huge, well you know, they had the huge room underneath. It was enormous.
TO: And what did you think of German aircraft of the war?
HI: The what?
TO: The German aircraft of the war.
HI: Well they were good. Yeah. They were very good. Yeah. The only thing is the Germans never had a heavy bomber did they? They never had a heavy bomber. The bombers, the JU88 and the Messerschmitt 110 they turned into night fighters because they could stay up in the air, you know. About six or seven hours cruising about. But they never had no, and actually there was only the two bombers they had, the JU88 and the 110. And they couldn’t carry no bomb load. They carried a thousand pounder and that was it. Not like the Lanc.
TO: And how was morale in general in the air force?
HI: It was alright. Yeah. It was alright. Yeah. No one ever moaned. They knew that they’d, most of them knew that they wasn’t going to come back. That’s the most amazing thing of the war I think. They all knew. Most of them knew they wasn’t going to come back. Which was incredible. Incredible. To prove that everyone used to write a last letter. I never. But most of them did. Used to write a last letter home. They knew they wasn’t going to survive. They had to do thirty trips. It wanted some doing and come back every time. Wanted some doing. Yeah.
TO: Did people ever talk about friends that they’d lost?
HI: No. Not really. No. No. I’ll tell you the word they used to use. I’ll tell you now, was, ‘Gone for a shit.’ That was it. Nothing else was said. ‘Oh, where’s so and so today?’ ‘Oh they went for a shit last night.’ And that was it. Or got the chop. That was it. Never discussed no more. Another crew would come in. Same thing.
TO: Did you ever go to the cinema much during the war?
HI: No. Very rarely went. Very rarely. The thing for bomber crews was going up the pub and getting drunk. I suppose a few went — oh I think I went once or twice but mostly we used to end up in the pub. In the pubs in Lincoln. Mostly Lincoln. The Saracens Head. It was packed. Packed with bomber crews. Packed every night.
TO: And the newspapers that you had during the war. Did you ever read what they were saying about bomber crews?
HI: No. There wasn’t much spoken about the bomber crews. Not a lot. Not a lot. There wasn’t a lot of information about them. There was no publicity about them anyway. Only now and again when one of them won the VC but that not a lot. The bombing just carried on quietly. The government knew what was going on that was it. They public didn’t know. Only around Lincoln when they used to see about three or four hundred Lancs circling Lincoln ready to go.
TO: Was it very cramped aboard the aircraft?
HI: Well in the rear turret it was yeah. In the rear turret. And the mid-upper was very cramped, very very cramped. No room. No room for movement at all — the time you got your clothing on. And you had a seat a hard seat. I think it was armour plated seat we had and it was as hard as anything. Apart from that it was only because we were so young that we took it. But the oxygen used to make your throat and mouth terrible dry. You was breathing through a rubber oxygen mask — the smell of the bloody rubber. Yeah. Yeah. How I managed it I don’t know but I did. Incredible.
TO: If you want to take another break we can.
HI: No. I think I’ll have another drink. You’re making me bloody thirsty. Do you want another tea? Yeah?
[recording paused]
TO: So where did you keep the parachutes aboard the planes?
HI: It was on a piece of elastic outside the rear turret. About six foot back. There was a holder there and you put it in there and put a elastic, a piece of elastic held it. Sometimes it held and sometimes it didn’t.
TO: And did you hear much about what the Germans were doing in Europe during the war?
HI: No. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Never heard about the atrocities or anything. Never. There was never no publicity about it. None at all. Only after the war we realised that a few of them ended up in Auschwitz. A few of our prisoners of war ended up in Auschwitz. That’s about all I know.
TO: Have you ever visited any concentration camps?
HI: Yeah. I’ve been to Auschwitz. And after I’d come out from there I had a clear conscience. Honestly, I did. I had a bit of a conscience before about the bombing but when I went there and see what actually happened that was it. Last year I went there. Yeah.
TO: And were they, was it a 303 guns you were on?
HI: They were all 303s.
TO: And were they very effective?
HI: Useless. Bloody useless. Unless you got them like I did. About thirty — about twenty or thirty yards away. But apart from that they were useless. I think the gunners shot down a few but not a lot. They didn’t have to come in anyway. They had 20 millimetre cannon. And they could stand off and belt away at you and you just had to look at them.
TO: And did your plane ever actually get lost?
HI: Yeah. A couple of times we got lost. We sort of circled around and looked around until we see a, some sort of point that we could lock on to you know. The favourite point was a river or a, or the coastline. But you did get lost. A few times you did got lost. Especially after coming out the target you was bloody lost anyway. You had to set your course again from, from the target. And you were jumping and diving about. We had a good navigator. He was alright. And of course once we got H2S that helped us tremendously but they never, they never got that ‘til the later part of that war. It was brilliant. That showed you right, the outline of all the towns, coastline and rivers through dense fog. It was brilliant.
TO: And was that with equipment like Gee?
HI: Gee we had and that took us to the Dutch coast. And then the Germans blocked it. It was useless after that. We had to make our own way. And of course all we hoped for we could see the Ruhr Valley. When you got to the Dutch coast how far was the Ruhr Valley? Half an hour away by plane. It wasn’t far. And we just headed out on that direction and you were soon over the Ruhr Valley. And you knew when you was over the Ruhr Valley with the bleeding guns firing at you. But they never opened up properly until you started dropping the bombs on the target. They kept quiet. And of course they used to have the — I don’t know if you know it. They used to light huge fires outside the town. Huge fires. To make out it was a town burning so we’d bomb that. Which a few of them did.
TO: I didn’t know about that.
HI: It was open fields in the country. But it was mainly —
[Phone ringing]
HI: Is that me again?
TO: Yeah.
[recording paused
TO: Sorry, could you just —
HI: It’s five to two.
TO: I mean what time do you leave?
HI: Oh I’ve got to leave here at 4 o’clock.
TO: Ok. I’ll definitely be done long before that.
HI: Pardon?
TO: I’ll definitely be finished long before that.
HI: I hope so because I’ve got to get ready as well.
TO: Ok. Sorry. And did the accuracy of bombing improve during the war?
HI: Immensely. When we got radar and H2S and Pathfinding it improved immensely. Accurately. Yeah. Yeah. And there was no problem with — the targets always used to be well alight when we got there anyway. And it was just a matter of dropping your bombs and getting out without being shot down. That was the problem. Getting away without being shot down. Yeah.
TO: What, what missions specifically do you remember the most of the war?
HI: Well the, the most vivid mission of all was the daylight raid on Le Creusot. Which was fantastic. To go right across France in ’42. Bomb. Bomb the target and come all the way back without seeing a fighter was incredible. That’s the most impressive one I know, and the bombing was very very accurate.
TO: Did you ever bomb German ships in ports?
HI: Well only Wilhelmshaven and Bremen and the Kiel. We don’t know. We just bombed the ports. I don’t know. I don’t say we hit a ship or not. I know 9 Squadron sank the Tirpitz. I know that. But I wasn’t there at the time.
TO: So, can you tell me which squadrons were you in during the war?
HI: Number 9 Squadron. Still flying now. They’re out in Syria. Number 9. 466. 158 Squadron.
TO: And did you hear about the invasion of Normandy?
HI: Well I don’t know about heard about. We see it was, we knew it was happening because the amount of aircraft in the air. Huge armadas of aircraft going over. So we knew, we knew the war was on. I was in Kent at the moment. At the time. Flying drogues. And we see it all happening there yeah. But I wasn’t involved in it anyway. Not ‘til later on. When I went back on my second tour.
TO: Sorry what — can you tell me again? What was your rank in the air force?
HI: I was a warrant officer. I was offered a commission but I wouldn’t take it. I don’t know why. I was silly. I should have taken it. I’d have ended up at least a flight lieu. But I, I didn’t refuse it. I just didn’t — all my mates took it and they all became commissioned but I didn’t take it. I don’t know why. I was happy as I was so that was it. I should have done though.
TO: And what was probably the most dangerous of the German fighters?
HI: The night fighter? The most dangerous was the JU88. Definitely. That was equipped especially for night fighting. It had all the radar on it. Heavy cannons. They had the Messerschmitt 110. That was a good night fighter. And the Messerschitt 109 they used. And the Focke-Wulf 190. Single engine. They used that mostly over the target especially if a bloke was caught in the searchlights. They’d just go straight for him. Bang. Yeah.
TO: If you got caught in a searchlight was it possible to get out of it?
HI: Very very difficult. Very very difficult. The only way to get out of the searchlights which we’d done several times was put the nose down like that and go starboard or port and hoping you could clear it. Sometimes, sometimes you did and sometimes you couldn’t. We used to see them captured you know with about fifteen searchlights on one aircraft. And then all the guns would open up and all you’d see was a great big puff of explosion and the smoke and that was another one gone. Simple as that. So, best to keep away from it if you could. But the one radar, the one that was run by radar you couldn’t get away from. It just went bang like that. Straight on an aircraft. No messing about. And once that got you five or six of the ordinary searchlights would come — because the radar one was blue and all the searchlight ones were white. And they just used to group you like that. The flak would come up. An enormous amount of flak. Bang. You didn’t stand a chance.
TO: Did, was your aircraft ever caught in searchlights?
HI: Yeah. We was caught a couple of times but lucky enough we done the dive and the turn and got away with it. But sometimes that was very difficult because sometimes you had your bomb load on and you fell. You fell like a stone and you hoped it would bloody well pull out at the end.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day that the war ended?
HI: Yeah. I’d finished flying and I was, they’d posted me up to, after I had done me second tour they posted me up to, up to Scotland as an instructor. And I didn’t fancy it and then they posted me down to Blackpool. I was at Blackpool when the war finished. Being trained. Being changed to another duty because they didn’t want us no more in Bomber Command and we had to do ground staff duties. And they said to me, ‘What was you?’ I said, ‘I’m a tailor.’ They said, ‘We’ve got a job for you.’ And they put in charge of about twenty WAAFs on sewing machines down at Newmarket. That’s how I finished the war. And they treated the aircrew, they treated bomber crews diabolical. Absolutely. A lot of them lost their rank. They just said you’re not a flight sergeant no more. You’re an AC2 or an LAC. I thought it was shocking. Anyhow. But it didn’t, they couldn’t do that with me because I had the DFC up and I couldn’t walk about with a DFC as an odd, as a flight sergeant. So I was left. I was left as a warrant officer.
TO: Why do you think Bomber Command were treated the way they were?
HI: That I don’t know. That I do not know. I’ll never, I can never understand it and I never will. We won the war. We definitely won the war for bomber, for Britain. With our losses were horrendous and yet after the war they absolutely [clap] on us. Yeah. I think it was terrible. They treated us terrible. All the bomber crews were walking about after the war doing menial jobs. Sweeping up. Driving vans. Anything. They didn’t know what to do with us. What they should have done was demobilise us straight away. Said, ‘Alright. You’re finished. Go home.’ No. They had to wait another year doing menial jobs. There you are. And they wouldn’t give us a medal. Can you understand it?
TO: Can I understand it?
HI: Pardon?
TO: Can I understand why they were treated that way?
HI: Yeah. Can you understand why they never gave us a medal?
TO: No.
HI: The barbers got medals. The man that swept the roads got medals. The one that cleaned the toilet got medals. Bomber Command got nothing. Never. I don’t understand it. I don’t know. We should have got a campaign medal. We never got one. Which was terrible when you think of the men we lost. The men we lost. So all them men we lost in the war — all they’ve given them is a thin brass bar. That’s all they got. No medal. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
TO: And what do you think of the Memorial we’ve got in Green Park?
HI: Oh that’s brilliant. We made that ourselves. We made it. Not the government. We got no help at all from the government. I’ll tell you what happened. I was in the office and we got six and a half million pound collected easy. And who should walk in the office was two geezers from the VAT. They said, ‘We understand you’ve got six and a half million pound voluntary contributions.’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘A million of that is VAT,’ and they took it. There and then. And said, ‘We demand that you pay,’ and we made such a fuss of it and we got on to The Telegraph and we got the million pound back off the government — as a gift. They gave us our own money back as a gift. I think it’s disgraceful. All the money was for was for a Memorial. Nothing else. And they took a million pound off us. There you are. That’s the story.
TO: But what do you think of the Memorial itself?
HI: Oh it’s beautiful isn’t it? Fantastic. Yeah. And, and the Westminster Council said nobody will ever visit that memorial. It’s the most sought after memorial in the whole of London. More people visit that than any other memorial or, or museum. And the council said nobody — they didn’t want it. Didn’t want no memorial for Bomber Command. Can you understand it? Yeah. So that’s why I was so bitter.
TO: Did you ever — during the war did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany itself?
HI: No. Not really. No. No. Not really. No. No. We just went over. We knew what we were doing. We knew what we were doing. No. Not really. We couldn’t could we really? We were over there and back. We had nothing against the Germans. But after the war when we realised what they had got up to yeah but not before. Not during the war because we didn’t know anything about the camps. We felt sorry for the Germans being bombed like they were. Which we knew we was bombing. But we just carried on. Carried on ‘til the war finished and that was it.
TO: And how do you feel today about Germany?
HI: Well, they’re the same as us now aren’t they? No problem. They’re not going to be aggressive no more are they? We hope [laughs] What I’ve seen of the Germans they’re quite nice people. But there you are.
TO: What do you think of the atomic bombs being used against Japan?
HI: A good thing. A very good thing. In fact, in the long term — long and short term they saved millions and millions of lives. Because if they’d have invaded Japan there would have been millions of Japanese killed and many many thousands of Americans and British. They would have been slaughtered in an invasion. The bomb stopped it like that. Clear as that. Bang. Two bombs and the war was over. And the thing was what a lot of people don’t seem to realise — the Germans were on the verge of atomic bomb. And that’s why all the industrial places in Germany were being bombed. Because this government knew that they was on the doorstep of making the bombs themselves. They were nearly there. And they would have used it. Because they was desperate. They would have had one on Moscow and one on London. Definitely. Yeah.
[pause]
HI: You’re not killing the flies very well. I’m not having you around here no more.
TO: No. I got one. One.
HI: You got one. Yeah.
TO: Sorry. Now, how do you feel today about your wartime service?
HI: Not all that. All I know is I killed many many many people but as soon as I went to Auschwitz and that changed my view. Before that I had a guilty conscience of it because I knew I’d killed many many people but then I went to Auschwitz and seeing what was going on myself that was it. Finished. It was terrible. Have you been to Auschwitz aint you?
TO: No. No.
HI: You want to go there. You come out a different man I’ll tell you.
TO: I have however watched plenty of footage of all the camps when they were liberated.
HI: Yeah but you want to go there. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. What they done to those poor Jews. Babies, children, women. And we would have been the next ones on the list if they had got over the here. The Dutch suffered enough. I’ll tell you. They really suffered. The Dutch. And they’re more or less German and they suffered terrible.
TO: And did you — sorry, just keeping an eye on the time. Did you lose quite a few friends during the war?
HI: Pardon?
TO: I’m sorry to ask this but did you lose quite a few friends during the war?
HI: All of them. Yeah. All my friends. Yeah. All the people you knew on your squadron. By the time I’d left they’d all gone. All been killed or were prisoner of war. Mostly killed. We, we took off one night. I think we was going to Essen and we was up to six thousand feet and above us — no underneath us there was a huge explosion. Two Lancasters. One from our squadron — one from 44 Squadron hit head on with a full bomb load. And we was just above it and we went up like a bleeding lift with our bomb load. Right up we went. Enormous explosion. Yeah. And the thing was, the most amazing thing, the pilot said, ‘Alright. Set course for Essen.’ Just like that. And we could see what was happening below us yeah. But it happened a lot over Germany. Collisions. Can you imagine pitch darkness? Five or six hundred bombers in an area of about ten minutes. All ducking and diving about in pitch darkness. It had to happen didn’t it? Yeah.
TO: Did night fighters ever make head on attacks on a bomber?
HI: Never. Never made that. That’s why I don’t understand why they put a front turret in the Lancaster because it was useless. They never made a head on attack. Because the two speeds together was too fast. So won’t stretch at night time as well. They always come from, they used to come from port quarter, starboard quarter or dead astern. And of course once they got the up and under that was it. The up and under. The up and under. Schrage musik.
TO: And how do you feel today about Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?
HI: I think we ought to get out and leave them to it. Let them shoot their bloody selves because there’s going to be a problem. A big problem. Especially if they allow them all over here. I think so anyway. We shouldn’t allow them in this country. We should let them get on with it. They’re Moslems. Let them fight it out amongst themselves because they won’t give no thanks to the Christians for intervening. I can tell you that.
TO: And what do you think of the films that have been made about the war?
HI: Well, what I see of the films today they’re all American. That’s all you see is American films. What they done. The British never made many films. They should have made more films about Bomber Command which they never. Have you ever seen a film about Bomber Command ?
TO: I’ve seen one. The Dambusters.
HI: Well, I mean the actual bombing of Germany. No. They never made a film and they won’t because they’re gutless. The government will not accept what Bomber Command done. That’s why we are in so much trouble. They’re embarrassed. They was embarrassed with Bomber Command and yet they told us to go there. It wasn’t us. It was the government told us to go. Well they told Harris what to do anyway.
TO: As a matter of interest I do know there are, there is a team of people, though they are struggling to get funding, of independent film makers who are, they aren’t even paying the actors, who are making a film about a Lancaster bomber crew.
HI: Are they?
TO: Yeah. But they’re struggling with funding at the moment I think.
HI: Pardon?
TO: I think they’re struggling to get the money through although they are filming it.
HI: As I say what have they got? Old men. There’s no young men is there? Have Are they going to have veterans making it?
TO: Apparently I think but it might be stuck in the planning stage that they do plan to make a remake of The Dambusters.
HI: Well, that wasn’t, that wasn’t the bombing war was it? The Dambusters. That was just a one off wasn’t it and I’ll tell there there was far far more dangerous raids than the Dambusters. Berlin for instance you know what I mean. In six weeks I think we lost over nine hundred bombers over Berlin. Yeah. Essen. Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Mannheim. Hamburg. And we lost thousands.
TO: And have you visited Germany recently?
HI: Yeah. I was there last week, last year. Went to Essen. And in Essen there’s a building there. There’s a huge, what do you call it? A big huge photograph about as long as this room on a building and it shows you Essen after the war. Every building was flat. As far as you could see was flat. Except one building. The synagogue. Never got touched. And it’s still there now. It’s a museum now. Wasn’t touched. But every building in Essen was blown down except that one. Incredible.
TO: How did you actually feel when you heard the war was over?
HI: It didn’t make no difference to me. I was a youngster. I was only twenty. Twenty one when the war finished. Didn’t make no difference to me. Just the war was over and that was it. Let’s get out. And of course when I got out I had a wife and a kid and nowhere to live. Nowhere to live. I had to go and live with the in-laws for a year or so which was bleeding terrible. There you are. And the few bob they gave us and the terrible demob suits they gave us were shocking. I was a tailor and I said, ‘What’s this bloody rubbish they’ve given us?’ Yeah. I know I’m a bit cynical but there you are.
TO: Is there anything else that you want to add about your time in Bomber Command which you feel is very important?
HI: Yeah. There’s one very important thing. I survived [laughs] I survived and I mean I survived. The amount of blokes I see get the chop was unbelievable. A whole squadron. You’d lose a whole squadron in about three or four weeks. Complete squadron. It would be renewed. New Lancs. New crews. The faces got younger and we, we carried on. In fact, people, they used to come in, in the crew room and see us, and look at us, and say, ‘Have you done all those amount of trips?’ And we’d say, ‘Yeah.’ Yeah. And we survived. And I took the place of a rear gunner who got killed. And I took his place and I carried on. He was only twenty. Robinson his name was. I took his place and survived. But we lost — I’ll tell you what. That squadron I was on. Number 9 Squadron — we lost eleven hundred men killed. Eleven hundred men. And that was just one squadron. And there was only seven men in a crew. Fourteen aircraft on a squadron. Can you imagine the slaughter? Yeah.
TO: That’s almost all my questions. I’m just scanning through now. Sorry. This is going right back to the start of the war now. What did you think of Chamberlain and him appeasing Hitler?
HI: Weak man. A weak man. He was a weak man yeah. He come back with all his crappy bits of paper. Hitler was laughing his head off. We should have had a man like Hitler on our side. We could have stopped him before the war started. All the socialists and labour all they wanted to do was disarm. Don’t have no armaments. And Germany was building itself up incredibly. We had nothing. All we had was the territorial army when the war started. We just started conscription, yeah, for the twenties. We had nothing. Germany had a huge air force. Tanks. We had nothing. Anyway, we survived though didn’t we? We did survive.
TO: What did you think of Churchill?
HI: Well he done a job. He did do the job. No doubt about that. He done the job. He was the man for the job. Nobody else. But he was the man for it. But he’s — people would never forget his politics before the war when we had two or three million people unemployed. Everybody was bloody hungry. Everybody was half starving. And the rich people were living and he was one of them. But during the war he had Hitler like that. Yeah.
TO: You know the people who, I know I keep coming back to this but you know the people who refused to go on bombing missions? How do you think they should have been treated?
HI: Well personally speaking I think they should have gone to psychotic hospitals and find out exactly what was wrong with them. It was definitely a lot of them couldn’t help it. I’m telling you that the bombing raids were horrendous. I’m telling you. It was absolutely frightening. And some, as you know not everybody can take it. A few of them couldn’t take it and what they done was they stripped them down and put them in prison. Which was all wrong. LMF they called it. And when they came out of prison they put a great big stamp on their record papers — LMF. And the whole station where they was posted to knew what he was. And they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t help it. It’s a shame. So –
TO: This is going to be an odd question now. Is there anyone you know during the war who you think seemed to be losing their mind from the stress of the bombing?
HI: No. I don’t think so. I think what might have happened — some of them were very very very heavy drinkers and I think that was what was stopping them from saying they didn’t want to fly no more. There were some very very heavy drinkers. I mean heavy drinkers. If they weren’t flying they was knocking it back. But that was a thing that. They should never have punished them. They should have just said alright you don’t want to fly no more. Take you wings from you. Put you down to a lower rank. Finished. They had to humiliate them and make them as if they were a disgrace which they weren’t. They just, it was just that they couldn’t take it. They couldn’t take it. That was all there was to it. Went on a couple of raids and they see what was happening. Probably lost a few mates beforehand. That was it. Some were married with children. They said, ‘I don’t want to go over there and get killed I’ve got a wife and a kid,’ you know. There you are. But they punished them severely for it. in fact if it had been in the First World War they would have been shot. Yeah.
TO: Another slightly [pause] question from early on. Did you ever have to go in an air raid shelters during the bombing?
HI: Yeah before I — no. I never went. I never went in an air raid shelter. We lived in a block of flats. We was on the ground floor. And my mother and father said, ‘We’re alright there. We’re on the bottom floor of the flats.’ Which was ridiculous because some of the flats we blew up during the war during the war they blew the whole bleeding lot up. The time they went in an air raid shelter. A lot of people went in the air raid shelters. But the German bombing was nothing compared with what the British done. No comparison. No comparison whatsoever. We was dropping four thousand pound bombs. You know the cookie. Blast bombs. A blast bomb — it dropped. As it hit the ground it exploded. The reason for it was to blow the rooves off the houses so that the incendiaries had an easy entrance into the building which did happen. That’s why there was such huge fires. The rooves come off and then we dropped the incendiaries. And they went right through the buildings. It was a terrible war. The Germans suffered terrible. How many women and children were killed I do not know? Do not know. Shame. There you are. There you are. We had to do it. We was told to do it and that was it and we got punished after the war for it. Right. I’m afraid I’ve got to stop you because –
TO: You’re quite right because I’ve quite literally run out of questions.
HI: I’m pleased. Really pleased about that [laughs] yeah I’ll have to go.
TO: Thank you very much about your plain speaking.
HI: We’re going to drop you off at the station.
TO: Thank you.
HI: Alright.
TO: Thank you.
HI: I’ll drop you off at Romford Station. And all you do is go on the station and then take the train. I think it’s platform four. I’m not quite sure. I think it’s platform four. And that’ll take you right down to Stratford and you get out at Stratford and you get on the Tube there.
TO: Thank you. And thank you so much for your wartime service as well.
HI: That’s alright. Yeah. Pleased to help you. I’m sorry we’ve got to rush.
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AIronsH160730
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Interview with Harry Irons. Two
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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02:44:50 audio recording
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Pending review
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Tom Ozel
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2016-07-30
Description
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Harry Irons lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew two tours of operations as a rear gunner and mid-under gunner.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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Julie Williams
158 Squadron
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
77 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
briefing
coping mechanism
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
final resting place
Gee
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Ju 88
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Martinet
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
perception of bombing war
RAF Driffield
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Lissett
RAF Waddington
Scarecrow
searchlight
Stirling
superstition
Wellington
Window
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/282/3435/AJenkinsAE160709.1.mp3
d7f55b2a9645816ec63b14a23072b635
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Title
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Jenkins, Alexander Elliott
Alexander Elliott Jenkins
Alexander E Jenkins
Alexander Jenkins
A E Jenkins
A Jenkins
Description
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One oral history interview with Alexander Elliott Jenkins (430033 Royal Australian Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-09
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Jenkins, AE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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RG: Preamble to the interview with Alex Jenkins of 6 Belton Place, Orange, New South Wales, Australia. Alex was a Lancaster pilot in 460 Squadron who was shot down and although he spent some time in a German hospital it was only a matter of a short, a fairly short time. He wasn’t ever in a prison camp. He was returned to the UK and resumed operations in 1945. Interviewers are Rob Gray and Lucie Davison. Also present at the interview was Alex’s wife, Pauline.
AJ: In fact one of my colleagues coming in clipped the top of Lincoln Cathedral and he went, he could have really cracked. Clipped the top and he had to, after that to just, for some reason or other he couldn’t continue but he continued, lost height slowly and finally belly landed [laughs] not all that far from where he’d come down. But he went clean through the biggest chicken farm [laughs] in the whole of England. Can you imagine all of the, all of the God-damned chickens. We renamed him after that for obvious reasons.
RG: Chook.
AJ: Chook.
LD: Do the intro.
RG: Hmmn?
LD: Do the intro.
RG: Yeah. I’ll just do a quick intro, Alex. This is an interview with Alex Jenkins. Former pilot with 460 Squadron.
AJ: Yes.
RG: And survivor of being shot down. Interview. The date is the 8th of July. Interviewees are Rob Gray and Lucie Davison. So do you want to lead off?
LD: Yeah. Look, I’ve basically, I’ve kind of, you know compiled just a little order of service but it’s really just to make sure that we try and cover all bases.
AJ: Yes.
LD: You know.
AJ: Yeah.
LD: It’s certainly not meant to be definitive. So —
AJ: I know. You’ve got to have some guidance.
RG: Yeah.
LD: Yeah, it’s —
RG: But on the other hand also this way, because you’ve done interviews and things before haven’t you?
AJ: Yes. Some time back I had an interview. Pauline. My memory, by the way is, short term memory, is very, very poor now. I’ve been a bit ill and so on and I can’t remember accurately even some of the simple things.
RG: Oh yes.
AJ: So Paul, when she comes in, if there’s something that I can’t remember she knows a fair bit about it.
RG: She’ll know about it. Yeah. Ok. I was going to say though that we were particularly interested in, like your personal recollections.
AJ: Yes.
RG: So if something comes to mind.
AJ: Right.
RG: Please feel free to divert from the original question.
AJ: Yeah. Right. Right.
RG: So Lucie do you want to —
LD: Yeah. Just interested in your background and, you know, where you grew up.
AJ: Right.
LD: And why you joined the air force initially.
AJ: Yeah.
LD: And so on.
AJ: Yes. That’s rather interesting because it starts really with the history of my father who was terribly knocked around in the First World War. In the, in France. He wasn’t at Gallipoli, but he was in France. In the gunnery groups. And he was gassed and terribly injured. Came back home. And from the time he arrived home just before the war finished in France, he was in and out of military hospitals. Never really recovered enough long term and as a result of that — and my mother was born way up in the Kelly country of North Eastern Victoria with the, her surname was Cann. C A N N. Now, C A N N.
LD: Cann River.
AJ: Now, Cann River and all those things were well documented. The Canns were horse breakers and they were rabble rousing. And in fact William Cann, and this is not apocryphal, William Cann was the principal horse breaker and roustabout in the Kelly gang.
RG: Ah ok.
AJ: And William Cann, he was actually jailed after the shoot-up and so on and served his time. And as my dear mother used to say, ‘Don’t you mention that you’ve got a relative — ?’ [laughs] Most people were very interested. Particularly since he was the one who used to, they had a little tin with a bit of wire around and, and make the fires. It was nicknamed — billy can.
RG: Billy can. yes. Yeah.
AJ: Billy can.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: That’s where the term first started to be used. Used. It’s in —
RG: Of course. Yes.
AJ: The Billy can.
RG: William Cann. Yes.
AJ: Anyway, my father was in and out and he, on my eighteenth birthday I was one of the first Legacy awards. We were raised in the slums of Toorak. Toorak, you know, down by the railway lines in those days was a cut-throat area. It was criminals, and God knows.
RG: That’s like Surry Hills in Sydney at the same time. That sort of —
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: That was my raising. We were very, very poor. I was brought back from the country where my mother was — she went there I think after they got together. I’m not quite sure how they got together straight after the war. But I was a sort of lad that was caught up in the Samuel McCaughey whip around in the north. I think, darling that if you wouldn’t mind when we have the tea that you sit here too with me as I —
PJ: Why. I’ve heard it all a thousand times before [laughs]
AJ: I mean, I was saying my memory is pretty terrible in various things. Anyway, she [pause] I was brought down under the state government’s attempt to round up these uneducated wild kids.
LD: Right.
AJ: Of which I was one. And we were forcibly removed from the family in North Eastern Victoria, black books, and brought to Melbourne for our own good. Shades of the roundup of the aborigines.
LD: Yes. Absolutely.
RG: Oh yes. There was more than one stolen generation.
AJ: As a result of that I was often in sort of foster care. And my mother was ill. Etcetera etcetera. And dad had had such a terrible life that —
[background chat]
AJ: It was impossible, it was quite impossible for me to forget that sort of thing. And my dad finished up, when I’d turned, was approaching eighteen I was fortunately a gifted kid in education. And I finally got to Melbourne Boy’s High and had an excellent career there and my legacy guardian was none other than Bill Woodfall. The great cricketer.
RG: Oh ok.
AJ: And they, oh they were wonderful people and they looked after me. And I, as 1942 turned over I found myself at Melbourne University in first year. So —
RG: What, what discipline?
AJ: In engineering.
RG: Engineering.
AJ: Engineering yes. And metallurgy. Materials. So I, at the time when I’d completed first year university at Melbourne that would be ’42. I felt, on my eighteenth birthday, dad was in Bundoora Mental Asylum, behind the wire.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Terrible.
RG: As a result of the war.
AJ: Yeah. And I said I’m going to get even for dad and so I joined up at eighteen. On my eighteenth birthday. 29th of October 1942. Well, all hell broke loose because that was a protected profession.
LD: Yes.
AJ: You weren’t allowed to join the service.
LD: Yes. I was wondering how you could join up.
[background chat]
AJ: I got as far as Somers camp and the university and the government people forced, came down and said, ‘You’re coming back. You’re man-powered. You can’t join the services.’ I went back to Melbourne Uni and I stood before the enquiry group of the profession and some of the representatives of the professorial board at Melbourne University and the government official who was man-powering people. I said, ‘I’ve got news for you. You can all get stuffed. I’m not going to continue my course. I’m going to join the service.’ Prof Greenwood was the professor. An English don of the old school.
RG: The old school.
AJ: He was a wonderful bloke. He was called the pink professor simply because he spoke out, you know, more on moral social issues.
LD: So pink as in shades of communist.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Shades of red.
AJ: Yeah. And he fought for me and he won. He said, ‘This man must be allowed to serve. And join and serve. He has had such provocation. And we will see him on his return when he can resume his course.’ Well, that was it then. I joined the air force. Went in to training at Benalla and went solo and so on there. And after a lot of argy bargy after I’d completed the conversion on to Wirraways at Deniliquin. The great Australian fighter. We graduated to get our wings. You know, to become young sergeant pilots. Well, in the interim, just briefly I had been leading a small group of three on our last, final flight before graduation. Now on a long cross country to be twenty, fifty feet above all obstacles. Low flying exercise. And as part of that low flying exercise by tradition we used to bring the Wirraway down. You could imagine at nearly two hundred miles per hour and the great wheat fields, if they were in that stage —
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Which they were when I was ready for graduation you’d bring it down, you’d look in your rear vision mirror and when you were cutting a furrow along the top of the wheat.
RG: You were low enough.
AJ: You were low enough. But —
LD: So, six feet will do.
AJ: Three of us. And the trouble was that the farmers, they hated this practice.
RG: I can’t understand why.
AJ: Because, you know this was low. We had to get the low flying experience. And the air force had the horror of seeing me charged by the civilian.
RG: Authorities. Yeah.
AJ: They appealed you see, and I was made an example. I was the leader of that flight. And so instead of just rapping me over the knuckles and saying, ‘Don’t do it again because you’re so close to graduation,’ I got sentenced to twenty eight days in the Geelong jail.
RG: My God.
AJ: As a civilian. As a young man in training. It caused such a colossal outcry. You know, here what the hell is it coming to.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: If a guy can’t train for war and the civilians say he can’t do that.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Anyway, it was famous. People went through all the business and when I got out.
LD: So you did have to serve the time.
PJ: Oh yes.
LD: The RAF wasn’t able to —
AJ: Oh it was terrible because they brought all the rapists and the murderers down from the Queensland coast. They were frightened of the Jap invasion up there. And they were all, all of the worst types. And myself at eighteen and another young lad. A young bloke. I don’t know what his offence was. We served, but we served, and you could imagine what those nasty bastards. I didn’t know anything about male practices on other males. I was innocent. But finally we turned around and the other bloke and myself and we were young. Fit. And we belted some of these, some of these vicious saddoes and guards up. And they took it out on us and really did us over. Anyway, the end of the twenty eight days came, and I got back to Deniliquin, and graduation. Another month. I was a month behind after my internment. And the graduation came, and everyone, step forward so and so, sergeant so and so, step forward so and so such. And the Hs, you were doing it. And the I’s. The J’s came and went, and my name wasn’t mentioned. K L M N and right through to the end. And then there was a bit of a drum roll and the commanding officer and the big wigs thing there then said, ‘Step forward Pilot Officer Alexander Jenkins.’ They commissioned me of course. And that —
RG: And that’s, that would have been extremely unusual.
AJ: Oh that did. That caused. Anyway it was so bad in many ways. The whole history of the event. The parliament had gone crazy about this sort of stupidity.
LD: So you’d be there [unclear]
AJ: Two weeks later I was on a troop ship. Fast troop ship.
PJ: Just to digress so you can have another mouthful and another piece of cake or a biscuit or something. This went into limbo as far as Alex was concerned. He had to appear in court on a driving, a possible driving offence. He was not convicted but the barrister representing him said, ‘Alex, you didn’t tell me you’d already been in jail.’ And it was still on the records.
RG: Records. Yeah.
PJ: That he’d been in jail. So that was then. They did the right thing and removed it but you know he’d forgotten all about it at this stage.
RG: You would wouldn’t you? After, you know, you would.
PJ: He was sixty or something, you know and anyhow —
AJ: Being an officer and two hundred and fifty airmen. Sergeants, you know. Navs, pilots and so on, on this troop ship which took us solo straight over to the —
PJ: San Francisco.
RG: Oh.
PJ: You went to —
AJ: Coast up to San Francisco. And from there —
PJ: You went over. You were based in that. You know there’s that big base on that island there by the harbour of San Francisco.
AJ: Past Alcatraz. Yeah.
RG: Oh ok. Yeah.
PJ: San Francisco.
AJ: But from there on —
RG: Yeah.
AJ: As an officer I, it was fortunate that I suppose I was because we did our training.
PJ: But at your exercise in New York he was billeted out with the McGraw-Hill, the McGraw-Hill book people.
RG: Oh yeah. The publishers. Yes.
PJ: The millionaires. So he was billeted with them and they carted him around and he ended up meeting people and singing with Jimmy Durante and —
LD: Oh wow.
AJ: Lena Horne.
PJ: Lena Horne.
AJ: Lena Horne and I became very firm dance partners etcetera. It was quite a, quite a business and then —
RG: Quite an adventure for a young man from —
PJ: That’s right. From the bush in Victoria.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: It was fascinating.
RG: Yeah.
LD: Do you remember the name of the ship that you went on?
AJ: No. I don’t, darling.
PJ: On the ship. Let me think. Was it the Mariposa?
AJ: No. It wasn’t a —
PJ: It was —
AJ: I think it was the Lurline.
PJ: Yeah. Well the Lurline, wasn’t the Lurline the one that came across? It will be there in your, in your book.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: I’ll have a look and see if it’s there.
LD: Well that’s alright. It was just —
RG: It was just —
AJ: But anyway —
PJ: I’ll just have a look and see if it’s in his history there.
AJ: Eventually after about a month in New York the great convoy was formed and off we go. And that was —
LD: So, you did go across as part of a convoy.
AJ: A tremendous convoy.
LD: Right.
AJ: And accompanied by American flat top battleships. You know, the ones that had no structure on top.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Just guns.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: Things like that. We lost an awful lot of boats.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Of course. It was submarine attacks.
RG: So this was the end of ’42 wasn’t it?
AJ: This would be —
RG: What? Early ’43?
AJ: ’42 I joined. ’43. ’43.
RG: [Unclear] Battle of the Atlantic. Yeah.
AJ: And I got to Britain and my first thought as I saw Liverpool and all these barrage balloons. I said, ‘God almighty if they cut those balloons the bloody island would sink.’
LD: So, so did you arrive directly in Liverpool?
AJ: Hmmn?
LD: Did you arrive directly in Liverpool?
AJ: Yes.
LD: Or did you go around through Greenock.
AJ: No. No.
LD: Ok.
AJ: Directly in Liverpool. And from there the Australian contingent was taken down to, eventually down to Brighton on the south coast where we [pause] I did various training things. Learning to — how to get out of parachutes if you landed in water and all that sort of thing.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: I wouldn’t call it nonsense but it was very very tough.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Activity. And I had.
RG: So that was sort of survival training.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: Eventually I was.
LD: Sorry, was that done at Brighton or was that done —?
AJ: Yes. That sort of introduction to survival and elementary training in use of parachutes and things like that was all done at Brighton.
LD: Wow.
AJ: And then you were, well I was eventually posted up to places. I had completed first year uni and therefore in training I had a good mathematical background etcetera.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And so they fast-tracked me in training in the centre part of England for eventual allocation to the famous Mosquito high flying.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: PRU. Photo reccy unit.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And I was completely just flying so high, so fast.
RG: Did you have a multi engine licence at this point?
AJ: I was trained.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: I went on first on Oxfords and that kind of.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Standard training for me. But that PRU interval — I thought this is great. Flying that fast and no one could see you or shoot you. That only lasted a couple of weeks because they said, ‘Look, we’re now Bomber Command.’ This is coming through now. The year would be ’44. And they said, ‘You’re, Bomber Command for you lad.’
RG: So when did you arrive in Britain, Alex? When was that?
AJ: I arrived in Britain in December ’43 and spent all of ’44.
LD: Yes.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Right through ‘til the end of the war.
RG: Yeah. Ok.
AJ: Ok.
RG: Just trying to get a sort of timeline on it.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: That’s right. I was rapidly put into the Bomber Command thing. They were taking pilots from anywhere they could get them because the losses from Bomber Command were so —
RG: Well they had, the losses were, well the Battle of Berlin was just running down then wasn’t it and —
LD: Horrendous.
AJ: And I actually joined the squadron, 460 at the very last part of December ’44. So I, fortunately missed out on the Battle of Berlin and all that sort of thing. But I’d been flying at that time up and down the coast in our training, dropping aluminium foil and trying to assist in the confusion.
RG: The deception for D-day.
AJ: Yes.
RG: Was that, was that in Mosquitos? Was that in Mosquitos you were doing that? Or in —
AJ: No. No. Lancasters.
RG: Lancs. That was Lancs. Yeah.
AJ: Lancasters.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: That was part of the training. So that that went through. D-day came and went and by that time I had not joined a squadron but aircraft like ours were deployed on all sorts of weird jobs. You know, we would fly way up to, right along the French coast, over the North Sea, dropping this aluminium foil.
RG: Yeah. The Window.
AJ: And D-day came and went. And then the awful business of starting to do, being injected into the bomber stream with, before the squadron. Before I joined 460.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: I’d completed all of about half a dozen raids into the German areas near the coast.
RG: While you were under training.
AJ: While training.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: They were —
RG: They had the spoof.
AJ: We were losing so many aircraft.
LD: I know.
AJ: And of course when the jets came in, the ME262 jets came in around about October, I think of 1944. And our losses were just so, there was no answer to it. And so by the time I was finally allocated to 460 Squadron myself and my crew were well versed in some of these dangers. And the —
LD: So was this a crew that was set up within the OTU or —
AJ: I beg your pardon?
LD: The crew that you joined the squadron with.
AJ: Yes.
LD: Did you guys set up within the OTU or —
AJ: Yes.
LD: Right. Ok.
AJ: That’s right.
RD: Yeah.
AJ: It was a fairly standard practice that I went through once I was on the, on to the heavy aircraft.
RG: Can I ask you, Alex, how did that crewing up occur? Because we’ve spoken to other veterans and it’s a mixed bag between people actually just finding oh we need a pilot. There’s someone over there. We’ll just grab him. And a bit more formalised.
LD: Some people even meeting in a pub.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: So how did yours work?
AJ: Actually that was quite strange the way that crews were formed. Now let me think. The crew that I finally, my first crew it would be at [pause] let me think.
PJ: This is Campbell in all this lot.
AJ: Yes. That’s right. Now where the devil did that take place? But the system was, I might remember where it was. Somewhere in central England. Firstly, you’d get up, the officer group and there were only a few officer, officer pilots because the pilot was the, was the first. He was the senior man.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: Crew captain.
RG: Captain. Yeah.
AJ: The pilots that were officers, firstly stood up on this platform and there was all these —
[background chat]
PJ: Alex is deaf. Very deaf. So he wears a hearing aid but you might have to speak up a bit.
RG: Yes. OK.
AJ: Yeah.
PJ: Anyhow, I think it was the Lurline, Alex. I can’t find it, but I think it was —
AJ: At Lichfield.
PJ: No. The Lurline. The ship you went out on.
AJ: Oh the Lurline. Yeah.
PJ: The Lurline. But —
AJ: Anyway, the pilots, officer pilots would stand up first and give a bit of a spiel saying, you know, where they’d trained. Because a lot of them had trained in Canada.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Some in South Africa.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And I stood up and said I was trained fully in Australia and commissioned off the course. Which was most unusual.
RG: Yes. Yeah.
AJ: I didn’t go into the fact that I was in jail [laughs]
RG: It might have scored points with you Alex.
AJ: Yeah. And after that, you know the other pilots would get up and do the same and then the meeting in the great hall would dissolve from formalities and you’d just wander around. And then you’d have groups of guys. Gunners would tend to, they tended to stick together. And the navigators and the w/op wireless operator blokes. They’d all, they’d be talking and some of them had teamed up with another group. And they’d come up and talk to the pilot. Many of the pilots. And after a while things sort of settled down and I got, in my crew, I got, there were two Englishmen, ‘cause the first Englishman had to be the bloke sitting at the front with you on the right.
RG: The engineer.
AJ: Not the pilot.
RG: The engineer.
AJ: Hmmn?
RG: The engineer.
AJ: Yeah. Flight engineer. Because they weren’t trained out here. They were almost invariably Englishmen.
RG: Oh. Were they? Oh. Ok.
AJ: And the man who I, who came up to me had been in the army and was highly skilled. He was thirty two years of age. An old man.
RG: Yeah.
LD: That was an old man.
AJ: But his rank, I think was oh, major I think.
RG: Wow.
AJ: Frank Stone was his name. A real gentleman.
RG: Was he a sergeant then or was he still commissioned?
AJ: No. He’d re-joined —
RG: Yeah.
AJ: The air force as a pilot officer.
RG: Right. Ok So that’s a big come down though from major to pilot.
AJ: A big come down. He was, I remember he was the first guy. So I had, as the pilot, the flight engineer, Pilot Officer Frank Stone. And he had, for some reason or other known this rear gunner and he, those two joined me. And then the other group of Aussies — the mid-upper gunner, the navigator and the wireless operator were all Australians. A couple of them were, one of them was commissioned. Now, who would that be? Anyway, one was commissioned. And so that’s the way the crew was formed. Well, we went finally, as a crew. We got posted to 460 Squadron which was, you know, we all thought oh that’s it because 460 had a great reputation and what’s his name? The VC.
PJ: Hughie Edwards.
AJ: Hughie Edwards.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Was at that time the 460.
LD: Apparently, he was the world’s worst driver.
RG: Oh was he? [laughs]
LD: Yes. He had a Mercedes.
RG: He was a pilot. Yeah [laughs]
AJ: He was a shocking pilot. Oh my God.
PJ: And then he had a Mercedes and apparently, he had more dents in it because there was a 460 Squadron —
AJ: But everybody said that you fly with Hughie [laughs] at your own risk. But he was charismatic.
PJ: Yeah.
AJ: How he could instil wonderful, wonderful feelings amongst his squadron.
PJ: One of those, one of those sort of pulling off bays, you know, along the highway. In Canberra.
LD: Yes.
RG: Yes. Hughie Edwards bay.
PJ: There was a Hughie Edwards there and his brother that was, that must have been put in, I suppose seven or eight years ago. I can’t remember but we were down there.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: It’s been a while.
PJ: And his brother was there, and he was telling a story of what a frightful driver. He had a Mercedes and he had more dents in it than you could poke a stick at.
AJ: Anyway, I’m probably getting too far ahead for your questions.
LD: No. No. We’re actually.
RG: No. No. it doesn’t matter. We’re actually ticking them off as we go. Just carry on Alex.
AJ: I started flying in combat from 460 right on [pause] almost New Year’s Day of ’45. When the, I’d been flying in, in to but not in to direct combat. We were doing interjections before that as a crew.
RG: So was that the sort of the spoof raids?
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Those sorts of things. Anyway, the first real operation was either New Year’s Day or immediately after. And —
PJ: Weren’t you involved in that Battle of the Bulge? Where, you know, there was such terrible weather.
AJ: Yeah. Yeah.
PJ: That was New Year’s. That was Christmas Day.
AJ: Yeah. Well that’s —
RG: Oh that’s right. Christmas.
PJ: It was terrible weather.
AJ: It was awful weather.
PJ: Nobody could have — the Germans couldn’t come in and the —
AJ: Yeah.
PJ: What’s the name of the town?
AJ: We were all grounded.
PJ: I’m trying to think of the name of the town.
AJ: The bomber force was grounded because of the weather.
PJ: Because there’s a memorial to the Yanks.
AJ: And then it lifted and oh God they launched everything including training aircraft against the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. Anyway, my first raid was done as what they called a second dickie.
LD: Oh yes.
AJ: That’s a senior pilot and his crew would take you. You’d sit there in the flight engineer’s seat.
RG: Little seat. Yeah.
AJ: And you went through the raid and learned that whatever and if you were lucky you’d return. They didn’t like second dickie trips. I’ve taken a few too on when I was skilled.
RG: Yeah. When you were — yeah.
AJ: And you never liked them because for some reason or other they seemed they were cursed.
PJ: Bring you bad luck.
AJ: Bring you bad luck. Yeah. It was a fair few. Well, ok I started after that with the crew and we had a series of raids which I won’t go into but near the, on about the 20th or something of February we went to Dresden. Awful. Awful. You know the story of Dresden and so on. How we, most of us just made it back because the tremendous long trip to Dresden and the awful conflagration. I’ve often been back to Europe with Pauline.
PJ: Well, when we were in Prague. He wouldn’t go to Dresden.
AJ: We’ve had opportunities to go back to Dresden.
PJ: That was only a couple of years ago.
AJ: Just over the border and I just said no. I just can’t. I’ve never returned to Dresden.
PJ: One of the most interesting things I find with history is its very one sided. It depends who’s telling the story.
RG: Absolutely.
PJ: And you get an enormous amount and when I, ‘cause this is the second marriage for both Alex and I but we’ve now been married thirty two years so it’s been a long, a long hard road [laughs
AJ: I lost my first wife, the mother of my kids to cancer. Breast cancer.
PJ: Anyhow, the thing is that when I first married Alex he was still having nightmares about the Dresden raid etcetera and so forth and you hear a lot about the horror of the Dresden raid, but you seldom hear about the horrors of Coventry. You know, if you go to the cathedral and you see walls left and that amazing cross and so on.
RG: Been to the cathedral. Yes. Yeah.
PJ: You seldom hear this. You seldom hear. And when I was first in Europe in, because I wasn’t in the war, I’m younger than Alex but I was first in the Europe in ’54 ’55. So I was there for the tenth anniversary of the end of the war and so on. And I went through Hamburg. I went through Germany and I couldn’t believe it. You wouldn’t know there was a war there because the Marshall plan had rebuilt everything.
RG: Rebuilt. Yeah.
PJ: But London was still derelict.
RG: Yes.
PJ: All around St Paul’s was still flattened and so on.
RG: Yeah. In fact, just last night we were watching a film which was made in London in — 1953 was it?
LD: ‘51
RG: ‘51. Yeah It was in —
PJ: Still all the bomb damage.
RG: It was in the city and there was buildings down everywhere
AJ: Well, I’d better continue hadn’t I?
PJ: Oh yeah. Sorry.
PJ: That was my fault Alex.
AJ: No. No. It was —
PJ: The history is interesting.
AJ: It is interesting.
RG: It is.
PJ: Interesting.
AJ: After the Dresden we got home and the, the three nights later we went to Dortmund. A bombing raid which was pretty rough. Pretty terrible. And coming home it was midnight. Snow on the ground. And the worst possible conditions for bomber aircraft because it was heavy cloud low down. Full moon. And just above the top of the cloud which was at our return flying height, so we were in and out.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: But often silhouetted.
RG: Yeah. Silhouetted.
AJ: Against the white cloud below. We were caught by — over the German Belgian border by a Messerschmitt 262. Jet.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: They were so fast. Fully armed with cannon.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Not just machine guns. And it blew the starboard wing of my Lancaster clean off. I mean there was no, no, you know, pilot stay in his seat, hold it until the rest of the crew baled go.
RG: Just go.
AJ: And the poor crew of course who were serving. They were at their desks and so on. Never. Their parachutes were strapped to the side of the Lancaster.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: So they always had to somehow get to them, put them on.
RG: And then get out.
AJ: While I held the aircraft.
RG: But you couldn’t do that.
AJ: Theoretically in a position where they could bale out. Well there was none of that because the cannon blew the starboard wing right and the aircraft just disintegrated at twenty two thousand feet. We all went out. I never saw my crew again. Naturally. They fell to their deaths. And I, being a pilot, occasionally you’ll see this in the record in such a case the armour plated bucket seats, which I’m sitting on, sitting on your parachute went out like a cork out of a champagne bottle.
RG: The whole seat.
AJ: The whole seat. Yeah. And I don’t remember anything of that naturally. Just the disintegration. Nothing. I must have fallen. Well, I obviously did because I came to at about two thousand feet. And there’s no steel seat. Somehow that had got lost in the fall down and the parachute harness was still on me but the parachute was unopened. There’s a stick sort of thing.
RG: Handle. Yeah.
AJ: And on fire just above my head.
RG: On fire.
AJ: Yeah. And this great hero at that stage looked down and here’s a church. And we were in a little a place called Lummen in Belgium. And I looked at that and so help me, this is written up and it’s quite true. There’s no exaggeration. You know, I’m a few seconds from death. What do you think the great hero thought at that time? Christ, if I don’t bloody do something that, that’s going to go up my arse. True [laughs]
LD: [laughs] Well it would have looked very small from that height too wouldn’t it?
AJ: Talk about anti-climax. I think people who ask me what’s my, my biggest memories. I said that little thing [laughs] I thought oh gawd. So I gave the rip cord a tug and so help me this burning sticker top opened up just sufficient because I landed in the church yard.
RG: Yeah.
LD: Not on the steeple.
AJ: Not on the steeple. And I think, they say I landed in the peach tree, somewhere near, in the gravestones and so on. In any event I survived the fall. It was in no man’s land. And the Luftwaffe were in charge at that time around that part and of course we had some respect for the, or a great deal of respect actually for the massed combatant. Combatants of the Luftwaffe and there wasn’t —
PJ: And he was also quite seriously injured.
AJ: Wasn’t particularly, if you’d seen the Wehrmacht or something they would have slit my throat. I believe, quite soundly, I was finished in a field hospital of which the Germans were in charge and they saved my life. And all things went on in there and I won’t go through that but some time later —
PJ: They were retreating. The Germans were retreating and left him behind.
AJ: Eventually the Canadians moved through the area and I remember being interviewed there. I spoke up for the Luftwaffe nurses and staff.
RG: Did they leave staff there? Just for interest’s sake, some staff?.
AJ: Yeah. They didn’t want to get back with the, because they didn’t want to go to Russian front.
RG: Oh. Ok. Yeah.
AJ: And I said these people had treated me very very well. I honoured them and they wished to be taken in charge as prisoner of war ectera. ‘Yes. Yes. That can be done. But you’re under arrest.’
RG: Alex, this is becoming a habit [laughs] you know that don’t you?
AJ: And this was, this was a pommie colonel.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Oh did I give him hell.
RG: Why did he say you were under arrest though?
AJ: Good question. You know, I said the same thing, ‘What the f’ing hell are you talking about?’ Anyway, he went out and about an hour later he came back.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And he confirmed some of the basis of the story that I was saying.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And the point was that he raised that issue early because such was the loss, terrible losses of our crews.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: I must have to be sorry to say that it’s not often mentioned in the records. Many of our bomber crews cracked under the strain.
RG: Yeah. Yes.
AJ: And they used to fly over such places to become prisoners.
RG: Yes.
AJ: Or even better to get into Sweden, Switzerland or something and save themselves. They’d had enough. They were cracking.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And really the Germans were winning the air war. There was no doubt about it.
PJ: Yeah. If Hitler wasn’t such an idiot, he would have won.
AJ: He would have. He would have won. All he had to do was keep on going a little bit longer, you know. But anyway as a result of that I was pulled back to Britain some, a week, or ten days. I forget the length of time, later. And instead of being repatriated home immediately which was the usual thing the wonderful base commander, also an Australian. And that was —
RG: Don’t ask me what his name was. I can’t remember.
AJ: Binbrook was —
RG: This was the base commander not the squadron commander.
AJ: That’s right.
RG: Yes.
PJ: [unclear]
AJ: I was flying with the Australian commander at that time. I forget his name now. But the base commander was an Australian too.
PJ: Cowan. Wasn’t it? The base, not the base commander but Cowan.
AJ: No. Cowan was the guy who came in. His crew I finally picked up.
PJ: I can’t remember the name of that fellow. I met him at that —
AJ: No. Anyway he said Alex I’m going to ask you a pretty terrible thing. He said we now have, because of the losses being brought about by the jet aircraft which Churchill refused to allow our air force commander Butch Harris to try and describe to we, the crew because Churchill believed that we’d all surrender.
LD: So did you not —
RG: Did you know about those?
LD: You were not informed that these aircraft —
AJ: No. We were kept in the dark about these engineless things.
PJ: Aircraft.
AJ: That were shooting us down. It was deliberate by Churchill because he had no faith in Bomber Command. He hated the bloody air force. Anyway, he said, ‘I want you to stay here and to pick up the new squadron commander, Wing Commander Cowan.’ He had no experience anyway. He was barred from flying. Anyone above the rank of full squadron leader was barred from flying, because of our losses. And he said, ‘We can’t, we have his crew who were perfectly ready to take over, but they won’t have a pilot. We want you to volunteer to continue in action.’ I said, well I thought about it for about one second and said, ‘Yes, I’ll volunteer.’ So, I was appointed the pilot and commander of the new untested crew. Mainly Aussies. And —
RG: I wanted to ask. Can I just ask, how did that, so they worked up that they were the wing commander’s, Wing Commander Cowan’s crew. They’d worked up with him, trained with him and whatever. And then he goes and you, you jump in.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: How did it work out with them? How did you —
PJ: He’s still friendly with — there’s one in Melbourne.
AJ: Yeah. Well the camaraderie within the squadron was absolutely tremendous. Even though we were being shot to ribbons. And people respected me because they all believed I was dead. When I turned up [laughs] I just rescued my tin in the steel box of personal goods from the, that’s called the graveyard down in London. They used to take —
RG: Sorry, what was that? They used to take the stuff down to what was known as the graveyard.
AJ: When crews went missing or were killed in action. And there were many. Their personal belongings were generally put in a big steel trunk. Sent down to London to the, ‘dead meat factory.’
PJ: Then to be shipped home.
AJ: And then shipped home
RG: We were going to ask you about that if you don’t mind. The Committee of Adjustment term that we’ve heard which is very little information on.
PJ: Never heard of it.
LD: These were the people who picked up —
PJ: Oh yes.
RG: It’s an old term from the nineteenth century. It’s an old British army term and I’ve heard it in Bomber Command. That how, when a crew went missing, were killed that process of who, who did it. And it varied in different squadrons and stuff.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Who came and picked their kit up.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: And we’ve also heard about censoring. That they’d go through and —
AJ: It was the same committee that — I’ve heard of it. I don’t know much about their operations because they were — you didn’t want to know.
RG: No. No. You wouldn’t.
AJ: But they were the ones too who used to pick up the belongings of people who cracked up in combat. Many of us did, you know. Many, many guys would return and they’d be [pause] and they were sentenced. Sentenced. Think of the modern treatment of such people. LMF. Lack of moral fibre.
RG: Lack of moral fibre.
LD: That’s another —
AJ: That was the worst term in the air force.
LD: Yes. Yes.
AJ: Lack of moral fibre.
RG: So what happened, again LMF is naturally there is very little information because no one wants to —
LD: And what you read is so inconsistent.
RG: Yeah. And different squadrons, different groups seemed to do this different in different, well the Canadians did it differently from us.
AJ: That’s right. They all had their certain people that looked after that. And they were ostracised. It was almost too, too much to bear to talk to such people. You know, you’d be, even as an officer in the permanent quarters where my room were because I was a pretty senior officer, combat officer. And, you know, you’d be at breakfast or something after a raid or [pause] and, you know, ‘Where are they? What’s happened?’ And they these people would take over. And when you saw them I could recognise them, but they never socialised with any of us.
RG: Who were they?
AJ: I don’t know.
RG: Were they officers?
PJ: Were they part of the air force?
RG: Were they officers or were they —
PJ: Were they part of the air force or civilians?
AJ: Oh yes. They were air force guys.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: They would dress just like the rest of us but from memory now, that’s right, they had a tag. A tag up here and if you saw them we used to, well we had various words for them. Death heads or something or other. I forget now. But there was no camaraderie with such people. They were terrible around. They had an awful job to do.
RG: They did didn’t they.
AJ: But in my case, I got back. I take over Wing Commander Cowan’s crew and away we go. And from thereafter I think we did another ten or fifteen combat bombing trips. Some finished up in daylight with the American Forts. I admired them, the Yanks. Even though they were bombastic bastards [laughs] we used, we used to fight like hell in the pubs. They were always, we reckoned chasing our women. Our women. We used to call the ladies from Grimsby that we’d invite out to the officer’s mess, famous mess out there called the Village Inn, the Grimsby night fighters. For obvious reasons. But they were, they were lovely, lovely lasses. And strangely enough it wasn’t a sexual trend although that obviously went on. But it was, they were, they seemed to accept their role in a beautiful manner. They’d calm you down when you were dancing, and these are the memories now that are very strong in my mind.
RG: Yes.
AJ: Since the horrors and the trauma of my experience after my recent illnesses for some reason has faded away.
RG: Faded away.
AJ: And I am now touching ninety two and as Pauline says I have a, I don’t have the awful trauma. Only the funny things
RG: The good ones.
AJ: Of the Grimsby, of the Grimsby girls.
PJ: In your second stint, that was when you did Operation Manna.
AJ: Yeah, that’s interesting. As Pauline has just said. After [pause] no. Before the war finished the — a group of Germans and the whole of Belgium and Holland was grounded. It was sealed by Montgomery’s army. And Hitler being Hitler refused any suggestion that these people, that the German and there was a hell of a lot of Germans there, should surrender. And therefore the Red Cross and International Red Cross I think it was mainly who organised a cease fire in order that Lancasters, because of their great load carrying ability would be used to drop food to the starving Dutch.
PJ: Yeah. All the dykes had been busted.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: So Holland was all flooded so there was no production of food.
RG: Yeah. Yeah. It was impossible to get any other way.
AJ: That was amazing. I did about three. Three or four of those.
RG: That was amazing thing, wasn’t it?
AJ: And the worst thing about it was that there were only certain areas that you could drop this food and the stuff we were dropping, you know. Big two hundred pound bag of potatoes and bulky packets.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Of all sorts of food wired up in our own bomb bays. And we’d release those at about, to nearly two hundred mile an hour. We had to fly no higher than a thousand feet over all of the approaches to this area. And the German gunners were, this was unofficial trips.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: You could see, you could set the watches on the —
RG: 11 o’clock. We’ll, yeah, it’s over.
AJ: And we I remember so well the time when the plane in front of me in this great field that was up above the flood waters fence. And all around the fence would be the German troops keeping the starving, and they were starving.
RG: Yeah. Starvation.
AJ: Ordinary folk away. Well the plane in front dropped successfully and suddenly, terribly the German troops, they laid down their arms and raced to get the food. They were starving too.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: And then followed by the people. Can you imagine it? I’m approaching.
LD: Oh and you’re coming.
AJ: And suddenly dropped them as you came in.
LD: Carrying two hundred pounds of potatoes.
AJ: I’ve got to drop. I’ve got to drop. The plane is ready to drop. So I dropped my load and so help me God. You could see them. You know. if you get hit in the head with a two hundred pound bag of spuds at two hundred miles an hour.
RG: Two hundred miles an hour.
AJ: There’s not much of you left. Well I did about three. Three or four of those. And in there I have a plaque that was issued to those of us on Operation Manna. And on the way back, trying to recover our sanity we went on, going past these great windmills with great Lancasters — four engines. You approached the windmill [boom] and the wheels — vroom [laughs] We had photos of that which have gone missing now. That was Operation Manna. And then, after the war, some three days after the war, Churchill ordered the air force to provide a skilled crew. A pilot, with the facilities in this Lancaster for photography. For the record over all of Germany.
RG: The destructed. The destroyed cities. Yeah.
AJ: And hence my first long range. I was selected, and you had, I had on board about eleven or twelve senior people, photographers, ladies, WAAF chiefs. Some of them were very senior people. And at a thousand feet we flew all over Germany taking those. They were quite famous photographs.
PJ: These are the negatives we gave to the War Memorial last year.
AJ: The negatives we gave. We have the copy. Particularly that famous one.
RG: Of the bridge.
AJ: The bridge of Cologne.
AJ: Over Cologne. And the funniest thing of all I guess was the fact that those long trips the ladies of course, it wasn’t set up for ladies in a Lancaster.
LD: From what I’ve heard the elsan wasn’t very well set up for men either.
AJ: The elsan. I had strict instructions I gave to my rear gunner that he wasn’t to switch. I could sense when he moved his turret.
RG: Turret. Yeah.
AJ: I said, ‘You keep that bloody turret looking out.’ But a couple of times there I could sense what was going on. And he was laughing like hell there. So there was some funny things.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Then further on we joined the new force.
RG: Tiger Force.
AJ: Single Australians with very long, highly experienced crews.
PJ: Tiger Force.
AJ: Tiger Force. At the home of east, at East Kirkby which is famous anyhow.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And we started to bring back, we’d fly tremendous distances all over Europe doing various tasks to get experience for when we were to be based in Iwo Jima.
RG: In bombing Japan.
AJ: That had just been taken by the Yanks. To bomb Japan. Can you imagine these long range Lancs up against the Japanese Zeros defending their own land? Over Tokyo. But the worst thing about it was that we would not have enough fuel to return to Iwo Jima.
RG: So what was to happen? Land in China?
AJ: We were too overfly. Think of this for a crazy bloody.
RG: Planning.
AJ: Arrangements made by that idiot Churchill and others to overfly Tokyo in to deep Soviet Russia and to land at a field of opportunity.
LD: Oh because it would all just be sitting there.
AJ: There were no maps. We were just told that you overfly if you survive. You can overfly, land where you’ll be refuelled and rearmed and you could come back. There was no way we would come back. It was a flight to death. But that’s what we were up for. But before we got down on to that level we were, we did a lot of flying down to the south of Italy to the coast. Bari.
RG: Oh yeah.
AJ: Because that Bari became the central point for the collection of all the poor darned prisoners of war.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: From all around that area.
RG: From right up through Europe. Not just to Italy. Everywhere.
AJ: Down. Yeah. All the prisoners that were to be returned to Britain were to be, as far as possible collected from Bari.
RG: Brought back through Bari. Ok.
AJ: We’d fly down and bring them back.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Ten on each side of the Lancaster, strapped.
LD: Of course I’ve heard this, and I’ve wondered where they put them and how they put them.
AJ: Well that’s it because the Lanc became, of course almost unmanageable with twenty people. It’s centre of gravity was all over the place.
LD: Yes.
AJ: It was highly dangerous work.
LD: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: But we did quite a few of these trips and on one trip — this is quite a funny story really. We had realised and so had the people down in Bari that a nice little trade could be organised. We’d take down the, we’d bring back the prisoners but what do we do?
RG: Come back empty.
AJ: About taking them down because you can’t sort of turn up an opportunity to load up your Lanc bomb bay. In a station like Binbrook there were hundreds, literally hundreds of push bikes.
LD: Of course. Of course. Yes.
AJ: Pushbikes were, of course, used by everyone. When a crew went missing no one’s interested in the pushbikes. The bicycle dump was bigger than the bomb dump. And we, a lot of us got our little heads together and said if we take down bikes wired up in the bomb bay and then exchange them down there for fruit, Italian jewellery, you know. For all the goodies that were missing in England. Ah, great. So this trade started. Well we’d done quite a few of these trips bringing back the prisoners itself was —
RG: Key thing.
AJ: A very emotional experience. But mid-way through this exercise the bloody military police down in, our own coppers —
RG: Yeah. Yeah. The crushers.
AJ: Down in Bari. They had a racket or two going too and we were undercutting them, you know. And so they decided that they were going to stop us.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: By arresting a few of the crew and causing mayhem.
RG: You didn’t get arrested again did you Alex?
AJ: What happened was that I got, to there was about six or eight in this flight. I happened to be leading it, of Lancs from Binbrook with our bikes. And we’re flying at about fifteen thousand feet down the Med. We get a call from base saying, ‘Get rid of those bloody bikes. The cops are waiting for you in Bari.’ How do you get rid of bikes fifteen thousand feet over the Med? Obvious.
PJ: It is really.
AJ: I opened the bomb bays and wired them, and at my command, ‘Bombs away. Bikes away.’ And so that’s what happened. And can you imagine suddenly out of the [laughs] hundreds of bikes?
RG: You’ll see them down there on the floor of the Mediterranean there is all this piles of bikes.
AJ: That’s it. in the future, five thousand years away there will be some stupid palaeontologist saying these are unusual.
LD: There’ll be some child who was down on the beach that’s going, ‘Mum, can we go out and get some of those bikes that fell in to the sea?’ ‘Oh, you stupid boy.’
PJ: Wouldn’t believe it.
AJ: Oh dear. But when we got down there and the cops raced into the aircraft. Nothing there. Bomb doors open. Opened the bomb doors. Nothing. I can still see [laughs] they knew they’d been beaten.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Didn’t find anything.
LD: What did you do with those bloody bikes. What bikes?
RG: What bikes?
LD: They didn’t find anything else to arrest anybody for instead did they?
RG: I’ve just got this mental image of all these people riding pushbikes in these 1950s and ‘60s Italian movies.
PJ: That’s right.
RG: And they’re all RAF bikes.
PJ: Of course they had no transport so —
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: So there was some funny stories amongst the tragedies.
PJ: What else is there? I can’t think. Actually now there’s, in Lummen, where Alex came down.
RG: Sorry what was the name of that town again?
PJ: Lummen.
RG: Yeah. How do you spell it?
AJ: L U M M E N.
RG: Ok.
AJ: Lummen.
PJ: They now have a street, an Alexander Jenkins Street, Strasse in the new subdivision there.
RG: Oh truly. Oh wow.
PJ: Yeah. The mayor wrote last year.
AJ: Yeah. What happened was oh about 1983 or thereabouts.
PJ: It was ’83 because that was when I was going through those things for the Department of Foreign Affairs.
AJ: ’83. They, the local people in Lummen. The younger men and women who had no real experience of the war decided that they knew all of them now. They knew the history of that terrible night. The number of aircraft shot down over their, over their area on the night of the 20th.
PJ: Very close to the German border.
AJ: And they decided that they knew that there was somewhere in this rhododendron swamp. Beautiful rhododendron forest but there were bits of my aircraft that had been in that swamp. Had not been discovered and taken away in the great clean-up straight after the war had finished. And they were just resting in pieces until then. And a number of them, the patriots decided they’d find the remains of my Lanc. Which they did. They were amazing the way they did it. And anyway —
PJ: They didn’t find much.
AJ: No. They didn’t find much. The heavy undercarriage survived of course. A few other bits and pieces. So at about ‘83 this occurred, and they finally had got through the ID markings on the, on the remnants. They knew that it was a bomber from Binbrook. The records showed that that was the site of the Lanc. And they decided that they would try, they knew there was one survivor. The pilot.
PJ: They didn’t know that at the outset did they because that young, the young girl that looked after the graves, first of all they had all of you.
AJ: Oh yeah that’s right.
PJ: Lost.
AJ: It took a long time.
RG: For everyone.
PJ: For them all. And we met this young girl who, she was a twelve year old when she used to look after the graves.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: Because they were buried in the village.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: Now they’re in the war cemetery.
RG: War cemetery. Yeah.
PJ: But in the small war cemetery.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: Not in any major ones.
AJ: No.
PJ: Because they said, you know, their our guys. So it’s a small war cemetery.
AJ: They decided that they would get this, these bits and pieces and build a memorial. And the identification — they searched everywhere. Records and so on to try and find the name and the whereabouts of the surviving pilot. Me. Well, officialdom, particularly in Australia and for good reasons you make at that time, you make an enquiry like that and — no comment. Because of the threat of retaliation and bribery and things. People getting even if they handed out that sort of information.
RG: Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.
AJ: Where Joe Blow was, who was doing this at that time in the war. Where is he now? I want to go over and shoot him.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: So they didn’t pass any info at all. They couldn’t get anywhere with it. But in any event, they finally did, through the university system. See, I was a professor in the, I was a foundation professor at the University of New South Wales and eventually also a professor in charge of the Department of Materials and Metallurgy at Sydney University. And Sydney, the university has this international academic thing over and they, apparently there was a publication in England about me.
PJ: Well there —
AJ: And they found me.
PJ: Apparently, yeah, apparently, there’s a university magazine that goes out and this fellow in Belgium put an ad in this university magazine seeking the whereabouts of this Alexander Jenkins.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: And Alex had already retired so the registrar of the Sydney Uni rang Alex and said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to.’ And also the Department of Foreign Affairs got in touch.
AJ: Yeah. They said, ‘What have you been up to? You’re wanted.’
RG: Again. Get stuffed.
AJ: Well we were —
PJ: It was.
AJ: Planning to go back at that stage.
PJ: Well, I was working and when I married Alex he said I’d like you to retire in five years. So, ok, because he didn’t know what he was going to be doing. So by the time I retired he was on every rotten board in the country and he was never at home so I could have killed him. But that’s beside the point. So the people I worked for, they, they knew I was going to retire so this was ’86. It must have been. And they said, ‘Look you’ve done a good job for us. We think you should get a new car. We’re suggesting you get BMW and we suggest you go to Munich to pick it up.’ So I was quite happy to do that. So we knew we were going to be in Europe. And we took a house about fifteen kilometres out of Florence for about six weeks or something. So we had all this in place. Well then when they finally got hold of Alex we said we could be there etcetera and so forth. So we went, and we drove into this town and there were thousands of people and Alex said, ‘It must be market day.’ It wasn’t market day it was us and him.
LD: It was Alex Jenkins day.
PJ: And it was incredible.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
LD: Did you go by car and wave like the queen?
PJ: It was a big deal.
AJ: It was a big deal.
PJ: The head of the NATO forces for Belgium was there. Colonel [unclear] And there was the Australian Ambassador to France, I think he was. And there was the British Ambassador to somewhere or other. They were all there and it was interesting and we, and Colonel [unclear] said to me they were going to unveil a memorial to Alex’s crew.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: Outside the church. So, and Colonel [unclear] he said, because it was a Flemish area. There was a book written about Alex, but it was in Flemish. Have you ever tried to get Flemish translated in this country? It’s almost impossible.
RG: I know one person who can do it.
PJ: Well, I found one person who could do it and she was in Adelaide. And it was interesting. My daughter was working for the Commonwealth Bank and the girl at the desk next to her, she was saying, because Alex was coming up for his eightieth birthday and I was trying to find some way to get this translated so he could, so that I could give it to him for his eightieth. Well, so Louise was helping me. And somehow, she said something to this girl and she said mum, she’s a translator. She’s married to an Australian but she’s from the Flemish region of Belgium. Anyhow, Colonel [unclear] said it in Flemish and then he said it in English and so on. And there was a guard of honour drawn up for Alex and they were all the Resistance fighters. And they were all old, and they were gnarled and they were a tough looking bunch. And they made him an honorary member, his medal’s in there, of the resistance. Well then Colonel [unclear] had said to me, ‘Be prepared for a bit of a surprise.’ So they go through all this and then they gave him a flypast of F16s.
RG: Wow.
PJ: They came over the top of the church.
RG: Yeah. To recognise.
PJ: It was quite amazing. It was a very emotional day. We’ve been over a couple of times since. But —
AJ: It was quite something. I’m standing there and in front of the dais and the colonel and there’s all the Resistance. Wartime blokes. God [laughs] they were a rough bunch with their berets and so on and when he said that there would be a celebration and he didn’t really describe it except that I thought, you know this is something to do with this air force business.
PJ: No. He didn’t tell you. He told me. You didn’t know anything about it.
AJ: No. I didn’t. And anyway, the, I’m standing there and just waiting. And, in the background, I heard vroom vroom vroom and I thought, My God. that’s a bloody aircraft on full power, flaps. It’s a, there’s a word for it in some tactical approach. Supersonic aircraft flying as slow as possible with flaps down.
RG: Flying down.
AJ: And undercart still retracted.
RG: Ok.
AJ: But flying as low and as slow.
RG: Slow as possible.
AJ: It takes tremendous power for a plane like that to do that.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ: And they were revving the engines. Vroom. Vroom. Vroom.
RG: Virtually standing on the tail. Yeah.
AJ: I thought, oh my God, I think I know what might be coming because that’s the first part of a ceremonial, highly meaningful but seldom performed performance by aircraft in the honour of a fallen or a number of fallen comrades. Prince of Wales Feathers it called. Anyway, sure enough and low on the horizon was that. How many were there? About six weren’t there? I think so.
PJ: No. I think there was four or something [unclear] to make the Prince of Wales Feathers.
AJ: No. Six it would have been.
PJ: Anyhow, whatever.
AJ: Anyway just over the top just above the ground really and I’m looking at that and I thought I know what’s coming now because what happens is that they move away. That’s meant to be the sound of the human heart.
LD: Yes. Yes.
AJ: Vroom vroom vroom. Then they move away. Get out, away from the crowd and everything else. They reassemble and this time —
RG: Come back.
AJ: They come in with full power as an arrow group.
LD: Yeah.
AJ: And then vroom just above and straight up and then they.
LD: That’s where they get the name the name the Prince of Wales Feathers. Just spreading.
AJ: Prince of Wales Feathers.
LD: Spreading like the feathers.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Yeah. The beating of the human heart first and then the departure of the soul to heaven.
RG: Yeah. Ok. I didn’t realise the significance.
PJ: These, we were guests of this —
AJ: Gosh it was so impressive.
LD: What a wonderful thing for your crew isn’t it.
AJ: I had tears in my eyes.
PJ: The pilots took us to dinner. Their wives took us to dinner that night and one of the wives was saying that she, she, they used to hide under the table during the war. And she said her mother used to say she could hear the Lancasters going over and she’d say, ‘There goes the sound of freedom.’ So —
AJ: Yeah.
PJ: She’s but she —
AJ: What a story that —
PJ: This Colonel [unclear] was the air attaché to the Belgian Embassy.
AJ: He was a wonderful bloke.
PJ: Embassy in Washington. And his wife told the story that when they went over there they had three daughters and the youngest, the littly really spoke no English at all. The other two were bi lingual. Anyhow she gets her there and she didn’t know whether to send her to school or not and so on. So she sends her to kindy and when she gets home her mother said, ‘How was it? How did you like American kindy?’ She said, ‘Mum, it’s quite good but, ‘she said, ‘You know none of the kids could understand a word I said.’ So she said it took her a while. But they were delightful people. When we were there a couple of years ago he was too ill to meet us but no this first trip we went one of the, oh well there’s a, there’s a little memorial. Alex has photos there and it’s made of the, the what do you call the big straps that the wheels go in.
AJ: The oleo legs.
PJ: Ok. And they made a chapel of them.
AJ: And then on top there’s this —
PJ: But then they, and there was an ink drawing of Alex falling out of the sky with his parachute on fire and so on. And there were a whole stack of kids. There was just so many people there. And I tried to, I was saying to these, trying to explain to these kids that that old guy, he didn’t have a beard then but that old guy over there was the guy falling out of the sky. They looked at him. They looked at it. But this bloke from the Australian Embassy had very kindly brought a pocket full of little gold kangaroos, you know so they dispensed these out to the kids.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: And they thought it lovely fun. But at the same time there was a dinner that night a reception that afternoon and a fellow gave Alex, this father and his son came out and the son spoke very good English as they all do. The father wasn’t [unclear] but he had a gold watch he had which belonged to one of Alex’s crew and he asked if we could try and return it to the family. Well I was still working, and I tried and as Alex said earlier you can’t get any information. People don’t give you any information. So when I retired I couldn’t find out where this guy had come from or anything, by the name of Campbell. Anyhow, when I retired I tried again and I struck. I told the lass this story, you know, what was going on and she was quite helpful and said he came from Mudgee. So we did some research. It was very hard. You know, it was a long time ago and people change and die and move on and so on.
LD: Yes.
PJ: Anyhow, we eventually found his three sisters and we gave them back the watch that apparently their mother had given to their brother for his twenty first birthday and so we were able to give them that.
AJ: By the way we have been back several times and I think the last time that we were in contact the people the people in Lummen because we are, we have the freedom of the city and so on.
RG: That’s one place in the world you’re never going to be arrested. You know that [laughs]
AJ: Yeah. That’s right.
PJ: The last time we went —
AJ: Well, the last time we were there they had the signs up.
PJ: But we said, ‘Very low key please. Very low key.’ So we arrived, well first of all they picked us up from the railway station in Brussels. And they described, there would be three guys and they described themselves and their description was absolutely spot on. There was a short guy, a tall guy and a fat guy. Three guys. So they picked us up and we drive into town and there was all these, “Welcome Alexander Jenkins.”
AJ: And since then —
LD: So it was lucky it was low key was it?
AJ: They have, there was a big estate.
PJ: Yeah. Well as I said your name.
AJ: That’s been formed. The principal avenue was named after me. Alexander Jenkins Strasse.
PJ: Strasse but they, you know we were.
AJ: So I’ve got my name in that part of Belgium.
PJ: And we had a reception. And all these kids. A group of kids I think they were probably eleven. Ten or eleven. Something like that. And their job was to draw the story they knew and to draw what they thought of this fellow coming out of the plane. Well, they all stood there literally and came forward and presented Alex with their, their drawings. Which was all very nice. But the only thing, you know, because I worked in the not for profit sector and I used to bring people from overseas as speakers I was very conscious of the luggage that people had to take back, but jeez you know, when we were there last time they presented Alex with a beautiful crystal vase about so high and about so big with everything engraved on it. It weighed three tonnes.
AJ: Yeah.
PJ: And how on earth we were going to get this home, but we did but, no its —
AJ: Anyway that’s the —
PJ: That’s his story. Is there anything else you want to know about?
AJ: That’s my story basically. I know I’ve rambled.
RG: No, that’s, that’s fine.
LD: Oh no. No.
AJ: But the funny parts about it are when I think the last couple of weeks, so we went down to this function which we generally go to once a year.
LD: Yes.
AJ: Of the 460. Under G for George.
PJ: The 460 under the wings —
LD: I was going to ask you to talk about your connection with G for George.
AJ: Yes. Well G for George is of course a Lancaster from 460 Squadron. One of the most weird aircraft we ever had in the squadron. Long before my time. Ninety eight trips. Combat trips. And it’s still in one piece. The C flight, there were various flights on 460 Squadron. A B C D. Twenty six aircraft actually to the squadron, six commence of the four and two spare, and C flight always has G for George, And I finished as the command of C flight of 460 Squadron. And therefore, and I’ve flown of course during the war when this one had returned to Australia. Peter Issacson and others for the, brought that plane back for the — raised funds at the time. I’ve flown G for George. G10, G11, G12 because the average life of the Lanc was only three months.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Before it would be shot down. So I’ve flown quite a few G for George’s but I’m also the ex-commander of that one, C flight which is —
PJ: The one there in Canberra is the one that flew under the Harbour Bridge.
RG: Yeah. Yeah. On that.
PJ: When Peter Issacson was flying.
AJ: They let me in to that aircraft as a special dispensation.
PJ: This was last Friday.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Last Friday. I’ve often said to Pauline and others I’d just love to, once before I go to —
PJ: I’d heard —
RG: Seriously.
AJ: To get back in to my plane.
LD: That would be a wonderful experience.
AJ: It was so lovely.
PJ: I’d heard that you could do this. So when we were talking about taking stuff down, well first of all to give something to the War Memorial isn’t that simple.
RG: No.
PJ: You’ve got to go through a terrible lot of rigmarole. They don’t want you to bring stuff there and so on. I was talking I just left a message and this young man rang me back. And I said look we’re going to be there. I said, ‘My husband is elderly. It doesn’t matter if we bring the stuff. You have a look.’ ‘No. We’re not interested. We’ve already got that.’ ‘That’s fine. But at least then we know.’ And I said, ‘While I’m calling you I understand that if you were a pilot of a Lancaster you can have a sneaky inside.’ And he said, ‘Oh I’ve never heard of that.’ Anyhow, they rang back and said there was this special thing etcetera etcetera. So, there was a message waiting for us when we got to Canberra last week and they said to ring so we rang, and they said well we’re not supposed to. We’ve had to get authority from the highest but as a very special thing and the big thing is apparently a couple of years ago there was an old pilot was up in there and he had a bad fall and severely gashed his head.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: So now it’s totally taboo.
LD: And it’s a good long way up.
PJ: Yeah. So what they had there was two delightful young men. One went in front and one went behind and they had one, of course they used those ladders, you know, those wood ladders, flat on the top.
AJ: My ambition was to get in.
PJ: Anyhow, he got there.
AJ: I knew I wouldn’t be able to get and sit in the front, in the pilots seat because it’s all wired up with dummies, but what I wanted to do, and any Lanc crew member would understand what I’m saying. I wanted to get over the main spar.
RG: Yes. Yeah.
AJ: That main spar was the continuation of the wing structure through the middle of the plane. It used to cause tremendous problems to us. Particularly if you were in combat and you needed to bail out.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Oh. It was awkward. Anyway, I got in, struggled along the plane and I came to the main spar. And I think the bloke said, ‘Do you think you can?’ Because I’ m pretty weak. ‘Do you think you can get over there?’ I said, ‘I’ll do this or die.’ And I got over it.
LD: So does it look like, I’ve seen people climb over it. It doesn’t look like there’s much room.
AJ: Oh yeah. Once I was over there I could see the cockpit and everything else.
PJ: He was a very happy chappy.
AJ: I was a happy chappy and I came back over again. Top of this great ladder and I looked down and opposite in the recess were the two aircraft. One of them the ME262.
RG: Oh yes. Of course there is.
AJ: The one that shot me down.
LD: Yes. Of course you were —
PJ: That’s right.
AJ: And the other was what we called the chase me Charlies. They were the rocket ships that used to go.
RG: ME 163.
AJ: Straight up. And the trick about them was that they had this great cannon which if you were hit with that you didn’t, what I got, blown to bits. You go, it goes up and then it levels out. It levelled out in the stream and selected a target and that was the end of the target. But when you could see it going up we thought oh my God, you know. You watch. You watch. If you see a, the thing stop and then the trail continue you breathed a sigh of relief because it’s going away from you.
RG: Yes.
AJ: Because of the jet at the back. But if it went up.
RG: And vanished.
AJ: And there was darkness it was. ‘Oh my God.’
RG: Coming towards.
AJ: It’s coming to us.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: So those two planes. I looked down and the blokes with me knew what I was thinking.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: I said, ‘Yeah, I remember those two,’
PJ: Are you going to see David Griffin?
RG: No. We haven’t been able to get back in contact with him. I’ve tried ringing all week.
LD: We did want to try and see him.
RG: And his phone’s been ringing out. He may have gone away. I’m not too sure.
PJ: He’s got a daughter here. David is ninety five or ninety six.
RG: Yeah. So ninety six. Yeah.
AJ: Very weak.
LD: We were kind of a bit concerned that the phone just kept —
RG: Yeah.
PJ: Well do you want me to ring a friend who is quite close to them. Literally living close but they have a lot to do with David. He also was a headmaster of a school but David was the headmaster of Orange High. But if you like I can just find out if they know whether he’s there.
RG: That would be nice Pauline. Yeah. Because we thought what we might do is we’ve got his address. We might just pop around because I said we’d come today.
PJ: Yeah.
RG: We hadn’t organised a time And I haven’t been able to do that, so I thought we’d pop in and say look we’re —
PJ: His daughter’s here. You had no trouble with the Belubula River. There was a flood. Did you come down through, down it.
RG: No. It’s up but it was no trouble though.
PJ: And where is it in Cowra that you like to stay?
RG: There’s a — you know where the airport is? And then the Grenfell Road. The road that just goes up and up
PJ: Oh yes. Yes.
RG: Well just before Grenfell Road there’s a little road called Back Creek Road that goes back the other way.
PJ: Yeah. Back by the racecourse or whatever it is. Is there a racecourse out there? Yeah.
LD: Yes. There is.
RG: Is there? Oh. As you go down Back Creek Road there’s through a bunch of vineyards and there’s a little vineyard down there.
PJ: Oh yeah.
RG: And there’s a little cottage in the vineyard right up against the creek which is now just about running a banker.
PJ: That’s right.
RG: And it’s beautiful. It’s just a quiet little spot.
PJ: I went, I went to boarding school in Cowra, so —
RG: Oh ok.
AJ: Well, that’s been a rambling thing. I’m sorry.
RG: Can I just ask you. You said something and I’ve kind of lost context of what but it was to do with jinx. That’s right. The second dickie runs, and the second dickie runs , and you said you hated them because the jinx thing. Did you have a talisman or a token or anything that you — ?
AJ: No. I did not and a lot of guys, you’re quite right, a lot of guys swore by them. See it’s strange you know. You were a very old man at twenty five in Bomber Command.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Very few guys older than twenty five. It was a business for very young and hopefully very fit. Yes, we were very fit. Even though we drank like fish. The one reason I have never smoked in my life I can put down to my service as a Lancaster bomber bloke because we drank, naturally. And we all, we had very strict rules though. We used to police ourselves. We didn’t need the service police who used to be around for all sorts of reasons on a squadron.
RG: Yeah. I know.
AJ: They used to pick up every now and then. Spies and so on.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And we drank, and I found that if I had a cigarette then nothing would happen on the ground but as soon as I used to have to go on to the oxygen mask which is at eight thousand feet, or —
LD: Yes.
AJ: I’d give the command to, ‘Masks on.’ I’d become violently ill. Now, if you’ve got to sit in the pilot’s seat strapped in, its bad enough to have a wee because you couldn’t get out.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And the poor bomb aimer, you used to have to butter him up because he used to carry a peach tin or urine bucket they called it and you’d have to struggle and have a widdle if you could into there. And he’s down there and you’re up so sometimes a splash [laughs]
LD: He’d want you flying straight and level while you did that.
AJ: That’s one thing. But to be absolutely sick in your oxygen mask.
LD: Yeah.
LD: Which you couldn’t take off.
LD: Yes. Yes.
AJ: And spend eight, ten hours.
LD: Oh God.
AJ: So naturally I never smoked.
LD: No.
And it’s served me so well in my life.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Being a non-smoker.
RG: Yeah. I agree. I was smoker.
AJ: I wouldn’t say that I was a non-drinker but I’ve cut that down now, obviously on medical advice to just red wine.
PJ: They don’t, they don’t, haven’t heard that he was going away or anything but he’s terribly deaf so —
RG: He may just have not heard the phone. Yeah.
PJ: So I’ll give you the address.
RG: I’ve got that. I’ve got his address.
PJ: Got it. 90 Gardener Road.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: You know Gardener Road.
RG: Oh we use the sat nav. It’ll get us there.
PJ: So I suggest you go and knock on his door.
RG: Yeah. That’s what we thought we’d do because he said he’d written a book which has never been published.
PJ: Oh yes.
RG: He’s got the manuscript and Lucie checked. Because I wrote a book about a friend of mine’s father who was in the 2nd machine gun, 1st Machine Gun Battalion during the war.
PJ: Oh yes.
RG: So, and it’s just a little personal thing for her.
PJ: Yeah.
RG: But Lucy checked with the National Library and they said yes, they’d be happy to take a copy of that.
PJ: Oh yeah.
RG: And a copy of David’s if it’s, providing it’s typed. And if not, we can do that for him if he wants.
AJ: Because he’s an English fellow who was in the RAF.
PJ: But he’s, he’s very deaf. He almost yells. He has good days and bad days. Some days he’s not terribly with it and sometimes he’s fine.
RG: When I called him, you know, he said, ‘Oh look I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I’ve done a few of these interviews I don’t think I could contribute any more,’ and then an hour and a half later I was still trying to get off the phone [laughs]
AJ: [laughs] Yeah.
PJ: He’s a bit of a hoot you know. He comes. Well the people I’ve just spoken to, Bill he won’t wear — because he’s got a service medal but he did, because he didn’t, he was too young. Bill is just ninety. He was too young to actually, he was in the air force, but never got anywhere.
RG: Didn’t go on ops. Yeah.
PJ: He said, ‘I’m too embarrassed to wear the medal I’ve got.’ Whereas David comes, and he has every conceivable pin that he’s ever got, and said. Well the Russians do.
RG: Yeah. Or the Americans. Oh yeah.
PJ: All the bits and pieces. But no, Actually one of my nephews was in the navy. He went through [unclear]
RG: What was his name, just for interest sake?
LD: My brother was at [unclear]
PJ: Was he?
LD: Yes.
PJ: Well me nephew is now, because he is exactly twenty years younger than me. So, we share a birthday so he must be sixty three. But —
RG: Well that’s almost my age. What was his name. We were in at the same time.
PJ: Mark Dowd.
RG: Do you know what he did?
PJ: Yes. He was a diver.
RG: Oh I didn’t know any divers really. Yeah.
PJ: And it was interesting. It was very interesting because you know there was something like twenty of them in this diving class for starters. So I think there was twenty one or something finished.
RG: Very few get through.
PJ: They were either psychologically unsuited. Physically unsuited. There were a few deaths because of accidents and so on but the navy did Mark a great service because he was [unclear] whatever he was. He went to Vietnam. I think they had to make sure there were no mines. They had to clear.
RG: Under the ships.
PJ: Under on the ships and so on. But then he came back and started his own diving business. I don’t mean sort of leisure. It’s like —
RG: Professional diving.
PJ: Cables and this sort of thing. Dams.
RG: They were very well trained. The navy divers were very extremely well trained.
PJ: I’d say Mark has done very well. The navy did him a big favour but no, so his two sons. Neither went into the navy. One’s an engineer. The other one is doing something. I think science at CSU so, not CSU ANU, in Canberra. Alright. Ok.
LD: Just a couple of really short things.
AJ: Yes, love.
LD: One is do you know what a command bullseye is?
AJ: A command.
LD: A command bullseye.
AJ: Command bullseye.
LD: That’s in the diary that I have and it’s from the context it seems to me like it’s the, it’s like the kind of last exercise you do at the OTU before you go on ops. So, you know ,you go out, you fly at night. But I just haven’t actually been able to find the term anywhere.
RG: [unclear] crew, they did, “Did their command bullseye today” was pretty all what they said and they went to London.
LD: Yeah, they went to London.
AJ: Yeah.
RG: They did it over London. But other crews we’ve heard of doing it over France as well.
AJ: No. I don’t think I came across that.
LD: It’s alright. I know It could have even been a local term.
RG: Well Ken was a little, a fraction before you. he went down in December ‘43 and I noticed that terms and practices and things came and went.
AJ: Oh they sure did.
RG: Yeah. There was no consistency.
AJ: I went to Lindholme — and in the final set up. Yeah. Command bullseye. No.
LD: No. That’s fine.
RG: Might have been a local.
LD: Yeah. And just the other thing. I don’t know how you would feel about this but I, in Katoomba I met a man who was busking. He had the most beautiful voice. This baritone and he was busking in a shopping centre. And he was so well-presented. Anyway, I got to talking to him and he was from Dresden.
AJ: Oh dear. Came from Dresden.
LD: Yeah.
RG: Yes.
LD: He was born and grew up Dresden. Middle aged man.
AJ: Oh dear.
LD: And he busks as a professional and he said he busks in Dresden. And he said he goes to the old city and he sings to the old people. And I thought that was really lovely that —
AJ: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
LD: You know, that he, you know this is his contribution.
PJ: Well the world moves on. I mean this is —
AJ: I have a horror.
LD: No. No. I mean he sings to the people.
PJ: Yes.
AJ: In relation to Dresden no man who bombed Dresden will, he will never be the same because it was such an awful set up in execution that, you know it scarred any conscience. And the worst thing about it was that it was specifically ordered by Winston Churchill to impress Stalin. And when the British public quite rightly revolted in revulsion even in the wartime and admittedly there was some technical reasons why Dresden had to be bombed because they were concentrating German troops and so on there. But Churchill just wiped his hands. He said, ‘I never.’ He blamed Sir Arthur Harris. Better known as Butch Harris. Sir Arthur Harris never, was never recognised except just before his death. And above all Churchill was so furious with the outcry that in blaming Sir Arthur he never forgot that Bomber Command, in his view needed to be brought to heel. And in that way, I don’t know if you know that story that when the great Victory Parade was organised Bomber Command was the only command refused permission to march in the Victory Parade, and yet Bomber Command was the only service for quite a while that was able to take the —
RG: To Germany. Yeah.
AJ: Oh God. We have the clasp. Have you ever seen that clasp that was awarded?
RG: No. No. I haven’t. No.
AJ: I’ll show you. The clasp was for those in Bomber Command.
PJ: Do you want your medal?
AJ: Yeah. Just the main medal because the other one hasn’t got it.
PJ: It’s not exactly a big deal.
AJ: The British government, queen and parliament eighteen months ago passed a motion of condolence and regret and apology to Bomber Command for the insult delivered to us in the peace. The processions etcetera and by command of the government and the queen a special clasp, a gold clasp was awarded to those of us who served in Bomber Command. When the papers came here and to my colleagues and so on almost to a man, here in Australia we initially refused. In fact I was ready —
PJ: That’s all it is. That’s the bar.
RG: Bomber Command.
AJ: Ready to rip it up. Put it in the application envelope and send it back.
RG: Send it back.
AJ: You know, with the words, ‘Get stuffed,’ but I had second thoughts.
PJ: It was interesting, like last Friday we were at this thing and there’s all these young people there.
RG: It is late but it’s the least they can do now.
PJ: Twenty six or something but every time they go away they get a medal.
RG: It is recognition finally isn’t it? It’s late and it’s long overdue but —
PJ: Always. Every one’s is a different tour of duty, so.
LD: Yeah.
AJ: They’re campaign medals.
PJ: They’ll have five or six medals and they’re about twenty five and, ‘Where did you get all them?’ ‘Oh well, you know I’ve been to Afghanistan. I’ve been to Iraq.’ Or something. But anyhow.
RG: Yeah. There is that.
PJ: Did you know, I’m trying to think? What’s, what’s the naval bloke here. Harris, Harris?
AJ: Yeah.
PJ: Harris.
AJ: Yeah.
PJ: His wife’s name is —
AJ: I can’t remember.
PJ: He was actually the naval attaché to the [unclear] of Paris. What’s his name? I saw him on Anzac Day. Kim. And he’d be older than you.
AJ: Not many. Not many people.
PJ: I was one of eight. And there was a boy, then six girls and then a boy. So the three youngest girls that’s me, my sister. Monica and my sister Dot. We’re the only survivors. But we did very well because until the last two years. My younger brother died, I don’t know probably fifteen, twenty years ago. And my elder sister died when she was only about fifty one but the rest of them, they’ve all been well in to their eighties. I’m eighty three. The next one’s eighty four and the next one’s eighty five.
AJ: You don’t look eighty-three.
PJ: Well thank you. In a good light.
AJ: Now I’m getting nice.
RG: Indeed. Alex. One other question I’d like to ask. VE Day. What was —
AJ: VE day.
RG: Do you have any remembrance of that? Do you remember it?
AJ: Yes. Yes and no. VE day the crew and I were in London. Naturally. I think we all descended on it, and I was actually, I’d been somewhere around Australia House in the morning, early. And they had up on the thing a little notice that guys from certain squadrons and so on represent for, and they had a sort of a bus, open topped bus and I put my name down for 460. I was the one who was chosen to sit on the bus and we got very close, you know, to the royal family. Waving away. And the celebrations though. The Aussies had a number of bars whose names now I forget but we, we descended on the bar in this particular place and we’d actually used the time and time again with the darts that they had for the dart board. We, after a celebration or a particular bomb raid that had gone well and, you know we were proud of it we’d put a few details and twing.
RG: Threw them up on the ceiling.
AJ: Anyway, we decided that they should come down.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: And so we got ladders and things and I remember being fully inebriated trying to get up these ladders to pull darts out of the roof.
PJ: It’s a wonder you survived all the things you got up to.
AJ: Well, I mean basically we were young and stupid.
RG: Yeah.
AJ: Yeah. So VE day was quite a day.
RG: I had to ask because the chap in Canberra Arthur Louden we said to him you know where you on VE day when the war ended. He said I was in bed with the wife up in Scotland. Someone knocked on the door and said, ‘The war’s over.’ I thought, good. And went back to bed again.
AJ: Oh dear that last raid that our squadron was involved in on Berchtesgaden. Hitler’s retreat. We blew the side off the bloody mountain. 460 Squadron was involved in it. It was Anzac Day. I remember that. Anzac Day they blew the side off the bloody mountain. When Pauline and I went back there I remember somewhere. We looked across, ‘I blew the side off that mountain’.
LD: ‘See that landslip there. I did that.’ Wow.
PJ: It’s interesting. I think it’s a shame that more, whilst still there’s people like Alex around that school kids aren’t given more information about the Second World War.
LD: Yes.
RG: Yeah.
PJ: At the present time of course it’s a hundred years —
AJ: That’s a moot question.
PJ: Yeah. But at the present time it’s all a hundred years of course of the First World War and so on.
AJ: The First World War.
PJ: But they don’t get a lot of indigenous history in school but very little about the Second World War.
AJ: Yeah. It is a shame. I’m ambivalent about that.
PJ: You know it’s a bit like —
AJ: I don’t know whether it’s good or not.
PJ: I don’t know if you have children, grandchildren or whatever, but, you know kids today like I said to me granddaughter who will turn up in a few minutes, ‘What are you going to do this year?’ You know. She said, ‘Well, grandma, I can’t decide whether I’ll go to Japan or Italy again this year.’ She went to Italy last year. But she’s never been to Cooper’s Creek or Cameron’s Corner or out in to the outback of Australia or where the various explorers went or even around here which was Mitchell’s territory. You know, she knew nothing about it. I do think it’s a shame. I think there should be more of, yes ok the indigenous. My next-door neighbour, his daughter married an indigenous, and. I keep saying, ‘Don’t blame me I, my I had three Italian and one French grandparent so it’s nothing to do with me,’ but —
LD: It’s a question of getting the whole story isn’t it?
PJ: But how do they ever give you the whole story?
LD: And not, you know, eschewed to one side.
PJ: But we’ll become so politically correct.
LD: Yes.
PJ: That it’s ridiculous and —
LD: My daughter went to Munich.
PJ: Oh yes.
LD: Last year. A couple of years ago. Whenever it was, Brother in law was married in Norway so they did all that. And she came back, and she said, ‘Oh mum. Munich’s beautiful.’ And then she said to me, ‘Did you know it was bombed during the war?’ I thought, ‘Hello.’ Would you like to tell? I could tell you, ‘I could tell you the name of people who did this if you like Polly.’
PJ: It’s very interesting.
LD: And I was just gobsmacked that my daughter who I thought was.
PJ: Yeah. But they don’t.
LD: She’s not a silly girl.
PJ: No. But it’s not, it’s not a part of their scene. It’s a bit like oh well, you know once again I’m not indigenous bashing but alright so the indigenous were here. So Captain Cook arrived so they established colonies etcetera, etcetera [unclear] I think was the first bod that arrived up on the West Australian coast, but yeah. Like, who’s going to grab England? Who are you going to go back to? The Gauls?
RG: Well exactly yeah. Yeah.
PJ: Or France or anywhere.
RG: I’ve got, I’ve got a Norwegian skin problem. So where did my family come? We’re from the north of England, ok.
AJ: Oh yeah.
RG: Originally.
LD: With the Vikings.
PJ: So it’s crazy you know.
RG: 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/.
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AJenkinsAE160709
Title
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Interview with Alexander Elliott Jenkins
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:00:55 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Rob Gray
Date
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2016-07-09
Description
An account of the resource
Alexander Elliott Jenkins grew up in Melbourne, Australia and joined the Air Force aged eighteen. He flew operations as a pilot with 460 Squadron from RAF Binbrook. His aircraft was shot down by a Me 262 over occupied Belgium.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Belgium
Great Britain
Germany
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Cook’s tour
final resting place
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Me 262
memorial
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Binbrook
shot down
Tiger force
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/252/3438/PJohnsonGL1703.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/252/3438/AJohnsonGL170801-02AV.1.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Johnson, Johnny
George Johnson
G L Johnson
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Squadron Leader George Leonard ‘Johnny’ Johnson MBE (1921 - 2022). Johnny Johnson flew operations as a bomb aimer with 97 Squadron from RAF Woodhall Spa and with 617 Squadron from RAF Scampton. On 16/17 May 1943 he took part in Operation Chastise to attack German dams with bouncing bombs. He served in the RAF until 1962 and then had a career in education. He was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Lincoln in 2017.
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
2017-08-01
2015-03-25
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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Johnson, G
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GJJ: On 106 Squadron was known as the arch bastard.
[Laughter]
Other: Good. [pause] That part I got on camera.
DE: I did press record before.
HH: We were told a very funny story about how Gibson and his new wife booked into some inn in Lincolnshire on the night of their wedding and they had this rare, rare commodity of smoked salmon and they handed it to somebody who was kitchen staff to put it, to serve it up and it came all fried [laughter] And he was apparently absolutely livid that the smoked salmon had been fried.
Other: You would be slightly upset, wouldn’t you?
HH: Someone had told me that story.
GJJ: I gather she was quite a lady too. She was one of the Windmill Dancers, wasn’t she? I think.
[pause]
Other: I must [pause] Ok.
[pause]
Other 2: May I take it out? May I take it out?
DE: Can he, can you remove that thing behind you?
[pause]
Other: Ok.
GJJ: How tall are you?
Other 2: Six two.
GJJ: Have you stopped growing?
Other 2: Not yet.
[Laughter]
Other 2: Ok. Right.
[pause]
Other 2: Ok.
[pause]
Other 2: Ready to go.
Other: Ok.
Other 2: Switched off.
DE: Switched off?
Other 2: Ok.
HH: Do you want me to come and hold that?
[Noise in background]
DE: That’s just to make you jump.
[laughter]
GJJ: The last time that happened I had a coffee and dozed off. The telephone rang. Ahh all down my trousers.
DE: Oh dear.
Other: That’ll teach you.
DE: Yeah. Johnny, I wonder if you could tell me what your feelings were, what your thoughts were when the Dam Busters film came out?
GJJ: Some of it has to be disappointment. I’m afraid the author didn’t get everything quite as right as he might have done. He didn’t mention the Sorpe at all. And the film was based on his book. Didn’t mention the Sorpe at all, either in the introduction or the attack on the Sorpe. So as far as that was concerned we had done nothing at all. I was amazed, I saw recently, saw a copy again where Gibson is looking at one of these now manufactured bombsights on the, on his desk. They didn’t exist. At least as far as I’m aware they didn’t exist. I think the only one that he really accredited to the squadron was that of Dave Maltby’s. His father was headmaster of a big school and I think he had it made. I’m not sure. I know it does say on the thing as used by Flight Lieutenant David Maltby’s crew. That one had done the circle. And Fred Bateman who recently was committed to two years in jail for basically stealing people’s logbooks more than anything else. He auctioned that particular one and I think he made something like forty thousand pounds. Where he got it from I don’t know but it was supposed to have gone back to the family. But these things now have appeared quite frequently in all sorts of areas. I have, I signed two for Nigel the other day. They’re both going to IBCC I think. But, no the other thing about Paul Brickhill is that I know that Johnson is a popular name . Notice I say popular, not common but he managed to get Ted Johnson, flight lieutenant on Joe’s crew and me on Johnson’s crew in the crew list that he produced. I was looking through quickly his latest book in which he deals with the squadrons throughout the war and when he’s talking about the attack on the Sorpe, McCarthy made three attempts and then gave it up. Where he got his [mentions?] from I don’t know. I would have to say that I think the greatest author is John Sweetman. And the thing I like about John is that whatever he’s writing about he researches it thoroughly and then he just writes what he’s found in his research. He doesn’t say this should have happened, that should have happened or could have happened or might have happened. Doesn’t believe in that at all. So, what he produces ultimately is a very factual book and his Operation Chastise which was produced shortly after Paul Brickhill’s book is absolutely accurate from the beginning to the end. And it goes right through from the first thoughts during the early thirties about the dams being used in an attack, as a target right through to the actual completion of the whole thing. I got to know John very well and I do find him a very interesting and pleasant character and I do much appreciate that what he writes is purely factual and nothing more. There are a few of the other authors that might take example from that, I think.
DE: Do you think sometimes perhaps that Operation Chastise has sort of over- shadowed some of the other work that Bomber Command did during the war?
GJJ: I can’t see, quite frankly any reason why it shouldn’t be because the work that Bomber Command did during the war was certainly something that everybody has to be extremely grateful for. And that, I find is another of my moans at the moment — trying to get recognition for those. I think the figure as I know at the moment is fifty seven thousand six hundred and eighty one, something like that, who were killed. Over eight thousand that were injured, some permanently, and the over nine thousand who spent some time in German prisoner of war camps. No recognition of that comes up on anywhere. Particularly from the politicians. The senior politicians in particular. And I have moaned about this and the non-appearance of a Bomber Command medal. And the last time I did this was, strangely enough at the IBCC’s annual dinner two years ago. I was asked if I would say a few words about Bomber Command and about the museum itself, the centre itself and I really went to town on the Bomber Command bit. Particularly Churchill. Because he, to my mind, had no time at all for Sir Arthur Harris, the chief of Bomber Command who was so much respected by the air crews of Bomber Command. And the one particular instance that sticks out is the operation against Dresden. Arthur Harris didn’t want to do it. It had no military achievement. All we would be doing is creating fire but Churchill insisted that it was done. And when it was done and it became virtually a holocaust at Dresden Churchill blamed Harris for it. He had wanted to do it. He striked me as being the type of man who if he had an idea which he thought would help end the war he’d go to the senior colleague in that particular area and suggest it to them. If it came off it was my idea. If it doesn’t it’s your fault. It shouldn’t have gone like that. And that was the sort of thing I found so annoying about his attitude generally. It may sound a bit off-side, an Englishman talking about Churchill in that matter but that’s the way I feel about him. I found that on that particular dinner meeting I mentioned senior politicians all the way through and when it came to the IBCC I was as full of praise as I possibly could be and stressed the personal effect it could have. And at that time my MP, my local MP, [Catherine Lesser?] at Bristol [?] I had met on a couple of occasions before, I’d done a brief interview with the Daily Express, shortly before the dinner and the Daily Telegraph journalist was sitting in the dinner making notes as I spoke and they both printed the next morning. And oddly, Catherine read it and then she wrote a letter to David Cameron which suggested why didn’t he do something about it? Why couldn’t he even invite me down there and discuss what might be done between us to put this on. And then I got a copy of his reply to her letter and a more political letter you couldn’t wish to see. Everything that could be done had been done. You can’t afford two medals for the same business and there’s already the 1945 [pause] sorry the ’39 ’45 Star and the Air Crew Europe and now they’ve got the clasp which I had said at my talk I thought was an absolute insult. A tiny bit of copper with perhaps Bomber Command, if you can read it, across it. It has to be fitted to an existing medal and [pause] but then, that’s the way it goes. And so far, we’re still no nearer to a Bomber Command medal than we were then but at least it doesn’t stop us from trying. Anyway, when I get the opportunity, I belly ache about it and I will go on to.
DE: What do you think about the memorials that there are to Bomber Command?
GJJ: I think the park, the Green Park one is very good. I think the, I take my hat off to the sculptor that designed it. I think that you can see the look of expectation in that crew’s eyes as they’re waiting for their comrades to come back. And you can also see in some the tiredness in their eyes. And if — I’ve got a picture down there. If you can. The one behind the one in the front.
DE: We’ll have a look at it in a minute if you —
GJJ: That shows [pause] That shows the model, the memorial in the background behind that aircraft with the, “Never forget,” notice underneath. I think it’s tremendous. But yes, a very good model. But again, it’s not, not as personal as the IBCC and that I think is the finest memorial to Bomber Command that there is in this country in that it is so personal and reflects so much the work that Bomber Command did. And of course, includes the Bomber Command county of course as we say Lincolnshire was known. Others, I think, where they’re placed, I think the people that have done it have done it with every good intention and I think they make a point but the dominance in my mind comes from the IBCC and I have yet to see anything that will really overtake it.
DE: Smashing. Thank you. Just, as I think as a final question what are your feelings about the campaigns to give you some personal recognition?
GJJ: I am absolutely completely grateful to all those people that have worked and prepared to sign the petitions and those who have worked so hard to get them signed. I’m grateful for the award that has resulted from that. Very grateful. But I have to remember that this is not me. I’m the lucky one. I’m still alive. This is representation of what the squadron has done and that is the way it needs to be looked at. I will always regard it as such. Again, but still with great gratitude for, for the recognition. And that is why I find that my recognition from Lincoln [pause] Lincoln [pause] I’ll try that again, from Lincoln University is so special to me because it not only deals with my wartime stuff but it deals more specifically or I think highlights more specifically my work and life after my service life. And I think that I’ll always be extremely grateful for that. Absolutely. A great deal.
DE: Thank you very much. I think that’s, that’s absolutely wonderful. We’ve got, got all we hoped to get and more. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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AJohnsonGL170801-02AV
PJohnsonGL1703
Title
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Interview with Johnny Johnson.Three
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Moving image
Language
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eng
Format
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00:18:57 audio recording
00:15:33 video recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-01
Description
An account of the resource
George ‘Johnny’ Johnson comments on Paul Brickhill's book and on the 1955 film of the same name, expressing disappointment that there was no mention of the Sorpe Dam. He voices contempt for the unscrupulous people who have made money by selling log books taken from veterans’ families. He notes that not all authors writing about Bomber Command are reliable. He criticises Winston Churchill for the way in which he held Arthur Harris responsible for the Dresden attack of February 1945. He explains his part in the campaign for Bomber Command to receive a medal, and his disappointment about the clasp. He mentions his correspondence with David Cameron. He praises the Green Park memorial but feels the finer one is the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln. He acknowledges the recent recognition given to him, but stresses that gratitude is due to all those who fought and died.
<p>This content is available as embedded video:</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B87JkF-HJlg?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Sorpe Dam
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-16
1943-05-17
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
106 Squadron
617 Squadron
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
memorial
perception of bombing war
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/291/3446/ALorimerH160622.1.mp3
89e8541e9729f5d0b1d3205c8e3e4a55
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
Lorimer, Hugh
Hugh Lorimer
H Lorimer
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Pilot Officer Hugh Lorimer (b. 1922, 183601 and 1369405 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 10 Squadron.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-22
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
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Lorimer, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Well, first of all I’d just like to say my name is Pam Locker. I am interviewing Mr Hugh Lorimer of [redacted] Knaresborough and the date is the 22nd of June 2016. And can I just start, Hugh by saying thank you very much indeed for agreeing to give us your interview. We do appreciate it. And I guess if we just start the interview by you telling us a little bit about your, your childhood and how you came to be involved with Bomber Command.
HL: My pleasure. Thank you very much in the first instance for coming along to do this interview. I’m glad to take the opportunity to pass on quite a bit of my memories to people in the future who may be interested which I sincerely hope they will be. And I thought I’d sort of start by sort of telling you why I joined the Royal Air Force in the first place. I was just a young schoolboy. I’d be about maybe twelve, thirteen years of age and I was standing outside the house one morning and I saw this fleet of biplane aircraft flying over the house at low level. I wondered what the dickens they were doing. So I made a few enquiries and discovered it was one of these flying circuses which was going to operate from a field about three or four miles from my home. But unfortunately I was told they were only there for the sort of Tuesday and Wednesday of that week and I was at school. And I thought oh my goodness, I’d love to go and see that. So I pondered it. And I found out what the entrance fee was. It was sixpence and I didn’t have sixpence. I had to scrape around for quite a few days. I found a few of my father’s empty beer bottles [laughs] and took them down to the pub and collected six pence. And in the morning they started the exhibition I did what we say in Scotland I plugged the school. Played hookey. And I ran the three or four miles to this airfield and there was these lovely aircraft. And as I went in I paid my sixpence and they gave me a ticket. And somebody said, ‘Keep your tickets. There will be a lucky draw later on.’ So I stuck it in my pocket and forgot all about it and just spent most of my time watching this wonderful exhibition. Absolutely enthralled. And then I heard people shouting, ‘We’re just about to make the draw.’ And what happens? The first number out is mine. And the prize was a trip in one of the biplanes. And then there was three or four other numbers came out and they all got the same thing. I thought we would be going up in three or four planes. Far from it. We were all piled into the one plane and I sat on somebody’s knee while we flew around the country for about ten minutes or so and then landed. And that was me. I was hooked. Hooked line and sinker on that one. And that all finished. I went back and I went to school the next morning. ‘Lorimer, where were you yesterday? The headmaster wants to see you.’ So I went to see Mr Martin who was the headmaster. He congratulated my enterprise at trying to get there he said, ‘But never mind. Hold your hands out,’ and I got six of the best. He said, ‘Next time you want to go and see the air force come and ask. We’d be pleased to let you go.’ So that was fine. School finished and the war started. And by that time I was in a reserved occupation. And —
PL: What was that?
HL: And had I not, had I not wanted to go I wouldn’t have needed to go to war. In any event I couldn’t go until I was eighteen and I still had a year to wait. So I waited for that year and I found out that being a reserved occupation the only people that they would employ in the, during the war was in the Royal Air Force. I said that’s exactly what I want. And I said, ‘Please may I join up now,’ and I joined up on my eighteenth birthday. And then I went off for my training. And I wanted to be a pilot and unfortunately I had what they called excessive long sight, hypermetropia in one of my eyes. Which they said would probably affect my ability to be able to land it properly at all times so I’d have to look for some other post. And I finished up being trained as a wireless operator as it then was.
Other: Yes. It’s me.
[recording paused]
HL: My first posting was to Blackpool of all places which I thoroughly enjoyed. We lived in one of these houses with about thirty or forty of us. They were all boarding houses. And we had tremendous camaraderie. Joined up as crews in a way. But we had a, a sergeant who was a bit of a, a whatnot. None of us really liked him and he was always trying to get us into some sort of trouble. And one day we were down on Blackpool Pier and the tide was in. Who should come marching along the pier but our sergeant. And there were seven or eight of us at the time and we all fell across him and unfortunately he, he toppled over into the water and we had to go down and rescue him [laughs] That was, that was the first of our escapades. But it was all good fun. Good spirits. And we finished our training as radio operators or wireless operators and were posted out in the first place to units where we worked on the ground whilst we were waiting to be called forward for aircrew training. Which was, it was a very good insight into what the ground crews did. Apart from the aircrews who did all the sort of, the famous stuff so to speak. The unheard of lads. And we were one of them to begin with while we experienced both sides. I was at a, on a special course one day. At Chelmsford it was. I’d just arrived to do this special course and I was recalled to go on my aircrew training and I was pleased about that. And I started my aircrew training and I went through for about six months. Went up to Kinloss on my, as an individual wireless operator and found that we were to be crewed up there. There was pilots, navigators, engineers, gunners, radio operators. The whole lot. And we were told to spend a few days getting to know each other and form our own crews. And at the end of the day that’s exactly what happened. We all gathered in the square and we formed ourselves in to crews of seven each. And we all, and I happened to be with a crew who was real cosmopolitan. We had two Canadians. An Irishman. An Australian. Two Scots. And an Englishman. We did our training on Whitley bombers. And when that was completed we moved down to a place called Rufforth which is just outside York where we converted on to Halifax bombers. At the end of that training we were posted to form a Special Duty Flight and I wondered what that was. We discovered it was two Lancasters and two Halifaxes and we were going somewhere but we weren’t told where. But we were to go and get all sorts of inoculations and we were given KD uniforms so we knew it was somewhere hot. And we set off down the Bay of Biscay. Sorry. Before we get there, there was one little point I forgot which is very important. Because it was Lancasters as well as Halifaxes in this little Special Duty Flight the pilots had to be able to fly both aircraft. And my pilot, Doug Stewart from Canada was told to go to Royal Air Force Scampton and he had to take a navigator, sorry take an engineer with him and the radio operator. So the three of us went up to Scampton and we joined the 57 Squadron then that was there and we got on our first trip. Made quite a few circuits and bumps and doing very well. And then the instructor said, ‘Well, that’s fine. We’ll do one more trip.’ And that’ll be it. You’re quite competent.’ So we took off down the runway and unfortunately the undercarriage gave way. And we were doing about just getting close to ninety miles an hour at the time and the aircraft was written off. And we had, that was our first prang. We were sort of shaken a bit about but then we all, we walked out. And that was it. We were fine. We went back to join our Special Duty Flight. And then we set off for what happened to be a rather interesting trip. We flew down the Bay of Biscay to a place called [pause ] hold on for a second [pause] The name’s gone [laughs] What the dickens was it? [pause] No, never mind. I can’t remember the name of the place but it was in [unclear] . We landed in an airfield in French Morocco. And the interesting thing was it was broad daylight after a night trip across the bay and I heard these people shouting. It was eight young natives. They were selling newspapers and what they were saying was, ‘All the English football results,’ [laughs] So we, we bought a newspaper at our first stop. We had to wait there to be told where we were to go next. Went from there along the Libyan coast to Tripoli. It was called Castel Benito then and we saw that that was our first experience of seeing the effects of the desert war and the place was absolutely bombed to bits. Wreckage everywhere. But we were operating still onwards. We were going from there to Cairo West. I wondered where the dickens we were going to finish up. We thought that would be it. Middle East uniforms. We had rather an interesting experience actually on that trip. It was extremely hot and our pilot got a bit of heat stroke actually. It turned out to be. So when he tried to land the first time he misjudged. And he misjudged twice and went around for a third time and he misjudged again. But at this time he put the revs on the aircraft because we were trying to climb to get back airborne again and the engines were overheating. And we were just barely moving and our landing wheels were still down in fact we hit the top of a sand dune. And we bounced. Not downwards but upwards. And we were able to maintain, the pilot was able to maintain control and we came around and we went and made a safe landing but we had to stay in Cairo for about two weeks whilst our skipper recovered his, his health again. We thought well that was it. Well we wondered where we would be flying from. They said, ‘No. You’ll carry on from here to Bahrain.’ We went to Bahrain and there I saw an aircraft lying at the side of the road, at the side of the runway which was in a bit of a mess. And I went into the, into the sergeant’s mess at that time. At that time I was a sergeant. And I saw this fellow standing beside me. It was one of my old school mates. I says, ‘Who did that out there?’ He says, ‘It was me.’ He said, ‘I had a bad landing.’ [laughs] So we had a long natter of course and he wanted to know what we were doing. We couldn’t tell him. We didn’t know. Anyhow, we had to move on a couple of days later and we finished up at Karachi in India. And we thought this must be it now but it wasn’t. We carried on from there to a place called Salbani in Bengal. And there we joined up with the other three aircraft, the two Lancasters and the Halifax and we set up our own special unit there. And it was the home of a Liberator squadron which was operating against the Japanese. So we were in that area and really enjoying it but our job as a Special Duty Flight, we found out when we got there was to determine how these, these four engine aircraft could operate under these tropical conditions. And that was our job. And we went for all sorts of tests. One of our tests was to see if we could get over Everest but we couldn’t make the height. We got to about twenty five thousand and that was it. The aircraft wouldn’t take any more. One of the things about the weather out there was it changed dramatically from you know, without much notice. You get thunderclouds you’d be in trouble and such like. And that’s what happened to us. We were coming in to land at Salbani and one of these tropical winds blew up and it was because of this gust of wind that I actually came to join Bomber Command. Which is part of the story. This is, this is how fate dictates what will happen to you through your life. When we hit the runway we had a nice, nice landing, we were just taxiing down and this gust of wind caught us and it turned us right over and blew us right across the airfield upside down. Wrote off the aircraft. And fortunate, for some reason again we all walked out unscathed. But we had no aircraft. That was a bit —
PL: What year? What year was this Hugh?
HL: 1943. This story is in the, in the records for it. It’s all there. So we hung around for about a good six to seven weeks while our future was decided. We were set down, down the, on course for a bit of a rest. R&R they called it, which we thoroughly enjoyed, but when we got back they told us that we were going back to Britain and this is [laughs] we had to go back by train to Bombay. Well, that was a long long long long way. We were given sandwiches and stuff to get there which petered out long before we were half way down the journey. And the train stopped at this station and right opposite us was a big buffet and I said, ‘How long will we stop for?’ They said, ‘Oh a good fifteen, twenty minutes.’ So I volunteered to go out and buy the sandwiches. But what I had not reckoned with, reckoned on was the way the natives [laughs] didn’t think about queues. They just barged in and I kept finding myself at the back of this barge. I never got the sandwiches because I suddenly realized the train was moving and there I was. And I had to turn around and run but I couldn’t reach my carriage. There was a carriage near the end which had a window open and I just caught the top of the window and dived straight through. And inside there it was full of the local natives of the rather low caste. And they were packed in like sardines and I was jammed up against this door and I thought, ‘What the devil do I do here?’ Well, I thought, I just felt my hip pocket. My revolver was still there so I just kept my hand on it and waited and waited and waited until the train came to a stop again and I got out quickly and ran along to the front where we were travelling first class and jumped in. They said, ‘Where are the sandwiches?’ [laughs] I won’t tell you what I said but it’s not repeatable.
Other: He doesn’t normally talk much my husband. He’s making up for it this morning. He reads.
HL: I’m missing my slipper [pause] So, that was just a little bit of a what I would call the humorous side of air force life. And we had a lovely trip back on a rather nice boat. And joined these, went through the Suez Canal, through all the Mediterranean in convoy because there still were submarines about. And we got to Liverpool and one of the jobs I got at Liverpool Dock was to be in charge of the baggage. I was put ashore as the baggage master. And because I went ashore I had to take some food with me because I’d be down there for quite some time. And after about an hour or so’s work supervising what was going on we all stopped for a, for a meal. Including the local lads who were working with us. And I pulled out my sandwiches. Beautiful white bread and they came over, looked at it, ‘Oh my goodness that looks really good.’ I said, ‘It’s only a, it’s only a sandwich.’ But he was having his, and it was a dirty black brown bread. It was called the National Loaf. I said, ‘Oh my goodness. Look. Do us a swap.’ He said, ‘Thank you. I’m not going to take them. I’m going to take it home to my family. They haven’t seen white bread for two or three years.’ And it suddenly dawned on me at that time you know people are suffering. Particularly in Liverpool because they had a lot of bombing. And I think of that story often. Went on from there to join 10 Squadron which was our posting. And when I got there I found myself promoted to officer rank and the rank of pilot officer. Which was totally and utterly unexpected but for some reason they thought I was good enough. And that was it. I did a total of thirty one operations with 10 Squadron. Eleven of them were over France. Started from D-Day where our job was to disrupt as much of the enemy’s supplies to their, to our boys that who on the beaches down below as far as we possibly could. I think we did a reasonable job of it. It was a success in the end. But one of the interesting things about that is that what I didn’t know at the time was that on the beaches below my own brother was there. They were at Caen. And he was a corporal at that time in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and we were comparing, you know stories some time afterwards and discovered that whilst he was fighting down there I’d been dropping bombs, or my crew were dropping bombs on German troops at a particular position not far away from where he was. And I found out that Field Marshall Montgomery had awarded him the military medal for his efforts. Just a little story but part of a family and our effort together. And because of these [coughs] excuse me. These French trips and French bombing raids. Switch off for a second.
[recording paused]
PL: Restarting the tape. So Hugh you were talking about Caen.
HL: Yeah. Talking about the bombing we did following D-Day. And I did eleven trips to various French cities. Including Paris where we bombed marshalling yards and other places like oil depots and got to Le Havre where we bombed the troops themselves. The German troops. And as a result of that, lo and behold seventy years later the French president decided to award we veterans with a Legion d’honneure. And I was one of the lads who was able to pick up this award and the rank of Chevalier. Which I understand is the equivalent of a knight in France. I don’t think it’s quite the equivalent for a knight in this country. No Lady Lorimer [laughs] Yeah. Talking about that just going back to say to my training days when I moved, talking about roughing us out as I did earlier on in this conversation we had a rather an amusing incident. One of the things we all had to do as crews was to learn escape and evasion. Just in case we were shot down as a lot of our lads were. And some did manage to escape and evade and get back to this country. A lot of others unfortunately didn’t. But one of our jobs was to go out and practise evasion and escape. And it was midsummer really which was very pleasant from our point of view. We went up as a crew and were dropped off at Kirbymoorside. It‘s a way up in the north part of Yorkshire. And we had to get back to the base which was about maybe thirty odd miles away. Certainly by sun up if at all possible. We tried to work in darkness although there wasn’t much darkness at that time of the year. We were fortunate. We managed to escape most of the people who were looking for us because everybody was out. Home guard. Police. Firemen. You name it. All looking for us and we managed to evade them. But it was getting fairly close to about five or six in the morning and we were a bit hungry. And suddenly we niffed this smell of bacon. Oh boy it sounded, it was great. We wondered where that is? And somebody for a joke says, ‘You know they just told us in this, at the briefing that the best place to look for food if you’re shot down in Germany is to go to a farmhouse. That’s the best chance you’ll have of getting any food.’ So we said, ‘Right. Let’s sniff it out.’ And we found it was coming from a farmhouse, it was just about oh seven or eight hundred yards away. And we crept our way up there and in to the farmyard. And a door opened and this nice lady came out and said, ‘Who are you?’ We told her, ‘We couldn’t avoid smelling your bacon and eggs. We wondered if there might be any chance of a rasher.’ Cheeky we were but we did it. She said, ‘Come in lads.’ And she gave us a wonderful breakfast. All seven of us. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And then at the end she just stood at the end of the table and she burst out laughing. She was laughing her head off and we said, ‘What are you laughing? Are you laughing at us? We know we’re — ' ‘Oh no. No. No. No. I’m just waiting till my husband comes in. He’s been out all night looking for you. I just want to see his face.’ [laughs] Yeah. That’s a bit of, you know, humour. We got back safely and that was it. But going back to the actual Bomber Command raids and our, the rest of my trips were primarily over Germany. Cologne. Dusseldorf. All these places. We had our share of flak and share of fighters but again for some reason we came through unscathed. But when I think of it and heard of it later on the lads we left behind in in India were still out there. They didn’t see a single raid but we’d come back and completed our tour. Anyhow the war finished and I liked the air force so very much I decided I would like to stay in. And I made an application and they accepted me and I was given the permanent commission and I finished up as a wing commander in the supply branch. They didn’t want any flyers or wireless operators in the, in these recent days. Weren’t necessary. But it’s been a wonderful life with the Royal Air Force. And here we are in Goldsborough seventy odd years later able to talk about it and look back on the all the wonderful memories, friendships, relationships that built up. And one of the things I didn’t, didn’t mention to you but I will now mention now is that for some reason the Queen decided to award me with an Order of the British Empire which I went down and got in 1977 in her Silver Jubilee Honours list. And with that I think I can say that’s about it. Do you think?
PL: So after, after, after the war ended you stayed in the service.
HL: Yes.
PL: And so what sort of things, what sort of things did you do?
HL: Well, to begin with because I wasn’t flying I had to find a job which I wanted to do. And I was given free rein on a station. I spent six, about six weeks it was going around all the departments to find out what interested me. And the one that interested me most was logistics, because you were involved in everything that way. Movement of men, materials, stores. Working with civil industry. Rolls Royce. This sort of thing. And that intrigued me. It gave me an insight into, well modern life which obviously I hadn’t seen in the five years of the war because it was a very sheltered life. So I joined the, what was then known as the equipment branch and came lots of, lots of units. We served in England obviously. Spent some time in Malta. Cyprus. Germany. And that was it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. When we, when we finished at age fifty five I still didn’t want to finish work and I wondered what the dickens I could do. And one of my mates was a, worked for British aerospace so I said, ‘What’s my chances of landing a job? I’d like to go on this [unclear] contract that the British government is doing with Saudi Arabia at the moment if it’s at all possible.’ And he came back and said, ‘Yes. They’ll have you with pleasure. Would you like to go out?’ I said, ‘Yes. I’ll go,’ So I went and spent six years with them working on the [unclear] contract on the logistics side using my experience. Which was a real eye opener to, for what happens in civil life as opposed to service life. But fortunately a lot of my ex-service colleagues were there so we had friendships all the way through. It was, it was just like being back in the air force again. Yeah. And well that’s it really.
PL: What do you think the key differences are?
HL: Camaraderie. I think that is the big difference. You see you’re one big unit in the service and we’ve each just got one purpose in life and that’s to defend our country and we all work to that cause. Be it in peace time or war time. So you worked together. As a civilian in civvy life you were very much on your own. You made a few friends but never really had the same togetherness. That’s the big difference. To be quite honest of the two lives I would choose the service life all the time. And if there’s any of you listening in to this at the moment don’t have any worries about joining any of the services. You’ll find them wonderful. Go ahead and enjoy it all because that’s what life’s all about.
PL: That’s wonderful. And just, you mentioned your brother.
HL: Oh John. Yes.
PL: And he survived the war.
HL: He survived the war but he died before — he would have got that medal that I got from the French had he been alive. But he died and of course he didn’t. He wasn’t awarded it. Yeah. Yes.
PL: So going back to your, your tour over Germany with Bomber Command.
HL: In Germany.
PL: Yes.
HL: Yeah.
PL: You were saying you went over, after D-Day you were still —
HL: Oh yes. After D-Day I did. I did all thirty one trips. Eleven of which were in France. The rest were over Germany.
PL: Did you want to say anything else about those?
HL: Not particularly. No. Because there’s enough been said about it and I’d — no. No. No, the memories are such that I just want to keep these to myself.
PL: Of course. Of course. And so as we talked a little earlier what do you think about the way that Bomber Command has been treated over the years?
HL: Well, up until that rather drastic raid as it was called — was it Dresden? - we were all treated fine. But for some reason which escapes all of us because we only did what we were asked to do from that point onwards we seemed to get a name which we didn’t really deserve. And that hurt. Hurt terribly. I felt as if I was second class at one stage. Until it suddenly dawned on me it’s not really. It’s what I think personally that matters. Not what other people think. And I knew I did a good job. And that’s all that really matters. But we were treated shabbily. We waited all these years just to get the recognition of the, that Bomber Command clasp they made out. It should have been a medal. But every little helps. But for some reason the authorities decided no. Shame on them.
PL: Absolutely. Do you think that was a political decision?
HL: I think it must have been. Yes. I can’t think of any other reason. Yeah. And yet it was taken. I often wondered. Because Bomber Harris didn’t get all [unclear] at all. And whether there was some sort of a, [unclear] between them we’ll never know. I don’t know. But it was well known that they didn’t agree on many things. It could well be the cause.
PL: Well thank you so much Hugh. That’s been a fantastic story and is there anything else?
HL: I hope I haven’t bored you.
PL: Not at all. It’s been wonderful. Is there anything else at all that you would like to be recorded?
HL: I can’t really think of anything that’s of any particular interest to tell you about apart from what I’ve, what I’ve said.
PL: Well thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
HL: I could tell you, there’s one highlight strangely enough. Yes. After the war. I was at Cranwell at the time and the cadets there exchanged places with the cadets from the Air Force Academy in Colorado. And I was asked to go out there along with a few of our other lads and look after the cadets. And we had a wonderful two weeks in Colorado Springs. At the, at the American Air Academy. One of the highlights of being an air force during, after the war.
PL: Wonderful. Wonderful. And did you keep in touch with your comrades in the —
HL: Oh yes. I kept in touch with all of them until I think I’m last. The pilot, Doug just died last, January of this year. He was ninety nine.
PL: Goodness me.
HL: Yeah.
PL: Well, thank you very much again.
HL: My pleasure.
PL: Thank you.
[recording paused]
PL: So we’re resuming the interview and Hugh you were just telling me about the special ops that went over to India.
HL: Special Duties. Yeah.
PL: Special Duties. And what happened to the other crews that were staying there.
HL: Oh they stayed there until they finished their particular job but then they finished up flying troops. They didn’t come back to the UK until the war was finished.
PL: And so were they troops who’d been prisoners of war?
HL: No. Actual, our own military.
PL: Right. Right. Right.
HL: Yes. Yeah. That’s what it was.
PL: Thank you very much.
HL: A bus service. Not my cup of tea.
PL: Thank you.
Dublin Core
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ALorimerH160622
Title
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Interview with Hugh Lorimer
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:40:56 audio recording
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-06-22
Description
An account of the resource
Hugh Lorimer skipped school to see flying circus and won a flight in one of the aeroplanes. He later volunteered for the RAF and began training as a wireless operator. He was initially was posted to Special Duty Flight test flying in India. However, when their aircraft was written off they were posted back to the UK. He completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 10 Squadron.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
India
North Africa
Asia--Mount Everest
England--Yorkshire
India--Mumbai
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
10 Squadron
57 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
crewing up
Halifax
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Kinloss
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
RAF Scampton
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/294/3449/AMarshallAH161012.1.mp3
97bb1339dd8d17f832ee3984a665229f
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
Marshall, Alfred
Alfred Higgins Marshall
Alfred H Marshall
Alfred Marshall
A H Marshall
A Marshall
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Alfred Higgins Marshall (1861844 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-12
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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Marshall, AH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Hello. My name is Pam Locker and I’m in the home of Mr Alfred Higgins Marshall of [redacted] on Wednesday the 12th of October 2016. And Fred, can I just say first of all thank you very much indeed on behalf of everybody for agreeing to share your memories with us.
AM: You’re welcome.
PL: So, if we start by just maybe perhaps you’d like to just talk a little bit about your, your young life and how you got to be in Bomber Command.
AM: Well, initially I’ve no idea. I mean, I took the what they called the school leaving certificates in those days and the schools didn’t open and I went to see the headmaster and he said, ‘You will be coming back to school won’t you?’ I said, ‘No. I’ve got, it’s about time I contributed something to the family because in two years’ time I’ll be in the forces.’ So that was how it started. And as I say, you know war broke out. My Dad and I joined the LDV et cetera and we stayed in that. After that I went to, it was an air force training place, thing which was about navigation. And I think that was the first inkling that I had. But also in 1938 seven of us went on, went camping at Middleton in Teesdale. And four of us went into the RAF, two went into the navy and one became a doctor, he went to university. And that had a bearing on me as well. And out of those four I was the only survivor. And the two lads that went in the navy one was shipwrecked. Well, he was, his boat was sunk in the Mediterranean. He was a prisoner of war until he was liberated in 1942 when the, you know, in the North African campaign. And I had lots of other friends who went into the Bomber Command or went into the air force as it was then and unfortunately most of those died. I mean, I left and I went to, when I joined up that was in, my dad took me to Newcastle. Of course initially what I wanted to do I wanted to go into the Merchant Navy. My parents wouldn’t agree. So I stayed on and I went to Newcastle with my dad and he said, ‘Do you want to volunteer for the air force?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ So I went and volunteered for the air force, told my mother and she went berserk. And I mean really he was thinking of the war being the same as the First World War. Because he went right through from 1915 to 1918. And he, I mean the conditions that they had were horrendous. So he didn’t want me to have that so he took me to volunteer for the air, for the air force. And I was, that was on December the 13th [laughs] On January the 1st I was enlisted in to the air force. And then I was on, they sent me home for about a few months and then I was called up. And as I say I went away with from Birtley with two lads. Two other lads. Neither of them survived. I was the only one. And from there on it just took off and I drifted into Bomber Command. That’s how I got there. In Bomber Command we had, well actually I did part of the first tour on Wellingtons. And then we tried, we converted on to Halifaxes and picked up a mid-upper gunner and an engineer and then continued. Finished the first tour. Then continued, because we’d picked two boys up, five of us were entitled to nine months rest period which we didn’t do. We discussed it over a few pints of beer and we agreed that we would carry on for the sake of the other two lads. So we carried on with the second tour consecutively. And that’s it really. I mean I can give you the details of what we did et cetera. I mean on the first tour, as I say the first part of the first tour was on Wellingtons. And what we, 100 Group were on Special Duties and 192 Squadron were investigating enemy radar. And B Flight was Wellingtons — A flight was Wellingtons, B Flight was Halifaxes and C Flight was Mosquitoes. And we also had on our squadron an American reconnaissance unit. So it was all, it was all very hush hush. All our correspondence was vetted before it went off so what the family got at home I don’t know because you weren’t allowed to tell anybody anything about what we were doing. It was so secret. And the logbook shows SD Operations. Full stop. And as I said the first part of the tour on Wellingtons was immediately off the Dutch coast and maybe about five ten mile off the Dutch coast and the idea, the rear of the aircraft was packed with special equipment and we had a special operator interpreting whatever we found. If he found a signal we phoned it inland and I mean it was, it was seemed to be quite easy to us because that area was where the German night fighters were based and it’s strangely enough we went through it completely. Never saw a night fighter. But there were two of us flying from each end and the other crew always were attacked by night fighters. So, well the book that was issued at Lincoln, you know when we went down to the erection of this there was a chap called Donaldson there. Wing Commander Donaldson. Well, he was our wing commander so he flew on the opposite leg to us. And this was all night flying. And they were attacked by night fighters. We weren’t. So they put us on daylight and we flew daylight with a Spitfire cover. And then after that we converted on to Halifaxes and because of their longer range we were then involved in most of Germany. I mean actually we were supposed to be the last Bomber Command Wellington to operate. And I’ve got a photograph to prove that. But we weren’t because the crew, the last crew to operate on our flight the skipper was cashiered because he came back, couldn’t get his undercart down and pancaked on the runway which was forbidden. So he was cashiered and they were the last crew that flew on Wellingtons. So that’s it. It’s a long story that.
PL: Can we just clarify this because it’s a fascinating, it’s a fascinating story. The role of your crew. So you would navigate in —
AM: Yes.
PL: And the, all this kit, this electronic kit that was at the back of the plane.
AM: Yes.
PL: Were they finding out where radar was operating from?
AM: It was mainly radar but it was, it was mainly the V-1s that, which were starting at that time and we wanted to locate where they were being fired from. We were also, when we were flying in daylight there was a V-2 went up from The Hague and we, we witnessed that and it was, it was unbelievable. I don’t know whether we were the first crew to see a V-2 or not. But when we were on the, on the station there was a terrific bang and it was one of these V-2s which had exploded at a place called Dereham in Norfolk, and then we heard it coming because it was travelling faster than the speed of sound. So you heard the bang and then you heard the thing coming. It was weird. You couldn’t understand it at the time but that’s, that’s what it was.
PL: So then you would take that information back or —
AM: We took the information back.
PL: And that was your role.
AM: Every trip we went back. Every crew was interviewed or interrogated by the intelligence people.
PL: And so presumably you could be sent anywhere where they thought —
AM: Well, I mean we were mainly on the, on the Dutch coast. The northern, off the Frisian Islands. Down. Up to Denmark and places like that. But you were limited in the time you could fly in a Wellington, you know. I mean I’ve got to say a strange story but the nearest thing that we took that we had, we took a WAAF officer on leave to Cambridge. And we landed at this ‘drome at Cambridge and immediately the engines cut out because the bomb aimer was supposed to check that the nacelle tanks were full and we were switched on to the nacelle tanks for landing and he didn’t do it because the ground crew always did it. And we landed, just landed and both engines cut out because there was no petrol. [laughs] So that was the nearest escape we had.
PL: So that was just, so you were already landed and stopped.
AM: We, the wheels just touched down and both engines cut. Which could have been disastrous if it [pause] but we laughed about it.
PL: Was there a bit of an exchange in the aircraft with that?
AM: Yeah. So —
PL: A little bit of an exchange in the aircraft over that incident.
AM: Well, we had a good laugh about it. I mean of course you didn’t really criticise each other. I mean you were flying as a team. I mean there was never any animosity or anything like that.
PL: So, so what year was this that you started?
AM: Well, it was 1941 that I volunteered. That was, and that was, and this is January the 1st 1942. And then from there I went to ITW. Elementary Flying School. Then we were transferred to Canada to do our training. Came back and did the, we went on to, from there you went on Advanced Training Wing which was in Llandwrog in North Wales. And then we went from there to Wing which is an Operational Training Unit. And from there you would normally go and convert on to either Lancasters but we were transferred straight from the squadron, from the ITW straight to the squadron. So we missed that course out and we eventually had to go and convert later on that year on to the Halifaxes. Which we did at Marston Moor.
PL: So how old were you when you first joined Bomber Command?
AM: Twenty, well I was eighteen when I first joined up. And then when you went into Bomber Command it was maybe nineteen forty — end of ’42.
PL: And this, this particular squadron, were you, did you volunteer for that squadron?
AM: No.
PL: Or were you chosen in a particular way? Was it just random?
AM: You were selected mainly on the, on the operations that you did at the Operational Training Unit. And they selected the best crews there because it was all Special Duties and it had to be so accurate. Because on one of the operations if you had to, well, we dropped you heard about dropping silver paper. You know. And we used to carry out spoof raids because you might be, you might be going to a target down here and so the main force would go there but they’d send a spoof raid which was mainly 192 Squadron, well 100 Group and you used to throw silver paper out which when they picked it up they thought it was a pukka raid because these strips of silver paper were half the wavelength of the [pause] It was all clever stuff. And if you were a minute early or two minutes late on your datum point you had to write an explanation. I don’t know how that happens so it was really, you know you had to be we were chosen to go to that squadron because of our ability at OTU. I mean, my skipper I mean he used to volunteer to fly with the main force and go just as a passenger. He was an Australian and he did that just for experience.
PL: So did you stay with that squadron for the whole of the war?
AM: Yes. Until, until the war against Germany finished and then we were transferred to — actually what we, what we had to do then, I mean we could, I could have volunteered for Transport Command or something like that. But we’d done our tour. We were entitled to a rest period. And so we took the rest period and then eventually we ended up as, in Canada. No. I beg your pardon. I’m ahead of myself now. We were — they sent, they sort of give you a ground trade. So although I was a warrant officer navigator I was an AC 2 equipment accounts. And all I did was write my name on the top of the paper and passed out [laughs] I didn’t answer any of the questions. Just passed. And from there I was sent to India. Of course they, they couldn’t get, they couldn’t find employment for all the people who were being demobbed so they sent them to India. And I was out there for eleven months and I did nothing except draw my pay.
PL: So quite an experience.
AM: So it was. It was quite it was quite interesting out there. I mean it was an experience which I would never had otherwise but, otherwise. But in general, I mean you know I’ve attended lectures about, from historians about what Bomber Command did and how ineffective they were and how barbaric it was. Well, I accept that in the early days it was like tally-ho. And they used to go off. They were given the target. Many of them didn’t find it because they didn’t have the electronic equipment or radar equipment to navigate properly. It was all on DR and maybe didn’t find the targets. With their resources they got shot down and their losses were tremendous in the early days. They were flying Blenheims and Wellingtons and things like that. But, and Arthur Harris, I mean, I mean I think really he did an awful lot towards the war. I mean a lot of people said it was barbaric. Well, not once were we, when we were briefed when we were going was it said, ‘You’re going to bomb civilians.’ It was always a strategic target and the one, the thing that comes to mind is Dresden. I mean at that time Dresden was already twenty miles from the Russian border. And we bombed Dresden during the night. The Americans did it too. But after Stalingrad, the Battle of Stalingrad the Germans retreated and were regrouping in that area. And as I said this New Zealand crew went to Dresden and it was a fire attack. But what we, our brief was that we were to disrupt the reorganisation. That was the brief. It wasn’t that we had to destroy Dresden. And it was really these fire bombs there. You see Harris’s idea was instead of just haphazardly one aircraft followed by another aircraft flying in a stream the ground forces ARP could cope with it. He said you’ve got to fly in a stream and you’ve got to be through that target in ten minutes so that the concentration was too much for the ground forces. And the only thing that comes to my mind in, I mean they changed the method of bombing. And that was if you had a conventional bomb it went into the ground and it dug a hole and that was it. I mean there was a terrific explosion. But they then developed these four thousand pound bombs which were tin cans really, strapped together. One thousand pounds each strapped together to make up and I mean and they hit the ground, blasted and demolished the property so therefore civilians must have been killed. Also, I mean I listened to a lecture in Newcastle by a chap from Exeter University and he’s written several books on this and he castigated Bomber Command for being inaccurate et cetera. Well, when you were bombing you didn’t bomb the target you bombed the flares which the Pathfinders put down. And there was one raid at Essen where Germans put dummy path, dummy flares down and all the bombs of our thousand bomber raid went in to that field. So after that they developed what they called the master bomber technique. And the master bomber used to fly lower than the main force and identify the target. So when the Pathfinders came along he could tell them where they’d gone wrong. So where you had red, green and yellow so if the red ones were the wrong ones you’d tell them where to put the green. And so you then really bombed the target. And I think that was more precise then what the Americans did because the Americans flew in daylight and they flew in formation. And I did go on to, when I was at Marston Moor went on to the B12s and the equipment that they had for navigation was abysmal. I mean it couldn’t be compared with what we had. But the armament that they had was terrific. And they, when I was working actually I worked with a chap who was a colonel in the American Air Force and he said ‘we carpet bombed.’ And they went through the target and dropped their bombs to make sure that they hit something. Whereas we were bombing specific things. And that’s the, that’s the thing which never came through from any of these historians. So —
PL: So, talking, talking about the way Bomber Command has been treated since the war do you think that that was a political decision?
AM: Well, it was political as far as Churchill was concerned in so much that he was all in favour. I mean the thing that you’ve got to remember that German civilians did not know there was a war on. I mean because Hitler controlled the whole of Europe and the people in Germany, there was no blackout or anything. And it was only the air force who let them know that there was a war on. And we flew all those years, long before the D-Day landings without any back up from anybody. And it was just to keep the war, keep the people, in the German’s minds that there was a war. And they got the biggest shock of their life when Berlin was bombed. And they started it and we finished it. And that’s my view of the of the air force because they were really, what was written about them was so far from the truth it was unbelievable really. Otherwise you wouldn’t have done it.
PL: It’s taken a long time to get recognition.
AM: A long time to — ?
PL: Get recognition.
AM: Oh it has, I mean, I don’t know how it came about but for years I mean you used to read the papers and they used to say it was a waste of time, the German people were as strong as ever but they weren’t. They couldn’t have been once the bombing came because we were doing it at night time and the Americans were doing it during the daylight because all they were doing was map reading. And it took, an example is that in 100 Group the main force was stood down because of some leakage of information. So they had an operation just to keep them on their toes and the American Air Force, 8th Air Force acted as Pathfinders. And as I said before they had no navigational equipment and they marked the whole of Northern Germany [laughs] And we just bombed, because with, there was a system called Gee which was, you had two stations — one in North Africa and one somewhere up in Iceland. And they sent out beams and where they intersected you could navigate. You could set them up and you could navigate within four hundred yards which was amazing really. And a lot of people did drop their bombs on Gee. And that was amazingly put on our aircraft on 192 Squadron. We had Gee. We had H2S which is your own transmitter which sends out transmissions and you can really see and it shows you rivers, coastlines, towns et cetera. But the German night fighters could home in on this and shoot you down so there was generally H2S silence, you know from four degrees east. So you couldn’t do that. But H2S was great. You could, because it was just like map reading like the American’s did. And then we also had another system called Loran which was like the, it was for Transport Command really. And it took, you took two position lines. In DR navigation you’re flying along a path and to find out where you are you take a reading or a compass reading on a certain point, wait a few minutes and take another reading and then you transfer this line and where those two lines crossed that’s where you are. But that was only accurate within, you know, because the aircraft flies like that and it was accurate within about twelve miles or something like that. But as I say Gee you could navigate within, well say four hundred metres. Which, I developed a system with my bomb aimer and we could get further west, further east than the majority of crews because the Gee system, it sent up signals and when you, what they called strobed them it became like a, like a hillock and the others on the other side so if you kept those two together you could navigate further. Because Germany were no idiots. They were clever as well. I mean they used to jam the radar and the Gee by putting up what they called Grass or Railings. And if you lost that signal you couldn’t find it again. So, I mean but we were too clever for our own good and we went to Potsdam. And the winds were two seventy five mile an hour. And that’s, and then the Met men said, ‘When you pass through this point you’ll pass through a front and the winds will veer to three forty at forty.’ But I got to the point and I was getting readings of two seventy. So I had to alter my flight plan and waste eight minutes. So we wasted eight minutes. As a result we ended up ten minutes late on the target. And strangely enough the chap that I worked with when I was at BOC he lived in Low Fell, he was over the target at the same time. There were two, two of us over the target. We got coned by the blue searchlights and we put the nose down and the speed went off the clock and the gyro compass toppled. So we just flew on the P6 compass and ended up, well I thought it was Lisle but the wireless operator read what they called a pundit, which is a flashing light and he gave me that and I said, ‘Well that’s near Paris.’ So we didn’t know what to do so we just flew on until I thought well we’ve got to get rid of H2S. I’ll switch it on and I’d altered course north because we were about to hit the coastline. And the skipper said, ‘Oh. That’s the Thames Estuary.’ ‘That’s — sorry but you’re wrong. It’s le Havre.’ It’s going the other way. So we map read back there, back from there on Gee. But they were the sort of —
PL: So did you have a gunner with you? Were you, were you able to defend yourselves? Did you have a gunner with you?
AM: I had two gunners. I had a mid-upper gunner and a rear gunner. And, in that sort of thing [laughs] I mean they could be looking at a Perspex screen and you could see a dot on it, the odd dirt. Is that an enemy aircraft? And there was only once that we ever had to take evasive action from night fighters. But another thing not known is that a lot of, I mean you’re supposed to fly at a certain height within a stream five miles wide but a lot of people flew just above that to avoid the flak. We never did that. We always went through the flak because if you flew above the flak you were liable to be attacked by night fighters who could home on to you. And we lost more aircraft through night fighters than what we did through flak. So we took the option. And I can remember we, there was a chap flew with us. We went to Dortmund and we went through the flak. We got hit, turned on our backs and we came back and although you thought the aircraft had been blown apart there were three tiny holes in the aircraft. One took the top off the skipper’s knuckle. One came in beside the wireless operator’s leg. Another just missed the rear gunner. But they were only three tiny holes and you’d thought the plane had been blown apart. And I mean that was the sort of, that was one of the few times that we had any, that we got involved in anything like that. We were more than fortunate but I think it was a lot of good management as well because we never had any speech on the aircraft other than commands. Others they used to have Joe Loss playing the music. I flew with one, one crew as a passenger and they were, they had Joe Loss on and it was like, it was terrible. I couldn’t, I couldn’t bear it really. But we only spoke, you know, on commands. When we had to. So that’s the story.
PL: So you were obviously a very tight crew. Did you fly with the same crew throughout?
AM: We flew with the same crew throughout. And you lived as a crew. I mean we had, both the Canadians got promoted. They got commissions. I was recommended for a commission twice. And on the first time I refused to go forward because there was a superstition that you don’t accept a commission while you’re on operational duty. So I was, when we finished the tour I was recommended to go forward again. And I got turned down which, what they was said was that it was because they were over staffed on officers in the navigation section. A lad that was flying with us who refused to fly with us again because we went through the flak got a commission. But that was just the luck of the draw.
PL: So, tell me about your last, your last flight.
AM: The last flight was on —
PL: You knew that was going to be your last flight did you?
AM: Not really. It was in April. I think it was April the 24th and the war finished on May the 8th. I can tell you where I went to [pause] April the 24th to Dortmund. That was the last flight that we did. I’ve got Donald’s signature so many times in there. He was quite a good bloke actually. I mean he’d gone right through from the Battle of Britain. Right through the war and survived. Lovely bloke though.
PL: So tell me a little bit about what happened next.
AM: Well, we were sent on an indefinite leave after the war. And then as I said you know we were regraded to a ground force then on equipment accounts. I ended up in a place called Kankinara which is in India. Which was like an old jute station. Oh the pong was terrible. I mean we were living in absolute luxury. But outside, I mean there were just hovels. There were people living in, about forty people living in a room this size and I mean they had meat hanging up, you know. It was covered in flies. And bowls of currants — you went like that [clap] and it was flour. And that was the sort of conditions that they Indians were living under yet we were living in these palatial places which obviously the people of the East India Company had lived in. But I mean it’s strange in Calcutta. I mean the temperature used to get up to about eighty but in the morning there would be a white frost. So we were wearing blues, you know and then you’d change in to khaki.
PL: So, did you experience any of the, any of partition of India?
AM: Yes. I was in Bombay at the time when they were fighting for independence. And as I say I was in fact I was trained as, in. I worked in the services thing. But I went to, I went to Bombay I was in pay accounts. And all, all I did was go through a list of things which had thumbprints on it and stamp them and say yes. But we were then, because we had been in aircrew we knew because of all the riots in Bombay et cetera of course they used to throw stones from vehicles et cetera. And we were, used to go, what they called garrey guards and we used to have sten guns and we’d go back and we were going along this road and we got through. And when we couldn’t get through because the streets were absolutely jammed full of people we turned to come back and there was a tree being felled across the road. So we jumped out and all of about forty of them were trying to get through a door about this size [laughs] and they were saying, ‘Sahib,’ but I mean so we did that. We sort of transported the civilians back to their place where they were living and that’s the, that’s the only involvement we’d got in that. But it was definitely there and I mean they had to bring tanks in eventually. But eventually they did get their independence.
PL: So then you went home. So then you went home.
AM: I did.
PL: And what happened then?
AM: When I came home, well I got married in 1945 and while I was out there could have gone on to British Overseas Airways but I promised not to fly again [laughs] And I came home and it would, it’s a pity because I enjoyed flying. But I came home and they were bound to give you your job back. Well, I went back to BOC and I worked there. Eventually went in to the purchasing side. Became purchase, I was there for, including your war service, thirty years. Got my watch to prove it [laughs] And then, but our eldest son who was taking his what they call O levels now, and it meant that I was going to have to transfer down to the London area. Nobody was very happy so stayed in this area. And eventually I went to Hartlepool and my daughter wouldn’t move down to Hartlepool because she said, ‘You didn’t move for our Neil.’ [laughs] So that’s right I was going to move to Shotton Village, a nice estate, and you wouldn’t. You said, ‘I’m not moving.’ [laughs] So, and that was it. So I stayed with BOC and then eventually they moved me to London which wasn’t a particularly good move. And from there I went from BOC to Foster Wheeler. I then transferred. I got into the off shore industry. Then I went to Charlton-Leslie which was, it was a part of the BT Group and they were in to the offshore and that was just about collapsing. So I transferred and went to NEI and I was working in the nuclear industry. And then I retired at sixty five. So I’ve been retired now twenty eight years.
PL: So did you keep in touch with the rest of your crew?
AM: We used to meet. Well, actually rather strange. I mean when we picked up an engineer he was Geordie. He came from Newcastle. I thought great another Geordie in the crew. But he was the strangest lad. I mean I can remember him, we were at the, we used to report to the flights and the NAAFI wagon used to come around. And he said to me, he said, ‘Can you buy me a cup of tea and a wad.’ I said, ‘Oh that’s ok. I have some.’ So I bought him a cup of tea and then at lunchtime he says, ‘Can you lend me a half a crown to get a packet of cigarettes?’ I said, ‘But you’ve got a pound note in your wallet.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to break into it.’ [laughs] And we used to go out for a drink and there were eight of us with pints of beer. And Taff, Welshman he used to drink rough cider and after he’d had two he was legless [laughs] And, but Green who was the engineer, we got wise to him and said, ‘Right. You’re first shout.’ So he stopped coming out with us. So we lived as a, not as a seven man crew but as a six man crew. It’s unfortunate because he missed an awful lot. And unfortunately I think they’re all dead now. I’m the only survivor. But you asked about meeting. Well, the two Australians went back to Australia obviously. But the bomb aimer, the mid-upper gunner and the rear gunner and myself used to meet down in Tring because my eldest son lived in Tring and the, Taff was a Welshman. Came from Newport. Chas the bomb aimer came from Cheltenham. And Pete from Leicester. And that so that’s it. When we went down to visit Neil we always got together. And we did that for years didn’t we? We used to meet every year and it was good to meet up again. And we used to have a meal together and then just disburse. And then after that well Chas died. Lung cancer actually. And then we were, we had another meeting and Taff, he bought, he always had a desire to buy one of these luxurious cars. He bought it and within ten minutes of where we were meeting he had an accident. And he damaged his chest et cetera. Well, he died subsequently and then there was only Pete and I and as I say we used to meet and we went to Elvington to see this Halifax. And then after that it just died but as far as I’m concerned I think the, well Laurie Mottler was about ten years older than what we were. So he would be a hundred and something if he was here. And Gibby was older than us so I think they all must be dead now. And that brings us up to date really.
PL: Well, Fred, that’s an amazing story. Thank you very much indeed.
AM: I don’t think you’ll print all that.
PL: Is there, is there anything else that you’d like to talk about?
AM: I don’t know. Not really. Except that I was appalled by some of the stuff that was put in the newspapers about Bomber Command. I mean we were portrayed as being sadists, didn’t care but it wasn’t like that at all.
PL: Well thank you very much indeed for your interview.
AM: That’s the first time I’ve told that story for a long, long time.
PL: It’s a wonderful story. Thank you very much indeed.
[recording paused]
PL: So we’re recommencing the tape and Fred you were just telling me about —
AM: Well the raids on Dresden and Chemnitz, in that area they were tactical because the German army was regrouping after the defeat at Stalingrad. And to avoid them regrouping we bombed them and it was for that reason that we were briefed. It was nothing to do with scaring the population or killing civilians or anything. And because it was so near, it was only twenty miles from the Russian Front they gave us a Union Jack.
PL: But this was, where was it you bombed? It wasn’t Dresden.
AM: We went to Chemnitz.
PL: Yeah.
AM: And I mean we only carried a token bomb just for the cover up to show that we were in Bomber Command. They didn’t want people to know that we were on Special Duties. And that was one of the things that we did. I mean we only carried maybe five hundred pounds or a thousand pounds of conventional bombs or these aluminium fire bombs. But —
PL: But you wore —
AM: But that was interesting that.
PL: A Union Jack badge.
AM: Yes. Well you hung it around your neck.
PL: And you hung it around your neck.
AM: Yeah. And that was it.
PL: And that was in case —
AM: Well, it was sufficient to show that you were British. To get through the Russian lines. So —
PL: And you were telling me about the New Zealand crew. Some New Zealanders.
AM: The New Zealand. Well, they were only in our billet for a short while. I mean, for example I mean there was seventeen. Was there fifteen or seventeen in our billet? And there was, the only people who survived were the C Flight crew. There was a navigator and a special operator in our billet. There was a lad called Tommy Campbell which was sad really. He was a Canadian and he flew as a spare bod as we called them and he used to throw Window out. And he’d done twenty nine operations and they put the number up to thirty three for a tour. And he did thirty two and they put it up to thirty six. And on his thirty fourth operation, well they got hit by flak. And the chap who was one of the special operators asked him to jump and he wouldn’t and he had to push him out of the road and jump. And Tommy stayed and he was killed. But he was afraid to jump. And that was at a place called Rheinau. So there was those were missing and this New Zealand crew, so and out of the fifty or something there were only five of us left. So that was the odds that were, you know. They said there was fifty percent loss in aircrew in Bomber Command. And it comes always back to that figure. I mean I went, we had three lads from Birtley. I was the only one that survived. The lads that I went camping with I was the only one. But it always came back to this tremendous figure of the loss of people who actually operated. Because I think there was only a hundred and ten thousand operated but there were about three hundred thousand trained and they didn’t operate at all. These are facts which don’t come to light really.
PL: Thank you Fred. Thank you for that additional piece of information.
AM: What?
PL: Thank you very much for that additional information.
AM: Oh, you’re welcome.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AMarshallAH161012
Title
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Interview with Alfred Marshall
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:51:47 audio recording
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-10-12
Description
An account of the resource
Alfred Marshall volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was called up to serve with two others from his home town of Birtley, neither of whom survived the war. He flew operations as a navigator with 192 Squadron from RAF Foulsham including Special Operations. He discusses the use of navigational aids including Gee, H2S and Loran and describes flying through and being hit by anti aircraft fire. He also speaks of the strategic aims of the bombing of areas including Dresden and how this has been perceived. He finished his service in India and later worked in the off shore and nuclear energy industries.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
India
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942-01-01
1945
100 Group
192 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
fear
Gee
H2S
Halifax
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Foulsham
RAF Marston Moor
superstition
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/296/3450/AMawdsleyT150507.2.mp3
ea9c62d9c81e5ae9760032ecb625acaf
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
Mawdsley, Ted and Ethel
Edward and Ethel Mawdsley
Edward Mawdsley
Ted Mawdsley
E Mawdsely
Ethel Mawdsley
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Edward "Ted" Mawdsley (1920 - 2016). He served as ground personnel with 103 Squadron.
The collection has been catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-02
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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Mawdsley
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: It’s Saturday the 2nd of May 2015. I’m Heather Hughes from the University of Lincoln Bomber Command Digital Archive and I’m talking today with Ted Mawdsley who is going to talk about his time as ground crew in Bomber Command.
Thank you very much, Ted, for agreeing to do this interview with us today.
First of all Ted I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about where you were born and brought up.
TM: I was born in Witham which is in Essex not very far away from Harlow and I went to the local Church of England school, primary school, but education was different then and you had to win a scholarship to go for secondary education which I did and went to Colchester Technical College, and I have great nostalgia for my home town. I still love it. It was only about six thousand people lived there and everybody knew each other and it was one of my things I look back on with great pleasure. So that’s where I came from.
My father came from Formby near Liverpool and married my mother in Witham ‘cause he was stationed there during the First World War for a while and they got married and I was the only offspring and so no brothers or sisters but I wasn’t spoiled. Ok? Is that ok?
HH: Yeah, your dad had been, he’d gone through the First World War
TM: Yes
HH: And he’d been injured had he?
TM: Yes, he, he got a, he got wounded in the knee and that’s one of the reasons he was at Witham ‘cause he was there on convalescence.
HH: Now through secondary school which of the subjects did you particularly like and, and hoped you might be able to use one day?
TH: English, art, history, geography, it was because it was a Technical College it seemed to have an emphasis on mechanical drawing and metal work, woodwork etcetera but I never had an inclination in that direction. Wasn’t particularly good at maths but what you might call the arts well I always did much better in those subjects than in the others. Altogether I didn’t really like being at that school. There was something about it which I didn’t take to and I think maybe because I wanted to leave school and start work somewhere and I’ll just mention this in passing, I’d had this secondary education which was unusual in a way because over 90% of working class children left school at fourteen then and didn’t have a secondary education so I was privileged in a way and yet because it was the 1930s and massive, mass unemployment and all the rest of it, the first job I had was as a butcher’s errand boy that’s how I, my working life started and then eventually to Marconi’s before the war but that was basically it. That’s the sort of educational background and as I say I think in all probability if I’d had gone to an art college or something of that kind I think it might have been different but there we are. It was.
HH: But you found your way into Marconi which is how come you found your way also into technical roles when the war came.
TH: Yes, yes that’s right, I might just mention this, at the beginning of the war a lot of my friends in Witham, my home town, were joining up and going away and I, I wanted to be one of them. It wasn’t any sort of heroism or anything, it was just, you know, I wanted a bit of adventure I suppose and so I, applied to join the RAF. Don’t know why the RAF really, to be quite honest but I was told that I was in a reserved occupation because I worked at Marconi’s but I kept writing and writing, I think [laugh] in the they got a bit fed up and so I went for an interview and that’s how it came about. So the war September 1939 and I was in the RAF in April 1940 so, you know, it was a while before I went in.
HH: And your first posting as it were was to Coastal Command is that right?
TH: Well after training I went, we did what they called square bashing for about six weeks I think it was at Bridgenorth in Shropshire then to Melksham in Wiltshire for the technical training. I had vague ideas about air crew but anyway my experience at Marconi ‘s obviously pointed me in the direction of doing something technical I went to Melksham and did the instrument course, the aircraft instrument course, there. From there I went to Calshot near Southampton on Coastal Command. From there to Pembroke Dock, South Wales also on Coastal Command and there I had my first flight in a Lerwick you’ve probably, nobody’s ever heard of but that was a flying boat and that was my maiden flight and we had Sunderlands and Catalinas, (American flying boat), and then from there I was posted to Scotland to Greenock in Scotland and then we had the blitz on Clydeside and we were bombed out and we moved further along the coast to a place called Gourock and then we were, we were maintaining the Catalina flying boats there - patrols over the Atlantic and sometimes we’d get, to go on the patrols as well because they were big aircraft and could accommodate people and sometimes they needed extra people on board. If, for example one of the things that Coastal Command did and its very underrated by the way a very underrated arm of the Air Force during the war. Never got the credit it should have done. One of the things it used to do was to patrol the Atlantic and we’d sometimes discover a lifeboat with, you know, men in the life boat, their ship had been sunk by a Uboat and one of the jobs of coastal command was to pick them up, if the sea permitted that is. Provided the sea, you could land on the sea, which was always a very difficult thing to do anyway, much harder than it is landing on the ground, landing on the sea because of the choppiness of the water and picking up survivors from the torpedo situation and so that’s, you know, that was a very, very interesting period then and from then I – oh yes, that’s right they there was they found there was a shortage of people with factory experience. They wanted to increase production for the war effort but because so many young men had gone in to the services there was a shortage of manpower in industry and so they appealed for any technical people in the RAF to go into, back into civilian life, for a short period, to help boost industry, so I found myself at Luton, Luton in Bedfordshire, the factory for about four or five months I think it was making radio cases and things and then I got called back and that’s when I went to Elsham to Bomber Command. And that, that was that was the beginning of it all. [coughs] And of all the, the three years overseas Coastal Command but Elsham Wold - I was only there for seven months but it’s a funny thing but it stands out in my memory greater than anywhere else. There was something about it, something different which is difficult to define but it was a wonderful experience being there with those people and knowing that particularly I think because the aircrew depended upon us so much and you felt this great sense of responsibility and care. I can remember after doing what they called a DI which was a daily inspection of everything that you were responsible for and you had to sign a form, form 700 it was called, to show, to declare that what, you know what you were responsible for had been checked and everything was fine and you did feel that, well I assume that we all did, I know that most of us, most of my friends did, I certainly did, felt acutely, felt that sense of responsibility.
Just to take one example: an altimeter which shows the height that you are flying if that wasn’t working correctly and if you were going over mountain territory you could hit the top of the mountain because in the dark, you see, they went on these raids at night time and so they relied upon those instruments and so there was that and also the other factor was Bomber Command the casualty rate amongst aircrews was horrendous and we felt it if our, if you see I worked on the flights, out on the flights. Some of the lads worked in the hangar doing major repairs, we worked out on the flights and because of that we had two aircraft to look after in our trade anyway and, you, you knew the aircrew. You had tremendous rapport with them and if they didn’t come back we, we felt it keenly, you know, we’d lost our friends and I think that’s what it was that was about Bomber Command that was different.
HH: Yeah.
TM: Yeah. It brought everyone together, we were a team and the other interesting thing about it is too, in Bomber Command at least at Elsham which was my experience that what we call bull which is, you know, where you have to be smart all the time and stand to attention and all that kind of thing, that was, didn’t have priority. The priority was keeping the aircraft flying and that’s why it was that there was this different, in the military situation there was this different thing between officers and NCOs and, and other ranks because of this inter-reliance and the fact there was such terrible casualties.
One thousand five hundred of our bombers our, our Lancasters did not come back, in, during, during the war. One thousand five hundred and, you know when you think about it that’s seven people in each of those aircraft so that, well that wasn’t all Lancasters because before Lancasters there were other aircraft previous to that but what I’m saying is that the, I think it was next to, per ratio of casualties to the, to the task, the only service that had a higher casualty rate then us was the submarine people but Bomber Command had ratio, more casualties than any other section and that’s why we had this unique experience.
HH: I want to talk to you a bit more about the sort of bonds that developed between you but
TM: Yeah
HH: Before we do that you arrived at Elsham Wolds as an erk
TM: Yeah
HH: Tell me about what erk means.
TM: I’m glad you asked me that because I don’t know. I don’t know the origin of that I know a lot of the origin of so much of the slang that was used in the RAF, like we never called them aeroplanes we called them kites and that sort of thing, but erk, I don’t know. It’s been suggested it was an abbreviation of ‘airc’, aircraftman and that was shortened to erk but I’m not convinced about that. I don’t know, I really do not know where that came from but that’s what we were. That’s we all called each other.
HH: And how did, what were, what were relationships like amongst the erks at Elsham?
TM: Oh amazing. Amazing. I, I had a good companionship with wherever I went whatever command I was in, but Elsham was special as I said before I think it was the nature of what we were doing and we were, we were closely bonded and anybody, this is interesting anybody who stepped out of line in terms of skiving off and not pulling their weight, you know, and being indifferent were not particularly popular you know. We had a great sense of what our job was and, and how much those young, young men relied upon us and that’s what, that’s what drove us.
HH: Yeah. What were your living conditions like at Elsham
TM: Not, not too bad. When I first went there for the first few months I was in a Nissan hut. It was right away in the corner. Think about Elsham, I call it Bomber Command airfields, they’re vast. And you know we went on your bike out to do your job in the morning. We went, we were based in the hanger, the main hangar, that’s where our unit was and then we loaded up with our oxygen bottles and all the rest of it and then rode out like cowboys (laugh) on the prairie, we rode out to where our aircraft was, was parked but then this this Nissan hut that we lived in then was tucked away in a corner over one side of the airfield and you know you had to go cycle to the centre of the thing and that was a bit uncomfortable because it had sort of a tin, tin roof and it wasn’t very warm. It had a stove which usually didn’t work very well and during the winter it was quite cold but then they moved us into a great big hut in the centre of the drome' and it was a bit more comfortable so the accommodation was pretty good really.
HH: And what was sort of the average day, what did it consist of for you?
TM: It wasn’t, you couldn’t really talk about a routine because you never knew. I mean, you’d start off early in the morning and you’d go and have your breakfast, then go to the, whichever unit you belonged to. You know, the engine people, the electricians, radio people and we were called the instrument bashers. Everybody was a basher for some reason (laughs), you were an engine basher, or an instrument basher or whatever and you report to your, to your department and then you’d be allocated and you’d get a report from the night before when the aircraft had been and come back and certain things were wrong and had got to report about that and you set off out onto the flights in all kinds of weather. You didn’t stop just because the weather was bad and working conditions were pretty rough at times. And in the winter time we used to have to go and shovel the snow off the runway in addition to everything else so, it was as good as it could be, let’s put it that way.
And the powers that be the people who, the commanding officers and all the rest of it did everything they possibly could to make it as comfortable as possible but with regard to the routine you couldn’t be sure ‘cause you would go out and do our inspections but an emergency might crop up, something had been found and you would have to go out again and then you might be on the night, night shift you know and that’s when you were on the night shift you were there when the aircraft came back and then we, everybody used to go and you might have some wounded on board and you’d go and help to get them off and all the rest of it so it was, they tried to make it a job like in civilian life, you know eight till six or whatever but it just couldn’t work like that. You had to attend to things as and when required and so yeah it was a bit of a disjointed day really, you know, but (??) when you’re young you don’t feel the cold so much as when you’re older and you know we’d put up with cold winds that came in off the North Sea and the snow, the rain, the sleet. It was nearly always raining it seemed and the only time when we got a bit of a break was when it was foggy because nobody flew when it was, it was, the fog was like a thick fog in those days. Don’t have them now but we did then, and they were what were called ops, ops were scrapped. Operations were cancelled because of the fog and you see if we had fog in Britain there was usually fog in the continent as well so couldn’t go so yes, it was, it was working as and when required really and sometimes jobs took longer than others.
Sometimes you had to lay in tubing along the wing to go up to the instrument panel sometimes that would take quite a lot of time. So it was varied and the thing, if I might just mention this in passing, the job that most, always more concerned about then anything was oxygen. The oxygen bottle should be working, should be fit because they had oxygen cylinders in the aircraft fully charged with oxygen but the aircrew moved about from one place to another during a flight so they had a portable oxygen thing and, the little oxygen bottle, and that would last them for eleven and a half minutes if my memory is correct, eleven and a half minutes and it was absolutely vital that those bottles should be full to that capacity of eleven and a half minutes duration. So let’s say that the rear gunner wanted to go up to the front and talk to the pilot about something, you know, he got eleven and a half minutes, because they flew at such a height, the bombers they flew very high where the air was thin so they needed the oxygen and I felt more responsible about that than I did about anything at all and I’ve gone back, you know I’ve gone, I’ve done my inspection, signed the form, the 700, gone back to the, what we called the office and then thought did I check that, did I check that number six oxygen bottle and I’d go back again just to make sure because that was vital, absolutely vital to the, to the survival of those airmen and so that’s the way it was.
HH: And did you ever get to fly Ted?
TM: Did I what?
HH: Did you ever get to fly?
TM: Yes
HH: Go up in the aircraft?
TM: Yes, we did tests, yes that’s one of things that they encouraged because they said you’d, you know, you would attend to your job once you knew you’d fly in the aircraft after you’d serviced it. Yeah we did get, I mean, not all that often but we did get to fly and also they used to do what they called surface and bumps which is where aircrews in particular, new aircrew, young aircrew who’d just joined the squadron they’d fly around and land and then take off, practicing and doing circuits they called it. Surface and bumps they called it and sometimes you’d cadge a ride in one of those so we did, you know, now and again and if you knew the crew like we did, certainly I did with my particular one, which was called (D Donald) and I knew that crew very well indeed and you know if I could get permission from the flight engineers to go up and have a little trip I would and yeah, so that was a bonus really. It was you know you felt great pleasure in joining them up in the air. It was good.
HH: Now it’s in the nature of an airbase I suppose that the, that there were many ground personal than air crew.
TM: Yes.
HH: What was the rough proportion of ground crew to air crew?
TM: Well there was say twenty six aircraft at, because it was all letters of the alphabet. A – Apple, B – Bertie you know that that was what they ‘cause they all had a letter right the way down to z and so say you had twenty six well there were seven aircrew for aircraft I can’t work it out of top of my head but you’re talking about what one hundred, two hundred perhaps, possibly, I don’t know. Ground crew would outnumber them by six, seven times more. Many more ground crew than air crew and you had to take into consideration, you know these, say if you had the engine fitters, engine mechanics, airframe fitters, the armourers who did all the bombing up and all that. Radio. All who worked, actually worked on the aircraft but in addition to that you had people in the cookhouse, you had clerical workers who worked in admin. You had drivers, mostly WAAFs incidentally, it was usually the WAAFs who drove the little 1300 weight lorry out to the aircraft to take your airmen out when they were going on a raid. It was mostly the female staff who went, that drove them. So you had drivers, you had motor mechanics and you had people who looked after the petrol depot and also where the bombs were kept. And had batmen who looked after the officers and so on and so on and yes we outnumbered the officers quite a bit, the aircrew I mean.
HH: What sort of facilities were there on the base for you during the time when you weren’t working?
TM: NAAFI. That was the National Association of, I can’t remember what that stood for to be quite honest but that’s where you could go in the, in the evening, and you could have egg and chips. We were always hungry so even though we’d had a meal in the, in the other ranks mess, sometimes we’d go to the NAAFI if we weren’t on duty and have egg and chips and a pint of beer and you could play cards. Weren’t allowed to gamble so you played for matchsticks or, you know, that sort of thing and then of course we were allowed off camp sometimes. You’d get a day off or a forty eight hour pass sometimes and you’d go out, you used to go to the villages, to the village dance which was organised by the village people and, or go to the pub and have a drink. There was also a piano in the pub, there was always a piano and there was always someone who could play the piano and have a sing song and then we did all this by bike by the way and it may be miles away but we always went on a bike and we were allissued with a bike, we went there with a number on it so you could identify it and that was good going to the NAAFI, just the lads together, and sometimes the WAAFs as well and, and as I say we had that or could perhaps have a sausage roll if you weren’t that hungry. They did a good job they really did and I was talking about that, we also had I think it was a WVS Women’s Voluntary Service that used to, or the Salvation Army, I’m not sure now but they used to bring a wagon around on the flights so we had a break. You know, you had your tin mug, they had a, what they called a, we could have a drink of tea, a mug of tea and a wad, what they called it']. It was like a cake but it was rock hard. [laughs] We always said, always said if they dropped those on the enemy they probably would have done more damage than the bombs. But, you know, that’s, so yeah there was that aspect of it as well, there was, you could have a bit of a social life and I think that helped, that helped the bonding as well because you met socially and you met with the other trades they were all called trades. If you were a mechanic, engine or airframe fitter or whatever we all got together in the NAAFI and, and so we worked together out on the flights but we also met up in the NAAFI which was very, very good, yeah.
HH: And how common was it to be able to get leave?
TM: Leave?
HH: Yeah.
TM: Well, in theory you had leave every three months. Seven days and they didn’t always work out quite, as, like that but that’s what they aimed for, that was what we did. And come home for seven days, Ethel was a Londoner, so I used to, after we met and we decided that we would go together and I used to spend some of the, two or three days perhaps with her family and then had two or three with my family and then sometimes Ethel used to get leave from work to come down and stay with us so yes it worked out about seven, seven days every, every three months. But when I was, when you were posted overseas you got two weeks. Embarkation Leave they called it. But other than that it was just a week, sometimes a 48 hours pass. So you could, you couldn’t go very far in that time to you so went to, I don’t know. A friend of mine lived at Sheffield and he used to say come to my place ‘cause that wasn’t all that far away you know and I’d do that so yeah I’d get away from that for a while sometimes.
HH: Was there an occasion at Elsham Wolds where you were actually, when you found yourself in the position of nearly being run over by a Lancaster
TM: Yes [laugh] yes
HH: What happened?
TM: Yes [laugh] I’d, I had a day I thought I had the day off and , ‘cause sometimes if you worked a certain number of days or hours you had the day off, I was going to, with my mate, I was going to go to, I was going into Barnetby or somewhere to go to the pub, have a drink and spend the day together but then I found I had to go to this shooting range, firing range, ‘cause we were supposed to keep our hand in because we were occasionally had to do defend the airfield exercises so that if the Germans landed we were supposed to know how to defend our airfield. We had what they called the RAF 'Regiment. That was their main job was to defend the airfield but we were also trained to, to back them up and so going on the rifle range was something you did every now and again so, so that ruined my day I thought whatever but when I came up after being down in the pit sort of where they had the rifle range I thought I’ll go back to the instrument section to see if my friend was available and what was left of the day we’d go out and I thought well I’d take a short cut and I came up and went to walk across the runway. I was going to walk across the runway to go to the main camp and I heard the Lancaster revving up and looked and I saw it was ready to take off and was coming up the runway to take off so I moved back off and then it came along the runway and all of a sudden it swung off and (laughs) come straight towards me so I had to, had to run like crazy and I could run in those days and I ran away from where it was heading and I also knew that another mate of mine, that was his aircraft he looked after and was probably on that aircraft. He, the pilot, he set it down off the wheels because the wheels were making it go but he brought it up off its wheels so it settled on its body. So it slid across the ground to slow it up a bit, went across the road and there was a quarry and the air, and the Lancaster nose was just on the edge of the quarry and if it had gone further it would have gone over and the quarry was quite deep but they managed to stop it and of course you know you’ve got to get out because of fire and all of them came out and I was pleased and I ran towards it because thinking my mate was on there. Instinctive, it wasn’t bravery or anything it was just instinct. I ran towards it but as I ran towards it they were all coming out and Frank, who was my mate and he came off and I said do you realise where the, where the aircraft has, has pulled up and he looked across and he said “bloody hell”. [emphasis] That was, that summed it up really. But I had to get out of the way quick ‘cause it would have run me over and so that was, that was that incident.
There are lots of things that happened on airfields, that accidents did occur but I often wonder why there weren’t more. You just imagine you’ve got all those people working around an aircraft and one of the things that we used to have to do was to look after the compass and you had to swing the compass so to test it so you moved the aircraft around so to see if the compass is reading correctly and you know the swinging tail and people working around there had to be very careful, you had to be very careful about when the engines were running. All kinds of things like this. Bombs fell off sometimes. That was a disconcerting thing. Imagine a 4000lb bomb hanging from under the aircraft, and you’re working on the aircraft and suddenly this 4000lb bomb drops off. And it did happen because a short circuit inside the aircraft somehow or other triggered the equipment to release the bomb and it just fell off. Well luckily, in most cases, well although on one occasion it did actually explode but usually they weren’t yet charged you see but even though you knew they weren’t charged the sight of a great big, what you might call a huge dustbin explosive falling off the aircraft and just doing a little roll on the ground was a little bit, (laugh) little bit disquieting but yes that could happen. It did happen. Yes. Yeah.
HH: Ted, you referred earlier to the very high attrition rate of aircrew in Bomber Command.
TM: Yeah.
HH: and of course aircraft as well.
TM: Yes.
HH: At the time, during those months that you were at Elsham Wold, how much did you know because not a lot of information was released about
TM: No.
HH: Such things?
TM: No.
HH: So how, how did you know or suspect the loss rate was quite high?
TM: Well just because they didn’t come back. The aircraft didn’t come, didn’t come back.
HH: But you only knew about your airfield didn’t you or your base you didn’t know what was happening elsewhere?
TM: Oh, no, no well I mean, we only had to assume everywhere was the same. You know but there was a thing in the morning when you went out to, out to the flights and you see some of the ground crew standing around with an empty dispersal bay because the aircraft hadn’t come back. And sometimes we used to think, we always used to say well never mind they’ve probably landed somewhere else because they couldn’t quite make it all the way back and there was always a hope that that was so, but it wasn’t very often so. They just didn't make it. And you had to assume that that was happening at all the other
HH: And how did ground crew cope with that situation when their crew didn’t come back?
TM: Very, very , very, very upset about it. ‘Cause they knew them, they knew them so well, and they covered it up ‘cause that’s what men are supposed to do aren’t they? Men are supposed to keep the stiff upper lip and all the rest of it. They, you know, they wouldn’t stand there crying their eyes out. But they were, they were touched and upset by it and they got to know these aircrews and friendly with them, went to the pub with them sometimes and sometimes knew them by first, first names and that’s the way it was so if your aircraft didn’t come back that was quite something and then you know a new aircraft would come along to replace it. A new aircrew. And it would start all over again. And that’s what it was like. Yeah.
HH: How did you keep going?
TM: Comradeship I think, more than anything else, real comradeship and supporting each other. That’s it, and an example and it’s in my book, but I won’t dwell on the fact it’s in the book but it is that I once did an inspection, not on one of my aircraft, someone was off sick or on leave or something and I took on another aircraft as well as my two to do an inspection and when I got back to the, to the instrument section a little later on I was told that I was going to be on a charge because one of the oxygen bottles had got a leak and I thought well I can’t understand that because I always checked those things but I was put on a charge and when I came up before the officer on the charge you know you had to march in, stand to attention and have the thing read out and all that and I didn’t find this out until afterwards but anyway I told them what had happened, I said well I’m not surprised really this happened because the tubing on the mobile oxygen bottle system is right by the door and when the aircrew particularly come in with all their gear on, brushing against it, I think it had worn away you see and I said as far as I can tell, I could tell that was all in working order so that this this slit must have opened up afterwards. Anyway I was sort of told to be more careful in future and I didn’t have, you know I wasn’t punished or anything but I found out afterwards that not only did my flight sergeant in our section speak up for me but so did the flight engineer on the, on the aircrew he passed on the message to the adjutant on the, on the squadron to say that, you know, how conscientious I was and I wouldn’t have missed something like that. So when you, when you have that kind of relationship with, with your mates and with your aircrew you know they come to you on your side when you’re seriously on a serious charge like that. That’s when you realise how important it was. Yeah.
HH: Well, those were obviously, those seven months have imprinted themselves on your mind as the most significant period of your service during the Second World War but after Elsham Wolds how come, how come you went abroad?
TM: (laugh) That’s a, that’s a good question. I, for some reason or other, you know, when you’re young you want to see the world. Anyway, adventure had nothing to do with it, I didn’t want to get nearer to the enemy or anything like that, nothing like that at all. I volunteered to go overseas first I think it was when I was at Greenock in Scotland. And then a couple of months went by and I’d forgotten about it, completely. And whilst I was at Elsham - June or July of ‘43 I suddenly got this notice to tell me I’d been posted overseas and so I’d forgotten about it but obviously the powers that be hadn’t and so I was, that’s how I came to leave, leave Elsham otherwise I’d have been quite happy to have stayed there and so I came home on leave for fourteen days. Went to a place called West Kirby which was an overseas transit camp near Liverpool and I went on the ship and off we went. Oh it was
HH: And where did you go first?
TM: Algeria. There were all sorts of rumours about where we were going, nobody really knew and, yes, Algeria. We had the experiences of, it wasn’t too bad, it was about ten days at sea and we went out to the Atlantic taking a zigzag course because of uboats and eventually got down to the Mediterranean and just after we got to the Mediterranean we had uboat alarm and we’d had practices, you were always having practises about what to do. Go stand by the lifeboats with your life jackets on. This time we were told this is not a practice. It was for real. And we were in a convoy, we were on great big liner. A Dutch liner called (Andeppo) and it, you could feel it because in a convoy of ships, you, during the war you always had had to go the speed of the slowest one otherwise, otherwise it wouldn’t be in the convoy you see. So this big liner was capable of doing quite a sig, high speed but once the uboat alarm went off you could feel the ship lurched as it put onspeed up because there were thousands of personnel on board that, that ship, you see, you can imagine how many people would have been lost if, if it had been torpedoed. The liner and there was another Niew Amsterdam was another one, another liner both of, both of those ships lurched forward and I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t know whether there were other attacks on other ships in the convoy or not because we just went and left it and we went into Algiers. So that was the beginning of the overseas bit. Yeah
HH: And from Algiers. From Algeria?
TM: Algiers to Tunis and from Tunis to Italy and I had a brief spell in Sicily because they were setting up the invasion of Sicily was taking place and they set up airfields and they needed somebody to take, to take equipment in. So I went over to Sicily for a few days and then back to North Africa then went to Italy where I was on Recorded Communication Squadron which did all kinds of things, it was a multi-purpose squadron that did all kind of, dropped people behind enemy lines and brought people for meetings, you know, did a lot of lot of secret work and that was it.
HH: And when did you return to the UK?
TM: The first, after it was about two and half years I think it was before I got leave home and that was the European war had finished the Japanese war was still on and I got leave to come home at Christmas 1945 and that’s when Ethel and I got married. At that time. I wrote and said shall we get married when I come home and she said yes and that was it and then I had to go back again until April ’46 just doing nothing really in Italy cause the war had finished and just marking time before being demobilised. So yeah.
HH: And after demobilisation what was it like to return to civilian existence?
TM: (laugh) Well, it was, it was mixed feelings to be quite honest. I missed that, that comradeship so much. I really did. It was great to be out of uniform, out of, you know, away from all the rules and regulations and all the demands of the military but and it was so good, obviously good to be with Ethel and you know no warfare going on around you but I missed that comradeship so much. I really did. But fortunately I went back to Marconi’s to start with, you know, because I didn’t know what, what else to do, where to go but, but Marconi’s were asking for pre-war employees to come back so I went to Marconi’s and of course nearly every one of the people I worked with in Marconi’s were ex-service people so to some extent that comradeship that we had in the service was carried on at Marconi’s because of that you see but yeah it took some time to break away from that and I still feel it now. I still remember that, the warmth of that comradeship. I really do.
HH: At what point did you get in to education and teaching Sociology?
TM: Well I, I, during the war I read a lot wherever I could. You know you, sometimes long, that’s something people hardly ever mention, the fact that you do have long periods in the service when you’re not doing anything, you’re waiting for, you know, something, I read a lot and I listened a lot to people talking and there used to be political arguments and sometimes just shouting and swearing at each other but sometimes there were people who were politically aware and I listened. I grew up in a socialist household anyway but, but as a teenager it didn’t interest me that much. I wanted to play football and all that sort of - but I listened to these people. I read and I read some books which really made me think and so I thought I’d like to be a teacher and teach. But the government were running special courses for people who wanted to become teachers. It was a two year course I think it was because of the absence of teachers, the shortage of teachers and I was tempted but I thought I’ve been away for three years, you know, six years altogether but three years overseas I don’t really want to go away again. So I didn’t do it and I forgot about it.
Then I went from Marconi’s to, I was a postman for three years because although, no wait a minute I’ll get this right way around. From Marconi’s I went to British Rail ‘cause, to work in the wagon section to distribute freight wagons to different depots and because my dad worked on the railway and he told me about this, and I applied for it and this is what happened but anyway then I got very much involved in politics. I started up the League Of Youth in Witham, I became a councillor, I was very active well both of us were actually and as a result of these various things, the reading, being a councillor and being involved in politics I began to think all kinds of things and then I became a Labour party organiser looking after a constituency and I spent about eight years doing that. And then we had our children. We had to wait ten years before we had children don’t know why, we still don’t know why we had to wait that long but we did and I wasn’t spending any time with my family. You know there were, the demands of being a Labour party organiser was taking up so much of my time I was hardly ever at home. My family, my boys were growing up. I was losing out, I didn’t want to do it anymore. So just by chance one of the people who was active in the Labour party and lived in a place called Braintree and he worked at Harlow College as a General Studies teacher but he was going to move somewhere else and he said, why don’t you apply for my job. I said well I’d got no experience of teaching and he said well you’ve got nothing to lose, apply for it, see what happens. Well to cut a long story short I went for an interview and I got it. And they said well what you’ll have to do is you’ll have to come and teach but you’ll have to do teacher training parallel with your teaching you’ll have to do it in your own time and also, I said I was interested in sociology and they said well you’ll have to do that, again, part time if you want to get your qualification for Sociology so that’s how it all came about.
HH: And how long did you teach?
TM: Teach?
HH: How long were you a teacher at the college?
TM: If you include part time, I should say, sixteen about 26 years, yeah it was.
HH: And in amongst all this, this, busy-ness of civilian life, being involved in politics, having a family, you also reconnected with the, with Squadron Association at Elsham Wolds.
TM: Yeah.
HH: And how long have you been, how long have you had contact with them.
TM: Since 1991. We didn’t know the existence of it. Didn’t even know it existed. And we were listening to the radio, half listening as you do, sometimes you’re doing something else and the radio is on and a lady was being interviewed and, she said, I heard the word Elsham Wolds so I pricked up my ears then and she told all about the Association. Anybody who served at Elsham Wold, you know, were welcome to join the Association. So, and she left a telephone number, I phoned her and so we went to the next reunion which was in1991 and I don’t know, I think apart from a couple of years, we’ve been every year Ethel haven’t we, Ethel?
EM: Yes
TM: Every year except about two years. Gone every year. So lots of things happen by chance don’t they, you know?
HH: Yeah.
TM: You know.
HH: One, the thing that didn’t happen by chance is you took the decision to write a book about your experiences at Elsham Wold. Can you tell me what moved you to write that book?
TM: Two reasons. ‘Cause it was in me. I felt the need to do, I’d always, since the war finished but other things got in the way so I didn’t get around to it. If you get involved in politics you don’t have time for anything else and I didn’t get around to it so that’s after I was only doing part time teaching that I’d make a start - which I did but there was another reason and that is that I wanted to tell the ground crew’s stories. But I don’t take anything away from the aircrew, I don’t want, I don’t want people to think I, you know I, think about them with high regard but the part played by ground crew in my opinion was vital and their dedication, their sense of responsible has never, ever been really, really conveyed to people and so I thought, what, what happened was that, what happened was there was two authors and they’d written books about Bomber Command and in, in one of the books the author was saying, the name, the name’s gone they were saying we hear a lot about what the aircrew and all the rest of it and rightly so but what about the ground crew? We never hear about the ground crew. What about them? And that’s true, you know, the books that have been written the films that have been made hardly ever mention ground crew so I thought I want to put this right. I want to tell the ground crew story and that’s what motivated me I think more than anything to do it and hence the book.
HH: And a very good book it is too.
TM: Thank you.
HH: And after all of these years Ted when you look back at that experience of the war and particularly in the part that you played in the sort of bombing the war, how do you feel about that now?
TM: If you’re, if you’re talking about how do I feel about the casualties, the victims of the bombing, I, because of what I experienced, well, Ethel experienced more of the Blitzkrieg in London, more than I did but I had experience of it in different places in London crossing London sometimes so I do know what it like to be bombed andI remember talking to the other ground crew lads and you’ve got to, you’ve got to put your mind in the period of the war. You can’t make judgements about during the war because we were at war. The Germans were bombing us so we bombed them. That was what, what it was about. The Ger, the Nazis decided it was a total war. The way they bombed and machine gunned refugees on the road, the way in which, you know, they killed six million Jewish people and countless hundreds of thousands of others as well. We were at war and, you know, if they hit us we hit them. That’s how you thought about it and let me just mention something, the people in London, a lot of the people in London, you probably know, sheltered from the bombs on the underground on the platform and I remember going down onto the platform once when I was travelling from one place to another and I went down there and there were people there saying, “Why aren’t you up there shooting them buggers down”?. Because if you were in that situation you couldn’t, you couldn’t make judgement. Now in retrospect I realise now how absolutely awful it must have been cause the bombing raids over Germany were much worse then we got here and when I think about, what’s, what’s that place called that was bombed?
HH: Right at the end of the war?
TM: Towards the end.
HH: Dresden.
EM: Dresden yes
TM: Dresden. When I think about Dresden, totally unnecessary for that to have happened. I still think it was because Churchill made up his mind to, it was a (sub) to Stalin. Stalin’s forces were coming from the east and I think that the idea was to bomb Dresden because that was in eastern Germany to show them we were on their side but it was totally unnecessary and I regret very much that we had to do that bombing of the people in Germany I really do but I have to put myself back in to that situation that it was something that, unfortunately, had to be done. And women and children died in those raids and I, you know, and I don’t feel happy about that at all. All I know if we had not won the war, if the German, if the Nazis, I won’t call them Germans, the Nazis, had come here the same kind of thing would have happened to us here as happened in France in Belgium and whatever and it had to be fought, had to be done and you know, for every atrocity they, they committed, we unfortunately committed some as well.
HH: That’s the nature of war isn’t it?
TM: That’s the nature of war. Once you’re in war you can’t do, you know, at the beginning of the war nothing happened at all as far as we were concerned in Britain and it was like you know you’ve got to play according to the rules of cricket old boy, sort of thing, you know, you can’t go bombing people and so the RAF were told the only things they could bomb was German sea ports and that kind of thing so that you couldn’t bomb civilians and then but then the war took over and you know you couldn’t have that play by the rules anymore unfortunately. And I also remember a quote I think it’s in the book, in the House of Commons that a Tory MP said, asked the Minister for War why don’t we bomb the Black Forest and I still don’t know why he wanted the Black Forest bombed but the answer he got from the Minister was, bomb the Black Forest you’ll be asking us to bomb Essen next. You think about that. You know that was in what they called the phoney war period and it was unthinkable that we would go and do that.
HH: I think that just points again to, to something that you stressed in, in this talk that you have to place what happened in the context of the times.
TM: Yes.
HH: Rather than think of it, just as, you know, pass judgement now according to the norms which we
TM: Yes
HH: Which we exercise now
TM: Exactly. I agree with that
HH: I’d like to thank you Ted very much indeed for sharing that history with us. It’s been, it’s been a real privilege to hear you talk about your experiences during the war and after so thank you very much.
TM: It’s been my pleasure.
Dublin Core
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AMawdsleyT150507
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Interview with Ted Mawdsley
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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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Sound
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eng
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01:09:36 audio recording
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Pending review
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Heather Hughes
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2015-05-07
Description
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Ted grew up in Essex. Before the war he worked for the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1940 and became an instrument mechanic. He was posted to RAF Elsham Wolds in 1942 and overseas the following year. After the war, he was a Parliamentary agent for the Labour Party and a lecturer in Sociology and General Studies at Harlow Technical College.
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
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Julie Williams
103 Squadron
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Catalina
dispersal
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
perception of bombing war
RAF Elsham Wolds
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/300/3457/PMcDonaldDA1501.1.jpg
24affe9a8e5b3c45763f7f0310a07306
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/300/3457/AMcDonaldD151013.1.mp3
1b0cb799bccd5b31e6022fb655bc6475
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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McDonald, Donald
Donald Alexander McDonald
Donald A McDonald
Donald McDonald
D A McDonald
D McDonald
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. One oral history interview with Donald Alexander McDonald (1920 - 2021, 410364 Royal Australian Air Force) as well as two letters, a concert programme and notes on his interview. He flew operations as a pilot with 466 and 578 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald McDonald and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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McDonald, D
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: So this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive is with Don McDonald who was a Halifax pilot during World War Two [DM coughs]. Interview’s taking place at Don’s home in Doncaster in Melbourne [DM coughs]. It’s the 13th of October. My name’s Adam Purcell [DM coughs]. Don, I thought we’d start from the beginning. Can you tell me something of your early life growing up [DM coughs], what you did before the war?
DM: I was born in Melbourne and at an age too young to remember, the family moved onto a dairy farm at Koo Wee Rup [?] which is about seventy k south-east of Melbourne. I was born in 1920 and my first recollection of the dairy farm was in early school years, six and a half, seven. It was a pretty tough life, tail end of depression, appallingly low prices for our produce and there was a family of seven children, three girls and four boys so it was a, a tough life [emphasis]. As the result of poor income, low income, low prices, I had to leave school at age fourteen and I was lucky enough to have a, get work in the local post office and general store which was very much a part of Victorian Australian life. My wage was ten bob, a dollar a week for a forty-seven hour week. After a couple of years of that, I entered for an examination for the Commonwealth Public service and, and passed the exam. The examination was held in the Wilson Hall, the old Wilson Hall at Melbourne University. When I say the old Wilson Hall, it was a beautiful building but it was subsequent, post World War Two it was burnt down in a fire which was quite tragic. There was about four-hundred entrants for this examination and there were about twenty positions available, typical of the depression era or immediate post depression, world war depression era. And I was lucky enough out of the four-hundred, I came in ninth, and I misread one question, otherwise I would have gotten third, and I was pretty up, up staged about that because having only got to grade eight in school I was pretty happy with that outcome. And then of course 1939 came World War Two. In about 1937, just after I’d passed the examination for the Public service, I had to move to Melbourne to take up the position and was staying with an aunt and her, and her family. By the time I paid fares plus board and lodging there was no money left for anything else, and another guy who’d paid the same exam as I had, also from the country and equally short of funds, suggested that we should join the 4th Division Signals, because if you attended a parade one night a week you got the princely sum of five shillings fifty cents and, but that was one heck of a lot of money to both of us in the situation which we were in, and so we joined the Signals and so I was in the part time Army. Bear in mind there was no war, there was no ‘your country needs you,’ no loyalty, call on loyalty, no drums banging or cymbals playing to get you to enlist, it was pure economic necessity [emphasis] that we joined the Signals. I was a terrible [emphasis] soldier, absolutely shocking [emphasis] soldier. I didn’t think much of the Army and I didn’t give the Army any reason to think much of me. We attended our once weekly parade round and learnt Morse code and then came the outbreak of war, and with the outbreak of war within a month [emphasis] of the outbreak of war, I found myself in camp at Mount Martha, a newly formed military camp in Victoria on Port Philip Bay. Everything was absolute rudimentary. They were just still building the camp and our tents, we were living in tents and some of those leaked because they’d been stored at a military depot out in Broad Meadows, a northern suburb of Melbourne since World War One, and so they were pretty daggy [?] believe you me. As mentioned I was a shocking [emphasis] solider, I couldn’t – if something could be messed up, I would mess it up, and I’d do right turn instead of left turn on the, out in the bullring, the parade ground. My Morse was okay, I didn’t have any trouble with that, but apart from that I could drop a rifle in the middle of present arms and God, if you wanted to send a sergeant major ballistic that’s a guaranteed way I can assure you. I, I didn’t, I detested [emphasis] the Army and applied for aircrew and was accepted, and of course having left school at grade eight I was really playing catch-up. Our first Air Force camp was at Somers, purely ground subjects, no flying whatsoever, and it was rather amazing. As I say, I was on catch-up but in the evening quite often a lot of us would go down to the lecture huts and instead of going down to a picture show or camp concert or something like that where all the gym [?] there was – and we would help each other out on different subjects, whatever our forte might be, we would help someone, and I got a lot of help and made the grade as a pilot. I’d been brought up in a very [emphasis] strong, very astute Protestant family, and any thought of dropping bombs on people would have been absolutely abhorrent in our home, yet wartime dictated that was how and where I would finish up. I, I – after Somers initial flying training school, elementary flying training school was at Western Junction, the civil airport for Launceston, Tasmania, where we flew the Tiger Moth. Said to be unprangable, however I failed [?] up that story on solo flight. I apparently came in just a shade low, clipped the post on the boundary fence and finished up in an ambulance and in hospital. When I was well enough that prang meant that I had to have a scrubber [?] test with the chief flying instructor. He gave me an incredible [emphasis] drilling, he found out exactly what I’d learnt hitherto in my Air Force training, but I think he also found out what I hadn’t [emphasis] learnt and that was the important. And got to the stage [?] – he was very fair, very fair, he got to the stage of flying test and I think I – ‘cause this was a scrubber [?] test. Any, any messing up on this and my days as a pilot were finished. We, he put me through a few exercises in the air and then said [?] ‘trip’ [?], said ‘take it in and land it.’ And I think I did probably the best [emphasis]landing of my career. I absolutely breezed [emphasis] it on, you hardly knew when we, whether we were airborne or whether we’d touched down. Years later when I would try and relate this story about the perfect touchdown to my crew on a squadron they would laugh like all hell [emphasis], because they couldn’t believe that I could ever have done a decent landing. I from there went onto Point Cook, flew the twin engine Air Speed Oxford and – which was renowned as having bad stalling habits but I never did have any trouble whatsoever with them. Life – speaking from the viewpoint of mere male, to me life in the Air Force is very like life in marriage. Best to do what you’re told most times, the quicker the better, and as I say, happened to do what I was told I ended up in Bomber Command in, in England. Flew the, flew the Oxford again for a few hours and then OTU and crewed up and flew the twin engine Whitely, which was outdated pre World War Two and yet some of our very early people in Bomber Command had to fly the jolly Whitley on operations. No wonder their life span was so short. Alright, carrying on?
AP: That’s a, that’s a very good start. Sorry I wasn’t sure if you were carrying on or not there. Alright we might, might go back a little bit. The enlistment process – so you’re in the Army at this stage and you’ve decided to join the Air Force, so you go and sign the papers, presumably that was Melbourne. Can you remember much of the process? Was there an interview involved, some sort of medical tests? What happened on that day?
DM: Yes the medical test for aircrew was very, very strict, very exhausting and I passed that, not that I was in any great physical specimen then or now, but I managed to pass it. There were several interviews, one heck of a lot of questions, some of which seemed totally irrelevant but they were, they were there and they had to be answered. And it was a result of passing those questions and what have you that I was accepted and went to Somers on initial training school.
AP: What sort of things happened at Somers?
DM: Somers was great. Quite an emphasis on physical fitness, a lot of PT, a lot of square bashing or we used to call them the bullring parade ground drill. I formed an opinion there and it might be a totally incorrect opinion but I still reckon that to be a good drill inspector, the two main or the main attributes are a loud voice and not necessarily much between the ears. That might be quite unfair on DIs because they’re very decent blokes really when you got them away from the program, from the parade ground but they could give you one hell [emphasis] of a time when you were on the parade ground.
AP: From your assistive [?], your service flying training, so your Oxfords in Point Cook, you then somehow got to the UK. How did you get to A to B?
DM: We passed out of Point Cook, got my wings at Point Cook which was quite a thrill. Somers where we posted as instructors around various schools, flying schools around Australia. Some were posted as staff pilots flying trainees around other trainees such as navigators and bomb aimers around, flying them around to give them experience in the air and experience of navigation. I was from Point Cook and this, as I say, we had no say in, in what, in what happened to you. I was posted to pre-embarkation depot which was at the Showgrounds which are in a suburb of Melbourne. We were there for some weeks, awaiting, awaiting a ship. Shipping was very limited, very, very secret due to avoiding enemy action, not giving any secrets away in case – there used to be the saying: ‘tittle tattle buggers battle’ and tittle tattle, you know, words, things said unintentionally, if they got into the wrong ears, you have to be in a pub or something like that, and there was a fifth columnist there, well he would relay the shipping movements and make you ready made for a submarine attack. We, we were at Showgrounds for about six to eight weeks and then one Saturday morning, I can remember it quite well, they said ‘pack up all your gear you’re on your way.’ And we had no idea what ‘on your way’ meant. We finished up at Station Pier Port, Melbourne, weighed anchor late afternoon. Down port full of boat [?] and of course there was a lot of conjecture, a lot of guess work, ‘where are we going?’ ‘Well we’re going to Canada’ because a lot of our fellows went to Canada to finish their training, or ‘we’re going to South Africa’ because quite a few went there to finish their training. We got outside the hedge and turned port, so it was pretty obvious that we wouldn’t be going to South Africa. We hit it off, it was into the dark by now and about three days later we came in sight of land, and it was the coast of New Zealand. We entered a harbour, somebody recognised it as Wellington. We docked there, took on a few Kiwis and headed off again, much conjesture, conjecture [emphasis] and guessing. We all reckoned we’d be going to Canada – would we go around the, the Cape of South America or would we perhaps go through the Panama Canal, and we were heading off in generally speaking a north-easterly direction and after a certain time we were calculating our direction by the watch, you know, point the twelve o’clock at the sun et cetera, et cetera. And after a certain time we reckoned ‘oh no we’re not going around the Cape, we’re too far north for that,’ and then after several more days now, well we reckoned we must be passed the Panama Canal by now, and so it was guesswork, ‘where the heck are we going?’ And one beautiful, bright, sunny Saturday morning we woke up, walked out on deck, and were under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Harbour. Oh we reckoned this would be pretty good, we’d be able to paint the town red that night and, and, and you know, thinking up things we were going to do and not going to do, and about four o’clock on the afternoon, they pulled us into a floating jetty, probably a couple of hundred metres long, and on each side of which, shoulder to shoulder, were big black American policemen with rifles, all with rifles so there was no hope of jumping, escaping, doing anything that we, we would like to do. We were marched up on this floating jetty, straight into a train and that night instead of painting San Francisco red we were heading off east across America. And we spent five days and four nights on the train and ultimately – I better finish this [AP laughs] – we had five days and four nights on the train trans-America, experienced some very kind and generous hospitality from ladies clubs and that sort of things at stations where we’d pull up to refuel with coal or top up the water on the steam engine train. Some extremely [emphasis] generous hospitality, and we ultimately arrived early in the morning at a place called Camp Myles Standish. It was a transitory camp just outside Boston, from memory about thirty miles outside Boston. The nearest town was a place called Providence. We were given – ah when we arrived at Myles Standish we were taken off the train onto trucks and then dumped inside the gates of the camp, and the Americans had a band there to welcome us and they played us into out billets to the tune, among others, of “Waltzing Matilda,” and that was pretty great, pretty special of them to do that. We were granted leave that night and we went into the local what they call Legions Club which is the equivalent of the Australian RSL, and we were made very welcome, given the VIP treatment. We had heard during our time at Showgrounds in Melbourne that it was worth collecting a few kangaroo pennies. Now penny was currency at the time, the second lowest denomination of Australia currency, and some of the nine, pennies in the 1930s were struck with a kangaroos on the back of them, on the reverse side, and we were told that these were in great demand, the kangaroo. And we were having a drink at the bar of the Legions Club and one of us produced a kangaroo penny. Well the Americans who were in the club at the same time went berserk [emphasis] for them, and most of us had kangaroo pennies, as I say we’d been given the mail [?] about them, and if you produced a kangaroo penny you couldn’t buy a beer for the rest of the night. There wasn’t a bloke who – the recipient wanted to shout it for the rest of the night, so that was pretty good fun. After about, I think about two and a half weeks in Myles Standish, there was nothing to do. A few of us shall we say got itchy feet, and five of us decided that we would go AWL down to New York. Fancy being within a few hours of, you know, the Big Apple and not getting there, the temptation was too great. So we sneaked out of camp undetected, got into Boston to the railway station, and thankfully, very, very thankfully bought return tickets. It was a bit over a four hour trip down to New York and we had a great [emphasis] time. The Americans, the Australian uniform, Air Force uniform stood out fairly well because it was known as Air Force blue and it had Australia on the shoulder pads and we, we had a great time. The one thing though which we did [emphasis] discover was that an Australian pound didn’t go very far in New York and a sergeants pay as we then were, a sergeants pay was not very great and after about I think it was fourth day the five of us were all stone motherless broke [emphasis]. We didn’t have two pennies to rub together, and so this, as I say, was the good thing about buying a return ticket. If we’d, if we’d bought a one way ticket we’d have been stranded in New York, so we, we thankfully as I say, had the return ticket. Went to the station about ten o’clock, caught a train about ten o’clock at night, got back into Myles Standish somewhere between two or three o’clock in the morning. Again undetected, and hadn’t been in bed long and we were shaken awake, ‘wakey, wakey, wakey, wakey, you’re on your way.’ Well as I say, the good – there is a wonderful [emphasis] virtues of being stone motherless broke, not having two pennies to rub together. The great virtue on this occasion was okay we were awoken as I say after a couple of hours in bed, on another train and we finished up in Canada, a place called Halifax, a port, and we were put on a ship on our way to England. Now, the beauty about having the return ticket was this: had we not been able to catch the train to New York back to Boston [emphasis], we would have missed the ship from Halifax to England, and would have been classed as deserters. Now, desertion is a very, very serious offence in the forces and instead of getting the ship to England, we’d have been put on a ship back to Australia and arrived in Australia in handcuffs and gone straight to jail, so don’t ever worry I suggest about being stone motherless broke, it can have its virtues [AP laughs]. The ship was the, the ship from Melbourne had been the New Amsterdam which in peacetime was a luxurious Dutch liner. It had been revittled [?] in South Africa and there was only about three hundred of us airmen and about another forty or fifty New Zealanders so it was a pretty comfortable [emphasis] life. We got onto the ship in Halifax, it was the Louis Pasteur which had been a luxury French trans-Atlantic liner pre-war converted to a, a troop ship. America was in the war by now, and there were fourteen thousand [emphasis] troops onboard the Louis Pasteur. It was just incredibly packed, we didn’t get anything, the bell would ring for mess and there was nothing that even resembled edible food. You couldn’t blame the cooks, trying to cook for fourteen thousand people, they didn’t have a hope [emphasis]. The ship, for the first couple of days out we had a Destroyer escort and they were incredible, the way they would charge around. You’d swear they were going to be cut in half, they’d just you know, clear the bow of the Louis Pasteur and the Louis Pasteur, bear in mind you’ve got some pretty big Atlantic seas once you get out of a little bit from the coast, big, big waves, and the Louis Pasteur changed course every seventh minute. Quite violent change of course, and the reason for it being every seven minutes was it took a German submarine eight minutes to line you up and shoot a torpedo at you, so by changing course every seven minutes you had the German subs pretty much at your, your mercy, but it was very violent change of course. That plus the mountainous Atlantic seas, you really were getting your money’s worth I can tell you, and at times fourteen thousand troops – there was no treatment for the sewage it was just pumped out, raw sewage pumped out, and with these violent waves plus the also violent change of course of our ship, it was quite possible at times to have waves break over the stern of the ship and you’re up, you’re standing there knee deep in raw, untreated sewage. Strangely enough we didn’t hear – there may have been but if there was any sickness, any outbreak of sickness it was kept a very, very clever secret because there was never any word of it or any indication of a, a sickness outbreak from this as I say, almost living in untreated sewage sometimes. But after, after about three days I think it was, three or four days, the Destroyer escort just disappeared and one day we saw a speck on the horizon and there was much conjecture, ‘is it one of ours or is it one of theirs?’ It was an aircraft in the distant horizon and it turned out it was a four engine RAF Sunderland flying about and it took over the escort until we got almost, almost into Liverpool and another Destroyer came out and met us, took us under its wings for the last few hours, and so we landed at Liverpool late in the afternoon. Most wharf areas that you go to are not terribly exciting. This far from being exciting was rather depressing because it had had its share of Jerry bombs dropped on it and there was devastation everywhere. It was a quite a depressing sight actually, yeah.
AP: So that’s probably one of your first impressions of, of wartime England, is the –
DM: That’s right –
AP: You know, bombing damage.
DM: Yeah.
AP: This is the first time you’ve gone overseas presumably.
DM: Yes, yes, yes.
AP: As a young Australian, what did you think of wartime England?
DM: It was interesting. We’d left here at the end of early, rather early March, early March at the end of a rather dry and harsh Australian summer, and we got on a train at, at Liverpool and the first hour or two was in daylight and the – having left the harshness, the brown harshness of an Australian summer – there of course it, in March, you’re into spring and the various shades of green on the trees, the far [?] leaves. There was such a contrast to what we’d left back here about six or eight weeks earlier, and if it was very, very impressive without a, without a doubt. Beautiful shades of, of green, it was very, very impressive. We went from Liverpool by train down to Bournemouth. There were a number of delays in the journey, and we got into Bournemouth getting on towards midnight and that was our, we were to have our, that was to be our first English meal, a meal of English rationed foods. Our mess there had been an indoor bowling green in peacetime. Bournemouth is on the south coast as you almost certainly know, one of the most popular holiday spots in England pre-war but it had been evacuated. All the women and children had been evacuated out to the country. It was almost like a service town. All the hotels which had been packed with tourists in peacetime were taken over and used as billets for the three services. We – that was actually on a Saturday night and we got up on the Sunday morning and there was a church parade. Those of you who have been in the services know what it was, the Catholics went one way, the Jews went another way, the Protestants went another way, off to your various denominational services. We came out of our church service – the Catholics had an earlier service than us and some of their guys had gone back to their hotel, got their ground sheets which were a waterproof sheet, multipurpose thing, and laid them out on the lawns and there were a lot of lawns in Bournemouth, and they were enjoying a bit of Sunday morning sun [emphasis], and we came back out of church a bit later than them, and all of a sudden there’s a clatter, clatter, clatter. Now we’d been in England just over twelve hours – clatter, clatter, clatter. It was machine gun fires and so we suddenly realised ‘boy oh boy, this is a warzone.’ And the clatter, clatter from machine guns was German, what they used to call ‘tip and run raids.’ They didn’t do a lot of damage [emphasis] as such but they did cause one hell of a lot of disruption, and they were German fighter planes which would come in low, low, low over the English channel. Low so that the radar couldn’t pick them up, and when they got into, when they got over land they’d up to about a hundred and fifty, couple of hundred feet and they were just shoot. I don’t, I think at times they weren’t shooting at anything, they were just opening up their guns and as I say, nuisance value rather than damage. But interestingly enough I was saying these fellows had come home and come back to the hotel and got their groundsheets. Two of them were lying on a groundsheet, probably not much more than a metre apart enjoying the morning sun and a cannon shell ripped the groundsheet in two but neither of the blokes were harmed, it was quite, quite an initiation to, to fire and to the fact that they were in a warzone. We were there for a while, and there’s nothing worse for morale than having a congregation of guys with nothing to do so the powers that be decided that they would send us to a battle course up just outside Newcastle, Whitley Bay, just outside Newcastle. Here we were to have our introduction to Pommy drill instructors. Now when they use the word Pommy, often it’s used as a sort of derisive type of word. Later on I was to have five Poms in my crew, and whenever I use the word Pom it’s not one of disrespect, it’s more likely to be one of admiration. And anyway, I might have mentioned earlier about the main qualifications to be a good drill instructor being a loud voice and not much between the ears – these Pommy drill instructors did nothing to change that opinion. Whitley Bay had concrete strips, concrete streets, and this was a battle course to harden us up. We were, you know, scaling fences, going into trenches, God knows what, and marching clip-clop along the concrete streets with Army boots which had steel toes and steel heels, and we just about drove the Pommy drill instructors nuts when it came too hot [emphasis]. They would sound like a machine gun, and they used to let us know this, instead of – hot, you know, everybody exactly the heel on the ground at the same time sounded like a machine gun, and they, the more – they would take it out on us, they would make us double, they would make us run with our rifle above our head, but then at night we’d get in the mess or one of the local pubs and have a beer together and laugh our heads off with the Pommy DIs knowing quite well it was going to be more of the same tomorrow. But it didn’t do us, do us any harm, and from there we weren’t back to Bournemouth and on to AFU, an advanced flying unit which was where we flew the Oxfords again. Got a few hours up, the flying conditions were just so [emphasis] different there from what they are back in Australia, though Pommy instructors, and they bet us that they could take us up in the air, fly us around for quarter of an hour and we would be lost [emphasis]. They won the bet. The conditions, particularly around, we were just outside Oxford, and there are railways lines going everywhere [emphasis]. In Melbourne, Point Cook, if you’ve struck a railway line, spotted a railway line going west it’s almost certainly going to go to Bellarat. If it’s going north it’s almost certainly going to Seymour. Here you had railway lines going everywhere, little paddocks about ten, fifteen acre paddocks, whereas here we used to paddocks of hundreds of acres, and the instructors, as I say, won the bet. We were hopelessly lost after a quarter of an hour in the air. Good fun, all good plain sport, we used to have some good laughs about it, and from there we went to OTU, operational training unit. This was where you crewed up, which was quite an interesting exercise. There were probably about twenty-five or thirty of us on the course, and so you were going to have a crew of five, so it meant you had about shall we say thirty pilots, thirty navigators, thirty bomb aimers, thirty wireless ops, thirty tail gunners, and we were put in a hangar together and told to, you know, see if you could pick out someone you liked, you thought you’d like to fly with, and I saw a bloke standing there and went over and spoke to him, and his name was Pat. He was a navigator and started off, mostly, most people started off as a navigator. Skippers, most skippers started off as a navigator, and I had a bit of a yarn with Pat and Pat was, as the name might suggest, an Irishman and he was a wild Irishman. He’d been in a mercenary in the Spanish civil war when they were overthrowing I think it was King Alfonso that was overthrown. Pat was pretty wild sort of a guy and we decided, had a bit of a yarn. ‘Okay well do you want to try, do you want to, do we want to have a go together?’ ‘Yep.’ So then we looked around and saw a few bomb aimers and walked over and had a bit of a chat, and ‘ah yes,’ same sort of thing. So by now we were a crew of three, and the three of us then looked, went over to where the wireless ops were assembled, talking around and what have you. Incidentally, as I mentioned, Pat was a wild Irishman, the bomb aimer was a Kiwi, a New Zealander, the wireless op was from, a Pom from Cheshire, it was culturally [?] often called Cheese, nicknamed Cheese, and, and the – so we were a crew of four by now, picked, like picking number out of a hat really, and then we went over and had a look at the gunners and picked up a fellow, Taz Mears, who was a Pom from Brighton, and so there was the five of us and we decided we would give it a go together. The only unfortunate thing that broke that crew up was Pat got pneumonia and the Bomber Command appetite for replacement crews was insatiable [emphasis] so we couldn’t wait, we weren’t allowed to wait for Pat to get back out of hospital and rejoin us. That might have put a week or two weeks delay on our availability at the squadron, and so the CGI, the chief ground instructor, got us together and asked us would we try another guy who had been separated from his crew. Well this other guy was very, very different from, almost the opposite to, to Pat. He was an ex-public, an Englishman, ex-public school, a bank clark, and our initial meeting was to say the best was quite cool, quite – and when I say cool, not cool the way kids use it today, it was cold, it was frigid. But anyway, we didn’t have much option but to give it a try and it turned out to be good, he turned out to be a top navigator. He, he was ten years my senior, I was twenty-two, he was thirty-two. There were times where he was a steadying influence on the whole crew due to that bit of extra maturity, and we finished up despite the frigidity of our initial meeting, we finished up great mates. We, I went to his mother and sister, the father was deceased. The mother and sister lived at Exmouth, just outside Exeter in Devon, and I went down to their place numbers of times on leave, and the way they treated me was embarrassing. The food rationing in England was extremely severe, like two ounces per person per week of meat, two ounces of either butter or margarine per person per week, one egg per person per week, and we used to say perhaps, but they would save some of these rations so that when Wally and I – his actual name was Philip, Philip Hammond, but the English opening bat test, cricket batsman at the time was Wally Hammond, so Wally, Philip became Wally Hammond as far as the crew was concerned. But we finished up as I say mother and sister would save a couple of pieces of meat so we could have a bit extra and it was embarrassing [emphasis]. They killed us, killed me with hospitality. From OTU we were flying the old Whitley aircraft, a twin engine thing that was out of date before the war started and yet in the very early stages of the war, airmen had to fly the things on operations over occupied Europe, and it is no [emphasis] wonder that the losses were so great. As I say, there were hopeless [emphasis] bleeding aircraft, heavy on the control, sluggish to respond, low air speed, nothing going for them really. But we finished OTU, had a couple of nasty incidents there, and then onto the four engine Halifax. We were stationed just outside York and here further crew selection went on. We had to get a mid upper gunner and a flight engineer, and the same thing as I mentioned at the OTU, you went and had a yarn with a couple of blokes and we finished up with a fellow Pom from Newcastle, his name was Bell, surname Bell. To this day I have not got a clue what his real Christian name was because from day one with the crew he was Dingle, Dingle Bell, and what his true name was, as I say, I hadn’t a clue. And the other was a just turned eighteen year old, in fact I think he might have put his age on a bit, Johnny Cowl, and Englishmen from Kent as our mid upper gunner, so we had our compliment of five for the, for the Halifax.
AP: You mentioned a couple of nasty incidents at OTU, can you expand a little bit?
DM: Yes, the, the worst incident was there were only five crews on this particular course at OTU all of whom had been selected at OTU the same way as I mentioned ours, and we were briefed one night to do a cross country. Now cross countries were meant to get you ready, really ready for ops, and they could last five, six hours and the weather forecast was absolutely shocking [emphasis], and take off was postponed several times due to the weather forecast, and then ultimately it was decided that we would go [emphasis]. And as I say, why it was decided I do not know, but anyway, five crews, one had a crooked motor and didn’t get off the ground, another one of the crew took sick and I don’t blame him in view of the forecast [laughs]. I wish I [laughing], almost wish I had decided that I was sick, so there was two that didn’t get off the ground. Three of us got off the ground, one of them hadn’t gone far when he had a faulty engine and had to return, so that left two of us to – and of course we didn’t know anything about the other three, what had happened to them, we just pressed on. And after a while the control started to get heavy and as I say, the aircraft ultimately [?] was slow to respond and, and this was making it a bit worse, and then we started hearing things hitting against the fuselage and we couldn’t make out what it was, and it turned out, it was decided after we’d gotten back after everything was analysed that it was bits of ice flying off the propellers and hitting side of the fuselage. Things got worse and I lost our air speed indictor. Now what had happened, the pitot head – in case you don’t know what that is, it’s a little narrow tube that protrudes, protrudes out under the wing and the pressure at which the air hits that is converted to the air speed indictor in the cabin, via which we flew. Now, we lost the air speed indictor, and it’s a pitch black night, pitch, pitch black and so how the hell do you judge the airspeed if you haven’t got an ASI? Well with one hell of a lot of good luck, is all I can say. But anyway, we finished the, the course and got back over the airfield. Navigator did a marvellous [emphasis] job, incredible job, and bear in mind we’re only trainee crew, and I call out and said to the flying control, and told them, you know, ‘we’ve got no airspeed indicator and the aircraft’s hard to handle due to the ice, the wings and everything being so iced up,’ and the, the fellow in chargr of flying for the night was a flight lieutenant who’d done a tour of ops and a good bloke, good bloke, and he took over from the airfield controller and said, ‘okay, come in high, come in fast.’ And, which was good [emphasis] advice, no doubting the wisdom at all of his advice but how the bloody hell do you know fast when you haven’t got an ASI? So we, I, by the greatness of God and one hell of a lot, managed to do that and touched down. And it was screaming along the runway because I had come in really [emphasis] fast, screaming along the runway, brakes starting to overheat, no reverse thrust of course in those days, and the human mind is a funny thing really, I believe. I had my hands really full trying to look after and control the situation and I must [emphasis] say, just diverting for a moment, I must say the crew were absolutely marvellous [emphasis]. There was never a beep out of any of them, they each did what they were asked whenever they were asked, they fed whatever information they could to me, and they were absolutely brilliant [emphasis]. But anyway, as I say, we’re charging along the runway, brakes starting to overheat and lose their effectiveness and the human mind, suddenly it dawned on me about the excavation at the end of this runway. I would imagine there had been excavation and they’d taken the stuff out to build the runway and the perimeter tracks and what have you, and so ‘oh my God’ [emphasis]. You couldn’t possibly think of going into that, so I jammed on hard, hard left rudder, going as I say quite fast, and we went into a magnificent bloody ground loop and ultimately shuddered to a, to a halt and you know, we were off the runway, up the middle of the patty [?], out the middle of the airfield somewhere. And we hardly stopped, hardly come to a standstill and this flying duty officer who I’d mentioned to you, who’d gave us the instruction, ‘come in hard, come in fast,’ he, he was out there and up in the aircraft beside me, and anyway he was saying, you know, ‘good show, good show’ et cetera, et cetera, and we went off and, and were debriefed and went to bed. And we got up the next morning and they took us, drove us out to the aircraft, drove the crew out to the aircraft, and there were some bloody great slabs of rubber which had been ripped off the tyre when we went into the vicious ground loop at speed, and we, you know, looked and thought what might have been, what could have been. But we were by no means the main topic of conversation because the other crew I mentioned, you know, three didn’t go, we were the fourth. The fifth aircraft, he lost control [emphasis]. He couldn’t control his aircraft any longer, undoubtedly due to the icing and plus he may have let his airspeed get a bit low and perhaps close to stall. But anyway, he couldn’t control the aircraft and he gave the order to abandon aircraft, jump [emphasis]. And his bomb aimer – it was the bomb aimer’s job, he was the nearest to the front hatch, that was the only exit in the Whitley was the hatch at the front. He, his job was to lift the hatch, jump, and the others in theory follow, that was the theory. He lifted the hatch and froze, he couldn’t jump, and worst still he was blocking the exit, and the skipper, you know, he gave the order again a couple of times, and nothing was happening so he jumped out, out of the pilot’s seat to the front hatch, virtually threw this bomb aimer bloke out of the way and said ‘follow me,’ and he jumped because he knew quite well how low they were getting, so he jumped. Another two jumped and got out, but the bomb aimer and probably the tail gunner went in [?] and were killed. And I, I fell foul of authority because this skipper of course, he was being castigated. You’re supposed, you know, skipper’s supposed to be the last man to leave the sinking ship type of thing. Well I had the greatest admiration for him, because I’ve said, and our crew was agreed, better two blokes killed than five blokes killed, and I was told that I had to give evidence at, at a subject court of, subsequent court of enquiry, and I was marched in with a corporal with a bloody rifle, almost as though I was a criminal [emphasis], and I got in front of the desk where the chairman of the enquiry and a couple of other blokes were seated, and saluted and was told I may sit. And the way, the way the chairman told me, I think put us at loggerheads straightaway, you know. We used to talk cattle dog on a farm [emphasis] nicer than the way he spoke to me, and when I sat down he said ‘you’re, you’re required to answer some questions,’ and I [laughs], ‘I’ll answer any questions you ask me provided I can first make a statement.’ Well, t’was not spaghetti what hit the fan I can tell you. He lectured me about insubordination and this and that and the king’s regulations and God knows what, stathan’s [?] standing orders, and when he’d finished I repeated what I said, ‘I’ll answer any question provided I can first make a statement’ [emphasis]. And he was about to light up again when one of the other fellows on the board of enquiry asked what, why was my attitude such as it was, and I said to him just what I’ve said to you, I, the, ‘the skipper of that aircraft should be congratulated not castigated in my book.’ And anyway, after that a bit of reason prevailed and I was able to make my statement and the questions came thick and fast, and so that was, that was a rather nasty experience at, at, on Whitelys at the OTU so that was what I referred to before. From, from there it was – oh yes I, from there it was onto four engineer aircraft, Halifaxes, at a place called Rufforth which is now a suburb of York, it was just outside York at that time, and I finished HCU, that was called the heavy conversion unit, conversion on the heavy engine aircraft, heavy four engine aircraft, and I was posted to the Middle East. 462, an Australian Halifax squadron in the Middle East, and I thought ‘crikey.’ Just digressing a bit, my father came from the north of Scotland and he still had a couple of sisters, and I still had a number of cousins up near Inverness, right up the north of Scotland, and I’d been up to visit them a couple of times on leave since I’d been in England, and so going to the Middle East I sort of reckoned ‘well, I’m not half way home, I’m a third of the way home from Middle East, so I’ll probably be posted back to Australia.’ So I thought I’d better do the right thing and went up and saw my two aunties and cousins up in Inverness. We had a fortnight’s leave and I, after about a week or so, life up there was a bit dull and the bright lights of Lomond beckoned, and so I said to my auntie, said that I was going to go back down to have a few days in London before I left and that was all a-okay. If you change your address while you’re on leave you had to notify the adjutant’s office back on the unit where you were, so I sent a signal, no email of course in those days, sent a signal notifying my address as chair [?] of the boomerang club in London. I got down to London okay and sort of figured there won’t be much to spend my money on out in the Middle East, might as well have a good time here so there was no show I couldn’t afford to go to, there was no pub I couldn’t afford to drink at. I had an absolute ball and ala New York, just like New York I was stone motherless broke and went back to Rufforth, the camp where I was, the station where I was, and there was a party on in the sergeants mess so I borrowed ten bob, a dollar off one of my mates so that I could afford a beer and I was just about to have the first sip out of this pint of beer, and the CGI, the chief ground instructor came up to me and said, ‘what are you doing here McDonald?’ I said ‘just back from leave sir,’ and he said ‘well, your crew’s been, Middle East’s been cancelled, your crew’s been posted, you’ve been, you and your crew’s been posted to a squadron. The crew have all been over at Burn for two or three hours, two or three days. Be at the front door here with all your gear at seven o’clock in the morning and you’ll be on your way over there too.’ So, what had happened, I’d sent my notice as I mentioned back to the adjutant’s office, but they, they hadn’t profiled it, progressed it, hadn’t put it through the system and so I didn’t, the rest of the crew were recalled. They’d gone, you know the five Poms had gone home and Murray [?] had given the key, we, I don’t know where he’d gone, but they all got recall notices whereas mine hadn’t been put through the mill, and my change of address hadn’t been put through the mill, and so – but that was a great streak of luck, I would say, because I got over to Burn. The, it was almost straight into the CO’s office and he told me to sit down. He proved to be the greatest leader of men I have ever met or am ever likely to meet. He, I was Mac from the moment he met me. ‘Sit down Mac, I know you’re late arriving. Your crew’s been here for two or three days, but I also know that you sent a notice back to the adjutant’s office, you did all the right things’ he said, ‘you’re not, you weren’t in anyways wrong. This is a new squadron,’ and I think we were, I think we were the fourteenth crew there out of squadron strength was normally about thirty, maybe about thirty-two if you were lucky. We were about the fourteenth crew, and among other things he said to me, he said ‘Mac’ – and he’d already done a full tour, and had been selected to form up this new squadron, and one of things he said to me, he said, ‘Mac, you won’t – the only thing we’ll ask of you here is that you give off your best, and you’ll know whether or not you’ve given off your best,’ and so, you know, ‘go and get the rest of your crew round so we can have a bit of a yarn.’ And as I say, he was the greatest leader of men that I’ve, I’ve ever met but very, very [emphasis] sadly, he finished his second tour, was selected due to his ability and compatibility and all his virtues, he was selected to head up a very special training school and went over there. He always wanted to know what was happening to the men under him, and he wanted to find out more about what was happening, what was the routine with these fellows at the special school when they got in the air, and so he said to the commanding officer at this station, ‘I want to go up with, with a crew and find out a bit more detail.’ And the command officer looked his – ‘well everybody’s booked out, they’re all full crews today,’ and he says ‘doesn’t matter I’ll go with somebody, I’ll sit on the floor.’ And that was the type of guy he was. Sat on the floor and the bloody aircraft pranged on takeoff and he was killed after he’d done two full tours of ops, and as I say, his leadership, ah, outstanding [emphasis].
AP: What was his name?
DM: David Wilkerson.
AP: Wilkerson.
DM: Yes, David Wilkerson.
AP: [Unclear] record –
DM: Won a DFC on his first tour and a DSO on the second tour when he was in charge of us. David Wilkerson DSO, DFC.
AP: So you’re, you’re at your squadron now. This is 578 Squadron, am I right?
DM: That’s right, yes.
AP: Where and how did you live on the squadron?
DM: Beg your pardon?
AP: Where and how did you live [emphasis] on the squadron?
DM: On the squadron – David Wilkerson I just mentioned, the greatest leader of men, one of the things he said very early in the piece, ‘don’t muck around with saluting and things insofar as I’m concerned, unless there’s a senior officer there with me. If there’s a senior officer there with me, well then salute because they’ll wonder why you don’t salute me as a wing commander.’ And life on a squadron, there was no bull dust [emphasis], there was no drill, you did what was required of you. There wasn’t, strangely enough, a lot of flying because the aircraft was wanted for ops. The only time you did non operational flying was to do an air test if the aircraft had been damaged and you as a skipper and a crew who were going to fly it were entitled to fly it after it had been repaired, so you’d do an air test. Might be half an hour, you might go on a cross country or something like that, but there wasn’t, very, very little non essential flying. As I mentioned, David Wilkerson didn’t want any saluting. He didn’t have to demand respect, he commanded it by his own example, by his own demeanour, as, as squadron commander. He had to seek permission before he could go on an operation, the reason for that being the losses were such, highly qualified blokes were pretty scarce [emphasis] and promotion on a squadron could come incredibly quick. I knew of one case where a fellow got his commission, was a pilot officer and six weeks later he was a squadron leader. In other words, he’d pilot officer, flying officer, flight lieutenant, squadron leader, everybody above him had been knocked off, hadn’t returned from ops, and so within six weeks from pilot officer to squadron leader. Impossible if it wasn’t for the chop rate, and now and we – life was, I wouldn’t say on the squadron, I wouldn’t say it was ill disciplined, but there was no bull dust, there was no parade ground, no square bashing. As I say, David Wilkerson didn’t want to be saluted unless a superior was there, so it, other than when you were flying, I suppose a bit lay back is the, would be a suitable word. A bit lay back. The aircrew, the close knittedness if that’s the correct word of aircrew I couldn’t describe and I don’t know that anybody could describe. You just relied on each other, you were part of a close knit team. As I mentioned in that icing incident, not a mumble or a grumble from any of the crew and they must have wondered what the bloody hell was going on at times, but very – and mutual respect and likewise [phone rings] the ground crew [phone rings], they would do anything [phone rings]. That’s it, you got it. Absolutely anything [emphasis] for their aircrew, and the close knittedness if that’s the word between aircrew and ground crew was so close to that between the aircrew that it didn’t matter. We were, we were issued pre takeoff with compasses and escape maps and that sort of thing, and also with a thermos of coffee, some glucose tablets for quick conversion to energy, molten milk tablets, and a, and some very, very [emphasis] dark chocolate, was almost back, terrible [emphasis] looking stuff, and we would always try, the aircrew, try and save a few bits of that for the ground crew because as I say they would do absolutely [emphasis] anything [emphasis] for us, absolutely anything. And one night, I mentioned Wally Hammond, the navigator, an Englishman. Wally had quite a large nose – now I’m the last one who should speak about a large nose but Wally put mine to shame [emphasis], and one night we were on our way home and, bear in mind that the aircraft thermometer went down to minus thirty-five degrees, the needle went down to minus thirty-five, and it would disappear right off the clock, minus fifty God knows what, and this night Wally wanted to blow his nose. He had a bit of a dew drop, and he pulled off his oxygen mask but before he could get his handkerchief to his nose, a big dew drop fell down onto his navigation chart and was immediately snap frozen. Now, as I say it was a big dew drop and as you would know, a dew drop is almost semi transparent, and as I say, when these, with these chocolate molten milk tablets and et cetera, we’d always try to save something for the ground crew, and some crews they’d, they’d hide them, they’d have the ground crew in and have them hide and seek. We never ever did that, we’d always try and have something for them, and this night, as I say, this giant [emphasis] dew drop, almost transparent, and one of the ground crew came up into the nose, the aircraft, the navigator’s area [?] and looking for his goodies, and Wally said ‘would you like a dewb [?] Jonny,’ because it looked a little bit like a clear, transparent clear dewb and [laughs] well, Jonny – and he’d almost got it into his mouth and Wally smacked his hand and knocked, knocked it out [laughs] and told him the origin of the dewb [?] [laughs].
AP: What, what happened in an officers mess in a squadron? What, what sort of things happened?
DM: Well I wasn’t commissioned until fairly late in my tour –
AP: The sergeants mess then [laughs].
DM: Sergeants mess, you can have some real [emphasis] good piss ups at times without a doubt, and the officers mess wasn’t any, the limited time that I was in there wasn’t any, any different. No, no formality as such as there is in the permanent Air Force mess. They could be very, very formal you know. The draw with the wine at the end of dinner was a port night, you would, the waiter would put a port glass down in front of everybody, and then the very strict rule was that the bottle didn’t touch the table until it was empty, you had to hand it on hand to hand to the bloke next to you, right to left, right to left and things like that. Very formal in the permanent mess, quite informal in the, in the wartime mess. Just on the subject of mess, I would reckon the best Christmas dinner I had – well okay, take the ones you can first remember, first Christmas you can remember, they’ve probably got to be your greatest. For those of us who have little kids, the next best Christmas you could have was when your little kids open their presents and sat up at the table. My third, my best Christmas other than those two and nothing can supplant them, my next best Christmas was when I was instructing after I’d finished my tour. We were at a place called Moreton-in-Marsh, in the Cotswold country of England. For those who don’t know the Cotswold country, on the corner of the Moreton airfield was the four shire stone, a stone denoting the joining of Gloucester, Oxford, Warwick and Worcestershire, the four shires all joined together there, and I was instructing there, and magically out of nowhere about two or three weeks before Christmas about six or eight geese appeared and it was much activity making an enclosure for them. We pinched bits of wire form everywhere and made an enclosure for them, and so the geese was the, there was no turkey but there were geese for Christmas dinner. This was Christmas 1944 and there were a lot of Australians on the station at Moreton-in-Marsh, and a couple of them gathered the rest of us together and suggested, ‘look, we can’t get home for Christmas. What about if we go to the CO, the commanding officer, and tell him that all the Aussies are prepared to stay on the station over Christmas and let the maximum number of Poms go home for Christmas dinner with their family.’ This was accepted and all we Aussies, I was commissioned by then, and we went to the airmens’ and the WAFs’ mess and waited on them for their Christmas dinner. Went and got the, the meal out of from the kitchen and took it and put it on the table for them, which was great and they appreciated that, and then the same thing happened with eh sergeants’ mess. We went over to the sergeants’ mess and waited on them which was absolutely great [emphasis]. It was absolutely marvellous and we got our own Christmas dinner I suppose at about four o’clock or something in the afternoon, but that was very, very, as I say, next to being a little kid and then having your own kids. That’s the, my most memorable Christmas, mm.
AP: Do any of your, your operations stand out in particular?
DM: I suppose whilst it was – we had a pretty easy trip, although we did lose our flight commander. D-Day was incredible. As skipper, you’re pretty preoccupied watching your instruments, flying your aircraft, looking up from time to time for other aircraft because there were bloody kites everywhere [emphasis], but the rest of the crew were – and we were a very strongly disciplined crew, very strongly disciplined in that we didn’t tolerate any unnecessary chatter, but the sight on D-Day was such that I take my eyes away from the instruments and other things from time to time and have a look out. But the rest of the crew, you know, the, the, the gunners and the navigator and bomb aimer down the nose of the aircraft, the engineer had a window beside him, as did the, the wireless op. They, you know, the sight, all [emphasis] those watercraft, God [emphasis] it was an unbelievable sight. As I say, we had a, a reasonably easy trip but we did lose our flight commander who was very experienced, he was on his second tour, and [phone rings] he unfortunately, as we used to call it, copped the chop [phone rings], mm. Now that would be one of the most memorable. Couple of the others weren’t as kind as that [laughs] was, but that was an incredible sight.
AP: Are they, are those other trips something that you’re – are you able to tell us something of some of the other trips?
DM: Er, yes. Our – Karlsruhe was very unpleasant, nasty weather, a lot of electrical storms. Very, very nasty and it was pretty hot over the target. They certainly gave us a, a warm welcome. We were lucky, only, only minor damage. Now look, yeah Karlsruhe was the most, probably one of the most – Essen, they certainly didn’t welcome you Essen, you know, the home of crops. Germany’s biggest armament manufacture, they, they let you know that you weren’t wanted. My – you, as a skipper you were sent with an experienced crew. You’d done everything in the way of training except being put under fire, and to try to give you some experience there, they would send the skipper to an operational squadron to do either one or two ops with an experienced crew. We, I took off with one of the flight commanders and we had an engine fault and had to return early. The target was Berlin and that was, that was, this was the first briefing of course that you’ve been to and you’ve got no idea what you’re in for. And when the squadron commander ripped the curtains back from the map on the wall and said, ‘there’s our target for the night, Berlin,’ there were groans, there were moans, there were some said ‘not again,’ others screamed out ‘the big city,’ and that was interesting for a first time. And as I say, we had to do an early return. Couple of nights later, experienced by then, I’d been to one briefing, so I’m into the second briefing, and it was Berlin again and indicative of how temporary life on an operational squadron could be is this example. There were two of us sent over to, to Driffield, the Australian Halifax squadron to do our second dicky trip with an experienced crew. The other fellow, Doug, Berlin the target again, was shot down just before they were to release their bombs, so his total experience on an operational squadron was about four hours, slightly less than four hours. Berlin was about a seven hour, roughly trip seven, depending on wind direction and whatever, and his total experience on an operational squadron, four hours as I say, it’s indicative of how brief it could be. The second time I took off with another, with a different crew and we – interesting, you know, you’re sitting there in the co-pilot’s seat in a Halifax, take it from me, no aircraft, no wartime aircraft in which I entered had any consideration of comfort for the crew, and indeed they seemed to have protrusions everywhere which, you know, as though they set traps for you to hit your head on or bump your shoulder against or some such, but as second dicky in a Halifax you pulled down a wooden seat from the side of the hall. It had no padding on the back of it, just timber, and precious little padding on the seat, and nowhere to rest your feet. You dangled your feet in midair a little bit like a very small kid in a church pew, just dangled his feet and that’s all you could do. And so, as I say, no thought of comfort and the guy with whom I was flying on this second attempt at Berlin was a fellow named Gus Stevens. Very experienced and very good pilot, and I can remember approaching or probably about half way there, ‘oh this doesn’t seem to be too bad,’ and bit further, ‘oh I’m getting close to the target. I’m not too sure this is all that good.’ Getting into the target area, ‘oh my God, there’s, there’s, I reckon there’s a few places where I’d rather be,’ and then over the target itself, ‘I know bloody well there’s a whole [emphasis] lot of places where I’d [laughing] rather be.’ And anyway, we got in and out of the target area okay and we’re stinting [?] along on our way home when all of a sudden a heap, a trace of bullets started flying everywhere and we had one of the inner engines were, were knocked out. The rear gunner didn’t spot him. Obviously if it was one of those German night-fighter aircraft where they had the upward pointing firing guns, which was a very [emphasis] bloody miserable trick in, in my book. God, talk about all’s fair in love and war, there’s nothing fair about, about that. Anyway, the – this was interesting, we’d done plenty of fighter affiliation at heavy conversion unit. They’d set up Spitfires and Hurricanes to, with us and the gunners both had camera guns so that we could, the aim could be assessed when they got back on the ground. But anyway, and with, you know, we’d thrown the aircraft round corkscrew port, corkscrew starboard et cetera, et cetera, and generally speaking the rougher and more violent your corkscrew, the more effective it was likely to be. Would you like a beer by the way, or anything like that?
AP: I’m alright thank you, but you’re happy to keep going? Carry on?
DM: No, no I hope I’m not boring you.
AP: Oh not at all.
DM: Anyway, the, one of the, I think it was the port inner engine got knocked out, but Gus Stevens, the pilot, the skipper told me to feather the engines so he could keep his both hands on the control column and put it into a steep dive. Well, there was almost like a deadly silence other than air swishing around, and Gus had, we worked it out later what he’d done, he’d put it into such an incredible [emphasis] dive, used such force that all the petrol, all the fuel was forced up centrifugal force off the bottom of the fuel tanks, and you had what was known as constant speed control on your, on your propellers, but the moment they were relived of any load [emphasis] they just went into runaway mode, and so, as I say, you had this short period when the fuel was off the bottom of the tanks and you just had air rushing by and then when he pulled it back in and the fuel went back onto the bottom of the tanks and entered the fuel allowance [?], entered the motors – the motors of course as I say, they had constant speed, like governors on them and, which governed the air, the air screw, the propeller speed to about three and a half thousand revs, but with this load moved, taken off them, I reckon they were probably at about four and a half thousand. And then when the petrol went back and into the – the bloody row [emphasis], the vibration of the – I didn’t realise what punishment a hellick [?] would take until that moment. You know, I thought I’d done some pretty rough and tough stuff on [phone rings] when we were doing [phone rings] our fighter affiliation in training, but nothing [emphasis] like [phone rings] this. Bloody vibration it shake [emphasis], I thought the thing would shake to pieces.
AP: I suppose that shows the value of the second dicky trip, going with an operational pilot [unclear] –
DM: That’s right, that’s right, yes, ah yes, yes, yes.
AP: It’s yeah, unreal.
DM: Yes, and interesting side line to that was back at the heavy conversion unit, the training unit again the next day, the CGI, chief ground instructor – there was a class in progress, I’ve forgotten what it was, and I was marched in and he said ‘I want you to tell your experience, your experience from last night.’ So I started, and he said ‘hold up Pilot McDonald, hold up. You don’t have to say any further. We’ve been in touch with the flight commander and the skipper concerned and we know almost as much about it as you do, so you can save your voice.’
AP: Very good [DM laughs]. Well I guess flying operations wouldn’t have been the most stress free existence. What sort of things did you do to relax?
DM: Give the grog a good nudge [laughs]. Yes, there was sports. You could have, there was tennis courts near the squadron and you could have a – we used to play a game that was a cross between AFL and rugby. There was you know, plenty of blokes from New South Wales and Queensland. They, they’d never heard of AFL at that time, and so we would, we’d have a game crossed between AFL and rugby. And of course the blokes, the rugby boys would tuck the ball under their arm and never think of bouncing it or anything like that, and that, that, that was a bit of good fun, and most, most messes would have table tennis facilities so you could have a game, and some would also have billiards or snooker to fill in time at night. And of course you’d have the odd game of cards here and there and those who liked to play poker could put their pay on the line.
AP: Can you – I gather you probably spent a fair bit of time at the local pub?
DM: Oh yes [emphasis], yes, yes.
AP: [Unclear].
DM: Yeah, not really funny thing, but the mid upper gunner of my second crew – when the war finished in Europe, I had just started a second tour. Indeed I only did one trip and the war in Europe ended. I – back at Moreton-in-Marsh, I, flying the twin engine Wellington which were a lovely, lovely kite to fly. As I say, twin engine. I’d had about three single engine, I’d had three single engine landings in about five weeks, and it wasn’t the fault of the ground staff. The motors were copped, cuffed out, they’d, they’d had it and no matter how good the ground staff had been, they would have had troubles keeping them airworthy. So I’d had about five single engine landings in about five weeks. The first two were highly successful. The last one, the third one, I was very lucky to walk away from. And the – sorry where were we up to when I digressed [?] –
AP: So we were – pubs.
DM: Ah yeah pubs. Yeah, and, and so we – I was very lucky to walk away from it. And on the sort of subject of pubs, as I say I was an instructor at this time, and I finished up in an ambulance and at lunchtime I was about to have a pint of beer because the flight commander had said, you know, ‘your flying’s finished for today.’ And so I thought I’d have a pint of beer at lunch and I was just about to have my first sip out of it when the MO, the doctor came up to me and said, ‘I think you can put that down, and, and you better come with me.’ And I didn’t realise but I had concussion, and he put me into hospital. Now, there’s two things outstanding about this. Some miserable sod got that pint of beer and drank it and never owned up to me, never paid me for it, never owned up to me for it, and so if I ever catch up with him I’ll, I’ll get my [AP laughs] money’s worth. The other thing was at night a couple of the other instructors, they were, we were all instructors at the OTU were ex-op fellows, and a couple of them decided they’d come down to the hospital, the sick quarters and see how I was, and they bought a couple of beers with them. So that was great, very good medicine, and the next night about four of them came down and finished up after three or four nights was about six or eight of them, and, and we were having a great old time grogging on in the station’s sick quarters, and lo and behold, who should come in but the doctor, and caught us all with our grog there. He ordered the other blokes out and said to me, ‘you’ll be in the flight office at eight o’clock tomorrow morning McDonald, and I’ll be there to make sure you’re there.’ And so that was the end of that medication, so that’s, you know. Looking back, looking back at him, I sometimes wonder and indeed think that possibly we were pretty much at the stage of eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow you may die, and I think that did tend to take over, yeah.
AP: We’re getting, we’re getting close to the end of [both laugh] –
DM: No worries.
AP: We’ve been going for an hour and fifty-seven minutes.
DM: Truly? Oh my God.
AP: Believe it or not, flown by –
DM: Yeah.
AP: It’s been great [emphasis]. I guess, well yeah, coming back to Australia. How did you find readjusting to civilian life and what did you do after the war?
DM: I reckon for the – I had been in the Public service, as I mentioned, when I enlisted and when I got back I took twelve months leave from the Public service, leave without pay, with a view to hopefully [?] adjusting or readjusting myself. I went back to the bush, back on the farm, and I reckon for about the first three weeks I got up and helped with the milking in the morning and then spent most of the day sitting under a big pine tree. I’ve got no idea what I would have been thinking, and the, the owner of the local general store and post office said, ‘what about coming and working for me? I need someone.’ So it was a bit more than ten bob a week at that time of course, and I accepted his offer which suited me really because I was, meant I had to be meeting people, getting out amongst them, them coming into the store, me getting out amongst them, and I think that was a good move. At the end of twelve months I resigned altogether from the public service and got married and went into business on my own. First one was a little grocery store, a newsagents and post office out at Fawkner, northern suburbs of Melbourne, just near the Fawkner cemetery. I sold out of that and worked for another guy for a few months and then opened a grocery store in Hampton, a beach side southern suburb of Melbourne. That was when self service first started to come in. Prior to that when you went in to the grocer’s shop you asked the grocer what you wanted and he put it on the counter and gave you the bill and then self service came in. We had one of about the first twenty self service shops in Melbourne and then frozen foods came in, and we had one of I think it was about the first six [emphasis] deep freezers in Melbourne. After about six, seven or eight years in that business I sold out, worked around for a while and went into radio communications. The neighbours said, ‘look, we want someone – our company’s just going into radio communications. You know a bit about it from your Air Force experience.’ And the job was virtually painted [?] there on a platter for me so I worked in that, and I could see a need for some towers. It was roughly line of sight communication – radios such as in taxis and in trucks and plumbers and electricians et cetera, communications, mobile communications, and I could see that to increase the range we needed some towers, and the company with whom I was working wouldn’t listen to me, so I said to them ‘okay, you won’t provide them, let me provide them.’ And I did and we finished up with about six of these around Melbourne, and then I, I started renting a few radios. I could see a requirement for rental and people didn’t want to buy, and once again the company with whom I was working were disinterested so I started renting radios which I owned. And then later on I saw a need for little hand-held portable radios for security people and crowd control and parking et cetera, and actually I just sold out of the last one of them in the last twelve months. But we finished up with roughly a thousand of them little hand-held ones, and we, we do some, well I’m out of it now but we did some quite big jobs. Probably the biggest was the spring carnival at Flemington in Melbourne. The Melbourne Cup is a world famous race and a big requirement for these little hand-held radios, not worth them buying them because they only need them for about two weeks of the year. The rest of the year they would be on the shelf and be knocked off or the batteries would go flat and so there’s the, you know, just a little inside there, there’s the parking, there’s security, there is crowd control, catering. Imagine what it would be like if the bird cage or some of those quite exclusive enclosures at Flemington ran out of champagne, so you’ve got to be able to engineer, develop a system so that they can get down into the bowels of the earth as it were, under the big grandstands and everything so that we could control the flow of champagne up there to marquees and the likes spread around the ground. Quite, quite an interesting, quite a challenging exercise, and, and it was, as I say, I’m sold out of it now but it was financially fairly favourable, and no Lord Nuffield or Rockefeller or anything like that but enabled a quite good standard of living.
AP: Excellent. I guess the final, the final question, perhaps the most important one. From your personal perspective, how was Bomber Command remembered and what sort of legacy do you think it’s left?
DM: A good question. A lot of condemnation on Bomber Command. If Bomber Command hadn’t done the duties they were called upon to do, and likewise many other branches of the service, if they hadn’t done the things they were called upon to do, goodness knows how much longer the war might have gone on. The French government just this year, seventy years later after peace was declared, seventy years later gave, made some awards. Now, one of the qualifications was that you had to be involved on D-Day. D-Day for a lot of the French people and a lot of the people of occupied territories was the first time for five years that there was any light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. That D-Day signalled in my book, the beginning of the end and Bomber Command were well and truly involved in D-Day and they were involved subsequent to D-Day, stopping Germany getting their troops and their supplies up to the front line. The V1s and V2s, the Doodlebug, flying one, call it what you like, if Bomber Command hadn’t put down the launching pads for those V1s, almost all [emphasis] of London and southern England would have been laid waste in my book, there’s not any doubt about that. And of course the V2, terrible [emphasis] weapon. There was no combating the V2 once it was in the air, there was no ways [unclear], and so what did they do? They sent Bomber Command over to the launching pads and manufacturing plants in Scandinavia. Some of those aircraft were in the air fourteen hours. Now, as I mentioned, there was no thought of comfort for the crew in a bomber aircraft. Temperatures, as I mentioned, the thermometer went down to minus thirty-five and the needle used to go right off the clock, right [emphasis] off the clock. The gunners had electrically heated gloves, other crew members had three pairs of gloves on: silk next to the skin, woollen to try and keep the warmth in and then the big elbow length, fleecy lined leather gauntlet. Bomber Command [phone rings] didn’t get, did not [emphasis] get the credit [phone rings] for which it was due [phone rings]. Almost sixty thousand people killed [emphasis]. Young men in their prime, fit, you had to be fit to be an aircrew. Fit, young men in their prime, almost – now for Victorians or Australians, almost sixty thousand, that is the equivalent to every man, woman and child, the city the size of Bellarat. There were eight thousand killed on training – I mentioned the icing experience before, eight thousand killed on training. Now, for any Victorians, that’s the equivalent of a provincial city the size of Bellarat or the size of Colac. Every man, woman, child in that city, killed. So as I say, the legacy of Bomber Command, the ruddy war might still be going on. It did not get its true dues in, in, in my book, and as I say, it would have gone on a lot longer. Yes, we’re finished I think.
AP: I think we’re done.
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AMcDonaldD151013
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Interview with Donald McDonald
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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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Sound
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eng
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02:10:05 audio recording
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Pending review
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Adam Purcell
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2015-10-13
Description
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Donald McDonald grew up in Australia and worked for a general store before he volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force. He flew operations as a pilot with 466 and 578 Squadrons. He returned to Australia after the war where he became involved in radio communications.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Victoria
Victoria--Mount Martha
Victoria
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Katie Gilbert
466 Squadron
578 Squadron
aircrew
coping mechanism
crash
crewing up
entertainment
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
mess
military discipline
military living conditions
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Burn
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Rufforth
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/3464/AMooreWT160703.2.mp3
6fa0b673061052f9a9f442da1a4176b2
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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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Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
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Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
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Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
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Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
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TO: Right, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever the case may be. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre. The gentleman I’m interviewing is Mr Bill Moore. My name is Thomas Ozel and we’re recording this interview on the 3rd of July 2016. Now, could you please tell me what year you were born?
WM: 1924.
TO: Mhm. And when you were a child, were you interested in aircraft?
WM: The first time I was introduced to the aircraft was when I was taken to Guyun [?] Southern Highlander’s annual camp and that was when I came in contact with my, my first aircraft. And at that time, I was a drummer [?] boy in a band [?], and at that time my father had made me eighteen month older and I was supposed to be because otherwise I would have been too young to have went to the camp with men. As a matter of fact, that eighteen months stood by me for the rest of my life.
TO: And whereabouts did you grow up?
WM: I grew up in a town called Dunoon which is on the Firth of Clyde in Argyllshire in Scotland.
TO: And were your parents involved in the First World War?
WM: My father was, yes. As a matter of fact I just told somebody the other day, that I knew where my father was a hundred years ago. In other words, he was right through the whole of the First World War. He was a great battles, the Battles of Boulogne [?], first and the second one, and also the one that was also celebrated this week. And then he was actually taken prisoner by German forces and he was taken to Poland, and he worked in Poland there and that was, and that was until the armistice came along. In other words, he had about, he about between six and nine months as a prisoner of war, mm.
TO: And what was your first job?
WM: My first job, all depends how you mean your first job. If you mean your first job when you started doing [emphasis] something and getting paid for it, well I was delivering milk and newspapers in the morning. Later on I delivered butcher, butcher meats and I delivered the evening papers, and among one of the most famous characters I delivered to was Sir Harry Lauder, who was a very famous Scottish singer and comedian. And every time I went there I got a farthing [emphasis] each time, which meant that I got a fully penny in one day, but that was four farthings. And I did that from, from Monday to Saturday. And anyway, after that of course I left school, but I left school when I was thirteen. The reason I left school when I was thirteen was because it was during the Great Depression years and every penny my family could earn was to be encouraged because people needed it to survive [emphasis], although my father was always in work, but that was about it because I used to come in. And that was what my mother saved the money so that I could have my school books paid for, instead of, instead of waiting for someone to pass on second hand books to me.
TO: And in the 1930s, did you hear about Hitler’s aggressive behaviour?
WM: Well yes. As a matter of fact, of course I did, but it was quite, quite strange. Go back further than that, when I was a young boy, I was in what we called the Boys Brigade, which was just an organisation but it was started, it started way back in 1883 by a chap called William Smith, and the uniform they had then [emphasis] was, was taken more or less from the Third Lanark Rifle Volunteers in Scotland. It wasn’t military but the idea was for discipline, because in those days Scotland, Scotland and discipline was two things that people wanted, although with me, that was many years later. I did not meet Sir William Smith himself but I knew both of his sons who carried on the Boys Brigade after him, and also I met Mrs McVicker in Belfast in Northern Ireland when I used to take the Boys Brigade myself [emphasis] over there, and that, that was, she was the, she was the wife of the founder of the Boys Brigade in Northern Ireland. When I joined the Boys Brigade it was through the Life Boys, which was a genuine organisation. I went through there and I went right through the Boys Brigade, and at my age, I’m still a member of the Boys Brigade Greater World Fellowship.
TO: Would you mind if I just closed the window?
WM: No, carry on, yeah.
TO: Is that okay?
WM: Oh, you might get the traffic, yeah.
TO: Yeah, is that okay?
WM: Yeah, carry on [pause while window is closed]. That’s okay.
TO: Okay, thank you. And what did you think, what did you think of Chamberlain?
WM: Well first of all, going back before Chamberlain’s time and before he was making speeches, what I was saying is we used to look at news reels and we used to see about all the equipment that the German boys and girls were getting, and at times we were quite envious of it, because there was gymnastics, there was gymnastics, I was swimming, I was hiking, I was doing all these same things as, as a, the German Youth were there. Maybe not so severely [emphasis], but that was where the Boys Brigade, as I’ve just said.
TO: Mhm. Sorry, there’s a noise coming from the kitchen. Is it okay if I shut the door to there as well?
WM: Yes, yes, yes –
TO: Sorry [door closes].
WM: Can you stick that through?
TO: Sorry.
WM: You could get a nickel [?].
TO: Yeah [pause during continued background noise]. Sorry about this, sorry. And what did you think of the Munich Agreement?
WM: Well, put it, put it this way. What did happen was that I think growing up at that particular time, we weren’t really interested too much in politics, but then we began to gather that things were getting rather serious. And the big thing that was going around at that time was, was people sincere? And there’d been so many promises broken that, and I’m talking about Scotland now, was the people in Scotland at that time just said, ‘well if, if these people keep on breaking promises, what’s, what’s the Prime Minister going to do? Is he going to be leaving it [could be believing it].’ And of course, it seems, it seemed to us at that particular time that he was being foreborstered [?], brainwashed and as if he was being used as, as they all were in those days was, is a patsy.
TO: And what did you think of Churchill?
WM: Well, Churchill in the early days was quite a hero [emphasis] because he was a type of fellow who had been through the Boer War, he’d been through the, through the First World War and of course he was still a fiery rebel as far as politics were going as, at that time in the UK.
TO: And do you remember the preparations that were being made for war?
WM: Well, it all depends on who’s side you mean, because the big thing that we noticed, and that was that where, where the German forces were going over [?], taking over different places. Some of them were, were considered to be German lands of former times, but, but even when they came to Austria and they were welcomed into Austria, at times we wondered whether there were other people there who weren’t quite happy about it, with this, you know? But it wasn’t ‘til, it wasn’t ‘til as we say, clouds [?] are going that, and horizon, as if the, all the promises that were given, made were just null and void. The reason we said that was at that particular time was because the fact was that even, even being with Chamberlain, trying to negotiate [emphasis], and of course France as well were negotiations to see if they could actually bring about a more sensible [emphasis] approach, ‘cause people like my father said that the terms of various things that had been laid in after [emphasis] the First World War were so severe that it was almost impossible for the, for the German people not [emphasis] to revolt against these conditions, and of course this is what people were thinking in the UK at that particular time, was that that’s what they were trying to do was just to regain what had been lost. But of course later on when it came into the, these negotiations that they had, nobody was very sure [emphasis] whether that Chamberlain was playing for time or not. It could have been, it could have been a great strategy on his [emphasis] part. Many people think it was, many people think that he was quite gullible. But if one reads on the history of the Royal Air Force, well the Royal Air Force was starting an amalgamation between the, the Fleet Air Arm, or the Naval Services. The Naval Service became the Royal Air Force and that was 1918. Now, with that coming on, we noticed as young people, we noticed that there was different things happening [emphasis], and also, I remember at one time I noticed that the, the talk was about different types of aircraft, ‘cause that was through the magazine I used to subscribe to. And then of course what happened, I was in the school cadets in my grammar school in Dunoon and we, we were the Army cadets, and of course we wore the kilt et cetera, the same as the local Hern [?] Division, and the Guyun [?] Southern Highlanders. Anyway, I, I started thinking about aeroplanes and there was an organisation just started up which was called the Air Defence Cadet Corps. Well this Air Defence Corps, Cadet Corps, the nearest place to Dunoon where I was, was at what is now Glasgow Airport, and I had to find a handout, to find the money for to go in the boat and train and go up there and attend the lectures et cetera what was necessary to do to be a member of the Air Defence Cadet Corps. Anyway, of course along came different aircraft that we saw, and the, the first of the new [emphasis] ones that I saw and touched was the Wellington Bombers, and that Wellington Bomber came up to me, to Abbotsinch, which is, as I said, Glasgow Airport. Abbotsinch I managed to walk through it and I was absolutely taken with it. As a matter of fact I felt as if I’d fallen in love with it. And then of course what happened, things went from one to another, and then of course along came, along came the Polish incident and with that Polish incident of course it was followed very closely in Scotland because the people of Scotland, people of Poland were always very close [emphasis]. A lot of people don’t realise [emphasis] that but it was a fact, because I always remember that they used to send boxes of eggs from Poland and what we used to do, we used to buy these boxes, these crates, and we’d turn them into canoes that we, that we lined with canvas, and we used to sail in the Clyde. But that, you know, that was, that was our knowledge of in Poland on that day, apart from what I’d been told by my father. Anyway, what happened was along came, along came, as I say, with the trouble in Poland, and of course, then of course the First World, the Second World War started and at that time, being in the Boys Brigade and being in the Air Cadet Defence Corps, I was nominated as a member of the ARP, the Air Raids Precautions people, as a messenger. Then that was fine, that was alright but I still had to go to my lessons with the Cadets, but that was alright, everybody carried on. That carried on and then of course along came, along came 1941 [emphasis] and that was when the Air Training Corps started, and I, I went along. I had to say I was finished with the Air Defence Cadet Corps which everybody else [emphasis] was, and we signed up for the Air Training Corps. That was quite strange, that was on a Monday night, and I went back along on the Friday [emphasis] night at the first official meeting, and we fell in and we fell in ranks according to sizes et cetera, et cetera, and I was made a flight sergeant. And the reason was that, I asked them and said ‘oh no, you’ve had training [emphasis] in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, so you know probably more about it than instructors do,’ because they were all school teachers who had volunteered to do that cadet work, and of course being made a flight sergeant, without uniform of course, it took a wee while to get uniforms, but that was it, and that was, that was me well and truly a part of the Royal Air Force. Anyway, that went down very well and I passed all the examinations. My aim was to become a member of aircrew. I fancied that, not just the glamour of it but there was a practical side. Anyway the, along came a day when I went along to Edinburgh and I took all my papers, exam papers and everything else, and bearing in mind that I was a year and a half older than I was on paper than I was supposed to be, and when I got into Edinburgh the chap says to me, ‘are you sure [emphasis]?’ I said ‘yes.’ He said ‘what you were doing?’ So I told him, he says ‘oh, that seems alright,’ he says ‘alright,’ he says ‘we want you to go along to this hotel and you stay there and you come back here in the morning, and you go there and you find that you’ll be registered and et cetera, et cetera.’ So I did that, go back there the next day and there were one or two other chaps around that I knew, and we, we went in again [emphasis] and we had exams to take and tests to take and, a by the time the day was finished I was a member of the Royal Air Force, and what they did to us was that they gave us a little silver badge that we, we had to wear at all times. And that was to show that we were a fully fledged member of the Royal Air Force, and all we had to do then was just wait until they were ready to take us in [emphasis]. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t being called up for National Service, we were all volunteers of course, which is a big difference because we were already members, voluntary members, and of course the, joining the Air Force like that you volunteered. But as I say, after that, once you’re in, you didn’t get to volunteer again [laughs]. You, you’re then volunteered [emphasis, laughs].
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day the war started?
WM: The day the war started, yes [tape beeps]. It was a Sunday morning and I was at a bible class in Dunoon, and shortly after that the sirens went and we all had to go to a post. And with us at that particular time, as I say, I was with the ARP. So we had to go there and be ready for to, for to be messengers. That was what, that was what my job was then, to be a messenger [emphasis], so I had to go to my post, which we all knew where we had to go to, and that was it. But after the all clear went then we stood down again, no, mm. But of course there was, was times when there were raids on the Clyde and all the rest of it later on, and my compatriots had a lot of hair raising activities. Most of that by that time I was, I was in the Royal Air Force.
TO: And was there much bomb damage or bombing around where you lived?
WM: Well, not so much on my [emphasis] side of the Clyde but across the water on the Firth, right from Greenock and Glasgow, Greenock and Port Glasgow, right up the Clyde, right up to Clydebank into Glasgow itself. Oh yes, all the industrial areas. There was quite a lot of very heavy damage, yes.
TO: And when the war started, were you, were you expecting that German bombers would be coming on the first day?
WM: Oh yes, well that was, that was it. It wasn’t, it wasn’t long after that there was a couple of raids that was, that was, that came across Scotland before there was even, even them in England, yes.
TO: And how did you actually feel when you heard the war had started?
WM: Well, put it this way, with having quite a knowledge from my father about his experiences, and what we had, what we had actually seen on the news reels about Poland, and I really mean about Poland, that was when we realised what could happen, yeah.
TO: And did you watch news reels a lot at the cinema?
WM: Oh yes, oh yes. Yeah, when you went to the, when you went to the cinemas there was always, always a portion for the news reels at the beginning of every performance, and that was very good. The news reels were very good, they, they brought everything to you, mm [papers shuffle].
TO: And so when you volunteered for aircrew, what kind of medical tests did they give you?
WM: Well, you had, you had a full medical. You know, you had blood, heart, you had all sorts of things done and then, you even had a type, a place where it was called up [?] on night vision. We never knew about night vision in those days and we were told, told about that and you had a test to see whether you could, you could see and come back again and your vision – you had, you were taken into a darkened room and they had various sort of tests they gave you in there, including different things and different numbers and the results was in different colours [emphasis], and if you, if you, if you could identify these things through these different colours then that meant that your, that your night vision was quite good, and you passed and you could identify then, then you’re dropped out. ‘Cause that was one of the main things at that particular time, was night vision.
TO: And what role did you train for aboard, in aircrew?
WM: Sorry?
TO: What, what position, as in, were you trained for?
WM: Well you see, when I went to Edinburgh I was classified PNB, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, you know, the idea being that you selected for that term [?]. Anyway, what happened then was that I was called, called to the colours, not called up, I was called to the colours which once again, as I say, was different from being called up for National Service, very proud of that of course. Anyway, I, I got a notification to go to London and there I went to, to Lords Cricket Ground and, with many other people. There was one or two people that I’d met on the train, met down there before, went inside and some of these fellows I still know today, which is quite amazing. Anyway, what happened there in, in, at Lourdes, you – and there is a big plaque there today, big black plaque indicating that was where the aircrew was at that particular time. Going back to that, we had further [emphasis] tests and, I suppose to see whether anything had happened in between times, and then we, we got all the usual jabs for left and right, two arms up together and that one and that one going along r at the same time and, and then you had FFIs and things like that, and then of course you came along to another [emphasis] big room and that’s where you started getting your uniform. And there was a system [?] what you’re gonna get, when you’re gonna get, and by the time you got to the end you wonder if you’re able to carry everything, you know. Anyway, we all managed to get there, and at the end of that we were introduced to a corporal, two stripes. Now, we thought that was a high rank [phone rings], oh –
TO: Is that a phone call?
WM: I’d better take it. Sorry about that [tape beeps]. It’s a bummer [?] –
TO: Hmm, anyway –
WM: Anyway.
TO: So you spoke to her [unclear] –
WM: So anyway, as I was saying, we, we were then under this corporal [laughs]. He, he told us that he would be looking after us in more ways than one [emphasis] for the, for the next few days. Anyway, we went along in London to a place called Avenue Close which was a new block of flats in St. John’s Wood which had been built and never been occupied, and the Royal Air Force used that for all their new recruits, and, but there’s no, there’s no canteen facilities there, no mess hall, and we went across to Regent Park’s zoo where we dined. The animals had been evacuated and we were there in place of the animals [laughs].
TO: And did you train to be a navigator?
WM: Put it, put it this way, what happens, all depends how deep you want me to go into this, I don’t know. Anyway, what happened was that we had to, we had to pass more, several tests there. They were very strenuous, very strenuous, extremely strenuous, you know. And then of course we were there for about a week, and we were all setting off to different places and the group that I went with was up into the north east of England, to a town called Scarborough where they had quite a number of initial training wings. And what they were, they were just like boarding schools [laughs], certainly a little bit different but that’s what we took them to be. It was just like going back to school or college and starting all over again, and my one was number seventeen, and I was in what we called the Odelpha [?] Hotel, which is a hotel right opposite the Italian gardens in Scarborough. Now, there we studied navigation, theories of flight, engines, just about everything, even how to use a knife and fork in the mess, and that is quite true [laughs]. That seems quite a thing but that was quite true [laughs]. But that was a little on the side [?] there. But we actually studied all of these things, and at the same time we had to do guard duties and various other things like that, and there was two or three times when we were there, there were air raids go on and even a time when there was suspected that we might have had a German couple of U-boats in, about eight boats coming along and they expected them to come up and be looking for certain people that were there on that shore [?] there, people who had been at a conference and we were all turned out for that. They didn’t tell us very much about it but later on we heard it was Churchill and the cabinet members in the Retreat as they call it nowadays. Anyway, but that was, we didn’t know anything, why it was [unclear]. Anyway, what happened was that we had to sit the final exams and everybody in there was doing the same exams, you know? Anyway, what happened after, I passed, I pass through that quite successfully and I was waiting a posting. My posting then was a place called Scone [pronounced Scun], not Scone, Scone [pronounce Scun, emphasis], which is just, just outside of Perth in Scotland and that was where you got to learn to fly on Tiger Moths. Now, when you flew in Tiger Moths up there, we had already been classified from ACs to AC1s and when we, we went up to Scone, actually passed Scone in the Tiger Moths and we thought we could be trusted to do a couple of circuits and you came back down. They didn’t give you wings in those days, they gave you a propeller, always a propeller on your left sleeve, and then we became a leading aircraftsman, which was your first step up. Anyway, what happened after that, I, I was sent from there all the, all the kit bags and everything, and I was sent to a place called Broughton-in-Furness. Broughton-in-Furness, it was like a commander course, only the Royal Air Force calls it an escape course, and you did everything on there that you could possibly do if you were trying to escape. It was always put down to you in the Air Force that you had to try and escape if you were taken prisoner. That was, that was a thing. It was always drilled into you, if you could get back, so much the better. Anyway, that was, that was all about. When that was finished I went to a place called Heaton Park in Manchester. Now, Heaton Park in Manchester, it was mostly Nissan huts, the old corrugated iron ones, you know? And sometimes you also got billeted out with the local people, sometimes you’re lucky and you did both. Well we, we were quite lucky. We were billeted out, and just within a stone’s throw off Heaton Park [laughs], and we, we were with a landlady whose husband was in the Middle East at that time, and we used to pay her half a crown, was two shillings and sixpence in those days and that was for, to leave the snub [?] off the window so that we could lift the window sash up and crawl in after half past ten at night. Well she used to make, she used to make a cup of bronzer [?] up for that [laughs], because she had let out two rooms and that was eight of us in her house, yeah. Anyway, the, everybody knew it happened, but you’re [unclear] to be in by eleven. It was just in case you had trouble getting back you know. Anyway, if you were in the main camp, you had to make sure you were in at half ten at night [laughs]. Anyway, after that we were, we were taken back into the camp, and this was a big camp. There was hundreds of people in there and guesses – we didn’t do a lot of paperwork there but we did a lot of physical training, marching, all that sort of thing, and every time the, every time the Royal Air Force tunes went up you had to march to attention. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you had to march to attention. Anyway, what happened after that, you got your uniform. Now, if you were going to, to South Africa, we, we began to learn these things, you went to South Africa you get tropical kit but long [emphasis] trousers. If you were going to Rhodesia, you get tropical kits with short [emphasis] trousers. If you’re going to America, you more or less get issued with civvies, as we called them, and if you were going to Canada then you were alright. Anyway, what happened to us was that we got issued with short trousers and we said ‘oh no, we know what we are [?], we’re going to Rhodesia. That’s pilot training,’ et cetera, et cetera. Good, anyway, we got shipped out, we were on a ship called The Andes [emphasis]. You’ll see a little thing there –
TO: Oh yes.
WM: Andes, you know, ship.
TO: Oh right.
WM: And I’ll show you it afterwards.
TO: Yeah, show me it afterwards.
WM: But what it was, was this ship, The Andes was brand new in the Clyde in nineteen, 1939, and it disappeared then came back again all painted grey, but where we [emphasis] met it, we met her in Liverpool. And this friend of mine, Alec Care, we must have joined up, helped each other, and we were on the ship and we said ‘bye-bye’ to Liverpool. There’s the – ‘bye-bye, bye-bye,’ you know, and we sailed down the Mersey. Anyway, a while after that we, I judged that we had been round the head of Northern Ireland, go down the west coast, and now they could, well according to roughly the speed of the ship and that, and we’d be near the Bay of Biscay. All of a sudden night fell and I said to my friend, ‘Alec, this boat’s going the wrong way.’ He said ‘you and your Clyde navigation.’ I said, ‘this boat’s going the wrong way [emphasis], we’re now going back north.’ So we ended back up in the Mersey again. Then what happened, we got in there because I suppose they got word there was a pack of U-boats around, you know, and that’s why they changed us. Anyway, we got up into the Mersey and looked across and I said to Alec, I said, ‘there’s the five-three-four over there.’ He says, ‘what’s a five-three-four?’ I say, ‘I’m not telling you, you might be a spy.’ He says, ‘euch.’ I says ‘oh, that’s a five-three-four.’ He says, ‘come on Bill, what is it?’ And I say, ‘that’s the Queen Mary.’ ‘Oh.’ Anyway, we admired this big ship because, well I knew her from the Clyde right from when one of my great uncles was helping to build here. Anyway, there she was. Anyway, we, we had a meal there, and the next thing we heard was the whistle went, ‘all RAF personnel so and so and so and so,’ went ‘oh that’s us, what’s happened now? Oh.’ ‘Get all your kit together, assemble here in, in fifteen minutes.’ ‘Oh boy that was, that was quick.’ ‘Cause you hadn’t, hadn’t taken in any kit bag, was just us, you stood up so it was just a matter of taking your kit bags and going to deck. We were then taken across onto the Queen Mary, and we were weighed [?] down so far in I thought we were going to go to New Zealand or somewhere, and [laughs] – anyway, the Queen Mary set off and a few days later we were in New York [emphasis]. We didn’t see a lot of New York, we had a bit of leave time on the promise that we wouldn’t be late coming back, so that was good, and we got on a train and we went up to Moncton, New Brunswick. All the way up to Canada by train which was a great experience for us, ‘cause the first thing we noticed was the food. Now, there was nothing rationed, this was American trains and we were getting the best of everything. Anyway, we got to Moncton, New Brunswick and the, and we were not given any winter clothing because we were still in this kit that we thought we were going to Rhodesia, so anyway [laughs], for two or three days we walked about up there and they used to call us ‘Scors’ because we were walking around with blankets on us to keep us warm, mm [laughs]. Anyway, that was, that was all part of the trials and tribulations. Then of course was, we were told to fall in and you, you, you’re told that you’re now going to a training station. They didn’t tell you where you were going, they just told you’re going to a training station. So we got on a train, and this was the Canadian national railways and we said, ‘well, Canadian pacific goes that side and nation [?] is that side, mm, oh well, fair enough.’ So we landed up in Winnipeg, went all the way through to Winnipeg, then we got off that [emphasis] train and we went up to another [emphasis] one, up past Portage la Prairie and then the railway finished so we got, we got on we’ll call it a bus [emphasis], and this took us up to Dauphin, Manitoba and then we, we were at Paulson and Dauphin and there we did bombing and gunnery training. We did all these sort of elements again that, that everyone had to go through the same things, and then the next round of course we did, we did flying training and, and then of course we did the navigation, another step up. That was fine and we were still all together, no deviations. Then of course we passed all that and I had a, I had an excellent, I had an excellent bombing record, really excellent one if I say so myself, you know. Anyway, next thing we knew, we graduated from there. You had to pass, it was a hundred percent pass, you know, there was always people dropping out and, but we carried on and we went, we went down, down [emphasis] the line to Portage la Prairie. Portage on the Prairie, that was – now that there [emphasis] was the school for air observers, you know? That was number seventeen air observer school, Portage la Prairie, and there of course we, we got changed around a bit. I was told that I was a good candidate for, to be air observer. I said, ‘how about piloting?’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘if you’re an observer you’ll get to fly as well. You’ll get to pilot as well,’ you know. I said ‘well that’s okay.’ He did really ‘cause you were told [emphasis], you know? Anyway, I graduated from there. I got my wings there, and eventually, eventually ‘cause we [coughs], we went back to Moncton, New Brunswick and we got on a ship to come back to the UK and that ship I recognised as [laughs] the Empress of Japan. I said to my friend, I said ‘I don’t like that name, Empress of Japan,’ you know. We got up beside it and it’s now called the Empress of Scotland [laughs]. They had changed its name. Now this was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so we come back, we come back across the Atlantic, the North Atlantic, and we sailed up the Clyde and eventually we went to a place called Harrogate. So Harrogate we were more or less brought back to earth again. Rations of course still, instead of the food we’d been having in Canada and that, you know, America. And we, we then – well the [laughs]. It was quite strange, they gave us another FFI to see if we’re alright and we’re okay that way, and another medicals to see if we’re alright, you know? And the next thing I knew, I was, I was in a detour [?], so my friend went that way and I went that way, so that was it. Anyway, I landed up at a place which is just outside of Wolverhampton, and this was an advanced navigation and low flying school called Halfpenny Green. Now, quite a number of years ago they made a film there and then called it “Halfpenny Field,” but it was Halfpenny Green [emphasis], and today it’s been nominated to be Wolverhampton Airport. Anyway, what we were doing there is that we were taught low lying pass flying, landing on beaches, landing on small areas and we wondered why this was all about, you know? But anyway, we didn’t ask any questions, you just did as you’re told and [laughs], ‘cause you’ve already volunteered [laughs]. Anyway, that was it and we [unclear] was successful, it was, it was excellent. We [tape beeps] treetops. We were making bomb, making, making bomb attacks on the railway bridges across the Severn and even, even the RAF stations that knew we were coming but of course they weren’t open up at us ‘cause they knew it was an exercise, and all various target like that. And also as I say, we were learning to land on short, short runways or grass and beaches and all sorts of fancy things like that. Anyway, this was all preparation because what you didn’t realise that you were, you were being selected there, and that was, that was when I was, I felt as if there was something, something strange [emphasis] about all of this because everybody was going to do different things, and that was where, where, where we were taken aside one day and told out where we were going to, you know? And some of the, some of the chaps went one way and I went another way and I landed up in this aerodrome which the first thing I had to do was sign the Secrets Act all over [emphasis] again, because you’d always, everybody signed it but this was what they called a double one, extremely secret, you know? Now, with that all I could see around this place was a multitude of different types of aircraft [laughs]. So we wondered what this was all about. Normally you went to an air station there would be two different types or something like that but on this particular one there was several, you know? And, and of course [laughs, pause] what we, erm, I’ll bring it back [pause], hmm.
TO: Was this for the SOE?
WM: Yeah, this is, this is, this is really the beginning of the training for that, you know? Well the, we had been doing the training, you know, and of course, as I say, when we were, what we were doing this sort of thing, you see, the secrecy that was coming up, we really wondered what we were, what we were doing [emphasis], you know? Anyway, we were told then that we had joined 138 Squadron, you know? Now, just like everything else, nobody ever knew what 138 Squadron was doing or any other squadron, but we soon began to find out what it was. And it always seemed strange at the beginning that no one would tell us much and we began to wonder what we were doing there, and we were, we were confined to the station. We were confined to the station for at least two weeks [laughs]. Anyway, that’s what we, what we were doing then was we were, we were learning to fly once again low level at night time. We had to do all sorts of things and [pause] we just – oh we were introduced, we were introduced to people who were pilots and, and aircrew and to us, you know, they were a bit rag tag and bob tailed by the looks of them, they were, they weren’t exactly all spick and span like we expected us to be, you know [laughs]. Anyway, excuse me a minute.
TO: It’s okay [tape paused and restarted].
WM: We were introduced to groups of people and we were told that ‘you’ll fly with this one and fly with that one, but you might fly in two different ones on the same night.’ ‘Oh, that’s alright.’ ‘So what we’re going to do is, we’re going to introduce everybody, but just remember that when you do get introduced is that, remember what you’re signed [?].’ ‘Cause there was a secret come out, we were at Tempsford. That was the home of the flights for the SOE, and of course there again that was the reason why all these different odd aircraft was lined [?] up, was that they were used for different purposes. Later on what we used to say, we used to say that Bomber Harris used to send over there all the old junk that he didn’t want on Bomber Command [laughs]. Anyway, what happened then was as I say, you got to know the different colours ‘cause by that time, as I, as I, as I say, I was, I was classified and reclassified into what I was doing and this was observer, and that was what I graduated as, and of course I still kept up my flying skills. That’s another story, I’ll come back to that. But anyway, there we were and we, we had one or two short flights with different pilots [phone rings] and we got to know – [tape beeps].
TO: No problem.
WM: No, when we, when we flew with these different chaps, they got to know us, we got to know them and each had their own specialities, and what used to happen then was once, once the powers that be realised that you could do [emphasis] what you’re supposed to be able to do on paper, then they would trust you with an operation. The reason being was that we were using the fields or pieces of, strips of roads or even, even old glider fields, we had to land, and it wasn’t always the best of territory ‘cause we did this with Lysanders which was the single engine one, you know? I got lots of pictures of Lysanders over there somewhere, mm, and the idea being there’s, is that when – you were given a map reference, and you had to study that map reference very carefully. And we never [emphasis] tried to find out how our passengers were, and they didn’t try and find out who we were. There was no communication. The reason being is if we got shot down, or either of us got taken prisoners you couldn’t, you couldn’t tell them about the other ones, alright? ‘Cause the ACA [?] people were considered to be a different category from what, even what we were, and we were a different category from them entirely, and we were a different category from normal aircrew, and even – that was known in Germany, that was known. Don’t tell me how they got to know but that’s another story. Anyway, we did, we did several of these operations. We were taking people out and sometimes it was a matter of taking two people or three people about. Squash, it was a bit of a squeeze in the, in the Lysander but we weren’t [?] gonna enjoy the ride, and all I could say was all the trips that I made was very successful, and I flew with certainly [?] different pilots from time to time on that. Then of course likewise they had different observers, you know? But we had great faith in each other, and the navigation aids that we had was elementary map reading, night flying et cetera. We didn’t have the joy of T and all the other things that came up later on. We were actually doing it like the old time pilot, many, many years before.
TO: I don’t know how much detail you can tell me about this, but when you brought these agents over from Britain to Europe, did you have a certain, were you, did you have an arranged landing field?
WM: Oh yes, when we, you know, same thing [?] we left, we left Tempsford. Well, I knew where we were going [emphasis], I had to know where we were going, and the pilot knew where he was going but I took him there, you know? I took him there, passengers there. Well these passengers were known to be coming. There would be a reception committee ready for them to whisk them away as soon as they were on the ground, oh yes. There was a good communications, yes.
TO: And did you ever see any German aircraft when you were flying on these missions?
WM: Oh yes, yes. There’s – oh we, well, put it this way. In those days we were flying low [emphasis], very low, and we weren’t too bothered about it. Now and again you run into a bit of trouble, but the night fighters was mostly come to different bits, I’ll tell you more about that, alright? But the, even, even by all the secrets that we had, there was a terrible tragedy that happened through the London office where somebody infiltrated into the London office SOE, and they, they gave away people on the ground, and they were just massacred. But you know, that was one of those terrible things about that, and that was country man to country man, and I’m sorry to say that was in Holland, mm. But we, we, we never knew exactly how our people got on, alright, or if we were picking somebody up and taking them back to the UK, as soon as we landed back at Tempsford they were taken away and we never saw them again, but they were taken away to their different places like that. Quite strange to say there was a big house just quite near here where, where they used to go back you, you know? Did –
TO: Did you, sorry.
WM: No.
TO: Did you – it’s an odd question, but did you get a sense of pride knowing you were helping secret agents?
WM: Oh yes [emphasis], yes. Well as a matter of fact, we, we felt we were doing a good job that way, because the thing was nobody, nobody heard about it, but we knew what was going on, sometimes by results. We got, you know, we got to know back, back on the station how well the people that we had delivered had reacted to what was going on, ‘cause there was just a matter of them infiltrating back into populations and we never heard anything, but if it was a special operation they were going to do, someone would say well, ‘well done chaps,’ or something like that, you know?
TO: So what, what, do you know what year it was that you started helping SOE with this?
WM: 1942.
TO: And was it just western Europe you went to?
WM: Well, well put it this way, what happened after, after a while, we started getting different aircraft, ‘cause in our station we used all the old stuff, Whitleys and things like that and various other ones like that, vintage. Then of course we got, we got one or two of the American ones come in, you know? And there was one time that we were delivering stuff to the Maquis. Now the Maquis was different from SOE, Maquis’s French. So what we were doing, we were delivering guns and ammunition, there was a full load in a Hudson. Now the Hudson was an American aircraft that was designed to land in the prairies, naturally [?] on good tarmac runways, but anywhere a farmer would put up a windsock, that’s where they were designed to for, and one particular time we, we had this load of stuff, full load, and we had to land on this area and it turned out to be, it was an old glider drone where people used to learn to fly gliders [emphasis] in France, you know? ‘Cause where we were [?] about a hundred and eighty kilometres north east of Colonia [?], you know? As near as I can tell you about that one, ‘cause a lot of stuff’s still secret. Now that is fact.
TO: Mm.
WM: Anyway, what happened was that we, we landed safely, we turned around and as we turned around to face to go out again, we began to sink. Anyway, I said to Nobby who was the skipper, I said ‘Nobby I don’t like this.’ He said ‘aye, you’ll be alright Bill, we’ll get rid of all this rubbish, we’ll be alright.’ So anyway, the Maquis came out the bush, as I call it, took all this stuff away. They disappeared and then the, the lady who’s in charge of that section, she came and she says, ‘what’s troubling you?’ I says ‘I don’t think we’re going to get out of here.’ So we got the sticky bombs ready for, to stick it to the aircraft and blow it up, and she said ‘ah, I’ll see if I can get the villagers up, push you out,’ you know, just like that. Anyway, she went back to the village. Now, normally we were aware on the ground about fifteen, twenty minutes at the most ‘cause anything after than that was dangerous, yeah, you know? She went down and she got the villagers up and it was quite a way away, but anyway, I asked [?] too many questions about that. Up she comes with the villagers, but on their way back they met the general sergeant who was in charge of the village, and he turns round and says to them, ‘now, all you people, you’ll be in trouble. You’re out here, it’s after curfew, you’re supposed to be in the village.’ And of course the idea was that she turned round and said to them, ‘but your big black aircraft is stuck in the mud and we’ve got to push it out, and the Gestapo says if we don’t push it out they’re going to shoot us all and you.’ So he says, ‘I’ll go and look after the village, you go and push the aircraft out.’ So in the end they got us out. We didn’t need to blow it up.
TO: So just to clarify, were you stuck in the mud [emphasis]?
WM: Aye, just going down, like that.
TO: And how big was this aircraft?
WM: Hudson.
TO: And how –
WM: Twin engine aircraft, hmm.
TO: Were you ever scared during these missions?
WM: Of course, yeah. But they, you don’t go like that you, you, gung ho, you know what I mean by gung ho? We weren’t gung ho. We prided ourselves on being professional.
TO: And is there, are there any other occasions from your time with SOE that you are allowed to tell me about which you recall, a lot?
WM: Oh yes, lots of things that we – as a matter of fact, during, we didn’t bring them all [emphasis] back, but during the time that we were there [emphasis] we brought back four chaps, four men, Frenchmen, who actually in later years turned out to become prime ministers, prime ministers of France, hmm.
TO: And sorry, did – when you, what happened when you left SOE and started back on standard bombing missions?
WM: Well anyway, what, what happened was we were always alternately from time to rime on different missions. It wasn’t as if we, we just jumped from one back into that one, but we were always, was always in the, always doing the missions. Sometimes it was only a few aircraft going out for a special mission, or sometimes, sometimes we joined up with the, a bomber stream. It all depends on how, how we were required, and we, a lot of our chaps became leading lights on the Pathfinders, because of our highly successful rates in navigating to targets.
TO: And do you remember your first bombing mission?
WM: Yeah, first, my first bombing mission was to Kiel, Kiel Canal, mm. And that, that, that was also for – the idea there was to try to block the canal from time to time. We, in the early days there wasn’t anything that we had big enough that could do [emphasis] it, but the idea used to be that if you could bomb something, you know, bomb ships or something like that, that would make traps in the canal, you know, then of course that, that would be a help on keeping stuff from going through it, you know, hmm. But, no we covered a high variety of trips, you know, oh yes.
TO: And what aircraft were you in for these bombing missions?
WM: Well first of all I was in, I was in Wellingtons, you know? We did a lot of Wellingtons and then of course we were onto Lancasters. We converted [?] onto Lancasters, mm.
TO: And could you please describe the conditions inside a Wellington?
WM: Well in the Wellington there was, it was rather cramped but we still considered it a good aircraft. And by that time we had six in the crew, and we, we had crewed up and we were flying together, but you know, it was just, it was just, there was no comfort, there was no comfort. Each person had their own little cubby hole or section [coughs] but that was all. But once you got up over ten thousand feet, then of course, then it gets a bit uncomfortable, you know? You’re always [?] trying to keep warm was the thing, you know? Then of course you’d all sorts of wires for – you had your air com [?], you had your oxygen masks, you had all these sorts of things, you know? And as I, as I say, it was, it was a lot, a lot colder than it was later on in the Lancasters and even the Halifaxes and Stirlings, mm.
TO: And as an observer, what were you duties for the mission?
WM: My duties – we were highly skilled navigators then. We were, we were a step above the, we were a step above the normal navigators, mm, yeah, because we did, we did everything. We did the whole job. It was the same thing as – at one time, what happened was that the, every aircraft had two pilots. Anyway, there came a time when they took one pilot away and then it was the observer that was the backup pilot, you know? Anyway, after that, after that when the big four engine jobs come out, the, they brought in the role of flight engineer, and the flight engineer was supposed to be able to fly, but the way I’d seen it right from very beginning was that I reckoned that I knew enough about flying, and I told people ‘as long as I can take her home and land it, that’s good enough for me’ [laughs].
TO: Slight side story, a few weeks ago I interviewed a man who was a flight engineer for Lancasters, and he said he was taught how to fly the plane but not how to land it.
WM: Yeah well [laughs], well that’s the – my, my big thing was I was taught how to land them, yeah. And I had a good, had a good background in flying and piloting in the lighter aircraft, but then of course between the Wellingtons and the Lancasters and the, we had a – well we did it quite often. We did it as part of an air, sometimes, sometimes you went up for, to test your engines. You did that, you did that pretty often, or to see the rest of the aircraft, and I always took the opportunity to be able to land the aircraft.
TO: And can you tell me a bit about Halifaxes?
WM: Not a great deal. I didn’t do a lot of trips on Halifaxes but you know, she was also a good aircraft, but I know there’s, there’s friends of mine who, if you have an argument they say ‘ooh, it’s far better than a Lancaster’ and blah, blah, blah, but that’s only, the Halifax was a good aircraft. It couldn’t fly as high [emphasis] as a Lancaster and it wasn’t as fast as Lancaster but that was just about it, mm.
TO: And what’s your take on Halifax versus Lancaster?
WM: Oh [laughs] to me it was the Lancaster [laughs].
TO: And was the interior of a Lancaster different from that of a Halifax?
WM: No, much the same, mm, much the same. It’s just the skin.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Just the skin, you know? You know, you know, everything was for bomb loads.
TO: Mhm. And you mentioned something about Stirlings earlier.
WM: Yeah.
TO: What’s your take on them?
WM: The Stirling was, she was the first of the heavies, and she was, she was quite slow [emphasis] and didn’t have a high ceiling rate, you know, but she did a good job in her day [?], oh yes. There was many, many a crew that did great work in Stirlings, oh.
TO: There’s a D-Day veteran I spoke to a couple of years ago, his glider for D-Day was towed by a Stirling.
WM: Oh yes [emphasis]. Well there was a lot of that. Halifaxes and Stirlings did a lot of glider towing, yeah, oh yes.
TO: And what bombing mission of the war do you remember the most?
WM: Er [pause]. Just, just before, just before the war finished we [tape beeps] there were two big ones, and that particular night our wing commander, Wing Commander Murray, who I’d known from Tempsford days, you know? He, he came along and he said he wanted to fly with us that night and be the captain, and he said, and I said ‘no, you can bugger off.’ It’s not we wanted [?] coming into aircrew, you know, taking over. ‘Cause I could say that to him because we’d flown together a lot. Anyway, he says ‘what happens if I don’t sit in the pilot’s seat.’ I said ‘alright then you can come along, that’s my seat’ [laughs]. I mean it was my seat when I was needed, yeah. I said ‘no you can come along and be second pilot,’ you know? But it was, it was, it was quite a thing. It was a place called Magdeburg, it was of the big ones that we were on, but several other big ones as well of course. I could, just hold that a minute? [Pause, tape beeps]. Now there was several big ones but the last, the last big one was Potsdam. That was a real big one, yeah. As a matter, matter of fact, that one was in the, in the fourteenth, fourteenth, 14th of April, so that was one of the last big ones, you know? And that was a night one, and there was another was on the 13th [emphasis] of April was another time we went to Kiel, and what had happened was the night before we went to Kiel, and we put this battleship and we sunk it, we turned it over, mm. And it came back but they wanted us to go back again, but one of the retorts was that night, one of the crews was, ‘I hear you don’t want us to put it back up again’ [laughs]. But that was a, and that actually blocked a canal, that actually blocked a canal, you know, ‘cause then of course one of the, one of the last of the big ones we did was to Bremen on the 20th and 22nd of April, you know, yeah. And course there was places like Merseburg and various other ones like that, you know? But this is something I keep to myself.
TO: Okay.
WM: You know? Because I got, you know, I’ve got – the way I look at it is, it’s not, not a thing we brag about, you know? It’s, it was wartime and that was it. And today I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got many friends across Europe and across Africa and they come from all sorts of walks of life and all sorts of countries.
TO: Sorry, can I ask what happened to the wing commander who wanted to be on the flight?
WM: Oh yes, oh well he came in the flight with us there and that was it, Wing Commander Murray. We were flying F for Freddie, yeah, and of course, well anyway, he was in charge of the squadron, you know?
TO: Mhm.
WM: And he stayed on the Air Force for a while, you know, and I lost touch with him, you know?
TO: Mhm.
WM: Because we’d been, we’d been quite good friends there, mm. But after the war, after the war was, you didn’t really go out of your way [emphasis] to keep in touch, although with my own crew [emphasis] in the Lancaster we have done. As a matter of fact even, even now [emphasis] one of my chaps in aircrew, a fellow called Jimmy Dagg, a New Zealander, his great grandson plays rugby for the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. His name is Israel Dagg, mm.
TO: And are, just in raids in Germany in general, how much anti-aircraft fire was there?
WM: Oh plenty. As a, as a matter of fact, what a lot of people don’t realise was that the amount, the amount of German troops, and specialised German troops that had to be contained within Germany because of what the, the Bomber Command was doing. Now as a matter of fact, that was, it was, it was a surprising, there must have thousands upon thousands had to be retrained in Germany who could have been going somewhere else, and they were all very highly trained people, mm.
TO: And did you ever encounter night fighters?
WM: Oh yes a couple of times, but we were quite lucky. We, we managed to corkscrew away, but the night fighters, what you had to watch even more carefully than over, over a target area or on the way back was just before you landed, because there used to be quite a few of them that used to prowl round about aerodromes and airfields in this country, and waiting for people to come in ‘cause that’s when you’re, you’re, you’re most vulnerable, when everything was shut down. And there was quite a number of people that got shot down just before they landed.
TO: And could you please tell me how this corkscrew evasive manoeuvre worked?
WM: Well that’s, that’s just what it was, a corkscrew. You might have been flying more or less level or up and down a bit, and then the corkscrew was like that. That was a corkscrew, yeah. They got away, yeah, mm.
TO: Did anyone in the crew ever get sick when that happened?
WM: Oh yeah [emphasis], my mid upper gunner used to get sick as soon as he put his foot inside the aircraft [laughs]. Once we were still fly, still take off he was alright.
TO: Mm. And did you ever, during the, did you ever find out how much, whether you’d hit the targets during the raids?
WM: I know we did [emphasis]. As I say, one of my specialities was, was bombing.
TO: But could you see photographs of it later?
WM: Oh yes, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, mm, yeah.
TO: And were you ever on raids to Berlin?
WM: Yeah, mm. Oh yes, as I say, that was, that was, that was one that would come up quite often, mm [pause]. Hell [?], mm.
TO: Sorry, you still okay for me to ask questions?
WM: What?
TO: Are you okay for me to ask questions?
WM: Yes, yes.
TO: ‘Cause just let me know if you want to stop.
WM: No, no.
TO: Okay. And what did you think of the German aircraft of the war?
WM: Oh very good, excellent, yeah, excellent yeah. As a matter, as a matter, as a matter of fact, at the end of the war there was one, one German one, you know? And I thought, I thought at first it was a shooting star, you know? And it wasn’t, it was a jet, and it flew past me just as if it was a shooting star and when I went back to report on this, and they said ‘ah, it probably was a shooting star you saw.’ I said ‘no, no, no, no, this is an aeroplane.’ That was one of the areas [?] ones that we’d seen [?] and spotted, yeah, ‘cause, you know, you got debriefed after every, every trip.
TO: Was there any ever occasions where you had to turn back from the target because of bad weather?
WM: No, I was, we were alright. No, we didn’t, we never, we never turned back. Ground crew were every bit as good as our aircrew.
TO: Mm.
WM: They kept our aircraft in excellent [emphasis] condition. We never had any [emphasis] complaints about our ground crew, mm.
TO: And you explain to me how the briefings worked for the missions?
WM: Right, well what, what happened was that when, when you landed, when you landed you’re taken from the aircraft back into wing on, it was trucks, we used to call them crew trucks. So in other words you didn’t split up, you’re taken in, in a crew truck, and there you’re integrated and say how the trip went. And of course you had your version of what went on and then of course your cameras that you had in your aircraft also their versions, and we always seemed to marry, marry up on tours exactly the same, no. But we had a, we had an excellent [emphasis] crew. We had two New Zealanders, two Scotsmen, two Englishmen and one Londoner [laughs].
TO: And what about the briefings that you had before [emphasis] you went on a mission?
WM: Well the briefing was, what happened, they assembled. Now first of all they had an all-in briefing where the, every member of the aircrew was there, and then after that was, that briefing was done and that was more or less told you where you were going and et cetera, et cetera, and you split off into different sections. The gunners was going to see about their guns and talk to their gunnery officers and the flight engineers, they went to see the air officers. The air observers and navigators would go in together and the pilots and the, and the observers were together, you know? That’s, that’s how it went ‘cause you know, we, we had to make sure we were exactly correct at all times between the pilots and observer, the pilot and the navigator, mm.
TO: And when you, were you sitting in the cockpit during the mission?
WM: Yeah.
TO: Could you, could you actually see anything below you during the mission?
WM: From time to time you could, yes, mm. From time to time you could, yes, mm.
TO: And what sort of things could you see?
WM: Well it all depends. The more water about the place the better it was, better reflections and things like that.
TO: And could you see what the Pathfinders had left?
WM: Oh yes, it all depends – well that was to be able to recognise, make sure that you had taken the right targets.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Because the Germans were, were quite sophisticated because they could try to imitate your Pathfinder’s TIs, what they put down, no.
TO: And were you involved in raids to other cities like Hamburg?
WM: Oh yes, mm.
TO: And what do you remember from those missions?
WM: Well a lot of them, well the big, the big one in Hamburg was a big fire raiser. But that happened to be that the wind conditions, everything was just right or wrong [emphasis] as regards which way you’re looking at it. As far as we concerned that was right, as far as the Germans were concerned, it was a big disaster because at that time a lot of the buildings in Hamburg were wooden, mm.
TO: And were you surprised when you heard how successful the raid had been?
WM: Not surprised, ‘cause that’s what we went for. Most successful it was, well, the better the raid was, mm.
TO: And was, were you involved in the raid on Dresden?
WM: No I wasn’t, but we were on standby, but I wasn’t involved in that one, no.
TO: Mhm.
WM: The, some, some people on the 90 Squadron were, ‘cause at Tuddenham 90 Squadron and 138 Squadron ran alongside each other, you know?
TO: Mhm.
WM: No.
TO: And when did you, when did you react, or how did you feel when Churchill announced that they would start bombing Germany?
WM: Start [emphasis] bombing?
TO: Yeah.
WM: Oh that was right at the beginning.
TO: Yes but how did you feel?
WM: That was [sigh], well put it this way, we had already had casualties our side, so it was just war, no. It was war, yeah.
TO: Mhm. And was your aircraft ever damaged by anti-aircraft flak?
WM: Oh we had, we had, but we had nothing really serious, mm. No, we had holes all over the place from time to time. Some very close to the occupants was [laughs] but –
TO: Mhm.
WM: No, we always managed to get back.
TO: And were you ever given, did you get new bombs as the war went on?
WM: Oh yes, yes. We, we dropped just about everything that was going, yes. Oh yes, no.
TO: Did you ever, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Did you ever get any of the massive bombs that Barnes Wallis had developed?
WM: Well, there were different ones yes, yeah we did. We went on a couple of trips to Bordeaux and things like that, yes –
TO: Might be –
WM: But, I know for a fact that even Barnes Wallis’ bombs, and the big ones, big ones that were dropping there, the German’s fortification of the submarine pens was, was terrific. Now they even today you can have a walk through them and see what it’s like, oh yes. But there [emphasis] is what I say, is that the – sorry I, there’s what happens is what – the amount of German personnel that had to be employed because [emphasis] of the Bomber Command raids was tremendous, tremendous [emphasis]. It wasn’t just one or two round the village or something like that. The number of people they kept back within Germany itself was properly, oh it must have been millions.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
WM: Well it all depends what you mean battle. Do you mean aircrew or land or –
TO: Any, anything.
WM: Or the ships.
TO: Well most important campaign then.
WM: Well, they’re all different, all different. You know it all depends, you know, if you say that – well the thing that lead up to the retention and taking back over Europe, and that was D-Day.
TO: Mm. And were you involved in that?
WM: Oh yes, yes.
TO: Can you tell me about any of the missions you went on?
WM: What, what we were doing, we were, we were, we were on the mock, one of the mock raids further up the coast. And a lot of the stuff that we were dropping that night was, was like aluminium foil, and that was showing them, well came up on the radar where there was massive amount of aircraft flying around, you know? And [laughs] of course at the same time we carried a lot of bombs, but we tried as much as possible to use them away, away from where we’d be flying over, as if it was again going further afield in. But at that time what we were trying to do was trying to keep away from human habitation because that was, that was just something that we were asked to do, because keep it away from the towns and cities and northern France, mm.
TO: Mm. And on, in bombing missions in general, what kind of targets were you actually given at the briefings?
WM: Well it all depends, you know, because no two briefings were the same, no. Yeah, you had factory towns, all sorts of things that you’re going after. You know even, I wasn’t, as I say, I wasn’t in on Dresden but there is a book called “Dresden,” and if you want to know anything about Dresden, get hold of that book. Now, it’s about that thick, and it goes back into the old days of Saxony, and it goes all the way through from the different things all the way, right through, right up until modern times. But that explains exactly what happened in that city. It’s very [emphasis], very complicated. It’s, but it tells the whole story of Dresden, not just one side of the, it’s the whole story, mm.
TO: And, I’m sorry to ask this but did you suffer heavy losses on your missions?
WM: Oh, well, from time to time we had losses, but we never, we never had what we considered a heavy loss, mm.
TO: And what did you think of Arthur Harris?
WM: Oh, we supported him. He was, he was our, our chief. We looked up to [could be after] him, yeah, we did.
TO: And what do you think of his tactics and strategy?
WM: Well I thought they were alright, because if you go back, go back in time that was his instructions that he was getting from the Air Ministry. That, that what a lot of people forget about, was that he [emphasis] was getting told by the Air Ministry what they wanted [emphasis], and that came from the cabinet meetings.
TO: Mhm. And do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly after the war?
WM: No [emphasis]. They were not treated fairly. It was completely unfairly. As far as I’m concerned, even, even it took, it took for recognition, it took over seventy years [emphasis]. Now, on my, my medal bar, I’ve got the ‘39-‘45 Star, but also I wear [tape beeps] a little brass mounting [?] which says ‘Bomber Command,’ you know? That took seventy years for them to give it to us. Have you seen it?
TO: I think I saw it briefly when I met you last Sunday.
WM: It was in the middle.
TO: Yeah [paper shuffles]. And could you ever see fires below you on the ground?
WM: Oh yes, oh yes, definitely.
TO: Mhm, were they large or small?
WM: All depends, all depends what area and what you were doing. Some time you knew, you knew, you know, you had raging fires. Sometimes, sometime, see it all depends what the target was.
TO: And do you remember seeing fires when Hamburg was bombed in 1943?
WM: Well that’s what I said to you, I said to you already that that was a big one, you know.
TO: Mhm.
WM: But that was – then again, you’ve got to read the story about Hamburg, because what happened was that all the conditions for a bombing raid was right. The wind and the target and the structures of the building and everything, it all came into it.
TO: Mhm. And what did you think of the thousand bomber raid on Cologne?
WM: Well that, that was one of the best adverts that Harris could have. I won’t tell you what the thousand bombers were because nobody knows, but what he did was he got all the aircraft that could fly and return from there and used that. You know, right down to, there were some of the Blenheims [emphasis] that were in there to make up a thousand bombers, you know? That was a big propaganda one. And not only that, you say something about Harris and doing that, but there again, all of these things came from the War Cabinet. You know, this is what people forget or don’t know, there’s War Cabinet and then you come down to the Air Ministry, and the Air Ministry would then passed it onto Harris. And Harris was, alright at times Harris was dogmatic about what we were doing, but you think of Dresden. The Russians were fighting like hell coming our way, and at the same time the amount of German troops and everything else that was passing through, through Dresden, and what was happening in Dresden, what they were actually manufacturing [emphasis] for the, for the German, erm –
TO: War effort?
WM: Well, the German war effort [emphasis] was terrific. There was everything from stuff for the U-boats and aircraft and everything like that, it was all over the place. And this is admitted in this book, this book is, is called “Dresden” and it tells you street by street what they were doing, mm.
TO: And do you remember hearing about the attack on the Ruhr damns?
WM: Oh yes. Oh we were also, we were also on standby for that mission. We were sat, you know – the idea was that if it didn’t work that night, we were going to go the next night. There was, there was another three squadrons ready to go the next night –
TO: And –
WM: But it actually came through.
TO: And did that improve morale a lot?
WM: Oh yes, definitely.
TO: This is going to be –
WM: Scampton, were the, were the, were the Dambusters squadron was, we were also stationed at Scampton for a while, mm.
TO: This is probably going to be an odd question, but what was your least favourite aircraft to fly in?
WM: A Bolingbroke.
TO: Mm.
WM: A Bolingbroke was the American Canadian version of a Blenheim. She was underpowered and if you lost one engine, you had trouble trying to make it back to your base. But in Canada, a lot of chaps were lost over the lakes in the wintertime when they lost one engine, they went down through the ice.
TO: Mm.
WM: But that was, that was my one, a Bolingbroke. But as I say, I flew them and we were alright.
TO: And what was your favourite aircraft?
WM: Well I started off, I had a love for the Wellington but of course, later on it was the, it was the Lancaster. But old Lizzy, she never let us down and Lizzy was the Lysander. But the other thing, there’s one that’s hardly ever mentioned and that was the Anson, and of course the, the amount trainees that was through on the Lysanders was amazing. Everybody praises the Lysander, the Anson, mm.
TO: Mm. We’re actually out of battery on the camera, so is it okay if we have a break while I charge it up?
WM: Yeah, yeah, sure [tape paused and restarted].
TO: Okay so, can you tell me a bit about how you came to be involved in Operation Manna?
WM: We, we were stationed at RAF Tuddenham and we, we’d actually been on ops and we were called forward to stay and we thought ‘oh, well it’s another op,’ and this was on a Sunday.
TO: Mhm.
WM: And we were told that we were going to have stuff loaded on and we were to drop it, but it wasn’t bombs. It was in our containers, the containers that we’d used for dropping the stuff into the, into the Maquis as well, when we used to drop stuff. And that, that was alright. And when we got in the air, of course we didn’t know the whole [emphasis] story but it’s like a very good friend of mine says, her grandmother told her to hide under the table because she thought this was a message [?] they were gonna come and do some bombing [emphasis] round about there. Instead of that of course we were dropping the food. Well that was, that was the plus the operation started, but I suppose you know the story about that, about the two Canadians who went – can I tell you that one? Well what happened was Operation Manna came about because there was two young Canadian officers who had permission to go over to the German lines and speak to the German commander if it was possible and advise them that they could arrange for, to have food dropped into Holland because all the people there were starving, and that included the German troops that was there. Anyway, after negotiations, they had managed to get to them and they managed through the negotiations, the fact that we would be flying in Lancasters [emphasis] and dropping the food and we would not be dropping bombs. And of course the Germans advised that their anti-aircraft guns wouldn’t be firing at us, but they forgot to tell a lot of people with a rifle that what was happening, so it wasn’t impossible for us to get a few pot shots aimed at us with people on the ground with rifle fire. But anyway, we landed, we didn’t land [emphasis] of course, we just went in and we dropped it and certain food dropped and that was it, but later on, on the second or third day, by that time they’d got a bit organised and we were dropping food into, into football grounds. And what had happened, they got the local people to put big white crosses on the football grounds and that’s where we had to drop into. And one of the, one of the trips we were doing was at, we were flying in, and this, all the Lancasters said ‘ooh, a sprog crew.’ And this came, become across us and we had to veer quickly and let him come in, and when we were dropping our stuff, one of them went outside and landed on the railway line. Anyway, I could see lots of people round about it ‘cause it was taking quite a while to get into it of course, but by this time they’d realised it was, it was food in it and not bombs. Anyway, many years later in Africa when we were reopening a new rugby field, and in the pavilion later on I was telling the story, and I said ‘yes, it was, we were dropping the food to Holland’ and there was one of these things, a fellow, and I said ‘it was just like a lot of little ants round a sugar lump.’ And all of a sudden, somebody put his hand on my shoulder and I looked round, there’s this big fellow, a youngster, must have been in his early twenties, and he said to me, ‘you nearly killed me.’ And I said, ‘what do you mean I nearly killed you, I’ve never seen you in my life before.’ He says, ‘I was the first of these little black ants to get there’ he says, ‘because I saw it falling outside and I rushed to it, and all the other people came and dived on top of me’ [laughs]. So you see, it’s a small world there. But also I’ve got, I’ve got a large number of friends in this area, Dutch people, who actually received the food and they also still have services where, where they bless Manna, and there’s one particular family who come here into our court here, our Debbie’s [?] court and one, one Wednesday a month, and she was five years old when we dropped our first lot of food, and she’s always been thankful, thankful all the time, and she does tell people that ‘oh, Mr Moore, Uncle Bill here, he saved my country from starvation’ [laughs]. So you see that that was a real pleasure to do that, and I was actually awarded the Dutch Medal on that one, and very earnestly I consider that one of the finest medals and for the finest properties [?] that I received during the war.
TO: So would you say that’s the mission you’re most proud of?
WM: Yes.
TO: And when you first learned about Operation Manna, were you surprised that you’d be dropping food and not bombs?
WM: Oh yes, no, no.
TO: And could you, what do you remember most about Operation Manna?
WM: Well, the amount of aircraft. Well after, after the first Sunday, after the first Sunday it was well organised, ‘cause the first Sunday and Monday it was a trial run to see what happened really, but after that we, we had several squadrons that was dropping the food, and of course even, even some of the Americans were dropping food as well. But there were dropping food further afield than what we were, you know.
TO: And –
WM: At the beginning the war was still, the fighting was go on. It wasn’t, you know, it carried on afterwards but the first, the first few days of it that was still when the war was going on, you know.
TO: And what about, could you see if any Dutch civilians on the ground were waving British flags?
WM: Oh yes, well you could see them waving [emphasis]. You’re not always sure what they were waving but they were waving and clothes and waving anything at all when I realised on the second wave what we were doing, ‘cause it wasn’t, wasn’t bombs we were dropping.
TO: Mm. Well Bernie, the veteran, other Manna veteran whose number I gave you, he told me that flying so low he could see a Dutch boy waving a Union Jack.
WM: Yeah well, he must, he must have been very lucky to have – ‘cause it maybe that someone dropped the Union flag –
TO: Mhm.
WM: And then he got it, but not a Union Jack [emphasis].
TO: Mhm.
WM: It’s a Union flag. Do you know the difference?
TO: No, please explain.
WM: Well the Union Jack [emphasis] is flown in the brow of a ship –
TO: Mhm.
WM: The Union Jack is the one that’s – Union flag [emphasis] is the one that’s flown everywhere else.
TO: Oh right, I didn’t know that. Thank you.
WM: Mm, the Union Jack is the small staff in the front of a ship.
TO: Mhm [pause]. What kind of, when you were sat in the cockpit, what kind of equipment did you have in front of you?
WM: I know, I know that this is [?] navigational equipment that we could use. We had, we had G, we had Oboe, we had all sorts of different ones, yeah, mm.
TO: And how did G work?
WM: Well G was, G was in two, two, two beams, and where these two beams crossed, that’s where you were. It’s as simple as that.
TO: And did that improve navigation?
WM: Oh yes, yeah, mm. Well the H2S was a different story entirely. The H2S was you were beaming down and the more [?] water that was around the clearer the river [?] became, but your only trouble about that was the German fighters used to vector onto the, what we were, we were projecting. Sometimes that could become a hazard.
TO: And how many occasions do you think you deployed Window?
WM: Oh quite a number, even, even when we were doing training operations we were dropping Window, which we never counted, it didn’t count as operations as such. But we, we were dropping Window many a time, yeah, during training flights, mm.
TO: And when bombs were dropped from an aircraft, did the plane become noticeably lighter?
WM: Oh it came, you rose, you rose slightly yes, mm. All depends on how much, how much stuff you’re actually carrying or dropping.
TO: And could you please explain what the procedure would be for, in terms of what the crew would do, each crew member would do and say when you got over the target?
WM: Well each person had their own to do. The pilot, he was taking instructions from whoever was doing the, the lead onto the target. Sometimes we did that with myself, quite a number of times of course, and sometimes, sometimes it was the wireless operator, sometimes it was another, we had a radar operator as well, they used to use that over the targets ‘cause as I say, we were, we were still on special duties. Of course your gunners were always on the left and as I say, engineer, he had to be very careful then making sure everything was alright on his side, yeah. But everybody was active.
TO: Mhm. And were there ever any times on a mission when you could more or less relax?
WM: No [emphasis]. If you relaxed you, it was wrong. There’s many, many a time, many a time – what happened with us was that, and I’ve said this before, we never really relaxed until we were home. Can we give that a break for a minute? I’ll show you something.
TO: Yes, certainly [tape beeps]. Mhm. And did you or anyone else in the crew have a special name for your own aircraft?
WM: Yes, well we, we called our one after the Loch Ness Monster, that was it, yeah, mm [laughs]. It was, it was a favourite of ours you know, especially with two Scottish men was there [?] and we adopted, we adopted the rest of them, you know? Mm.
TO: [Paper turns] and when you were on missions, could you, or rather night missions, were there other British planes flying near you?
WM: All depends, all depends on what type of mission you were on.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Now, if you’re in the stream, well – at the beginning the squadron took off but you had a rendezvous point. A lot of rendezvous points were like Beachy Head, you know, and they used to assemble in that area and then they took off. And of course the thing about that was that the Germans also knew we were assembling at different places, and they could actually send out their night fighters if, if they did, you know? But there was, there were umpteen different places and they couldn’t, they couldn’t get to them all [emphasis] because often there was more than one raid on one night, on the same night. And that was deviations to keep away from maybe the real big one of that occasion, you know.
TO: And how many times a week would you go on a mission?
WM: Well sometimes it was night after night, three nights in one week [emphasis]. Sometimes according to the weather, it might be about eight days, maybe a week.
TO: Mhm.
WM: The weather had a lot to do with it you know?
TO: And were you ever escorted by fighters?
WM: We, well we, we were escorted ‘cause we did quite a few daytime raids, yes, we were. But we, we were quite, we were quite happy with that, mm. ‘Cause we used to see them, we used to see them on the verges of the, of the streams, you know, mm.
TO: And do you remember what kind of fighters they were?
WM: Well the ones that we saw was Mustangs, mm. All depends on how far in you were going. If you were going a long way in that was, that was a Mustang. Sometimes, sometimes it was a Hurricane, sometimes it was a Spitfire, mm. But they were only used as short flights, mm, whereas a Mustang was built for long range, mm.
TO: And was it cold aboard the planes?
WM: Oh it was never pleasant [laughs]. At one time everyone used to have a different [?] suit. It was like a fur jacket and things like that. But once we got onto the heavies they took all that stuff away from us, saying we didn’t need it. Well that was alright for these [emphasis] people, they weren’t flying [laughs], mm.
TO: And did you ever carry food with you aboard the plane?
WM: Ever carry?
TO: Food with you?
WM: No, all I carried, used to carry was five, five barley sugars, sweets.
TO: And what sort of entertainment did you have back at the airfields?
WM: Well all depends on what the, if it was, if it was one of the pre war stations there was generally a building that was used for dances and things like that, and concerts. If it was the war time ones then sometimes all you did was make sure there, there was an empty hangar and you had something in there. But, you know, that was how it was done, no. But that, that, that was the main thing of entertainment, you know, ‘cause the picture shows and things like that within the camp always started off as I say with propaganda [laughs], mm.
TO: When you saw those propaganda things, did you ever wonder whether they were being truthful?
WM: Well, the things we used to say ‘woah, woah, woah, woah’ [emphasis] and things like that, you know, the British sense of humour, you know, mm. And that’s a fact, mm.
TO: And were there any particularly popular songs?
WM: Oh yes there was all the, all the, I’ve got, I’ve still got all the tapes here of all the popular songs, mm, oh yes, I have all them, yeah. All of the artists at that time, yeah, and these artists I have, I have run [?] many a concert here and had the same ones come performing for me.
TO: And was there anyone that you knew of who refused to go on bombing missions?
WM: I never met anybody who refused to go on a mission, but I always remember there was two people who graduated and got their wings and then they, then they refused to go on ops. But that’s the nearest I ever came to it. But they never did any ops, they never were in, they weren’t even on a bombing station. And I’m sorry to say that we heard later on that they’d transferred to the Pioneer Corps and both of them got killed [pause].
TO: You mentioned that there was a raid where you had to attack a German warship in Kiel.
WM: That’s right.
TO: Do you remember its name?
WM: Not off hand, no.
TO: Would it be the Hipper?
WM: Oh it’s quite possible, it’s quite possible it was, yeah. I’ve got the date there, I told you the dates of it the other –
TO: Mhm.
WM: Yeah.
TO: I think I remember, I remember the sinking of the Hipper though because it was sunk on the 9th of April which coincidently is my birthday.
WM: Oh [emphasis].
TO: So –
WM: Oh [emphasis], 9th of April?
TO: I think I kind of have a selfish reason for remembering that if you see what I mean. Or maybe it was the Cher [WM laughs], I’m not sure. I do know though that –
WM: No, no, no. 9th of April [pause], 13th, 13th of April.
TO: What does it say was the target, or –
WM: That was in Kiel, mm, yeah. That was the 13 of April.
TO: Mhm.
WM: That’s what that was, that was the target.
TO: Mhm.
WM: That was the one that I told you that we, that we we bombed it that night and knocked it down and we had to go back again and make sure, one of [?] the chaps said ‘are you sure you don’t want us to put it back up again?’ [TO laughs]. ‘Cause you’d obviously got somebody –
TO: Mhm.
WM: Who [laughs] would give you an answer for something [laughs], mm.
TO: And were there ever any occasions were you could, where you ever flew over neutral territory and could see the cities all illuminated?
WM: There was one night we were, we were coming back from a trip, and the next thing I saw was these lights, and I thought ‘well what the hell is going on?’ And what had happened was that the [laughs], we were almost sent to Dublin, and what that was, was that the wind speed was ferocious and what we thought we’d found out was that we were nothing near [emphasis], we were nothing near the wind speed, what the actual wind speed was, and of course as soon as we saw that we turned round and we were on the way back.
TO: Mm.
WM: But that was the nearest I’ve been to being on neutral territory, you know.
TO: Mm.
WM: From that point of view, mm.
TO: Mm, and were there ever any occasions where you were accidently fired at by allied anti-aircraft guns?
WM: Well, what we, what we had was that we had the Junkers 52-53 aircraft, and we used to do special missions on that and we used to fly low [emphasis]. And what had happened was that that one had been liberated in the desert and we were using it on special duties, but there was no esigners [?], painted black, and going out was fine. Coming back [emphasis], it wasn’t until we got into our own territory that we used to get a few pot-shots at us, you know? Probably because [laughs] we were flying without the proper identification and things like that, that’s why we get into trouble. But we never actually, never actually had anything serious happen to us.
TO: Mhm.
WM: But that was under secret risk [?].
TO: Mhm. So was it, so you were trying to use, you were using German aircraft for the missions over France?
WM: Yeah.
TO: For the SOE.
WM: Yeah, SOE, yeah.
TO: So it wasn’t always Lysanders then?
WM: No we, we used many, you know, the Lysander was for the agents.
TO: Mhm.
WM: But as I said before we used to use other aircraft for taking other stuff in, for Maquis and things like that, you know.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Oh yes, mm.
TO: And did you ever meet any senior commanders during the war?
WM: Well every now and again you had a parade where we didn’t actually, we didn’t actually get to meet [emphasis] them as such. Not like, not like last Sunday, no.
TO: Mm. And were some missions much more dangerous than others or were they more or less the same?
WM: Well, what we used to do, we used to classify every mission as dangerous, because if you didn’t and you dropped your guard, that’s when you would have been in trouble. I don’t say they weren’t, but we never loaded [?] to be.
TO: And were there ever any times where you, where your missions were just taking photographs of areas?
WM: Oh yes, we had that [emphasis] from time to time, yes, mm.
TO: Could you tell me about any of those?
WM: Well they were, they were done by 138 Squadron and that was, you know, the idea behind that was sometimes it was targets, that they had been bombed, and sometimes they might have been targets that we flew past. We passed them as if we were going somewhere else and we might have been taking them then. But we got a lot of practice in that, because that’s another story I can give you, mm.
TO: And did you hear how other events of the war were going?
WM: Oh yes, we were kept up to date, we were kept up to date. As I say, between the news reels and bulletins, you were kept up to date, mm.
TO: Were you ever worried that Germany might win?
WM: Well, we, I would never say that, that I was frightened of them winning [?][emphasis], but we always worried every now and again where it might have been something that was going the wrong way, but not, not for an all out win no. No, no, no.
TO: And what was the most feared German night fighter?
WM: The Junkers-88, ‘cause she’d a cannon on her, and she, she actually fitted onto her guns that would fly, fire upwards and try and get under the bellies of the Lancasters. And that’s where we lost quite a number of Lancasters, firing guns from the, from the JU28, JU88s, yeah, mhm [pause].
TO: And did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany?
WM: Well, that’s a difficult one because, you know, there was people who lost friends, relations and all the rest of it. Some of them got quite bitter but on the whole people just took it as war.
TO: And how do you feel today?
WM: Ah, what I can say is that I have been involved in promoting rugby, football all over Europe and all over Africa, that’s my answer to that.
TO: And how do you feel today about your wartime service?
WM: It was something – when I had to something and that’s what I did, mm.
TO: And do you think the war was worth the price?
WM: I think yes. I think yes, because that’s another story I can tell you, that you haven’t asked me about.
TO: Yes, tell me, yeah.
WM: Well after, after the war finished, we still had special duties to do, and one of the first was to bring, bring back prisoners of war which were British, well there was all sorts involved but most of the ones we brought back were British, and a lot of the stories that they related to me including two of my uncles who were prisoners of war since 1940. Some of the stories they had to say was horrific. Anyway, when we finished that job bringing back the prisoners of war, we, we then went onto ferrying people from parts of Germany down into a place called Eastridge [?] in France and we had camps there where we took the refugees into, and a lot of these people thought that we were going to lock them up, same as they’d been before. But it was trying to tell them that it was to help them and that the, the camp was just secured so that the local people wouldn’t be coming in to try and get what they were getting, ‘cause this was to try and build them up again, you know. But then of course after that, the next big thing after that, we, we were put on photograph and the whole of Europe. We started off with photographing the likes of London from about two thousand feet, and then towns like [unclear] Woking here, from about four thousand feet and then the countryside was from, anything from ten to twenty thousand feet. We did that for the whole of Europe, mm. And that was 138, 138 Squadron again, because what we did, we’d started doing it at Tuddenham and then when they realised that we were quite successful, they transferred us over to RAF Benson and we did that over at Benson. And then of course we, we had several substations, substations in Norway, substations in France, we had substations around the country here at different places where we would load [?] to land and fuel up, and we had special signal recognition that we could, we could use and that went on for quite some, quite some time, ‘cause that photographing Europe was one of Churchill’s ideas that he left behind after he was out of office.
TO: And during those photography missions, could you see the damage from the bombing?
WM: Oh yes that was the idea, mm. Anyway you done it at two thousand feet you could see right down, no [unclear] of course, mhm, mm. That’s where we, well that’s where we started [emphasis] photographing, mm, but it was the while, the whole area was done, mm.
TO: Are there any other missions of the war that stand out a lot to you which you’d like to tell me about?
WM: Personal ones?
TO: Well any, any ones you were on from, that were missions that, but only if you’re willing to talk about, don’t if you –
WM: No.
TO: If you don’t want to talk about it it’s fine.
WM: No, as I say in general, in general we, we carried out what we had to do, and as I say, 138 Squadron of special duties, we were doing all sorts of things and there’s lots of things that, that we still should not talk about, because we are sworn to secrecy about them, because that was in conjecture [?] with SOE, ‘cause there was lots of people who maybe still, maybe not in favour of some of these operations.
TO: Mhm. What about some of the other bombing missions? Are there any others that you’d like, any others that stand out that you’d like to tell me about?
WM: You know, you know, the big, a big, a big thing was that there was missions we knew [emphasis] –about and there was other missions that people were on that we got to know about and [tape beeps] I can assure you that once the reason, these missions – people said ‘oh that could have been us,’ you know? ‘Cause even the Dambusters, ones we were a back up squadron for that. It wasn’t a method, it wasn’t just a method of a few fellows doing that, there was back up squadrons as well.
TO: And when did you hear about the Holocaust?
WM: Well that, that’s hard to say because we, we, we got, we got to know in bits and pieces. As I say, I started to learn a lot of that from our own prisoners of war that we were bringing home, and then of course we found out from other people who, who had been there in the camps. And, course the big thing about it was you didn’t realise just how widespread it was. I don’t think anybody did at that particular time. I know there was some friends of mine who visited Belson and visited the other ones in person and as I say, they were horrified how the treatment that people was getting. But that’s a different category all together you know, that was someone away from, away from a normal war. That was, that wasn’t the same.
TO: Were there ever any times when you were tasked with dropping leaflets?
WM: Oh yes we had that from time to time, mm, we had that, mm. We were never sure whether the leaflets were doing any good or not.
TO: Arthur Harris said after the war that never engaged in those leaflet dropping exercises because it only accomplished two things. One, it gave the German defenders practice in getting ready for the real thing and two, it supplied a substantial quantity of toilet paper for –
WM: That’s right.
TO: The Germans.
WM: That’s more or less correct, yes, mm.
TO: Mm [page turns]. Did you ever wish you’d been in something other than the Royal Air Force?
WM: I had been in the Guyun [?] Southern Highlanders –
TO: Mhm.
WM: But not, not an active service, no. But I never, never felt as if I should have been there, no.
TO: And did you ever wish that you hadn’t been an observer or a navigator? Did you ever wish that you’d been a different position on board the aircraft?
WM: Well we did, on aircrew we went around the different jobs in case anything happened to one of us up there. We actually flew in different positions [emphasis] from time to time [emphasis].
TO: So did you ever fly the Lancaster yourself?
WM: Oh yes, yes. Oh yes.
TO: But the pilot would always do the takeoff and landing?
WM: Well that was the idea, although we had to do, I had to be able to land the aircraft.
TO: Mhm. So would you consider yourself a flight engineer as well as an observer?
WM: No, observer, my observer, my observer – I covered all these courses –
TO: Mhm.
WM: As an observer, mm. The flight engineer came into his own with the four engine bombers, mm.
TO: And you mentioned you were on Wellingtons for a while.
WM: Mm.
TO: Were they generally reliable?
WM: Oh course [emphasis]. They were the most reliable bomber that we had.
TO: And did you hear about the, how the early bombing of the war was progressing?
WM: Well the thing is, everybody hoped that it was for the best because there’s everything else. There’s, the accuracy improved. Obviously the saturation bombing was started by the Germans. They started saturation bombing. Our people tried to go for individual targets and alright, after that there was [emphasis] saturation bombing, you know.
TO: And were your airfields ever attacked by German fighters?
WM: Not to my knowledge no.
TO: Mm. And I’m sorry to ask this, but were any of your friends killed during the war?
WM: Yes. A lot of school friends, school friends and friends from the Boys Brigade, oh yes, mm. School friends were the younger ones but the older friends were the ones I’d made through the Boys Brigade, and they were, most of them was on aircrew [emphasis], different categories.
TO: How, how was morale in Bomber Command throughout the war would you say?
WM: Good, it was good. It was excellent.
TO: And why do you think it stayed so high despite the losses?
WM: It was the camaraderie of sticking together, yeah, oh yes, mm. We were all volunteers, and we’re still volunteers [laughs].
TO: And you know after Dunkirk, was there a general fear of invasion?
WM: Not fear [emphasis] of invasion. There was, what did I say, there was – people didn’t think it was imminent but [phone rings] it could happen, you know? Hello?
Caller on the phone: Hello.
WM: Hello dear.
Caller on the phone: How are you?
WM: I’m very, very [tape beeps].
TO: And what did you think of the atomic bombs that were used against Japan?
WM: Well the big thing about that is that it could have happened to us, because as we know from hindsight, that the Germans had been working on that, and that could have been us. And of course, if the development of the V2s had come, could have come, come all the way across the Atlantic into America [emphasis]. As far as I’m concerned it’s, it’s one of these weapons that it could, it could obliterate mankind if it went on too long. And of course we noticed what happened with the aftermath of these things, but our war was nothing compared with that. I also, also think that if it hadn’t been for the, for the ones dropped in Japan that millions of troops would have been massacred, and it doesn’t say how far on everything else would have went if they hadn’t been dropped because that may have gone on for years and years and years, so it may have been at the time was a good thing.
TO: And, just going back to the crew that you were good friends with –
WM: Mm.
TO: Did, did they talk much about their lives before they joined the Air Force?
WM: Yeah, we all had that, but yeah. The pilot, pilot was a sheep farmer in New Zealand, our radar [?] man was an accountant in New Zealand, our wireless operator, his father had a joinery business across in Lanes [?] Bay, across the water from where I come from. The, the rear gunner was an, a surveyor for the [unclear] down the water here and the mid upper gunner his, his family had got a hotel in Canterbury in Kent, and that’s quite strange was that I got married on a Friday night in Scotland, and we had another party in the Fleur-de-Lis Hotel in Canterbury on the Wednesday following, because the crew was all going home to New Zealand and places like that. But no, we did, and as I say, Jimmy Dagg, his great-grandson is playing rugby as Israel Dagg for the All Blacks, [unclear] rugby, mm.
TO: And did you ever actually, I know you could see them from the sky, but after the war did you ever go through any of the cities like Berlin or?
WM: No I didn’t. All I did was flew, flew over them you know, mm.
TO: Mhm. And what’s your opinion on Britain’s involvement in recent wars like Afghanistan?
WM: Well there, there again the – that’s an entirely different thing. It all depends how far back you get. It’s always been said that, that nobody ever wins a war in Afghanistan, ‘cause even going back to even before Christ [emphasis] there’s been, been wars and people trying to take over and trying to settle Afghanistan region. But some, some of the other, some of the other wars that goes on, you just wonder why, no, because – on the other hand you don’t really get down to it, you know. The likes of Korea was quite a war, and also the McArthur at the time, he was right up to the Chinese border and he was, he wasn’t defeated or anything but the American government told him to come back, and of course that was reintruded when the, when the two states were formed, Northern and South of Korea. Now, if you talk about Sing, Malaysia. Now in Malaysia there was thousands of troops and everything in there, and where I was from in Africa, there was African regiments in there from, from Rhodesia, from Kenya, from Tanganyika. They were called the King’s African Rifles and they Rhodesians, the Rhodesian regiment, they were all involved in there, no. And then of course you got these other skirmishes up, was up in Europe and there again, they all seemed to arise from either petty politics or religions. If you, if you go into some of these other ones where there’s still fighting today, and you turn around and you say to Syria, but what is it? It’s one against one, it’s a civil war. That’s really what it is, but why can’t they get together on it? You know, there was a civil war in Spain pre-1938. Now that was a vicious war as well, but 1938, thirty-nine it came to a close and a person who took over Franco and the nation was brought together again. Before Franco died, he brought back the king and that was, that was brought back and that settled both people, both lots of the people in Spain. Now you see all these other ones that’s gone on, skirmishes and even in the South American countries, that’s all about drugs, that’s not really about people, it’s about drugs and things like that which is entirely [emphasis] different thing entirely [emphasis]. Now holy wars as I call them can never be settled, ‘cause one, one against the other they will never, never change [emphasis]. What happens with these things is they just goes on and on and on, and that, and that’s been going on for centuries, or one country wants to take over the other one and it’s through, it’s though their, their type of religions it happens, which is wrong.
TO: And one of my last questions now, what’s your best memory of your time in the war?
WM: When I met my wife [both laugh]. I came, I came back from a raid, a raid on Bordeaux and I was given three days leave. Instead of that I got it made up to ten days and I, I went home and I got a lift in fish truck. I was never sure if it was real fish or scrap fish for [laughs] for to go for manures or something like that. But anyway, I got there and the first thing my mother did was put all my clothes in the boiler and she’d have put me into the boiler if I hadn’t got into the bath. Anyway, that night I, I went along to the local dance, the big pavilion, the big high balcony and all the people up there spectating, and I was dancing with this young lady, and my friend wanted to dance with her. ‘Come on, come on, this is my one, you go and pinch your own lady,’ you know, ‘your own girl,’ you know? Anyway, what I didn’t know was that her mother and father, two sisters and sister-in-law and some kids were all up on the balcony, and every time I danced, being in the Air Force they were shouting ‘hooray,’ because their son Walter was in the Air Force in India, and my friend Vann Muir [?] was in the Navy, so I was winning according to them, and I did [laughs]. That was my happiest [emphasis] that was my happiest [emphasis] occasion in the whole war, mm.
TO: Mhm. Well that’s all of my questions –
WM: Alright.
TO: Do you have anything at all that you want to add?
WM: No, it’s just [unclear] want to say this, I’ve had another two of these interviews, there might be a little discrepancies or differences but –
TO: That’s fine.
WM: It’s all going from in here you know.
TO: That’s fine, your memory’s been great –
WM: Oh.
TO: And I’ve really enjoyed what you’ve told me.
WM: Oh, no.
TO: So thank you so much for telling me.
WM: Oh okay, thank you, welcome, thank you very much.
TO: Thank you so much for your wartime service as well.
WM: I must see you from time to time somewhere –
TO: Yeah.
WM: Along the line. You come to some of these gatherings from the Royal Air Force, I’ll be there.
TO: Mhm, thank you.
WM: Yeah.
TO: It would be great to see you.
WM: Thank you very much indeed.
TO: Thank you.
WM: Anyway –
Dublin Core
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AMooreWT160703
Title
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Interview with Bill Moore. Three
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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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Sound
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eng
Format
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02:50:38 audio recording
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Pending review
Creator
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Tom Ozel
Date
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2016-07-06
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Moore grew up in Scotland and volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He completed 36 operations as a navigator with 138 and 161 Squadrons.
Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
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Katie Gilbert
138 Squadron
161 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Bolingbroke
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
briefing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
displaced person
fear
Gee
H2S
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
military service conditions
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
perception of bombing war
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/3481/Rutherford, Les.1.jpg
2a360ecc2c6bd3a2271901a17ad37fe7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/3481/ARutherfordL150605.1.mp3
e2df55e7e391691119891be5fff5f9ee
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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Rutherford, Les
R L Rutherford
Robert Leslie Rutherford
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains four oral history interviews with bomb aimer Robert Leslie "Les" Rutherford (1918 - 2019, 146263 Royal Air Force), his prisoner of war diary, material about entertainment in the Stalag Luft 3 Belaria compound and a photograph. Les Rutherford served as a despatch rider in the army, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and volunteered to transfer to the RAF. He became a bomb aimer with 50 Squadron and completed 24 operations. He was shot down over Germany on 20th December 1943 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Les Rutherford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-12-09
2015-10-05
2015-06-05
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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Rutherford, RL
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TJ: Right well I’m here today with Mr Les Rutherford at his home in North Hykeham near Lincoln. Can I call you Les?
LR: Yes you can.
TJ: Yeah?
LR: Certainly.
TJ: Where were you born Les?
LR: I was born at Wallsend on, near Newcastle on Tyne.
TJ: Oh right yeah and -
LR: I’m a Geordie.
TJ: Oh you’re a Geordie? Not much accent. Can I ask what year you were born?
LR: 1918.
TJ: 1918. Right. So um brothers and sisters?
LR: Yes I had three brothers and three err and four sisters, yeah.
TJ: And your parents? Did they, so you were born just at the end of the First World War.
LR: Just at the end. Just before -
TJ: Were your parents -?
LR: October.
TJ: Was your father involved in the First World War?
LR: He was in the navy.
TJ: And he survived?
LR: Oh yes, yes.
TJ: Jolly good.
LR: Yes, he survived. Yes he lived to a ripe old age as well. He was ninety seven.
TJ: Good for him. And so where did you come in amongst the siblings?
LR: I was the eldest.
TJ: Oh right so your father definitely survived then.
LR: Yes. [laughs]
TJ: Did your dad used to give you tales of the navy?
LR: Oh my dad was a great tale teller. We were inclined to disbelieve him. We used to think he was shooting a line half the time.
TJ: Really?
LR: Yes we used to laugh at him.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: But some proved to be true actually.
TJ: What, how old were you when you left school?
LR: I was fourteen when I left school.
TJ: And what did you do straightaway then?
LR: I lived with my grandmother who had a general dealers business and she died just a matter of weeks, a week or so before I left school and I’d often helped her in the shop to give her a break you know, and when she died I went into the shop to work. The funeral was going on and things like this and looked after things and then in her will she left the business to my mother. My mother came and took over the shop and I carried on err running the shop from then on. From, from fourteen, I carried on running the shop doing all the buying, selling and all the lot and it was hard work but it was a, it was a good business because it was right on the entrance to the big shipyard, Swan Hunters, in Wallsend. So in the morning we got all the passing trade from the workmen for their cigarettes and things like that and then we had good passing trade and a local trade it was marvellous, it was a very thriving business and then of course when the war began I was called up into the army and my mother said, ‘well I will go in the business until such time as you come home again,’ she said, ‘and when you come home when the war’s finished I will retire and you will take over the business as your own and pay me a pension.’
TJ: What had your dad been doing during those years?
LR: Well my dad was working.
TJ: What did he do?
LR: All sorts of things. He was um, my dad was a miner and he had a very bad accident down in the mines which stopped him doing that for a while and then he was went to work on the engineering works as various different things. So he was more or less a labourer.
TJ: I see.
LR: I think, you know he was basically a miner so when he went there in to the engineering works he was just doing anything that was going.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: He worked on building for a while, and bricklaying but then he went back in to the engineering works again.
TJ: So you got your call up papers for the army.
LR: Yeah.
TJ: What did you think of that? Was it what you would have chosen?
LR: No I would have chosen the RAF but um I wasn’t given any option.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: I was in the second batch of the militia which were, before the war there was a conscription scheme where they were calling youths of eighteen up for a period of military service and they called the first batch up and while they were doing their three months or so the war broke out so they went straight into the army and then I was in the second batch and I was called up in October and straight in to the army. No choice.
TJ: What, you were about eighteen then?
LR: I was twenty one then.
TJ: Twenty one by then?
LR: I was called up a week before I was twenty one.
TJ: Right. Yes.
LR: Spoiled my mother’s celebration party [laughs]. She wasn’t too pleased. She’d made all the arrangements.
TJ: I understand you were a despatch rider. Did that, did that start soon after? Or
LR: That started straightaway.
TJ: Straightaway yeah.
LR: That’s, that’s I went into the Royal Army Service Corps with the 51st Highland Division and after the basic training we went down to Aldershot and there we were allocated vehicles and I became a despatch rider.
TJ: Were you experienced at riding a motorbike?
LR: Oh we’d had motorbikes before the war. Yes, yes I was.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: So it was a natural thing.
TJ: Yeah. And where did you do your despatch riding?
LR: I like motorbikes yes. I enjoyed it.
TJ: Yeah. Whereabouts did you do the, the job? Did you
LR: Well.
TJ: You were in the England, or
LR: In France to start with. We um we went across to France in January of 1940.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: And then we, err I motorcycled across pretty much the whole of the north of France. We were stationed up in the north of France and I was all over the place up there of course on the job and then we moved across in to, on the German border. In Alsace Lorraine.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Near Metz and we were there when the Germans invaded and they moved the division across from there to positions in northern France to try and stem the German advance and then when Dunkirk took place, when they decided to evacuate the army, our division was left behind to fight a rear guard action to try and hold up the Germans while the evacuation took place and then when the evacuation took place they said that any troops left in France then should be given up as lost.
TJ: Really?
LR: Ahum and there were still some boats trying to get in. We were eventually, the whole, pretty near the whole division was, what was left of them, was surrounded in a place called St Valery.
TJ: Ahum
LR: And St Valery is famous for when Scotland with the 51st division, the 51st division was a purely a Highland division with a few Englishmen in it, I was one of them, and they were surrounded in this place and it was obvious they were going to give up the next day. We’d got to surrender. There was no choice and another chap and I decided that that wasn’t good enough and we put out in to the channel on a door and paddled away and we’d seen ships going in further along the coast and they were going directly into the place and then out, straight out and then forming a, and going away across towards England.
TJ: So was the sea choppy?
LR: No it wasn’t too bad.
TJ: Could you swim?
LR: Well I could swim. I’d done a lot of competition swimming and that sort of thing.
TJ: So it wasn’t too frightening.
LR: So, not for me um but this door it wouldn’t hold the two of us and just as we were getting on, on the door this chap informed me he couldn’t swim.
TJ: Oh dear.
LR: Which I thought was tremendously brave of him actually. And so he got on the door and paddled with a piece of wood and I got on the back of the raft and acted more or less as a rudder and a propeller kicking my feet and going away and we eventually got way out to sea and the next morning we were picked up by a -
TJ: Was this in the dark?
LR: This was in the dark. This was about um 10 0’clock about, you know between ten and eleven at night and um the next morning we were picked up by a French trawler and they picked us up and then later transferred us to an English vessel. Now, when they picked us up they took all my, they gave me a glass of hot rum to start with and that put me out like a light. ‘Course I’d had nothing to eat for about two or three days.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And then, they had taken all my clothes off and put me in a bunk and then they woke me up to say they were transferring me, and they wrapped a blanket around me, transferred me to the lifeboat.
TJ: And the other guy as well.
LR: And the other one, I assume. Do you know I never, ever saw him again.
TJ: Really
LR: No and I’ve often wondered how he fared because he was a bit, he had a bit of a job getting up on the, I know they threw a rope over but he was sort of stiff from the, paralysed from the waist down with sat on this raft all night.
TJ: Once you got on the fishing boat did you see him?
LR: No I didn’t.
TJ: Not even on the fishing boat?
LR: Not on the fishing boat no, the um, as I say -
TJ: Ahum.
LR: They gave me, they hauled him up first and then brought me up and they give me this glass of hot rum and it just knocked me right out.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And when I came too, when I was laid in the bunk and this chap was shaking me to say they were transferring me and they transferred me to the English ship.
TJ: What sort of ship was that?
LR: It was a big, a big cross channel type ship.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: With a lot of soldiers aboard which they’d picked up from further down the coast and um I, I contacted, after a while I went off to sleep again and then after a while I found the officer who was in charge of the lifeboat and asked him where my uniform was and he said oh we didn’t bring any uniforms. So I landed at Dover wearing a blanket and a pair of socks which this chap had given me and that’s all I had on [laughs]. Yeah so that’s, and that was the end of that adventure.
TJ: So after that how much longer were you in the army? How long was it before you transferred?
LR: Transferred. We was taken from there up to Scotland up in the Highlands and um I was up there until June of 1941. The um, meantime there was some, a notice had been posted on the unit to say they wanted volunteers for air crew duties and so I volunteered and I actually changed job in June of 1941. We went down to Stratford on Avon and we were initiated in to the differences in the drill and that sort of thing, given uniforms and oh it was absolutely wonderful. We got down there and we were billeted in the Shakespeare Hotel. We had
TJ: Nice
LR: Rooms with two to a room with sheets and beds. Beds with sheets on them.
TJ: Luxury.
LR: Oh absolutely we were sleeping on the floor for a couple of years [laughs] and um and then of course we went to initial training at Scarborough, in the Grand Hotel, afterwards.
TJ: Very nice.
LR: And then from there when we finished that course we were posted to Rhodesia which is Zimbabwe now.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: On a pilot’s course. And I passed the flying moth, the tiger moth flying course which was the initial flying course and then was sent on to twin-engined planes and I was just ready to solo on those when um the chief flying officer sent for me and said they were taking me off flying and when I asked why he said, ‘Your reactions are too slow.’
TJ: Oh.
LR: So I was absolutely devastated of course as you can imagine and I was sent up to Salisbury, this was down near Bulawayo. We were sent up to Salisbury, the capital and we were then billeted in a big hotel and I was in there with about oh I should think fifteen, twenty other men and they had all been taken off flying duties. One of them went around and asked where were we on ground subjects, you know, like navigation and things, things that, ground subjects - not flying and nearly all of us were top of the course or second top of the course and they then decided that because they were short of navigators or observers as they were then, because they were short of observers they, they had decided to take two off each course and put them on an observers course. Now whether that’s true or not I don’t know. But it salved their conscience a bit, made us look a little bit better. Well at least we didn’t fail [laughs]. But, and then of course from there I went down to East London in the Cape err to do the observers course which was, you passed three courses to be an observer. You passed as a navigator, a bomb aimer and air gunner. You had to pass all three courses and we did that successfully and then moved down to Cape Town to catch a ship home.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And came home.
TJ: Did you see much of South Africa while you were there? Did you have much time to go out?
LR: Not as much as I would like to. I would like to. I mean we were up in Rhodesia, up in Salisbury only a short distance in in their terms.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: From the [Niagara] Falls and the Zimbabwe ruins and never got the chance to visit them. I did get one weeks holiday while we were in Salisbury. Two of my friends and myself asked the flight sergeant of discipline if we, if we couldn’t have a week’s leave to see something of the country and he said leave it to me and the next day he sent for us. He said, ‘you’ve got to report down to the station and go to this err, get tickets to the Marandelles and somebody will meet you there and take you for a week’s leave on a tobacco farm’ which we did and we had a lovely week on a tobacco farm.
TJ: Did you? Yeah.
LR: Saw all the process right from growing and curing and all the whole lot.
TJ: Ahum. And did you smoke yourself at that time?
LR: Not at that time no. No. And then of course we went from there down to the unit. I would have liked to have seen more of South Africa. The journey up from, we landed initially in Durban and travelled from there up to Rhodesia. Now that travel, that route is now the scenic route, you know the great scenic route in South Africa that they all go and pay thousands for. That was that route. We went through all the old Boer countries Mafeking, Boer towns like Mafeking.
TJ: Yes.
LR: And places like that which we knew from the Boer war and it took us three days actually to go up there. And it was, it was wonderful.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Wonderful country South Africa actually.
TJ: So I understand yes.
LR: And the people were very, very good to us.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: The English people that is.
TJ: The settlers.
LR: Yes.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Not, not, not the Boers.
TJ: No.
LR: The Boers, well they used to beat the lads up.
TJ: Oh dear.
LR: Gangs of them. There was a union called the [?] which was, which meant the Brotherhood of the Wagon and, particularly in Johannesburg and Pretoria, and they used to watch out for airmen on their own and they would go and beat them up. And this happened regularly.
TJ: Oh dear.
LR: It happened to us. To my friend and myself. We happened to wander in, in, we were on the transfer down from Rhodesia down to East London. We spent a week in the transit camp between Johannesburg and Pretoria and we went, we got in to Pretoria to have a look around and we happened to wander into an area which was, we heard later, was noted for being [?] territory and my friend got slashed across the top of the eyes with a bicycle chain which was quite nasty. And err
TJ: Were you all right?
LR: I got off with a few bruises fortunately but I was, I was ok.
TJ: So let’s get you on the ship out of Cape Town. Is that right?
LR: Yes.
TJ: Yeah. To? Where did the ship go to?
LR: Went to Southampton.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: We arrived in Southampton and went from there. There was a party of us of course and we came back fairly quickly because we came back on an armed merchantmen.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: But we weren’t in convoy coming back. Going we were in convoy but coming back we weren’t in convoy and we landed at Southampton. On to Bournemouth and after a few days in Bournemouth we were sent up to Finningley which is now the Robin Hood airport.
TJ: That’s right. Yeah.
LR: And to start Operational Training Unit.
TJ: Did you get time to go and see your mum and dad?
LR: Oh yes, yes. We did get leave.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Yes. I had a nice pleasing incident actually because a very good friend of mine at home, we used to play in a band together um, he had been in Rhodesia as well and we ran across one another occasionally and we’d spend a lot of time together actually and while we were in Cape Town waiting for transit he came and in the meantime he’d passed the pilot’s course and he came and the day before we sailed and when I got home I was able to, I went to see his mother and she said, “Oh” she said, ‘Roy’s over in South Africa you know. Did you manage to meet him?’ And I said, ‘Not just meet him,’ I said, ‘I saw him just before we sailed,’ I said, ‘And he’s on his way home.’ Oh she was absolutely [laughs]
TJ: Lovely.
LR: Knocked out. Absolutely knocked out. Anyway when we got to OTU and when we got there the navigation officer got us all in his office and he said, ‘Now which half of you are navigators and which half are bomb aimers?’ And we said, ‘Well we’re all navigators and bomb aimers. We’re observers.’ So he said, ‘Oh well,’ and he counted us all up and he said, ‘you half there are navigators and you half there you’re bomb aimers.’
TJ: So it could have gone either way.
LR: It could have gone either way and err the big laugh of that was in my log book, on the results of the navigation there’s all the exam results in my logbook and the remarks at the bottom said recommended for specialist training after further experience. That was in navigation. They made me bomb aimer [laughs]. Rather typical.
TJ: So after Finningley then?
LR: After Finningley we went on a commando course on Barkston Heath for a week to toughen us up a bit and then we went to a Conversion Unit at Wigsley which is just outside Lincoln of course. In Nottingham I think or in Nottinghamshire err we did err I was with, oh excuse me. My pilot was on his second tour and he’d done his first tour on Hampdens and then later Manchesters. Now the Manchester was the forerunner of the Lancaster so all he had to do on the conversion course was not get used to the Lancaster but to get used to four engines and it didn’t take him long at all. And in actual fact I joined 50 squadron on the 1st of February of 1943 and I was there most of 1943 then.
TJ: Ahum so I understand you were a prisoner of war. What year did you, so you crash-landed in Germany.
LR: Yes we were shot down over Germany and I became a prisoner of war.
TJ: Tell us about, I read something about after when you were actually caught [guten morgen]
LR: Oh when I was, oh when they picked me up?
TJ: When they picked you up in the in the road.
LR: Yes well I’d been walking the day before. When I was shot down it was evening of course around about 8 o’clock - 7 o’clock, 8 o’clock time at night and I walked most of that night, or I tried to, I’d damaged of my leg.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: When the aircraft blew up and I damaged my leg and err.
TJ: How many of you got out?
LR: Only two of us.
TJ: Ahum
LR: I thought I was the only one but there were two of us and I walked as best I could that night and towards when it was just getting light I found myself in a small town, a big village if you like, and I was walking along and people were going to work and saying good morning to me.
TJ: Did they not look at the way you were dressed?
LR: Well they didn’t take too much notice. It was dark and I think they were used to uniforms and things like that and it was just a sort of mumbled ‘morgen’ or the way we would do is – ‘mornin’, you know and so I just ‘morgen’ and carried on and I managed to get my way out of there and on to the banks of a river and it was on the banks there were some thick bushes and I hid up in these bushes all during the day and it wasn’t very comfortable because it was, of course it was January err it was December and it was a bit cold and the next night I started to walk again and I was well on the way and I was way out in the country.
TJ: Where were you heading for?
LR: West. Generally west.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: To get towards France but not much hope mind you. I didn’t have much hope but at least you’ve got to try and the main problem was food and water of course. I had my escape kit which was just horlicks tablets. I, I was walking along this road and I heard a voice shout, ‘Halt.’ So I sort of tried the old ‘morgen’ but it didn’t work and it was three soldiers I think it was, two or three soldiers came up, and one of them shone a torch over me and I heard them say, ‘Oh Englisher flieger’ and of course rifles came off the shoulders and my hands went up and that was it.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: I was a prisoner.
TJ: Did any of them speak English?
LR: No. None of them.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: When I got -
TJ: Were they ok with you? They weren’t rough or anything?
LR: Oh yes, yes.
TJ: They were polite.
LR: They were ok. Yes. No violence at all. No.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: No. Not until I got into that place. I got the um they took me to a house and, where they were billeted obviously, and there was an officer sat behind a table. There was a stool at this side of the table which I sat on and he started to question me in very, very poor English so I pretended I didn’t understand him but then I caught, I was sat there and I got an almighty clout around the back of the head and knocked me off the stool, and there was a German stood there and he spoke perfect English. It turned out later that he’d spent a lot of time working in London and he, he started to question me and he said, He said, ‘You stand up when you talk to a German officer.’ and I thought, I stood up and he said, ‘Name, number, rank.’ I told him the rank at that time was flying officer and he said, ‘You’re not an officer.’ So I said, ‘Yes I am.’
TJ: Oh.
LR: “No you’re not,” he said. ‘Where are your badges of rank?’ So, I was wearing battle dress of course at that time and the badge of rank were on the shoulder. He said, ‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘the badge of rank are worn on the arm.’ So I said, ‘No they’re not. Not with this uniform,’ I said. They’re worn up there.’ He said, ‘Where are your papers?’ I said, ‘I don’t carry papers.’ So he said when the Luftwaffe went over England he said they used to carry papers. I said, ‘Yeah but I’m not in the Luftwaffe. I’m in the RAF.’
TJ: [Laughs] Good for you.
LR: So he said, I might say that by this time I was beginning to get on talking terms with them. Once he’d found, not, not just quite then, he said um, I said what I do have is identity discs so I took out these identity discs to show him and they were stamped on the back – ‘Officer’., ‘So‘ he said, ‘you are an officer.” So I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh right”, he says, ‘you’ll be hungry and thirsty no doubt,’ he said, ‘I’ll go and get you something to eat and drink.’ And he went off and came back with a slice of black bread which was horrible.
Ahum.
LR: And a glass of lager which I’ve often said since was the best glass of lager I’ve ever had [laughs] it was, it was lovely and then from then on he and I got on very well together. He started talking about the rations and things like that. He said, ‘Oh the people, the people in England they’re rationed,’ he said, ‘they haven’t got any food. I said, ‘don’t talk rubbish.’ I said, ‘of course they’ve got, of course they’ve got food.’
TJ: Ahum
LR: He said, ‘But you’re rationed for your food.’ I said, ‘Oh that’s just a precautionary measure,’ I said, You want your pound of sugar, or you want two pound of sugar you go in and buy it [laughs] a quarter or half pound of butter yes, oh yeah, just go in and buy it,’ I said, ‘the rationing’ I says. ‘oh yeah it’s a precautionary measure.’ I said, ‘it’s your propaganda people that are trying, are telling you this.’
TJ: Do you think he believed you?
LR: I had him doubting. I like to think I had him doubting [laughs].
TJ: [laughs] So -
LR: So -
TJ: What sort of thing did they, did they try and get information out of you?
LR: Oh yes. Yes.
TJ: What sort of things did they want to know?
LR: Well while, while I was in, unfortunately the, the central interrogation centre for RAF personnel was in Frankfurt where I’d been shot down so I was sent straight to, to this interrogation centre Dulag Luft and put into solitary confinement. This was a psychological ploy that the Germans employed because when you’ve been in solitary confinement for a while when you come out you’ll talk your head off.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: You know and while I was in solitary confinement the chap came and said he was from the Red Cross and he wished to get news that I was safe to my relatives in Britain so if I’d just give him a few details and so he asked for my name, number, rank which was normal and then he said what squadron were you on. ‘I can’t tell you that’ I said, and then he started to ask me what aircraft were you flying, things like this. And this, he wasn’t Red Cross at all.
TJ: Yes I think you started to suspect he wasn’t Red Cross.
LR: Yes so this was one way of getting but then of course after a while they took you off for interrogation and they started asking me all sorts of questions. I gave them name, number and rank and wouldn’t give them anything else and the [noise off]. Oh that’s the post. They said, ‘Right, well, tell me,’ he says, ‘How was Squadron Leader Parks getting in to his new rank?’ Squadron Leader Parks was a flight commander on the, on the um squadron.
TJ: Your squadron.
LR: My squadron, yes. He’d been a flight lieutenant up to the day before I was shot down. He was now squadron leader. He’d been promoted to squadron leader.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And they knew.
TJ: Interesting.
LR: Yeah. And he then he shot several other little items to me and you know the idea was to shock you into saying, well and in fact he actually did say yeah we know all about you, you know. So I said well if you know all about me then you know I’m not a spy. This is what they were implying that you must be, you could be a spy you see. If you know all about me you know I’m not a spy and anyway I went off and I went back into the cell and then because it was nearly Christmas instead of being in solitary confinement for about seven days or a week or something like that or ten days they let us out early on Christmas Eve and put us, all the prisoners they’d taken, put us in a big room all in together and err -
TJ: Were you all British? Or
LR: Yes.
TJ: Other nationalities? Mostly British were you?
LR: Mostly British yes. Oh excuse me
TJ: So this was about 1943. Is that right?
LR: This was 1943. This was December 1943. As I say it was just before Christmas
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And then shortly after that we were transferred from there to Stalug Luft III. Crossed Germany in cattle trucks.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And that wasn’t a very pleasant experience.
TJ: I’ll bet.
LR: Because you get locked in these cattle trucks and there’s no sanitation or anything like that and most unpleasant.
TJ: How long did that take? That journey?
LR: That took just over a day. I can’t, I can’t really remember.
TJ: No. No.
LR: But you know the time went by.
TJ: Ahum. And then you pitched up.
[New person arrives in room interrupting interview]
TJ: So then you got to Stalag Luft III.
LR: Stalag Luft III.
TJ: Three. And did your heart sink when you saw it?
LR: Well it was more or less what we expected.
TJ: Was it?
LR: Yeah. We were greeted by all the prisoners that were already there. It was a new compound which I said before and they’d sent, I think we were the first, we were the first actual prisoners, new prisoners to go in there. They’d sent a group of prisoners from the other Stalags, from the other compounds to open this one up to get it ready for us for the new influx of prisoners and they were all old hands. A lot of them were people that the Germans suspected of trying to escape and err =
TJ: And yes which we all know from the film The Great Escape which is -
LR: At the cinema.
TJ: Was from that same prisoner of war camp.
LR: The main one was Wing Commander Tuck, you know, the great Battle of Britain flying ace. He was one of them.
TJ: Did he, was he one of the ones that escaped?
LR: No he was one of the ones who was in the camp when we got there.
TJ: Oh right.
LR: He was one of the ones who’d been transferred because of his activities I think. So
TJ: I understand that as you were officers they didn’t give you any work to do.
LR: No.
TJ: So you would spend your whole time trying to work out how to get out and working on escape plans.
LR: Well yes unfortunately the camp that we were in, the compound that we were in was all sand underneath and water. We tried digging a tunnel and we ran into water and we we couldn’t get a successful tunnel going under because of the water.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: But it did have one outcome. A tale which I’ve told a few times. The, we had a wireless. Now this wireless -
TJ: Where did you get that from?
LR: It was made up of parts. We had some very clever men in there you know.
TJ: Sounds like it yeah.
LR: And um it was taken to bits every evening, every day and then at six, oh to get the news at 6 o’clock at night it was assembled in secret somewhere with [?] all over the place.
TJ: Ahum
LR: And we got the 6 o’clock news from the BBC and then it was taken to bits again and the parts distributed among various men so if any part was discovered we could perhaps replace it and they wouldn’t find the whole lot. So this happened. There was a vital part went missing and we had these goons, the Germans, we called them goons, we had them, we were friendly with them more or less and we used to bribe them with cigarettes and soap to bring stuff in for us, odd little items like you know bring an egg in, a couple of eggs or something like this. Some onions or, odd things they’d bring in. So we approached one of these and said would they bring this wireless part in. No, no too dangerous, you know, so I must explain that some of these guards were special. They had, they went around the camp, they didn’t do any actual guarding. What they did, they went around the camp looking for trouble. They would walk into a room and look around to see if everybody, nobody was doing anything clandestine you know.
TJ: Right.
LR: And so we approached one of these and if they found something important they were given a week’s leave and promotion so we approached one of them and said could he bring this wireless part in and he said, ‘No, no.’ So we said you show us where, you bring that part in and we’ll show you where there’s a tunnel. So oh alright. Oh, ‘yes, yes.’
TJ: Bribery.
LR: So off he went see and we bodged this tunnel up, the one that had flooded, bodged it up like the real thing and showed him this when he came in with the part, showed him it, he went off and brought the camp commandant and the camp commandant was a recent addition, of course, to the camp. He was a new one and he came in and he was all cock a hoop oh he was going to find us and the usual sort of palaver and so he was happy, the goon got his week’s leave and he was happy, we got our wireless part so we were happy so everybody was happy all around. [laughs]
TJ: That’s a lovely story isn’t it? And I expect he got his promotion as well.
LR: Yes.
TJ: Yes yeah so I mean life in the prisoner of war camp it must have been a bit boring was it?
LR: I was fortunate in as much as I played guitar.
TJ: Oh right.
LR: And we had a camp band. A very good camp band in actual fact. We had some very accomplished musicians. The leader of the band used to play with Billy Cotton.
TJ: Really?
LR: Before the war, yes. He was lead trumpeter with Billy Cotton and we had some other good, really good musicians and when I first got there I was in hospital with my knee for a while and the same night that I was shot down our wing commander was shot down and his navigator who I was friendly with was in our camp and he was actually saving a bed for me in the room that he was in and he told this band leader that I played piano, which I did, for sing songs.
TJ: Ahum
LR: Sort of pub piano type playing you know, and I’d taken lessons and that but I wasn’t very good. So the band leader came to see me and said you know, he said, the pianist is not very happy in the job, you know, would you take over and I said well I’m not a band pianist, I said. I’m a pub pianist, I play for singsongs and things like that. I said no. I said, but I do play guitar and he said oh we’ve got two guitarists in the band now so he says you know that’s it and then the next day a gentleman came to see me, West Indian and he said. Oh he said I understand you play guitar, you know, and I said yes and he said, band guitar and I said yes. And he said well I’m the guitarist lead guitarist in the band but I don’t like playing in the band very much he’s says I’m more for calypsos and West Indian rhythms and he said if you would like to take over in the band he said I’d happily hand the guitar to you but I would like to borrow it every now and then just to keep in practice you know and I said well that’s fair enough then, that’s good and so I went into the band and that gentleman was Cy Grant.
TJ: I know that name.
LR: Have you heard of Cy Grant?
TJ: I remember Cy Grant.
LR: It was Cy Grant.
TJ: Wow.
LR: And occasionally I would take the other guitarist’s guitar, Cy would take mine and we would go and find a quiet spot to sit and I would show him the band rhythms and he would show me calypso rhythms and we’d have a bit of a sing song together but you know with playing but it was a case of how long you could do that without somebody coming along oh that’s great, can you sing this? Do you know such and such a tune? So it absolutely took -
TJ: When you had, when you played the band did the guards come and watch as well? Come and listen?
LR: Who?
TJ: The guards.
LR: Yes, they did. They did. They used to invite the commandant to the band shows that we did.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Oh he was invited. We used to do, we used to put shows on regularly and we would invite them along and very often some of the sketches lampooned the Germans and they laughed as much as anybody [laughs]
TJ: Really.
LR: Oh aye yeah.
TJ: So they do have a sense of humour.
LR: Oh yes, yes.
TJ: Did you -
LR: A funny sense of humour but -
TJ: Yeah.
LR: They would laugh at some -
TJ: Just out of interest did you have any contact with Cy Grant after the war was over?
LR: After the war was over I went to see him. You know he was touring with oh, Stop the World I Want To Get Off. That -
TJ: Ahum.
LR: That show. He was going to Nottingham and I took my daughter.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: She was about sixteen or seventeen at the time and oh she was absolutely thrilled to bits and I went and saw him there at the, went to the stage door and he came out and we had, we had a good long chat.
TJ: Lovely.
LR: And another incident with that was while I was at work I was telling someone about this and this chap came to me one day he said I was in such and such a station he said, I just forget which it was and Cy Grant was on the station, he said, so I went to speak to him and I went and told him that I worked with you. He said, you know, he told him that I work with Les Rutherford and Cy said, ‘Oh Les how’s he doing?’ and you know all this sort of thing and this chap thought he would say Les Rutherford, who’s he?
TJ: Yeah. That’s great that’s great. Interesting. So we’d better go back a bit um Stalag Luft III and how long, how many months were you there altogether?
LR: I got there in about the January.
TJ: January ’44.
LR: Of ’44 and -
TJ: And you were liberated by the Russians.
LR: We were liberated by the Russians
TJ: When would that have been then?
LR: In April of ‘45.
TJ: Right so -
LR: So just over a year.
TJ: Just over a year.
LR: Just over a year.
TJ: About fourteen months.
LR: And then they held us for a good long while.
TJ: Really? They wouldn’t let you go.
LR: They wouldn’t let us go no. I don’t know why.
TJ: But then were you held in the same sort of conditions? Did they, did they take over the role of jailers?
LR: More or less. More or less. When they, when they took over, they promised us all sorts of things. Oh we were going to get wireless sets and food and all sorts of things but none of it materialised. We still relied heavily on Red Cross parcels.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And um which weren’t very forthcoming in actual fact because I mean the German transport was in chaos so um no we were still virtually prisoners of war.
TJ: So when you did leave, was it organised? Did you all get on coaches and leave the area and -
LR: Coaches? [laughs]
TJ: [laughs] Right. I mean buses.
LR: No.
TJ: Or cattle trucks.
LR: That’s more like it. The um the Russians took us in their lorries to the, to a river. I think it was the Elbe. To a bridge. We got out of the lorries, walked over the bridge and there were American lorries waiting on the other side and the American lorries took us to their camp. It was an old German airfield and we had to wait there till, there were a lot more people there of course a lot more prisoners and we had to wait our turn for an aircraft to take us back home. In the meantime we were living off American rations and that it was absolutely wonderful.
TJ: I bet it was
LR: We got in there and oh white bread. White bread and bacon and eggs things like that.
TJ: Did they have any chocolate?
LR: Chocolate oh yes and films and you know, everything.
TJ: So you were quite happy with that?
LR: We had about, about a week there. We were itching to get home.
TJ: I bet yeah
LR: We had about a week there and then they were flying the Dakota aircraft from there to Brussels and we landed in Brussels and then they said, there some official came, and said if you want to spend the night in Brussels and go and see the town there’s money available to give you, to give you pay. Give you money. But if you want to go home there are some aircraft, a few aircraft waiting on the airfield and they’ll take you. I opted to go home and got onto a, it was a Lincoln bomber actually, the sort of bigger version of the Lancaster and they flew us back to this country.
TJ: Where did you land? Do you remember?
LR: I think it was Cosford but I’m not, I’m never quite, I’m never quite been sure about that.
TJ: Ahum
LR: I think it was Cosford but we had misgivings about what our welcome was going to be because we’d had two or three letters had been published. We used to have a camp newspaper and we used to publish excerpts from letters.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And um some of them were like one in particular I remember was a girl who wrote and said that she was getting married and she said, ‘I’d rather marry a 1944 hero then a 1942 coward.
TJ: What did she mean by that exactly?
LR: We were cowards. We were cowards because we were prisoners of war.
TJ: War.
LR: We’d given up you see.
TJ: Well she obviously didn’t know what she was talking about.
LR: There were several letters in that vein.
TJ: That must have been devastating.
LR: It was.
TJ: For you.
LR: So as I said we wondered what the reception would be when we got back home. We needn’t have worried because we stepped on to the tarmac and there were a crowd of WAAFs waiting for us. It was about, I think about 10 o’clock or so at night. It was still light of course it was June [by the time it got quite dark] and we sort of marched across the tarmac with a WAAF on each arm and went in there to be, to be fed and the other nice thing was there’d been a dance on and the band were just packing up by the time we’d eaten and what not it was about 11 o’clock and the band was just packing up and somebody told them about us being there and they put their gear back up together again and played for another hour so we could have a dance.
TJ: Oh how lovely.
LR: Yeah.
TJ: People can be lovely can’t they?
LR: So that was, that was nice.
TJ: And did you, so you were around Cosford area you think.
LR: Yes.
TJ: And then how long before you were allowed to actually go home?
LR: About the next day I think. Very quickly. The, we had experienced German, Russian, American and now English efficiency and the English was far, far superior to all the others.
TJ: Well that’s refreshing to hear.
LR: There was no red tape. We were given, we were deloused, put a tube put down with powder and stuff and deloused and we were given passes and things and shoved on the train and off home like. Just like that.
TJ: So was that the end of the war for you or did you have to be debriefed or anything like that?
LR: Oh I had to be debriefed. Yes
TJ: Before you went home or did you come back for that?
LR: I think we came back for that.
TJ: How long did you have at home then?
LR: Oh I was home for about six weeks or something like that.
TJ: I bet your parents were pleased to see you.
LR: Not particularly. They [laughs] no don’t get that wrong. On the way home, when I was stationed down here I had an aunt and uncle in York and my aunt was the pastry cook in the De Grey Rooms at York which were very famous reception rooms and I used to stop at York, get off the train and go and see her, go and have a word with her. I used to go down the back way in to the kitchens and she would get a meal on straightaway. The bacon and eggs went on as soon as she saw me and then I would pop back and get the next train up to Newcastle and so this time I did the same. She sat me down for the meal and then she said, ‘How long is it since you heard from home?’ Oh I said I hadn’t heard since about you know about the middle of last year. I said letters weren’t coming through. So she said, ‘Oh you won’t know then.’ Now, I knew then that my mother had died because she was seriously ill with cancer.
TJ: Oh how sad. How sad for you to find out like that.
LR: Yes but at least it prepared me.
TJ: Yes.
LR: For getting, for going home. I was able to get myself composed a bit.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: And, of course, while I’d been away my mother and father were separated. So my father wasn’t there. He was away somewhere else. So -
TJ: A bit of an anti-climax for you coming home then.
LR: It was.
TJ: Not what you’d expected.
LR: And the -
TJ: Not what you’d envisaged.
LR: And the thing was, you know I said we’d had the business?
TJ: Yeah.
LR: Well my mother had appointed two so called friends as executors and they’d fleeced the whole lot and the place was bankrupt so I didn’t have a very good homecoming.
TJ: No.
LR: Really.
TJ: What about your siblings? Your younger brothers and sisters.
LR: Well my younger brother was um, he was killed in the RAF. The next sister down was, she had a mental breakdown. She had epilepsy I think although they didn’t say that at the time.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: In those days and she was in a home. The next sister was just turned eighteen and she’d joined the WAAFs, not the WAAFs, the WRNS and the younger sister was trying to run the business and that was where these executors stopped in and took over. So I had quite a mess to sort out when I got home.
TJ: I bet you did. Yeah.
LR: And I had two younger brothers. I had four brothers and three sisters. That was right. Not the other way but
TJ: And were they still at school.
LR: They were still at school but without any supervision or anything like that they’d been allowed to run wild and one of them was actually on probation. He’d acted as a lookout for some kids that were burgling somewhere and he’d been caught. He was on probation. Well I nearly went mad over this you know. I went, I went up to see the welfare officer eventually. I couldn’t do anything with them. They were absolutely wild. They’d got in with this wild crown. One was ten. One was ten, the other one was eight and they were absolutely wild so um as I say, no one was eleven that was it, eleven and ten, eleven and ten. I went to see the welfare officer and said look if I don’t get these kids out of this environment they’re just going to end up in jail. I said what can I do? Have you got any advice? I said could I send them to a private school somewhere away so they said well you couldn’t afford it. So with the fees for the school but he said but there is a scheme started by the old Prince of Wales for a farm school but it means sending them either to Canada or Australia and he said it means that if you sent them you probably wouldn’t see them again cause in those days the travel wasn’t what it is now so you probably wouldn’t ever see them again so he said it’s up to you.
TJ: So what did you do?
LR: I sent them.
TJ: Where?
LR: To Canada.
TJ: Canada.
LR: And they both did remarkably well.
TJ: So it was a good thing to do.
LR: Yeah the, the elder one, he joined the air force. Went as a navigator in the air force and then became one of Canada’s leading aviation artists. And the other one he joined the air force and actually he was a mechanic with the Canadian equivalent of the Red Arrows.
TJ: And did you see them again?
LR: Well I’ll come to that. And he became a master carver. You know they’re great on these wild imitation ducks in Canada. You know where you’ve got to make them sort of sit on the water and everything like that and he won prizes all over the place and became a master carver and he did some wonderful carvings of birds and things like this and he used to send me photographs of them. And he got married and then divorced and then he got married again and the elder one phoned me up and he said, ‘How do you feel about being best man for George?’ This was the younger one. At his wedding? So I said, “Oh I don’t know I really can’t afford the fares over there at this time. “ He said, well he said if you come over he said I’ll pay your fare over, so.
TJ: What year was that?
LR: 1985. So I said well I will have to talk it over with my wife first because I won’t come without her and we’ll obviously have to raise her fare, you know and we’d only just moved in to this house in actual fact or were in the process of moving. So anyway, my stepson heard about this and said, ‘You must go and I will pay my mum’s fare.’ So both fares were paid for so we were very lucky because we were struggling a bit I must admit. Anyway we went over there and they kept it away from my younger brother. They didn’t tell him that I was going and the day after we got there they’d arranged a party there what they have in a local pub sort of thing a little bit different from ours well they’d arranged a meal there and it was my nephew’s 21s t birthday and they said it was a party for him for his birthday. So they got there, all bar my wife and myself and my nephew and they were all sat down and the elder brother John lent over to him and said, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’ he said, ‘I can’t be the best man at your wedding.’ Well the wedding was the following Saturday and he said oh God why not ,why not and by that time I was walking to the end of the table and he said well I thought maybe this guy could do it instead. ‘Jesus Christ it’s Les.’ He leapt over the table and -
TJ: Lovely.
LR: It was. A very emotional moment actually.
TJ: I bet it was yeah.
LR: It was good. It was good yeah.
TJ: Was that the first time you’d seen him since.
LR: The first time I’d since him since.
TJ: 19
LR: 1946 yeah. Nearly forty years.
TJ: Did you write all this time?
LR: Oh yes I got regular reports from various farm schools about their education and what they were doing and general behaviour and things like that and then when they reached sixteen they were fostered out to families and they took up reputation, took up a positions not necessarily farming but took a job. As it happens they went into the air force and
TJ: And you corresponded all those forty years.
LR: Yeah.
TJ: With them direct. Yeah. Actually to be honest we ought to go back a bit. Actually Les just back pedal a bit to before you were shot down over Germany to your time with Bomber Command. So how many I think they call them sorties don’t they? How many did you fly? Do you have a number?
LR: Yes. I flew, I was shot down on my twenty third.
TJ: Twenty third. Right. And was that a good number?
LR: Yes fairly good. Fairly good.
TJ: And were you always going over, was it always over Germany?
LR: Not always. I did some over Italy.
TJ: Oh right yeah.
LR: And a couple in , a couple in the beginning I did in France over the u boat pens.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: And a couple of mine laying trips as well.
TJ: So, do you keep in touch with old comrades? Apart from Cy Grant?
LR: Well of course he died.
TJ: Yes.
LR: Yes I was, the only one that I was really in touch with was our old rear gunner. But I wasn’t with my own crew when I was shot down.
TJ: Oh.
LR: I was flying, the bomb aimer had got sick and I flew in his place.
TJ: Right.
LR: And got shot down. So, which happens. But my old rear gunner he finished his second tour actually and he went to live down in Budleigh Salterton in Devon, near Exeter and we used to caravan, my wife and I, and we used to take the caravan and we used to take the caravan down there and go and visit him and also when we got rid of the caravan we used to go self catering and we’d make a point of going once a year down to Devon and seeing Frank.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Now when I stopped driving of course I couldn’t go anymore and we sort of just used to get odd phone calls and that was all and then gradually his phone calls began to get odd. His wife died and from then on he began to get bit funny and he began to get dementia I’m quite sure and we were nearly frightened to call him up because we’d called him up and he didn’t know who we were, you know.
TJ: Oh.
LR: He said, ‘Les? Who’s Les?’ You know, and he didn’t know who we were and then quite suddenly out of the blue we got a call from him quite lucid, chatting away quite merrily so we don’t know what to make of it.
TJ: What did you do for work after, after the war?
LR: Well I tried a couple of jobs. Travelling. Took a job travelling the whole of the south of England from the Humber down and that’s how I came to Lincoln. My first wife was Lincoln. We came to Lincoln as a centre so she could be at home and whatnot because I should be travelling a lot. And the travelling, I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t -
TJ: What were you selling or something?
LR: Fancy goods.
TJ: Oh right yeah.
LR: I didn’t get on with it. I wasn’t a salesman.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And then I took a job with Lincolnshire only, with United Dominions Trusts the merchant bankers and I wasn’t doing too bad with that but then they sent for me at head office and said they were going to move me down to Worthing. And I said well I don’t want to go to Worthing. They said oh you know you’ve got to move we’ve made our minds up and I said well don’t I have a say then?
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And they said, oh no you’ve got to go. I said, oh I said, now, I said, when I was in the services they said I had to go away then but since I came out of the services I said I do what I want to do.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And they said well it’s a case of either move or resign so I said, ‘Right, I resign as of now.’ Which I did. So on the way down I was going down the lift with the head clerk and he said I should think again because they’ll not change or anything like that. He says, what has happened is one of the directors sons has come out of the army he says and Lincoln is a rich prospect for him he said and they want him to take it over so I said I’m not having anything to do with that.
Ahum.
LR: So I came back. I was on the dole for about oh I should think five or six weeks. I applied to go back in to the air force. Didn’t hear anything and I was absolutely fed up. Somebody told me they wanted men on machines at Clayton Dewandre’s, a local firm. So I thought right well I’ve got to do something and I went down there. They trained me on a machine and I worked there for the rest of my working life. About -
TJ: What were they making?
LR: Mainly brakes. Power brakes and car heaters.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Mostly.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Power brakes for lorries and things like that before power brakes came in to cars and things.
TJ: So you told me you’ve been married twice and how many children have you got?
LR: I had one.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And my wife had one. I had a daughter Marion who unfortunately died about six years ago and my wife’s son is doing very well. He’s the chief engineer up at the, chief maintenance engineer at the university. He’s got a good job. His wife is a midwife sister at the hospital working her socks off.
TJ: Right. So do you have any thoughts on the way Bomber Command was treated after the war? Did that -
LR: Oh yes.
TJ: Is that something that struck a chord with you?
LR: Yes it did indeed. We were completely ignored after the war. When Churchill made his speech of congratulation, thanking the people he thanked all the armed forces except Bomber Command and all the chiefs of staff all got knighthoods and what not. Sir Arthur Harris got nothing and we were absolutely ostracised and people called us gangsters and, you know, air gangsters and all this sort of thing and we were absolutely horrified.
TJ: I’ll bet.
LR: In fact I say now even the government can’t give us even now but they’ve been forced more or less in to giving us a clasp as recognition for Bomber Command you know the clasp that goes on the medal.
TJ: Yes.
LR: It’s a cheap bit of tin. You know the clasps that they have on medals -
TJ: Yes.
LR: They’re usually nice silver sort of things engraved, all the lot.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: This is a cheap bit of well it just looks like a cheap bit of brass.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: With Bomber Command written on it, stamped on it.
TJ: Why exactly, I don’t know too much about it but why do you think Bomber Command -
LR: Largely because of Dresden.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: You know because of Dresden was bombed after the -
TJ: Yeah.
LR: But then so were a lot of other cities.
TJ: Coventry.
LR: They said Dresden was such a lovely city and all that sort of thing but Dresden, they bombed it because Stalin asked them to because Dresden was the main jumping off point for all the troops from Germany going on to the eastern front.
TJ: Yeah, carry on.
LR: And also there were a couple of munitions factories there. So in actual fact there was a legitimate target but they were saying, what these purists are saying is that there was no need to bomb it to such an extent. After the war, as what we did.
TJ: You were following orders.
LR: Just following orders. I mean.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: Churchill ordered it, he actually ordered the bombing when all’s said and done. When Stalin requested it it still had to go through Churchill hadn’t it?
TJ: Of course.
LR: And he just washed his hands of us altogether.
TJ: Not good. It must have -
LR: But members of Bomber Command feel very bitter about that.
TJ: I’m sure. Well thank you very much for sharing all these memories with me Les.
LR: Quite alright.
TJ: I think I can finish here and say goodbye.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ARutherfordL150605
PRutherfordRL1501
Title
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Interview with Les Rutherford. One
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:18:12 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Description
An account of the resource
During this interview Les describes his experience as a despatch rider in France in 1940 before escaping from Dunkirk and returning to the United Kingdom, eventually joining the Royal Air Force. He also describes his training in South Africa and his experience of being shot down, interrogated and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III.
Creator
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Tina James
Date
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2015-06-05
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
South Africa
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943-12-20
1944
1945
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Dulag Luft
entertainment
Lancaster
Manchester
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
RAF Cosford
RAF Finningley
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Wigsley
Stalag Luft 3
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/326/3485/PShenbanjoA1701.1.jpg
28672247ff8d13752e2c93c8a8e5f8fc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/326/3485/AShenbanjoN170727.2.mp3
5eacf3be349c6c8c6109ab5cfc456dff
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
Shenbanjo, Akin
A Shenbanjo
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Neville Shenbanjo (b. 1945), the son of Flying Officer Akin Shenbanjo DFC, and 12 photographs.
Akin Shenbanjo attempted to volunteer for service with Bomber Command whilst in Nigeria. He was told they were not recruiting there so he made his own way to the UK to enlist. After training he flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 76 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Neville Shenbanjo and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-27
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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Shenbanjo, A
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: Neville, it’s lovely to be with you here this morning. Just for the record at the start of this interview let me say that I’m Heather Hughes and I’m here in Neville Shenbanjo’s flat in Leeds and it is Thursday the 27th of July 2017. And its lovely also to have Keeley here with us who is going to hear some of her dad’s stories about the family. Thank you so much for agreeing to, to be interviewed for our project.
NS: No problem.
HH: It’s been wonderful to meet you. Let’s start by talking a little bit about you and then we’ll get on to all the wonderful stories that you have collected, that you heard from your dad and you are hopefully going to pass on to the rest of your family and a lots of other people besides. So I wonder if we could talk about you first Neville and where you were born and when.
NS: I was born on the 22nd of February 1945. I was born at number 22 Crawford Street, Leeds 2. Childhood was extreme. I can remember my childhood. I can remember being a baby. We was brought up by my grandmother and grandfather. We lived with my grandmother and grandfather and it was wonderful. My father was away. I were born in ’45 but my father was still an officer in the Air Force and I think at that time he was in Palestine but he used to come home regular on leave. And it was really surprising because most children at that time had somebody in the armed forces, somebody in the family but when my father came home they used to love it because he was in an officer’s uniform and that felt really special, you know. For me, a little boy that felt really good. My mother and father split up when I was around about three, four years old and I stayed, I stayed with my grandparents. We moved to Seacroft when I was around about five years old. Moved to Seacroft in Leeds when I was about five years old and that was, that was a change because we moved out of the inner city to open fields but it was wonderful. It was absolutely marvellous and there were times when I thought things aren’t right you know because I was with my grandmother and grandfather. My mother used to live around the corner but I was happy living with my grandmother and grandfather. My father still came and visited. And then again in his officer’s uniform and all this. Kids used to come out in the street. Anyway, my father moved back then. He moved to London and I didn’t see him for quite a while. He used to write. I didn’t see him for quite a while. I think the last time I saw him when I was around about nine. He came up visiting. When I was twelve he asked me to go to London to visit him. I can remember my grandmother and grandfather putting me on a train to London. Twelve years old. I thought how exciting this is. Went to London. Stayed with my father but oddly enough after a week I was homesick [laughs] I missed, I missed my grandparents so I came home. But I used to go and visit regular. I had a friend who lived around the corner and his grandmother, he’d come and visit his grandmother but he came from Twickenham. I’ll never forget him. Tom Courtenay, they called him and I’m still in touch with him now and he came from Twickenham and he used to, he used to stay at his grandmother’s during the school holidays and I used to go and visit him. And then we used to go and visit my father. Now, I never saw my father again. I would write him but we lost all contact and I thought what’s happened? And I was eighteen and I had a letter from my father saying, “I’m remarrying. Would you come down and visit me?” So I did. And he remarried again and I thought marvellous. He’s happy. He had another boy. That was good and I kept on visiting. But it wasn’t right, you know. I didn’t feel comfortable in his house with this strange woman. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I didn’t get on with her but there was something about her. But anyway, everything turned out ok. Now, about my father’s stories —
HH: Before we go onto your father’s stories how, just tell me a little bit about how, how your mum because you said she had been a WAAF?
NS: My mum was a WAAF, yeah.
HH: So tell us a little bit about your mum.
NS: My mum, she always said she couldn’t wait to be eighteen so she could join up. She always wanted to join up and she liked, well she wanted to join the Wrens because she liked the uniform better [laughs] but she joined the RAF. Now, she used to pack the parachutes and hand the parachutes out and that’s how she met my father because James Watt who was my father’s pilot who, Jimmy Watt but his real name was Reginald but he liked to be called Jimmy and he was going to, she told me tell this story that they were going to get their parachute and they had to give their name. So, she said, ‘Name?’ So Jimmy said, ‘Watt.’ So she said, ‘Name?’ So he said, ‘Watt.’ So she said, ‘What is your name?’ So he said he had to get his card and say, ‘Look, that is my name.’ And that, my father was behind and that’s how she met, that’s how she met my father, you know. So it’s just a funny story like that.
HH: And what happened to your mum after the war? What did she do?
NS: My mother. She, well, well she was pregnant during the war.
HH: Yeah.
NS: And so she was asked to leave. You had to leave the Air Force.
HH: Yeah. They had to didn’t they? Yeah.
NS: So, she left the Air Force and just carried on with life, you know. Well, left the Air Force, got married. They got married at Leeds Registry Office. They were supposed to get married in a church. I shouldn’t tell you this. They were supposed to get married in a church but my dad kept, there were going to be press there and my father didn’t want any press to be there and he changed, he changed it twice and they finally got married in Leeds Registry Office. Just so that there weren’t any press about. That’s how my father was. And my mother remarried. I’ve got six, six siblings on my mother’s side and they all live close as well.
HH: And you stay in touch with most of them?
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah. I’m going on holiday with them next month. With one of my sister’s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carole. Yeah. They’ve all got families now. Well, everybody has, you know. Grandparents and grandchildren. Yeah. We get on really great. All of them.
HH: Great.
NS: Yeah.
HH: So, let’s talk a little bit then I want to, I want to come back to the the way in which you have remembered your dad and the little, the shrine that you’ve created to your dad here. But I think, lets go back and look at some, look at your dad’s time in the RAF and tell me how he came to be in Britain because he was Nigerian wasn’t he?
NS: My father was Nigerian. Yeah. He had two pals in Nigeria. They called them the [Coss], the [Coss] brothers —
HH: And you’ve got a picture there of them.
NS: [Aberwello], yeah. [Aberwella Ollawalli], Akin Shenbanjo and Eddie [Cambo]. Not a very Nigerian name that Ede Cambo but only two arrived. My father and [Olliwello].
HH: Now, your father had tried to enlist in Nigeria and he was told that —
NS: Well, he didn’t try to enlist in Nigeria. He wrote to the War Office.
HH: Oh ok.
NS: He wrote to the War Office asking to join the RAF but I think this was 1941. The Battle of Britain. Everybody wanted to be a fighter pilot but the office, the War Office wrote back to him and said, “We aren’t recruiting from Nigeria at the moment.” So that’s it. My father wrote back insisting, ‘but I want to join.’ So, the War Office wrote back and said if you want to join you can make your way over to England and just go to the nearest recruiting office and join. You can take this letter with you and join. So my father had a scholarship to go to university. So he used the money that his father gave him to come over to England. That’s why my father could not go back. He was the oldest child. So he could never go back. He give, he give his right up and he’s never been back to Nigeria. He never went back to Nigeria. They came over. They got the boat. They got to the Recruiting Office at Southampton, they both went in to the Recruiting Office and said, ‘We’ve come to join the RAF.’ And they had, I don’t know whether he said they laughed at him but they just said, ‘Well, you can’t.’ But my father pulled this envelope out and said, ‘Oh.’ So the man said, ‘Well, alright. You’re in the RAF.’ That was it. Then they both joined together and my father’s friend during training he discovered he was scared of flying and so he had to go on ground crew. My father lost touch with him and that was that. My father was, I don’t know He finished up at Holme on Spalding Moor. But that’s where he was and that’s where he met his pilot. Now, I was talking to Jimmy Watt. I said, ‘How did you meet my father?’ So, he said, ‘Well, I was walking around. I was walking around the base and I saw your dad sat on this wall so I approached him. I went over to him. I said, look, I can see all your ribbons,’ you know wireless operator, navigator. He said, ‘Have you not done all this training?’ So my father replied, ‘I’ve done so much training I could fight this war on my own.’ Well, Jimmy said to him, ‘Right, come with me,’ and that was it. They were settled from that moment on and I’m still in touch with Jimmy’s son. We phone regularly. Once a fortnight we’ll phone. There was a time, it was around about six years ago. I had a phone call to say that they was a disbanding 76 Squadron. Well, it was only I used to go visit Spalding Moor. I used to go to all the reunions and everything. In fact, the school, a primary school there and the 76 Squadron has done so much for that school the children absolutely love it and they know all about the war and all that 76 Squadron did because they are teaching children about the war now. They never taught them about the war when I was a kid. We never got taught about the war. In fact, my grand, my grandson, Keeley’s son there was, they asked if there was anybody had got any grandparents, any old pictures? So I sent the are pictures and my dad’s medals. They were flabbergasted. They were over the moon with that. Yeah. Anyway, go back to where were we?
HH: We were talking about your dad having got together with the pilot Jimmy Watt.
NS: Oh, he got, yeah he got together with pilot, Jimmy Watt.
HH: They flew in 76 Squadron obviously and they flew Halifaxes.
NS: They flew Halifaxes. Halifax. They named my father’s Halifax, “The Black Prince.” They didn’t like naming the planes at that time because they said, ‘Don’t name a plane because if a fighter gets the name of that plane or it shoots down something they’ll come looking for you.’ So my father said, ‘As long as I’m flying this plane nothing will happen.’ And nothing ever did. Now, my father flew so many missions because it was practically every night there was somebody goes ill or something like. Most like they just get scared. This is it. It’s our time. And they don’t refuse to fly but my father would always volunteer to go. My father flew in most of the planes at that base. He told me about it because they thought, nobody would pick my father as crew, they thought he might be bad luck. I don’t know why. But when Jimmy Watt picked him up everybody thought he was good luck and so they were getting him to fly. I don’t know how my father got his DFC. I never found out. He never told me and I’d like to find out how my father was awarded the DFC.
HH: It would be possible to find out.
NS: Yeah.
HH: We can do something about that.
NS: I’d like to find that out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can’t think now. I’m stuck.
HH: No. Not at all. So [pause] your dad would have flown with quite international crews because —
NS: Yes.
HH: There were Canadians —
NS: Yes. My father was, well the pilot was Canadian. Two Australians. A New Zealander. Two Australians, two New Zealanders and an Englishman. That was it. Nigerian.
HH: A really international crew.
NS: Nigerian, two New Zealanders, two Australians and a Dutchman. That was it. Yeah.
HH: And they became like family didn’t they?
NS: Oh, well they were family because they never, they were always together. You know, they all used to eat together and do everything together.
HH: Well, they had to look after each other.
NS: They had to look after each other.
HH: To come home safely I would think.
NS: They had to look after, they had to look after each other and they never made friends, never made close friends with any other, any other bombers because they were losing too many friends. They said they used to go in to the mess hall for breakfast on a morning there used to be two tables empty. You know. So —
HH: And did your dad’s entire crew survive the war?
NS: All of them survived the war.
HH: Remarkable.
NS: They all survived the war.
HH: That’s remarkable.
NS: They all survived the war. The plane was never, I heard a story when they finally had to leave the plane and the plane went up again it never came back. You know. So, and that’s, that’s supposed to be a true story. Yeah.
HH: And what happened to your dad after the war? Did he stay in the RAF for a while?
NS: He was in the RAF until 1953.
HH: Gosh.
NS: ’53 or ‘54 because I know he was, he told me his story and I shouldn’t really say this but I’ll tell you the story anyway. It’s coming out now. He was in where did I say he was? Not Israel. Palestine.
HH: Ah huh.
NS: He was in Palestine and he had this secretary. Now, she had relations in Leeds and she knew that my father came from Leeds and she asked him if she could send him some letters but my father, he read the letters first because he wasn’t to send them, but he did post them for her. One day he was in the mess hall. He said, ‘We were just having a sing song round a piano and this secretary banged on the window and he said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘Will you come out with us for a drink?’ So he said, ‘I’m with my pal here.’ They said, ‘Well, bring him us. We’ll go out for a drink.’ And they left the base and they got a hundred yards down the road when the mess hall blew up. There was a bomb in the piano. Now, this, she must have known about it but she got my father out and I don’t, I know you shouldn’t have wrote, read those letters.
HH: Don’t worry.
NS: But if he hadn’t have done he might have gone up in that.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Anyway, that’s another story.
HH: He was clearly a very lucky person.
NS: He was. Yeah. And a well liked person. It’s amazing. People have met him and they said, ‘You’re father’s amazing.’ And I said, ‘Well why? He’s just a normal man.’ ‘No. He’s amazing.’ Even my friends you know, ‘Oh, your father’s so different.’ I said, ‘What do you mean so different? He’s just like your father.’ He said, ‘No. there’s something about him.’
HH: What do you think it was that people saw?
NS: I don’t know. I don’t know. But my grandparents. They loved him. I mean imagine 1945. Your daughter comes home with a black man.
HH: There was a lot more prejudice then then there is now yeah.
NS: Oh yeah. No. Well, no but my grandfather had seen my father. He used to be a boxer in the RAF and he’d seen him boxing.
HH: So was your dad a boxer as well?
NS: Yeah. Yeah. He was lightweight boxing. I think it was from all the Army, Navy and Air Force champion. Yeah. Yeah. And my father had seen him box you see. My grandfather. He must have boxed at Leeds Town Hall or something like that. That’s anyway they really liked my father. My grandparents.
HH: How do you remember your father? What was he like as a person? What was his personality like?
NS: It’s hard to say by me because he was strict but he wasn’t strict with me. Probably because we were distant or I don’t know. The distance between us part but he was very strict but he was very moral. I know that. But he was very fair as well. A marvellous man. A really marvellous man.
HH: Did he ever wish, did he ever voice a wish to return to Nigeria or was he quite happy to stay here after the war?
NS: He was happy to stay here. He’d never been back to Nigeria. His son and his second wife they went to Nigeria. But my father never went.
HH: Did he maintain contact with his family there?
NS: Yes. Now, he had a sister. She was a nurse and I can remember her coming to visit us when we were living in, I was only four years old. Grace, they called her. I named that statue after her. Auntie Grace. She was marvellous. She was a nurse and she used to come to England. She used to go to St James Teaching Hospital. That’s in Leeds. And she used to learn things there and then go back. She used to come regular. And he had a brother who used to come over and he brought me my first pair of football boots. I never get it in London. You go out of Woolworths in London. I’ll never forget that. Yeah. Marvellous man. And he’s got there are so many Shenbanjo’s in England now it’s unbelievable.
HH: Oh, really. Well, there you are.
NS: If you go on facebook —
HH: Ok.
NS: You find so many Shenbanjo’s in America, Australia. There are Shenbanjo’s all over the world now. Yeah.
HH: All over. Yeah.
NS: Yeah. You know, so he spread the word my father did.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Yes.
HH: So, but you it was after the war when, when you presumably, you know you’d finished school and you were becoming an adult. You, you, did you, you helped your dad quite a lot to stay in touch with squadron and so on and Squadron Associations —
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: And so on. Tell us about that.
NS: Well, I was, I used to go and visit. I worked in Peterborough and I used to go visit my father because London, Peterborough an hours’ drive. I would drive. So, he’d be North London. Kingsbury. So just an hour’s drive down the A1. One day I was there and my father said to me, ‘I want you to do something for me son.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. Whatever you want dad. I’ll do it.’ He said, ‘I want you to get the crew together that I flew with during the war.’ So, I said, ‘Ok dad.’ Just said it like that. I went out. I got in to the car and I’m driving up the A1 and all of a sudden I was thinking how can I do this? And I thought fifty years from now. That’s what they said, ‘We’ll meet fifty years from now.’ I drove up the A1, got back to Peterborough. The next day I’ve come up to Leeds. I’ve called at my mother’s because my mother was WAAF at 76 Squadron. And I said to her, ‘Look, he's asked me to do something.’ She said, ‘What?’ ‘He’s asked me to get the crew together he flew with during the war.’ Well, my mother looked at me stupid and she said, ‘Well, there was Jimmy Watt. He was a Canadian.’ I thought, ‘Well, I know that mum.’ She said, ‘But there was something on the television last night. It was about bombers flying from Holme on Spalding Moor.’ So the next day I went down to the studios., Leeds Studios. Television studios. I went to the reception desk and I told the receptionist what I was looking for. She said, ‘Look, I don’t think I can help you but just hang on.’ She went upstairs and she brought down the producer with her. Well, this producer said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I, I aren’t supposed to do this but I’m going to give you this video and you can watch it and if you find anything that’s ok but you must bring it back.’ So I said, ‘No problem. I’ll bring it back.’ I took the video, I watched it I couldn’t see anything on it. So I went back to this television studio the next week and I went to see the man. Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. Thank you but I couldn’t find anything.’ So he said, ‘I want you to ring this number.’ He said, ‘It’s a lady. Patricia —' I’ve forgotten her second name.
HH: Was it Welbourne or something?
NS: Welbourne.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Patricia Welbourne. They used to call her Paddy. Oh, she used to work [pause] She used to be she was there and she was something to do with 76 Squadron. So I rang this lady in York and I said, ‘Mrs Welbourne?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ Oh, I said, ‘You won’t know me. My name is Neville Shenbanjo.’ Well, she said, ‘I haven’t heard your voice in forty eight years.’ And I was said, ‘No. No, that’s my father. That’s my father.’ She said, ‘We’ve been looking for your father,’ you know, to get [pause] Anyway, that’s when it all started. She gave me the number of Jimmy Watt and I rang Jimmy Watt up in Canada. And that’s when it all started. I got three of them together. And I think five, five of them we all met once at one reunion. One guy had died and he lived just near my father. We got the rest together and marvellous. I’ve met Jimmy Watt three or four times.
HH: So you, so you made your dad’s wish come true.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was over the moon about that. Yeah.
HH: Was he, was he really thrilled?
NS: Oh well, when he met Jimmy Watt after those years, there’s a picture on the wall there. Arms around each other.
HH: And where was that reunion? Was it —
NS: It was at Holme on Spalding Moor. At the —
HH: Ok.
NS: At the base. We, they still have reunions there that there’s not many people to go now.
HH: No.
NS: You know so its —
HH: But what, what about the next generation like you?
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: Do they still participate?
NS: They still go but it’s done mostly like everything else internet now and over the phone. You know. That’s how, that’s how, that’s how they communicate. But I haven’t been there for a while but I still like to go back every, what am I going to do this Sunday? I’m going to go visit there. There’s a funny story. We was there one day and I don’t know whether this is true or not but there one day there must have been thirty of us all there and this guy came. The place is an industrial estate now and this guy came up to, up to the crew and he says, he were the head of the security and he said, ‘I’ve got to tell you guys something.’ They said, ‘What?’ He said, well he was, one of his men was just going around the perimeter and security and he said he saw these kids playing football. So he thought that’s odd because it’s in the middle of nowhere this place. So the security man went up and there were kids playing football and he said they all had uniforms on. He said they had RAF uniforms on he said. And that man, he just ran back to the office and he said, ‘I’m not going back there.’ So they said it was the ghost of the —
HH: Yeah.
NS: But I never believed it but the man never went back to work.
HH: He was convinced.
NS: He never went back to work.
HH: Yeah.
NS: So, I’ll tell you stories about my father. What did he do? You know, it’s hard to say. It’s hard to —
HH: What did he do when he came out of the RAF?
NS: He, he went to work at the Post Office. Then he finished up as a chartered surveyor. I don’t know. I know he worked at the Post Office for a while and he went as a chartered surveyor.
HH: And all the time he was living in London was he?
NS: All the time he was living in London. Yeah. All the time he lived in London because I can remember when I was a kid my father used to send money up for me because my mum and father were divorced. And now and then this money didn’t arrive. My mother used to get angry about it. Anyway, the sad thing is we had a guy that lived around the corner and he was our postman and he was stealing the money.
HH: So your dad was sending the money.
NS: He was sending money but this post, anyway this postman finished up in jail for it. Then my father was forgiven for that. Yeah.
HH: How did you discover —
NS: Well, my father said, my father worked at the Post Office and he was sending it up registered. So, they just had to, I think they just —
HH: Yeah.
NS: They tricked this guy.
HH: Yeah. And sadly he went blind in his later years.
NS: My father went blind in his later years, yeah.
HH: And when did he pass away?
NS: Twenty five, twenty five years ago, I think.
HH: Gosh.
NS: Twenty five years.
HH: So it was in the ninety, late 1990s.
NS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s when he passed away.
HH: And where is he buried?
NS: He’s, he was cremated.
HH: He was cremated.
NS: And it’s, and it’s, there was a plaque on the wall. It said, oh it’s in a crematorium in North London. I can’t remember.
HH: Ok. So, it’s in North London.
NS: It’s in North London.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Not far from Kingsbury.
HH: Ok.
NS: So, the crematorium there.
HH: And you were just telling me earlier that your mum survived a very long time and only passed away quite recently.
NS: Yeah. She was ninety one, my mother. Yeah. She passed.
HH: And she’d always lived, continued living in Leeds.
NS: Continued living in Leeds, yeah. She lived just up the road.
HH: And how come you found your way back to Leeds after you’d been in Peterborough? Where else did you travel and work?
NS: Well, I just happened to work in Peterborough. I just wanted a job and I’ve been an optical technician all my life. Since I was fifteen. And they were asking for somebody in Peterborough. So I went. I used to travel back to Leeds every weekend you know.
HH: So your home has always been in Leeds.
NS: My home has always, I’ve always had a home in Leeds. Yeah. Yeah.
HH: One of the things I wanted to, to ask you was how you, I mean obviously you have a very personal interest in how Bomber Command, RAF Bomber Command is remembered today. Do you think that, that Bomber Command is remembered adequately? Do you think that they’ve been given the respect or the recognition they deserve?
NS: They are now. At one time they was not. Not at all. My father regretted. My father made a lot of German friends. He used to visit Germany a lot. He felt so guilty, you know. I remember my father bombed Dresden and places like this and after the war he used to feel, he felt so sad you know. He told me this. But what could he do? He had to do it and that were, that was the end of it. I was very proud of him naturally. And everybody else. I had friends and they say to me, ‘Oh, your father. Oh yeah, he was an officer.’ And some still don’t believe me and I’d say, ‘Yes, he was an officer in the RAF.’ I can remember one guy once said to me, ‘No black men flew in the RAF.’ And this guy was in, this guy had been in the RAF, you know [laughs] I just laughed.
HH: Because I think, I mean don’t you think that that is an issue? That Bomber Command, you said earlier you know they didn’t have recognition for a long time but within, within that lack of recognition the, the black airmen and, and others who served in Bomber Command got even less recognition.
NS: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Probably. Probably. But I can’t see it though because my father was made an officer. So no. I don’t, I don’t think there was any prejudice in.
HH: No. But afterwards. The way in which Bomber Command has been remembered afterwards.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s sad because nobody realises. All they think about is bombing children and things like this. Nobody understands that it had to be done. It was something that just had to be done and that was the end of it. You know, I understood. I understood this for a long time. Yeah. When they say about [pause] some of the things he did he told me and I just, everything just went out of my head. Ah. I made some notes. [pause] In training. Him and Jimmy Watt. There was one time I was in Peterborough and I was in the pub and somebody came around, they put, ‘Anybody want to do a parachute jump.’ Well, you know it happens doesn’t it, in a pub? No. I was over forty then so I said, ‘No way.’ And I think I was forty. Anyway, they came back an hour later. That would be another three pints later [laughs] and the hand was up straight away. ‘Yeah. I’ll do it.’ So, then I thought, ‘What can I do now? How do I get out of it?’ So, I was going to visit my father the next day. So I went to my father and I said, ‘Dad, I’ve done something stupid.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I volunteered to do a parachute jump.’ He says, ‘You’ll love it.’ I said, ‘Dad, you never did one.’ He said, ‘I did.’ I said, ‘Why? Your plane was never shot down.’ He said, ‘We were test, test flying a Lancaster over the Humber Estuary and the rudder got stuck so it was just going around in a big circle all around the Humber Estuary. Well, we had to get in touch with base and they had to get in touch with Bomber Command and the only thing to do was bale out and, ‘Bale out while it’s over land and then we’ll send some fighters to shoot it down.’ That’s the only thing they could do. So they all baled out. My father landed in this church yard in [pause] Oh where? Anyway, in this village churchyard. I remember the name of the village. And he said, ‘I landed.’ Well, they had overalls over their uniforms then. He said, ‘I landed in this churchyard and this vicar’s wife came out with a shotgun. And she had a shotgun over me.’ So he said, ‘Look, I’m British.’ ‘So she looked at me and said, ‘Oh no you’re not.’ [laughs] Anyway, then the vicar came out and the local, local police sergeant. They let my dad, and then they realised. Well, the policeman did anyway. They realised he was British. And that woman used to send my father Christmas cards and birthday cards for twenty years before she died. That’s how, that’s how friendly he was. That’s how people took to my father. You know, it was just like that.
HH: That’s a wonderful story.
NS: Anyway, I did the parachute jump [laughs]
HH: And how did you find it?
NS: Marvellous. I wanted to do another one. I’d do one tomorrow. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Yeah. That’s a good story about my dad. [unclear] Parachute. Oh, and Jimmy. Jimmy Watt, I were talking to him and he said, ‘You know once we had, we couldn’t land at our base. There was something up with the plane. We had to land at this other base.’ And there there was American bomber planes. Well, they landed. ‘They took us in to the mess and this one crew member said to Jimmy Watt, he said, ‘Does he fly with you?’ So, he said, ‘Yeah.’ So he said, ‘Well, aren’t you segregated?’ He said, ‘What do you mean segregrated?’ so he said, he said, ‘We fly together, we eat together and,’ he said, ‘We’ll probably die together.’ And that’s what Jimmy Watt told this Yank.
HH: And he was right.
NS: He was right.
HH: Tell us that story Neville about how your dad recognised his, his ground crew from, from his voice all those years later at a reunion.
NS: Oh yeah. We went to a reunion. My father was blind by this time and we were, we was walking to the church and it’s a hill to go up the church. My dad was blind and I had my dad on my arm. Well, this old guy came up and he says, stood in front of my father and he says. ‘You won’t remember me Able 1, will you?’ My father was blind. My father said, ‘Remember you?’ He says, ‘You saved our lives.’ He said, ‘You were the ground crew. We relied on you.’ And he remembered his voice and it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. I can remember one time. This is a silly thing. I had to go to London. I had to go to get to the other side of London which is south London so I asked my father for directions. He said, ‘Come on. I’ll take you.’ I said, ‘Dad, you’re blind.’ He said, ‘I was a navigator wasn’t I?’ [laughs] So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So I’d got him in the car beside me and don’t forget he were blind but he directed me to exactly the place I wanted to be. ‘You take the next left.’ And it, and it was about a ten mile journey but I don’t know how he did it.
HH: He got you there.
NS: I don’t know how he did it. Another time [unclear] [pause] Oh yeah. Another time his pilot told me, he said, ‘We were coming in to land and they knocked a chimney pot off a farmhouse.’ But the next day the farmer came screaming, he said, ‘But we blamed somebody else.’ [laughs] But my father wanted to admit it. He said, ‘No. You don’t admit it. We blame somebody else.’ And he told me another other time as well it must be forty years after the war. Yeah, and he’d visited York because they used to go to York and he said, ‘I was sat in this café —' and this lady came up to him and she said, ‘Did you serve in the RAF?’ So, he said, ‘Yes.’ ‘I used to dance with you. Do you remember doing?’ And she used to dance with him at one of the dances in York. You know, he said, he said it’s forty years ago and she still remembered. I said, ‘Dad, you’re an unforgettable person.’ You know.
HH: Was he a good dancer?
NS: Oh yeah. Supposed to have been, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s where I got it from.
HH: Are you a good dancer too?
NS: What are you laughing at [laughs] No. I can’t, I can’t even walk.
HH: Does dancing run in your family?
NS: I can’t even walk. Palestine. Jimmy Watt. I did this. Brenda Bernell. What’s Brenda Bernell? Oh. This is another story about my father in uniform. I was six years old and I was very ill. The doctor didn’t know what was wrong with me. He thought I had measles. But then he thought it was a bad case of flu because I came out in blotches and everything. Anyway, there was a girl that lived around the corner. I’ll never forget her name. Brenda Bernell. And she was in the same class as me so my grandmother had sent her a note to say, “Neville won’t be in school because he’s got measles.” That’s what they thought I had. When I finally got back to school teacher said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ It turned out it were just a bad dose of flu. I said, ‘Well, I’ve had flu.’ And I had to stand outside the headmistress’s office for lying. Well, you know [laughs] So my father had come to visit me. And he said, he was at home so when I got home he was there. So, he said, ‘Why are you late?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve been outside the headmistress’s office for lying.’ He was angry with me. He said, ‘You’ve been lying?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. I just told them I’d got flu.’ And grandma said, ‘Well, that’s what it was but we sent a note saying he’d got —’[pause] My father marched me to school the next day in full uniform. I thought, but the respect he got when he went through those school gates. The headmistress, she was all over him. You know. She couldn’t do enough for him. And I thought well she was a right cow anyway. Mrs [unclear] we called her Bumblebee.
HH: Did you get an apology?
NS: Oh, I got an apology, yeah. But when my father had gone I got, you know I still got picked on and what have you.
HH: So which, which schools did you go to in Leeds, Neville?
NS: Went to [unclear] Primary School and then to Foxwood Comprehensive School because Foxwood, it was the first comprehensive school in England and I had to write to my father because I had passed my Eleven Plus and had a choice of going to Roundhay School, or Coborn High School or another school. But I had to write to my father to say what, so he suggested Foxwood School. That will be the best in the future. That’s the only mistake he ever made I think [laughs] No. I did alright. I did alright. I did alright. But I can’t tell you about, I can’t tell you his missions that he did because I don’t know. I know there was a lot. I know he did more than anybody else.
HH: What happened to his logbook?
NS: His son’s got that in London.
HH: It does, it does survive though, does it?
NS: It might survive. I know, I know he’s got little things because he’s an hoarder and he’s, he’s not interested in any of this because when, when we was going to the fiftieth reunion to meet all his old, his son was there and I said, ‘Akin, do you want to come with us?’ ‘No. I’ll stay with mum.’ You know, he’s one of them type of things. I think he’s got, I know he’s got his ration book, things like that so he might have his logbook. But my father would have given it to me if he’d have known, you know, that he was going to die. He made sure.
HH: But that would probably have the fullest record of all his ops.
NS: Yeah. Yeah. But I don’t talk to the man. I don’t want to talk to him.
HH: No. There is another way of getting the information. Look, looking at operational record books.
NS: Yeah.
HH: Which is, which is possible but we can talk about that another time.
NS: Yeah. That’s fine.
HH: Maybe get some information from that.
NS: I just want, I just want to know how he was awarded his DFC. That’s all I’m interested in.
HH: And we’ll get, we’ll try.
NS: Yeah.
HH: And look for ways of —
NS: Yeah.
HH: Finding that information for you.
NS: I thought they might have let me know when I applied for his medals because my dad’s medals. Oh, the medals that’s another story.
HH: Tell us that story.
NS: Well, my father, when mother and father split up he got lodgings in this house not far and he had to go to London. So he asked this guy would he look after his medals until he comes back. He said, ‘Oh yeah. They’ll be safe with me.’ My dad was gone for God knows how long and he went but the guy had moved and the medals had gone. Now, this guy had been seen at the Cenotaph in Leeds wearing my father’s medals. But we never, I had to get some copies made but my father, you know he said, ‘No. He wouldn’t have stolen them.’ I said, ‘Dad, he did. There are people like that, you know.’ My dad didn’t think there were people were like that. You know, why would anybody steal somebody else’s medals?
HH: Yeah.
NS: The guy had been in the RAF himself. But I think he was only ground crew but you know he was marching up and down with my dad’s medals on.
HH: So, did you, have you had those medals, the replacements? Did you get those for your dad or did you get those after he had passed away already?
NS: I got them for my dad but he said, ‘No, you keep them. You keep them there and then I’ll know you’ve got them then,’ you see.
HH: Yeah.
NS: So, I kept them up here.
HH: So, he knew that he had the replacements.
NS: Oh yeah. He, yeah I said, ‘I got your replacements. Don’t you worry about that.’
HH: Yeah.
NS: Anything else? I don’t [pause] it seems I have loads to tell you but I can’t think.
HH: Well, you have told us loads.
NS: Have I?
HH: You have. And I suppose it would be a good, a good way to end off really by talking about how the rest of your family feels about these stories because I know you’ve got children and grandchildren of your own.
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: Are they interested in these stories?
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: Do you tell them the stories?
NS: I do tell them now and then. Yeah. Like I said he’s —
Other: Yeah. My brother who lives in Spain. He’s got, he’s got all the photos up at his bar.
NS: Oh, he’s got a bar in Spain.
Other: He’s got all the photos of my granddad.
NS: They called the bar, “Banjos.” They call the bar, “Banjos.”
HH: Have you been out there?
Other: Yeah.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Other: Of course.
NS: We go out there. I go out regular and he has, well he’s got some more pictures now.
HH: So, you do keep this memory alive.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah.
HH: Of your dad in the family. That’s wonderful.
NS: And its amazing how many people are interested in Spain because he’s got these pictures and he’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s my grandfather.’ But there’s so many. When I go now people want to talk, want talk to me about it you know. And there’s one guy, one guy especially he runs a radio show in Malaga. And I think he’s mentioned it on the show in Malaga. You know. That’s another thing.
HH: So he should.
NS: Yeah.
HH: It’s important that these people do remember.
NS: It is. Yeah. It is. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Yeah. So I’ve got to get some more pictures now and take them over when I go to fill his wall up you know. I’ve got, well, I’ve got plenty on my phone anyway, you know so—
HH: That’s great. Thank you so much for sharing all of these stories.
NS: It’s ok [unclear]
HH: If you think of anymore which is doubtless going to happen take a note and we’ll come back and do some more chatting.
NS: Well, I’ll come and meet you. It’s not —
HH: It would be wonderful to welcome you in Lincoln.
NS: Yeah.
HH: It would be wonderful to take you around the new International Bomber Command Centre when it opens which will be next year.
NS: Yeah. I’d love to do it because there’s a guy I used to work with in Peterborough, an optician. And he’s really interested in this because his father was in the RAF. He was a —
HH: Do you stay in touch with him?
NS: Oh yeah. Gilbert. Yeah.
HH: Well, Lincoln is a good place for you to meet halfway.
NS: He lives in Boston.
HH: Oh, there you are. Boston and Leeds. You can meet in Lincoln.
NS: Yeah. He used, he used to have an optician shop in Boston. A Specsaver shop in Boston, this guy.
HH: One of the things that I just wanted to ask you before we close everything up is would you mind if we took some pictures of your photographs?
NS: No, not at all.
HH: Because if, if you are willing for us to be able to do that we would love to have copies put in to our archive as well.
NS: Yeah.
HH: For other people to have a look —
NS: Yeah.
HH: In future. So that would be really good. So, thank you Neville.
NS: Yeah.
HH: Perhaps the thing to do now would be to take some images and we also want a nice portrait of you.
NS: Oh, that’s ok.
HH: And we’ll take a portrait of Keeley too. Thank you so much.
NS: You’re welcome.
HH: Let’s stop all the equipment and take some still photographs and some other photographs. Is that ok, Alex?
[recording paused]
HH: Ok. Tell me about your dad’s love of jazz.
NS: Love of jazz. He loved jazz. He wanted to play it for his funeral, it was “Blue Indigo,” by oh I’ve got, I’ve got the CD down there.
HH: It’s, “Mood Indigo.”
NS: Mood. Well, it was, “Mood Indigo” It was “Blue Indigo,” because there’s, there’s so many different versions.
HH: Versions. Yeah.
NS: Because when I tried to get it afterwards because I’ve got a friend that has a record shop and he said, ‘There’s twenty different versions of this,’ but I’ve I’ve got the right one.
HH: And that’s what was played at his funeral.
NS: That was played at his funeral. Yeah.
HH: Lovely touch.
NS: It was so, the music. It just [pause] that’s it. You might not have heard of him Terry Gallagher the jazz singer. He’s great. That’s him there and that’s me just where I used to live in the centre of Leeds but he’d done a show there. How do you want to do these pictures then? Do you want to —?
[recording paused]
HH: Now, Neville, tell me the story about the brother you discovered much later.
NS: Well, about ten years ago my daughter, Keeley she rang me, she said, ‘Dad, you’ve got a brother.’ I said, ‘I know I’ve got a brother. I don’t talk to him.’ She said, ‘No. This is another one. He’s looking for you and he lives in America.’ So I finally, I phoned him and then he came over, didn’t he? He came over to see me and it took him three weeks. Now, we can’t stand the one down there. I can’t tell you what he calls him over the phone. But he, but he’s a marvellous kid and he was brought up in care. His mother gave him up when he was three years old and he went to Durham. Now, this lady she just looked after half caste children. She fostered them. And what do you call the dressmaker? Bruce —
HH: I can picture him.
NS: The gay guy. Bruce.
Other: Bruce Oldfield.
NS: Bruce Oldfield.
HH: Oldfield.
NS: He was there in the same one. I used to have a picture. I used to have that book. A picture of Bruce Oldfield. But, now this guy they’re like brothers. Well, they are brothers. They were brought up as brothers and Bruce Oldfield lives in Italy now. He has a place in Italy. I think it’s Lake Como or somewhere, but he goes over and visits him regular. You know he’s a smashing guy is Barry.
Other: They were in a band together.
NS: Oh he was in a band together, yeah.
Other: London Cowboys.
HH: Did you? Wow.
Other: London Cowboys he was in.
NS: No, he wasn’t in a band, what do you —
HH: But it was through this brother that you heard about us.
NS: Yeah. He, he phoned me and says I want you to do something about it. I said, ‘Look, I can’t send emails. I’m useless at that, you know.’ But luckily I had this guy next to me who used to live next door to me. He said, ‘I’ll do it for you.’ It’s why, just Dave emailing, I was telling him what to write. Anyway, I finally did and I told Barry. He said, ‘I want you to do it before he does it down there because he knows nothing.’ You know, that brother in London. He’d just do it for he’d make sure he got his name in print somewhere along the line. See if I can find out.
HH: Well. You must keep Barry informed and get him to come over when the, when the centre opens.
NS: Oh, we will do yeah.
HH: Come down and visit together. It would be wonderful.
Other: Yeah. Barry works in all the studios. Universal studios.
NS: Yeah.
Other: Works on all the sets.
HH: Wow
NS: Find him —
Other: I’ll just click on the top of that.
Dublin Core
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AShenbanjoN170727, PShenbanjoA1701
Title
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Interview with Neville Shenbanjo
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:54:36 audio recording
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Heather Hughes
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2017-07-27
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
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Great Britain
Nigeria
England--Yorkshire
England--London
England--Leeds
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Neville Shenbanjo was born in 1945, the son of Akin Shenbanjo. Flying Officer Akin Shenbanjo DFC was born in Nigeria and served as a wireless operator / air gunner with 76 Squadron. His crew named their Halifax 'Achtung! The Black Prince' after him.
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Pending OH summary. Allocated T Holmes
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Julie Williams
76 Squadron
African heritage
aircrew
Halifax
perception of bombing war
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
wireless operator / air gunner
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Smith, Jean
J Smith
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Two items. An oral history interview with Jean Smith (2105009 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. She worked as a clerk in the aircraft manufacturing industry before the war and later served as a secretary in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She served at 27 Operational Training Unit at RAF Lichfield.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-03-12
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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.
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Smith, J
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AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Jean Smith, who was a WAAF at Lichfield among other places during World War Two, she in fact I met her husband who was a Stirling flight engineer, so this is gonna be a good one. My name is Adam Purcell, the interview is taking place at Jean’s home in McCrae, south of Melbourne and it is the 12th of March 2016. So, Jean, I thought we might start from the beginning, it’s probably a good spot. Uhm, can you tell me something of your early life, what, where and how you grew up, uhm, education, first job, that sort of thing.
JS: Oh, well, I was born on the 1st of January 1922 and born in [unclear] 6, moved to, uhm, Welwyn Garden City and that’s where I spent my school life. I went not to the local primary school and I went to Hitchin Grammar School, was the nearest secondary school to Welwyn Garden City and then I went to Pitman’s College in London and at the same time the family moved to Amersham in Buckinghamshire. I was always very keen on horse riding and show jumping so that’ s where I spent most of my spare time in my youth. I did a secretarial course at Pitman’s College and also studied for my civil service exams, which I passed very well and went in, I chose the Air Ministry, my father told me I was very silly to do that. He was a civil servant, he knew better than me but I wanted to go into the Air Ministry. And then the Air Ministry split and was the Ministry of Aircraft Production which I went into. We spent our time typing out and preparing all these contracts for small firms to make Wellington bombers and Spitfires and Hurricanes a year at least before the war started. Then the war started and by that time I had met a very nice young man at Halton number 1 school of Aircraft Apprentices and he was passing out that year and he was sergeant apprentice and he, when the war occurred, he went straight over to France with the British Expeditionary Force, he was a fitter of course, and then managed to escape back from a French fishing village, on a French small fishing boat back to Folkestone and as soon as he got back to Britain, he, then we were, the Battle of Britain had started and we were very short of pilots for all our new aircraft, fighter aircraft and he trained as a Hurricane pilot and sadly he was shot down in the Battle of Britain. I wanted to go into the Air Force straight away, into the WAAF, but my father wouldn’t let me, he said, no, not until you are twenty one, why that magical number? I got in at twenty in the beginning of 1942 and I wanted to be a flight mechanic or a radio operator but of course they conned me and they said that you’re already trained and you’ll save your country such a lot of money [laughs] and so I went in as a secretary and all I did was my two months training at Innsworth Camp with thousands of other girls, usual routine, learning to march, to salute and hygiene and air force laundry, marches. And there were no mirrors on our training station so we had to learn to do our hair, put our make-up on and put our caps on and tie our ties without anything other than your little compact mirror and that was a bit of a thing. Anyway, I was posted to number 27 OTU Lichfield and I wanted to be in Fighter Command, now I was going to Bomber Command. Anyway, I arrived at 27 OTU and I found out what a lovely station it was, friendly and happy. And, [sighs] I became secretary to the Chief Flying Instructor Wing Commander Jackson, he was a South African and he’d done his first tour on Hampdens and I, my office was part of the orderly room, training wing orderly room down in flying control on the edge of the air field and I was stunned when I used to see all these young officers and flight sergeants and warrant officers coming in, all the instructors coming into our office, I was strapped dumb and they were all decorated and they’d all done their ops on Wellingtons and Hams, not Wellingtons, Hampdens and another aircraft, we used to call them coffin boxes, Hampdens, can’t think of the other one, uhm, and I was so naive and young, all these young heroes coming in, breezing in, and of course I quickly learned all the slang, you know, di digitate and you’re in the fertilizer business and [laughs] so on and so on, the prangs and they really did say jolly good show when they came in up to doing something [laughs], well, uhm, so, the Waafery was two miles down the road, uhm, I think it was a place, a little village called Streethay, it was on the main road and it was two miles away and it was surrounded by high barb wire fencing and sentries at the gate and I remember, some of the aircrew boys saying: ‘Why do they, why do they surround your place as if it’s like a prison?’ and I used to tell all the Aussies: ‘To keep you randy Aussies out’. We had a little pub called the Anchor, a tiny little pub that had been a coaching inn and it was just, all about a quarter of a mile down the road from our camp and, of course we were all armed [?], we were all given service bikes, we could all ride a bike because we had to ride to and fro to camp and coming down on summer evenings, especially when I was first there, lot of the girls used to stop and go in for half a pint of beer before they went in for their tea [laughs]. Oh, I was so pure and innocent, it took me six months before I set my first footstep, I’d never been in a pub in my life, [laughs]. Anyway we used to go into the Anchor a lot for a quick drink and also of course on the nights in the winter, when night flying was cancelled, when it was thick pea souper fog or rain streaming down, you couldn’t see an inch before you, we all used to wait around in our hut after we’d had our tea at night and suddenly over the tannoy the message would come: all night flying cancelled, all night flying scrubbed, over and out. And we’d all say whoopee and get the curlers out and put all the glamour on, those were the days of big pink rouge cheeks and thick horrible makeup called powder cream, we used to plaster all over our spotty faces and big cupids bow lips bright red and mascara [?], which came in little black blocks and you spat on it and rubbed it with a little brush, and thickly coated your eyelashes. The trouble was it wasn’t waterproof so if you went to the pictures and it was a sad film you, also all the girls came out with streaks of black down their cheeks [laughs], we’d all be trying to wipe of our black tears. Uh, we had a lot of fun in the Hut 2 and, as I say, we used to put all our makeup on and then best blue and dash down to the pub and then we’d wait there, we’d order our drinks, just half a pint of beer and you’d hear all the boys coming down and all the bikes going bang, bang, bang on the pub wall and they’d all come streaming in and in half an hour the whole place would be a thick fug, you could hardly see across the room, cigarette smoke and I always remember cigarette smoke and all the wet wall, there was always a big fire on in the lounge bar and the piano, oh, piano would be going like mad with all the songs getting naughtier and naughtier as the night went on [laughs]. And it was good because these boys were doing their, they were doing their operational training, they were, they’d come from all their various schools, pilots from their flying school, wireless school, gunnery and they’d come together and they’d been put in big room and told to make up a crew of five which would be pilot, navigator, wireless operator, he was also a gunner, uh, a gunner and a bomb-aimer and they would then convert onto Wellington, twin-engine bombers, the good old Wellingtons which were nicknamed Wimpies, they were, they were going up doing circuits and bumps all day and all night and it’s all very well, I was shattered actually when I got there, because the number of accidents in training was shocking during the war and I don’t think a lot of civilians, I didn’t think there were going to be all these terrible accidents and my first job, as soon as I settled into my, into my office, my first job was to type out a form 765C, I think five copies I had to do, you had to do five copies, one went to Bomber Command, one went to Group Headquarters, one went somewhere else and this particular form 765C, which was an accident report form for Bomber Command, it was a Cat E, and Cat E was total wreck all crew killed, it started with Cat E which was just nothing, you know, somebody knocked a, knocked a whole in a [unclear] or something like that, but the Cat Es were all full and of course when I’d done that and send that off and I was appalled cause I said to the sergeant in charge of the orderly room: ‘Does this happen often?’. ‘Oh, yes’ he said turning to me, he said, ‘Oh, we’ve had one accident, we should have another two in the next week’. Sure enough we did and next day I, and next morning I, after I’d done the general correspondence with the Chief Flying Instructor, the CFI, I had to go and sit down and we did letters of condolence to the various parents and wives and I know there were two Australian families and I thought how dreadful, all those miles away and I suppose no air mail, so I suppose in five weeks, will take five weeks for the letters to get to the parents somewhere in the outback of Australia and it just hit home, the war really came home to me in those first few days at my new station. And I was to see a lot of very nasty accidents and I think you know there’s always, it always makes me shudder now when I hear of a bad accident to a large airliner, you think of the horrible noise and the smell and that sort of vile cloud of black, black grey smoke and then the dark red flames going up and I’d seen dead bodies being carried out of planes and it’s so terrible and it did happen so often and of course we were very near the Peak District, Staffordshire, Derbyshire was the next door county and of course the Peak District and the boys did their night flying training in all weathers, terrible weather in full blackout and there they were flying around with all the peaks not very far distant and all the, all the Welsh mountains not very far away so, we had quite a lot of accidents hitting mountains. There used to be a comical character, in a magazine which was circulated to the air crew every so often and there was a little pilot called PO Prune and he was always saying: ‘Do not come down to sea!’ and he always held his finger in the air and that was called the irremovable digit [laughs] and he was always telling people all the things they, all the aircrew telling them what they must look out for and what they mustn’t do and constantly it was: ‘Do not come down to sea!’ Never come down lower than a certain height. And life went on very smoothly at 27 OTU. I remember, uhm, I turned twenty one of course at the end of that year, on New Year’s Day 1943 and there was, on Saint Valentine’s Eve there was a WAAF dance. Morale had been bad among the WAAF at that time because we’d had an awful lot of accidents, one girl had lost her young husband only a few months married, several girls had had bad news from their boyfriends in Africa because at that time our tanks, it was the first time when our tanks were being pushed back by Rommel and there was bad news from all our various fronts and the U-boats were having a feast downing our convoys, rations were being tightened for civilians, it was a very bad time, so, all the officers, and our WAAF officers decided, have a dance, I think it was the, our WAAF, the WAAF was formed in 1938 or ’39 just before the war and it was an anniversary for the WAAF and of course we couldn’t be allowed to wear civilian clothes, you weren’t allowed to wear civilian clothes, you had to be in uniform all the time. So, they got round that by saying, we’ll have a fancy dress dance for the WAAF, not for the airmen, the airmen have to come in uniform for the girls. So, we all rushed home, if we had a 36 hour or 48 hour leave, we all rushed home and said to our mothers, what have we got, got all the bits out, my mother dyed some spare cloth, she dyed one lot red and made me a very full skirt and then she found a bit of blackout curtain and made a little bodies and the boys in the dope shop painted a sickle and hammer on it, cause they were, the Russians were our gallant allies in those days and I’d also I got a little [unclear] in civilian life, a little, pretty little embroidered blouse, Hungarian blouse. So I went as a Russian peasant and my aunt had given me a beautiful silk Japanese kimono which she had before the war, it was a really beautiful thing. And my best friend, Hibbie, Brenda was her real name, Hibbie was dark-haired and very petite and I lent this kimono to Hibbie and she did her hair up with a comb in it and went as a Japanese girl, a horrible [unclear] [laughs] and so we all got it, we were told to get in the transport, we could go in our fancy dress and we were all glamourized that, we’d had all our hair set, we’ve had to get in the transport in order to go up to main camp but we had to take our uniforms with us to, to camp, so that we came home, back to camp in uniform. Anyway, we got up to the big NAAFI on the main camp and the station band which was very good started to play and the boys came in and we were dancing and a couple of young men came in and they, they were just in working gear, with scarves round their neck. They walked over to the bar, meanwhile ten of us had coloured a huge table near the bar, so, we were all there, sitting and chatting and these two young airmen came along and the older said; ‘Hello, girls, can we sit with you?’ And I said: ‘Oh, yes’. And they dragged out the young man along, she seemed very shy, blushing about being among with all us girls, anyway this was to be, this was my husband-to-be and he didn’t ask me to dance and I was getting up and dancing with all these other boys and then I said: ‘Don’t you like me or don’t you think I can dance very well?’ He said: ‘I can’t dance, he said, I’ve never danced in my life, he said, there’s a boy in our hut being trying to teach some of us to dance but, he said, I come from the isle of Lewis, and we are free Presbyterians, we are Calvinists, and we believe dancing is very sinful’. But he said: ‘I don’t’. And he said: ‘I’d like to learn to dance’. He said: ‘Will you dance with me now?’ So, he danced with me and trod all over my feet, he was such a, oh, he had lovely blue eyes and he was a very nice boy with that beautiful Highland accent, very soft and of course I really fell for him and he said, so after the last waltz we, he said to me: ‘May I see you at to transport?’ I said, ‘Oh yes’, I said, ‘You have to wait outside because we’ve all got to change back into our uniforms’. So we go into another room, change back and I found that I got all my uniform there except that I hadn’t got my, we didn’t have suspender belts in those days, we had corsets and [laughs] large, pink corsets with suspenders on the end and I found I left my back at camp. So, I put my stockings on, I went out to transport, I was holding my skirt with my stockings up and there is this nice boy waiting for me and eventually, you know, after we all chit chatting and talking, the driver said: ‘Get in girls!’. So, he said: ‘May I kiss you goodnight?’ and I said: ‘Oh, yes!’ and I put my arms up around his neck and my stockings fell down [laughs] and so obviously it must, it must have been ordained that this would be my future husband. Oh, we only had five dates before he went off, he was a fitter on our camp, and we had five dates and he went off for his aircrew training and the young man and the older man who’d introduced him to us girls was Norman Jackson, who went on, he went off on the flight engineers course too, he was a fitter. And he went on to win the VC, he climbed out on the wing of his burning plane, he stuck a fire extinguisher into his tunic and climbed out and the other men were sort of holding onto his parachute pack and then a flame [unclear], he managed to put most of the fire out but the flames blew back all across his face and hands and unfortunately in all the shemozzle, well the fire extinguisher of course went, fell off the plane and but his parachute started to open so he had to go off, they couldn’t drag him back and he was a POW. The Germans cared for him pretty well but years later, apparently he worked, somebody told us that he worked in a high class Rolls Royce showroom selling Rolls Royce, he probably would be helped after the war, but he was a prisoner of war for a long time. Uhm, no, from about 1943 to 5 and uh, unfortunately we tried to get in touch but it was very difficult after the war, everything was in such a muddle and we never got the chance to meet him again. And, so, Jock wanted me to be his steady girlfriend but most of us WAAF didn’t like, didn’t like to be, it was the boys who wanted to be serious but we didn’t like to be serious with any of them or getting, most of us didn’t want to get engaged or married because we all felt with aircrew that once they got married or they were engaged, they were, they became very serious and much more careful and it was, we all felt talking to aircrew boys that it was the worst thing to be very careful, it was far better to be gung-ho and able to take risks than, and not have to think about a wife or a serious girlfriend. But I wrote to him the whole time he was on ops, I didn’t see him for eighteen months, I wrote him the whole time he was on ops, and I’ve got most of his letters and unfortunately he hasn’t, he didn’t, he couldn’t keep many of mine because most of them threw letters away, personal letters were thrown away. Uhm, aircrew on ops, it wasn’t a wise thing to keep anything from love life or anything like because if you were killed or taken prisoner, the RAF police went in and put everything into, uhm, boxes and all that was sent to the parents and sometimes, or wives, and sometimes it was far better that certain things weren’t known. So, I mean, you know, even things like condoms, they were told not to keep in their lockers and things like that because of the attitude in those days. So, uhm, eventually in 1945, I was posted to 3 and 5 Group at Grantham, the top groups which commanded the operational squadrons and we were working in a large country house on the edge of Grantham and we were billeted in a lovely old Edwardian house right in the middle of Grantham, not far from the Great North Road which ran through Grantham at that time. And it turns out, when I was reading the biography of Bomber Harris, when he was a young air commodore at the beginning of the war, that was his living quarters, his house with his wife and young daughter and they, eventually it was withdrawn as living quarters for RAF officers and became the living quarters for mainly the clerical and secretarial staff and actually discipline was very easy in the house, this was the place where we were living, uhm, because we were all very trustworthy women who’d worked as personal secretaries all the war and so were trusted to go and come without having to book in or book out. So, I knew I’d been keeping in touch with Jock and I knew by then he’d finished his tour of ops and he was a fighter engineer instructor at Woolfox Lodge, just down the Main North Road and he’d got a motorbike and so I said, you know, I said, he said, you know, did I feel like taking up the friendship again, and I said if he was interested, yes, fine. So, he came up on his motorbike to Grantham and we renewed our friendship, which of course brought something to our romance and we married at the end of 1945, once all the, when the war was over. But, to go back to Lichfield, I would have gone on Lichfield, unfortunately my very nice Chief Flying Instructor boss went back to do a second tour of ops so I was getting some, I was going to work for someone else. But sadly he went back on ops and he lost his life, his plane crashed over Germany and he lost his life and it was very sad because he’d married an English girl and he had two lovely children because I used to, when there were officers mess dances, I used to go and babysit for him, cause I always felt, I always used to sit next to him in his car when I was taken out to his house. [unclear] for the night and I used to feel like a queen sitting next to a senior officer [laughs] going past the guards [laughs] and they were all saluting [laughs] and so I used to look after the children and then he, and I’d have breakfast with them and he’d go, we’d go back to camp next morning. But very sadly, we were moved from our nice wooden house, we were moved into new Nissen huts, this was when conscription came in for women at the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943 and we really suddenly became inundated with all these conscripted women, they hated us, we hated them, we were volunteers, they were conscripts, and they didn’t want to be in the services and we made it clear that we wanted to win the war and we were going to win the war [laughs] and so on. Anyway, we were moved to new Nissen huts, which had been built in the winter and were still, the concrete floors were still very damp and it was terribly, terribly cold, I know, we discarded our sheets and used to sleep between blankets and we put on our pullovers and our slacks over our WAAF pyjamas, which were nice and warm and thick but still not thick enough and we heat bricks up and wrap them in newspaper or old bits of cloth to put in the bed and even so in the morning your breath used to be frozen, right down the blanket, a little icicle. Anyway it was so cold, and I got flu and I didn’t do any, I got a cold and then it went into flu and I didn’t do anything about it and didn’t go sick, that went into bronchitis and the bronchitis very quickly turned into pneumonia and I was at work and I went all funny and they had to get an ambulance to take me to sick quarters and I must have been very ill because they put me in a private room which was normally kept for officers and I was wrapped in the officers white blanket because if I’d been, other ranks blankets would have been grey [laughs] and they gave me the new miracle drug, MB363 or some, it was a new sulphanilamide drug and it worked wonders on pneumonia and I was sick for, very sick for a few days and then eventually I lost my voice and I was sent down to Waafsey quarters to convalesce and in Waafsey quarters they had a dreadful sergeant, a woman sergeant, a WAAF sergeant in charge and she used to have all us patients up every morning, we had to get on our hands and knees in our pyjamas and polish the floors [laughs]. I couldn’t speak [laughs]. We had a little wind-up gramophone in sick quarters and the only record we had was some well-known singer of the day singing, we’re having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave, it isn’t surprising, the temperature’s rising, she certainly can, can, can [singing] [laughs]. We played it and played it and played it. So then I went back to work but by then my boss had gone and the senior medical officer decided that I’d been so sick and I’d also had a lot of very nasty boils and said really you should have a series of injections for vitamin B but unfortunately vitamin B is kept for aircrew only so I can’t give it to you, and he said, I’m going to do the very next best thing, he said, I’m going to arrange a posting to group headquarters and he said you’ll have much better food, you’ll get fruit and he said you will be in much better quarters, but of course when I went to group headquarters it was all very nice but no aircrew, no any young men. The only thing was, we had a big Canadian Bomber Command station not far from us and a huge American camp so we used to go to the American camp and that was the first time we saw, for several years that we saw oranges and ice cream, they gave us ice cream [unclear]. But to go back to Lichfield, before I leave Lichfield to go to 93 Group Headquarters in Derbyshire, I must tell of the most exciting thing that happened to all of us and that was our station taking part in the first thousand bomber raid on Cologne, I think it was the 30th, 31st of May 1942 and that was very exciting, I mean, we didn’t know where, that the target would be Cologne but we all knew something big was on. Apparently, I’ve read all about the thousand plan but at first poor old Bomber Harris thought [unclear] make the bombers because the Coastal Command was going to be in it and their bombers were going to take part and the navy bombers, but at the last minute the navy and coastal or they say so, Coastal Command withdrew so we were left with less than a thousand bombers and Bomber Harris said they must: ‘Churchill had said it must be’, and Bomber Harris said it must be a thousand bombers so they racked in all the training stations and every screen was allotted a crew and so cause always at the end of OTU training the aircrews always went on things called bulls eyes [?] or light tight raids just over the coast of France either to straf, shipping or to drop leaflets and just over the coast and then back again, to give the young aircrew a taste of what it would be like but now we were going to have everything, uhm, every crew we could put, even if they were going with an instructor, the screen instructors and so, of course our poor old Wimpies, I mean, all those operational training units, all the heavy conversion units, the aircraft were already second hand, they’d all been used on operational flying, they’d all been used and abused I mean, you, when you talked to a flight engineer as my husband was, they were running those engines very often at revs never put down in the makers note and they came to the instructional units, and they were pretty knocked about a lot of them, a lot of them been hit and repaired and they weren’t very good and that’s probably what caused a lot of the training accidents. And so of course my husband, cause I didn’t know him in those days but than I knew, but I knew all the mechanics, all flight mechanics and fitters were working all around the clock to get service for aircraft and aircraft were taking up on their tests and then repaired again and again, the, don’t you want to stop [whispers]?
AP: No, no, you’re alright.
JS: And then they, then the uhm.
AP: But I will get you to move the microphone if you can, slip down [laughs] it was fine as long as you put your hands on [laughs]. There.
JS: Then, uhm, the uhm, so, they were very, very busy and we knew, because our, the control tower was next to K2 Hangar where my future husband worked and we knew where they were working cause we very often worked very late at night and you could hear all the noise and claying in the hangars and so we didn’t know the actual date until the actual date occurred the 30th of May and suddenly all, everybody was called on deck, everyone, you were just told to do all sorts of jobs, I know I was giving out sealed maps to the navigators and the pilots and we were getting all sorts of things together, all the Red Cross, the Australian Red Cross used to send wonderful parcels across, and the Aussie boys used to share, all the RAAF boys always shared their Red Cross parcels which were marvellous, full of all sorts of goodies and we were getting all those things ready and there were planes obviously being air tested and the whole station was busy with people, all with very definite looks in their eyes, all going about our business, sort of, with a lot of extra jobs to do and wherever you walked on the station normally when planes were bombed up, you wouldn’t see any bombs because they’d just be out of dispersals, but there were bomb trolleys everywhere, you were weaving your bikes all among all the different things, keeping a wary eye on the incendiary bomb boxes, which were painted red because if incendiaries fell off and the box broke open, the incendiaries could, they were very touchy and could often go off and you know, they were very dangerous. So, then of course the boys went for briefing and we were all hanging about, we had, I remember we had our tea and everyone, everyone was very quiet, very serious, the whole station. Of course, when there’s any big operations on the station is closed down and there is no leave and there’s no out coming or incoming personal phone calls or anything like that. So, we were all very busy, doing our various jobs and then I remember after briefing, they all came into the, into our big room in training wing and we were giving out the various, you know, chewing gum, barley sugars, cake, all sort of, parcels and things, cigarettes and off they went. We all had our quick tea and a whole host of us went down to wave them off, and I always remember that night, quite a mass of people were all standing underneath the balcony of flying control and all the top brass of the station, all the senior officers who weren’t flying men were above us, they were all out on the balcony and all the flying men, they were all in the planes, they were all been allotted to [unclear] crews and the three Padres all went, [unclear] and other denominations, Padres, they all went off choice and quite a few of our senior officers, who were ground staff chose to go with the crews, they said they backed them up and they wanted to go, you know, to give them heart as someone was there with them and we heard the first, to see a station, I’d never been on an operational station but my husband’s told me a lot about it but to see these planes or to hear them going, you know, we were standing there and of course always bombers during the war were around in dispersals, all dispersed around the airfield and you’d hear that coughing and choking sound of each engine starting up and revving up and then slowly, slowly. It was a rule that they mustn’t taxi fast because during the war all our rubber came from, well, what’s Malaysia and Indonesia now and of course rubber was very difficult to get and actually it hit the Germans more because of, you know, we were downing any German ships trying to get rubber, they couldn’t know they couldn’t get rubber because it was still British and but all aircraft, all aircrew were told to taxi slowly, because if you taxied fast it wore the rubber out more quickly. We were told that with our bikes, that we must only put our bikes into the bike racks with the rear wheel because if we put the front wheel in, it wobbled about and wore the rubber out [laughs]. All these silly things that happened during the war [laughs]. Uhm, so, then the, the first aircraft came weaving down past the control tower and I always remember the pilots window open and seeing the pilots face, each pilots face white in and his helmet faming [?] his face and he waved to all of us and, as they went slowly past, and we all gave thumbs up and he gave thumbs up and then slammed the window too and they went along to the runway, the end of the runway which wasn’t far away from us and of course they revved up each engine, one must be like a four-engine bomber station where they ramped each engine up to shrieking and you could see, you could see in the dusk, you could see all the dust and leaves and twigs flying and then of course they’d get a green from the airfield control and the caravan down at the end of the airfield and each one revved up and they took all the whole of the runway to get off to clear the hedge at the far end and almost before they were over the hedge, the next one was going down the runway, you know, heavily loaden with bombs and oxygen and high octane fuel, a living bomb themselves and we were all waving and we stood there long after the ground crew had put out the flarepath and long after the dim lights on the balcony had gone out off and all the officers had gone in, we all stood there, sort of not speaking, you know. And next morning of course lying in beds, you know, when the dawn was breaking, we were lying in bed, a lot of us hadn’t slept much that night, hearing the first faint roar of the aircraft coming back and counting back, we only lost one aircraft and they were actually, they had gone to another station, we were lucky but several of our aircraft had to turn back, cause that was the trouble on the training stations, Harris did get his, he got just over a thousand but actually before they got to the enemy coast some were turning back and I mean, once one engine goes in a Wimpey, you know you can’t go on. And of course, you know, we were lucky as I say, we, I and my friend who worked in training, when we dashed down on our bikes before breakfast to go and have a look, I think we run up to Flying Control, up the stairs to Flying Control to have a look at the big board to see who was back and that was quite an exciting night and so, and of course later on Jock told me all about, you know, his operational life and he had some exciting times. But, I went on to, Group Headquarters and of course you were working for senior officers, uhm, there were just one or two flight lieutenants, most of them were squadron leaders, ah, and of course you had air vice-marshals, all the people with the mess of scrambled egg on their caps and you were doing some, we were doing very secret stuff actually at that time and because of course, when I was at, yes, it was, 1945, yes, that was when I, that was when D-Day occurred and we all knew, because they cancelled long before D-Day, they cancelled all long leaves, all seven, fourteen day leaves and even forty eight hours weren’t very, weren’t given out very much. I was lucky, I wasn’t very far from my home and my home was by then in Buxton in Derbyshire because my father was in the civil service and he was in the customs & excise on the Board of Trade, and they were evacuated out to Buxton in Derbyshire. A lot of places, Ministry of Aircraft Production, were evacuated to Harrogate, all the non-military, there only be the Air Ministry, Admiralty, War Office, the Home Office, Colonial Office and, well, the Foreign Office, they were the only ones that stayed in London. All the other departments went out in case of being bombed, so, my dad’s office was in the big Palace Hotel, the biggest hotel in, uhm, in Buxton in Derbyshire and which is a beautiful place and so I wasn’t, when I was at Group Headquarters I wasn’t very far away. I could hitchhike to Derby and get a train to Buxton, so I was lucky I could get home for thirty six hours, but, I, uhm, for D-Day we all knew something was afoot but nobody, I don’t know why none of us put two and two together that it would be D-Day and we were doing all sorts of things so we used to, when you are on duty at night you know we’d be sitting the, only two or three of us on duty and we’d be having to take lots of coded messages and stick them onto paper and they’d go to various officers and the tele printers would be chattering all night with stuff from Bomber Command mainly and of course, then of course we, I came down to early lunch on, actually on D-Day and I went into the airmen’s mess and there was this little huddle around a tiny little radio that they got in the corner of the mess and I said: ‘What’s going on?’ and they said: [makes a shushing sound] ‘it’s on!’ So we all got our ears together listening. And I, cause I was very interested actually and had been interested for a long time because, of course I’d moved up with my parents, I’d left the Ministry of Aircraft Production and I moved up to Buxton when they moved to Buxton in 1940 and, I’d worked for the, I’d had a job as a secretary, as a town clerk in the town hall and the junior clerk who was a year younger than me, he had to wait till he was called up, he was in the home guard, he had to wait till he was called up because his mother was a widow and he was sort of contributing to the family so he waited until he was called up and the non, the local government offices were like the civil service and some big firms. When men were called up, their service pay was made up to their civilian pay, what they were earning in their civilian pay by the civil service and they were very, that was very good, so he had good money all the time. And we used to go out together, I was doing, everybody did voluntary work during the war, my mother rolled bandages and made up, she rolled bandages and made up, she old dressing kits for the army in her spare time, my dad used to fire watch and I used to go and work in the services canteen at the town hall in, about three evenings a week, pouring cups of tea or stirring backed beans for all the troops, cause we had troops everywhere, every town was full of troops, and, this, my boyfriend Morris, he was in the home guard, so he used to come and pick me up after his guard duties on reservoirs and oil damps and so on and, walk me home and I was, he was called up and went into the West Yorkshire Regiment and for years, I mean, Jock knew all about my romance with Morris, and the West Yorks were one of the first, they were one of the first to go on D-Day onto the beaches for the British crowd and I always wondered how he’d got on and my friend across the road, my neighbour across the road, she does genealogy and she’s looked up a lot of my family for me and she looked up Morris for me and if he’s alright and he got through obviously and he married two years after me and they had a daughter. And, so that was nice to know. So, that was our D-Day excitement and then of course I went, I was posted on to 3 and 5 Group Headquarters at Grantham, where of course I met Jock again. And our romance took off but nothing was, I mean, it was very easy living and very easy working conditions at Grantham compared to what I’d had and the war was almost winding down then so we had a very easy time of it and eventually of course once D-Day came, oh yes, D-Day, not D-Day, once VE-Day came, oh, we’ve all danced in the streets, there were civilian women dancing in their nighties in the streets and the street lamps were put on, and of course they’d obviously been preparing for VE-Day because all the street lamps went on and Jock and I, we used to go to a little park in Grantham and we had a special seat and that was our Snogging Seat and [laughs] we used to kiss and cuddle and on our Snogging Seat and we were very put out, after we’ve been down singing, drinking and you know, all the boys, he and all the boys climbed up, they put, they climbed up on the town, Grantham town hall roof and one of the boys tied a pair of WAAF blackouts, twilights, pair of WAAF knickers on the flag staff, certainly weren’t mine and Jock and I went round to our little park and our Snogging seat was no good anymore because there was a big lamp above it and it was lit up [laughs]. So, that was that but, he of course, he did his ops on Stirlings, so, I don’t know if whether you’ve heard, the losses on Stirlings were terrible and whenever we met people after the war and he said he was on a Stirling Squadron, they said; ‘Well, you are one of the few to get through!’ And half way through his ops, they took them off quite a lot of bombing ops and they put onto dropping, uhm, sea mines mainly in the Baltic, up the Gironde Estuary and so on, and then, that was quite tricky stuff, the only two or three would go out, it was quite tricky stuff because those sea mines going down on parachutes of course they were very touchy and they have to be, you have to fly at a certain level so that they would drop into the sea and then they come up to a certain level in the sea and lie there under the sea. And of course, while he was doing that, while he was dropping all these mines in the Baltic and so on, his father, who had been in the Royal Navy during World War I and then he went back into the Royal navy in World War Two and he was on minesweepers off our coast, off the western of [unclear] and the Minch, he was minesweeping for the British convoys coming and going. So, he was sweeping them up and his son was sowing them, they were called gardening operations and so he, they were doing well and also they were dropping a lot of stuff to the Maquis, the French Maquis in the Alps and he said, that was a very leery thing because he remembers, you know, cause Stirlings hadn’t go the height, they couldn’t get the ceiling like the Lancaster could so you often had to fly through gorges, these alpine gorges and he said, very often wingtip to wingtip you’d see this black icy glassy rock each sideof the wingtips and quite a lot of aircraft of course got smashed up in those gorges. And they also dropped to the Maquis, he had a quite an exciting experience, once they were quite high up in the Alps and they had just signalled and they received a torch signal back from the Maquis and they were coming to drop their, they had a lot of stuff including a Gee, of course it was always a flight engineer and a bomb aimer who were pushing it out in a big hatch, they had a special hatch who pushed all the stuff out and they were coming down in a steep curve and suddenly the floodlights, the searchlights went on and guns started, obviously the Germans were waiting for them and because they just went straight up, they took off and went off but he said he always wondered how the poor devils on the ground got on. And they did quite a lot of that sort of thing and they had, they were, they had a nasty time when they took off one night and the plane had been going, they’d been up all day, they’d headed up and down on air test and as they took off, one engine failed as they were taking off and they carried on, I mean three engines were, the Stirling was a tough plane, even though it couldn’t get the height, but second engine failed as they went over the end of the runway, and then the third engine started coughing and it was wintertime and there was a ploughed field next to the airfield, I mean they got a full bombload and the pilot said to Jock the engineer, he said; ‘I’ll have to go in’ and shouted out crash, you know, crash positions and they went in and he, Jock was up with the pilot, he was up in the cock pit and he said, all the earth, we went nose, he said, all the earth came over the cockpit but, he said, fortunately, he said, the little escape hatch so, he said, the pilot went out there and I went out the back and got out and we all got out and he’d expected the bombs to go off but nothing happened. So they were very fortunate and one [unclear] them was, see they’d had problems with this particular aircraft several other times and they had actually come back, they didn’t, I think they’d only returned twice with a bum aircraft and then this crash, and one the engineers, warrant officers came up to them and said: ‘Uh, yellow aye!’ and apparently he got roasted because they found out this aircraft was in a bad condition but it still went on flying and we were very interested because I think the Bomber Command War Diaries gives a detail of every aircraft that flew. And Jock was really through one day and he said, Jean, he said, this is so interesting, apparently it was sent off to a Heavy Conversion Unit and it only did two flights and then it disappeared somewhere over the coast of Ireland, the west coast of Ireland out to the Atlantic it disappeared with the crew, the [unclear] crew and never seen or heard of again, so obviously it was still playing out. He said there were always bum aircraft, lemons, like cars and but they were very lucky to get out of that. And then another time they were on their way to target and they were hit by cannon shell and an Me 109 went underneath them, obviously aiming for the engine, hit the starboard side, blew his flight engineer’s panel out and, cause all the lights, everything went out, and shrapnel flying around and this great big jagged hole and you could see the starboard engine and he was a bit stunned and he said: ‘I couldn’t breathe’ and he said: ‘I could feel this something warm dripping down my back’ and but he said, ‘it didn’t hurt, he said, my knee hurt’, he had got shrapnel, small shrapnel splinters in his knee and but he said, the navigator was groaning and he said, as soon as I sort of pulled myself together, the pilot was checking the crew round, fortunately the intercom was still working and he said, ‘engineer, are you ok?’ and Jock said; ‘I think so, I can’t breathe’. He said: ‘I’ll check’. Well, he found, he got a hydraulic pipe blown around his neck and that was what was dripping hot oil down his back, not blood [laughs] and his, a big lump of shrapnel had hit his parachute, bent his parachute buckle, harness buckle, perhaps bent it and set his Mae West off, that’s why he couldn’t breathe [laughs]. And it had wicker shade and gone, made a real mess, gone right into the groin of the navigator, I mean, the navigator sitting right behind the black curtain, you know, quite nice and all, nice and protected from anything nasty and he was the one who was the worst hit, well, he, Jock grabbed the first aid kit and he went straight up over and he, the navigator was in a really bad way and Jock gave him, cause they all had whole series of small morphines, he gave him morphine and cut and sliced his trousers and put a big shell dressing on his wound, he was and sort of dragged him to a lying down position and then he went to the wireless operator whose poor right hand was pouring blood and he said to him, he said to, don’t give me morphine, he said, cause he practiced Morse with his left hand, he said I’m carrying you on, he said, I don’t want to have morphine and go out to the wood, just shove a shell dressing on this and actually it was worse than it looked actually when they got back but they were still on their way to target so they were among a whole stream of bombers, it was very difficult turning round in a stream of bombers and the pilot said to Jock, he said, engineer, how is our fuel situation? Of course by that time Jock was checking with the torch what was left of his dials and switches and he said, can we get to target and back? As long as we have enough to get back home. And Jock said, that was the time I turned from a boy into a man [laughs] and he said, yes, so they went on and bombed and came back and they landed with very little fuel and the navigator of course went straight to hospital. The wireless op only had a week or two off, his wounds healed and, oh, Jock had only dressings put on his knee. But the others were ok, but, you know, see, they had no officer in their crew and actually that would have warranted in many crews that would have got a DFC or DFM for the [unclear] but DFM was not given out in great numbers and having no officer to sign it all because, yes, that’s it, the navigator was the only officer and of course he was in hospital so he wouldn’t be, he was unconscious by the time, so he wouldn’t have been able to write anything else, that sort of put the kibosh on any medal for the crew but I mean that was quite something I thought to go on to target and then come back. But that went on, as they all, oh you talked to a lot of the aircrew and I mean, that went on, there were so many crews that went west, that should have got medals, you know, for what they did. And, so he was very pleased and actually if he hadn’t died when he did, he would have, he did qualify for the French [unclear] again because he was flying, they did their last two ops just before, just on D-Day, they came, their last operation was on D-Day and that was another well-kept, that was a such a well-kept secret, I mean, the aircrew didn’t know, it went out that night, and they were given targets north of Normandy and they were dropping all these funny little sacking parachuters, which had firecrackers on them, so when they landed, it sounded as if they were firing shots and they dropped them, there a quite a lot of planes dropped them in various parts of Northern France and a lot of Germans did think that that was where the invasion was taking place and of course they went out, I think it was after midnight, cause it was only just into France, and they came back just as dawn was breaking and Jock was busy at his dials and only the pilot, the pilot must have looked down and he said: ‘Oh, boy, it is on!’ and he said, we all rushed and had a look and he said; ‘What a wall of ships!’ he said it the most amazing sight, he said, it send cold shivers down their backs and they’d also gone out and been minelaying a couple of nights before in the Gironde Estuary and he said, that was a terrible place for being armed, and he said, only three Stirlings went and he said their’s was the first to go in and of course they dropped these sea mines which are touchy even in the aircraft, you know, can go off and he said he looked round and his great friend was in the next aircraft, and was hit, went up and then the third bomb went up, so, they’d been given a route to come home across the South of France and then across the Channel, but the pilot had him put the nose down and went out in the [unclear], into the Atlantic and they came in through, came back through Cornwall [laughs], they didn’t want to know any more having lost their team mates [laughs].
AP: Ah yeah.
JS: But they often used to come, cause they laughed after they hit the target, they loved finding trains to shot up and any roadways and shot up any convoys and anything and they’ve would come back with bits of haystack and leaves of trees and [unclear] but the Stirling was, he used to say cause eventually he went on and became a flight engineer instructor on Lancasters and he said, yes, they were, they were wonderful aircraft cause they could do the distance, they could carry the arms but he said, he said, our Lancaster wouldn’t have survived that first crash with a full bombload, he said, they were beautifully built, he said, they were a lovely, comfortable aircraft and he said, they were so sturdy, and then they could fly very low, but how stupid of the Air Ministry to cut their wings of ten feet to get into the normal hangar, I mean why not build the odd hangar to conform to the wing? Say, were some funny things in the, there were some weird, weird things went on, you know, people with all sorts of suggestions and as I say, this front wheel of your bike, I was put on a charge cause I put the front wheel of my bike in, I was late on duty and I flung my front wheel of my bike in and the service police came round and of course you had a number on and tracked it to me and I was put on a charge! And I remember being marched in without my cap and of course was one of the officers I knew and worked for and he [unclear] said: ‘Now, what have you been up to?’ And the WAAF officer looked [unclear] [laughs]. There was a WAAF officer and someone along this sort of thing and he gave me three days jankers and I went down to the cookhouse cause normally you got all these filthy, big greasy ben maries [unclear], huge things, this big cooking greasy stuff, you’ve got them to clean out, but they said: ‘Oh, we’ve got nothing for you to do’ and they gave me some tea and cake [laughs]. It was a good laugh and it’s funny when we’re all, of course now I go into the Air Force Association and of course, we always go, my daughter and I always go to the Odd Bods November dinner and we meet up together and we, it’s, I mean, even for years all those old chaps and they were facing hell and you wondered how they had the nerve to do it and yet they all said: ‘Best years of our lives. Best years of our’, Jock said it, I said it, and I mean our living [unclear], I I’ve seen the ranks, living conditions and food was terrible and the living conditions were often awful and what you had to do. Cause we had, when we were at Lichfield we had to, at one period, probably be ’42, ’42 more than ’43, there was a lot of business, Germans were dropping odd parachutes, two or three parachuters and of course we had a fifth column of people who were Pro-Nazi, Fascists, some even before the war, Royal Family, you know, old Edward the 8th and his bird, you know, they were all quite Pro Hitler and, we, we were, that was when there had been attacks on planes, that was when they used to keep the planes all in a line or on tarmac and they started to put them down in dispersals, the ones that were in use, any spare ones would be dragged out and put on a farmers’, in farmers’ fields under the trees and we had a couple of Wellingtons near our Waafery, near the Waafery and we were asked, we were told to do guard duty and you’d, there’d be two or three of us and, I mean, it was so absurd, was at wintertime and we’d wear our gas capes which came neck to floor and airmen’s wellies so you had to ware about three pairs of socks, because you were in these great big wellies and our tin hats of course and gas mask respirators at the ready and we were armed because see, the WAAF, the Women’s Auxiliary Airforce, the auxiliary women, we couldn’t be forced to carry arms so we were armed with truncheons, there were three girls with truncheons and we’d be out in the rain and mud, parading round these Wimpeys, we opened the hatch, we used to open the hatch and get in and sit up in the pilot’s seat and, oh, I loved the smell of aircraft, so aircraft [laughs] and not long ago the RAF went to the museum at Moorabbin, you know it was so lovely to smell a real aircraft inside, those oils and petrol and everything and sometimes we’d have an airman with a rifle. And at the same time they also had, we had a mock invasion and all they, they didn’t know what to do with the WAAF because all the airmen had arms with, with blank, you know, ammunition, and they had thunder flashes and they were, there were two, there were the enemy and all the ones [unclear] and all the aircrew weren’t armed and they didn’t know what to do with the WAAF so they told us we had to go and sit in the toilets [laughs]. And I remember cause there were thunder flashes, being blasted out against the wall, just outside, cause they knew we were in the toilets and the others were chucking thunder flashes [laughs]. And we, we said, why can’t we be out among it all. Anyway, they, you know, we had all those sorts of funny things and at the same, around the same period, when there was a threat, a real threat of airfields being invaded and they said, if there’s a last minute stand [unclear] on parade one morning last minute stand, would any of you girls volunteer to learn to load Lee-Enfield rifles? And you would be at the back and the men would be throwing their rifles to you to reload, you’d be throwing back loaded rifles and so on and so on. Then we all stepped forward, everyone, we all wanted to carry arms, it was funny because some, quite a lot of men, especially the aircrew said, oh, they didn’t want women to carry arms, we were nice, gentle girls, women, we didn’t need to, what we wouldn’t have done to a German with a bayonet! We, I mean, my dad was in the army in World War I, and I always, you know, used to talk about bayonet charges and things. Anyway, we all learned, we learned to dismantle a Lee-Enfield rifle and to clean it and then we learned to arm it and so on, and then they said, the sergeant down the rifle range said: ‘Would any of you girls like to volunteer to fire a rifle?’ and we all stepped forward and he said: ‘Oh, there’s too many of you’, he said, ‘we only have five rounds each’ [laughs] at least we got to fire a Lee-Enfield rifle [laughs] and I came back with a big [unclear] [laughs]. But, I mean, we very always said that we couldn’t carry arms, it seemed ridiculous they had a whole army there of women who were dying to carry arms. The ATS, my sister in law, Jock’s young sister, she went into the ATS towards the end, she was called up and she went into the ATS and, but she was put in as a cook, they didn’t, as a conscript, they were just, you’ll be a cook, and they had a horrible time but a lot, some of the ATS girls they were our viewfinders on the keg guns but they didn’t fire the guns but they were, they were very good on the viewfinders and but we, we actually in WAAF actually had the best of the women services in the war, I think we worked alongside our main army, you known we were always there and among the aircrew and helping to do things and I mean, we had, you know, there were flying mechs and battery charges and girls they are all among working among the aircraft and we all ate together, we didn’t eat in separate messes, we ate in the airmen’s mess and, I mean, we did everything except sleep together. And some of the girls did [laughs] but, you know, I think we were much closer because the air forces is a nice service, you know, it's a sort of much more specialised and you get different type of person in the air force, I think. And I now belong to the Royal Naval Association, I’m only an associate member, a lot of us RAF people go to the Royal Naval Association which is only a [unclear], [unclear] or [unclear]. They were lucky, the naval people, cause like our RAF Squadrons and the RAAF were all on our squadrons so there was a great closeness between the RAF and the RAAF and the same with the navy, quite a lot our RNAF were in on British ships and there’s quite a closeness and cause they, they obviously got into, they got in with the ones down here, the naval people got down here, got in the British navy got in ex-services associations with the Cerberus crowd, and they bought a block of land and it’s a lovely big block and the Cerberus as a sort of war memorial put up this memorial building and it’s, it’s not huge but it’s got a large hall and big kitchen, toilets, and a bar and outside a big barbecue and it’s really nice and once a month they have a meal and they get together and of course there is always a Trafalgar Day in October, you go and we always have a big Nelson thing, and drink our toast and rum, tot of rum and apparently they British Navy send out every year, they send out this small keg of naval full strength rum which is, cause in the navy it was always, when everybody used to have rum everyday but it was always watered down, it’s very, very strong and they are still saying this Cerberus, this ex-service crowd, still send out, I don’t know how much longer they will do it, this rum and of course the air force crowd, we sit at one table and the navy crowd are so different to us, we are very prim and proper lot, we are behaved, cause they always make fun of us, sailors are very rough and the funny thing, their wives and so on, they all sit at tables on their own and the men all sit at tables whereas we’ve always air force have always been men and women together and they, they told us the first time on when we were invited first for Trafalgar Day and they said, you air force types, don’t stand when the royal toast and the toast to Nelson is said, because apparently in the old sailing ships not very much headroom, do you know, those sailing ships, tiny old sailing ships like Nelson was in and they had a complement of eight hundred, fourteen inches for a hammock, that’s where you slept, fourteen inches, you’ve [unclear] and I noticed that a lot of those ex-servicemen, the old chaps, they, there’s a lot of them missing fingers and arms and hands, quite and I mean, you don’t see this among air force crowd. Quite a lot of them have, you know, half an arm or several fingers off and obviously, you know, I suppose with their big guns and things, I suppose stuff and I don’t know anything much about the navy cause it’s only my, up in Lewis of course most of them go into the navy, there were only four men from the Isle of Lewis who went into the air force during the war, Jock had always wanted to fly since he was a little boy, he’d always wanted to fly, and I mean as a crafters son he got back his chance because there is not work up there and you know, money was small but most of the men went into the navy or the merchant navy and the only ones that went into the army would go into the Highland regiment, the Seaforth Highlanders in [unclear] cause he had two uncles who were pipers and his sister, one sister was called up into the ATS, his, other sister, his older sister, unfortunately she couldn’t pass the medical for the ATS cause she volunteered, and she went into the NAAFI, cause the NAAFI was a good backup, you know, they had those little vans and they had, ran the canteens and they were very, very good and you’d find each station would have its specialised, you know, cakes and things cause I knew at Lichfield they made beautiful [unclear] cakes and we always used to go out to the NAAFI event who did outside about 11, or 10, or 10.30, or 11, everyone used to go, everyone, officers and everyone used to go out with their mugs and you’d always say; ‘Tea and a wad!’ [?] [laughs] [unclear], pig lardy, heavy things, we were always hungry [laughs].
AP: Pretty good. Let’s have a look. You have spoken for an hour and twenty minutes without a break, that’s pretty impressive [laughs].
JS: [laughs] Well, I’ve got no one else to talk to!
AP:
JS: I’ve got the cat.
AP: You’ve got the cat.
JS: He’s lying on my bed in the bedroom.
AP: I’m more than happy to assist. You’re absolutely fascinating so far. Uhm,
JS: I talk too much.
AP: We love this sort of stuff, this is really, really good.
JS: But then, then my cousin, there was my cousin, now I’m talking about the Isle of Lewis and as I say, my husband he once he went to primary school and he won a scholarship which, living in the village where he lived, fifteen miles away from Stornoway, where the only secondary school on the island. He won a scholarship but there was no bus you had to board in town and his parents, this was during the Depression, his parents couldn’t afford the books because, sometimes scholarships had a living allowance for books, uniform and living out but there was nothing like that during that particular year, so he couldn’t go to secondary school and he, I mean, there was me, I had a grammar school education and I was a hopeless scholar, absolutely hopeless, the only thing I was ever good at was English and history, and I never got anywhere with anything until I went to Pitman’s College and then I come out here and I saw one of my daughters teachers, when she was at primary school, said to me, oh, you ought to study and become a teacher, because we were desperate for teachers, so I investigated and I did, I went through, did my GCSE and so on went up the exhibition building and did my HSC and did very well, it was totally different doing it as an adult. Well, I hadn’t got horses or boys, that’s a thing, the two loves of my, oh, I was a terrible flirt in the Air Force. I was a student, I’ve been a quiet, studious girl as I say horse mad and I got in the Air Force and I suddenly discovered men and I didn’t read a book, I had boyfriends galore, I found a little address book and all these addresses are Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders, cause they all wanted you to write to them and we wrote letters to all, we’d sit on our beds and write letters to all these different boys you never saw again. But, I mean, love affairs were no sex, I mean to start with, VD, we were shown all these film of VD when we [unclear] training stations and that would put you off sex forever and if you were pregnant you were chucked out of the WAAF and you were never allowed, you could go back into the ATS if you’d had an illegitimate baby but you weren’t ever allowed back into the WAAF. Oh, we were very pure and high [?] but, uhm, cause Jock was shocked when I said, Oh, I said, the only thing that kept me a virgin was VD, the thought of VD and getting pregnant. And he said, oh, he said, I’m very disappointed in you, because I thought you had higher morals [laughs]. Well, I said, I didn’t want to get pregnant and I didn’t want to get VD.
AP: Oh dear.
JS: And when you’ve done the VD report for the station, for all the Czechs and the Poles, they were the worst. They used to have to go to Cosford once in a week to have these horrible, I won’t, well, you probably know what they used to, used to inject them with mercury and where but it was very painful apparently and we used to see the bus going and they all used to have their heads down and we used to see the bus going to Cosford once a week and we all used to go [laughs ironically], they all used to have their heads down [laughs]. And, as I say, I used to do the VD report and Lichfield had two satellite stations, Tatenhill and Church Broughton and they of course used to, uhm, they had Czechs and Poles. Now I mean, the Czechs and the Poles they were, they were so brave, oh, they hated, they loathed the Germans, they absolutely, as long as they could kill a German their happiest time but they were dreadful and of course in this VD report they had to say when they went to the MO and it was discovered, they had to fill in a form, they had to, legally didn’t have to give the name of the woman but they had to give where they, whereabouts they thought they contacted it, usually under a tree or in a field [laughs]. Contracted it, I should say. Or, and roughly the age, and the age could be anything, of the woman, I mean, they wouldn’t know, but the ages could be anything from fifteen to about seventy [laughs]. And of course, all the girls used when I was typing the VD report, all the girls used to come and look through the papers, weren’t supposed to [unclear] and titter and make very [unclear] remarks and, but they were the worst cause I and after the war I met several Polish, ex Polish airmen and I always used to say to Jock, oh, I don’t think I’d better shake hands with him [laughs]. And they were very nice people [laughs] so you know but we had men of every nationality you could think of at the service, you know, of the Commonwealth and so on you. We had lots of South Africans, New Zealanders. Now, the New Zealanders, they never had the funny accent they have nowadays, it’s funny, they spoke much more like Australian men. They didn’t have that funny twisted accent. I don’t’ know where they got that from, cause it’s really weird. And of course New Zealand, when we were going to emigrate, I wanted to go to Australia because I wanted to, we were living in Scotland and I wanted sunshine and of course all the.
AP: So you went to Melbourne [unclear]
JS: Of course, all the Aussies had told me what a wonderful country it was. Jock wanted to go to New Zealand because full of Highland, Gaelic-speaking Highland people and of course their Scottish country dancing is impeccable, similarly if you couldn’t go and of course they were only taking building, tradesmen or farm workers. So he, cause he’d gone back to his basic trade by then, he was maintenance engineer with British overseas, no, British European Airways. And he came out here, the old Australian National Airlines brought him out here cause they were so short of maintenance engineers so he saw it advertised, applied, they took him, brought him out six months ahead of me, cause they had hostels for me and, uh, so, when New Zealand was no good, he went down to London and applied to Canada house [?], he phoned me up and he said, we can be in Canada within three months and it was winter and I’d got flu and I, you know, I get, my nose was streaming, my eyes were streaming, I said, you’ll kill me if you take me to a country with all that snow and so he didn’t and so that’s why we applied for Australia and of course we’d read all these books about Australia and we decided, oh, the best place would be West Australia, the climate there was beautiful, Albany, and you know, the climate was supposed to be absolutely wonderful and cause ANA brought him out to Essendon aerodrome, so, he was Melbourne [laughs]. I remember when the first time we took the caravan up to Darwin and I’d only been in Darwin a couple of hours, and I said to Jock, Gee, how [unclear] would cost to move house and the furniture up here? Oh, I’d loved to have lived in Darwin. Cause Darwin years ago was lovely but the last time we went to Darwin it was, it had grown in population, it was very commercial but the first few years, when we used to take the caravan up North, it was lovely. This, and, people, all the young people used to stop, you know, older people and say: ‘Oh, hope you are going to stay up here, cause we, it was too many young people, we need some grandparent type people’. Have you always been in Melbourne?
AP: No, I’m from Sydney.
JS: Oh, your [laughs]
AP: Yeah, I came down from Sydney about five years ago for work. So.
JS: I’ve, you know, I’ve been through Sydney on the bridge, to go on the car, wiht the caravan, we’d been there over the, on the bridge and we’ve also been underneath.
AP: Oh yeah?
JS: And I’ve been to Sydney to change planes. I’ve never been to Sydney as a town.
AP: A lovely spot sometimes. Anyway, uhm, you were telling me before we started the tape, uhm, about something that was going on, one day when you were doing the, I think it was the group VD report about a certain squadron.
JS: Oh yeas, about that, about the.
AP: Yeah, so, can you tell us that story again for the benefit of the tape?
JS: Yes. God, what was it called the,
AP: Fauld.
JS: Oh yes, the Fauld, the day the Dam went up, yes it was in 1944 and it was the Fauld explosion and uhm, oh yes and I’d gone upstairs and was typing away at this huge, great big long-carriage and those long-carriage typewriters you never see them now, great big thing, very, very heavy and so I was typing away and it was this funny rumble that went through my feet, I have felt this funny and heard, we all stopped because it sounded like air raids and, we, it was only, must have been seconds, barely minutes and suddenly this rumble got bigger and my typewriter really big jammed, it went [makes a repeated booming noise] and I sort of set back and I looked at the dirty, green wall in front of me and there was this little crack and it started to open and it came down in a big curve and I just, I just watched it, cause funny it’s like when you’re in an air raid when you bombs and you tend to watch them, you’re sort of rooted to the spot. I mean I remember once was a terribly bad crash on our airfield at Lichfield and we were all in our office, we heard this terrible thud, screech, metal, you knew it was a crash, that metal noise and we looked out of the window, the side window and there’s this flame and it was sliding across the airfield, right out on the airfield, on the runway and it was beginning to slide straight towards training wing and we just stood there, we were just stood rooted to the spot. That was the time when, it was horrible. The operators see the girls at the radio while the radio operators took the planes up, and now the girls, they rushed to the window when this thing happened and they left us with the intercom switched on and of course, see, those Wellingtons you know were geodetic and they had axes along the body but obviously the boys were burning, the thing was a degrees of heat and they were screaming and you could hear it from above, you‘d hear the screams, it was horrible and we were rooted to the, I, everybody, nobody said a word, I mean, I, nobody passed out or anything like that, but it was really horrible and of course then the fire, cause naturally the blood wagon, the ambulance and the fire engine were always right beside flying control, they went straight out cause they got foam and it had stopped but it was a fact that it could actually, I mean if nothing had been done, it could have banged into our building. We were so struck with that and it was like that in that Fauld thing, and we were sitting, as I say, immediately somebody said, oh, there must be a bad air raid somewhere, funny we haven’t heard the sirens because often we did have [unclear] and I mean once our airfield was very lightly attacked by one aircraft and I mean, you’d simply, you’d, over the tannoy they’d simply say even before the sirens died you’d hear: ‘red alert, red alert’ and we’d always have our respirators with tin hats on our chairs and all you do is [unclear] your respirator on your shoulder, put your tin hat on and all fire alert, slip trenches outside, you’d run like hell once you got outside because you were scared and you’d, the slit trenches were so nasty because they’ve been used as toilets [laughs] by people going to a frat night they were very smelly and I know, a friend of ours, poor men, they jumped, he was the first one to jump into the slit trench and someone had obviously been doing the other business in there and when he got out, all the others came on top of him and he noticed and he was sitting there a nasty smell and when he got out, he found his knee, he’d gone straight into someone’s poo and he said he got a knife and cut his, he said, he couldn’t bare it [laughs]. Like poor Jock, one time on an air test and he was moving about the aircraft and they hit an air pocket cause they were low and [unclear] went up and he and the mid upper gunner were both, and they couldn’t move because of the way you are rooted you know in the planes and he said, he saw in slow motion [unclear] came over. They’re supposed to be emptied every trip and it all come over the two of them, [unclear], he said, we, he said I took my flying without equipment on a stick [laughs]. Oh God, he said, I went straight up to the showers, he said, I just showered in my uniform and then he said, I took that off and he said I was in the shower spitting it [laughs]. But and the mid upper gunner was the same, but poor old Charlie [unclear] but there was, it was always very pooey, very smelly in the, in the trenches because you’d sit there with your tin hats and things do fall on you, you’d hope no bomb would fall on you but, I mean, we weren’t like the fighter stations, they had it regularly, they were bombed regularly, down more on the coast down south we were, we were lucky we were in the Midlands but I mean along it was all Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, cause Jock’s Squadron he was 90 Squadron and they were in Suffolk. Cause they always used to rendezvous at Cromer Pier when they were went off, the you know when the whole gaggle of paints [?] were going out, they’d fly from their station and go up round and round to get height and then go straight out and they’d have some to rendezvous, Cromer Pier was a great place for a lot of them and others would, they’d get into formation and then they’d pick the other formations up, all up from all up the coast and we went to Cromer when we, one trip we had overseas in the 1970s I think, we went to Cromer and it was beautiful day because I know he was swimming in the North Sea and I, he said: ‘Oh, I’m lying here, look at me up!’ Thinking about me circling around over here before we went out, we’d stay off and went in from their area, they went in to France over the Frisian Islands. Cause he always said, I always put, as soon as the pilot said enemy coast ahead, he said that’s when I always pull my, he was always scared of his eyes being burned, you know, injured, and he said, I always pull my googles down cause some of them didn’t and got their eyes burned. He said, I was always terrified of getting my eyes burned. But he never, he still, you know, they had three pairs of gloves, silk and wool and then leather, but he nearly always worked with his silk gloves cause he was using bars and things and [pauses] but as I say, I still think, you know, but we probably don’t remember the nasty parts, you only think of the fun parts. When you say it was, it was the best years of our lives. I tell you why, because after the war it was so horrible. After the war we went back into Civvy Street and you had this awful feeling you weren’t wanted. See, people had, who’d been in fact prison officers [?], they’d all got jobs and they were looking after, this is my job and we don’t want you people coming in and move, you know, with all, you’ve got medals and we haven’t and so on and so on. And then the idea was that we should all forget the war, get on with the peace and everything was so grey and actually we were then more severely rationed, that was when bread was rationed and onions and potatoes. I cued for hours for all those things, because we were feeding Europe and particularly because we had to feed poor old Holland, cause they were starving but we were feeding the bloody Germans, that’s what got up our noses and we should have done what Joe Stalin said, Joe Stalin said at one big conference, he wanted Germany totally disarmed and made into the food bowl of Europe, got rid of those bloody Germans. I still hate them and I’ve got German blood in me, I’ve got Prussian, great grandfather. I still hate them like mad, I can’t forgive but then I was going to tell you about my cousin. Can I tell you about my cousin?
AP: You certainly can. [unclear]
JS: My cousin, there was another boy like my husband, he, now, his was a very sad story. His father, like my father and my father’s two sisters both married men during the war that were in the trenches. My sister Nora married this soldier and he ended up the war, after the Great War, in a lunatic asylum, he’d, he was shell shocked, absolutely shell shocked. And Nora always told her little boy Bill, who was born, she was married I think in 1916 and had him in 1917 and she told Bill, growing up, that his father was dead. And because in those days to be in a lunatic asylum, you know, was like having a baby illegitimately, it was one of these, you didn’t talk about those sort of things, Gee, woman had a Hysterectomy, that was women’s [unclear] and you didn’t mention that, everything was so, [makes a shushing sound] proper, and anyway poor Bill, he grew up. Uhm, Nora went and when my grandfather was widowed, he went up to Lancashire or Derbyshire, where he’d come from and he opened a little corner shop and Nora went up and lived with him and worked in the shop and Bill grew up and went to the local primary school but then Grandad died during those years and the shop apparently wasn’t making much money so, Nora came down and stayed with us and Bill, they stayed in our house for a little while until, and aunt Nora’s a widow of a service man, was supposedly a widow of a service man, she got a council house, we were living in Welwyn Garden City at that time, I was going to the local Handside Primary School and Bill came along too. Now Bill would have been about three or four years older, three or four years older than me, and I’ve got his photo somewhere, and I couldn’t find it today and he was a nice looking boy and of course you know, I was only a little girl about eight or something like that and, eight or nine, and, oh, I was in love with Bill, I used to tell my parents and everybody I was going to marry Bill and I remember, cause Bill loved, he had a Meccano set and Bill loved his Meccano and cause with my little itchy [unclear] fingers, I remember, could I have put that, no! He hated me, I was always around his Mecco, trying to or reading his comics, and I remember at school, we were changing classes one day and the big boys came out of whatever they’ve been and he’s, and of course I’m saying to all my other friends, that’s my cousin, that’s my cousin Bill and you know, Bill’s looking everywhere except, we were twelve or thirteen. So, you know, that’s my cousin and so they went and lived in their house and eventually they moved to Luton in Beds, and Luton was the centre of the hat-making industry, of course in those days I mean everyone made more hats, felt hats, women wore hats all the time, straw hats and felt hats in the winter and my aunt was pretty good at her job and Bill got a job as a young, he had, when he left Handside Primary School, during Depression there were so few jobs he got a job as an errand boy. They would take boys as errand boys on delivery bicycles, like you used to see in that funny comic series Open All Times [sic], it how you would have seen it on TV, and always had errand boys. I mean, when my mother went shopping, she would carry a little shopping basket but she would only get the perishables like the meat or eggs, a bit of cheese or fish, she would carry that home, everything else was delivered either sometimes by delivery man, mainly by errand boys on funny big arm bikes with a huge thing. And errand boys were all everywhere, of course they got a pittens [?], I mean, there was no real big dole or anything in those days, so, they only got a little bit above of what the dole would be and as soon as they, all these errand boys turned eighteen, see, they had to go on to adult wages, so they were all sacked. So that was when Nora moved to Luton and Bill got a job in a factory, you know, he was just a general factotum sweeping up and so on and he could see, like a lot of boys of that era, that it was much better in the forces, so he joined the Royal Air Force in those days when they used to wear the breeches and the grey patties and tunics up to your neck and the peak caps and he was stationed at Cardington where the balloons were, all the big balloons. And RAF Cardington and of course he saved up and bought a motorbike and so on and my dad had had a motorbike and they were motorbike crazy, he used to come over and see us a lot. And then of course, uhm, he, that’s it, he went in, he hadn’t got the educational qualifications to go to Halton, to the School of Aircraft Apprentices to be a fitter because you had to have secondary education for that, with maths and so on. He went into the trade of, is not a trade now, machine tool oiler and setter, next, really, a machine, he would end up as a machine setter which was a very good trade. So, that was what he was doing when war started, and about the same time it was, it was beginning in 1943 when all the four-engine bombers were starting to come in and we were really doing something over Germany, we were the only service other than the navy, the only service really doing anything in the war. And Bill wanted to go as aircrew, I don’t know why he never said why, and he, he applied to be aircrew and they turned him down, saying, you know you are a school tradesman, someone will have to be trained in your place, stay as you are. So he said, right, I’ll go on strike. Well of course he was marched up to the commanding officer who said: ‘I could court martial you and that would be the end of your air force career’. But he said: ‘I’ll tell you what, boy, he said, you can go in as aircrew and can go in as a bloody bomb aimer’. So, he went in, he was trained as a bomb aimer, he was at Skellingthorpe. Now he was on Lancasters. Now, the Air Force in 19, 1943, ’44, I think it was October 1944, the Air Force had been trying to decimate Brunswick because it was full of factories, war factories and they’d been, they’d had raid after raid, there was going to be a really big raid, a huge raid on Brunswick and that night the huge [unclear] went out including Bill’s Lancaster and they were all so even other, this shows you how our Air Force had grown from 1942 when we were couldn’t make, could barely make a thousand, there were other small diversionary raids on that would draw fighters away and it was a highly successful raid. It was, the town was absolutely decimated. They only had three or four minor raids on it afterwards, just to clean up and only one of our aircraft was missing that night. That was my cousin’s aircraft. I managed to find this out. I found out from the Bomber Command War Diaries and then I was in the library only a month or two ago, and there’s was a wonderful book which I had written down somewhere which has all, it’s a big book about all our prisoners of war, it has all our prisoners of war and of course Bill’s name was in. And apparently they were badly hit and their navigator, funnily their navigator, navigators always seem to get hit, their navigator was badly injured and they, I mean, it must have been hell in the plane because apparently, you know, it was going round and how, how on earth you can move about in a plane that is going down like that I don’t know. They, he said, he told us afterwards, he said, two of them, he and another, the engineer apparently, had to drag the poor old navigator to the biggest exit and his parachute came open, started to open in the plane because they just had to bundle everything out but he seemed to go down alright but they, they never, then he jumped and the other man jumped, that must have been the gunner I think. When they got down, when they landed in Germany, cause it wasn’t far from the target, they, cause he’d forgotten all of the correct things to do, he didn’t take his helmet, and all the hoo-ha getting them out, didn’t take his helmet off, and he was nearly strangled, all the cords went round his neck, he was [mimics a strangling noise and laughs] and then his big flying boots he had they were unzipped, they came off, [laughs]. So there he was in his socked feet and they couldn’t find any of the other crew in the dark of the night and they started to down this long road and you know on the continent they very often they put all this plane trees along the sides of the road and there were all these sapling trees with thick sacking wrapped round them, so to keep them up to sporting post cause they were, so he and the other bloke they cut all this sacking off to wrap around Bill’s feet and they looked around and there were all these plane sacking across the road, all these [unclear]. And he said the next thing is a couple of nights, he said, it was very cold, he said, a couple of nights we just got water, rain water, where we could find it in the fields and he said, we got turnips from the fields and ate them turnips and carrots and he said, we got to this little township and he said, in the dark we could see this building with all these bikes outside. We thought if we can get a bike how much easier and cause they knew the direction they were going, you know, towards the west trying to get to our troops. Anyway, they both grabbed the bikes and cause they must have made a noise, next thing all these German troops come out and they take them prisoners and apparently it was outside the SS headquarters [laughs]. Then, the next thing, he was an officer, now, that what I always think about my cousin Bill, his bomber aimer training, he’d been send over on the ATS scheme to Canada and he’d obviously the smart lad, been commissioned, you know, I mean, drop us off a commissioned, who wouldn’t take it, but Bill took it, and he was, he came out as a flight Louie. So, he went to Stalag, the officers camp, Stalag Luft III, the great escape camp and cause he talked, I mean, he didn’t tell us an awful lot but they were all helping, you know, that were these, they made bags to wear inside their trousers to take the earth and they’d sort of sprinkled the earth if they were walking about or playing games and he said, oh, he said, I could have been in the last group, he said, to go, he said, all us tail enders, he said, of course by that time they’d been captured and but he told us quite a bit about that terrible march that the Germans did, not just from Stalag Luft III, but from several of the prisoner of war camps. They were going to massacre the prisoners but why they started, they started to march them to the east and it was the middle of winter and of course a lot of them had thin shoes and uniform thin and they didn’t have any, they had a bad couple of holes of thin potato, growl potatoey water and they were all being marched along with all these German guards and if any of them fell by the way and didn’t pick themselves up, they’d either shoot them or bash them with a rifle butt. And I mean, Bill didn’t say anything much, just told us about this and he said, fortunately, he said, I, and he wasn’t a very strong chap and he said, you know, he said, it was pretty sickening, he said, we were helping the ones that were really, couldn’t walk but, he said, it was pretty sickening and fortunately we ran into, oh, we were spending, we’d been put into an empty prisoner of war camp for overnight and he said, fortunately or unfortunately the Russians came along. But, he said, there was a lot of problems with the Russian soldiers. They were trigger-happy and he said, we were warned that if we tried to sort of get out of the camp to start going to the east again, to try and join up with the British who weren’t far away, that we would, you know, that these trigger-happy Russians and he said, they came into our prisoner of camp and they treated us as if we were the enemy. He said, they just took wrist watches and all the money, anything of any value. They took even cat badges and things like that. And he, so they were told to play it very cool, and be very quiet, and just, they stayed in this prisoner of war camp for a few days and behind the barbwire and the Russians were circling around outside and suddenly the Americans appeared full force, tanks and guns and things and they immediately, the Russians sort of, they ushered the Russians, there were only a few Russians by then, they ushered them off and took the aircrew to an American camp, to a British camp but he said it was a pretty nasty situation. He said, when you’ve been a prisoner of war and then suddenly your allies come and treat you almost as badly.
AP: Said one of my interview subjects a few weeks ago, he said: ‘Then we were liberated by the Russians’, he said.
JS: There.
AP: Actually, we were recaptured by the Russians [laughs]
JS: Yes, that’s what he said, that’s what it was like, and he said, you didn’t feel comfortable, you didn’t feel safe,
AP: Very, very similar.
JS: Weird.
AP: Strange stuff. So, Bill came home [unclear]?
JS: Bill came home but it was all very sad. Now, we came out here in 1952 and Bill had, he’d had a job and he’d got a very nice girlfriend, they were going to get engaged and then his mother, apparently, I mean, we weren’t near him at the time cause my father said, if only I’d known, you know, but his mother then said, you can’t get married Bill, there’s mental problems in our family, in your father’s family and he and I think Nora was very possessive and I think Nora wanted him to be there for her life. And she, I mean, had, we don’t know how she brought it to him but she more or less said, you know, if I, in the end she told him, you’re father’s a raving lunatic in a padded cell and Bill said, I want to go, I didn’t know I had a living father, he said, you should have told me years ago, I want to go and see him and of course there was a real breakup between them and in the end she gave him the address of this place. He went to this mental home and he saw his father, more or less a slobbering lunatic, you know, and in a padded cell. And he came back, broke his engagement, I think he had a complete breakdown and he was having a treatment, he went in as a sort of outpatient and apparently he was getting on very well and he got a job as a gardener and he was still having light treatment but of course he got to know a young nurse there and of course the authorities would never let the nursing staff make boyfriends of the patients. So she was immediately posted somewhere else and I suppose he saw another friendship gone. I mean, the poor boy was probably craving for love and I just, look, I go around, I’m sure these years since Jock died, if I were religious, I mean, I’m an atheist, if I were religious, and if I were a catholic, I’d say I’d be going through a sort of Purgatory because I’ve been looking at all the things I should have done, I should have been a better daughter, I should have done better at school, I should have been a nicer wife, I mean, I wasn’t nasty but I was, you know, things I shouldn’t. And I think of Bill, and torture myself, if only you had kept, you know, written to him more often, if only you’d asked him to come out, we were living in a caravan over on the north side of town on our block of land, building our house out of pocket more or less, building where [unclear} house our first home and I couldn’t sponsor him. And the next thing, he was living in digs and working as a gardener and I suppose he just had this complete, what’s the use, because I know the feeling myself. And I had a letter from his landlady, apparently he put his head, and when she was out one day he put his head in the gas oven and I mean, my lovely cousin Bill, and I, a year I was so fond of him and it broke my heart. And nobody else in the family took more. Jock didn’t know him well and dad and mum didn’t take much notice. And my dad was very hard, he was very hardened by World War I, and what he went through, and you know, I, it haunts me all the time, that nice boy and I mean, you know, flying and so on and then, every sort of romance, every bit of love broken up and I, blame my, well, look as I always think of mental hospitals, because that’s what happened when Jock fractured his skull, and, oh, he was, I mean, I could, it was a huge and I mean nowadays he probably would have had a brain operation, fortunately he had very strong bones but you could feel this huge jagged bone underneath his skin, huge scar and he said to me, he wasn’t going to ask me to marry him cause he said, he said, I in the end he did and he said, look, he said, I lay it on the line, he said, if you marry you are not going to get the man you would have got had I not had this accident, he said, and I know what it’s done to my brain, he said, I know you won’t get the man that you deserve. And, I mean, I was madly in love, I didn’t care and, but, I know he did, he wasn’t nasty or anything, but he had a nose operation, uhm, oh, in the 1980s, ‘70s, had a nose operation and when the, he had a, like me, he had a deviated sept, to my [unclear] had it done, my nose was twisted and his nose was badly twisted and he couldn’t breathe well and he had this [unclear] surgeon, she said his bones were all overgrown and pressing on nerves and he used to have these occasional days, a couple of days when he would have a terrible headache and he would wake up in the morning, he’d still go to work but he would, he wouldn’t talk to me, he’d just look at me, glassy-eyed, his eyes would just sort of glare at me and he wouldn’t say a word, he wouldn’t answer me and it would all clear over, I mean, I didn’t mind that, it didn’t worry me, he wasn’t cruel or anything to me. But, I mean, I put it down to what he had on his head. But, he was taken from the local hospital to the big service hospital at Rauceby out in Lincolnshire, very big hospital which had been a mental home, a mental hospital. And I used to go, I used to walk about five miles, my bosses used to let me off early, they were very good and I used to walk about five, used to walk down the old roman road, the old way and right out in the middle country this big, huge building and all these corridors and every so often they’d be huge, heavy doors with double locks on because they were all pushed back with great big long corridors and then every now and again there’d be a little passage and that led to the padded cells. And I heard groaning one day and I tiptoed, I was on my way to see Jock, I tiptoed down and there was this poor young aircrew boy, I mean, he didn’t see me, he was bandaged over his eyes, he obviously burned top to bottom and he was hung on straps and he just got holes for his nose and mouth and all bandaged up with his arms up like this and he was groaning away and he was and I actually saw all this sort of pale blue padding, all ceiling, walls, floor, everything, they put the very worst burns cases in there, I suppose peace and quiet and, cause a lot of them were screaming you know, would disturb the other patients. But I know Jock must have been very ill because when I first came to visit him, the RAF nursing sister, she said: ‘Are you his fiancé?’, I said: ‘Well, we’re not engaged but we are going to get married when the war ends or when the war’s over’ and she said, you know, you know your boyfriend is very seriously ill, she said, I want to warn you, he is very seriously ill. And I mean, all they did with him there, he had his head sort of wedged in a wooden frame and he lay there for a couple of weeks in a wooden frame and they fed him stuff like [sighs] you don’t see it now, it’s sort of made from bones and, bones and brain and stuff that we used to be called, it was called something in old-fashion, it was like a sort of jelly, carsford [?] jelly, that’s it, it was made by bones and I think brains and it was the most tasteless stuff, cause I had to taste if his, cause it was supposed to help remake bones [unclear].
AP: Ok.
JS: So, that was, he obviously was very ill but they never cleared, they never gave him an x-ray to after, he was x-rayed when he had the accident, never gave him an x-ray to clear him and he managed to get back onto flying because he went for his aircrew board to see if he was fit for flying. And there was, there were two doctors and the old chap more or less told the other bloke he could go, the other doctor he could go, he said, oh, I’ll deal with this case and he was an old doctor and he came from one of the Hebridean Islands and he spoke Gaelic and of course he saw from Jocks docs where he came from and they spoke for about an hour or so in Gaelic and the doctor apparently said: ‘Ah, you are fit for flying!’
AP: So this, I think we were talking about that before we turned the tape on. This was the motorbike accident for Jock.
JS: Mh, yes.
AP: Wasn’t it?
JS: That he, he had scars, I mean, you know, cause his googles were broken and his nose was damaged and the size of his mouth was split, his eyes were all split at the side, he had slight scars, but it didn’t damage his beauty, I think he was quite nice looking [laughs]. But he was the love of my life, he was a lovely man. We laughed our way through time and it was all giggle, giggle, giggle, all the time.
AP: Very good. Uhm, what else do I have. Can you, well, we might back up a little bit. Can you tell me where you were and what your thoughts were, obviously you’ve already told me that you expected war to come but when you actually heard that Britain is at war. What were your thoughts and feelings and what were you doing at that point?
JS: Well, that’s rather dreadful because I told you I was in the Ministry of Aircraft Production and obviously war was coming, well war was coming very close because that, you know, what’s his name, had been over, Chamberlain had been over and come back with a piece of paper and then of course Germany had walked into Czechoslovakia and in that interim period we were working twenty-four hours, they’d got camp beds in a big room and we were and it was a Sunday and I was on duty, I’d, cause I was living at Amersham at the time, I’d come up, I’d think I’d slept the night an hour in the bed there which was in the Ministry of Aircraft Production was, the offices were in Berkeley Square and we, in the West End of London just walked up and Piccadilly was just and the Green Park was just up the road and I, we were called, they said to, we were working and they said to us girls we are all going down to the big hall because there is going to be a speech by the Prime Minister, because we all knew Germany had [unclear] and everyone was cock-a-hoop, oh, we’re going to be at war, oh whack-o!, sort of thing and of course, see [unclear], I mean, in 1939 I was seventeen, young and silly. We all were, a big typing pool of girls, all silly girls and we sat in the hall and the speech came on and he said we are now at war and we all said whoopee! And the air raid siren went and we were told to go to the shelters, or go down the corridor and we all rushed to the big windows and there wasn’t a soul to be seen in Berkeley Square. The Queen Mothers, the Queen’s dressmaker William Hartnell [sic] had room, had his big shop and rooms just opposite, not a soul to be seen anywhere, only a big red big fat barrage balloon going slowly up. And we were all, where are the Germans? And we all thought it was wonderful, then we all sang, Pack Up Your Troubles and It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and we were all throwing paper around and thought it was wonderful. And then of course I went home and my father said: ‘Bloody little fool!’ [laughs] He said, you wait, you don’t know what war was like, he said, now, and I remember when Dunkirk happened because I had an aunt, my mother’s sister married my uncle and they lived on an island at Thames Ditton, which isn’t far from Surbiton in Surrey, an island in the river Thames, that’s where the Thames widens and Richmond Park, beautiful royal park, is on the other side. And my uncle had a little cabin cruiser I think and they were given orders, everyone was given orders to take, the navy came round to, all those people on the island had boats and they were given orders at Dunkirk time to take their boats, they had to take their boat down to some part in the Thames estuary and the navy would deal with them and they were all hitched up to a, I don’t know whether it be onto a torpedo boat or a destroyer, I don’t think a destroyer would be too big, they were hitched up on lines and they were taken over to pick men up and brought them back. He only went over the once, cause I think he had engine trouble coming home and you know, all this sort of thing was happening and I and dad said, after Dunkirk I mean it was only then the Battle of Britain started almost and I remember we, dad and mum and I went for a walk and dad, we were talking about the war and he said, I don’t know, he said, what have we got? He said, we’ve only got these young men and a few young men with planes and he said, they are going to be overwhelmed by the German Air Force, who’d been practicing in Spain in the Spanish war, he said, they are going to be just shot down and he said, I just wish I’d kept my World War I revolver with three [unclear], one for you, one for mum and one for me. And that was dad, he said, it’s going to be a bloodbath if they come over. But then again quite a lot of us in years later in the ex-service things, we were talking, there were all, I mean, there was the man in the street who could do what he’s told and he couldn’t care less, as long as he’s got a warm bed and three meals a day and I mean, Hitler had obviously impressed the German people, I mean, obviously, well, I mean, they had been in a bad, in a terrible way in the Depression and we were, and we’d come through that terrible Depression and I mean, if you had someone who started to tell you, oh, we are going to do this and we are going to do that and we, you know, we are all going to live in a united Europe and do very well, and a lot of the, a lot of the upper crust, a lot of the aristocracy were very Pro-Hitler and, but there was in recent years, there have been things discovered, there’s been an underground headquarters found which, they’ve got no records of anywhere in the War Office or, anyway and apparently it has come out that there was a big, like resistance movement already being organised by Churchill and the patriotic people, very patriotic leaders of the country. Now there would have been civil war I think, I think it would have turned into civil war. You know, lot of us ex-service people have been talking, cause I’ll tell you this. In recent years, with the way life is, with the permissive life and it’s all me, me, me now and the way things are going politically, I mean everywhere not just our [unclear], our politicians are bloody twits, all of them and everywhere seems to be the same and all these do-gooders and letting all these people into Europe and a lot of us ex-service people are saying, perhaps it would have been better, saying, was it worth it? Was it worth all those lives lost? Would we have been better under Hitler? If you’d kept your nose clean and done what you were told you’d probably be just as well off. Cause the German people were. The only thing is of course, you’ve got things like the, those concentration camps, I mean, you’d think of that. The concentration camps, I mean, would we want concentration camps? This is the thing. You’ve got. And I mean, I was only reading the other day about the Japanese, if we hadn’t atom bombed them, they had, form the Emperor down, they had been given orders that every prisoner of war, civilian as well as service, which would have been a hell of a lot of civilians cause they had a lot of Dutch people and so on were to be massacred, it didn’t matter how you do it, squashed them, hanged them up, knifed them, staked them, all the most horrible of things, that every non-Japanese was to be got rid of, so, I was just as well we get the atom bomb off, cause we saved a lot of innocent people’s lives. But I mean, you know, there’s quite a lot of us, especially you know like in the navy get-togethers and things, and everyone says, was it really worth it, when you think of all your mates. And I think more or less one of the reasons that we say it was the best time of our lives, it was a wonderful time in the majority of people, civilians and service, we were all pulling together, we all had one ideal, and it was a very legitimate war. We had one ideal and there was the mateship, the companionship. I mean, I never came across anything nasty, I never came across rape or anything in the services, in the women’s services and everyone was so, you know, working together and the great comradeship and friendship and helping each other, cause life was difficult and harsh at times and we all helped each other. And, you know, you would put your friends before anything else, you know, to help your friends and support them and perhaps I’d think it’s more that when we say it was the best years of our lives, that terrific comradeship. And it really to me and of course to me all the time and then it’s something we all say in the RAF association, you know, those young men who sacrificed their lives and the way they were treated after the war, the way the bomber boys were treated and they must never be forgotten. My daughter gets on my nerves cause she said, oh, one day will come and everyone will forget them, I said, no, they won’t after all they don’t forget Nelson and the sailors that fought at Trafalgar, they don’t forget the soldiers that fought at Waterloo, that saved Britain and there was, both of those were narrow squeaks, [laughs], I mean Waterloo was very near the knuckle, they were and so was Trafalgar, cause Nelson was, cause right from a little girl I always Nelson was my big one time hero and we’ve had a film of his life, we also, one year we had a film of a sort of mock-up thing that they did in Britain of these battleships and they had an actual broadside, cause Nelson, Nelson did it, instead of fighting each ship broadside on and opening the cannons, he got, he laid his flotilla, all the enemy battleships were like front and back, you know, all in lines and then he came along with his flotilla like that and they simply opened up, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, broadsides and split the ships right through and he brought that manoeuvre into being, I mean, he was a real, I read a lot about naval battles, I read, my reading, I read occasionally a biography or a travel book but my reading is all war books.
AP: [laughs]
JS: Oh yeah, I’m on the [unclear] and up there.
AP: I can see in the collection of books [unclear].
JS: I’m, I’ve been getting out of the library, I’ve been reading about [unclear], or I think submariners that’s even worse than bombers. I once met a submarine man and he was such a nice, gentle, little chap and I used to think, how can you go down under the sea, all those thousands of feet, oh, with depth charges?
AP: [unclear] a lot of fun.
JS: But I, I do, I read a lot and I’m reading a lot at the moment about World War I cause there have been a lot of programs, Tony, oh, he’s Sir Tony now, the man who does the walks through Britain, he’s done a very three or four weeks running on a Sat, Sunday afternoon about going through World War I. My dad in World War I, he was in the trenches and then they were sent to Mesopotamia and that’s of course Iraq and then they were sent to Salonica, but they were sent through Palestine cause I know he had a bathe in the Black, in the Dead Sea, and said, oh, you just float on the top of the salt water but he saw Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia, he and another man, they came on their camels and he said, we’d just come out of the lines, we were fighting the Turks and he said, we’re all filthy and dirty and he said, we were having our rest and he said, cause dad started as a private and went up to, he went right through the ranks and was commissioned in the field and went up to captain and he said, I was in the headquarters and he said, this man in all his silk, was only a short man, in all his silk Arab robes came in and they wanted maps to getting from somewhere to somewhere and they were going to take a place, they were going to take the surrender of a place and the Aussies got there first [laughs] and took the surrender, and all these [unclear], all these two [unclear] men [unclear] Arabs they got there after us but then before that dad had seen the Australian light horse going up not very far away cause I think it was Damascus and the Australian light horse came through going up to Beer Sheba and he said, again we were all filthy, our poor old infantry, cause he was in the rifle brigade, he said, oh, the poor dirty old infantry and he said, we were all lying around and he said, suddenly, he said, in the middle of all this filth and dust, he said, these, like a vison, he said, these tall, they all seemed to be tall according to them, these tall bronzed young men and he said, everything, he said, their horses were gleaming, their saddlery was glowing and he said they got these, whatever, they got, I don’t know what they’re called in their hands and just, and they were all laughing and the Aussies were all laughing and joking and you know, the rifle brigade gave them a cheer and saluted them and they were all happy and I mean that was a real fluke, that the Turks had their machineguns set for them there, they’d had mown the horses down if they’d been able to and they got them locked all in a mess and apparently, cause you, I mean, if you’re on a galloping horse you know what’s it’s like on a full gallop, it must be pretty deadly to see all these waving their swords and shouting and, you know, shrieking and shouting and horses neighing and the thud of hooves, just imagine it. And it was a complete triumph but that means at some poor devils [unclear] worst of course and horses. Yes.
AP: So, oh yes, I have, we’ve covered a fair bit. [unclear] We’re still going.
JS: I shouldn’t have kept you.
AP: No problem at all.
JS: Four hours.
AP: I’ve loved it, it was really good. However, uhm, I do have one last question. It may well be the most important one all my interviewees is this. Uhm, in your opinion, how is Bomber Command remembered and what legacy has it left?
JS: How is it remembered? Well, I suppose all of us who’ve had anything to do with them will remember them for the, they were the, they were our little white hope in all those long years when we were waiting and waiting to try and get into enemy, try and do an invasion, they were our only white hope and they were, I mean, if it hadn’t been for Bomber Command, bombing the factories, roads, every, keeping them on their toes, and keeping them short of things, it might have been terrible on D-Day if we hadn’t done something, I mean, why isn’t Bomber Command universally, why is it always this bloody Dresden thing comes up? All the time it comes up! And it seems to me, Canada and Britain seemed to have fostered this, I don’t know why and I would like to see Bomber Command remembered for the fact that they were our one big bastion against Germany for those interim years before D-Day and I would, well, I hope that, I would like to see them remembered more as a special thing, as we remember the Battle of Britain, I would love to see a sort of Bomber Command Day or something but the way they are still remembered I don’t like this attitude, it always comes up Dresden. And I mean why, you’ve got a German [unclear] who agrees that Dresden was hiding a lot of things and still there’s these people, so, well, I’m glad that there’s this big memorial in Britain because I think that it’ll be there and it’ll be like that wonderful memorial in Green Park, so at least you’ve got something always there in front of people, but I mean, you know, I still think there should have been a Bomber Command Day and a Bomber Command Medal, I mean, I mixed with these old chaps and it’s so sad, I don’t know, it’s so sad and remembering what they did, I remember you see the crews and their average age was between eighteen and twenty two, I mean, I think Jock’s crew they had their, I think their navigator was, he was grandad he was thirty, no, no, it was their, I’m sorry, it was their rear gunner, he was thirty, he was ex-metropolitan mounted police, cause the only way the police could get in the services was volunteer for aircrew, so he went in and yes, Ron, he was thirty two and married with children and they called him grandad but I mean, they were young men and I look at young men now and think my God, they were either in charge of a bomber and seven men’s lives or they were in a motor torpedo boat, interestingly, I never thought much of Jack, John Kennedy when he was president, I didn’t like the Kennedy family at all but I’ve read a very interesting book about him and he was a very brave young man too in that motor torpedo boat, a very brave young man but you when, and talking to them and of course you’d say how did you feel, what was, when you knew you could be going to your death? And a lot of them have said, well, you couldn’t let your mates down, you didn’t want to go but you couldn’t let your mates down, cause Jock said the first, oh, he said, I looked forward to my first op but he said, after that I didn’t look forward cause he said, oh, he said, when we went over the target and I looked down and he said it was a vision of hell and he said I still, he said, I still wasn’t that scared until I got back. But I remember, see some people, they were, you know they were terribly superstitious, I mean, Jock always, he had a [unclear] bit, those tiny [unclear] bits with a hole through it that one of his relatives gave him and he had a tiny little silver thimble which he got the leaves that he, when he went into the air force, he had a Christmas pudding at his aunt’s place and he got this silver thimble on a chain, teeny tiny little thing, the size of his little nail and he had one of my suspenders and he’d always have them pinned on his flying suit and, when he was cremated and I put, they were always kept in our bedside cabinet and I took them out and I tucked them under his pocket, you know, so that when he was dressed and being put in his coffin, they would go with him on his last flight but I mean, they had, the pilot had a teddy bear and he always had to rub its stomach when you got in so that was always stuck behind the pilots seat and some of them, he always told he’d get through he always said to me, don’t worry, he said, I might get injured but he said I have a feeling I’ll get through, now, other boys didn’t and I remember when I was giving out some of the Red Cross comforts one night when they were going on one of these small ops and from Lichfield, there was a lovely young navigator, he, blue eyed and very fair curly hair and always a lovely smile and you know, he’d been one of the boys, we’d all been in the pub together, singing, we all knew each other quite well and I remember him coming up and he leaned across the table and he was a big tall boy and he picked me up, just picked me up under the arms and gave me a big kiss and he said, bye bye Jean, he said, I won’t see you again, I mean, a great big smile, and I said, I can’t remember his name and I said, oh come off, he said, no, he said, I know, he said, I know I’m on it tonight and he didn’t come back and he was quite jovial about it but quite a lot of them and Jock had friends that he knew and he said some crews, he said, some crews, when you were on your operational station he said you knew as soon as they walked into the mess as a new crew, he said, they had the look and the smell of death on them, he said, you knew that they wouldn’t last long, cause on his squadron, 90 Squadron, theirs was the first crew for ten months to do, to get through full operational tour and actually they did thirty two and they were asked to go on a last one and his mechanics said to him oh, one of his mechanics said, oh god, I wish you weren’t going on this one, but he said, It’ll be alright and it was, thank God, that was the one where the two friends got blown up. But I don’t know ways remembering Bomber Command, how do you make people remember? I just hope that they’re never, well, I just hope they’re never forgotten for what they did because that was a horrible job. And I, you know, you, as I say, we used to see them and they were twitchy, you could see a lot of them were twitchy when they were going down to dispersals and they’d laugh, they’d be like little boys, ah, and they’d light a cigarette and then they’d take two puffs and then put it out and then light another one, I mean, and in transports the WAAF drivers taking them down, they liked the WAAF to take them down to their planes, they much preferred a WAAF than a man driver and it was the same with the wireless operators, the radio operators in flying control, they, oh, Jock used to say, oh, he said, when you are tired out and he said, you know you’re being told, a force comes on telling you, you’re going in a stack and he said, all you want to do is get your feet on the ground and he said to hear that quiet woman’s voice, he said, a man’s voice never did anything to me, he said, you hear that quiet woman’s voice talking you down, almost sympathising with you, and he said, you know, it did something for you and I think, you know I think, they were full of nerves. Jock said, you were, he said, you were always very quiet in the transport, he said, some would joke with the driver, the WAAF driver about her boyfriends or things like that but he said you’d, he said, the worst part was the waiting, he said, the waiting for the word off, cause sometimes when they were down by the aircraft all bombed up, it was cancelled and that was horrible cause he said, if it was cancelled you think oh god, I’ve got to go through all this again tomorrow night and every time they got back it’s one off towards the end of your tour and he said, once you got into your aircraft, he said, cause, engineers, the bomb aimer very often did the second pilot’s job during a trip but always take off and landing, the engineer was always with the pilot cause he helped the throttles and so on and switches and he said, you sat down, you did your cockpit check, you did your crew check, he said, you forgot everything, you had so much to do before take up, off and once you were up you had so much thing cause the engineers were checking labour entring every fifteen minutes, fuel thing and of course any lights going out or oxygen not coming through or things like that, they were always, he said, we are, he said, I was always busy, I didn’t have much time to sit down at all, but he said, you were always so busy, you never thought it was only, he said, we always used to be so glad, we always used to give a cheer when we saw the Channel coming back, he said, when you saw the sea [unclear] those usually be or everything going up from the coast, or defences, he said, you saw the sea, he said, you just prayed you got across the sea cause so many of them didn’t. And the awful thing was that of course some poor sods that landed on beaches and then the beaches were mined or the aircraft went into mined areas and blew up, just as they thought they were there. They did one time come, they were short of fuel and they had to use Woodbridge, you know, Woodbridge was a huge, right just over the coast, gigantic, but he said, they said, and the next one most wonderful thing was when he said you saw your beacon, cause that’s another thing that caused crashes coming home, the, all the, on the east coast all these huge airfields and their satellites all the circuits were intercepting so you got planes twiddling around everywhere, all the time during the war the sky was never free of aircraft, it seemed to be, always aircraft doing something cause they’d all the train, people training and then there were people going here and there to other stations and going off out. One of the most wonderful things was when I was down in London on leave, I was walking near Buckingham Palace I think, it was with my mother and aunt and walking near Buckingham Palace and a huge squadron, cause it was right near the end of the war and I mean they were just it wasn’t easy in those days, they were going over and it was, the war was almost into Germany and all these Flying Fortresses went out, hundreds of them went right over Buckingham Palace flying out, quarter of an hour later [makes a whooshing sound] along comes a little fighter squadron, cause they had to, they picked their fighter umbrella up cause the fighters were much faster, all these Hurricanes and Spitfires all riffing a long, making a lovely noise and it was quite inspiring because I’d only seen aircraft going out at night one by one and circling round and listening to the [unclear] in the clouds and that was, that was not as exciting as seeing a whole squadron, of cause they did a big box formation, they were quite classy, and once they, once their jolly old formations were broken they were really limping and we were better with our open formations and once they had, it was nearly, it wasn’t before the end of the European war but it was not far off, we had a conference at, oh no it must, no, no, this was at Lichfield so it must have been, no, must have been, I left, I left late 1943, I went to Group Headquarters so it must have been 1943, we had a Stirling bomber coming to this conference, a Lancaster bomber and a Flying Fortress, now you could see the three of them, a Stirling just towered, the Lancaster was fair and the Flying Fortress, which everyone said oh [unclear] big planes, it was so small and the Yanks took us, our boys took us over there [unclear] and the Yanks planes, I mean I wouldn’t like to be a gunner on an American fortress and you know with this wide open bitterly cold I mean they wore a lot of warm things must have been terribly cold and they were more or less each side gunner, they were more or less bashing buttons and there were all the machine guns, all strings of ammunition everywhere, you had to pick your way through these strings of ammunition and it wouldn’t have been very nice at all, wouldn’t have been nice at all, so and cause, you know, the Lancaster of course you’ve got the big bulkhead but you’ve got a bigger one in the Stirling cause Jock said there was always the trouble you know when you had to get down to the rear gunner and you got an awful long way to go and it was, and you’ve only got a catwalk, is bitterly cold [coughs] if you hadn’t got, even through your silk glove you could feel the cold if you put your hand on the side of the aircraft [coughs] then you get that bloody great bulkhead, climbing over there with all that flying kit [coughs] horrible.
AP: Quite, quite amazing. Well, I think you’ve covered all the questions I had.
JS: [coughs] [unclear]
AP: I only had to ask three of them. [laughs]
JS: I apologize.
AP: No, no problems at all, there is some fantastic stuff in there. [unclear] I love these sorts of interviews I love the best, cause I come in, I ask one question and I just sit back and listen.
JS: Oh, as long as you don’t mind, I do apologize.
AP: Ah, I loved it.
JS; [unclear]
AP: yeah, yeah.
JS: I’ll make another cup of tea.
AP: Thank you very much. I’ll turn this off.
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Interview with Jean Smith
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:40:04 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated S Coulter
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-03-12
Description
An account of the resource
Jean Smith worked as a clerk in the aircraft manufacturing industry before the war and later served as a secretary in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She served at 27 Operational Training Unit at RAF Lichfield.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1945
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Peter Schulze
27 OTU
aircrew
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
control caravan
control tower
crash
flight engineer
ground personnel
love and romance
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Lichfield
runway
service vehicle
Stirling
superstition
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/331/3491/PSouthwellDE1603.1.jpg
14aae2a01070e096fa9c00a5c57a4ace
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/331/3491/ASouthwellDE160424.2.mp3
bd5f88b470f50c82d0fece440095f478
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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Southwell, Don
Donald Edward Southwell
Donald E Southwell
Donald Southwell
D E Southwell
D Southwell
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Donald Edward "Don" Southwell (b. 1924 - 2019, 423987 Royal Australian Air Force), documents including a navigation chart, and six photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 463 and 467 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Don Southwell 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
2016-04-24
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Southwell, DE
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DES: [unclear] have you?
AP: My little question sheet.
DES: Oh, good, [unclear] you should have given it to me before.
AP: No, no, no.
DES: [laughs]
AP: So what I do, uhm, because of this little adapter, if I unplug it, the careful tuned thing dies and it gets embarrassing cause it never works. So, instead I have to plug in earphones, so that I can check cause this is a little splitter. I can plug in earphones so that I can listen to it, because if I just try on the speaker, it goes out the earphones so, anyway. It works now, that’ the most important thing, I’ve had a couple of interviews where I had to use the little microphone built in here cause I never know if this thing’s working. Very very [unclear].
DES: I didn’t know there was a mike in those. See, I use one of those all the time. [unclear]
AP: Well, some of them, some of them do, so there is actually a little camera up here, there is a little microphone there, so it is like for web cam, is not for very good quality and it picks up all the noise that’s around, this seems to be more, uhm, localised to adjust your voice, which [unclear] in the recording. I did one of those with a bloke, uhm, Jack Bell, who, he was shot down in Libya, uhm, he’s 98, he was shot down in Libya in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as prisoner, ’43, very early [unclear].
DES: Ah, prisoner.
AP: 42 [unclear]
DES: In Germany?
AP: Uhm, in Italy and then in Germany.
DES: Ah.
AP: Uhm, and the house next door was actually being demolished at the time we did the interview. In the background you can hear a little bit of it, but not very much. So, for a twenty dollar E-bay special, they are pretty good. Anyway, if you are comfortable and ready to [unclear]
DES: Yeah.
AP: All this is, as you know, IBCC interview, uhm, basically we just have a chat. Uhm, I’ve got a sort of list of questions to get us started, but basically I’ll let you run and we go wherever we go and then we might come back and fill in gaps, all that sort of stuff.
DES: You edit it. Yeah.
AP: Yeah, uhm, we just go until one of us begs for mercy basically. I know what you are like, so it could be for a while [laughs].
DES: No, no, no, it’s not right. No, I, whenever this comes up and I’m in a group, I know the people who’ve got all the interesting stories. I’ve been doing this since Australia all over.
AP: No, I.
DES: Down in, [unclear] I’m gonna write him a letter too, but, uh, Ian McNamara and uh he was, uhm, I was all, I did directing, at, down there, I got the, we got this bloke and got this bloke, got that bloke, got that bloke, he’s gonna get all interesting blokes, you know, I knew [unclear] too long [laughs] and they didn’t want me [laughs] Yeah.
AP: Very good. Anyway, uhm, so, look, the shortest interview I’ve done went from forty five minutes long to three and a half hours or so, you know, whenever we get, we get, it’s quite ok. As I said, there’s a list of questions to sort to start of, so
DES: Forty five minutes, [unclear]
AP: That’s very short one, that was very hard because I had to keep asking questions to. Uhm, my favourite one.
DES: You’d might have to do that.
AP: We’ll see what happens when I ask the first question, that’s always the same question I start with and once the opening response went for about ten words, the longest one has been an hour and fifty before I had to say anything else. Which
DES: [unclear]
AP: It’s astonishing, it’s really really good. Anyway, so, uhm, I start off with a little spiel, so, kick off with that now, just to sort of set the time and the place, uh, so, we are recording and it looks good. So, this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Don Southwell, who was a 463 Squadron navigator at the tail end of World War Two. Interview is taking place at Don’s home in St Ives in Sydney, it’s the 24th of April, I should know that, it’s their [unclear] day, my name is Adam Purcell. Uhm, so, as usual, Don, we will start with the normal question, can you tell me something of your early life, growing up, what you did before the war.
DES: Yes, I can certainly do that. Ehm, I was born in Croydon, in New South Wales, in number 10, Hardidge [?] Street as a matter of fact and I was the third child of my mother Cathy. Ehm, I had my brother Brian, my sister and myself, we were four years between each of us and we lived in Croydon, in Sydney. My father died when I was thirty, when he was thirty five and my mother brought us all up to the [unclear], my, I went to school in [unclear] High school and I had, oh I had a job when I left high school. I was, uhm, my first job was at, uhm, RKO Radio Pictures and I was there for about eighteen months and uhm, my mother thought that this picture business wasn’t the sort of place that [laughs] her son should be spending his career in. So, she started to work on various people and I finished up with a job at the MLC. At the MLC, at this particular stage, they only took you with the leaving certificate. My mum couldn’t afford to keep me on the leaving, so, while my brother and sister went to Fort Street High School and did the leaving, uhm, my mum couldn’t afford it. Anyway, we, I went to RKO Radio Pictures and we, uhm, I lasted there and, uhm, I got the job at the MLC and my sister actually worked and that’s how I probably had a little bit of influence and they didn’t want to appoint me first of all but I reached the stage where there weren’t getting many men in because of the war and the war had started and this was in 1941. And so, uhm, I was very fortunate to get that job because I remind there laws about 90 and that’s not a jag either, this is quite true and I [unclear], I have to write, yeah, uh, I was there for eighteen months and the war came and I’d already enlisted, I’d already joined the air training corps, it was 24 Squadron at Ashfield and under control of squadron leader Whitehurst and he had the grads there and we did all the courses for the air training corps and I was also an ARP warden on my bike and I had an ARP band on my arm, patrolling the streets at night to make sure the people were keeping to the blackout rules. I used to sit in those, sit at the top of the town hall at Ashfield and looking for [laughs] Japanese planes coming over. We didn’t get any Japanese planes but we had to report all things that were going in there and then I got the call up for the army. Because I was eighteen the army called me up and because I was in the air force, I had already been in the air training corps it didn’t make any difference so I went up to the infantry training battalion at Dubbo in central New South Wales and, uhm, I was there for about three weeks, while the rifle regiment came in on a motorbike and looking for [unclear] and took me back to the, you know, the orderly room, I was put on a train to Sydney, I was discharged from the army and sent down to Woolloomooloo. In Woolloomooloo was the air force, uhm, recruiting depot and there we did the medical tests and so forth and I was then posted off and I to number nine Glebe Island [?], which is a wharf in Sydney, I went in as an aircrew, I was called, the air force had so many people for aircrew that they couldn’t cope with them at a particular time and they made us air crew guards and I served for three months in Sydney, there’s an aircrew guard, some of them got posted all the way from New South Wales but I was fortunate enough, I caught number nine Glebe Island, where we guarded little beds, belonged to the air force and so forth and we also did jobs working on the wharves and I was part of the secret war people talk about, that the wharfies continually being out on strike and so forth and they asked the, they sent one of us down to do various jobs on the wharves because later all the supplies were going up to New Guinea, was on a ship called the Marino and it belonged under contract to the air force and now, the wharfies were pilfering stuff from this convoys that were going up to the, the trips up in New Guinea, they were pilfering stuff there and so we had a, we were put, what do you call it? A revolver, a Smith and Wesson revolver around their waists and I did stay for one night, I’d be inside the wharf for one day, inside the wharf in the stores where they had all the stuff there laying. We had a guard on the door, a guard on the, uhm, where the crane came down and picked the, uhm, supplies up, one on top on board the ship and one down in the hold. And we virtually stopped the pilfering in the, but there was a great war against the wharfies in those particular days but a very interesting book has been written about the secret war and it’s not only happened there, but it happened in the army and all around the place. So, that was just a little side set up, while I was waiting to go to aircrew. I was then called up to number 2 ITS in Bradfield Park, to go and do my initial training school and, uhm, so began my career in the air force. Then, do you want me to go further?
AP: Yeah, can you keep going as [unclear].
DES: I’m in the air force then, ok.
AP: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Absolutely.
DES: We’re in Bradfield Park and Bradfield Park was the centre of two ITS and we did the normal parades on the [unclear] rid marches, uhm, we did cross country runs, we did all sorts of subjects that were pertinent to air crew and so forth, meteorology, all that sort of business and we, uhm, that took us about three weeks to do that and then I was categorised as a pilot. Cause I wanted to be a pilot because my brother was a pilot and so they made me a pilot. They sent me off to number 8, I think it is number 8, EFTS at Narrandera and so began my career, started my career as a pilot. The time limit for getting through, through the school was you had to go solo in twelve hours, now came twelve hours and I hadn’t gone solo and the, uhm, my instructor said; ‘Come on, Don, we gotta get you through this’ and we were operating from a little satellite area, outside of Narrandera, he said you gotta go up and go solo today [laughs]. So, I worked out all what I had to do in the circuit and so forth and I went up on the, took off, made a nice take off but I got the wind changed and then [laughs], I didn’t know the wind had changed and I’m doing the circuit on the basis of when I took off, I did the left-hand circuit and so forth and coming, all of a sudden there is a Tiger Moth coming up beside me, it was my instructor and he was pointing down to the wind sock and I didn’t know what he was talking about, you know, so I didn’t, I just went up and landed, I did a beautiful crosswind landing, it was a good crosswind landing but that’s the last time I, I think I lasted for another half an hour or so flying and then they decided that I, you know, I hadn’t gone in twelve hours, didn’t look like it, so they scrubbed me, I was scrubbed and that was a terrible thing to happen to me, to be scrubbed, I wanted so much to be like my brother who could fly before the war. And, so, uh, I was then, I thought, oh, I’ll have it now the air crew but they transferred me. The boy that got a B in mathematics 1 and mathematics 2, the intermediate, they transferred me to embarkation depot as a navigator and so, but I, and then I stayed at the, I came from Narrandera back to Sydney and I stayed there at the embarkation depot and uhm, just as on the side, we used to, get my [unclear] at Burwood, that was a [unclear] about twenty minute train ride from Chatswood, we used to have a night down, tucked down under the barbed wire, get down a lady game driver, was not a lady game driver this near, walk up to take off, picked to be kept, seen the fiver air crew, when I say we there were a lot of fellows doing this, and we get, I get the train to Han, I spend the night at Ham (or Han), get out of bed at about five o’clock, then come back and up [unclear] at five o’clock ready for parade. And so that, that didn’t go on for long of course, but I did my, that was our waiting game but of course, we were going overseas an therefore we couldn’t leave Australia until we were nineteen, that was a government rule, they just couldn’t, you couldn’t leave, you couldn’t get out, be transferred out of Australia unless you were nineteen. So, I kept going, I was before I turned nineteen, I went to embarkation depot, so I kept [unclear] just about every day reminding them that I was, I’ll be nineteen on the seventeenth of April. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were bound on a train up to, from Central Railway, we went up to Queensland and transferred to Kalinga and the army came, was a big army came and we slept in tents, oh, by the way, the train trip was terrible, we were in, we had to sit up or some fellows were sitting up, lying down on in the luggage racks upstairs but we had a terrible trip that night, that train, they put us like cattle in there, and so we got up to Brisbane to Kalinga and we had to wait there for our ship and that was somewhere around the first or second of July in 1943, ’43, yeah ’43, and we uhm, one night we had the cars or the truck all arrived and took us down to the boat, was the Noordam, was the United States army transport going back to San Francisco, empty or as empty, except for us air force, because they’ve been bringing all those hundreds of thousands of American troops over to Australia for the Pacific War and uhm, so uhm, we set sail from Brisbane heading or Morton Bay and then shortly about two or three hours out from Brisbane we [unclear] and we wonder what we were doing because of the Japanese submarines and all that sort of thing and it was the, only about three or four days before, or, yeah must have been before, we have to because the Japanese had sunk the hospital ship, the, the, the, the, because they sunk one of their hospital ships and we had two minutes of silence we expected to be torpedoed [unclear] and we headed on our way to, I think it took us about eighteen days to get to San Francisco and never been past Hornsby, past Wollongong, never seen the Blue Mountains, I hadn’t been out to the parks to the, in the [unclear] and to Dubbo in the army and, uhm, here I was, just coming into San Francisco harbour and so I made sure I was at the front of the ship and I never left that ship till about two o’clock in the afternoon, we came by, saw the Golden Gate bridge [unclear] I was nineteen years of age and we heard the, we saw the [unclear] prison and the San Francisco bridge and we landed at Oakland and from there we were put on a train and sent up to, up the uhm, West Coast of America, uh, to Vancouver, where we switched trains for our trip on Canadian national Railways, was a steam, was an old-burner train and we went to, went on our way through the Canadian Rockies to Edmonton and slightly north of Calgary at and the thing that strikes us, was the difference in travelling in Australia in the cattle trucks, where we had, uhm, they weren’t there for our Americans in those days but they were there for Americans were waiting on us, we had sleepers, everything was laid on, the Canadian people, the Canadian government were fantastic, and here we were, we were only leading aircraftsmen, we weren’t even sergeants, and so anyway, we got to Edmonton, I went to the, uhm, manning depot, manning depot and I have a big photo in my home here of the, uhm, on one of our parades, you can pick me out in the [unclear], we had the morning [unclear], you can pick out the Australians because of their blue uniforms, all the rest wore khaki, was in summertime, but anyway, you could pick us out, pick me out with the manning depot and then I was transferred from there, which was just across the road, really, to number 2 AOS Edmonton, that’s where I did my navigation course. My first trip on navigation course was a real, [laugh], was a real did last as far as I was concerned but I’ll tell you about it. We, uhm, I had a, uhm, another navigator, we were flying Avro Ansons and, well, just digress slightly on our Avro Ansons and then poor our navigator had to wind the wheels of the Anson, Avro Anson up, a hundred and forty-nine times to get the wheels up, that was their job for, just straight on take-off. Anyway, we went on from this first navigation trip, I had a second navigator with me, who was supposed to be giving me fixes and that sort of thing and I got lost and so while I was suggesting we do, the pilots by the way were all civilians, they were not in the air force, they were under civilian contract and that was [unclear] Canada and, uhm, Maxi Titlebomb his name was and he suggested we get out and have a look at the railway sign [laughs] so we went down to the railway station and were at a sort of place called Wetaskiwin, not far out of Edmonton, but it was Wetaskiwin so I proceeded to [unclear] I knew where I was, I got me air plucked for Wetaskiwin and went up and we continued on our course, I expected to be scrubbed straight off on that score but I wasn’t, no, they didn’t, was the best thing that ever happened to me because I made a mistake on my first trip, you were never, the navigators rule was never to drop your air plot and I dropped me air plot because if you kept your air plot [unclear] end your life to get a position, make some sort of, where you think it was but you, you’d always got the opportunity to do that and, so a navigator never had to, should never drop his air plot. But anyway I finished up, was about six months course, was about six months and we, incidentally we had to, people talk about the weather these days, it was forty degrees, one night it was forty degrees below zero, now was in Fahrenheit was thirty-two degrees and so was seventy-two degrees of frost. We had to warm the aircraft up in the hangers before we went out and we had winds, sometimes we had headwinds where we were going backwards up in the north part of Canada [laughs], you know, very, very frightening for a nineteen year old [laughs] that didn’t know a lot about navigation, but we got through all of it and we, I finished up with a reasonable max coming out of my course, I was always better at the air plot than I was, I always had trouble with my theory things, wasn’t very good on the theory but I was, even if I say so I was reasonable as a navigator. And so we got our wings there and was around December 1943 and I haven’t been out to find many [unclear] since I came across my fellows book called Navigator Brothers the other day and I wrote to the author, because in there was a photo of one of the group that was having their passing air parade, cause a big deal the passing air parade, the Canadians really put on all their pomp and ceremony for their passing air parade. The, uhm, uh, yes, we got our wings and we proceeded then to go to, uhm, to uhm, we’d being posted to Montreal [unclear] I just had a thought, we went to Montreal and we had to wait a bit to go over to England and, you know, during my stay in Montreal, we stayed at a place called the Sheen, we were sent off for six weeks up to a ski lodge, so they didn’t have a boat to take us over to England so they sent us, was about thirty of us, we were all sent up to a ski lodge, luxurious place for, you know, a couple of weeks, two or three weeks, we learned to ski, we learned to use the tennis rackets on the feet to walk in the snow, we learned to ice skate, to do all sorts of things, it was wonderful. Anyway, we got back from, we went back to the Sheen and I found out that my brother, was, uhm, who was a pilot in the Middle East and an instructor at Lichfield, which would probably entirely they said to be Bomber Command.
AP: Absolutely.
DES: But he, uh, I found out he was coming over on his way home to Australia having completed his tour, he was transferred back to Australia but on his way he had to go, he was [unclear] to fly back with a brand new Liberator and Bryan was in New York with his crew, but they’d been flying Liberators although a lot of these fellows who did this were Lancaster pilots, cause there’s two hundred of them eventually, and then Bryan and I we shared a room in Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York for a couple of days. Then he went on his way home or to California, I should say, where he did three months before he flew off back to Australia, If you like I might talk about that later on. But, then I went back to Montreal and we then got advised that a ship was waiting for us in Halifax, so we did a night trip to Halifax from Montreal and we joined the maiden [?] vessel called, the maiden [?] vessel called the Andes, was a flat bottom boat, a, yeah, a 20000-tonner I suppose, but it was very fast and on that boat we had a complete Canadian armoured division, were ten thousand fellows with their tanks and about a hundred aircrew, [unclear] pilots joining there, there were navigators, there were wireless operators, there was bomb aimers, all been trained in Canada and sending us all over and so we went over there on our own, we didn’t go in a convoy, we went on our own, took us about seven days, we went up towards the North Pole and [unclear] in Liverpool but we didn’t have any, uhm, we didn’t have any [unclear] things happening to us except that we, was a [unclear] taking more than seven days but it was a fast trip was what we did and we weren’t allowed about decks at night time, so, at night time you couldn’t go up on deck no matter what it was because people had a habit of lighting cigarettes and submarines could catch you but some of these, the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, they were too fast for the submarines so they, we zig-zagged all the way across and we arrived in Liverpool and uhm, we uhm, got, we arrived nearly as the morning met by the salvation army, they gave us food and so forth, we went in the big tunnel out of Liverpool and came down to, went down to Brighton PDRC and that’s where I started my first, uhm, flying, my first events in England.
AP: What did you?
DES: Now.
AP: What did you think of wartime England when you first got there?
DES: When?
AP: As a nineteen year old Australian, you are now in wartime England. What?
DES: What I thought of it? Well, uhm, when I first got there I, we went by train down to, we skirted to London, we went to, Brighton was a lovely place but, we were, there was the IFF that had taken over the uhm, the uhm, the Metropole and the, the Metropole and the, the two big hotels, I have just forgotten their names but it was where Margaret Thatcher was blown up later on, she escaped the bombing near in Brighton some years later but we went straight down so, we didn’t see much of the, uhm, the countryside. We were billeted out from the hotels, the [unclear] were billeted out in homes quite near the hotel but we didn’t see any great, you know, people had their coupons, that sort of thing and I saw a lot of it after on my first leave to London, then was when I, you know, realised how terrible things were but there in Brighton, where we were, all the beaches were, they’re all pebble stones not sand all the beaches were mined so you couldn’t go there. If anybody knows Brighton as the Brighton pier, and then it had been chopped in half purposely and the bottom half was used by the air force to, but we used to go and gonna get paid there, we used to go and collect the money on a Thursday or whatever it was, and so uhm, we didn’t see, uhm, in all fairness, you know, I didn’t see, you know, it was, I wouldn’t say, you know, nasty looking, you know, there wasn’t, there was no visible damage that I saw down in Brighton but, my mother and father both came out from England in 1912 so I had relations to go to in England and so I was, uhm, my first leave I had when I went to, I went to a place called Maidstone where my mother was born and uhm, I went to see uncle Ted and auntie Gladys who became [unclear] mother while I was there and I stayed with them and they had a big two story home. He was the general manager of Fremlin’s Brewery, which was a big brewery [laughs] in London and Maidstone, and was a white, the emblem was a white elephant on all the London busses and he was the general manager of this [unclear] and so naturally I was well looked after. If they wanted some meat, if they wanted a steak or some, which was very rare, she takes it, make sure you keep the uniform on and we’ll go down to the butchers today and she, he’s my cousin from Australia you know and they’d toss out some special food for us. But uhm, they seemed to live pretty well you know I think they were, you had to be careful with petrol rationing and that sort of thing but in the group that I sort of as, you know, these people were part of, put in mind, you know, reasonably well off as people and, but she was a real mother to me, she used to take me round on, I always used to go there on leave but she used to take me round and onto, show me the Rochester cathedral or Ramsgate, where my mother used to go and swim as she was a kid and so forth, you know, and I’ve met all my relations but I, I don’t have any, it’s only when later on I went down when I was in the middle of the buzz bombs and the V2 rockets that I realised, you know, how terrible that, uh, what the Germans had done to our people here in London and, you know, when you see streets that are just completely, [unclear] smashed, it was quite something but generally speaking I can’t say that I, you know, I go shopping in London and I, one of the girls there I used to take out, Elisabeth Fulligan, she was a solicitors clerk in London and I used to see her every now and then when I was on leave but I generally speaking, you know, the, I go into a restaurant but we might have a bit difficulty in getting decent sort of stuff but, you know, I can always get eggs and bacon or some I think we had horse meat at some places in London but I didn’t know we were eating horse meat until somebody told us but. Uh, all I can say is about, the people there were marvellous [unclear] and if I can just get back, the people in Canada I missed them, I spent a lot of time when I was in Canada doing my course, one of the fellows on my course was Harry Thompson and he was a Canadian, he lived in 1065 107 Street and we used to go to weekends there and you know, they couldn’t do, his parents and their friends had us all out to their places and we go, they take us to their places and, you know, you can never pay for them, they , it was fantastic in what they did for us and I had, as I say, I had relations in England and they are all the same and I, I think that I was fortunate in that I had relations to go and stay with, all our on the other side of that I missed seeing a lot of England, I used to go down on leave to Wesperdale [?] , good to be when I was there, I was enjoying myself immensely you know, I didn’t drink beer, I drank cider and that was worse. I can always remember going to a Rotary club meeting in Maidstone and they introduced me to a sergeants household and I had to get up and say who I was and I didn’t drink beer and I thought I’d have some cider and I think I was silly as anything because I didn’t realise cider was, I any, I didn’t know much about the air force and before we finished I’d like to speak about to something about the air force that I would like to say but I answered that question there and that’s about the best I can do about the people and the conditions and that sort of thing.
AP: So.
DES: Except that I had a good time.
AP: Well, that’s the important thing.
DES: When I was on leave that was, all my leave [unclear], that’s when you notice these things.
AP: So, from Brighton, where did you go next?
DES: Oh, ok, from Brighton my first port of call was, I think it was 29 OTU, operational training unit at Bruntingthorpe, which was near Leicester and that’s, no, I’m sorry, that’s not where I went, I went to the advanced flying unit in Freugh in Scotland. There’s a good story about Freugh and that’s where we did our first lot of real navigation. We did all trips, day trips out to the Mull of Kintyre, we’re up right in the north of Scotland, no the north, but half way of Scotland, and we were doing all these trips. You went over pretty close to Ireland, we’re doing all these marvellous trips, you know, that’s where we really learned to be navigators, really into, we got our wings in Canada, but this where we really did the real thing and there we spent, West Freugh is near Stranraer and Stranraer was the main port of call when you go over to Northern Ireland and now we are on the maps, normal maps, you can find them on google now but on the normal maps you buy, you will never see West Freugh, I’ve asked many a Scottish bloke about West Freugh but they can never find West Freugh, they can only assume it was probably a farm of some sort but they had especially for that, they made it [unclear] because it was flying, we’re on Avro Ansons again, we were flying Avro Ansons there at West Freugh, they’re a two-engine aircraft, and they had two navigators on board and then we, uhm, so, I think from a point of view of a AF advanced flying unit, by the way, it was number 4 [unclear] which is [unclear], we stayed there about, uhm, oh, we didn’t stay there long, we stayed there from July ’44 to the end of July, early July, 5th of July to the 21st of July and that’s where we did our AFU advanced flying unit . Now, from there, we graduated from there and we were only doing cross country trips and that sort of thing from there. From there we went to 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe and that’s where what we called crewed up and that’s where we, uhm, we’re all pilots, navigators, wireless operators, correct me if I’m wrong, there was, we didn’t have any engineers cause we didn’t have engineers at that stage we had two air gunners, not certain about if we had all, and the wireless operator and so we all, where we were, we were put in a big room and we were told to find yourself a pilot, navigators find yourself a pilot sort of, so, all was a real PR job, you know, we’d all yeah and there might have been a few drinks [unclear] around too as I say but they all, we were all supposed to be friendly and you wanted to find out if you, you wanted to find you’ll gonna have a team that you could work together with and I, I don’t know how I picked my pilot but I [unclear] [unclear] from [unclear] and was slightly older than me, he’s a big man and he had the biggest hands I’ve ever seen, he was a, he had a grape, not a vineyard, well it was a vineyard but he had dried fruits in [unclear] and now was to sitting behind a big bomber and we had to carry a full bomb load and with his hands gave him a great confidence. But I’ll get back to the Bruntingthorpe now, but we, we got together and we finished up with whatever we had to do and we all then did various cross country fighter affiliation where they send up and you get up in the air find another fighter plane to come and meet you and then attack you and all that sort of thing and all various subjects pertaining to air, Gee, H2S, all that sort of thing and we we’ve been introduced to, that was our navigational aids, air positioning indication, that was another thing we learned all about but that was, an hour on Wellingtons, Wellington bomber, well, they were bombers in the early stage, they were being used for training at this stage now and uhm, the uhm, and so we, when they thought the pilot was satisfactory, off we went then to, let me see, we went to, from to HCU which was the heavy conversion unit and that was our introduction to four-engine aircraft and we caught the Sterling, now said and the, uhm, we were there for a short time, that was just, this was mainly the, the pilot getting used to and the navigator, we were doing more, more uhm, things that we had done before, you know, were dropping bombs and packed us bombs and we were doing long, uhm, long cross countries, uhm, you know, five hours, two hours, that sort of thing and uhm, we, uhm, we’d be when the pilot was satisfactory trained, we were showed off to what we called the Lank finishing skill, it was the Lancaster finishing skill and we were introduced to Lancasters and the, from and that was once again, we all did our own thing with the pilot and he just had to become a professional on that particular type of aircraft and from there we were sent to the squadron. Which was Waddington, which was just a few miles away and, and that was when we started our operational flying.
AP: So, what was your first thought of the Lancaster when you first [unclear]?
DES: Oh, after being on the Sterling [laugh], after being on the Sterling it was marvellous, uhm, yeah, with, uh, yeah because [unclear], the carry under the Lancaster, you know, this was probably the best aircraft that had ever been produced at that time for the duration of the war uh, but everything was, when you are a new pilot on the squadron, you usually get the [unclear] aircraft, but some of them, some of had been there for a while had their own aircraft made sure that they kept their own aircraft, we were not allowed to do this, I was on my first start, we were on one particular type of Lancaster and but everything was so modern and up-to-date, you know for us the Gee was, the navigational instruments were all spot on, you know, we never, I don’t know who did the, to this day I don’t know who did all the mechanics and the [unclear], our aircraft was already, it was one of the ground crew base but, you never saw them at work, at least I never saw them at work, unless something really went wrong but yeah, the gap at the back steps of the Lancaster and to walk along the, yeah, it’s try I suppose when I first went up there, you wonder, Gee, where am I going, you had to walk over a big spare but then again I had my own room, well, area, it was just a small area with a black curtain around it but I had a nice desk, had the astro[unclear] up on top which would flashed the various maps down on the and the stars onto the table, everything was spot on and you know, we came to expect, we’re on a Lancaster, we’re on the best we had and that was the feeling that I had, that I was very, very fortunate, you know, some people like the Halifax , you know, but, you know, they say, I love the Halifax and so forth but we just happened to, uh, it had such a good reputation and such a wonderful aircraft and could carry so many more bombs than anyone else. Uh, you know, I think that, uhm, that was my feeling about my first, but I was amazed, really. I was in awe. Yeah.
AP: So, you then go to Waddington from, what’s it, I think, I saw Skellingthorpe in [unclear]?
DES: Yes, I did, I went to Skellingthorpe I thought that was after. I went to Waddington [unclear].
AP: [laughs]
DES: No we didn’t get to Skellingthorpe.
AP: You didn’t get to Skellingthorpe? [unclear] after.
DES: No, we went to Skellingthorpe after the war finished. We went to Skellingthorpe and we were all transferred to Skellingthorpe and we were, uhm, we had our final passing air parade in August, August 1945. We had our passing air parade.
AP: So, alright, we will get back to Waddington then.
DES: Yeah, get back to Waddington.
AP: Yeah [laughs]. Uhm, where and how did you live on the Squadron at Waddington?
DES: Oh, well now, Waddington was a permanent station in England, a permanent RAF station. It was, it had been there for many years and it consisted of what you would call apartment-type of accommodation, it was brick, big brick flats and in that we’d all, the officers, my pilot now was a flight sergeant right through but as soon as he went to the Squadron, he got his commission and that was the rule then he got his commission. And so he went to the officer’s mess and they had their own specific area and we had our own, we were in dormitories and, uhm, I had, I sort of, well, I was a flight sergeant a lot of that time but I was regarded as a bit senior, not senior but, I seemed to be the one that organises for when and what we are doing outside out of the, you know, for our recreation cause my pilot didn’t smoke or drink and that is marvellous, [unclear] didn’t smoke or drink, he was young too but, but he was a great one for, uhm. He was really wrapped in aircraft, which he should be I know, no, but he gathered at the end of the runway if we weren’t flying a particular day on the squadron he’d go off at the end of the runway and watch them all take off and that sort of thing, he was, he was a wonderful bloke and then he took a great interest in everything, but he. My brother was the same, he would do all that sort of thing, you know, they’re really wrapped but others might be doing something else, but, we used to, well, there were various things we could do, I used to take them down to the, we used to go down to The Horse and Jockey, which is still there, the hotel, but it was a hotel in the , you know, we could go and have something to eat down there, or we’d have a few [unclear], play darts, [unclear] balls and that sort of thing and there a lot of our lot, we had pushbikes and we could pushbike down to the Horse & Jockey and that was in the little town of Waddington, was only a little place and uhm, uh, a lot of our time was spent going around and then we’d have, every six weeks we’d have leave. But, sticking to Waddington, uhm, you know, we had a lot to do, we had dances, the west [unclear] we would have dances all night, yeah, we’re all, uh, I reckon that we were all well looked after and they really were, I’ve recently been back to the Horse & Jockey, and, you know, they are so pleased to see you and they were like that in England. Most, I think of most of them were, I’m not being a snob but I think most of them were pretty good party fellows, there were not a lot of drunks, gave me a favorite to drinks, we had a, we had right a bite back and a [unclear] who used to stop us every now and then and say: ‘Aye, aye, aye!’ but they wouldn’t do anything to us. They were quite, uhm, quite pleasant. But I’ve really found that the people there, I didn’t get involved in anything much outside [unclear] leave I had relations to go to [unclear] wonderful, cause I had my mother’s side and my father’s side so I had relations of both so [unclear] he was from, my father was from Maryport in Cumberland, right up in the north and I have been there a few times since. I met my grandfather that I had never seen and a bit quite of the other relations but the grandfather was the closest, he was a tenner and there was gaslight, there was no electricity, was gaslight, and he, I had to sleep with him, he had no other accommodation there was I think he had a family gone but there wasn’t a very big place and I had forgotten he had, I was [unclear] he was one of six brothers, my father was one of six brothers but later on I found out that my grandmother had fourteen kids so that meant we, in the last few years I’ve been chasing up all these people we’ve met, since I didn’t know we had but sticking to the, uhm, on the Squadron, yeah, we, uhm, I don’t think I had much more [unclear] than I, I had just a normal [unclear], I used to go to church at the Lincoln Cathedral every now and then, I used to go to Southwell. In case you don’t know that Southwell was six miles south out of Newark in Robin Hood territory and it’s a cathedral, it’s got a cathedral so it’s a city, it’s only a small place but it’s a city of Southwell, although they call it Southwell, and so I went there a few times, I was made very welcome and incidentally the Southwells in Australia is one of the biggest families in Australia but, and I am connected with them but they’re in Canberra and they, their offshoots are all, uhm, there is an enormous lot of them, probably the biggest family in Australia, the Southwells. You might, [unclear], but the government gave them a grant in the bicentenary they have their big reunion in Canberra, so there must be some truth in there.
AP: So, you mentioned The Horse & Jockey earlier. Uhm, if you walk into the Horse & Jockey, in wartime, what’s there, what does it look like and what’s going on?
DES: Looks like an old English pub.
AP: Yeah? Funny that.
DES: Yeah, a bit out [unclear] cause I went back a few months again and I hardly knew the place, it had been changed around, they moved a lot of the chimneys out, but I can’t remember getting to a reunion in 1995 at the Horse & Jockey and they had an upstairs everybody could go and we had a great get together that day which was been back on Channel 9 and I was lady in the singing of all the wartime songs in Waddington but it was a real meeting place down, there was another pub we tried [unclear] plus I didn’t drink much but I went to that, oh, I was drinking as at that stage I hadn’t started to drink but that’s another story. My brother, I didn’t mind, now I never drink in our family and my brother on his way back he came up to see me in Montreal at one stage and he said: ‘Would you like a beer?’ And I said: ‘Oh no, I will have a lemonade’. And he said: ‘I will have a beer’. I said, oh, so I didn’t say anything to him. And when since I got back to Montreal, I’ve had a beer and I’ve been drinking beer ever since [laughs]. But, you know, Canada was a funny place for beer because it’s a, they don’t sell beer in a, in those days they didn’t sell beer in a hotel, you had to go into a place that was especially designed and sit down and have a beer but you put salt into the beer to get the gas out of, it was so gassy, that’s another story. But, the Horse & Jockey now, I gonna say now because honestly I’ve forgotten what it was there like but now they have a lot of dart boards around, we played darts and we played balls outside, it was fun, uhm, but it was just, you know, there were members of the public, you know, the people that were working there, we would fraternise with them, they were all friendly with, so, it was generally, it was nice, actually it wasn’t a bad place to go and have a [unclear] and a [unclear]. No, I wouldn’t say that, [unclear] we were [unclear] but more recollections of the Horse & Jockey that was, I said, the crew kept together, I kept the crew together, we were all there together, it was the whole other six of us, there as, that didn’t mean, there was no worry about that but I would like to add that I had [unclear] to my place in about 1950 or 60 and he [unclear] smoked. So, [laughs], [unclear] it’s been a change, he remained a bachelor all his life. But he was wonderful fellow and he was another one, as I say he was very, very keen on, what he did, he took on the training course after the war in [unclear] and he was, he got a medal for that, an RFD or doing something like that, royal returned forces, no, not returned, what’s it, returned something forces decoration? Not returned forces. Anyway, as an RFD, as a, there’s a post normal or medal, but he, he got one of those. But he was a great fellow and he brought us home safely.
AP: [unclear] Alright.
DES: But I had a lot of confidence in him, as I was saying, earlier on, [unclear] blessed hands, they were bigger than mine, I got the tiniest hands you’ve ever seen, mine, my wife’s gloves won’t fit me, you know, they’re my hands, my hands are so tiny, but, yeah, he was, yeah, that’s about it, [unclear].
AP: Yeah, we’re going alright still. So, a little bit more about this daily life in Waddington. The Sergeants Mess, what was that like, what sort of things happened there?
DES: Oh yeah, the Sergeants Mess. Yeah, well, we spend a bit of time there, no, after a trip we do was going to the mess and there’s a lot of, a lot of untoward things went on in the Sergeants Mess and some of the other persons over there, a bit longer than I was, tell some wonderful stories about bringing a donkey into the mess and there’s the Officers Mess and all sort of that. But, we, uhm, I can’t recall, my memory is not that good for the Sergeants Mess. I can, I know what it was like but it was not a place that, you know, we all met there at various stages and had our lunch there and our dinner there and all that sort of thing but, uhm, this never stayed in my mind as being rather relevant to me, I don’t know why but I know we ate there and had our meals there and you know the ordering officer would come round and say: ‘Any complaints?’ [Laughs] Every day in the evening we had our meal there, the ordering officer would come round and say, quite often it was one of the, one of your pilots that, [laughs] you know, was his turn to come over from the officers mess and say: ‘Any complaints?’ What’s the officer, orderly officer, any complaints, I don’t know, that I had many complaints, no, I can’t help, I can’t recall a lot about the Sergeants Mess.
AP: Did 463 and 467 Squadron eat in, did they have their own officer’s mess [unclear]?
DES: No, we were all together, they had their own, the two were there together.
AP: So it was more [unclear] Waddington.
DES: yeah, yeah, yeah. Was Waddington, yeah. Yeah, when we went back to Waddington in, when we went to the Officers Mess there was just one place, yeah, there was only one place, there was 463 and 467, yeah, we got to know each other 463 and 467, as you know 467 was the first Australian Squadron, first Squadron on, uhm ,first was their own Squadron, they were formed in about 1941, something like that and then after they got a big bigger, we wanted to have another Squadron, so 463 grew out of [unclear]? Yeah, [unclear], grew out of [unclear], is it about November or December? ‘43, would that be right? 47 might have been ’42, I think it was ’43.
AP: Yeah, ’43.
DES: Yeah, it was ’43, I think. And so that’s how 463 was. Uhm, and that was under Wing Commander Rollo Kingswood-Smith, who send me off the parade ground for not having a shave. And I was only a young bloke who only shaved about four days a week and I was on, and they sent me off the parade ground for not having a shave. And then later on of course, I’m going ahead of fifty years I became the secretary of 463 Squadron, Rollo was, he is the patron at present, no, he is the patron, I think but he was and he came up to me, oh, I did know him a bit afterwards so. He came up to me and looked at me and said: ‘Oh, Don, you’ve done your shave today’. And days before he died, he said to me: ‘Don, you had your shave today’ and I reminded him when I came back from England but I became quite a good friend of Rollo, when I finished, cause he is really very, very good, he always [unclear], you know, he was a flight commander, no he was a CO, or was a flight commander, whatever he was, he wasn’t a station commander, because that was different from, but he was, he was a 463 commanding officer but he did his trips at the time, he never, he always did his trips, so, he could have quite easily have said, No, I’m going tonight or something like that, but Rollo would always do his trips and never fail. And he was always very good with his, I know, with his writing to people for, you know, lost their and lost their sons and but I believe he was a very strict, he was a very, very strict man, as I say, he was quite different in late years, well, he was, you knew where you stood with him but, and I think he had to be to be the commanding officer at that particular, and we had all walks of life in our, uh, in the air force.
AP: Did 463 Squadron have any superstitions or hoodoos or anything that you are aware of of [unclear]?
DES: Not that I am aware of, I always used to carry my RAF, I had no RAF scarf, always carry my RAF scarf, had to go back one night to get it, but, which I had forgotten, I had to get back but that was only a personal deal I don’t think I was really superstitious about I had to carry my RAF scarf, it was a scarf, it wasn’t a tie, it was a scarf, I didn’t see many of them, I still got mine on my top drawer beside my bed I’ve got my Royal Air Force scarf. I also had my Royal Air Force [unclear] [laughs].
AP: [laughs]
DES: Some [unclear].
AP: We were talking about off tape before we started. Very good. So, you flew nine operations [unclear].
DES: I did nine operations, yep.
AP: Do any of them particularly stand out?
DES: Yeah, was a couple I can have. The trip, uhm, I did to Pilsen. We took off, was a long trip, Pilsen was in Czechoslovakia and it was a long trip and not, we had a couple of hours and now one of our engines went and the skipper said to me: ‘Do you think we can make it?, and I said: ‘Yes, I think so. I think we can take a few short cuts [unclear] we might be able to make it, we don’t tell anybody whatever’. And he said, [skimming through pages of a book], yeah, the uhm, I said: ‘I think I could make it’ and I did a few calculations and even though I say [unclear] I reckon I did a pretty well navigation so I think that was that day because you know you had to be careful if you gonna take any short cuts it couldn’t stand out we were on a track that you were given and as long as you stayed four miles or five miles out of the side of the track you are fairly safe because that’s where all the other aircraft were going, and we were tossing out the silver paper, the Window, that made look as if there are more aircraft out and that sort of thing. But we had to be careful if we went out of it, you could be picked off by the German radar, so you had to be a little bit careful. So, anyway, we got there on time, uhm, we uhm, and uhm, so that was a long trip that I got a bit of praise for by my skipper in the briefing that we went back to and that was about uhm, eight hours and we bombed on three engines. We were diverted when we got back cause we didn’t have much fuel left, uhm, we landed at Boscombe Down that particular night and, uhm, then the next day went back to, uhm, to, uhm, Waddington but uhm, yeah, it was that. And one other night we went to [unclear]. I was in a couple of thousand bomber raids, daylight, we were over Essen and Dortmund and I, we bombed through a cloud there and this was, you realised we were getting towards the end of the war and the master bomber was down below the clouds and he’d come up the cloud, drop the target indicators and go back down again and see how they went and he turned on the RT, the radio telephone and he turned into [unclear] TI by ten seconds or something like that, you know, and he’d be conducting the whole operation from down below. And, so we were just, we just dropped bombs, we didn’t see where they go, we just dropped them on top of the cloud, and that was on the Krupp works at Essen and Dortmund and. But there was another one I was going to mention and we went to [unclear], and uhm, which is just south of Hamburg and the wind changed that particular night and the whole force was all over north-western Europe, we got a little blown away but well, I got a little bit off course, I got to say this, I got a bit off course and we were chased by the German jetfighters, the 263 I think it is? The 263, something like that, the 263? But, we went into a cork, we did have, we were well-trained, went straight away and went into the corkscrew and we did all that, and, cause they can only stay up for about ten minutes and so they, you know, you, if you did your corkscrew properly, probably you were safe so we got out of that but that was, we were picked off there because I got a bit off course. And then I went to uhm, smaller refineries, Bohlen, I went to Bohlen, that was out near Leipzig, for people that might know where Leipzig is, a lot of these synthetic oil refineries were in Eastern Germany and, uhm, we’re at the crossing of the Rhine when the British army were, uhm, crossing the Rhine, uh, we were given the job of bombing Wesel, we were given the job of bombing Wesel and, uhm, which we did and I think it was only, it was only our, you know, our group went that particular night but the British army were on one side of the river and the German side, the Germans were on the other side, and we bombed the other side but we were given a certain time because the British were going into the water at a certain time to go over and I took it with the loss of one life, I think it was in, General Montgomery, Field Marshall Montgomery, he, send the message back to, they brought it over to the loudspeakers the next day on parade, do you want something to eat?
AP: No, thank you.
DES: It was on parade and we were on parade and they read out a message from Montgomery to say how wonderful it was and we did a wonderful job bla, bla, bla, yeah, and uh, yeah that was interesting because you can, if you go to Wesel afterwards it’s quite, you know, I’ve seen some photos of it lately and I think they have rebuilt most of, most of the place. And lastly we did the last operation of the war which was on Tonsberg, which was in the southern part of Norway and we approached it from the North, so it was a long crossing over the North Sea, this was the last operation of the war, on Anzac Day, and with the, we came down the coast, I was coming down from Norway, with Sweden on the left hand side and Sweden was all beautifully lit up, all lit up and the other side was all black, blacked up there was the, Norway which was under the control of the Germans, anyway, we, uhm, that was the last operation of the war and we, uhm, that was bombed successfully but on, if I check forward about fifty years, I was at a funeral and, uhm, of a lady who was of Norwegian birth and the ex-consul of Norway was there and I went and spoke to him and I said: ‘I’ve never been to Norway except on the air’. And he said: ’When were you there?’ I said: ‘Oh, I was there on the 25th of April 1945’ and he said: ‘Well, your aim was pretty good that night’. [laughs] Not at all, so I thought we did pretty well. He said yes. He said, but some of your bombers did bomb the shipyards, some of them went astray and they bombed some of the civilians and he said that all the people of Norway, the war was coming to an end, the 8th of May was the end of the war, the war was coming to an end, they are all thrilled, all happy because everybody knew the armistice was coming on that particular day and he said, now, all the people in the rest of Norway, he said, we were burying our dead and he was very nice about the whole thing and, you know, he is, I got him down as a likely speaker for whoever wants someone to speak about it but, they were very understanding and. So I must really go to France these days, you know, the people in France they were terribly bombed, you know, was, they are thanking you and thanking you and we did an enormous lot of damage but they realised that we had to, that we had to do that for, uhm, sake of winning the war.
AP: So, you mentioned that Messerschmitt, or the jetfighter.
DES: Jetfighter, yeah.
AP: And the corkscrew. So, you are the navigator. You hear corkscrew port go. What happens next?
DES: I have been difficult. Well, we gotta a set of pattern what you got to do the, if the plane’s coming in from the port, you corkscrew port go the rear gunner or whatever the hillside part will do his corkscrew and he’d go down fifteen hundred and he’d turn and he’d go up fifteen hundred feet and it’s quite a ring morale to do but you fly, if you do it properly you fly, you know, a certain course even [unclear] and so, you know, it didn’t do much damage to our [unclear] we didn’t have to make much allowance for an hour in our navigation, if you had to corkscrew port, you, you could just sort of forget about it and just there’s, as long as you weren’t [unclear] too long but generally speaking you flew a net course for this business, all designed to and it was very successful the corkscrew but I, I think we did this about three times I suppose.
AP: What does it feel like?
DES: Oh, I don’t mind, don’t forget we are nineteen years of age there, this was just, this was just wonderful, trusting the aircraft. Oh, of course you were worried a bit about where you were being shot down that goes into it, but generally speaking the corkscrew never, we thought if we did the corkscrew port we would be safe. You’ve got that feeling in your mind that you’d do that, I always remember Redge Boys [?] he was our hero, he was [unclear], he was our navigation leader at Waddington and Redge he did two tours and he said he never believed himself that he’d ever be shot down and he tried to, he despite the fact that the pilot was the chief, he always made sure the crew were all, you know, positive about what we were doing, they were all, they were always convinced that they were gonna get through this. They had this positive attitude that they, you know, and I think it helped, while you’re up there, [unclear], I tried to adopt that attitude that, you know, we all wanted to get home and see the people and I want to get home but, I must admit that, when we were on a bombing run, I used to see, a navigator didn’t have his parachute on, he, you couldn’t work on a desk when, cause we had a chest parachute that fitted on a harness on your chest and you had it sitting beside you. Now, uh, if I was to leave there at my desk, I’d always put my parachute on and I would go, if we were on a bombing run, I would remember the course you got to steer after we dropped our bombs and I’d turn the light out and I’d go up and stand behind the pilot, and watch all the, what was going on and I could then pop down to the rear gunner, near the rear gunner and say, could I have a look at the pilot [laughs] and you’d see the fires and all that sort of thing in the background. But, you know, I felt as if I wanted to be part of the thing so I wanted to see what was going on. Cause everyone else could see what was going on except the wireless operator and what’s the name because we were sitting [unclear] bomb’s gone, you’d have to wait a while, while the photo was taken, away was given course 270 and off we go. And, yeah.
AP: Yes, that’s unusual, most, uhm, most navigators I have spoken to would, you know come up and have a look [unclear] take the head and go, no, don’t ask me to do that [unclear].
DES: Oh, now, that’s, that’s another story. Well, that is. After, a lot of people don’t know about this. But after the war we disarmed, the war had finished and we were disarming with all our, [unclear] disarmed and we had to get rid of all the bombs on the station. So, what they did was we’d [unclear] might have been a couple of weeks, I could look that up but that’s been a couple of weeks, we flew out of Waddington with four bomb loads, headed to the North Sea, about two and a half hours and straight course out, dropped our bombs, they were dropped safe, they weren’ dropped armed but they were dropped safe, and there, I know what the Greenies [?] had signed out because they knew all these thousands of bombs now there was really thousands of us, there was not only our Squadron but every other Squadron was doing this. We go out there and then we come back and if you were above the cloud, we used to have a lot of fun with the pilot with going over the cloud, as if you were low flying. We had some lovely time so, but what I’m coming to is I thought this particular dive [?] was navigation record, no had Gee operator, [unclear], I didn’t done any, I didn’t have to do any strict navigation set up, I, cause I had near position indicators which told me, anyway, we, I thought I’d like to get into the rear turret and I saw [unclear] was the rear gunner and he could come up and sit in the navigation seat and I’d coming in here for a couple of hours, you know. So I trotted off down to the and the [unclear] showed me what to do and [unclear] I couldn’t have gone out of there, couldn’t have gotten there faster, was scared stiff, you know I’d never been because you’re away from the tires of the aircraft, when you are sitting back behind you, so, you are sitting out in the open. You know, you’re away from the aircraft so you feel like it and I think [unclear] having to sit [unclear] on our trip to sit in this thing, you know, you’d be, mind you, these, while our air gunners had had the experience of flying they knew what they’d, you know, they’d got used to it I suppose but me as a person I was scared stiff, I was more scared stiff getting into, getting out of that turret than I was, say, sitting out there in the navigation and bombs, looking down and looking at bombs going off and [unclear] I was scared stiff on that trip. And I had the greatest of admiration for our rear gunner out there, how they could [unclear], and [unclear] you know, I’m not necessarily claustrophobic but I thought oh, Jeez, I couldn’t do this. And I realised how well off I was, because the navigator was lucky I reckon because, as I say, on a ten hour trip you’d have, you had to get a fix every ten minutes or so and, you know, you no sooner that you’d got your fix, you’d plotted it, as you got your fix, you plotted it, you’d make the necessary course, the course change and so forth so If you had to make any change and it took time and the time went quickly this was what the beauty was the pilot was the same, he may be sitting around looking, you know, sitting out on the front [unclear] putting on a [unclear] every now and then, yeah, most of the time but he, and but the navigator had to do and the wireless op was something similar to, he had a lot of work to do, he had to keep the schedules and report back and we had our jobs and our logs don’t forget, as soon as we got back, were handed in to the navigation leader and you were marked as if you were at school and you get 60 percent, or 50 percent or 75. And uhm, you know but this is why we had, oh I must say this as a navigator, that we had marvellous navigator, the navigators were, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, they were wonderfully trained, they, don’t forget, they took as about eighteen months to get into operations, the Americans, I understand can get in as navigating, get in about six weeks training, you know, and that’s not exaggerating, I believe as I say, because some of the B-24s out of Darwin carried, the Americans carried Australian navigators if you look up your history, which is not widely spoken about, but we were well trained and, as I say, we strictly [unclear], we knew our work was big marked anyhow so you had to be, you really gave you a greater incentive to be [unclear] but above all, you know, a ten hour trip might have seemed by far, you know, then, yeah.
AP: VE-day.
DES: Ah, VE-Day. This is all vivid with me, I had wonderful times on VE-day but VE-Day I did three trips to France bringing home, I think it was on VE-Day, yeah, it was on VE-Day, I don’t know if it was three or two we didn’t the next day, you know I did three trips of bringing home prisoners of war, we’d go over in Juvincourt in France and load up twenty five, it was called Operation Exodus and we were out, we load up to twenty five British war, British prisoners of war, they’d been, some of them had been there since Dunkirk in 1940 and the first load we carried, oh, they sit, the twenty five of them sat in the fuselage of the Lancaster on cushions, not seatbelts, uhm, they just had to hang on and [laughs] they just had to sit there and there were thousands of them, we brought out prisoners of war with this Operation exodus by the way, but they were, uhm, It was a wonderful experience, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, you flew these guys out, they’d been prisoners of war all these years and they, uhm, the first load I carried they were all Sikhs, they were Indians the first lot we carried out. The next load we carried were all obviously from England and it seemed to be most obvious, I made sure that I went down and I got them to come up gradually when the white cliffs of Dover came, got them, and we ferried them up but it was nice and orderly and hear the tears was rolling down their cheeks, you know, was absolutely wonderful to see the, uhm, and they all shook hands when we, uhm, they all shook hands when they got off the aircraft and that was what I did on VE-Day. Now, shortly after VE-Day we had a lot of celebrations and I, you know, I can always remember smoking a cigar, having a few beers, I was Mister Churchill at one stage, you know, was a lot of hilarity and joyness and it was a wonderful feeling, they, you know, all the station was all together and we were all having, officers, ordinary, you know, the airmen, we were all together having a and they’d put on some wonderful [unclear] there and at that particular time and that’s my, I worked on the VE-Day there and we were so glad we were doing, and the guy that wrote our 463-467 book, Nobby Blundell he was a, uhm, he was a fitter, he was a fitter, uhm, an engineer and on a ground staff and he wrote our books incidentally, all the books on 464-647 fisher [?] books were all written by Nobby did a magnificent job but the uhm, was great the, uhm, he managed to, you know, get, gives us all the particulars that we wanted to know, I don’t know, and he was all of our flying set up, all of the, he’d used the, [unclear], is that called, the evidence of our doing your trip, he used to get all these information from the [unclear], he spend years on doing this and so we were forever grateful and he did this but, uhm, getting back to VE-Day, I was more than, more than pleased with what was happening and then of course we had to start thinking about what was gonna happen as it was after VE-Day.
AP: Uhm, how did you get back to Australia?
DES: Ah, that’s a good [unclear], you’ve got some good questions. They are very good, you know, [unclear], we uhm, the uhm, oh I made two efforts to get away. We were disbanded by the way, we were disbanded in August at, uhm, Skellingthorpe, I think it was Skellingthorpe, we’d moved to Skellingthorpe from the Squadron and they formed a Tiger Force for people that were gonna go out to fight the Japanese and uhm, we uhm, managed to particular Tiger Force the uhm, [unclear] you know just asking [unclear].
AP: How did you go home?
DES: How did you go home, yeah. Lost my train of thought. At my age you can.
AP: That’s one. That’s the first one in [unclear]
DES: No, I forget.
AP: Off you go.
DES: Oh, good. [laughs] I know you can scrub that out, yeah, but getting home. Yeah, but I wanted to mention about, we disbanded and then we were transferred to Brighton to wait for a boat and the [unclear] came along. Now, a lot of people in the Air Force know what happened there, there was virtually no, [unclear] but the conditions on the [unclear] which is the [unclear] boat, there was no P&O those days, [unclear] made all the newspapers that a lot of the trips walked off the ship at Southampton because of the conditions, I didn’t want to go twenty five days or so we gotta go and we went back through the canal and [unclear], well we didn’t stop, well we stopped in a few places, the uhm, it was, the, in Brighton we went from, we’d gone onto the ship on the [unclear], we’d got onto the ship and we sailed eventually, we sailed to half of it and wouldn’t you believe we broke down in the Bay of Biscay and the war was over, there was no submarines or so, the war had finished at this time, this was in August or September 1945 [unclear] and we, in between time we had been flying, we’d been doing, taking stuff out to drop the bombs and we’d been doing fighter affiliation and all, we then found work for us to do. Anyway, we set sail out of Southampton and we broke down, and we were flying the black flag, anyone knows it’s out of control and so we eventually we got, we slipped back to Southampton, the first time I have ever been sick was on that bay because we just it [unclear] and happened [unclear] it was about 20000 tons and was their luxury ship when the [unclear] luxury could have been made into a troop ship and we went back to Southampton we were sent then up to Millham. Now Millham is right up near West Freugh, up near Stranraer, right up on the North-West of England and [unclear] us all up to, it was the middle of winter. And we were in Nissen huts and we had to try and keep warm and they had to heat us there but ran out of coal, they couldn’t get, we were rationed the coal, so we smarty Australians [unclear], there was the coal, we got into the coal, [unclear] and pinched the coal, I caught a couple of sometime [unclear] about but we had to go and pinch coal to keep warm. And uhm, we eventually went from there, we were there about a week I suppose and then they found another boat for us which was the Durban Castle, it was a [unclear] ship which went from London, used to go from London to Cape Town and that was a nice ship was made up of air, the complement of going home was a lot of air force people, we had New Zealanders coming home uhm, was quite an interesting lot of people that were on board but we were in [unclear], I was a warrant officer then I’d got up to warrant officer and there under the normal chain, six months of flight sergeant, twelve months of, uh, sorry, six months of sergeant, four months of flight sergeant, then you’re put and made a warrant officer, that was the RAAF and so we’d became warrant officers and then was commission if you got a commission. And the uhm, we uhm, [pauses] [unclear] yeah, yeah, we’re back, we’re off from and, yeah, we were now on the Durban Castle, we’re on the, I forgot, the Durban Castle and the Durban Castle and we had a lot of, we pulled into Gibraltar, can remember Gibraltar, the conditions on the boat were good, the food was good, I put on a stain on the way back because, you know, we put a lot of potatoes, they had a lot of stuff [unclear] but they fed us well, it was a full ship really, but we picked up people on the way, we went to Gibraltar but that was to drop off somebody who was sick so we didn’t pull in, it was just off Gibraltar and we could see the place and if anybody is interested they oughta go to Gibraltar, it is one of the most interesting places to go there. Uh, you don’t expect to see what you see, so we, Gibraltar just a night, we dropped these people off and then we went to Taranto in Italy, in the heel of Italy and there we picked up the New Zealand war brides, that had married a lot of the New Zealanders, who were fighting in Italy, they’d either gone home or [unclear], but the war brides were on their own and so we picked up the war brides and that filled the boat a bit more and then we went from Italy to the Canal, went through the canal, and they wouldn’t let us off the boat in the canal and, you know, none of us would have been through the Suez Canal and so, that was working of course and so was [unclear] to Port Tewfik, Tewfik? No, Port Said, we went to Port Said and they, one of the guys in that was with me at the time, was called [unclear] and he had a DCM, Distinguished Conduct Medal which he had earned in the Middle East but he was in the Air Force, he was, he was a gunner in the Air Force but and he’d been to Port Said, you know, he knew all about this place and we had to get to Port, [mimics the gunners voice] so there was a ladder down at the back of the ship and so a few of us got out of the bumboats as they called them [unclear] and we went ashore, we went ashore, we didn’t take any notice of them people [unclear] we, most of the people were doing this but they were not supposed to. And so we were wondering around the town and the Arabs tried to come and sell us something, dirty postcards on sale [laughs], you know, and we were looking, [unclear] got out, went off and he hit one of these blokes, he hit one of these blokes, you know, because he was trying to do something wrong or I don’t know what it was but he knew what he can get away with, he slapped him on the face [unclear] we gonna get caught [unclear] being in a riot, anyway we got back to our ship alright and went up the gangway this time, no one said anything so. We went through the canal which was a great experience to go through and see how that operates, I’ve never been through the Panama but a lot of our fellows went through the Panama, which I would have liked to have done, uhm, then we went into Aden, and then we, that was near Yemen, and that was in Yemen where you nearly got a lot of troubles and then we went to, uhm, Perth, we went straight across the Indian Ocean to Perth and that’s where we dropped of the Perth blacks [?] and I remember carrying, not carrying but helping a bloke who’d had too much to drink in Kings Park and we were gonna miss the boat, cause you had to be up to Perth and the boat was at Freemantle, we had to get back by train and we had to get him back so [unclear] helped him back but he was not used to Australian beer cause the British beer was pretty, uh, pretty weak and this Australian beer was pretty, you know, pretty [unclear] anyway we got back, we came around the [unclear] to Melbourne, and was Melbourne we got off the boat and went to, uhm, went on the train, went on the train to Sydney, I don’t recall, must have been the train of the time, we sat up but we didn’t have sleepers, and no, we went up to Sydney and the Vietnam blokes all complain that they didn’t get a welcome home. Well, none of us got a welcome home but we were quite happy, cause we arrived at Central Station on platform number one, my mother and sister were there to meet me, they took me home and then a week later I was to report at Bradfield Park, I went to Bradfield Park, they gave me a dischargement home and I went back to work.
AP: That was it.
DES: That was it.
AP: Did you have any issues settling down again? [unclear]?
DES: No, no, no, I had no issues. The only thing is for a while so I went straight back to my job that I left at the MLC and I had been there eighteen months, for eighteen months so I didn’t know much about the business and so I got into, when I went to, I applied when I went back, this is in early 1946 I uhm went back to the MLC and they put me on, they had to put me on that was the law, they had to put you back on staff and they sent me to a department where I was the only fellow with a hundred and forty girls. I’d been in the Air Force all this time with fellows, we had the well WAAF around but generally speaking you weren’t used to mixing around with women, you know, and they put me there for, they put me there for a purpose, of course, and they put next to me the girl that spoke the most [laughs] she was a real gossip, she spoke the most, Shirley Reed, and Shirley, and I, the first two weeks I didn’t hardly, apart from doing my work I didn’t say anything but not because I didn’t [unclear], I was just out, I don’t know what to do, you know, I was just doing my work but I thought, and I wasn’t that good at conversation at that particular time [unclear] we had lunch at our desk in those days, we bought some sandwiches and had lunch at our desks, she kicked the chair from underneath me, I was leaning back and she kicked the chair it was dangerous, she kicked the chair, I went down under the [unclear], well, everybody laughed and I laughed and from that time on I was married [?] [laughs]. I was in that department for about two years and I was still the only fellow. And I have great memories of that, of that two years because I was single, I went to so many birthday parties and twenty-first birthday parties, to weddings, I talked to get a few other girls, my wife was one of them and well, became one of them and I went to work for her in the department and I made [unclear] she came to England for four years and then came back and I married her then but I don’t, was I was then move to, I went again they sent me to Tasmania to open up the office in Tasmania in Launceston and then I was there for two years and then I, they did that in those days, don’t do it nowadays, then I was sent to, I was in Sydney for a while and then I was posted to Adelaide in 1960 and I, I was in charge of the collector branch there in Adelaide and we had two children there, Dave and Jane and that was another wonderful experience and then. I’ve got to say something about the air force, don’t let me forget.
AP: [unclear] of course.
DES: But, we had, Adelaide was a wonderful place to bring children up, I became a fan of the, I was a rugby person, rugby union, I became a fan of Australian rules when I first went to Adelaide I was, uhm, every Monday we had lunch with a group in the industry, in the life insurance industry and I didn’t have much to, I didn’t have much to talk about because I didn’t know anything about the Australian rules, for all they talked about were the teams that played at the weekend so I thought, oh, the best thing for me to do was to join those, if we were gonna have, [unclear], I’d better join them, better go out with them, so, they were members, a few of them were members of the Stirling football club, Aussie [?] rules club, and, no, The Double Blues, I can sing you the song if you want me to sing it, but they are The Double Blues and I became quite a rugby, an Australian rules fan, I’m not forgetting me rugby cause I’m a rugby person still but the, I used to, family, it was a family setup, we’d go out on a Saturday and we’d go, we’d have the radio would be on at the eleven o’clock match and then we’d go on, we’d have lunch or something then we’d go up to see the afternoon, the main game in the afternoon and then we’d finish there we’d go and buy some beer and some food and we'd watch the replay of that game and then we’d watch the replay of the main game in Melbourne, that was our Saturday but all the kids were all around at home that particular day and they’d come to the game in Adelaide, then they got so much free bottle they could pick up and the kids used to go and pick it up and make a lot of money on a Saturday [laughs] and but I became quite a fan of that we won the premiership four weeks running and that was my introduction to Australian rules, what a wonderful thing to be, but it’s a wonderful game and I love Australian rules and I do follow the Swans, uhm, but I don’t go out and see nowadays, I don’t go and see the rugby except on [unclear] occasions again I go and watch the rugby but. And in Tasmania I played rugby union and my [unclear] was the president of the North Tasmanian rugby union, we had three teams and I played in one of the teams and, uhm, that was in Launceston and, oh I forgot, New Zealand. I was in, I was two and a half years in New Zealand and I was there for the Springbok Tour in 1956 and I saw quite a bit of the football there, I used to go to the football in those days but New Zealand was another great place to be I was married there but I came back to Sydney, married Dorothy and then came back to New Zealand when she came back, she came back to work at the MLC for twelve months and, uh, and then we came back to, and I had a wonderful time because I have got relations there In New Zealand, so, I had places I had to go, so, I’ve seen every city in New Zealand except Gisborne and I don’t know why I’m saying that but, uhm, it was a wonderful place for me and it was a good place to, uhm, yeah it was a good, I was the, I joined the Kendala Lawn Tennis Club and I played tennis and I became the treasurer of the Kendala Lawn Tennis Club and so I fitted into the New Zealand mob, cause New Zealanders by and large as a group don’t like Australians, you know, but they do like, when they meet individually we’re all great, you know, we might talk about the Anzac business but they have really odd, that’s only my observation of course, they don’t’ really and I’m a, I regularly go to funerals in New Zealand at the moment but you know I’m a great fan of New Zealand and they as a group, they are jealous of Australians, I think, cause we’re so big.
AP: Ok, could be something.
DES: Yeah.
AP: Yeah, worked with a few kiwis, anyway. Uhm, yeah, you were gonna say something [unclear].
DES: I was gonna say, I do a lot of this, you know, I’m gonna plug in for the Bomber Command Commemorative Day and I’ve been involved with 463-467 Squadron Association, I’ve been involved with, uh, the Bomber Command Commemorative Day Foundation but that’s just a little aside. Uh, I’m doing this really because [clears throat] I owe the Air Force something. [sighs] When my, when memoires bring us [unclear] when I went away on the Air Force, I didn’t know anything, I was a real greenhorn, I was a green eighteen, didn’t know anything cause mum, you know, we were never allowed to play cards on a Sunday as I’d never, we never had cards in the house, mum didn’t, mum was a bit, she was an Anglican and uh, but she wasn’t, she wasn’t an [unclear] or anything either but a [unclear] drink she might have been, we never had but grog in the place, I tried to have [unclear] sherry sometimes [laughs] she went [mimics and astonished expression] when she heard, she was a great mother by, a great mother by the way but our mum, I’m trying to get the message over that I didn’t know a lot about the world until I went to the Air Force and the Air Force made me and I feel I gotta make some contribution to the Air Force and the same thing applies to the office MLC, that they to me were absolutely marvellous and I only retired from there about two years ago when I, I retired in ‘84, I went back to do a job for three months, to set up the database, helped set up the database in the MLC and now twenty five years later I’m still there with two, with another guy, it was five of us who stayed on for a while, but then, three had died and two of us are still left. But the MLC were, they, you know, I was on a, I tell you I was on a two and half percent mortgage for a time at the MLC, and they didn’t pay as much as probably some of the other companies but you know, I never, you felt you had a real, uhm, you know, they never sacked anybody except if you pinched money [laughs] and that, it remarks the office that didn’t happen but the MLC were wonderful to me, the Air Force and the MLC were wonderful to me and a lot of my friends are not jealous of me but they would have loved to have had a job like I’ve got, working with the MLC until I was just on ninety and, uhm, and I was doing every bit as good a job as I was as the people beside me that I was working, I was doing all computer work and this sort of thing. Oh, when I say computer work, it wasn’t on a main frame but it was, was all the stuff was all set up for us to do but I did some work on the telephones and that sort of thing but there was a lot of sixty plus, sixty five plus fellows that could, they some of the companies could, instead of putting them off, give them extra time, you know, keep them employed on a, say, five days, four days, three days, because, you know, I was bored stiff for a while when I first retired and when I got this [unclear], I was a bit two-minded about going back and doing this and that was one of the best decisions I have ever made and so there for that, this is not wartime setup but the MLC they could have paid when I was in the Air Force but I was getting more money in the Air Force than I was in the MLC [laughs] so I didn’t much from it but. Had I not been in the aircrew I would have probably cause we were paid extra in the aircrew, not a lot but we were paid extra. And, yeah, so that was, I have a lot to thank the Air Force for and that’s why I’m doing, I do this work now with volunteering with doing various things on Bomber Command Association and the 463 business, anything to do with the Air Force I like doing, you know, and I meet a lot of nice people.
AP: Good. Final question. Uhm, what do you think the legacy of Bomber Command is and how you want to see it remembered?
DES: Uh, well, I don’t think we will ever see another Bomber Command, in these days we will never see another Bomber Command because the days of the, uhm, what do we call them? The, you know, the things that fly on their own? You’ll never see another Lancaster bomber bombing places, you will see atom bombs or, not atom bombs, but these other sort of, what do you call the little?
AP: Drones. Yeah.
Des: The drones, you see, just here in one of our Squadrons here now, the 462 Squadron in Adelaide, they are mixed up in drones, you see, and so, you know, I’m very proud of, uhm, joining and taking part in Bomber Command. I think they did a magnificent job; they’d had a rough trot until 1942, when they weren’t hitting their targets, [unclear] as things got better, they did the, I’m fully happy with all what the Bomber Command did. I think the world of Air Marshal Harris and I get, I get annoyed sometimes when people who want to criticize him. You know, every year I get a message from Melbourne about Dresden [laughs], which, you know, which annoys me, more than anything else, because Dresden deserved what they got, you know, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, London, Liverpool, Coventry, they all got a similar treatment and I don’t think, you know, there was a lot about Dresden that, and I’m sorry I brought that up but we know that there were a lot of people operating in Dresden which were military, they were hidden, slightly like the people today are putting, uh, children and some of these in where real targets are and there were definitely a lot of things in Dresden that deserved to be bombed and, you know, we’re at war, we had to do our best to do that but I’m quite proud of what we did in Bomber Command and I’m very, I think I finished my speech at the reflections at the Bomber Command thing in Canberra a few years ago and I was very proud and fine with Bomber Command and but I don’t think we will see another Bomber Command type of people, there will never be a group like us ever again, so I don’t’ think there is any future, but it will be done by the drones, what it’s gotta be done I think will be done by the drones and then that creates a bit of loss of life to civilians but I’m afraid when you are fighting a war it’s just, you know, it’s just the way it goes. Uhm, I don’t know, of [unclear].
AP: How do you want to see it remembered?
DES: How will I remember it?
AP: Yeah, how do you want to see it remembered, how do you want Bomber Command to be remembered.
DES: Oh, [unclear], oh, I just like the people here today to and that’s what we’re in the business with the Bomber Command Commemoration Day Foundation, we want the children of our people to carry on and thank the people of, like the 5000 who died, not us particularly but, ah yeah, the 5000 Australian airmen we hope you’ll remember them, you might forget them, as I hope you won’t forget the Vietnam people and the people who went to Korea and the people who went to [unclear]. We do remember them and I pray that they remember them on Anzac Day, uhm, but I think that, uhm, I would like to and I am amazed at, uh, the young people today that we have come into their [unclear] up to about four or five years ago and never heard of some of the things of their fathers and grandfathers had done. And I’m amazed by the number of people who came out of the woodwork to find out more about now and it’s up to us now, cause we are talking here now, it’s up to us to make sure that we get the message out to the younger people that their living today because of the sacrifice that the people made, that died over in the Bomber Command raids and that sort of thing, that they would be, uhm, might be leading a different sort of life, that they, uh, if it hadn’t been for the actions and the deeds of those who fought in Bomber Command. But I’d like them to think nicely of us and I think most of them do. I get, not amazed, but I’m really interested and pray that today for instance I’ve been talking to people that were involved and had involvements, you know, a lot of them didn’t know to a certain extent what things we’d done and how we’d helped shorten the war and that sort of thing, cause we did really and I suppose dropping the atom bomb bought us to and I’ve got no objections to the atom bomb being dropped either, it probably saved a lot of lives too. It’s a terrible thing but once, if I can say again, I’m amazed at the young people that are so interested and yet there are some families that they are not interested at all, not interested at all and parts of families, including my own, now, some of mine are not that interested, my son is and but, and I think [unclear] but one of my grandchildren is very interested. It’s on the other side but that’s their decision, we probably haven’t got the message over to them which is [unclear] and I am disappointed when I speak to some of my friends who don’t want to talk about it, it’s not boasting about these [unclear], people should know that these sort of things went on, that these, because of their actions, they’ve had fifty, sixty, seventy years of freedom here, even in Australia which might never have happened if those people hadn’t made the sacrifices that they did and volunteered and don’t forget, all the aircrew in Australia were volunteers, there was no, no one was conscripted, they were all volunteers. Yeah.
AP: Oh well, that’s the end of my questions. So.
DES: Well, that’s good. Yeah.
AP: You’ve done very well.
DES: [unclear] How long was that?
AP: That was one hour forty two.
DES: That was alright, well, that was [unclear]
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ASouthwellDE160424
Title
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Interview with Don Southwell
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:42:57 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-04-24
Description
An account of the resource
Don Southwell grew up in Australia and worked for RKO Radio Pictures and as an Air Raid Precautions Warden before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. After training in Australia and Canada, he flew nine operations as a navigator with 463 Squadron from RAF Waddington. He describes crewing up and everyday military life at the station, and gives accounts of his operations and being chased by Me 262s over Hamburg. He remembers ferrying liberated prisoners of war as part of Operation Exodus.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Canada
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
New South Wales
Alberta--Edmonton
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Brighton
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Leipzig
New South Wales--Sydney
California--San Francisco
United States
California
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Sussex
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
29 OTU
463 Squadron
467 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
fear
Lancaster
Me 262
memorial
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Waddington
RAF West Freugh
Stirling
superstition
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/332/3492/PSpenceMA1502.2.jpg
5a6657b4575a6396f0860cd494be921e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/332/3492/ASpenceMA151005.1.mp3
98a0fa42e0ca70873f8ca52ae247e6df
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
Spence, Max
Maxwell Alexander Spence
Maxwell A Spence
Maxwell Spence
M A Spence
M Spence
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Maxwell Alexander "Max" Spence (437564 Royal Australian Air Force), his log book and a photograph. He flew operations as a navigator with 460 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Max Spence and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-05
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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Spence, MA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Digital, International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive, is with Max Spence, who is a 460 Squadron navigator. My name is Adam Purcell, we are at Max home in Montmorency in Melbourne, it’s the 5th of October 2015. So Max, we’ll start with an easy one. Uhm, can you tell me something of your early life, growing up, uhm, your family and what you did before the war?
MS: Well, uhm, we here, [pauses] uhm, I grew up in Briar Hill, which is quite close to Montmorency. I’m an only child, I went to, I was an original pupil of the Briar Hill primary school and then I went to Elton High, eh, secondary royal Elton higher elementary and then I went to Melbourne High and I finished at year eleven, which was pretty, eh, substantial in those days, that was in 19, uh, 30, or 34 or 5, I think. And then I went to work at Briscoes Limited, which was a wholesale hardware firm, and there were two office boys, I was the outside boy, and the other was the inside boy and we knew in 1938 that there was a war going to start soon, so, we both opted, we were going to join the Victorian Scottish Regiment. But when we found that the uniform was gonna cost us twelve pound, or twenty-four dollars which is about a three months, uh, wages that went out the door, so [laughs]. So, as I said, my dad, being a Gallipoli veteran, and he was an only son with eight sisters, and I’m an only child and no way was he gonna let me go, so, uh. Then, suddenly in May 1940, he changed his mind and said the Air Force would be alright and I applied for ground staff and the recruiting sergeant said: ‘You could apply for air crew’, so, which I did and got up to the selection board and one said: ‘You’re left-handed’, I said: ‘Yes’. He said: ‘You’re no good to us’, I said: ‘Ah, why?’. I was only just eighteen, so, and he said: ‘You couldn’t handle a Morse key’, uh, so I said, ‘but we will send you Morse lessons’, which they didn’t. So, I lost interest in the war altogether like they [unclear] run it without me and but in 1941 I was called up and I went to, it was I believe a signal, uh, the signals organisation, that took [unclear] , well it was a signal operation and then, uhm, [unclear] was separated and joined the 19th Machine Gun Regiment as a [unclear] and we went off to Darwin and were there at pretty close proximity to a lot of the raids there, which was a bit, you know, ordinary, uhm. And about October it settled off and the RAF came recruiting again and I applied, and they accepted me, they didn’t have any of this nonsense about left-handedness. And there was fifty-four of us I think, and only eighteen passed and they were mainly, uhm, excluded because of the colour blind test which was not the red, yellow and blue thing but it was a complicated business where you looked into this pattern and if you’re colour blind you just saw a colour and if you weren’t, you didn’t see it, and vice versa and funnily enough it was developed by the Japs. So, we came down in February and to Corfield [?]and eventually started ITS, the initial training stream, uh, which was a three months thing, and, uh, I think it finished around about May 1941 and I was lucky enough to get what I wanted, a navigators course, and I went to Edmonton in Canada and that was a five months course, so I spent eight months in Canada. And then I, following that, went through and eventually came to England, where I went to a British (or badge) flying unit which was navigation in a [unclear] Ansett, uhm, was largely visual and uh, where you took a visual line of sight and guessed what the distance was. Well, having finished that I went to operational training unit, uh, where you formed crews and very scientifically there’d be one hundred and fifty blokes in a room and they just said, sort yourselves out, so, I got, I saw this big black [unclear], I said: ‘Do you look like you could handle a big plane, could I be a navigator?’. So, we did operational training unit at Syreford, that’s in Midland England and then we went to conversion unit, we’re on Wellingtons at the operational training unit and then we went to the Lancasters at the conversion unit and then we finally joined the 460 Squadron in about, I think, early February, forget what the date was now. Uhm, and I flew eighteen operations in pretty quick succession, including the Dresden raid which has brought so much, misinformation [unclear]. We were then posted to Pathfinders, the war ended and the squadron, we all set off to another squadron that was, uhm, breaking up and then I went down to Brighton, which was the forwarding station, up to Liverpool we got the Andes, this ship I got on, I had been on this before and was the same ship I came from Canada to Britain on. And then I came home, and the war ended in Japan, I was discharged and I went back to work. That was about it.
AP: I only had to ask one question there and we just [unclear] covered the lot. Uhm, anyway, we will go back in a little bit more detail, if you don’t mind. Uhm, what, you said, you went back to work, what were you doing, as work, before you enlisted?
MS: What? What?
AP: What were you doing as work before you enlisted?
MS: I was, uhm, a clerk at, in a wholesale hardware, Briscoes, which is a very old, uh, is still operating in New Zealand but it followed up [unclear] about 1970. I was warehouse manager then.
AP: Before or between, between enlisting, as in between the air force coming to Darwin and then you signing the paper, and you started the ITS, uhm, can you remember roughly how long there was between the two and what did you do in the middle there?
MS: Ah, well, the recruiting mob came up about October in 1942 and but we didn’t leave Darwin until February 1943 and then we spend a few weeks down Laverton and then I suppose it will be, around about April 1942, 1943 that I had gone to, uhm, initial training school Summers [?] and that was a three-months course. There was no flying in that one there. It was just, uh, a number of subjects that, uh, which were, [unclear], was quite a lot of subjects, I recall meteorology, navigation, signals, I forget the other ones, been quite a number of. And then we got our postings and I was posted to Edmonton in Canada and so to do that we went up to Bradfield Park in Sidney, were there for about a fortnight and this big ship arrived and next thing we were on our way, uhm, to San Francisco actually. Uhm, it was the Mount Washington, Mount Vernon, they called it, uh, it was a big ship, 35000 tons I think and it went on a sound, so. And then we travelled up to, uh, Edmonton, we were stayed in the manning [unclear] for about a fortnight and then we started there a five months course, which was pretty intensive. Uhm, and then I was onto Britain on the same ship as I came home on, and as I said we were in Brighton at manning [unclear] and then we went up to a place called West Freugh in Scotland which was just near Stranraer and that’s where we did our advanced flying unit, which was pretty much the same as what we did at Edmonton. And then I was down to Syreford, there was a place called [coughs] I forget now but Syreford was where we did our operational training as a crew. Seven, it was six of them to stay on a Wellington [coughs] and then we transferred to Lancasters at the conversion unit and then onto 460 Squadron, uhm, I think it was just before New Year’s Eve in 1944 and we did one, I think a couple of, trains country [coughs] or cross countries [coughs] and, may I get a glass of water? And we started there operations and as I say, after the 18th we were posted to Pathfinders, but we never flew there. So, that was it and I came home [coughs].
AP: Can you tell me a bit about the first time you ever went in an airplane? Was that in Edmonton?
MS: Ever went in a?
AP: In airplane. The first time you went flying.
MS: Ah, yes.
AP: What memories, if any, do you have of that flight?
MS: What?
AP: What memories, if any, do you have of that flight?
MS: [coughs] Nothing but enjoyment. Edmonton was [coughs], I put in me memoires, [coughs] leaving Edmonton was like leaving home, I just accepted it as so. Well, we spent time in their homes and. But as I say, it was largely visual navigation we didn’t have much in a way, we had things to look at the stars with, [unclear]?
AP: Sexton.
MS: Sexton, but our aviation sexton was different from the normal and we used to take star shots and [coughs] that was about on Polaris, which was the north star. We saw the constellations align and everything. [coughs] And that was, as I say, was a five months course. So we left there in February ’44, uh, I travelled across Canada, my mate and I went, we had eleven days leave actually and we went to Chicago and then there to Halifax and boarded [coughs] the Andes [coughs] to Britain and then on up to say, advanced flying unit which was [coughs], [unclear], pretty much the same as Canada and that was only [coughs], uhm, when we got to Syreford that we got into the more sophisticated, uhm, navigation, machines [coughs].
AP: You’re alright?
MS: Yes.
AP: Yeah, ok. Uhm, what were your first impressions of wartime Europe, of wartime Britain, was there any, anything at all?
MS: Funnily enough was that the women smoked, although I never smoked. And, uh, I had an aunt in Scotland, so I used to go up there a lot, uh, but that was pretty frugal, we were alright on the stations we got fed well [unclear] [phone rings] excuse me. Yeah, go on.
AP: [unclear] England you were talking about. The women smoked?
MS: Yeah [coughs].
AP: And something about you were treated pretty well on the squadron, you got plenty of food on the squadron.
MS: What?
AP: You were saying you got plenty of food on the squadron. Where else [unclear]?
MS: Yeah, well. Was pretty ordinary food [coughs] but was food [coughs] a lot more of it than the general public got.
AP: What, uhm, so, we will go back or forward a bit now to OTU. You’ve picked your crew, you’ve crewed up?
MS: Well, we were picked out by ourselves.
AP: Yeah, so you now have the six people before you get your flight engineer.
MS: Yeah.
AP: With which you get to fly with. What did you do at operational training unit? What sort of exercises did you do? What sort of [unclear] did you do?
MS: Cross country, uhm, mostly in Britain but we did go to the coast of Holland once, uhm, which was a pretty long trip [coughs]. Uhm, yeah, was mostly cross country using the Gee which is, [coughs] was the, you can find it on the internet, was the, they used to send their signals and you saw the cross reference and that’s where you were and then hopefully.
AP: Hopefully you got it right. Where, uhm, where on the airplane was the Gee set?
MS: Uh well, it was beside the navigator’s table.
AP: The navigator’s table.
MS: On the Wellingtons sort of facing forward, behind the pilot from memory but on the Lancaster was the, there was the, uhm, bomb aimer used to take his place as front gunner, then the bomb, operating [unclear], and the flight engineer, he sat beside the pilot, then there was the pilot and then there was me and then the wireless operator and then we had the mid-upper gunner and the, uh, rear gunner.
AP: That was in the Wellington?
MS: There was seven.
AP: Oh, seven. So, we are in the Lancaster at this point?
MS: Ay?
AP: That’s a Lancaster you are talking?
MS: Yes, yes.
AP: Ok, that’s the other crew then. Uhm, I guess, what, when you’re in England, obviously you would have got periods of leave in between your, well, while your training [unclear].
MS: [unclear]
AP: You would have had periods of leave while you were training?
MS: Ah, yeah, we had six days every six weeks.
AP: Oh, this is when you were on operations.
MS: Yeah, yeah.
AP: What did you do?
MS: Well, they had a couple of schemes. There was the lady Rider[?] scheme, which, uhm, you could book a place and go to the land of the state or, I went to with a friend to a retired army major and his wife up in the, uhm, up sort of north of, east of England, that was, when you got there, that was the first sort of scheme. And then they had the Lord Nuffield, Nuffield was the, the Morris, he owned Morris cars and he used to [coughs], uhm [unclear] of various places [coughs] and if, and if you eventually met up with someone who got married, he would pay for the wedding and the, uhm, sort of honeymoon, he was very good [coughs].
AP: That’s what you did on leave. Uhm, what about the pubs?
MS: Eh? The what?
AP: The pubs in England and
MS: Yeah, well, they were a bit of a, the first time I went to Tommy Farr’s bar, he was the [coughs] British empire heavyweight champion. Now I ordered a beer, that tasted like tar and water, it was mild beer and so I [coughs] talked to a couple of other blokes who’d been here for a while, they said, oh no, start off on bottled beer and then gradually, uhm, move over to bitter, which we did, yeah.
AP: Next one. We’ll jump onto the, your operational aircraft. The first time you saw a Lancaster, what did you think?
MS: Was another aircraft, didn’t really have any thoughts about it. It was a lumbersome, or cumbersome aircraft [coughs] and that was a difficult one to get into, you had to climb up eight steps with all your gear, all your navigation gear and parachute and what. [coughs] Ah, bloody cough, and I don’t know whether is any [unclear], I don’t there are, couldn’t find any, uhm, and then you, fairly narrow near the, walk right up to the front and had a huge spar across the, that held the airframe together and you had to climb over that and then I had a little office, uh, and then I had to pull the cloth around me, cause we weren’t allowed to show any light.
AP: Can you describe that office? What was it like?
MS: Well, [laughs] it was only just, a curtain drawn around, just had a table and had the Gee-set and the Y set there and, uhm, I had the various instruments up to, you know, [unclear] the dividers and all those sorts of things but they weren’t very big, [unclear] wouldn’t have been any bigger than that, yeah.
AP: You said then the Y set? What’s the Y set?
MS: Well, that was a primitive Radar set, uh, which when it was put on, it picked up the outlines of towns by the people, intelligence people know that sort of, they gave a chart with the major towns as you were passing, [coughs] outlined and this picked that up and then you could give a bearing and a distance by the [coughs], by machine and you just plotted the thing.
AP: Navigation? Alright. Uhm, might as well go onto the squadron. Where and how did you live at Binbrook?
MS: Well, this is another thing. For an organisation [coughs] fighting for democracy, the services weren’t very democratic. When we got to the squadron, our pilot got a commission immediately and he went off to the officer’s mess and we actually had [coughs] pretty comfortable, uhm, we lived in a house actually, all in a unit, uh, but we were all together in one big room, we had comfortable, uhm, we had comfortable beds and then we used to go to the Sergeants’ Mess for meals. And then incidentally on the, uhm, conversion unit they were real snotty people, they. The permanent staff here had their own mess, uh, we weren’t allowed to go there, we had to go to our mess, they regarded us as second-class amateurs. But, yeah, the conditions were quite comfortable.
AP: What, uhm, what sort of things happened in the mess, in the sergeant’s mess in Binbrook?
MS: singing and drinking, and the [unclear]
AP: [unclear] [laughs]
MS: Writing letters and that sort of thing.
AP: Flying for Bomber Command would have been fairly stressful, I imagine.
MS: I can’t hear you.
AP: Sorry, flying for Bomber Command would have been fairly stressful, I imagine. How did you cope with it?
MS: Well, they keep, all the documentaries they do sort of emphasise the drama but largely it was just hard work. Cause I had to fix my position every six minutes and then dead reckon ahead another six minutes so, I was like an one-armed paper hanger actually, I was. So, the navigators probably had the best job, cause they were working, the rest were largely in a watching role all the time. And that’s another thing you said, they used to offer Benzedrine tablets, uhm, ‘wakey-wakey tablets’, we, I never took them, I had no problems staying awake. But sometimes a bloke would take them and then they’d call the op off, and of course we couldn’t sleep all night. And, yeah, it was, mostly hard work, I didn’t really, some of me mates did but I really didn’t feel any stress much.
AP: You say: ‘Every six minutes you are getting a fix and did reckoning again’. What can you remember much of the actual process, the actual method that you were doing?
MS: Well, it was, if we used the Gee machine as [unclear] sort of, uhm, things that flicked along and you got them together and you sort of isolate and that gave you where you were and with the, uh, Y, the radar which we were only allowed to use for a minute because the, uhm, enemy fighters could home in on us, uhm, we just operated it and got a bearing and a distance from where we [unclear] onto.
AP: There is something from that, uhm. Ok, so, you had eighteen trips.
MS: Yeah.
AP: Uhm, we will get to Dresden in a minute. Uhm, do any of those trips stand out particularly in [unclear]?
MS: Well, two of them do. We did Nuremberg, where we lost, I think, uh, nearly eight percent of the force. And a place called Pforzheim, which didn’t have any particular merit but they put it off twice and when they put them off, they always used to have to change the route [unclear] but they didn’t and the Germans had just reduced their jet fighter Me 262 and they got into a [unclear] on the way in, so obviously they’d been informed of where we were going and the route.
AP: When you said they got into [unclear] was that your crew in particular or [unclear] general?
MS: No, no, no, just general, we were pretty fortunate, I don’t remember, we only had one episode with a fighter and that’s right up near the back and we got hit by flak once but that was pretty much all of it.
AP: So, fairly, fairly uneventful tour.
MS: Yeah.
AP: Ok, so, the inevitable question comes up then, of Dresden. Uhm, what was your personal experience on the Dresden trip?
MS: Well, it was the longest trip we did, was nine and three-quarter hours in the air. I believe I didn’t have any particular, uh, memories of it, uh, as it was just another flight but funny, after the war we didn’t go home, we had a lecture from one of the education groups and he was talking about the phoney aspects of war and one of them was that the British shareholders in the Krupp ironworks at Essen were saving dividends up till the end of 1942. And then he got onto Dresden, now the major reason was given for Dresden that was to help the Russians, you know, but he actually [unclear] was to hinder the Russians, because they were getting into Berlin before the Americans and in fact we went to Dresden once, the Yanks went there six times. Twice before us and four times after us. The last one was about, was only three weeks before the end of the war so, there could be some truth in the hinder thing, because you know, they had to get to Berlin and cut it up, so, we’ll never know.
AP: You mentioned earlier about misinformation about Dresden. What [unclear]?
MS: Well, they were, they kept saying, well one [unclear] that the press council didn’t win, he said it was a war crime, you know, and because it was the biggest loss of life I think in any other raids were about 35000, it varies, 35000 seems to be the [unclear] death rate. It was just another raid to us but they kept hammer every year, [unclear] on February the 13th they were hammering this Dresden raid so [unclear]. So, I actually got a couple interviews, I think, in the [unclear], not sure which paper it was, about it, you know because it was all lies, [unclear] the historians giving the wrong story. There was the, a major historian in the Australian war memorial. Uhm, he wrote a book, he wrote a [unclear] book, Australia at war, was about Bomber Command. Well, his first mistake when he had a diagram or a sort of illustration, he had the navigator and the wireless operator in the wrong place and [coughs] he also had said that Dresden had not been bombed before. So, I wrote to him and pointed out his error in the book and I said that the Americans had actually bombed Dresden before we did and he wrote back and admitted his error in the illustration but he said that it was only a small bombing, but it was still a bombing you know, [coughs] and they were all, when I really got into it, they actually bombed a lot more, or dropped a lot more bombs than we did on Dresden but, cause Dresden had been virtually destroyed anyhow but they kept on doing it. Yeah.
AP: Why do you think that misinformation is out there, why [unclear]?
MS: Well, it happened with Darwin, they said that the Japs were never going to invade, the same bloke actually, and we, well, we will never know but I tell you what, we were pretty sure they were when we were there and they kept hammering this one raid all the time, as I say, they gave the Americans no press coverage at all. And yet, they actually did more to Dresden we did. It was just another, I mean, probably weren’t, were doing what they were just done, Harris didn’t want to go to Dresden but they overruled him. It was some sort of between Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin, I think, in ’44, late ’44, they had a conference.
AP: So, uhm, we’ll step back to a more general question. Your sitting there doing your every six-minute thing at your navigation table, and you hear over the interview, over the intercom, uhm, I got one of your gunners saying, fighter corkscrew port go. What happens next?
MS: Uh, what, say it again.
AP: You’re sitting at your table doing your navigation stuff and over your intercom you hear one of your gunners saying, corkscrew port go.
MS: Ah, yes, well that was, uhm, they had an evading process called corkscrewing, where the gunner who picked up the, uhm, alleged fighter would say that the pilot, uhm, enemy fighter, well he did this time, enemy fighter skip, skip, he was a bit, he said, prepare to corkscrew left, na na na, prepare to corkscrew right, na na na, he said, doesn’t matter, he’s gone past [laughs]. Well, that was one and I had another one where I was, oh, I think I had done five trips or something and one of me mates came to the squadron, he was on his first trip and he was coughing and splattering, I said: ‘That’s a bad cough you got there Butch’, he said: ‘As long as I still got it in the morning I’ll be happy’. [laughs] Ah, that was two sort of, [coughs] lighter moment.
AP: Excellent. Uhm, so, your tour ended, well your tour as such as it was, and eighteen trips it ended with the end of the war? Is that correct or is that before?
MS: [unclear]
AP: When you got to eighteen trips, you stopped?
MS: Yes, we went to the Pathfinder.
AP: So, you were posted to the Pathfinders, the, uhm.
MS: But we never flew there because the war ended.
AP: You said something in one of your emails to me about a disagreement about navigation methods. Can you expand on that?
MS: Don’t know whether, I, I’ve been operating quite happily on my own, the eighteenth trip, when we got there they set the bomb aimer behind me and he was having very little experience of the Gee and the Y. He was taking the information and passing it on to me which, I thought, lends itself for error for a start [clears throat] and took him away from his proper role of watching, you know, being the front [unclear] gunner and I, all I said, I am not too happy about it. Next thing they pulled me and the bomb aimer out of the crew and they sent us off on a forty-eight, two days leave or as we thought. When we came back, we were called up, or I was, called up before the stuffy pompous CO who wanted nothing but to stand to our attention and he said you’d be an AWL, I said no sir. Anyhow he obviously wasn’t sure, he checked us. If you’re charged with being AWL, it’s either a confined to barracks or it can a mandatory penalty. And if it was to mandatory penalty, you’re gonna ask for court martial, which is all, uh, bells and whistles and you get a defending lawyer and all that stuff. And he obviously wasn’t sure of his ground, so he sent us to a shorter tour of Sheffield that was and it’s, it was called an Aircrew Retraining Centre, there was lads, they were slobs of a military type, you know, probably never been out [unclear] a drill, but it was, so was quite interesting, it was. I did air force law and one bloke [unclear], I’ve seen it anyway together, this bloke was gonna go back and he put his CO [unclear] when he went back because of the information he got from the military law. But that was a three week course and actually the war ended while we were there and as I say, we were then posted to a squadron that was breaking up and I went to Brighton and, uhm, I was home in, uhm, August, just before the Pacific war finished, I was out on September the 2nd or 3rd or something I forget and I was back at work at 20th of September ’45, most of them didn’t get back till 1946. So that all worked out well.
AP: How did you find the readjustment to civilian life?
MS: Couldn’t cause me any problems.
AP: Just got straight back in, straight back where you left off.
MS: Yes, more or less, yeah. No, I got a, I was given a hired job, so. [coughs] But, now I, a lot of my mates had a break down and a few of them have suffered a post-traumatic stress as they call [unclear] they got [unclear] I used to drink too much, that was the main problem.
AP: Ok, uhm, this is usually my last question. How is Bomber Command remembered and what legacy do you think it left?
MS: Uhm, without a say, it was just a job and we had a job to do, we did it to the best of our ability, it was. There weren’t any special sort of. I get annoyed at the documentaries cause they emphasise the dramatic side all the time, you know, [unclear]. When we flew we flew long, this the other thing, people refer to what we did as missions and missions were what the Yanks flew. We flew operations, so, it’s only mine I think, but I get annoyed about that at. I lost the train of thought, [pauses]. As I say, these air flights were long but basically the last raid was the same because we were sending more planes at night and a lot of them banging into one another rather than and then the issue of the Me 262. They reckoned that if the war got another three months Germany would have had aerial supremacy but they didn’t have any fuel of course and but they certainly [phone rings] excuse me. Ok.
AP: So, how, yeah, how is Bomber Command remembered for you personally, I suppose and in the wider part?
MS: I don’t think about it [unclear] at all really, no. It’s, it just little, sort of personal episodes. As I said, it was just a job and I did it as best I could. Don’t have any special place in my memories.
AP: Did you ever fly again, apart from just getting on a passenger plane and going somewhere?
MS: No, no.
AP: No, that was it. Did the air force [unclear]?
MS: I got a , well, even then, now, when [laughs], when we were being discharged, uhm, they’d take your shirt in and they give another one and I noticed all these blokes going around the back picking up all our shirts, I got four shirts out of that lot and they, uhm, you know, bureaucracy is never far behind. I, uhm, first thing that happened was, uh, the WO there wanted to put us on guard at the Melbourne [unclear] guard so we didn’t turn up and he got us out on Monday, he said, if you’re not out [unclear] in half an hour I’ll put you on the charge so, but we managed that alright, that was our final episode there. And I went up, my cousin was royal [unclear] in the army and he said to me, I met him in town and he said, oh, he said to me, we got a good mess come up and you know we will have lunch together. So, I walked through the guard there and the next thing this WO came out and he said: ‘Where are you going, staff, I was a flight sergeant then, I said I’m going up to meet me with my cousin up at the mess, he said: ‘You are not allowed in there’, he said, I said: ‘I thought we were on the same side, you know.’ And then he started blustering, carry on and this Lieutenant came down, he said: ‘What’s the trouble, [unclear] he’s so bloody stupid, he said, carry on staff. You know, that was [unclear], you gotta try the other side of bureaucracy, anyhow.
AP: You said WO there?
MS: Yeah, warrant officer.
AP: Warrant officer, yeah, just for the tape. I’ll write that down. Uhm, what can I say, I guess just the one question that I skipped over earlier, when you heard, you said, I think you said that by about 1938 you sort of had the feeling [unclear] that war was coming.
MS: Yeah, you know, Hitler was flexing his muscles and we’d had Chamberlain saying no war in the near time and that sort of thing. I was just [unclear] and we could see it coming and we decided we’d be part of it but when it was gonna cost us 12 pound we decided we won’t [unclear].
AP: Can you remember when you heard that war had actually been declared and what were your thoughts?
MS: No, not particularly.
AP: Not particularly. Uhm, what else do I have here. I think, ok, the final question, is there anything else that you would like to ad, any other stories that [unclear]?
MS: I think I covered it pretty well.
AP: Covered it pretty well. [laughs] Covered it pretty well with one question. You’re off for ten minutes and that was the end. Alright, we might end the interview there, thank you very much.
MS: Ok, good thank you. [file missing] We got a special medal and they actually had one [unclear] guide but I never, my issues were the clasp in a little, piddly little thing [unclear] read the views of some of the British airmen on that, a sort of a second prize, you know. [file missing]
MS: [file missing] And yet, the aircrew Europe star were given to, uh, people who finished their operations in seventy or eighty hours, they did a tour of thirty. We had done eighteen, we [unclear] about one hundred and forty hours, so, well, I think that was unfair [unclear].
AP: Good.
MS: And that’s it.
AP. That’s it. Can I turn it off now? [laughs]
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ASpenceMA151005, PSpenceMA1502
Title
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Interview with Max Spence
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:47:51 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-10-05
Description
An account of the resource
Max Spence grew up in Australia and worked in a hardware store before he volunteered for the Air Force. He recounts his training in Canada and in England and life on an operational station. He flew 18 operations as a navigator with 460 Squadron.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Canada
Great Britain
Germany
Alberta--Edmonton
Germany--Dresden
Northern Territory--Darwin
United States
Northern Territory
Alberta
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
Gee
Lancaster
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Binbrook
RAF Syerston
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/3494/PStangryciukBlackJ1701.2.jpg
7833673268b4133cfbed42ada1200c7c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/3494/AStangrycuikBlackJ160710.1.mp3
8d572e5a9ef203e919c42aa93a627b9b
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
Black, Jan
Jan Stangryciuk-Black
Jan Stangryciuk
J Black
J Stangryciuk-Black
J Stangryciuk
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Jan Black (formerly Stangryciuk)(1922 - 2023, 794829 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-10
2017-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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StangryciukBlack, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TO: Right. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever the case is. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre and the gentleman I’m interviewing is Jan Black. My name is Thomas Ozel. And also in the room we have —
DB: Danuta Bildziuk.
AB: And Artur Bildziuk.
TO: And we’re recording this interview at the Polish Centre in Hammersmith on the 10th of July 2016. Now, could you please tell me what year you were born?
JSB: Yes. I was born 18-4-1922 in Eastern Poland. Chelm Lubelskie. And after having fourteen years my father emigrated to South America. To Argentine. When we arrived in South America my father bought land and started a plantation. I went to school in Argentine to learn English and the rest of my education. After five years the Second War started in 1939. September. After hearing the destruction in my country and the suffering which my country was involved I was very, very upset because I had very patriotic feeling for my country and my people. In English newspapers in Buenos Aires were advertisement want some volunteers can join and enter into British armed forces. I applied to such invitation and I was asked to come over to Buenos Aires, to the capital city to have interview. I did travel to the capital city. Had interview. And after the interview I was asked when would I like to be ready for my, for my, for my journey to join the armed forces in Great Britain? I told them what that’s after arrangement what they could provide. After two weeks I received a letter and they told me, you know I can come to the capital city and I will have accommodation provided before the boat which will be sailing back to England. I arrived in mentioned location in Buenos Aires and had accommodation in hotel as it was arranged but we never knew when the boat would be sailing as it was strict secret but we’d been told we must be ready on short notice. And we received that notice that in four hours we must be ready and we would get transportation from the hotel to the very big boat called Highland Monarch. That boat was twenty six thousand tonner. Big one. And the most of his supply to England was meat for the nation in England. When we start our voyage our boat, to avoid German location of German submarine was not going on the straight course. He was doing zig zagging to avoid German’s location of German submarine. That journey took us much longer to enter Belfast in Northern Ireland because the boat was always in danger to come to the main ports of England. So the location between Argentine and Belfast was arranged for those four big liners which were doing the important supply of food between England and Argentine. The name of those boats was Highland Chieftain, Highland Monarch, Highland Princess. The fourth one I don’t remember. And after arriving in Belfast we’d been arranged — arranged accommodation in hotel for two nights. And afterwards we’d been, at night shipped to Scotland and we found ourself in some military barracks. After one week we had to pass medical board. And we’d been asked in what unit of armed forces we would like to serve. Of course I was young and I thought the most exciting unit I wanted to join — the Royal Air Force. During that time Polish Air Force start to be formed in England and I asked the commanding officer in English station if it is possible for me to be serve in the Polish Air Force. And I received permission and I had ticket arranged for me to travel to Blackpool. In Blackpool it was the first Polish Centre where the Polish Air Ministry was based. In Blackpool after having another interview about what profession I would like to serve in the Polish Air Force once again I wanted to fly. And they told me the only, at that time vacancy for training would be as a air gunner because to have a, have a permission to train as a pilot would be taking much longer time as we had special amount of people who only they could afford to train at such time. I accept my position as a rear gunner. After finishing all my training I had posting arranged for me to go to the 18 OTU. operational [unclear] where we start to be trained flying and having different night flights and earning more experience about future commitments which we will be engaged. Beginning of such training we had training to drop leaflets. Propaganda leaflets over Vichy France to promise French people what liberation will be coming for them in near future. During my return from such a mission our Wellington bomber received defect and we crash landed before we reached the aerodrome. During that impact in the crash I lost consciousness. When I recovered my consciousness I knew what I must try to get out of my crashed plane. But I, before deciding to look exit out I decided to try to see what’s happening to my pilot. From the rear turret I crawl to the front of the plane where the pilot was sitting. I tried to, to get him out of the burning plane but I couldn’t untie his belt what he was tied with it and the plane was increasing of the burning. I covered my left side of my face with my left hand and with my right hand I looked for the exit from my burning plane. Then I noticed skylight exit. As my plane was broken in two pieces, during that exit I scrambled to get out of the plane with burning my kombinezon flying suit as the petrol was already, already full of petrol. During my crawling and from the plane I received help from local farmers when they came and took my burning kombinezon out of me. But I was already very badly burned. My face and my hands. Ambulance came and been notified of the accident in about half an hour. And I was taken to Cosford Hospital. RAF hospital near Wolverhampton. During that hospital, receiving first treatments for one week I had a chance to meet very famous doctor. Doctor who came and inspect the RAF hospital in Cosford. The name of that doctor was Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was one of the great plastic surgeon doctor based in Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, Sussex. He told me he was going to transfer me to his hospital and asked me if I will be happy to go there. I told him what I leave the decision to him as he was the person knowing better my situation. On the next day the ambulance took me to East Grinstead Hospital and in that hospital I found lots of, lots of different, my friends from the RAF. They were Canadians, Poles, Czechs, English and I felt I found myself like in a big family. I started my treatment under that plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was to us airmen what from different accident, from different type of injury what we receive we treat him he was not only our big doctor but he was our friend. And we could not give them the greatest recognition how he try to do whatever possible to bring our disfigurement back to better future. After spending four months in East Grinstead I received quite a good improvement of my recovery and the hospital was very under big pressure. New cases were arriving day and night. Hospital for giving some burning airmen quite [pause] quite bigger recovery had to send them back to their units as they were short of beds. I receive that notice what I will be sent back to my station. When I received that notice and when I had my ticket, train ticket provided I arrived at my station and I had to report to my commanding officer. When my commanding officer saw me he asked me what I want to do. I looked at my commanding officer and I said to him, ‘Sir. What I want to do. I want to do what I’ve been trained to do. I want to fly.’ He looked at me and he said, ‘Warrant officer, in case you ever will be involved in some, in some type of possibility shot down over Germany you will be very unwelcome with your profile.’ I turned to my commanding officer and I replied, ‘Sir, maybe my future flying will not always be such an unfateful.’ Then I had to pass certain tests if I was fit enough to fulfil my professional responsibility in flying. And I was sent for two hour test with two doctors onboard on my plane. After having two hours flying we returned to base and the doctors told me what they will leave. They will leave the rest of the, of the, my experience and test of my flying with my commanding officer. On, after two days my commanding officer met me again and he said after seeing the report from my flying he said he has full confidence of giving me to continue my duty. I received my job as a, flying as a spare gunner in my station. And I continued to fly. I made eighteen operation over Germany and I was recalled to hospital to finish my treatment. When I returned to hospital, after three days my crew what I was flying went on bombing mission and were shot down. The pilot what I remember his name he was Squadron Leader Jan Konarzewski was killed and the navigator was killed. So many years I cannot remember the navigator name. The rest of the crew escaped from the German concentration camps. I’ve heard two of them, after when war finished they went to Canada. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the crew. When I finished my treatment in East Grinstead war ended. I was transferred to still serve in my service in station — Royal Air Force Station Andover in Hampshire. I was there on responsible duty to keep the aerodrome not be some time taken for training courses as local training courses some time were coming to the aerodrome and they were problem for the landing planes. We’d been doing, as I say guarding the aerodrome in Andover. So the aerodrome was always free for any landing plane. After three years I’d been asked to return to Dunholme Lodge Discharging Centre. I went to Dunholme Lodge from Andover Station and after two weeks I received my discharge. My demob suit, my demob shoes, two shirts and some compensation money. And that’s how I ended my service in the Royal Air Force in 1948. That’s about the end of my story.
TO: Is it ok if we just pause there for a moment?
DB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
TO: When you were growing up in Poland were people quite afraid of Russia?
JSB: Yes. The people were in Russia yes. Will you ask me, tell me again please?
TO: Were people worried about Russia and Stalin?
JSB: Yes. Very much so because Stalin and Hitler made treaty between themselves and they arrange already partition of my country between Germany and Russia. So the Russia really was beginning cooperating with German when war started in Poland. Afterwards it ended quite different because instead of keeping such a friendship between those two countries they start to fight between themself because they knew sooner or later they are danger one to another. And we became also big saviour for the Russians when the Russians were invaded by the Germans. We gave them all our help to stop German such a big advance overrunning that big territory. Thanks to our supply with whatever armament we’ve been able to do it that stopped the German’s big blitzkrieg to make Russia become their occupation big land. Winter also came at the right time when the German advancement not succeeded as were planned. Russia, after the war received big recognition for in the end fighting on our side. But it also, they also should be thankful what they received. Very big help from us. And that’s why today are such a big nation with such a future ahead of them. We still feel now what the Russia could be much more helpful with us. Remembering the days when we all save big danger to overtake that burden. We succeeded together and the Russians should also remember what they must remember and be with us not against us. Yes.
TO: And when you were at school had you been taught about the Polish War of Independence?
JSB: Yes. Very much so. I’d been taught and I had very big patriotism for my country as my country being occupied by, for so long by the three superpower Germany, Russia and Austria. When we regained our independence after the First War we had only twenty years freedom time to rebuild our almost zero economy. War came too soon and we were grateful to have ally like England and France far away because we’d been surrounded by very unfriendly neighbours. Russia. Germany. That’s why today we Poles remember that England was one country when in the end they decided to tell Germans what if they invade Poland the war will be declared against them. That’s what England did and I think what England and Poles took that difficult decision to fight together and we today change Europe for the example to the rest of the world. I hope the people should remember the difficult days and try to remember how Europe today benefitting from our freedom and prosperity for seventy six years. Whatever young generation decide from now on that will be their decision. But I think they are capable more to continue to go in the same direction as we left after 1945.
TO: And what was your favourite plane in the RAF?
JSB: Yeah. My two favourite planes I think up to today, in early day, the Wellington was super bomber. But afterwards we’d been able to build much bigger, much more faster, much more superior plane, Lancaster — and I think Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane they were the planes that should be remembered for a long, long time to come.
TO: Could you tell me about the conditions aboard a Wellington?
JSB: Yeah. Wellington had the same, I would say a good name because the structure of a Wellington was very practicable, what — it was very outstanding to certain damage to it because the aluminium structure what was built in the Wellington structure was very practicable. And I think as the war started the Wellington will also leave good history for himself.
TO: Yeah. Could you tell me about the, what it was like inside a Lancaster?
JSB: Yeah. Lancaster was very manoeuvrable fast plane and had three gunners. Germans knew what he had quite a good defence for himself. They always knew to attack Lancaster it was also a risk to themself and the Lancaster was our saviour I think. And we had confidence in him what he always took us over the German sky and always we been happy when he brought us back.
TO: And could you — what was the first ever mission you did over Europe?
JSB: Yeah. The first mission what I made it was the most diverse experience what I had over the Gelsenkirchen because in our briefing we’d been told that the Germans had big factories what were producing lots of military hardware in that place. That was my first bombing mission and I had to face my first [pause] first my lesson how it look to be over enemy territory.
TO: Can you tell me what you saw?
JSB: Yeah. I saw lots of explosion. Lots of burning down below. Lots of searchlights. And it was hell. I was happy when we returned over the Channel. I felt it was like halfway to be home. Yeah.
TO: And I’m sorry to ask this but did you ever find out what the defect was in that Wellington that caused the crash?
JSB: Just, I don’t know but I know the one thing what during the early days sometime our planes were not hundred percent to be airworthy. But we could not always make complaints because if we complain sometime for some small what it was defect we be probably be treated as we are not happy to continue our responsible mission. Yeah. You see from in early day sometimes plane because it was such a big demand in continue training and the plane probably didn’t receive a hundred percent service capable under the pressure. But we did fly them because it was such a situation what we had not enough time to keep this plane in a hundred, hundred percent. And planes were under continuous very big pressure and small repairs and defects needed to be done. It was not to blame the people who serviced the plane but it was only because it was in such a hurry time that we had to do everything in short time. Yes.
TO: I’m sorry. I know you’ve told me this before but there was a lot of background noise at the time. Could you, could you please give me the full description — like what target you were going to on the mission where the crash happened.
JSB: Yeah. Just before we went over the leaflets it was just normal briefing we received to drop these leaflets over the France. And the different people were probably reading these leaflets and hoping their liberation will come soon. But defect what was in the plane — no. We had not notice no defect before we took off. It just happened as we’d been returning to base.
TO: And I’m sorry again but could you please tell me again what happened during the crash? Was the — please.
JSB: Yeah. When before we crashed the pilot give us signal what the one engine receiving defect and we must prepare for crash landing. We, being near the aerodrome and we had not altitude to bale out but we had to crash. And during that crash that’s what happened. I came out and my crew was killed.
TO: And other than the pilot who else was aboard the plane? Who else was aboard the plane other than you and the pilot?
JSB: The pilot notify us on intercom what we will be committed to crash land. And that’s what happened. We’d be near to the base but we could not reach the aerodrome and we crashed before the aerodrome.
TO: And how did you feel when you woke up? You regained consciousness —
JSB: Yeah. When I recovered the consciousness I was still dazed. Yes. After that terrific impact you know what we receive. But I quickly came to [pause] to break my memory what we have to get out of that burning plane as soon as possible. And myself, instead of looking for exit I went to save the pilot hoping that he was still alive. I don’t know if he was still alive or he was half dead but I couldn’t take him from his seat because I think he was still tied up with the belt. Yes. I could not see it because you know I had to cover my face with my hand because the flame was all over it. The plane was engulfed in the fire and when I found that exit, the broken exit I was already my kombinezon was burning and the people who came because we’d been near the aerodrome and those people were professional because they always been expecting sooner or later some crashes do happen. You know what I mean. When they live close by. They had courage to come quite close and help to undo my burning, you know, flying suit. Yes. But I was already then my helmet was thrown out you see during the impact and I was already all my hair, my head was badly burned. And my hands up to, up to here you see were all badly burned, yes.
TO: When did the ambulance arrive?
JSB: In about half an hour. An ambulance took me to RAF Hospital Cosford near Wolverhampton, but I was in terrific pains. And thanks to the different morphine what I was given to ease my pains I was put to sleep but the pain continue for many, many days. But after each day I notice that I was recovering slightly and we were given from the hospital staff always their great encouragement what you will in the end become as more as we were before. Probably we make improvement but the small marks always will be left for the rest of the life. Yes.
[recording paused]
TO: And did the plane actually explode?
JSB: Yes. After the still petrol what was inside plane did explode and I was lucky to be little distance from the plane because if I would be still inside that was the end. So they got me still on my side after the crash. Yes.
TO: And when did you first meet McIndoe?
JSB: Yeah. The doctor McIndoe, he used to inspect different hospitals in different parts in England. And at one time he visit RAF hospital in Cosford. When he saw me he told me he will ask for my transfer to his hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex because he told me in that hospital they have much bigger, much better facilities for big burns and big damages to different parts of the corpse. And he asked me will I like to go to that hospital. I told him, ‘Dr McIndoe, I leave it to you. And I hope your advice will be more than me deciding what to do.’ And I was very happy when I arrived in East Grinstead Hospital because I met so many boys with the same. With the same burns and different damages in our life. I was feeling like I am in big family. And the people in that town, East Grinstead, they were so friendly to us what we are always we remember that town as it is our very friendly town when people never stare at us no matter in what condition we did look they accept us. And we will be grateful to them what they treat us as we were part of that little town.
TO: Did you have a girlfriend during the war?
JSB: Yes. Yes. I did meet a girlfriend. And after some few days during my holiday when I met her we became friends. And she asked me what happen to me when war ends. I told her this is big story. I cannot tell her. If I can tell her because I told her the war always bring very unexpectedly changes. But then were small question. If ever war end if we will continue our friendship. I had no alternative. Only thinking what such a promise probably can be given. And when war ended and my wife in the end came to visit me when I was in hospital I was so grateful because I had no family, no really friends to come and see me in that hospital. And when she came and visit me in hospital I was so proud of myself and of her what I had somebody who came to see me. At one time I asked her, I said to her, ‘Look. You came from London to see me in East Grinstead. I said that was lots of problem for you to came that distance.’ She looked at me and she told me if I want to listen to her why she came to see me. I said, ‘Yes. Do tell me.’ She said, ‘Look. On your next bed you have your friend also. English pilot. He has his father and mother with him.’ She said, ‘There further on you see another, your friend have some other friends.’ And she said, ‘You are in your bed. You have nobody.’ And she said, ‘That’s why I felt I must come and see you because probably your family is far away. And that’s what made me to come and see you.’ Those words I will remember for the rest of my life. Now, I’m old man. I can’t go to Poland. I can’t go to my sister in Argentine. But I bury my wife in Gunnersbury Cemetery, west of London and I promised her if ever anything happened to me I will be buried with her. And that’s why I’m living in London. Because I know my history is here. What we did during the war. How we fought the war. How we ended the war. And I think for that reason I call England as my most, most, the first place where I want to end my life. That’s really truth you know because that’s I buried my wife and I promised her I would be buried with her and that’s what it will be because I think if I go nobody will look her grave or nobody will bother. You see that was during the war. How it brings people sort of together you see. But people today war long time gone and don’t remember those days. Yes.
TO: When you’d come back from a bombing mission did you ever find out how successful your mission had been?
JSB: Yes. Yeah. Because we had to take photo during the mission. From beginning it was not such a demanding responsibility. But as war start to continue we had to bring much more, much more improvement in our missions. What we had to bring better results of our bombing and we had to bring the photographs. Where we bombed and how near we’d been able to bomb the targets what it was in demand. So, it was very, very important what to drop whatever our mission was to do it the most effectively. In the right spot. And that’s where in the end we were so proud what we’d been making such a great bigger direct hits in the spots what needed to be destroyed. Thanks to the new improvement in our recognition and in our new invention of bombing.
TO: And were you ever involved in attacks on Hamburg?
JSB: No. No. I never. I’d been on Essen, Dusseldorf, Gelsenkirchen and many others what I probably now don’t remember you see after so many years. But we had different targets and different targets we knew were much more heavily defended. So we always during the briefing we knew what targets were more difficult than the other ones. They were all always danger because, because the Germans had very superior defence you know and they always, always been trying to give us very hectic time over their sky, over their city and over their land. But whatever they did they never could close door against us. We’d been always telling them whatever superiorities they had in the past but we will be still coming over their sky, over their city and over their land and they were not able to stop us.
TO: Did you ever see any night fighters?
JSB: Yes. I saw once and I thought he was going to attack us. Yes. And I was giving pilot instruction what the German Messerschmitt 109 is probably trying to shoot us down. I don’t know for what reason he kept certain distance as I kept him in my sight. And I was thinking when he come closer I will give pilot instruction to make different movements to get off his gunsight because as he was following us I knew he would try to catch us in his gunsight. But the distance was still far. We continued the flight and I was hoping what probably soon I would have to give pilot my instruction. I don’t know for what reason he didn’t commit his attack. Maybe, I don’t know, he felt or he had certain also risk to do it. I don’t know. Or maybe he wanted to return to base because sometimes they were short of fuel you see. And that’s also probably you saw but they were probably already thinking how to come back to base. So the fighters, not all the time they come and determined to shoot you down. You see probably, probably they think what they also taking certain risk when they come because whatever defence you had you always had also difference you see. They had superior because they had much longer distance to open the fire and what would be effective. And they were much more manoeuvrable. Yes. But also depends. You don’t know who was flying in them. Because some were more determined to do, proceed with their action. Some probably thought they already made enough, you know, success during that night. That’s difficult to be sure you know what some but they also had pilot more determined to do their duty and they had some pilot probably who thought different way.
TO: And what kind of anti Aircraft guns were the Germans using?
JSB: Oh they were bad. They were bad. They, they used to catch us in the searchlight and when they catch you in searchlight you have so difficult to get out of them you see because they catch you from different direction. And when they catch you in you are blind you see, in it. So what you do? You do whatever manoeuvre you do. You turn your plane left, right just to get out of escape from those and during that time the fighters if they are in the near area they also see you from the distance. So they at the same time have terrific advantage to come and finish you off you see. When even you escape from the searchlights you see they afterwards will continue their attack. Searchlights was very, the very ones they catch you, you be really in trouble to get out of the searchlights and many times, many times you you’ve been tried to avoid when you saw them on the sky. You’ve been always trying somehow to dodge them but not every time, you know you’ve been able to dodge them. And some targets were much more equipped with the defence of searchlights than the other. We’d been usually try to avoid on going on bombing mission because we had good knowledge different places what had bigger defence than the other places and sometime we been even changing courses you know [pause] our journey so put the Germans always more uncertain of our direction of our mission. Yes. Yeah.
TO: Could you see anti Aircraft shells exploding?
JSB: Anti Aircraft — ?
TO: Shells exploding.
JSB: Oh yes. Yes. I, I have had sometime, or brought small shrapnel holes when they explode in the air. Yes. Many times we almost, when we came and saw the shrapnel just damage in certain parts of the plane we were almost kissing the plane what he was able to bring us down and still capable to come back. And they were soon quickly repaired if the damage wasn’t too serious here. Sometimes you see when this, they explode they will touch with big force and do big damage. Sometimes smaller shrapnel explode it will make hole but luckily depends where it touch you see. One sometimes it make hole but not manage to damage your fuel supply or something you see. The plane will continue [unclear] Yes. It depends. Sometimes they explode. When they explode in bigger, bigger say pieces and such a big piece you know when he hit you it almost you have nothing else. If you have chance to bale out or sometime the plane is going without any chance to survive. Yes. But the Germans had very strong defence because they had for so many years of well train the people you see because the bombing was continue night after night and during all those nights of experiences it gives much capability to be such effective. Yes. Yes.
TO: And what was the procedure for when you reached the target and bombs were dropped?
JSB: You just, when you drop your bomb you think you are half home because there’s nothing more danger when you are going on the target with full load. Because even if you are attacked by fighter during that time you cannot do sharp manoeuvring with your plane because your plane is very heavy when loaded. So when you go to the target is always the most danger journey. Once you drop over target you just put full throttle and get far from the target as possible and afterwards hoping for the best. Yes. To your way home.
TO: And what did you think of the RAF leaders?
JSB: I think what our Bomber Harris, the leader from the Bomber Command I think he did the most recognition for succeeding. Such an effective bombing as he taught to us what all will be one of the most destructive weapon to make German to surrender. Because from beginning the Germans had always better equipment. Better [pause] I don’t know better, always system what we could not face to their superiority but the Bomber Command always dictated the terms. And whatever Germans did against us they never could stop us going over their sky, over their cities, over their other well defended parts of the country. And Bomber Command, without Bomber Command there would be very difficult to win the war. We did the biggest damage to their industry. To whatever defence they thrown against us. They couldn’t stop us to succeed. Our superiority.
TO: And what year or what years were you doing bombing raids?
JSB: 1943. Yes. ’43. That was some time in, in November. November. Yes.
TO: Do you want to take a break for lunch at all?
JSB: No. No. No. No.
DB: How much longer do you want to —
TO: Well, I’m really enjoying this so —
DB: [laughs]
TO: I have about another half an hour left of battery on here so —
DB: Ok. So shall we just —
TO: If I have more questions after that would it be ok to take a lunch break and then have another chat this afternoon.
DB: That’s up to —
TO: Would that —
JSB: Yeah.
TO: We have another half an hour on here.
JSB: Yes. That’s alright.
TO: Would it be ok if I have more questions to speak to you after lunch?
JSB: Yes. Yes.
TO: Ok. Did you, did you hear about the Holocaust?
JSB: Yes. Yes. I did hear about the Holocaust because it was obvious what Hitler regained his super power in Germany and we knew by always telling to the German people what in the First War the Germans lost the war because the very rich Americans industries was Jewish big people — involve America in defeating the Germans in the First War. And he, after the war always blamed what the rich American big Jewish businessmen were the one who made that decision to defeat the Germans because they already notice what in Germany was certain building anti, anti-Jewish feeling. And he continue with that always. I would say complaints. What the Germans should never accept the defeat in the Second War and by doing so he gained very big popularity. And that’s how he start to build his recognition in Germany. What he will try to do something that just would never happen again. And after such a lot of promises what he start giving to the German people he was heading for the second preparing German nation for the Second War. Yes. And as he did prepare the German people they refused to pay their compensation for the, whatever was enforced on them after the First War. The German anti-Semitism start increasing. They start doing lots of unnecessary damage to lots of Jewish population in Germany. And of course it was obvious what those anti-Semitism was increasing. Poland received before the war certain amount of Jewish population what had been forced to leave the Germany. And we received lots of Jewish population because they were very helpful to my country. They were business people. They brought economy quicker recovery. And we knew what in Germany before the war anti-semity start to increase. So I did believe in Holocaust during the war because I start somehow getting information from Poland what’s happening. Not only to the Jewish people and to the Polish people and we had sympathy. We Poles had sympathy for the Jewish people and Polish people in reverse you see. So I didn’t from beginning never thought of gas chambers when they start to modernise such a barbaric destruction. But I knew what the Germany anti-Semitism did exist. I was young going to school. In my school in Poland we had different nation. We had German. We had Ukrainian. We had Polish. We had Jewish. But at school in my days there was very strong discipline. I could not be unfriendly to any of those different nation because it was severe punishment for it. And I thought whatever in Poland in short years freedom we had very strong democratic system. And I’m only sorry that that freedom didn’t lasted longer. But still Hitler was very unfriendly man and he is to blame for the suffering what he give to so many people. What today the Europe should remember and never go back to those days again.
TO: Did you hear about the uprising in Warsaw?
JSB: Yes. Yes. I’ve heard. I’ve heard you know what was there was Jewish people whatever they had they’d been defending themself because they knew what they had to unite themself. And how bravely they did unite and start doing their uprising and what, what consequences they paid for it. But they knew they had no alternative. Only the last resort it was to fight. Whatever they had to arm to fight with. The Jewish people should never because they in every country they helpful because they are business people. They bring business and help to the economy and I’m I, I think in Poland if we today would have more Jewish population my country probably would make better prospect. But still so many Jewish people from Eastern Europe being murdered and small amount what survived went back to liberate their country.
TO: Did you hear in 1944 when the Polish Resistance took over Warsaw?
JSB: Yeah. Yes. I remember that time. And I knew already what that resistance, what had happened would be no good to the Polish nation. But it was too late to stop the people because they went under so much hatred towards the Germans and they wanted to be liberated after so many years occupation destruction. But we already we could have won the War without uprising in Warsaw but the people were prepared to liberate themself soon as possible. They just couldn’t wait no longer. And they paid heavy price for it. And that’s how some time when people take decision what it doesn’t bring much success but probably oppression what they suffer for so long they had to as they started they decided to go and they not receive from our ally — Russians at that time, help, you know, what should have been given to those poor people what fought same as people fought in Stalingrad. Yes.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
JSB: Yes. Most important battle of the war. I think the most important battle of the war it was Battle of Britain because that was our first big success. But it wasn’t a victory in my, as a military man I knew what the Germans still had so much power. And they really from my, whatever little knowledge I had what the Germans always wanted somehow to pressurise England to come to some treaty because they knew if they would invade England they would involve themself in very, very serious occupation. And they knew that that occupation probably will destroy their victory. They were going different turnings against England somehow. Not to invade because invasion would put so much responsibility of keeping, you know the victory over England. So I would say the biggest, our victory in battle it was to stop invasion of this country. But the Germans had many other plans still in their pocket. Blockading what was very effective. On the same sort America was involved in conflict. But it became our great help to win the war. So I think the Japanese forced America to come to war what helped us a lot to win the war. And I think we must remember that from the beginning we fought alone and it was very difficult war. And we must always still remember what Europe always been fighting and even we don’t know what if we are not continue our peace as we up to now holding. What could happen afterwards. Because you see I really think what America probably in the First War came to help us to win the First War because it was also very difficult war. We remember how many people we lost in the first war. In the Second War American people been warning President Roosevelt they don’t want to be involved in the European war and America been supplying us with lots of essential help what we needed. Yes. That’s true. Because that was great also help to us. But without America we would probably found it very difficult to continue. And I think the Japan who attacked America that’s when the victory start slowly to change on our side because Americans give us lots of things what we’d been needing to continue the war and to gain the victory.
TO: Shall we pause there for a while?
DB: Yeah.
TO: Yeah.
[recording paused]
TO: How did you feel when you feel about Chamberlain signing the Munich Agreement?
JSB: I felt what Mr Chamberlain was very badly always promised by Hitler during the previous meetings. And in the end Mr Chamberlain, our prime minister noticed that Hitler was not fulfilling his promises as it started. And in the end I must give the prime minister my full recognition what he did the right decision what, knowing what he no longer believed Hitler future promises. And in the end when England, France and Poland had not aggression treaty arranged Mr Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England decided what he would no longer will believe and tolerate the German expansion. And when the Germans attacked Poland in 1939 Mr Chamberlain had promised Polish people if such thing happened then England, France and Poland will enter into the conflict with Germany. He did. And whatever may be certain mistakes were done before the invasion I’m grateful what Mr Chamberlain made promises, kept his promises and took those very big, big decision to don’t believe Germans no longer and only declare the war on Germany. I think that was the right decision in the right time. Without those decision we probably would be not in the same Europe as we are now.
TO: And how did you feel when you heard about the Yalta Agreement?
JSB: Yes. Thank you. Yes. Yalta Agreement. I give full recognition for Mr Churchill plan and decision but I think during the Yalta meetings the Americans and the Russians play bigger parts of the deciding how Europe should be divided. I think England in those days should have had much bigger saying in that decision. But the Russians was already made big European power. Stalin demanded very big concession in Europe and Mr Churchill was incapable to be against those Yalta plans as they were mostly decided by the America, Russia and England. That’s why lots of Eastern European countries instead of being free and maybe much sooner in the part of Europe they been given to the Russian domination, Russian exploitation for more than forty years after the war. That’s why Europe is still today not united probably. Not more prosperous as it should have been if the Yalta Agreement was not made with some mistakes. But during those big decision which took part in Yalta the Americans thought they were still playing the biggest part in the world decision by having already super superpower in their atomic weapon and hoping that with that weapon they will be able to continue the future superpower in the world without believing what soon or later the Russians will be able also to get closer to that super atomic power. And this happened. When this did happen Europe was still under big military threat from the Russians part. And it took so many years to pay heavily for mistake what been committed in Yalta Agreement.
TO: When you were, first came to Britain from Argentina did most of the Poles you were with already speak English?
JSB: No. During that time I had little edge over my countrymen because as we were sailing towards Argentine and I was young at that time we’d been told that if we speak English when we arrive in Argentine it will be quite the bigger help for the future to have better jobs and to have some better position in life. I started to learn English on my voyage toward the Argentine because I was young and I knew the time was changing and I have to learn the new life in the new world. So when I came to England beginning of the war I was lived more advanced in my English than lots of my countrymen who start arriving from different parts of Europe to this country.
TO: Can you tell me about the training that you went through to be a gunner?
JSB: My training started in Blackpool. That was our Polish RAF centre. First we learned recognition of different German planes during at night on the cinema screens. Knowing when sometime we will be bombing Germany, flying over Germany not to shoot down our planes because sometime at night is very difficult to recognise the aircraft between British aircraft and German aircraft. But we’d been specially trained at cinemas at night so we always could recognise the shape of the plane. How the shapes of the planes look of the German construction and how the shapes looked of the English construction. And in the end, even at night we learned those thing. How to be careful sometimes. Not to shoot on our planes.
TO: Did you ever have to fire the guns during a mission?
JSB: Did I fire the gun?
TO: Fire the guns during a mission.
JSB: I, no I never, never had the chance of shooting down German aircraft because during my eighteen operation we passed through lots of difficult times of searchlights, shell exploding from anti-aircraft. Many other incidents. But I never had chance to opening the fire on none of the German planes because I was lucky probably. But during my operational tours we not had that engagement with the Germans night fighters.
TO: And how do you feel about the bombing of Dresden?
JSB: Yes. Dresden was bombed in two nights in succession and during the day by the, also American they bomb it. I think Dresden was bombed because in Dresden the Germans had still big amount concentration of German special units which were very bad. Very much, very much prepared to take part in contra-Russian advance and I think that’s was probably the reason why Dresden was so badly bombed and destroyed. Because the Germans concentrated in that part of the country still unexpected big amount of military units which were endangering — endangering our, our advancement in our [pause] our entering into lots of territories in Germany. Without destroying the Dresden Germany still had very big unexpected for us probably their plan which we destroyed those reserve what they had this plan before the Germans could draw them into the action.
TO: Could you please tell me about the medals that you have there?
JSB: Yes. Medals what I have. First is Polish Cross of Valour. Second is Polish Air Force medal. Third is Aircrew over Europe. Fourth is King George. Sixth is Lancaster Bomber medal what was awarded to us after the war.
TO: Were you given the Cross of Valour for the Wellington bomber crash? Why were you given the Cross for Valour?
JSB: Because that Polish is when you prove that you committed some great honour defending your country and your own honour.
TO: Could you describe the procedure for taking off in the bomber?
JSB: Procedure?
TO: Taking off procedure.
JSB: Yeah. Taking off, it was always the most danger part of our, of our journey. The pilot will come to the starting point, test for the last minute all his four engines and getting permission to start from flying control. During that time if any defect could happen the plane is almost in the most dangerous situation what you could find yourself. After take-off, once you regained certain height, altitude, you feel the pilot can lower the throttle of his engine because the plane already give the big strength to lift the load what we had to take to our destination.
TO: Can you tell me about the landing procedure?
JSB: Landing procedure was always the happiest point of our journey because we were believing that whatever happened in those times we are in our home close to our accommodation. And that was the happiest part of our journey and happy to come and talk about our mission what we went through that night.
TO: Can you tell me about the briefings? The briefings you would have.
JSB: The briefing always was to us very partly scary because we’d been always told what journey is ahead of us and we always knew that during that journey anything could happen. So before we took off we always give ourselves hand. Whatever happened we will always remember each other. But the biggest happiness always happened when we returned and talk of our successes. Returned home.
TO: How would you describe morale amongst the crew?
JSB: Morale with the crew was always high because we knew that we were making progress in closer to our victory. But sometime when we returned from our mission and sometime we lost almost one or two crews it was very depressing days for few days. Seeing the tables when previously people sat having their food. Lunches or dinners. And that depressing mood sometime lasted for the quite a few days. But that was the war. We’d been prepared to have and face happier days and much more depressing days.
TO: And what did you do to entertain yourselves?
JSB: Yes. Thank you. Entertaining days always were happier when sometimes we could not take off because it was foggy or sometime the meteorological weather not possible for continue to do our missions. Some of us were playing bridge, some of us were playing snooker, some of us were having nice happy pint of beer discussing the past experience that we had. And hoping what we achieve soon victory and we would be able to celebrate the victory and sometime visit our families at home and tell them about our past what we had to serve during the war.
TO: And what’s your happiest memory of the war?
JSB: The happiest memory of the war. It was in May when it was declared of the German surrender. During that night I got myself so drunk that I don’t remember how I got home but I was brought by my friends. My friends were older than me so they could withstand the more spirit which they drank. I was younger and not such experience. I got myself so badly drunk I don’t remember how I got home. But the next day I got so happy with very, very sore head. And I only drank cup of tea the next day. That was the truth.
TO: Were there any particularly popular songs that you liked?
JSB: The most popular song we had a lovely girl who sang to us this song that, “One sunny day we will meet again.” And that song when I hear even now it bring me back. And I, I am old now but I still feel that I am young because that song gave us so much spirit. The beautiful memory, melody and the beautiful words that were in that song.
TO: On board the, when you were on a mission did you speak to each other in Polish?
JSB: Yes. Yes. We spoke completely in our Polish. We were under British command but the crew were all briefed in Polish and we had better, better understanding speaking our own language than probably not a hundred percent what we could speak English in those days.
TO: How did you feel when you heard about the D-Day landings?
JSB: D-Day. D-Day. I land myself outside Buckingham Palace. And I will remember those days also to my dying days because the crowd was so much outside Buckingham Palace. The King George, the Queen Mother and the rest of the royal family had to come on balcony and also show people that they still with the crowd outside. This happened in my memory about four times. What they used to come on balcony and wave to us. Go back inside in to palace and the crowd was still without moving from outside the palace. Then again people start to demand what they want to see the royal family. Again the doors on balcony were opened and the royal family will come on balcony. Acknowledge that they were still with the crowd. That would continue to the very early hours of the morning. That live, memory also for the rest of my life. Yes.
TO: What films did you watch during the war?
JSB: Film. I watch. The most film what I will remember when I land myself in RAF Hospital Cosford and film was Bing Crosby, “White Christmas.” It was Christmas Eve and I was in, in a small room in that hospital with dim light. And it, that memory overcame and I start to cry. And two nurses came and they talked to me and I was feeling ashamed that I cry because that song overtook me for some reason. Maybe because I was far away from home. I don’t know. But that song I will remember also for a long time to come.
TO: Was it very cold aboard the bombers? Was it cold aboard the bombers?
JSB: Yes. It was cold before the bombing but we’d been always dressed up to stand up the cold high altitude. But we could plug our electric contacts what we were connected to our flying suits. So we’d be more, more always warm from be prepare for what we meet over enemy territory and not thinking much about the cold. But the cold always was on high altitude. If anything could have gone wrong with the heating would have been very severe danger to the human life.
TO: Could you see much on the ground when you were on a bombing mission?
JSB: Yes. At night when we used to fly over enemy territory when it was moonlight it was mostly danger nights what we had to face. We always knew that during those nights we face much more danger than in some nights when they were slightly over clouded. So we always, in case of emergency having unexpected meeting with the Germans fighters we could without hesitating hide ourselves inside. Into the cloud when even the Germans will avoid to follow us because they knew they would face just as much danger themselves as they could inflict on us.
TO: And on missions were you part of a bomber stream? Were you in a bomber stream on a mission?
TO: Was I in the mission on a bomb —
TO: Were you with a lot of other bombers when you were flying? Were there other bombers around you on a mission?
JSB: Yeah. Oh yes thank you. Yes, yes thank you ask me that question. The most danger part was when we’d been approaching the bombing target and the bomb airman was directing pilot right on the target. During that time some time were incidents when the close one of our plane was approaching slightly from small different direction. And you had to avoid. Continue straight course and release your bomb because it would involve you in collision with near approaching our own plane. So what you do? You making the turning and during that turning you lose lots of distance to turn back and do return approach to the target. During that time is most dangerous to collide with another approaching aircrafts coming on the same target. Or delaying your return from the target when lots of German fighters during that time hunting for last returning plane. This is the most danger part. If during your approach on target something happen what probably you have to turn and make second approach because you’re losing your return home. And during that time lots of Germans fighters still in the area what you are victim of return.
TO: And did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany?
JSB: Yes. Yes. Yes. I felt very much so. Because not only because I disliked the Germans but I didn’t like their new approach. What they felt, that they had superiority over the other people. I thought we were, whatever nationality we all were able to do the same as the Germans did. And for that reason because the Germans they inflicted in your generation that they were superior to the other nation. This I didn’t believe and this I didn’t like. And I thought what they must never think for the future of the same superiority than the other nation.
TO: And how do you think today about Germany?
JSB: Thank you. Yes. Today I think the Germany change. Very much so because in the last two wars they knew what the military, military involvements never bring good result. I think Germany pass lots of changes since the old days. They had much more understanding leaders since. They have, I would say the most outstanding chancellor lady Merkel recently and I think also having their [pause] their Pope in Rome what brought to Germany more recognition of the Catholic religion. Germany make terrific understanding that Europe is more united today and more friendly as it was in the past.
TO: And do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly?
JSB: No. I think Bomber Command we partly adopted the lessons from the Germans. What they badly used about some very incapable countries of self defence. And in the end we learn those tactics that they were brutal and very effective on to destroy people morale and destruction but we used them not starting those methods. We use them as a self defence because we learn from the Germans. But in the end we had superiority of that most super power of Bomber Command because we built more planes for the right time and we used those bombing because by using that strength we speed up the end of the war. Without having Bomber Command I think the war would continue for many years to come.
TO: And how did you feel when you heard that Russia had occupied Poland?
JSB: Yes. I thought to myself, I felt to myself when the Germans invade Poland how the Russians stabbed my country in the back. If the Russians would invade Poland soon after the Germans invaded we probably still fought Germans for longer time because eastern part of Poland there were more difficult for German blitzkrieg armed division to move forward. We’d been capable to defend the rest of our country for quite a few more weeks to come. But the Russians came and helped them. So we had no chance to fight against two superpower. And the Russians been always to Poland same unfriendly nation as the Germans.
TO: Is there anything else about your time in the air force which was important to you which you’ve not told me about which you would like to say?
JSB: If —
TO: Anything important that you’ve not mentioned that you want to talk about.
JSB: No. I think that’s all that I could tell and what I experienced and remember from the war. I think when I joined as a volunteer I’m happy what, how I started and how I ended because my country today is free and I’m happy that my country have recognition and the honour in the world. Thanks for England what England had courage to have treaty with Poland and during, at such danger days the England came in defence of the Poland with France and I think that’s why today we have free Europe and the rest of the world. So Europe is example to other nation what they must live in peace and to do the same as Europe did in 1939.
TO: Thank you very much. It was fantastic hearing about your story.
JSB: Thank you. What I’ve been able I’m not politician. Only part of military men. I’ve been trying, you know to tell you that.
TO: Thank you.
JSB: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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AStangryciukBlackJ160710, PStangryciukBlackJ1701
Title
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Interview with Jan Black. One
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:31:57 audio recording
Creator
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Tom Ozel
Date
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2016-07-10
Description
An account of the resource
Jan Black flew operations as an air gunner with 300 Squadron. He was badly burned when his aircraft crashed on a training flight and he became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. He underwent ten operations at East Grinstead Hospital. He describes his early life in Poland and Argentina; enlisting; training as an Air Gunner and being was posted to 18 OTU, RAF Bramcote; his plane crash and being burned. Whilst on a return stay at hospital, the crew he had flown with were shot down on a bombing operation. After the end of the War, he spent three years at RAF Andover and then was demobbed at RAF Dunholme Lodge. He talks about the relationships between Poland, Russia, Germany, Austria and England before, during and after the War. He talks about his opinions of Wellingtons and Lancasters and describes his first operation over Europe. He describes his crash landing again. He talks again about his treatment and time in hospital and about his plane crash and mentions Archibald McIndoe. He describes taking photographs of aerial bombings; the German defence of targets and night fighting against Messerschmitt 109s. He talks about shrapnel damage to aircraft; bomb drops; ‘Bomber Harris’; the Holocaust; anti-Semitism; the ‘Uprising in Warsaw’ and the Battle of Britain. He talks about the Munich Agreement and the Yalta Agreement; learning English; his training in identifying aircraft; the bombing of Dresden; his medals; take offs and landings; briefings and morale. He talks about the entertainment they devised, the popular songs, speaking Polish on the intercom when on ops. On D Day was outside Buckingham Palace, dangers over the target, Bomber Commands bombing campaign.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Argentina
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Temporal Coverage
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1942-10
1943
1944
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
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Julie Williams
18 OTU
300 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-Semitism
crash
demobilisation
fear
final resting place
Guinea Pig Club
Holocaust
killed in action
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Me 109
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Andover
RAF Cosford
searchlight
training
Warsaw airlift (4 August - 28 September 1944)
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/341/3508/PTinningH1601.1.jpg
4d7e45a79160aa79382026fe9410ad61
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/341/3508/ATinningHW160314.1.mp3
00643b1db6bb18f53a1b33afa4d3184e
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
Tinning, Herbert
Herbert William Tinning
Herbert W Tinning
H W Tinning
H Tinning
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Herbert William Tinning DFC, his log book and three photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 51 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Herbert Tinning and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Tinning, HW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: So, this interview of the International Bomber Command Centre with a Mr. Herbert Tinning, who was a 51 Squadron Halifax navigator during World War Two. The interview is taking place, at Herbert’s place in Preston, in Northern Melbourne. My name is Adam Purcell, it is the 14th of March 2016. So, Herbert, we might start at the beginning, uhm.
HWT: [unclear]
AP: It is a very good place to start, isn’t it? Can you tell me something about your early life, growing up, the education and first job, perhaps?
HWT: Oh yeah, I grew up on the other side of the river, mainly around Prahran and Toorak and Carnegie, I, I went to the, the Fawkner Park State School up until the sixth grade. Then I went to Toorak Central, seventh and eighth grade and then I went to Melbourne High for, to leaving. And then I went, I managed to get, no, I went to work first in a, no, no, I got an apprenticeship with the Victorian Railways as a fitter and turner, which a highly competitive job thing in those days and in waiting to go there I went and worked for a gasket maker called Ferrer, a company, that would be for about six months, and then I spent nearly three years in doing my apprenticeship at Newport during which time the World War Two broke out and I wanted to get into it but I was in a protected industry so I had to [unclear] quite big struggle but I managed to get a release providing I went into a technical trade which I, which I did do, I trained as a, what’s that called, a fitted away, which rear [unclear], I did that, then I was posted to a communication flight as a fitter and I again kept trying to get to [unclear] into aircrew, which I eventually managed and, uhm, and then I trained in Australia at, uhm, at Sale and Nhill and Cootamundra and then I was posted overseas and went to UK and ended up in Bomber Command as, I was trained as a navigator, bomb aimer but I was chosen to be a navigator and I went through the usual initial training et cetera and whilst I was at, what they called pre airview, which is because of the difference in map reading between Europe and Australia we had to get used to the greater quantity of identifiable objects and so we did a pre airview in Tiger Moths, would I tell you the story about that?
AP: Go for it.
HWT: Uhm, whilst we’re training, we used to do three, three day cross countries in flying in groups of three, big formation and I led this formation into Northampton and, as we’re turning over Northampton to, for another aircraft in which my mate was the navigator and the pilot [unclear] slipped under us too closely and wiped it up the main plane off on our undercarriage and we were in about 800 feet and he, they had to get out because the plane just went straight in and fortunately to this shoot [unclear] this happened in time [unclear] could land or crash land this thing so seemed so low, I straightened it and crash-landed it and that was that. Now, I tell you that as a preamble to we went on through training, we did our OTU on Wellingtons and we went to squadron, I went to 51 and he went to a different squadron and anyway I’m about, sometime later I heard that he is missing believed killed and I learned that on their fourteenth trip, I’ll tell you the, he went to 467 Squadron instead and anyway on the 8th of July ’44 he was on a French target, Saint-Leu-d’Esserent and he was shot down, it was night of course and they were on fire the Halifax navigator set out the forward straight patch so he tended to jettison the straight patch and he grabbed his parachute in his hand and he shot the [unclear] up because of his previous experience to just fall out and try to keep it on the way down but he clipped it, apparently he clipped it on a one clip and it held but he was ok and the only, the only one that could help was the bomb aimer, that was that I didn’t know anything about that at the time but he was missing believed killed. So the years went by and I finished my tour and I was appointed radar officer for the squadron and I’d been on leave and I was on my way back to squadron when we stopped at a place called Peterborough and just as the train was pulling out, the back wing doors on the bar, which is on the station, swung open as a fellow went out and I had a quick glance inside and I saw this, sort of head in silhouette, with this peculiar nose cause, in the bailout he’d, of the Tiger Moth he’d hit his nose on the tireplane [?] and it broke and he had mended it in a peculiar way. So anyway I grabbed my bag and I jumped out of the train and went back into the bar and, sure enough, it was Jim Walsh. He’d been picked up by the Free French and he’d spent the remaining years of the war until they were, until that part of France was, ehm, was occupied by the Allies, uhm, and he’d only been repatriated two days and there he was, you see. So, it was quite a good reunion, uhm, you have to believe in these units, I did you know, anyway I went on my way then and he went on his way and I’ve never seen him again. He was a Queenslander and in those days, it was much more expensive and difficult to travel into [unclear] as it is now of course and you get tied up with marriage, family, all the rest of it. So, that was that but I just tell you because of the incident that we had in the Tiger Moth and that [unclear] mine, uhm, we, that sort of saved his life in a way because if we hadn’t had the previous [unclear] he would have hesitated and try and put his shoot on, straight out of the escape hatch, it would have been too late. So anyway, that was that and then, as I say, I went to Waddington on 51 Squadron and there I did a tour with a mixture of French and German targets.
AP: Pretty good. Uhm, so you were working for the railways when you heard that war was declared. How old were you at that time? What were your thoughts? And how did you [unclear]?
HWT: Well, I must have been, I must have been, uhm, eighteen, because it was the age you could enlist and I was only, I always wanted to fly and a fellow who I knew was a pilot in the Air Force, he told me that you gotta get a speciality to, you know up until that, normally in the Air Force is a five year commission and you’re out. But if you had some speciality they would give you a more permanent job, you see, well, this fellow specialised in Photography and he was kept on as a aerial photographer. And because I was interested in engineering mechanical things, I thought, oh well, I’ll get an engineering diploma and then I’ll try for the Air Force. Instead I was on my third, in my third year, or just started my third year. But, it must have been during, it must have been, nearly in towards the end of my first year as an apprentice as the war broke out and I spent, you know, a year or so trying to get out of it, which I ultimately did and that was it.
AP: You, uhm.
HWT: Is that enough?
AP: Yeah, no, no, that’s alright, we’ll, [laughs] we’ll got plenty to cover, uhm, so I guess you’ve already answered the question of why you picked the Air Force.
HWT: I suppose I better finish it off and then, before I got an apprenticeship, I missed out that bit, after I’d finished with leaving, I went to Melbourne High and I was there for three years now, I’ll say it again, after I finished State School which is the eighth grade, then I went to Melbourne High and I finished there in my leaving year and went to the railways.
AP: Ok. Uhm, can you tell me something of the enlistment process for the Air Force? Did you have to do any testing, any interviews, any medicals, things like that?
HWT: Oh yeah, there were [unclear] interviews, there were, uhm, medicals of course, which sight was the main, was one of the principal things and [unclear] fine [laughs]. When I was, I got the notification to go and had my medical for remustering to aircrew, a couple of mates and I went out and had a bit of a party you know and anyway the next morning I had to do this medical test you see and, which I did but my sight must have been caught up to it because one eye was a bit weaker than the other. So, they, uhm, so I didn’t get the choice of a pilot, I was navigator bomb aimer and I always put it down to the fact that I’d perhaps had a bit too much booze that night but the, uhm, cause the thing is, post war when I was sort of older, I passed certainly a less stringent test but the eyesight test was just as stringent I think. Uhm, and I got the ok for a pilot’s license. So I think I’ve had a bit too much to drink at the wrong time.
AP: [laughs] pretty good. Uhm, were you on the reserve at any stage?
HWT: No.
AP: Because you went straight in as the trade of course.
HWT: Went straight in as a, as a trainee 2 A and well actually you didn’t do that as [unclear] but now they, you went in as an AC 2 and that’s we had a little white flash in our forage caps [unclear] to sending into [unclear] trainees and you did a three, four weeks of square-bashing down at Laverton and then you, during which time you, the selections were made and then you went to, in my time, Ascot Vale for engineering training and so, uhm, so I think I must have been about, almost nineteen when the war broke out.
AP: So, the white flash you are telling me about, I always thought that denoted air crew training specifically but it was
HWT:
AP: It was aircrew training specifically. Ok, yeah, that’s what I thought. Uhm, alright, so, you did, once you transferred to air crew, presumably you had to go to initial training school and do all the square-bashing again.
HWT: Yes, that’s right.
AP: Where was that? What happened?
HWT: The square-bashing was down at, uhm, at, oh god I must [unclear],
AP: Somers, perhaps.
HWT: Mh?
AP: Somers?
HWT: Yeah, Somers, yeah, that’s right, [unclear] bad, we did square-bashing then and pre airview at Somers. Incidentally it was, there was a well-known champion bike rider called Hubert Opperman, I don’t know whether you’ve heard of him but anyway he was, I came across him at Laverton first, where he was, a sergeant, no, he wasn’t a sergeant, I think he was DO, and then, when I went to Somers there he was again as an officer and he was doing, taking the PI training, organising and so on, nice bloke, anyway you had to gotta do that to. Anyway that’s where I did my initial training for aircrew. Then I went to Cootamundra and had training as a navigator. And then to Sale, training as a bomb aimer and gunner and then to Nhill, to do astronavigation. And then back to Ascot Vale, yeah, Ascot Vale for posting.
AP: So, I’m particularly interested in Nhill, I’ll tell you why later on, but, uhm, the first time you went into an aeroplane, presumably that was Cootamundra?
HWT: No, I had a passenger flight, you know, in a Tiger Moth, or was that a Gypsy Moth in those days, pre-war and while I was, fitted away, I had two Hawker Demons and a Lockheed Hudson in my charge, you see, and, anyway I used to, uhm, hit the odd flight [?] in a Hawker Demon, which we flew down over [unclear], anyway we flew down over to [unclear] anti-aircraft shooting, training, you know, and we, in a dive bomber [unclear] and so I got a, but then I fit [unclear] to it and I got a little bit of dual time on it, you know unofficially. So, yeah, that was, so I found a bit [unclear].
AP: [laughs] excellent, very good. Did you, when you were doing your training but particularly in Australia, did you see any accidents or anything like that?
HWT: Accidents?
AP: Along the way? Yeah.
AP: Or did you know of any accidents?
HWT: Oh, I knew, when I was at, when I was, just after I had been to Sale, I’m not sure which now, there was a string of accidents of aircraft going in and have a best strike and there were, I think there three of them, before they discovered what it was and what they were doing was torpedo bomb training with a damaged torpedo, see, and they had made the torpedo run which could have been made almost underwater and released the torpedo and [unclear] away you see, but I have been doing dry rounds without torpedoes and then I fitted them with these damaged torpedoes, which is the same weight as number one. And of course the pilots were used to unlighten [?] pulled out but, and because with the heavy weight they squashed a bit to say and that’s what they were doing, they were squashing into the sea and but they lost I think three before they discovered what the problem was. So, there were those and, uhm, [pauses], you know, you’d hear of accidents but they weren’t close to me, you know.
AP: Uhm, so, Nhill, oh my God, was talking about before Nhill also went through Nhill, and I actually went through there just about a year ago, we were coming back from Kangaroo Island and we stopped at Nhill on the way back, and turns out that the airfield, they’re opening up this Nhill aviation heritage centre, and they’ve got an Ansett there restoring very very slowly, which is really good to see. Uhm, can you remember much about Nhill in particular and what you were doing there, I know it was, I believe it was astronavigation at Nhill, uhm, what did that actually involve?
HWT: Oh well, we, we did the theory of it you know and then we did star identification, we just stand out and pointed out [unclear] to learn where they were and then you had to learn the theory side of using them, using sights to develop a fixed position and then of course sometimes that was over your head, you see, because flying over Europe was all dead black, not a speck of light anywhere and until you’ve done that, you don’t know how black the night is, you know. Uhm, and occasionally you’d have some, uhm, some guidance with, you know with the water get the reflection of the river, or a lake, whether you like it or not, although I didn’t experience this with the Gee, five lights around Berlin and they were a wonderful sort of fix for the aircraft, so the Germans were a very cunning enemy, they actually boarded out [unclear] a couple of them so there were only three lights, then they altered the shape of the other lights by boarding round it [?] you know, so none of the people would be certain [unclear] Berlin. Very cunning. But, what was I saying?
AP: We were talking about Nhill.
HWT: Ah, Nhill, yeah, uhm, now what I remember then it was very hot and the meals were good, we had no trouble flying out of there, at night we were flying in Ansons and, uhm, we were only a month there, four weeks, so I haven’t got much of a memory, I know, I’d been married by then and I know I missed my wife because she’d come up to Cootamundra, but Nhill was such a short stay. No, she didn’t come up to Cootamundra, she came up to Sale, where I did two months for bombing and gunnery. But, uhm, I know I got, you know, quite positive memories of Nhill, as a matter of fact I called in there once when I was driving, no, I flew in there once, that’s right, [unclear] to analyse, yeah, I landed there, just [unclear], was the last experience I had.
AP: [laughs] So, yeah, it is really nice to see what they are doing there actually at the moment, but anyway. Alright, so, moving on a little bit, we go up to Ascot Vale and then you embarked and you went to the UK. How did you get there?
HWT: I embarked, we went by a ship called the New Amsterdam, which went via New Zealand, cause it was taking, uhm, some of the New Zealand members of [unclear] back from Africa and were called from Wellington and then from there we went on to San Francisco. And from San Francisco we went by [unclear] car across to Boston. [unclear] car, they are still in pretty [unclear] condition and we had a black porter, made up our beds for the night, put a [unclear] chocolate on our pillow every five nights and anyway then we got to Boston, and we were waiting embarkation for England and we were embarked on a French liner, [unclear] something, wasn’t [unclear] to France but they had, they had several of these [unclear] and they flew, normally in peace time fly between Marseille, France, yeah, to Rio de Janeiro and that was a regular [unclear], you know. Anyway, we went to from Halifax in Canada to Liverpool unescorted so, they took us way up into the Arctic Circle to avoid the subs, which was interesting, and cold, and, anyway, [unclear] arrived at Liverpool and then we went by train to [unclear] out of Bournemouth.
AP: What did you think of wartime England when you first got there, particularly an Australian?
HWT: I liked England, I’ve been there since, I liked it better since but then during wartime it was, everything was severely rationed, there were no lights anywhere, blackout was very, very strict, uhm, and, I went to, I went to several stations, Bournemouth and from there we went to a place called Desford and then to, went to Lichfield and to Marston Moor for conversion and then to Snaith for, uhm, for 51 squadron. [unclear] We were actually posted to an Australian squadron but the day before we left, Bomber Command had raided Nuremberg and they had the heaviest losses of war, they’ve had 96 lost on the one trip and I think another twenty flying into high wind [?] when they got back. Uhm, so they were very short of aircrew so we were, uhm, then diverted to reinforcements to various squadrons and our diversion was to 51 Squadron.
AP: So, what did you have getting to that point where, ok, we’re going to a squadron now and you hear about Nuremberg, what did you think of when you heard about that?
HWT: Oh, well, you really got pretty philosophical about it, you know. As a matter of fact, you didn’t expect to live, you know, that’s probably more [unclear] a bit more than I should. And whatever, but we didn’t think about after the war, really, we just did what we were doing and, and uhm, did as best we could, I guess.
AP: Alright, We’ll back up a bit. Lichfield. I was talking just on Saturday to a WAAF, who served at Lichfield.
HWT: Oh yeah?
AP: Amazing lady, I interviewed this, [unclear] Mary Mccray, we had a wonderful chat. Uhm, the important thing that happened at Lichfield I presume is where you met your crew.
HWT: Yes, uhm, we met part crew,
AP: [unclear] of course, except for your flight engineer.
HWT: Pardon?
AP: Except for the flight engineer, of course.
HWT: We didn’t pick up our gunners, we, it was the, we didn’t pick up an engineer either. It was just the navigator, bomb aimer, pilot and wireless op. And we did our, well, we converted from, what the pilot did, we did to a point [unclear] from the Tiger Moths [unclear] previously flying in Ansett [unclear], no, we hadn’t, no, we hadn’t, we, uhm, [pauses] we must have flown, no, [unclear] I do recall flying in Anson but I don’t think that was in training, anyway we went to Wellingtons and we did the, the, what do we call it? [pauses] The, there was a pre airview I think they call it, anyway we flew the Wellingtons and actually I liked [unclear], I had no complain about any of the stations except, no, none of them, at Lichfield we had [unclear] they sent me to cross countries day and night, [unclear] a bit of a, a bit of a [unclear] there, see where we were, here you go, I went to 27 OTU which was at Church Broughton.
AP: Ah, that was a satellite of Lichfield, I think.
HWT: I think you’re right.
AP: Yeah.
HWT: We were flying Wellingtons there and I was West Freugh in Scotland and that’s where we were flying Ansons. I got it a bit wrong then before.
AP: That’s alright.
HWT: Pre airview at West Freugh
AP: A bit cold up there I imagine?
HWT: It was a bit.
AP: [unclear] at what time of year?
HWT: [unclear] was a bit [unclear], Stranraer was 7 Squadron you know. Yeah.
AP: Very nice. Uhm, when you were in England, what did you do when you weren’t on duty? What did you to relax?
HWT: On the station?
AP: Yeah, any of the stations that you were there.
HWT:
AP: Anything.
HWT: I played a fair bit of squash, most of the men, I know the, stations [unclear], we did a bit, we started [unclear] when we got leave, you know we went and quite often we stayed with people you were good enough to, you know, to sort of entertain, [unclear] your troops and I saw a bit of England that way, quite a bit really, underground and by you know they just we were on leave, we went some place which [unclear] short leave like overnight or a couple of days, you know, you didn’t go far but life on the squadron wasn’t bad, it was, but I initially went as a flight sergeant and there we lived in Quonset huts and that’s a thing I remember about it, the Quonset huts, oh, I suppose it might have been twenty or so, slept in them, and down the set of the bedroom on the side [unclear] down the centre and there were two or three potbellied cast iron heating stoves [unclear] and anyway it was cold alright because we stacked these things up and when we went to bed, the [unclear] of the [unclear] was cast on was red hot and was beautiful, you see, but then by morning there were icicles off the roof, from our hot breath, you know, the heating had gone out and other things, and it was cold, very cold, I remember that, but then I got a commission and we moved into a two bedroom unit in a big, where I was, in a big building at [unclear] which was much better than, I got no sort of unpleasant thought really of any of the stations I was on [unclear] I know the time has [unclear], but.
AP: [laughs]
HWT: But I think I remember something.
AP: Very nice. Alright so, when you are on squadron and you’re not on duty, I presume that you spend a fair bit of time in the mess, at the sergeant’s mess or the officer’s mess.
HWT: Play snooker, billiards, squash, sometimes I put on a cross country run and if you [unclear] you might decide to do it. And I had picture shows, pretty regularly at night and of course there was always drinking, always high drinks [unclear] appreciate. Some of the men [unclear] there and they used to get into the, particularly into the police time quarters where there were long corridors with, they’d get in there, ride round their motorcycle up and down along the corridor, you know, which in confined space was pretty deafening and then another friend I used to get up to was, and I only saw this once though, was they, they’d been drinking, and they got this fellow and they walked him over some soot and then they uphended him and hurled him against ceiling, across the ceiling, made him walk across the ceiling, you see, which looked pretty funny, you see, these black footprints across the ceiling [laughs], I remember that, [unclear] prank I remember, but no there was not, no boredom really, you know, you had, and we had [unclear] and all that sort of stuff, you know, and that was quite good. I’ll tell you a funny thing though, when I, during ops I was doing mechanical engineering and I liked engineering and I still like it and I intended to finish up as, with a diploma and working in like a designer that, you know, but during the war for some reason I changed my mind quite unconsciously and became interested in building, so when I was demobbed, I did a rehab course in building and construction and spent my working days in building administration and some on a building design on a side but yes, so I don’t know whether, whether unconsciously knocking building down through the war, unconsciously directed me towards, rebuilding, [laughs] interesting question.
AP: [unclear] more questions, isn’t it? yeah. Pretty good. Uhm, that sort of leads into the next thing, presumably an operational tour was not the most relaxing thing that you would have ever experienced, how did you cope with the stress of the operations, the stress of flying and [unclear] what you were doing. How did you cope with that on a daily basis?
HWT: Oh I think we had probably a bit more drinks than we should have drunk you know we had regular, you know, organised parties in the mess and they were fairly cunning you know, not that you weren’t aware of it, but, you know, you might go out on a ride one night and you come back and go through debriefing and you go off, have breakfast and go to bed. And when you were up in the morning, you know, you might have lost one aircraft say, [unclear] and you come out and you want to go out and do a, you know [unclear], usually only if you are doing ops really you had to do an air test and any way could be sitting there but you knew it was missing and what they did overnight went to remind you night, they flew an aircraft in from a, you knew, factory area, [unclear] the number, it was on dispersal and the only thing that was missing was the crew, and they sort of tried to make losses less obvious then they really were but I know some people had a lot of trouble, I, I don’t know why but I wasn’t, you know, I was concerned but I didn’t have any sort of shakes or anything like that, the only thing I got really was at the end of the tour I developed an eye tick, you know, you’d feel your eyebrow move but you weren’t sort of, you weren’t doing it, yeah, so yeah, they called it a nervous tic.
AP: And how long did that hang around for?
HWT: I don’t know, a few months.
AP: Alright, we were talking about drinking before. The local pub at Snaith, what was it called? What did it look like?
HWT: The local pub at Snaith was George and the dragon. And we drank, and it was a typical English pub you know, a nice atmosphere and all the rest of it. And of course we had our mess which we patronized, you know, fairly well because they had, you know you had your billiards or your snooker, your darts and the bar, card tables you know to play cards and that, so you had enough to do around the place.
AP: Were there any [unclear]?
HWT: There were concert parties and there were film [unclear] all that sort of stuff you know and they looked after us pretty well.
AP: Were there any, [clears throat] excuse me, superstitions or hoodoos, things like that, within your crew?
HWT: Very much, very much. And I remember some of the crew’s superstition, they are not my words, we always had to sit at the same seat in the way of going out to dispersal [unclear] aircraft. I think that was my only one. Yeah, I had to have that seat [unclear] but I know some that got some, well, the other thing too I suppose was, my wife, when I went [unclear] she gave me a white silk scarf and she’d sown a little, a little, uhm, what do you call, dice, a little dice in one corner of it, see, and I wouldn’t fly without that, I still got it, it’s no longer white, it’s now yellow.
AP: [laughs] it’s done you well then, it’s done you well. I guess we’re getting to the nitty gritty now. Do any of your operations stand out for any particular reason?
HWT: I remember D-Day, it just, you know, just for the amount of traffic on the Channel and we had, you know, on D-Day they locked all the [unclear] down, you know, so nobody went anywhere and there were armed guards with instructions to shoot to kill if anyone wanted to get out. And then when we went into briefing, I noticed, they told us, this was D-Day and our target was on the coast, [unclear], not [unclear], [unclear], something like that and that’s the first we heard of it, oh, no, we knew it was pending because the place was crawling with troops and [unclear] whatever but we didn’t know when and so we, so off we went and I just remember the level of activity and there was no fighter activity on that D-Day target, not where I was, there was quite a bit of flak and that was it but the, there is, thing I remember mainly is a mid-air collision of three pre airview, that’s opened your eyes pretty quick and we got shot up a few times, you know, may have taken out a bit of flak damage one night, we had one fighter attack [unclear] air gunner, I remember that, [unclear], you know, normally they were looking for someone who was asleep, you know, and because they were easy in sight but by the way [unclear] was in the time when they developed a thing they called Music, Schrage Music I think they called it and they equipped the Me101os with an upward firing cannon and they’d come in underneath [unclear] you see and stand in blind spot and [mimics the sound of rapid gun fire] and it’s gone, they aimed for the wing tanks and that was very successful and they did in the end on some of the aircraft, on the Halis or the Lancasters, they did put up a turret, or not a turret, but a gun in the, no, I’m sorry, they didn’t, no, they never did that, the Yanks did that, the Yanks did that with their [unclear], they put a belly gun in and the poor gunner had to sort of crawl in and, you know, he’s in a very uncomfortable position and but that was the Yanks, not us. No, we were, we did, part day and part night trips and by the time we were doing them, they were, by the time D-Day arrived, the Yanks had cut into the [unclear] pretty heavily with attacking their aerodromes and in air fighting, you know, by then they had the Thunderbolts and the Mustangs. And they got [unclear] in the bomber stream a fair way the Yanks [unclear] not us and of course they got into the German fighters a bit. Which is very good.
AP: [laughs] yeah. Cool.
HWT: But, oh, now we had, a couple of times we lost motors [?] and you get one time bomb hanger, but now we, when you’re, [laughs] when you’re being, when there’s a lot of flak, when you’re hit by the flak, it’s, you don’t have to [unclear] quick you’re in it, you know, but the no reason that the shrapnel, sometimes the noise that’s close to you when you caught a bit of shrapnel, it sort of puts you on edge but the thing that I know was my job, I was busy all the time, see, cause the safest way to get over a, uhm, an operation was to stay in the stream, you see, the head streams had five, six, seven hundred aircraft, you know, in a short space of time and if this stayed within the stream band was about ten hundred miles, you mind an individual on the German radar, you’re part of the mess which they couldn’t distinguish you from, but if you were outside that, you appeared on their screens as a [unclear] and they could [unclear] a fighter onto you, you see. So, the thing to do was, stay behind and you had to stay in that channel, then be one of the pack, so you were supposed to take a fix every six minutes, but of course you couldn’t do that with, you know, where the, your radar range weren’t, what do you call it? Interfered with, you know, which I have forgotten the word.
AP: Jamming.
HWT: And [unclear] otherwise you took them as you could [unclear] something on the ground or, a river or something or [unclear] started with the star sight, but they, the best took you about fifteen minutes to work out, [unclear] to work out.
AP: And you, you
HWT: And so you had to stay on it, you know, and if you concentrated on that but you’re not thinking about the threat, instead I was fortunate in that position.
AP: What was the navigator’s compartment like in the Halifax?
HWT: Good,
AP: If you’re sitting at your desk, what are you looking at?
HWT: It was, I haven’t got a photo of it, but it was quite generous, it was, uhm, the pilot was up on a slightly raised area and there was a lower deck but not at full height, you know, and then I was [unclear] accommodate the navigator and the bomb aimer and when the bomb aimer wasn’t up acting as a second pilot, he would be down in his prone position, you know, and when he was there, I had to let him in because I had a collapsible seat that folded back [unclear] and but I had a pretty generous desk probably about that wide I suppose and it was, we had, you know, the usual red light or amber light to light, which wasn’t all that good. But then you had an API in front of you, which was a box about so big on the wall and, you had the, forgotten the name of the thing now. You had this device over the table which carried star maps and that projected star positions down onto this chart, you see. And, in fact, I’ve collected navigation instruments since the war, you see, and might even down in the workshop.
AP: Yeah.
HWT: And not since the war, only since I’ve retired yes and anyway I got an API, I got a GPI and I’ve never been able to get one of these, whatever they were, because I don’t think they were common out here, I think they were common to Bomber Command in England [unclear]. Anyway, this is one thing I forgot but I’ve known now, I’ll look it up.
AP: [laughs] Pretty good.
HWT: But now, my space was pretty generous and the only, I had a fold down seat [unclear] and that’s about it, and we had to wear silk gloves under our gauntlets to give us feel [?], that’s one of the computers we used to use, that was, that’s just, you know, one I bought since you know, but they were between that and doing your chart work and then doing your sextant work, quite busy.
AP: Where in a Halifax, I know in a Lancaster you got that astroline [?] thing behind the cockpit, where in a Halifax did you take star shots from?
HWT: Same thing.
AP: Same spot the Halifax.
HWT: [unclear] position to it.
AP: Oh yeah.
HWT: To [unclear] I’ll show you.
AP: Oh yeah, we have a model here so I prepared earlier.
HWT: It was just alongside, just behind the pilot and I’m beside [?] the radio operator.
AP: Ok. Pretty good. Uhm, you were talking about being attacked by a fighter once or twice, or being chased by a fighter once or twice. Did you encounter the corkscrew or did you have to use the corkscrew at some point?
HWT: Yeah.
AP: And how did that effect your navigation?
HWT: Badly [laughs] it, everything I had on my desk flew up the roof, you know, scattered all over the [unclear], then I had to recover them when I got out of it and but it didn’t affect, like, navigation as far as [unclear] is concerned, they usually corkscrewed around the [unclear] they’re on, it only pictured as a one off anyway, you didn’t [unclear] you know it was [unclear] corkscrew and so it didn’t affect my navigation to any extent because whatever in the [unclear] you were picking up with the continued fixes you were trying to get, you know, so it didn’t grow and I’m frustrated you know, I kept a log and part of the chart of the trip I did to Stuttgart, which I was going to show you but I can’t find the damn thing!
AP: Oh damn!
HWT: I looked everywhere and it gives you a fair idea then of how the, you know, why you kept the record the fixes [unclear] you know.
AP: You have to let me know if you do find it. I’d like to see that. Anyway.
HWT: I’ve gotta find it.
AP: Yeah.
HWT: I don’t know whether it’s down in my workshop, I got stuff down there but I wouldn’t have taken it down, there is no reason for me to take it down there. However.
AP: That’s alright, no worries. Uhm,
HWT: And I’ve got, this is a map, a map case this,
AP: Ah, cool!
HWT: Which I made, when I was collecting maps, well, I still have and I’ve got, you know what a [unclear] is?
AP: What?
HWT: [unclear]?
AP: No.
HWT: [unclear] you hang the file.
AP: Oh, ok, yeah.
HWT: And that’s how I got the maps in here.
AP: Oh, fantastic! Uhm, alright, so, how many trips did you do?
HWT: I did forty.
AP: That’s alright.
HWT: I started off on forty two, but two of them we were recalled on. Went through all the briefing took off, were on our way when we were recalled. Because they got [unclear] information that the targets were, you know, clouded out [or up?] and even then the decisions varied you know because we were recalled on those two occasions but on other occasions, you’d, not very often though, you’d bomb out of a cloud [unclear] and now I bombed once on my H2S,
AP: Ah!
HWT: And the bomb aimer couldn’t see the target and when we were committed to it, so handed over to me and I took it over on H2S which where they landed but [unclear] aircrew there’s a bomb site.
AP: So, Ok, tell me something about H2S. Presumably that’s in your navigator’s compartment as well, it’s around your desk somewhere. What were you looking at and how did it work?
HWT: Well, you had curtains along the side of your compartment. You could find the light [unclear], so most of your time that’s where you were, except when you want to take, you know, star shots and then you turn your light out and go for [unclear] you come back and if you got [unclear] on the chart, that’s why I’m frustrated I couldn’t show to you, you know, you had to get a fix straight at target shot if you could on three stars and that gave you, you reduced your position to a small triangle, and you just took the centre of that then you had to, had a symbol for that which was a circle with a dot in the middle on the chart and then your air position which made you maintain a, what do you call it? An air position chart all the time so because your air position was always the thing you had to apply the wind to, which gives you a [unclear] position and the air position was always the triangle with the dot in the middle, so by the time you’re keeping your chart up to date and you’re writing up your log and you’re having taken the fixes, you’ve taken the shots to make the fix and then on some occasions you’re bitterly cold, you know, your hands are cold, so you don’t work as flexibly as you would normally, I remember one time before we got the Mark III [unclear] my oxygen mask was dripping onto my chart and make a little ice cream, you know, but you had to navigate through but [unclear] you know, so, you couldn’t, you wouldn’t work as quickly as you would if you’re sitting down here [unclear], you know, you had certain discomforts here so you are
AP: Pretty good.
HWT: That’s how anyway, but the navigator was pretty busy all the time and he looked like [unclear] interesting, I was [unclear] target when we went up to it and if there was, if there was a ten [unclear] black in the sky, if it was a day like one, I just keep the curtain pulled [laughs] not that you use your curtain as you could but that’s what you felt like
AP: Yeah.
HWT: But now, I was, particularly on the night targets as always busy, day targets were better because you had, you could take visual fixes, [unclear] you could have a radar range, you know.
AP: You used Gee a fair bit?
HWT: Pardon?
AP: You would have used Gee a fair bit?
HWT: Yeah, Gee.
AP: How did that work?
HWT: [unclear] I think I got a, no, [unclear] but the [unclear] chart was an [unclear] chart with a number of lines drawn on it, you see, and these lines, they weren’t straight, they were sort of, you know, what they call it, I forget now, anyway they were lines demarking the radiations from three different radar stations and each station had a different colour on the chart and say you’d, when you took your readings of the, of the Gee, you could prop them on against in relation to the station you were working, you know, and that was very good and very simple and then you got the H2S which and of course the [unclear] was able to, oh God there is a word for I can’t think of it, a [unclear] scrambled anyway the Gee transmission over the [unclear] so the H2S then gave you a radar unit that you carry in the aircraft and the Germans couldn’t, uhm, scramble it, ain’t that terrible? Anyway but you had the danger the Gee transmitting and the Germans took out [unclear] they could pick up your transmission and home on you, you see, so you didn’t want to, until that happened, it was great, you know, you could, all the cities had distinctive shapes on H2S screens which were the same on your chart, so it was easy and to maintain where you were but when the Germans tend to home on your transmission, you didn’t transmit all the time, you see, so then it was much harder because you hadn’t been on the thing all the time yet, you had to be, identify where you were, you know, or guess where you were in relation to what you station you were working. Bu they all had their, you know, plus and minuses.
AP: It’s one of the fascinating things I think, if you follow through the whole bomber war, the measures and the countermeasures and then the counter countermeasures and then the way that, you had this brilliant new technology that gave you the advantage for about two weeks and then the other side came up with a counter tour and you had to put the counter to counter and it just kept swinging [unclear]
HWT: [unclear] scientific war
AP: That’s unbelievable, yeah, I [unclear] read a couple of books about that. Uhm, alright, so forty two trips happen, uhm, how did your tour end?
HWT: Oh, it just ended.
AP: Just ended? [laughs]
HWT: It was forty, I did forty two, was the number I was set out on but how did it end? [unclear]there was another operation on Essen, two days before I’d had a day operation on Essen and the one before that which was two days before that again we were recalled by radio. Oh, it ended quite officially peacefully, [unclear] five hour trip, five hours, five minutes.
AP: Were there any, any particular celebrations when you got back or?
HWT: Oh yeah, we [unclear] on celebration, yeah, course, of course it has but in [unclear] long, you see, we were posted [unclear] pretty straight away but [unclear] was our pilot, he went to [unclear], no to [unclear] to conversion, I was, stayed on the squadron, they made me the radar officer which, you know, I had to assess all the bombing performance of the aircraft, you know, as recorded by H2S and I did that some months and then I was posted to a transport squadron 96, which was just forming and I did three cross countries to them [unclear] we were preparing to go on a route I’d established by then was down to Middle East, Cairo across to Bombay, then across to Chongqing I think, some Chinese place to take [unclear] squadron to them. And we were just doing our run up to that, I didn’t know which [unclear] I was gonna be on because, you know, you do the England-Cairo, we did the Cairo-Bombay, Bombay-Chongqing, a trip, be stationed on those but I can get to that, they posted me back here and I went back here and then I had my normal leave and I was posted, I was going to be posted to a squadron in New Guinea when the war was over, so that was it.
AP: That was the end of it. So, how did you find then are you in the Air Force for about five years or something now?
HWT: Yeah.
AP: How did you find readjusting to civilian life?
HWT: No problem.
AP: No problem at all?
HWT: No. I went back to Newport for six or eight months and then my course started at Swinburne and I did that. I did that for three years and then, then I got a job at the council as a building inspector and I was that for a couple of years, then I got, caught as a building [unclear], so I got the building [unclear] job and then that gradually grew to encompass the town planning and won a council work so started as the city architect [unclear] town planner [unclear] regional department for about fifteen [unclear] and couple of secretaries, you know. So it developed and so I had no problem, I got back into a quiet work and then I wanted to fly but my wife didn’t want me to fly until the kids had grown up a bit so I didn’t care for my license until 1968, then I got that and then, well, I still got it but and then during those years I did a lot of flying around Australia. I belonged to a group called the [unclear] aviation group [unclear] and I was the secretary, director for secretary for quite a while and so we had three aircraft and we had a Cessna 182, a Cherokee Piper 180 and a Victor and before we got the 182 we had a Piper Comanche, beautiful aircraft, I was standing in front of the aircraft but one of the [unclear] aviation group crashed the [unclear] and killed the four of them and [unclear] for me, I had to go up there and dispose of the airframe, and [unclear] took the engine and the retractable undercarriage and I had to very carefully dispose of the [unclear] which was the airframe and [unclear] back and forth which, you know, [unclear] terrible end of a lovely aircraft. Anyway and then the last trip I did, I flew clockwise right round Australia, coastal, right round Australia,
AP: Beautiful.
HWT: You know, took us three weeks, a good trip.
AP: Oh boy! [unclear] A country that lends itself to things like that. Very much the easiest way to cover the distance I think. Very nice, so, oh, I guess we’ll come to what is my last question, I ask everyone this. Uhm, what do you think is the legacy of Bomber Command and how to you want to see it remembered?
HWT: Well, I was annoyed and hurt so that affected [unclear] job didn’t but the way that the Command was treated after the war upset me, [unclear] a good two years the Command has carried the war and at the time we started was the time Bomber Harris really started his campaign we didn’t have any [unclear] gear, you know, we had normal just recorded all this stuff but and sextants but then, as a Command I’m talking about and then we got Gee, which helped us through a while and then we got H2S which helped us and then in between the, [unclear] this, they developed pathfinders to find the target and illuminate it, which made the job more accurate so and it was the Bomber Command and the government’s, the English government’s decision that we use carpet bombing because at the time we started, we had no better means to getting to and so, but they always picked an appropriate target which was bombed too but then there was always, you know, the weering skilled and the bomb aimer, all that sort of stuff come to it, so you had a spring but, but anyway Bomber Command was much blamed and the politicians particularly didn’t want to know [unclear] because you see in the bombing civilians were killed but civilians were [unclear] during the war because most people were working in something to do with the war, ammunitions, looking out, people in leave, all this sort of stuff, you see, so there was no real completely neutral person but that’s perhaps a modest justification but the, but anyway the thing I heard most was the fact that the politicians would give Harris a list of targets, see, the scientists worked them out, you know, factories [unclear] whatever, so they had collected the intelligence, then they gave the list of appropriate targets to the Parliament and the politicians nominated [unclear] you see, they normally give him [unclear], you know, the five was his choice, which one of the five his choice, depending on [unclear] and so it was [unclear] because the politicians didn’t want to know it, didn’t want to know about it, you see, because thinking that it was not very good because of people had, you know, the [unclear] of civilians being killed they didn’t know [unclear] and I think members of Bomber Command as a whole felt that way. There is one little last thought, but I don’t know whether you know about it but it was something like so long after the war I [unclear] have forgotten about it, but last year the French government decided to give the survivors of D-Day and Battle of Normandy a Legion of Honour and they presented them to them and which I got one was a nice medal but I think there were twenty five from Victoria and I think six from South Australia and I think there about twenty five from [unclear] I’m not sure but they [unclear] until the numbers were way down, you know, and I just mentioned it because it’s a very frugal [unclear] to
AP: What are your thoughts on the clasp? I see there’s not one hanging on your medal up there. There’s a little Bomber Command clasp.
HWT: OH yeah, good idea, I’ll show you.
AP: One of those as well [laughs].
HWT: [unclear]
AP: Yep.
HWT: This.
AP: A DFC as well I see.
HWT: Yeah, and that’s the
AP: Yeah, lovely.
HWT: [unclear] a nice medal, isn’t it?
AP: That’s a very nice medal, yeah.
HWT: And when you look at it, it’s clipped by the sides.
AP: Ah, wow!
HWT: [unclear] any good one side.
AP: [laughs] Lovely, yeah, there’s the clasp there. Very good.
HWT: That’s our crew, that’s me, that’s the rear gunner, that’s the wireless op, that’s the bomb aimer, that’s the mid upper gunner and that’s our pilot.
AP: [unclear] ground crew and a couple of WAAFs as well.
HWT: And, yeah, that’s the ground crew, that the ones who drive [unclear]
AP: Yeah. Fantastic, fantastic.
HWT: And that’s, that’s the rear gunner [unclear], the pilot and the mid upper gunner [unclear], he was killed on his fifteenth trip.
AP: Wow [unclear] that’s brilliant. Brilliant [laughs]
HWT: [unclear]
AP: Ah, very nice! Well, that’s the interview thing, so I’m gonna turn that off in a minute. So, thank you very much.
HWT: That’s alright.
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ATinningHW160314, PTinningH1601
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Interview with Herbert Tinning
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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eng
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01:19:54 audio recording
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Pending review
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Adam Purcell
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2016-03-14
Description
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Herbert Tinning trained as an aircraft fitter but later remustered and flew operations with 51 Squadron as a navigator. After the war, he build a career as a town planner and later as an architect.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Great Britain
51 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
coping mechanism
crewing up
fitter airframe
Gee
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Lichfield
RAF Snaith
RAF West Freugh
superstition
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/352/3523/AWoodhouseRM151001.1.mp3
9305bce62fb9f1fae39850e860037e67
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Title
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Woodhouse, Robert
Robert Michael Woodhouse
Robert M Woodhouse
R M Woodhouse
R Woodhouse
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Robert Woodhouse (1836194 Royal Air Force). He flew operations a wireless operator / air gunner with 207 and 617 Squadrons.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
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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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Woodhouse, RM
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: Ok. Today is the 1st of October 2015 and I am Heather Hughes and I am sitting here talking to a Bomber Command veteran Robert Woodward, who has come all the way —
RW: Woodhouse.
HH: Woodhouse, sorry. Who’s come all the way from South Africa to attend the unveiling of the Spire tomorrow and who has kindly agreed to do an interview with us today. Thank you so much Robert.
RW: Ok.
HH: For agreeing to, to do this with us.
RW: Pleasure.
HH: I wonder if we could start by asking you just to talk about your early life in Wales?
RW: I will do, yes. Gladly. Well, I was born on the 16th of March 1925 and I lived in a place in South West Wales called Pembroke Dock which was a garrison town. Famous for the navy, the air force in particular — Flying Boats, and the dockyard. We naturally became, when the Second World War started a sitting target for the German bombers. And we were raided many times. At one time we were sixth of thirty continuous nights when the oil tanks that fed the naval submarines were bombed and they burned for, as far as I can remember, twenty one days and nights. We were bombed out and my father who was a hairdresser, decided to move to Cardiff which we did in the end of 1941. I went to school in Pembroke Dock. And my cousin Ronnie who had lost his father in normal circumstances and his mother used to stay with us when he was on leave. He was a boy entrant in the RAF and because of all this I became very, very interested in the air force and wanted to become a boy entrant myself. This didn’t happen. The war started in 1939. When we moved to Cardiff I joined the local boys ATC. Number 1344 Squadron. And in October 1942 I volunteered for aircrew. I think at seventeen years of age. Yes. Seventeen years of age in October. And some months later, having been accepted and I joined the RAF and went to, for kitting out into Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. I remember the day very well, right. Having said that we were issued with our flying clothing before we even saw an aircraft. Because everyone that volunteered seemed to want to become a pilot they were, if I can put it this way, overbooked. Right. And anyway pilots, navigators and bomb aimers were trained out of the country. Usually Canada or South Africa or wherever. Right. And because I was keen I was persuaded by the interviewer who was ex-First World War to accept an appointment as a wireless operator. He said you only, you would be in the air force quickly and that was about it. Anyway, this I did, right, and eventually my radio school was at Madley in Hereford. If I remember correctly Number 4 Radio School. Lasted plus or minus six months and we began flying after about, I think it was six weeks. Something like that. Maybe twelve weeks. The course had been reduced to six months because previously wireless operators had to do a ground stint at local radio RAF stations. This didn’t happen for me. I was accepted straight away because it was now reduced to six months. My Morse was exceptional. I say it myself. My Morse code.
HH: Fantastic.
RW: I had an aptitude for, for this. Anyway, we went and then when we were finished the course we received our sergeant’s stripes. And the majority, there was about a hundred on the course, the majority were dealt with and posted elsewhere on an alphabetical basis. Being Woodhouse, I was at the tail end of the last eight that were sent on a three month gunnery course which was exceptional but helped, I think, to preserve my stay before getting to a squadron by about plus or minus three months. That’s what I worked out since. Having said all that the next posting was to, I went, the gunnery course was in Scotland at a place called Evanton. E V A N T O N. Number 8 Gunnery School. And we were then sent to Halfpenny Green which was near Wolverhampton and we went on an advanced course for radio operators and navigators only. I came across, if you’re interested, I came across a colleague that I had known and got friendly with in, in London at Lord’s Cricket Ground and he was flying in the same aircraft. An Anson. And he said, ‘Look I’ve been here a bit longer and they’re just going to ground me because I was suffering from air sickness. But can I can I fly with you guys? You know, for the three hours flight to see if I’ve got over it.’ We all agreed but unfortunately he was ill and that was the end of that. Right. We then moved on to Operational Training Unit. Number 14 OTU at Market Harborough. Another famous OTU. It’s where Guy Gibson did his OTU and so we had all of this to think about, I suppose. And if I remember correctly the course lasted something like three months. We flew in Wellingtons and this is where we were crewed up. We met what was to be our future crew. Right. And I remember being in a big room, something like where I’m sitting now and all aircrew milling around. And we were speaking to one another and chose. And a fellow came up to me and said he was a rear gunner and he said, ‘Would you like to join us?’ He said, ‘I’ve already crewed up,’ with so and so, so and so. And I said, ‘Well, what’s your name?’ He said, ‘Moore.’ M O O R E. Well, I said, ‘Oh well, fair enough. My sister just got married to a naval guy whose name was Moore so I’ll make up the number.’ And that’s the way we chose. The rear gunner was Moore. The bomb aimer was Andre Moore. The pilot was Tom Moore. And Bob Woodhouse was Robert Moore. And that’s how we got together. At the end of the course we were interviewed by the wing commander or squadron leader flying and he said, ‘Look. You guys have all done so well, right. Two of you are being recommended for commissions but we can’t give it to you at this station. You get it at your next station.’ Right. And he said Robert Woodhouse and Andre Moore. Right. He then went on to say, ‘Look it’s up to you but you know all aircrew have to volunteer again,’ and he said, ‘We want to recommend your crew for Pathfinders. To go direct to Warboys in Cambridgeshire,’ which was training Pathfinders. We, at that time, I qualify this, we all agreed that this was so but he said, ‘You are all, you’re going straight to a squadron for training at Warboys.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Anyway, for whatever reason our navigator was sick the next day and we had to find another navigator. So, we don’t know. I can’t add to that but this actually happened and cancelled our stay. Our going to Warboys. Which may well have been a good thing. We were sent temporarily to Balderton which is in Lincolnshire. And it, it was several squadrons there, two squadrons there and — until we got a new navigator. And I cannot recall exactly when this happened. May have been a couple of weeks. It may have been a month. I can’t recall. But they were flying operations from Balderton. We didn’t fly in them. But I remember seeing, the first time I came into contact with something that was a little frightening was there was a Lancaster which was there which we were quite nearby, right and they were hosing out the rear turret from the operation the previous night. That’s what I remember. Anyway, from there we went to Wigsley with a, which was a Conversion Unit from Wellingtons onto Lancasters but because we were short of a navigator, we still didn’t have a navigator I invariably ended up flying with different trainee crews or whatever. Right. And one, you may have heard what these were like or not was the chief flying instructor, a squadron leader, Australian — they named an airport after him in Australia, who I flew with once and there was a different crew altogether and well, he was, he used to show you how good the Lancaster was. And I remember he flew over the control tower at Wigsley, right and cut all four engines which was pretty frightening. And the aircraft still stayed up in the sky. These are the basic facts that I remember. I may well enlarge on them a little bit. Right. Ok. But having said that we then went to a squadron — 207 Squadron in 5 Group. Wigsley was in 5 Group and they did have operations. To go back and retrack a little bit. While we were at Wigsley the German fighters used to infiltrate the main bomber streams and end up at the aerodromes, right. Which they did at Wigsley and they bombed the central runway which was put out of action. The bomb aimer and I were very friendly, right and [laughs] over my future crew and he, we used to have an end room. We picked the end room in the Nissen hut where we stayed and the next morning he said, ‘God ,you sleep hard you know?’ He said, ‘Didn’t you hear them last night?’ I said, ‘No. Not at all.’ That was it, right. Anyway, we then went on then to Spilsby on 207 Squadron. The CO was Wing Commander Black. And the chief intelligence officer was Joyce Brotherton. Brotherton [pause] who was much older than any of us and there we are. I had my twentieth birthday on 207 Squadron and we did a few operations. Nothing of real interest, right. Because we had a new navigator and I can’t recall where he came from whether they had had an accident or whatever but he was a Scot and I can’t remember his name. But having said that we had crewed up with an engineer whose name was Robertson and he was trained as a pilot but because it was at the end of the war, coming to the end of the war they weren’t training just engineers but they had a surplus of pilots and they had to volunteer. So they volunteered to fly on the squadron as engineers which he did. Right. And the other thing is he had a car which helped the crew a lot, right. There we are. But the last operation was in April. April to —[pause] April. April 20th, 23rd something like that, right. To Flensburg. And it was going to be a daylight raid and each time we got to the aircraft it was stopped because the weather was bad. Anyway, we eventually took off and we flew out over Skegness and we flew wave high. Wave high. All to get under the radar. There must have been a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty aircraft. Something like that. We, we were due to meet with American fighters too, before we got to the Danish coast and it didn’t happen. But suddenly one of the aircraft on our beam started flashing an Aldis lamp from his whatsthename. Right. So I had to read the Morse code and it was to tell us that our rear door was still open. Right. So that was a funny part. Right. And the rear gunner whatever, had forgotten to lock the door. We didn’t know and we couldn’t use normal voice or anything. So, anyway but when we got to the target and got to bombing height there we had a master bomber in control. I forget his name and he was directing us. Actually we could see we were going to bomb the docks but by that time our, our fighter escort had arrived out from Scotland and there was an air force, an airfield at the top which the, we were firing their guns at that. And then suddenly the cloud did come over but we could still, but see the target. But the, as I said at that time, towards the end of the war, right, see the bombing line had to be strictly accurate. And in no way did this appeared to be the case so it was aborted. And where the [pause] we could see clearly, right, the sea, and there were loads of U-boats coming back because it was a U-boat base as well, right. And they had been recalled and they were going so we dropped our bombs on them. Right. And we didn’t lose one aircraft on that trip.
HH: Gosh.
RW: One aircraft. So I’m told.
HH: That’s quite unusual.
RW: So I’m told. Whether you believe everything I don’t know but one has to remember that at the end of the war you had this thirty year limit as it applied. And anyway we got back and we went on leave straight away. And oh yeah, we came back, right and we screamed over, over Skegness. Right. It must have frightened them because we were so low I tell you and you get a hundred odd aircraft. Anyway, that happened, right. And then after leave we came back and we immediately, oh yes, they, in our absence they had done the raid on, which was the final raid of the war, on Berchtesgaden. Which was sometime at the end of April probably. Early May. Whatever. And that was it and the squadron was laid up and that was it. And then we started doing trips to Operation Dodge to Italy.
HH: To collect prisoners of war.
RW: Well, yeah, we brought back soldiers actually.
HH: Oh soldiers.
RW: We brought. And soldiers. And another one was Pomigliano. Somewhere near the Leaning Tower actually. And brought them back. Right. And yeah, yes and we went to Norfolk and dropped them off there somewhere. So much details I can’t quite remember. Right. And then, oh yes when I got, when we got back, I’m trying to think now and get it right. Ok. Oh it’s a job. You only remember what you want to remember, you know. Anyway that was it. So, right, fair enough I came back off leave. That was it. I was still on 207 Squadron and lo and behold, right I had a message to report to station headquarters who said, ‘Right. Pack your bags but, you have to volunteer but you are going to 617 Squadron.’ So I, and that’s what happened. Right. I didn’t have time to say cheerio to the crew who had gone off on various things. Been on leave. And so I went to 617 Squadron which was, had been or was at Woodhall Spa but was then immediately moved to Washington to err Waddington as the 463 and 467 Australian squadrons had previously been at Waddington. Anyway, we were there in the mess and everything was — by that time I was a flight sergeant, and I became a warrant officer on 617 Squadron. And I remained with 617, the war had just ended, right and for about eleven months. In that time we were the lead squadron for Operation Tiger Force which was going to the Far East to support. Supposedly finish off the war there. Being the lead squadron. I’m told that the ground staff had already sailed in ships. But 617 and 9 Squadrons which we always partnered, right were going to be the sole. We went on to heavy duty low level flying. As you will know 617 Squadron was famous for their part in the dams raid. Various battleships. Ok. The Tirpitz being the top one.
HH: The Tirpitz. Yeah.
RW: But I wasn’t on the squadron at that time. But it was an honour to be chosen to go to the squadron. That’s the way I felt and I enjoyed every minute of it. We had a great time. Anyway, we were, we all got kitted out with overseas clothing and inoculations and what have you. And I remember a funny part was we were lined up irrespective of rank. Whether you were a wing commander, squadron leader or what. But I’m not a very physically big person but, but there was a squadron leader in front of me with his sleeves rolled up where he was getting the jabs and instead of giving you one jab now and again, right they had a system where they’d wind everything in and give you the eight in one go. That is how I remember. Right. The squadron leader just boom [laughs] That was it. He collapsed completely. Not for long but he, there we are. So there we are. That’s the funny side of it.
HH: And you survived fine.
RW: Pardon?
HH: And you survived fine, did you?
RW: Yes. I, yes, I just looked away, you know. But there we are. So, so we did those trips and — sorry yes. We then flew to the Far East. Ok. And we started off, we flew to Tripoli. There was another name for it then. An Italian name. Anyway we had a night there and then went via Cairo West and Idris, sorry Idris was the name of the aerodrome. And then, yeah and we went on and ended up in India. And in the course of our flight we were due to go up to a place called Chittagong which was on the border of Burma and India, as it was then. Right. Whilst flying we were in the first three aircraft going to the Far East. The rest would follow on later. And we were diverted to a place called Digri, in the Bay of Bengal and 9 Squadron was with us. We were diverted to a place called Salboni which was within car distance if you like, you know. So we were soon friendly with them. And we continued to practice bombing. The Americans had been at Digri and Salboni before us and had left the day before. So we had all their rubbish and what have you. Unfortunately our, our radio officer, right, in the squadron who had served with 617 for quite some time and had a lot of experience, right was killed in an accident there. Once we were there. Not flying but on the motorbike. Very very sad, so. He was one of the better types and things like that. Anyway, we then, we were on our, supposedly on our way to Okinawa and the Americans stopped us and they said stay in India. Once we were there we did, again three aircraft did a flying display in New Delhi which was great fun. It was a night flying tattoo kind of thing with searchlights and firing off rocket shells and so forth. And there we are. As I say, I think I, no I didn’t mention it but I think the air force taught us to drink a little bit, you know. And so we had a lot of enjoyment there. And then we flew back. The route we came we flew back and landed in St Mawgan’s in Cornwall. Oh, we were told on, prior to leaving India that we were going on a good will tour, the squadron, to America. This didn’t happen. We got to St Mawgan. We were told, right, leave the aircraft and take everything with you including, including your parachutes and we’ll be in touch. But go home on leave. Which was alright. And I suppose, I suppose it’s only right that the Air Ministry took over the squadron and went on the good will tour [laughs] Something like that happened. Right. There we are and I was recalled to Binbrook, near Grimsby right, where we set up business, if you like as a squadron and [pause] yeah. And from there I was grounded and I got all, they gave you a list of things you wanted to do. And I said, ‘Oh fair enough. Flying control is what I want. Right.’ And I ended up at Wittering in flying control until I was de-mobbed in the winter of 1947. It was a bad winter. I remember the snow. And there we are. Ok. So that’s my air force. Oh yes when, when I, after de-mob I went home to Cardiff. Lived with my parents until I got married at the age of twenty nine. Right. And, but I was in the RAF VR and I joined the local flying school and I flew every weekend without fail. Without uniform. No uniforms. Right. Terrific time for seven years.
HH: And is that how come you had two service numbers?
RW: Yes. Yeah. 2604304 the other one. Yeah. There was. That’s why I have a good memory. Do you want to hear my later life or not.
HH: I definitely do. I think that would be most useful.
RW: It’s ever so boring but would you like to listen?
HH: No. It’s not boring at all.
RW: It’s not, it took us approximately, approximately twenty one months to two years in some cases to get to a squadron from the beginning. So it was a very thorough training. Very thorough. It was very mixed and unfortunately things happened. People went sick or whatever. There we are. Anyway, having got de-mobbed, when I’d left school originally in Pembroke Dock at the age of fifteen, war started. There was no way you could do much. Anyway, I joined a wine and spirit merchants. It was a nice little job but again we were bombed out so we moved on to Cardiff. And there I joined the air force from there but my cousin, who was [pause] had a great influence with me. A boy entrant. Was of exactly that. Right. Flight lieu, later became a flight lieutenant observer. Being a boy entrant himself he had, he’d been in, he was, he was thirty when he was killed on 627 Squadron. 627 Squadron at Woodhall Spa on Pathfinders. A great pity. There we are. But he was the influence of attracting me to the air force and we kept in touch right until he was killed. I would have ended up with him had he survived but there we are. On the same station. But there we are. Right. After the war. I took several courses in, after the war ended. I was very friendly at Waddington with an EVT training officer. Education vocation which they, they tried to interest you in your civilian life. And I actually remember we were very friendly. So he sent me off on several courses and they said, ‘Oh you would do well as a travelling salesman.’ I said, ‘Oh yes,’ you know, and listened to it all. Anyway, I joined the Prudential Assurance Company at Cardiff. I had several interviews. I was accepted. And I stayed with them all my working life. This was in 1947. I became, I was seconded to South Africa and became general manager of the African business. Which was good. I moved a lot. I was, it was like the air force. I never seemed to say no [laughs] And when they said we’d like you to go somewhere. Somewhere, right. I readily agreed. And I was going to South Africa for two years. I’d already been a divisional manager in the UK. And they said. ‘Look. Just for two years, family,’ go and do this. Will you do that? And I’m still in South Africa after forty years. We loved it so much. There we are.
HH: And did you stay in the same job even, even though you didn’t —
RW: Well. Put it this way —
HH: Outstayed your two years.
RW: I, I, yes. The general management. I was in the top job you know so I mean I didn’t have anything to do with life insurance. Everything, all liability insurances. Everything with the household. Motor. What have you. I was in charge of it in Africa. From Nairobi right down to Jo’berg. So fortunately I did well. We got involved with various mergers which I hated. And [pause] but I came out of it alright naturally but the thing is that we did this and I eventually resigned when I was fifty six years of age. I started my own business which was, don’t ask me why, it was madness, right — which was broking. And because I was well known at the time, to be quite frank and other companies, I had a lot, a lot of support and the business did take off. And the result is that when I eventually retired for the final time I was sixty nine — 1994 was it? Yeah. And there were political changes in South Africa and everything. And we still had property. A house in the UK. And we went back there for a while but eventually we returned to South Africa. We had a daughter, son, grandchildren, the lot, which we love and, and I still enjoy it.
HH: So that’s how come you’re still in Fourways.
RW: Yes. That’s right. In Fourways.
HH: So where had you lived before in South Africa?
RW: Ok. We lived in Hyde Park, or Craighall Park, more to the point. Near Hyde Park. Buckingham Avenue. And we had a lovely property there and were very happy. But we went to, when we returned, I always remember where we lived was a place called Cedar Lakes, Broadacres, Fourways and our son lived there. And he was very well educated. He had a PhD and things like this. And we were visiting him for a [unclear] or something or other and I sat under a rondavel on the estate which I subsequently, where we subsequently lived. And I said, ‘Jeremy,’ and I said, ‘I’d better speak to your wife as well. Would you be upset if we came to live on this estate?’ He said he’d be delighted, you know. So the house, bought a house, and that is where we are. And our daughter lives in Bryanston and they have a larger property shall is say and two beautiful grandchildren and everybody’s very very happy.
HH: Well. it’s lovely to be close to family. There’s no point living here if all your family are there.
RW: Well this is it exactly, you know and yes and if I’ve bored you please —
HH: That was a wonderful story. And you’ve kept, how have you kept in touch with, with Bomber Command?
RW: Oh yeah. Not really. We have, it’s [pause] I’m a member of 207 Squadron Association. I’m a member 617 Association but they’re not so well presented if you like with the paperwork there. 207 is exceptional. Somebody there who is the son of somebody who was killed and he took over the secretary’s job and he’s done a marvelous job, so he does keep us up to date. Right. 617 we get notices but obviously, you know, there’s nothing. 617 is a very, how can say, a modern squadron. Right. 617, Tornadoes and what have you. Right. But we used to go, but as I say that’s after that thirty year cycle, right. We had notice and we went to, we had an invite, we lived in Chester at the time and we had an invite to go to Scampton, right, for a presentation of squadron colours. Which was, if my memory is correct was ’59, 1959, our daughter wasn’t born till 1958 so, yeah. I think it was 1959 and that was the first time after the war we got together. We soon knew several who were regulars in the air force there. And then after [pause] sorry my mind’s wandering again. The, yeah, we’re in ‘59 and later on there was a whole Bomber Command reunion. Reunion where Harris was there. And it was at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. And I remember I didn’t sit at 617. I sat with 207 Squadron. And I did know two people who have since died. But other than that we have had no contact at all.
HH: And Harris also went to Southern Africa didn’t he?
RW: Who?
HH: Harris.
RW: Oh yeah. Well he was Rhodesian.
HH: Yeah.
RW: And do you know where he stayed? He lived actually. The Mount Nelson Hotel. One thing I can maybe offer at this point, one thing I do not understand is he had children. Young children. I couldn’t understand this because he was in his 40s when operational. So I don’t know whether, nothing has ever been said about family or wife or anything, but yes. He had a, yeah if everything I read is, or read is correct then he is treated badly. But there, that’s nature of things you know.
HH: Yeah.
RW: Any direct questions?
HH: You have given us a lovely story and thank you so much for that.
RW: No.
HH: I think you deserve a drink in the Dambusters now.
RW: Yeah. I used to enjoy going, oh sorry we went to one or two, quite a few before I went back to South Africa. We went to the reunions at the Petwood which we enjoyed very much and everything. But I didn’t operate with 617. I was operational but not war time.
HH: Yeah.
RW: Ok.
HH: 617, yeah.
RW: With 617. Get my facts straight, you know. But again the more you read about things and if you read them and a very good friend of mine who was never aircrew but very very interested in everything and he, he went right through and he always enlarged things. And in fact, I’m a bit cross because, not for this but I had the, when we went to 617 they still had the clapper aircraft. Are you familiar with the clapper? Before the big bomber one. And again to be edited is whether we were told, my memories of [unclear] were told I’m not so sure or whether I read it. Right, but those aircraft had to be disposed of quickly because 617, so I was led to believe, right, to be listed as war criminals if the war hadn’t ended. That’s why they had two different identifications. KC and AJ was the — you know all this don’t you? Eh?
HH: Well it’s interesting to hear it from you. Yeah.
RW: Yeah. But the other time is very of interest which is worth researching was when we were in India the wars were over. Right. The Jap war had just finished and we had stopped. Well, again, aircraft were bombed up ready to fly over the Indian fleet which had mutinied in 1946. The beginning of 1946. Whether that’s true but my memory. You have no recollection?
HH: Sounds worth following up.
RW: And again it goes on , you see. Prompt things. I tried to research that because I thought well was it true or did I imagine it? But we weren’t involved. We were involved with flying with the squadron but not, but one aircraft supposedly flew over the destroyers or whatever the navy. Somewhere near Bombay and a white flag went up. But nothing happened. But that, tell me if my memory is playing. When I came, apart from all of this, when I was on the Number 3 Flying School in Cardiff, right, after the war, I really, that was great. Absolutely. Every weekend. I loved it.
HH: Sounds wonderful.
RW: Having said that I still had to do so many flights away from Cardiff and I went twice, I think to Lyneham. Transport Command. And flew out with the crew to somewhere, all right. It was a holiday for me and they picked me up on the way back. And then yeah. That’s where I lost my logbook.
HH: Oh you lost your logbook.
RW: I left it at Lyneham. I left it at Lyneham to be written up because we got back on a Saturday. Everything was closed. That’s the last I saw of it. But there —
HH: Do you know what ever happened to it?
RW: No. No. Just there amongst a lot of paper. Anyway.
HH: Thank you so much for your interview. That was a real treat to listen to your story. Thank you so much.
RW: I don’t. But wartime is, you know full but that’s alright. Later on. Many years after the war ended we had young children and we had a caravan towed and one of our many trips was to Italy. Italy? Yeah. And it was called in Venice Audi and SU Holiday Camp. The German company had provided their staff with a holiday. Anyway we went there and being German everything was precision. You lined your caravan up etcetera and right opposite us was a German family. And then, we both had young children so he invited us for a drink and we accepted. And having said this he brought up the war, you know and all this, ‘What did you do?’ And every time he was having swig he’d slap you on the back, you know. And I said, you know, he was an ex-U- boat commander. And it turned out he was in one of the U-boats where we dropped our, on our last trip.
HH: Isn’t that extraordinary?
RW: Yeah. Yeah. And he worked for the German Motor Company.
HH: That you should have met up in that context.
RW: Yeah.
HH: After the war.
RW: Yeah. There we are. I might have glossed over a little bit. Please edit it as you see fit.
HH: Thank you so much for that.
RW: Right then.
[recording paused]
RW: But what I would say about medals is I am quite anti because of the attitude after the war ended of the politicians regarding the recognizing, the proper recognition. The proper recognition of Bomber Command which, as to ending the war early. Right. The, I’m also anti the medals situation because in my case I am entitled I suppose to maybe three or, or mainly three medals which would be the end of the war, the defence and the France and Germany medal. I’m not so sure I’m entitled to the 1939 ’45 because you had to be, if my memory serves me correct, a minimum of three months on a squadron but you could finish your operations and be gone. You know, so you could die in your first raid but so I’ve never bothered to apply. And that’s still the position. Thank you.
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Identifier
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AWoodhouseRM151001
Title
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Interview with Robert Woodhouse
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:50:11 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Creator
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Heather Hughes
Date
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2015-10-01
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Woodhouse was living in Pembroke Dock when the bombing of the town began. The family relocated to Cardiff when they lost their home in the bombing. In Cardiff Robert joined the Air Training Corps. He had a cousin who had already joined the RAF as a boy entrant and he wanted to follow in his footsteps. He volunteered and began training as a wireless operator. He was posted to 207 Squadron at RAF Wigsley. A German aircraft infiltrated the bomber stream after an operation and was able to bomb the runway thus putting it out of action. The squadron moved to RAF Spilsby and continued operations. The crew had been told by the commanding officer that they had been recommended for Pathfinders but the navigator became ill and the move was cancelled. With his squadron John took part in Operation Dodge. Also on one operation that was aborted John recalled that when they were flying home they dropped their bombs on U-boats heading to their pens. Much later after the war he was on holiday with his family and became friendly with the German family in the next caravan. It transpired that the father had actually been the commander of one of the U-boats that they had attacked.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
South Africa
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1941
1942
1945
1946
1947
14 OTU
207 Squadron
617 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Evanton
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Madley
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Spilsby
RAF Wigsley
runway
submarine
Tiger force
training
wireless operator / air gunner
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/193/3527/PYeomanHT1601.1.jpg
81e8d485ebaa1faca0c2e7fc8ce934c8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/193/3527/AYeomanHT161013.1.mp3
bc5e3721d340abe4d24b5b171dcc0968
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Yeoman, Harold
Harold Yeoman
Harold T Yeoman
H T Yeoman
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. Collection concerns Harold Yeoman (b. 1921 1059846 and 104405 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 12 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview, a memoir, pilot's flying log book, 26 poems, a photograph and details of trail of Malayan collaborator.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Christopher E. Potts and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-28
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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Yeoman, HT
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: My name’s Pam Locker. And I’m here today in the home of Mr Harold Yeoman of [deleted] on Thursday the 13th of October at 10 o’clock. 2016. So I’d just like to start Harold by saying thank you very much indeed on behalf of Bomber Command Memorial Trust for agreeing to an interview today. And if I could just start by asking you a little bit about your, your younger life and how you came to be involved with Bomber Command in the first place.
HY: Well, as far as my younger life’s concerned I worked in local government. And when the year came to about 1935 or ‘6, it was the day that Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, I realised then that I was of an age where I would have to do something. So, I talked to my parents and I had, my father had been in the army in the First World War and the RAMC. My brother was just about ready to go into the Royal Artillery. So my thoughts were primarily of army. And I thought well, I’ve got to volunteer for something before I’m called up and told what they’re going to do. They might put me in the Navy which I thought would be pretty horrible. So I went along to the local Drill Hall, the Army Drill Hall and said, ‘I’ve come to volunteer.’ And they said, ‘Well, that’s very hard lines because we’re full up. You can go on the waiting list if you like.’ I said, ‘No. I don’t think so. I’ll find something else.’ So [coughs] excuse me about that time I used to go to the pictures about once a week and one of the newsreels that came on, it was black and white of course was quite topical. It was dealing with wartime subjects and it was, the screen was divided into four parts. The picture. And one of the parts was a tank. Another one was a big gun and the one I was interested in was a picture of an aircraft flying along from left to right. I didn’t know what it was then but later I realised it was an Avro Anson. And here was a little man sitting in the gun turret on the top of the Anson. And I thought I could do that. You know, I don’t see why I shouldn’t do that. So, instead of thinking about the army I started thinking about the air force. Anyhow, the army said they were full up, they’d put me on the waiting list. I said, ‘No, thank you. I’ll find something else.’ The something else turned out to be the air force. So my brother who was eight years older than me and he saw what I was going to do and he got a bit jealous. He said, ‘Well, I’ll do the same thing.’ So we both went up to [laughs] we both went up to Newcastle to the, the Recruiting Centre which was in the west end of Newcastle. Scotswood Road. It was a school up on the hill and said, ‘We’ve come to volunteer for the, the air force.’ They said, ‘Righto.’ Took all my particulars and took my brothers particulars and said, ‘Well, you’ve got to have a medical.’ I said, ‘Ok. I can do that.’ And said, ‘well, come this way.’ They gave me [laughs] they just counted my arms and legs and saw whether I could see. They said, ‘Oh yes, you’ve got through.’ So that was it. ‘Just go outside and we’ll do the rest.’ So my brother came out and I said, ‘How did you get on?’ He said, ‘Oh. I failed.’ I said, ‘You failed?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘What was the matter?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got varicose veins.’ I said, ‘Well, so have I but I got through.’ I got a small one which has developed since then but it’s no bother. Never mind. So he came away quite despondent and I came away quite happy that I’d got in to the air force and volunteered for aircrew. I thought I’d be a gunner sitting in the top turret of an Anson somewhere or other. And in due course I got a letter to say that I had to report to the Reception Centre at Babbacombe, a suburb of Torquay. Just, it was just described as P, I think it was P, PUB or something like that which meant pilot, observer or bomb aimer or something some such. POB. So I reported there and learned I was going to become a pilot which was a great surprise to me. So, did all the necessary ground subjects at Babbacombe. Drill, PT and so on and so forth and a bit of air force law. And then I was posted next door into Torquay itself at Number 3 Initial Training Wing. The subjects on the ground developed into a bit more complicated. A bit of navigation, some gunnery. A bit of air force law. As a subject dealing with tactics in, in the air when you were doing civilian, when you, before you got operational. And that all went off. I’d got a written examination there and passed that alright. And from there I was sent to really start finding out about aeroplanes which I’d never, I’d never been close to an aeroplane before that. Never been up in one. Never seen one close too. Never touched one. And went to Number 6 EFTS at Sywell which is just outside Northampton. It’s probably Northampton Civil Aerodrome now, where they had Tiger Moths and did my initiation on to Tiger Moths with a very unpleasant instructor who shall be nameless but I’ve got his name in the back of my mind. Got rid of him and got a much more pleasant instructor which improved my flying no end. I went solo in ten hours forty five minutes I think. Something like that. And I did my first solo flight in a Tiger Moth on Christmas Eve of 1940. And I did my first solo cross-country from Sywell to Cambridge where there was another EFTS where I had to land, report to the watch office and take off again. Come back to, come back to Sywell. Navigating myself which was quite easy. Had a map on my knee. Had to keep a log on the other knee. And I got through that alright and that was more or less the end of that course. And did some aerobatics which I was not very good at. Which I was very poor at actually. From there I didn’t know what was going to happen but I soon found out the next stage was the intermediate training which because of the enemy activity that was going on was done as far away from England as possible. So I was sent out to Canada to 32 SFTS at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan where I flew Harvards. I went solo on them inside a very short order. It was only about half a dozen hours of duel I think on Harvards. We did the same sort of, same type of flying. Solo cross-country’s lasting anything up to about an hour and hour and a half. One was from Moose Jaw to a place called Dafoe. Up north in the north of Saskatchewan. From Dafoe to Watrous which was another small town. And from Watrous back to Moose Jaw. That was quite a nice, nice ride. And did a certain amount of aerobatics at which I was very, very poor. I thought well if I’m going to be a fighter pilot this is not going to serve me very well. So, at the finish of the, the course when I got through everything including examiners, examinations, the interview by the chief instructor, chief flying instructor, then the chief instructor of the station who was a very nice chap and he said, ‘Well, I suppose you want to go on to Spitfires like everybody else do you?’ I said, ‘No sir. I don’t.’ He said, ‘You don’t. What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to go on to bombers.’ I said, ‘My aerobatics are very poor. I know that myself. And my instrument flying is quite good and I enjoy instrument flying so I’d rather go on to bombers.’ He said, ‘Well, I can’t promise you anything but we’ll see what we can do.’ And in due course I came back to England and was sent to Operational Training Unit at Bassingbourn which had Wellingtons. Amazingly enough I went solo on Wellingtons in less than four hours which was astonishing to me because I’d only flown single engine up ‘til then and getting into a Wellington was like coming in to a, in to a house. It was huge in my eyes having just been on single engine stuff. So I went solo on them in about three hours forty five minutes or so and did sort of a lot of basic work. Cross country’s and a bit of blind flying with the hood pulled down so you couldn’t see where you were. Including a blind take off. Well, that was very interesting. Settling down on the runway and getting yourself central. Then the instructor said, ‘Pull the hood down now and you’re going off.’ So I had to just do the take off completely blind with the instructor in the front and just went off by feeling when it was ready to get airborne. Eased back on the stick and away we went. And when I got airborne, climbed up to a thousand feet or so he said, ‘Right. Pull the hood back now. That was ok.’ That was an interesting one. I enjoyed that very much. And that was the initiation on to Wellingtons. Then the important thing was the crewing up which as you may know was done in a very haphazard manner. I just went into a room and there was a whole lot of mixture of pilots, observers as they were then. Observers as were then navigators and bomb aimers. There were gunners as well. And it was just a whole crowd of people and you just had to sort out your own crew and you’d come up to somebody and say, ‘Are you looking for a navigator?’ ‘Are you looking for a gunner?’ And it was like that. Well, I got a good navigator in an Australian chap called Colin Fletcher. The wireless op was from Solihull. We know, we knew him as Mick. Mick Pratt. And the two gunners. One was from Sudbury in Suffolk, Johnny Roe. And the rear gunner was from Balham. He was Tommy Evans. And that was the crew. So we then flew as a crew and did all the basic cross-country flying, night and day. And by that time we were ready to be posted on to a squadron. So we were posted to 12 Squadron at Binbrook. And that’s how I got to 12 Squadron. So was that enough or do you want some more?
PL: Well, what happened next? Once you got to Binbrook. Tell me a little bit about your operations.
HY: Yes. Well, we got to Binbrook as a crew and to [pause] I got into [pause] I was sent to B Flight which was commanded by Squadron Leader Abraham who was a very pleasant chap. And [coughs] my co-pilot who had been a Canadian, he wasn’t, I thought he was a Canadian. He was American actually. My co-pilot whom I picked up at OTU was then, he was detached to go in to another crew and I became co-pilot to Sergeant Potts and we did one or two operations. I did one or two operations with him. The first one I did was supposed to be to Cherbourg as a fresher operation which was one of the Channel Ports. And that was ok except that when we got as far as the south coast of England we started to have trouble with the starboard engine which started to leak glycol vapour. The glycol vapour then became ignited due to the exhaust, the heat of the exhaust. And the engine caught fire and we were trailing a plume of flame about sixty or eighty feet long. And the, the captain who said, who was a very nice bloke actually, Sergeant Potts, he said , ‘We’re going to have to put this thing down somewhere.’ So, it was pitch dark. It was at night and there was a bit of a moon and we, I didn’t know where we were and neither, I suppose neither did he because the navigation had just gone completely out of the window on that side. It was a question of survival. We were too low to bale out. We were only at, on the, over the coast. We were about eight or ten thousand feet. And the, the captain said, ‘We’ve got to go back because the engine’s giving trouble.’ This was before it caught fire. He said, ‘There’s no point in sticking around up here on oxygen. We might as well go down low.’ So we got down to two or three thousand feet by which time the engine had really caught fire. And we started to lose height almost immediately on one engine and we were too low to bale out. Ralph Potts said, ‘I’m going to have to put it down somewhere.’ So eventually we, we did a crash landing in a field by which time the engine was more or less, had more or less subsided. I’d pressed the fire extinguisher button and eventually it took effect. It flooded the engine with foam apparently. I didn’t know that. But I just pressed the button and hoped. Kept my fingers crossed. So, we, we came down in this field and luckily without any undue further mishaps. The engine was still very red hot. And when we hit the field we broke the back of the geodetics which came up through the floor and the aircraft was virtually in two bits. Luckily there was no, no injury to anybody so we all got out the, out of the top escape hatch over the pilot’s seat. And as we got out I was the last one out. I got the rest of the crew out. The captain went out first and I got the crew out by the seat of their pants. Literally pushed them out of the top and they jumped down on to the wing. I was the last one out. As I got out I found that the port engine with having flown on that for so long that was now red hot itself and I thought well that’s going to catch fire so I had to get back in and press the extinguisher button on the port engine. And that was it. We, we all got in to the field and didn’t know where we were. The next thing we knew there was an army corporal came across and said, you know, ‘Are you all ok?’ And we said, ‘Yeah. We’re all walking,’ And I said, ‘Where are we?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re near St Albans.’ So that was news to us. And he helped us over the hedge and the army then took charge of us and said, ‘We’d better get you some billets for the night and get you to a telephone. You can ring your aerodrome, let them know what’s happened.’ So we got the IFF box out of the aircraft. Which was the secret, highly secret in those days, it was a radar tracking appliance which we put on fifty miles from the English coast. We took, sorry we turned that off fifty miles from the English coast going out and put it on a hundred miles from the English coast coming back. And we took that out of the aircraft and put it into the local police station in to the safe. I was billeted in the house with a couple of middle aged ladies and just slept on the floor. There was nowhere else we could go. We got through to the, to Binbrook and let them know that we were, where we were. That we were down and safe and that the aircraft was rather bent. That was about it. We got, we got a meal, a couple of meals at the house. Thanked the ladies very much. And the next morning we got rail warrants to get back to Binbrook. So we had to travel by train from St Albans to London, across London and then from London up to Grimsby. And from Grimsby we got transport to, to Binbrook. And it was a bit, a bit amusing having to go across London on foot and in our flying kit with parachutes. People were looking at us thinking we were enemy spies. But we had, we had quite a nice journey from Kings Cross up to Grimsby. There was, I think there was a business that saw our predicament and didn’t ask many questions but he knew we’d had some trouble. So he took us along to the dining car and gave us a meal which was very kind of him. Anyhow, we got back to Binbrook and resumed activity. That was it.
PL: So, did your, your plane had to be rescued, was that repairable or were you given a new plane?
HY: I think it was. I think it was eventually put together again. And whether it became operational I don’t know but it wasn’t a complete right-off but it was as near as makes no matter [pause] And from then on we, I started in the, I’ve forgotten whose crew it was now. Oh yes it was a Canadian called Harold Cook, who took, took me over with the rest of the crew. My co-pilot, the American whom I thought was a Canadian, Elmer [Menchek?] he went into another crew and I flew with, with Harold Cook. Did a few operations with him which weren’t exactly uneventful but they were survivable. And then I developed, developed stomach trouble. Air sickness. I think it was with the stress of the burning aircraft which we’d had initially. I think that had a lot to do with it. The anti-aircraft fire had a lot more to do with it. And I was being airsick most of the, most of the time. I reported to the MO and he gave me some pills. But I did a few trips with, with these pills and they just didn’t work so I was then grounded. I was sent to Number 1 Group Headquarters at Bawtry Hall just to do a bit of admin as a supernumerary. And from there I went into intelligence. Became an intelligence officer. Did a course at Highgate in London. Got through that. Sent to, they asked me where I wanted to go to. I said well, told them where I lived. As far north as possible. So I got a posting to Linton on Ouse and there was an intelligence officer there for a time with 76 and 78 Squadron which had Halifaxes until I had a difference of opinion with the station commander who was a group captain. Greatly outranked me. He wanted me to do certain other jobs apart from intelligence work. I said, ‘Well, I don’t know how I’m going to fit them in. It’s not possible.’ He didn’t know. He’d just come, come from India. Been posted from India. He was what we called a wingless wonder or a penguin. And he hadn’t a clue about operational flying so as I said we had this difference of opinion. The next thing I knew I was shot out of the station. Posted elsewhere. You couldn’t win an argument with a group captain. It didn’t matter how hard you tried. So then he got rid of me and I was sent out of intelligence in to admin. Posted to [pause] I’m just trying to think of the name of the place now. It was a satellite of Mildenhall. Tuddenham. To assistant adjutant of 90 Squadron at Tuddenham. Which was a very, it was a nice job. It was not connected intimately with flying but it was, we had, we had aircraft on, on the station. That was the main thing. I did a time there and then the bull fell. I was posted to India. I reported to the one of the headquarters in Bombay and they said, ‘Well, you know you’re going to be posted to [pause] it was up in, on the northwest frontier. I said, ‘What’s the rank of the post?’ It was a sergeant who was doing the paperwork. He said, ‘Well it’s a flying officer post.’ And I was a flying officer by that time I’d got a thicker ring. I said, ‘Haven’t you got a flight lieutenant post anywhere?’ I thought I might as well stick my neck out and go the full hog. So he had another look at the paper and said, ‘Oh yes. We have as a matter of fact.’ So [laughs] I got a second ring and I’m just trying to think where I went. My memory is not as good as it was but —
PL: What year was this Harold?
HY: Oh, that was [pause] I think it would have been 1943 or ‘4. One or the other. And I got this flight lieutenant post at Baigachi, near Calcutta. From there I was posted further out east to Penang and I was adjutant of 185 Wing in Penang which was a very pleasant job because Penang is or probably still is the holiday resort of Malaya. And I had a very pleasant time there. It was quite an easy job. We had plenty time of job off. Played cricket. Played rugby. Played soccer. Everything that was going. Did the job as well. And made friends with a family in in George Town which was the, the main town on the island. And then the next thing that was, I think that was the end of my RAF service really because from then I was, I made my own, my own release document out. Being adjutant of 185 Wing I was responsible for moving people around. And I made my own release document out and came back to England and got released from the RAF. And that’s the end of the story.
PL: Well, Harold, just going back a little way. What were you, when you were India flying what what was the —
HY: I wasn’t flying in India.
PL: Oh right. Ok.
HY: No. No I’d been grounded.
PL: Right. Right.
HY: For good by then.
PL: Right.
HY: Had a medical board and been grounded.
PL: Oh right.
HY: Yeah.
PL: Ok. So none of that changed. So what sort of jobs were you doing?
HY: In India?
PL: Yes.
HY: Purely administrative. Movement of personnel. You’re responsible in a way for discipline among the NCOs and airmen which wasn’t a pleasant, it wasn’t an easy, it wasn’t a difficult job because they were all very well behaved. Apart from one bloke who shall be nameless. But they sorted him out quickly. And that was about it. I had plenty of time off and as I say played lots of sport and became quite friendly with as I said a local family who had a very charming daughter. We were quite friendly for a good time until I came home and we lost touch. And that was about it.
PL: And can, can I just take you back to your time in, at Linton when you were doing intelligence work and you left there. What sort of work was that?
HY: Well, that was at, at Linton on Ouse. What sort of work? Well, it was primarily briefing the crews for an operation and interrogating them when they came back. We had a form like you have. We had to ask certain questions. The first one was, ‘Where did you bomb?’ That was the, the target that you briefed them on and incidentally the targets were all military objectives. The aiming points as ours were when I was flying were military objectives. There was no question of deliberately bombing built up areas but we knew that there was now as you say his term collateral. We knew that built up areas were going to be hit. But the briefing was simply hit a certain factory. A main railway station. A GP — the head post office or some important communication centre. And when we came back we had to, they were asked, ‘Where did you bomb? And they always said the primary target which was what we’d briefed them on. ‘What height were you?’ ‘What course were you on?’ ‘How did you identify the target?’ ‘What was the opposition?’ ‘Where were the guns?’ ‘Were there many guns?’ ‘Where were they, where were they based?’ ‘Could you tell me where they were stationed around the target?’ And, ‘How did you identify the target?’ ‘And what was the navigation like?’ ‘What was the weather like?’ ‘What did you determine the wind speed and direction?’ How many, ‘What was the cloud formation?’ ‘How many, how much cloud was there in ten tenths, five tenths?’ Or whatever. And, ‘Did you see any aircraft shot down?’ ‘Could you identify them?’ ‘Where were they?’ ‘What time was it?’ And that was about all I think. So, any questions?
PL: Well, one thing that I always ask is how you felt Bomber Command were treated after the war? Do you have any comments you’d like to make about that?
HY: Yes. I think we became a dirty word. Nobody wanted to know us because we’d done some area bombing. Not, not personally. We knew that we were going to hit built up areas and quite frankly if we couldn’t find the primary target we used to say well we’ll just bomb a built up area if we can find one. And we would do that knowing that the Germans had started it by bombing Rotterdam and by bombing the East End of London fifty odd nights in a row. By bombing Coventry into obliteration. Incidentally, it’s a little aside, when I was in Northampton and they had Sywell posted, billeted out in Northampton with a very nice civilian family. They had a niece who had been in Coventry when it was very heavily bombed and she was staying with them at the time and we became friendly for quite a while ‘til I lost touch again. So as far as built up areas went we knew that the German Air Force had started indiscriminate bombing and our attitude was if we couldn’t find the primary target any built up area would do. We’d bomb any built up area irrespective of where it was as long as it was in enemy territory and it wasn’t in occupied territory which were, you know friendly territory to us. So that, that was the attitude we had about built up areas. There was two things we were, well the thing we were briefed on when we were sent on operations we’d got the primary target which as I say was a military objective — a factory, a railway station, a head post office. We got a primary target in the city. We got a secondary target. If you can’t find that one your secondary target is so and so. And failing all else your alternatives are what was known as SEMO and MOPA. S E M O and M O P A. Self Evident Military Objectives or Military Objectives Previously Attacked. SEMO and MOPA. They were the last resorts. And that was it.
PL: So, we’re just going to stop the tape for the moment.
[recording paused]
PL: Re-commencing tape with Harold Yeoman. So, Harold would you like to tell me a little bit about some of the operations that you were on?
HY: I think the ones that stood out in my mind very clearly were the trips we did to Essen which was the, the city where, in the Ruhr Valley in which Krupps Works was based. And that was the arsenal of the Nazi regime. And I did three trips to Essen altogether. Two of which were within twenty four hours which was a pretty horrific experience. We, the first one we got there at 11 o’clock one night and bombed. We think we bombed the primary. Came back again. I’d reported on the way in when we were approaching Essen I thought well there’s two fires going ahead of us. And I looked. We’d got to pick the correct one. And I worked out that we, we should go to the starboard. Pick the right hand one. That was the proper target. So we did that. When we got back we found that most people had bombed the wrong target which was the left hand fire which was further up the Ruhr Valley. Which was probably no bad thing but it wasn’t what we, the powers that be had said we had to get. So we, we discussed this over breakfast time the next morning and thought well that’s just too bad. We’ll, you know sometime we might get back there. And we thought we were going to have the day off today. Went up to the crew room and found that briefing was at 3 o’clock. So we went back to the, went to the crew room. We got briefed for Essen again and we had to be there by 11 o’clock that night. So that was twice within twenty four hours. And Essen was about the worst target in Germany apart from Berlin which I’d luckily never got to. And we were there within twenty four hours and got away unscathed apart from a few little minor holes. But we lost our own commanding officer on the second raid, Wing Commander Golding, who was a very nice chap. And a Canadian pilot whom I’d come with from Canada on the ship. Met on the ship and we became friends. Flight Sergeant Lowe. He was lost that night too. So we lost two in one night from, from 12 Squadron. Which was a bad blow but that was the thing that happened. That was the way it went. You just had to live with it and get on with it.
PL: And was the target destroyed in that instance?
HY: Well, we never, we never really knew until much later on because the only way we could find out was the, if they sent the, we just called it the PRU Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. They were unarmed Spitfires who went over at about forty thousand feet and took pictures and came back with the photos of the, the target you’d been to. But quite often we didn’t get to know. Occasionally we did, but that was very occasionally. The only, the only place we got to know first-hand was a, really it was an amazing briefing. Really. We’d never imagined that we’d ever get a target which was inside the city of Paris which was declared, virtually declared to be an open city which hadn’t to be attacked, bombed or hadn’t to knock a brick down. But we had a target of the Renault factory and that was in the, the southwest central of the city. The suburb of Billancourt. It was a night attack as all our raids were. They were all night. We didn’t do any daylight raids thank goodness otherwise the casualties would probably have been much heavier, probably Including myself. But this was a night raid and it was at low level which was an unaccustomed thing. We used to be at as high as possible. Usually eighteen thousand to twenty thousand feet was what we aimed at. We usually got that. Sometimes we got a little bit higher than twenty thousand feet but not much. It was a high rate of climb. Anyhow, the Renault factory had to be attacked at low level and it was going to be marked by, and it was marked by flares. A whole lot of flares which were laid by Stirlings which carried a big load. They were four-engined, and they carried quite a huge load. And the Stirlings kept the target marked by means of two rows, parallel rows of flares on either side of the target. All we had to do was find the flares. Fly up the corridor and find the target and drop your bombs and come away. And the opposition was absolutely nil. There was not a gun within range of us. There was one gun firing in Paris. In the, away to the east and it was firing tracer in to the air. At what we never knew. We didn’t care. It was so funny. We were just laughing our heads off at that. They were shooting at nothing and we were at the other side of the city. And we got absolutely no opposition. It was just like taking cake from a baby as they say. So we bombed at about twenty five hundred feet instead of twenty thousand five hundred. We were two thousand five hundred. The height you bombed at was limited by the highest capacity of the bomb that you carried. If you were carrying a four thousand pounder your minimum height was four thousand feet. If you were carrying a one thousand pounder that was your biggest one you could go down as low as a thousand feet. So we split the difference and bombed at two thousand five hundred. And as I say it was, it was just like walking down the street at home. Quite easy. And the target was put out of action for — I think it was nine months. Completely. It was. I’ve seen photos of it. I’ve got them in a book somewhere. And it was absolutely devastated. Unfortunately, we couldn’t help it of course, there was overshoot and undershoot and we killed two or three hundred French civilians. Which was regrettable but we got the message through to say, from the French Resistance to say that how much damage had been done and how many people were killed and said well it’s, that was war. And they were not happy to accept it but they accepted it as one of the risks of war. So these poor French people they paid the price of slight inaccuracies in bombing. Because you dropped your stick of bombs you couldn’t guarantee that every single one was going to hit the target. If you had a, you sometimes carried fourteen two hundred and fifty pound bombs. If you were dropping a stick of fourteen bombs and you were flying at a hundred and eighty miles an hour. Well you can calculate how far apart they were going to be. So if two or three hit the target that was great and the rest were overshoots and undershoots. So that’s about it.
PL: So did you know what was being made at the Renault factory? I mean —
HY: Yes. They were making wheeled vehicles of all sorts for the Germans obviously and to be used on the Russian front. And the Russians were, in those days were our great friends and allies. Supposed to be until we learned differently. There was only one thing they were, they are interested in, or were interested in, that was the Russians. They couldn’t care less about anybody else. Allies or not. But we didn’t know that at the time. Uncle Joe was Uncle Joe and he was great friends, you know. We were all pals together. So we were helping the Russians which we thought was a great thing. That’s what they were doing. Making wheeled vehicles for the Germans to use along the Eastern Front. And as I say production was completely stopped for about eight or nine months. Which is as much as you can expect.
PL: So were there any other raids that you remember Harry that, Harold, that you’d like to talk about?
HY: Well, the, the last one I did was to Cologne which was, I believe the last raid or the last but one before the thousand bomber raid in May of 1942. And that was the last trip I did to, to Cologne which was a brilliant moonlit night. It was a wonderful night really and the target was quite easy to find. We were routed to find the Rhine and we, once we found the Rhine and we flew down it and until we got Cologne in the sights and that was it. That was it. It was quite an easy, an easy one to find. And the trips to Essen were quite hair raising. They were very, very fraught because the opposition was so fierce. I mean it was, there were very few night fighters in those days. I only ever saw two and we got out of there quite smartly but the anti-aircraft fire was intense. And when you’re being shelled by heavy anti-aircraft shells and they’re bombing, they were bursting not very far away from me. You knew all about it. It’s a pretty horrifying experience. It’s one which I wish I [pause] it comes back to me now and again with great clarity. [pause] So that’s about all. Well, as I say at the end of a talk. Any questions?
PL: So, your, your — before you were grounded what was your last, your last trip out before you were grounded?
HY: My last what?
PL: Your last flight out before you were grounded.
HY: That was to Cologne.
PL: That was the Cologne one.
HY: Yeah. That was number fourteen I think. That was my fourteenth trip. And as I say I was being air sick. It started when, when I went to the Paris raid. That was the sixth or seventh trip. That’s when I started having this airsickness and it went on all the rest of the time despite the MOs pills. He said, ‘Well, this can’t go on. We’ll have to stop you flying.’ So, as I say I went to Headquarters 1 Group just as a supernumerary admin officer. I was given six months non-operational flying by the, a medical board in London. And [pause] I was ferrying. That was it. I went on to ferrying from, picking up brand new Wellingtons from a place called Kemble near Cirencester and flying them to Moreton in the Marsh where I was based which was an OTU for pupils who were going to North Africa to join the Desert Air Force. And we picked up, they would ring up in the morning and say, ‘We’ve got —’ one, two, three, maybe four, ‘New aircraft. Come and collect them.’ So the CO would say, ‘Right. You. You. You. Get in the, get in the Anson.’ Be flown up to Kemble and you would say, ‘Well, which one’s mine?’ ‘Oh, that one over there.’ You’d go there. The ground crew would be standing around, they’d say, ‘Would you just sign that,’ and give you a piece of paper. Signing for one brand new Wellington. And you’d get in on your own and just start it up and taxi out and fly back to Moreton in the Marsh and land. And signal. You used signal for transport. We had no radio. We were on our own. It was only a forty mile ride I think. Something like that. And we’d get to Moreton, I’d get to Moreton and signal for transport by pushing the throttles up and down a couple of times to full revs and that told them that you were overhead. You needed something to bring you back to the, back to the flight office.
PL: So were they, were they limited, was there limited equipment in them at that stage?
HY: No. They were fully operational.
PL: Right.
HY: And what —
PL: Apart from the radios.
HY: Well, the radio was there but you were flying. You couldn’t use it. You couldn’t turn it on or off or change the frequency or anything. You just ignored it. But they were handed over to trainee crews at this, this OTU who took the aircraft over and did a certain number of cross-country’s with it and they flew them out to North Africa. That was their first really long flight and it was a long flight. They flew to, from Moreton in the Marsh to Portreath in Cornwall I think. An aerodrome there. From Portreath they flew to Gibraltar. And from Gibraltar to Malta. From Malta to North Africa. And that was the chain that we were part of. Handing these brand new machines over to pupils who flew to North Africa with them.
PL: So Harold is there anything else about your wartime experiences that you’d like to share that perhaps aren’t necessarily to do with operations?
HY: Well, the thing is I still miss is being surrounded by people in uniform. I miss that very much indeed. Even to this day. It comes back to me very clearly at times. I wish there was a crowd of uniforms around me that I could just have a chat to. But incidentally I haven’t mentioned this but when I was sent in to intelligence at Linton on Ouse, the second or third morning I was there. Sat down at the desk. Desk here, telephone there, telephone there and another officer, intelligence office on my left waiting for the, a target to come through. And we had WAAF watchkeepers who act as, virtually they were virtually secret telephone operators. They dealt with all the secret traffic over the telephones can’t you. The second or third morning a WAAFs corporal came in, sat down. I thought I like the look of her. She looks very nice. And finished up dating her. Well, I didn’t date her. I went on a blind date. Somebody arranged a blind date. The girl who arranged it, the WAAF who arranged it said, ‘Would you like to come along?’ I said, ‘Yes. I’ll come along. Where are you going?’ ‘Oh, we’re going to the pub in — ’ not Doncaster. It was a town near Doncaster. Yes. I’ll come along. Who am I taking?’ She said, ‘Oh we’ll find someone very nice for you.’ And it was this WAAF watchkeeper, the corporal watchkeeper and we got on like a house on fire. We chatted away and came back together and I finished up marrying her years later. And that’s her on the mantelpiece.
PL: What a lovely story. So when did you marry?
HY: Well, I, we agreed not to get married until after the war. So I met her in — when was it? 1943 or ‘4.
PL: And how old were you then?
HY: Oh, in, well 1943 I’d be twenty two. And we got married in 1947. Yeah. I got demobbed in ’46 and by the time we got accommodation, that was the big problem, post-war accommodation. My parents and I had to search around here for it and eventually we got a couple of rooms near to where Bill lives now. And we then got, I told Joan that I’d found this and would she like to come up and have a look. So we had a look at them and she said, ‘Yeah. That’s ok.’ I think they weren’t very much. But we got married then. In Guildford where her aunt lived. Her aunt gave us a wedding present as a, got us married and reception etcetera. And I was married at Guildford. We settled down up here. But her home was in Worthing which was a long way but we used to go there on holiday. Spend half the holiday here and half down in Worthing.
PL: So you were demobbed in 1946 and you must have come out of the war thinking, what do I do now?
HY: No. Well I went back to my, my job.
PL: What happened next?
HY: Just, not far from here. A couple of hundred yards from here. I’d been an assistant at the time. Not an inspector. And I went back and just started to study and qualified as a weights and measures inspector and worked, as I say about three hundred yards from where we’re sitting in now. That’s where I met Bill.
PL: And then you’ve had, and that’s where you worked for the rest of your career.
HY: Yes. Yes.
PL: Just stopping the tape again.
[recording paused]
HY: After I was —
PL: Restarting the tape. Sorry Harold.
HY: Yes. After I was grounded my crew continued to fly. They did, I think it was one trip to Hamburg which was a successful one. They got back ok. They did the next trip to Essen. Again that was the bogey target. And they didn’t come back. And they’ve never been found. I’ve made enquiries from the RAF Museum. The RAF Museum at Hendon. And I’ve been over to Amsterdam. Got in touch with the people there who were very interested in RAF history as they used to hear us going over every night as it were. And see if they could do anything to trace them. They put me in touch with, with two people by letter and I’ve been in touch with them to see if there was any possibility of finding out what happened to my crew. But nobody knows anything. They just, they just went missing and they never came back. So all I can assume is that they were damaged in some way and they went down in the North Sea. And that’s the end of that story. No more I can do about it.
PL: You were going to tell me another story about coming back from the French coast, was it? And you saw some lights in the sky.
HY: Oh the glow. Yeah. The single glow. Yeah. When we were going, on the way to Paris we were quite low and just as we crossed the coast I saw a single light ahead. I reported this to the skipper who was flying it. I said, ‘Look. There’s a, I think there’s a fighter ahead. One. It’s a single engine.’ He, he’d got his eye on it and he said, ‘Yeah. I think it is too.’ So we flew on for a bit. I said, ‘We’re not losing him. He’s going the same direction as us.’ So he said, ‘Well, ok. Let’s alter course a bit.’ So we altered course to try and get out of his way and then resumed flying and he was, the glow was still there. In a couple of minutes I said, ‘Do you know that it is?’ I said, ‘That’s the target.’ And we could see the target burning virtually from the French coast. This was the one I’ve told you about. The Renault factory. I said, ‘That’s the,’ so and so, ‘Target. Just aim for that.’ So we just, we just went for that and it was. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. And we got there and we found the whole place was in flames. It was quite, quite an experience. I’d forgotten about that.
PL: Good heavens. And then just another thing we’ve talked about. When you were — leaping all the way back to Penang, you had an experience there where you were involved with a court case.
HY: Yes.
PL: With a local.
HY: Yes. A message came through to my CO. I was his adjutant then. And it came through and he came to me. He said, ‘Look they had the Judge Advocate General’s Department on the phone through our headquarters and they want three officers to sit on a court to try a local man who has been collaborating with the Japanese.’ And he said, ‘They want [pause] they want an army officer,’ who was in charge, a major who was in charge. ‘They want an army captain and they want an RAF officer,’ And he said, ‘You’re it.’ He said, ‘You’re sitting on the court case.’ So. It lasted about a fortnight. We sat there every day. We had to take it all down in longhand. Everything that was said. My hands at the finish were just absolutely useless. We tried this collaborator who was a chap called Carlile da Silva. He was Eurasian and he’d been collaborating with the Japanese and giving them information as to who the English sympathisers were and they’d be sorted out and taken away and tortured and killed and goodness knows what. And he had a very bad history like that. And of course after the war his number was virtually up because people came to us and said, ‘Hey. Get hold of Carlisle de Silva. He’s the man who was betraying you to the Japs.’ So he was arrested and put on trial. And it was very interesting, the trial. They got all the evidence from the various witnesses as to the connections with him. What had happened. What had happened to them. And we had to have, I think it was three interpreters because the, while the locals on by and large spoke some English, some of them very good English but the witnesses were sort of ordinary, ordinary Penang citizens. And some were Indian, some were Chinese and some were Malays. And we had to have interpreters for the three different. In fact the Chinese had two interpreters because some spoke Mandarin and some spoke, most of them spoke Hokkien which was the North China dialect. The North Chinese dialect. So, we had to have four interpreters to interpret the, what they were saying. Or interpret the questions to them and they would answer in their language and that would be interpreted back into English to us and we’d take it all down. And as I say the trial lasted about a fortnight and eventually we found him guilty and he was sentenced to a certain number of years of rigorous hard labour. Which I’m told involved picking up heavy stones and carrying them about twenty yards. Putting them down. Then picking them up again and carrying them back. Until they dropped with fatigue. That was the rigorous hard labour. No more than he deserved because most of them deserved to be put up against the wall but that wasn’t on the cards. But it was, that was an interesting experience being, there was a Major Blacklock I think was the chairman and there was myself and an army captain. The last morning I was a bit disturbed when I, when we were all the three of us came in and sat down on this dais with a desk and the public were admitted to all the proceedings. It was all open. And the last morning when we were going to pronounce sentence and telling him what was going to happen to him the door opened at the back and four or five locals came in and I just didn’t like the look of them. I thought they were pals of the defendant. They were going to probably throw a bomb or a hand grenade or something. So I reported it to the, the major, I said, ‘Look. I don’t like the look of those bods who’ve just came through the door, I said, ‘Can you do something about them?’ So he said, ‘Oh yeah. We’ll see to that.’ So he just got on the phone and the next thing we got a few military policemen came in and just gave them the once over and they were ok actually. They were just local civilians who, who had attended but they had a very suspicious look about them to me. So Carlisle de Silva got eight to ten years rigorous hard labour. Lucky to get away with it I think. But we couldn’t —
PL: Did you ever hear what happened to him after that? Did he survive —
HY: No idea.
PL: The —
HY: No. No idea. He just, it was published in the local paper. In the Penang Times Herald I think it was. I think I’ve got the cutting somewhere. All colourful stuff.
PL: Which leads us neatly to —
HY: Pardon?
PL: Which leads us neatly to your story about the filming of, “The Wooden Horse.”
HY: Oh yes. The local newsagent had an assistant then. A girl assistant. And I used to go in there quite frequently to get a newspaper, magazines or whatever. We became quite friendly and she knew, she was interested in in RAF wartime activities. And do you know I had long, long talks to her. She came here, had a cup of coffee. And when I watched, I watched a film on the box called, I think it was, “The Wooden Horse,” and to my astonishment one of the characters was my own flight commander from 12 Squadron and he was playing the part of the adjutant of a particular unit. And he was completely recognisable. I recognised him instantly. I said, ‘Oh that’s Squadron Leader Abraham.’ So I told this girl who had a very knowledgeable friend about film matters and he was a film photographer himself and he knew all about taking stills of programmes. So he got the still I made I got for her to tell her all about it. And she came and had a look at the, at the recording I had made and she said, ‘Oh, I can get, get a still made of Squadron Leader Abraham’s picture.’ So she did and I’ve got that on the wall behind me. So I’ve got my own flight commander in the room as it were.
PL: Did you ever find out how he got involved with that?
HY: Pardon?
PL: Did you ever find out how he got involved?
HY: No. I didn’t actually. He did change his name from Abraham to Ward apparently. I got to know that through a fellow survivor who I was very friendly with on the squadron who unfortunately lived in Kent. I’ve only seen him twice since the war. But we always talked about, you know the B Flight at Binbrook and Squadron Leader Abraham. He told me that he had a rich relative, an aunt I think who said she would leave him quite a lot of money as long as he changed his name to hers. And he changed his name to Ward. So he became Squadron Leader Ward. But he was from, I think it was Kidderminster. I never saw him after the war at all but I met this friend of mine from B Flight. He was an observer in, in Abraham’s crew actually. Eric [Foynet?] I met, met him a couple of times or three times since the war, in London and I’ve lost touch with him now. I think he must have died. He was a bit older than me. But a very good friend of him. And that’s about it.
PL: Well, Harold, thank you so much for sharing your fascinating stories with us.
HY: I’m glad you found it so. It was quite ordinary to me but obviously to someone else it might be more interesting than I found it.
PL: Extraordinary. Thank you very much indeed.
HY: Oh, you’re very very welcome. I’m glad to have been of help.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AYeomanHT161013
Title
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Interview with Harold Yeoman
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:11:49 audio recording
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-10-13
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Yeoman volunteered for the RAF hoping to become an air gunner and was surprised to find he would be trained as a pilot. He describes a crash landing in a Wellington returning from an operation to Cherbourg and being sent to Essen twice within twenty four hours. After several operations with 12 Squadron he was removed from operational flying due to air sickness and became a ferry pilot. His original crew went on to do more operations without him before they were lost.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
India
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
France--Paris
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1940-12-24
1942
1943
1944
12 Squadron
76 Squadron
78 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
crewing up
Flying Training School
ground personnel
Harvard
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
love and romance
medical officer
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
pilot
promotion
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Kemble
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Sywell
RAF Torquay
RAF Tuddenham
recruitment
sport
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/122/3534/ATaitJT160610.2.mp3
9f0edd1b79ed6f88dccec2e22a8097de
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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Tait, John
John Tait
J T Tait
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Thomas Tait (1923 - 2019, 175522 Royal Air Force), his service and release book and four photographs. John Tait flew 34 operations with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe as a wireless operator / air gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Tait and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-10
Identifier
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Tait, JT
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by [name of the lender] and catalogued by [name of the cataloguer].
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MC: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is John Tait and the interviewer is Mike Connock. The interview is taking place at the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archives at Riseholme College on Friday 10th June 2016. Also present at the interview are Alan Tait, Mrs Beryl Tait and Ken Tait. OK John, what I want you to do is just tell me a bit about um, when and where you were born for a start.
JT: Well I was born in America in Helena, Montana and my mother was English and my Dad was Scottish. Anyway my mum had had enough of travelling abroad so she wanted to come home. So when I was five she brought me to England and that was fine. Took a while to get used to people, people getting used to me actually. But anyway, when the war started we —
MC: Yeah, go on John, it’s just, what did your parents do? What was —
JT: My dad was, he was a retired cattle farmer and my mother was a retired school teacher.
MC: So how old were you when you came to —
JT: I was five.
MC: Five.
JT: Five, yes.
MC: So you started school in the UK?
JT: I started school in the UK, yeah.
MC: And that was? What year were you born?
JT: 1923.
MC: 1923, yes. So this would be ’28 when you came to us.
JT: It was, yes.
MC: And, so what about school days in those days, what was that like?
JT: Well school days, well I went to a local school, I didn’t start until I was six but it was very good, a local school, I enjoyed it and then when I was eleven I went up to, oh hell where did I go, oh God, isn’t it awful. Temple Road Central Boys School in Birkenhead. It was a secondary school and I went there and very good, I was accepted even though I was from the outer districts because they were nearly all lads from the city. But we got on ok, I did very well. In fact I played football for their team, but anyway I went to school there ‘til I was fourteen and then I took me O levels, except they weren’t O levels then but it were whatever. Anyway then I went to work in an office to train as a cost accountant, me dad knew someone who had an office and he would train — so I went to train as a cost accountant. Anyway, when the war broke out I was eighteen years of age and I didn’t like being in an office all day so I volunteered for the RAF.
MC: What made you choose the RAF?
JT: Well there were two pals of mine, lived in the same road as me and they were both wireless operator air gunners and neither of them came back, they both lost their life. One was Derek Jones and the other was Bob Christie, Bob Christie, yeah. They both lost their lives as it happened, but I was the only one of the three that came back. But anyway I volunteered for the RAF —
MC: So that was when you were eighteen?
JT: Eighteen yes.
MC: Oh right.
JT: I went to Padgate for six weeks, square bashing and then we went to Black — [pause] While I was there I volunteered for air crew and um, I went to Blackpool on a wireless operators air gunners course.
MC: Hmm.
JT: I forget how long it was but anyway I did a tour there and then I went to Stormy Down to do an air gunners course and then I qualified for that and I was posted to a place called Bruntingthorpe which, where they trained lads straight from school
MC: Was that an operational training unit?
JT: Pardon?
MC: Operational training unit?
JT: Operational training, yep. So I —
MC: Do you remember which one it was?
JT: Bruntingthorpe.
MC: Bruntingthorpe.
JT: Bruntingthorpe yep. RAF Bruntingthorpe yeah. Anyway, I did me tour there and the next thing was to go to a higher, err, higher course for wireless operators up north. So I went up there and while we were there they were sorting out the air gunners. Well I got picked to go down to Stormy Down to do a six week air gunners course, which I did and I enjoyed. Anyway, having finished that we then went to Market Harborough, I think. And the skipper was there . Dougie Milligan came round, he was picking his crew for the Anson.
MC: And that was where you crewed up, at Market Harborough?
JT: That’s were I got picked by Dougie Milligan to go with him, yeah. That’s right. We went, we did, we went from there to —
MC: Market Harborough, that would have been the OTU I suspect.
JT: Sorry?
MC: Was the Operational Training Unit at Market —
JT: That was, the OTU at Market Harborough, OTU, it was yeah. And we went from Market Harborough to um, —
MC: Can I just interrupt you there. Um, at Market Harborough was that just the five crew?
JT: We hadn’t got, yes it was. We hadn’t got a full crew then.
MC: Because that was on, oh, what aircraft was that?
JT: It was on Wellingtons.
MC: Wellingtons, yeah.
JT: Because we were on Wellingtons yeah. Anyway, we picked up a oh, um, bit of a gunner [?] I think there.
MC: And a flight engineer?
JT: And that’s what we did. We were on Wellingtons. We hadn’t got a flight engineer, [coughs).
MC: Where did you pick those up?
JT: Picked them up at Market Harborough, picked two up at Market Harborough.
MC: Oh you did pick them up at Market Harborough did you?
JT: We didn’t pick the [pause] flight engineer, we picked him up later because they hadn’t got flight engineers on Lancs. But anyway, as it happened when he joined us and we went to um, from there to, oh, somewhere in North Lincoln, I don’t know. Oh I know, we went to go on Stirlings, that’s right at Scampton. We went to Scampton.
BT: Oooh.
JT: That’s right. And the skipper converted on to Stirlings and we picked up a, oh, [pause]
MC: Flight engineer?
JT: Flight engineer.
MC: Yup.
JT: And his name was Jimmy James and he came from Liverpool, funnily enough but he was a good lad. He’d been, he came from South Africa actually. He’d been a mechanic out there for years, he was, and he wanted to join air crew to bring him back home to train so he joined us and they brought him back to train as a flight engineer which he was delighted and he was with us until the end of our tour.
MC: So was that at a Lancaster finishing school or a conversion unit?
JT: Oh yes, it was Stirlings, Lancs finishing school yeah.
MC: Yeah, oh yeah, it was a heavy conversion unit.
JT: It was a conversion school.
MC: Yeah, yep, hmm.
JT: They were horrible things, big [laughter]the Stirling but we flew quite a lot of trips, not operations but flights. And then we went from having completed our course on Stirlings, we then went to [pause] we went on the squadron, that’s right.
MC: Did you not, you must have gone and converted from Stirlings to Lancasters?
JT: We converted to Lancasters, we didn’t convert to Lancs until we got to the squadron.
MC: Oh didn’t you?
JT: No I don’t think so. I’m just trying to think —
MC: You went to the Lancaster Finishing School I think, was that, um did you not go to —
JT: It was Scampton [unclear] converted on to Lancasters at Scampton, that’s right, yes we did, yeah. And err, that was when our crew was formed, we’d got a full crew.
MC: Yep.
JT: [pause] I’m sorry if it’s a bit bitty.
MC: Oh no, no it’s not. It’s fine, it’s no problem and so you got, so um, I mean up until then you got posted to your squadron but all the crew was made up.
JT: That’s right. There was, Dougie Milligan picked us up from, originally from Bruntingthorpe, that was it. [pause]
MC: Just going back slightly, back to when you joined up, um, as a teenager what was life like growing up just before the war. I’m sorry to have —
JT: It was fine, well I used to, I enjoyed football, I played a lot of football but of course when the war started we were classed as aliens.
MC: Oh!
JT: Because I was an American citizen, and we used to have to report to the police station once a month and that’s why I said ‘blow this I’m going to join the RAF’ so I did. [laughter] Yeah.
MC: So having been to the err, operation training unit, conversion unit, you were then posted to err, —
JT: Skellingthorpe
OTHER: Skellingthorpe, 50 Squadron.
JT: Yeah, that’s right.
MC: Can you remember arriving at Skellingthorpe, much about the station?
JT: Aah, we thought it was a bit out in the wilderness but err, yeah, we did no it was great, when you‘ve got a crew around you, you were quite happy.
MC: Yeah by that time they’d got the concrete runways and things like that.
JT: Oh yes, that’s right.
MC: Hmm, yeah. So, can you remember much about your first operation, all your operations, your first one for instance?
JT: No.
MC: Did it not stick with you.
JT: Doesn’t ring a bell. As I say, I did thirty three all with Dougie Milligan and I did one as a spare bod with a skipper named Mike, oh Pete Stockwell.
MC: What was his name? Pete?
JT: Peter Stockwell. He was a flight sergeant, he’d gone with me from Skellingthorpe to there, to train and they didn’t just trust him on Wellingtons so they put him on the Stirling. He would fly, flying a fighter, that’s right flying Spitfires 'til he pranged one and they told him to get off the squadron and get back to the squadron so he asked me would I go back with him and I said ‘of course I would’. So we formed another crew up and that was it.
MC: I mean you did some hairy operations. Does anything stand out in particular?
JT: Um, no, err, [pause].
OTHER: You said that, you know —
JT: The Ruhr Valley was the worst.
MC: Rurh, yeah, yeah [unclear]
OTHER: Well some of the operations you did were, you know, you did Munich –
JT: Pardon?
OTHER: You did Munich didn’t you?
JT: That was the longest, the longest trip was Munich I think.
OTHER: Yeah, Munich.
OTHER: Did you do Berlin?
JT: No.
OTHER: Yes, at the time, ‘cos at the time you were joining it was the lead up, leading up to D-Day.
JT: That’s right.
MC: So you would, did you do some, you obviously did some invasion support operations?
JT: Well we did some in France, we did a few trips in France, that’s right, that’s right yeah.
MC: Yeah, so the actual raids themselves you don’t remember much about?
JT: The operations? No. Ah, well —
MC: How did you feel, I mean did you err, —
JT: Probably scared stiff to start with, but err, —
MC: Yeah.
JT: But you got used to
MC: That’s what I’m trying to get at, you know, how did you —
JT: That’s right the first trip I always remember the first trip. I can’t remember where it was but I couldn’t believe it and I looked out of my rear window and I could see the fires down below and I said to Jimmy Marlow, ‘Jim come and have a look’. ‘Not bloody likely’ he said, ‘I’m sitting here’ and he was sitting on the table drinking his tea. He wouldn’t have a look out of the window.
MC: And Jimmy Marlow was the?
JT: He was the, he was the navigator.
MC: The navigator, yes.
JT: He was a sergeant or a flight sergeant then. Yeah. He’d worked for the Air Ministry and he wanted to get a commission so they could give him a position to go back to, when he went back from the RAF. Which he got in the end.
MC: So I, I gather Doug Milligan was a good skipper then?
JT: Oh, Dougie, yes.
MC: He got you through thirty three operations.
JT: He was dead on, he really was, he was.
MC: And you all had a good crew, you all got on well.
JT: Very good. We were lucky with the crew.
MC: Yeah, what about —
JT: We lost our rear gunner for a while at the end because he got frostbite and he was invalided out of the RAF and we got another, just for a couple of trips, but err, yeah we got on great.
MC: Yeah, what about socialising in the area round Lincoln?
JT: Oh.
MC: Don’t give too much away.
JT: You know Lincoln was a wonderful place to socialise, people were so friendly, it was great, they really were.
MC: You used to go out most evenings?
JT: Most evenings we’d be down the pub, local pub. In fact there was one night we were all out on the booze and they decided to put an op on and they sent the RAF Police round Lincoln calling for all members of 50 Squadron to come back and we went back to the squadron but we, some of them were half canned. Dougie Milligan wouldn’t bother, well he wasn’t a great drinker. He liked a drink but he wasn’t a great drinker, but the rest of us were [laughter].
MC: [laughter] you made full use of the local hostelries.
JT: That’s right, there’s a lot of nice people in Lincoln.
MC: So what, which, where did you used to go? Can you remember?
JT: I can’t remember the name of the pub. There was a pub down the road from Skellingthorpe and there was a lady there, she invited us in one night. Her husband works, he was working away, working on a job or something and she had two or three daughters or nurses who visited and she invited us to join them for a party one night and um, the night they put the operation off we were in Lincoln, she was sat in the back kitchen with me feeding me coffee to sober me up before we went back [laughter]. She was great, a lovely lady and she was, oh what was her name? No, it’s gone. She was lovely, the people were lovely they really were.
MC: So you got around in Lincoln?
JT: Oh yeah, no complaints
MC: Yes. It’s err, you were a wireless operator?
JT: Wireless operator, yes.
MC: Can you, I mean [pause] so you was a WOP air gunner, so I mean I gather you had your 21st birthday while you was on the squadron?
JT: Oh yes.
MC: So um, how did you celebrate that?
JT: [laughter] down the pub [laughter].
MC: [laughter] So they looked after you did they on your 21st?
JT: Oh yeah, had a fabulous time.
MC: So what did you get up to on that then? Anything special?
JT: Nothing, well apart from going for a drink in the pub, that’s about it, that’s all we did anyway.
MC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JT: We hadn’t got enough money to go buying it or wining and dining but we went for a pint, yeah.
MC: Can you remember much about your C — Commanding Officer? Whoever your CO was?
JT: I’ll tell you who he was, not the Commanding Officer. Marshall of the Royal Air Force, Sir Mike Beetham.
MC: Uhuh.
JT: He, I think he was a flight lieutenant on our squadron and he was a flight lieutenant a very, B Flight, no sorry, I was on B, he was on A Flight. Yeah, Mike Beetham was on A Flight. He was a great bloke, very approachable, very pleasant chap.
MC: Did you know any of his crew?
JT: Well I did at the time but I don’t now. But —
MC: Sir Michael Beetham, so as I say, Reg Payne was Michael Beetham’s wireless operator. So you may know him.
JT: Oh well that’s somebody I’d perhaps recognise.
MC: How’s your morse these days then?
JT: Sorry?
MC: How’s our morse these days, morse code?
JT: I haven’t done any, dit dah dah. I can do it though.
MC: I’m sure you can.
JT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah. So you, obviously you finished your tour, you say you did thirty three?
JT: I did thirty three and then I stayed on, we were all, the crew was then dispersed, they was —
MC: Yeah?
JT: And I stayed on and did one trip with Pete Stockwell.
MC: Yeah? [pause] Yeah, and then where did you go from there?
JT: We went from there to um, I think we went to Market Harborough with Pete Stockie.
MC: Back to Market Harborough.
JT: Yep. He was told to get himself a crew and get back on the squadron, he was a bit of a lad was Pete, [laughter] flight lieutenant [laughter] but we have got a [unclear]
MC: So he finished up as a flight lieutenant then did he?
JT: Pete did.
MC: Yeah?
JT: Yeah. Well, our navigator Barney, he was a navigator with Pete, he was a flight lieutenant too. But we were, the rest of us were senior NCOs, yep.
MC: So how long were you at Market Harborough then on the OTU?
JT: Probably, maybe a year, a couple of years.
MC: As long as that?
JT: Well what they did, they asked, 35 Squadron was formed to do formation flying, twelve Lancs in formation and we were on that, Pete Stocky was on that so we went with him, formation flying. We used to do all over the country and then we went to America to celebrate Army Air Corps Day. We did six weeks tour in the States formation flying.
MC: So that would have been in ’45 then?
JT: That would be yeah, maybe ’46 I don’t know.
MC: How long were you over there?
JT: A long time ago.
MC: You was over there a long time?
JT: Well six weeks. We did six weeks.
MC: You enjoyed that?
JT: We started off in New York, went right down to the south coast and round about. We were the first crew to fly over the White House. They allowed aircraft to fly over the White House and the Lancs flew over there. But, oh we had a six weeks tour [unclear]
MC: And that was with 35 Squadron?
JT: 35 Squadron. We were entertained, taken to Hollywood, we were entertained in Hollywood shown the people doing the rehearsals and acting. We had a wonderful time really. Couldn’t, couldn’t do any wrong. [laughter] We came back and I asked to do me time after that. I only had about a fortnight to do when we came back. I got demobbed and that was it. But we had a wonderful time.
MC: So when were you demobbed?
JT: Uh —
MC: Because you stayed in —
JT: Before, I signed up for six months. I didn’t actually do the full six months I don’t think. They let me out early. I forget now to be honest.
OTHER: Indeed, probably late ’45.
MC: Yeah. So having come out the Air Force, what did you after the Air Force then?
JT: I needed a job obviously. I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to be a cost accountant, there was no way. And a pal of mine worked for McAlpines, he was in the office at Sir Alfred McAlpines so I got a job, he got me a job in the office Sir Alfred McAlpines and I started there off as a [pause] stationery assistant then I was posted, I got asked to go out on site, I became a timekeeper then I became office manager and then became an area office manager and then while I was doing that I was doing a lot of the work that surveyors were doing and the chief surveyor said to me ‘John,’ he said ‘why don’t you take up surveying?’ he said, ‘you know more than these buggers’. So I applied and I went to the college of building for about six years I think, five years and I studied to be a quantity surveyor and became a chartered surveyor and I finished up my time in Cheshire County, yes I worked for Chester City, Cheshire County.
MC: So when did you meet Beryl then?
JT: Oh, I met Beryl way back, that was when —
BT: [laughter] Ah, when was that? I was —
JT: Where was I working then?
BT: Seventeen or eighteen, whenever that was because I’m eighty five on Sunday.
JT: Aye, that’s not good. Where were you, you were working at McKagan Barnes (?) weren’t you?
BT: Sorry?
JT: You were working at McKagan Barnes (?)
BT: Yeah, and I was in the accountants office.
JT: She was training in the accountant’s office.
MC: So that, you met before the war?
JT: Sorry?
MC: You met before the war?
JT: Oh, no.
BT: Oh no, after that.
MC: After the war?
BT: I used to see him very often going back off leave in his RAF uniform and I used to think, oh he looks alright and you know, [laughter] not realising I’d end up marrying you [laughter]. But um, no we just met virtually at a dance at the local dance hall.
JT: That’s right.
MC: Yes.
BT: He came in, we spent that whole night dancing. I was going out with the drummer in the band and I said to — when John said ‘can I take you home?’ and I said ‘well, see the chap playing the drums, he is my boyfriend so you’d better come with me to tell him’. So he did and, told him and I got a phone call from the chap the next day and he said ‘I can’t believe you did that’. I said, ‘well I’m sorry’ I said, ‘I’ve now met somebody else so we’ll just have to call it a day’.
MC: You must have been a bit of a lad in those days.
BT: I thought, well I could have just —
JT: I was a bit of a lad.
BT: I could have just walked out but I thought no, I’ll do the right thing and tell him.
JT: Thank you.
BT: And the fact that he didn’t like it well, you know [laughter].
OTHER: [unclear]
MC: Going back to the operational times.
JT: Well once you, sitting there with a [unclear] the searchlight picked you up as you went in and the skipper had to do evasive action which was climb and roll and—
MC: Corkscrew.
JT: and climb and roll. That happened on many operations.
MC: Yeah.
JT: But it was something you used to —
MC: Any close mishaps with other aircraft then?
JT: Oh, aye. Many a time. [laughter]. And our foreign friends but err —
MC: So you, you had a few escapades with some fighters then?
JT: Yep.
MC: Yeah. And managed to get away unscathed?
JT: That’s right.
MC: Obviously a good skipper.
JT: Thanks to the skipper. Yep, that’s right. Oh yes every, there was always other things with somebody on one of the ops.
MC: Did you always get them back to base at the same, you know?
JT: Yeah we did, we always got back, we, the last time we were, aah, the skipper was advised to make a landing in the South of England and we agreed. We were going on leave the next day so we said ‘come on we’ll give it a go’, so we went back and we got back and when we got back one of the aircraft engines packed up as we landed but err, the skipper got a remand for it. No we were cheering. Yeah. There were all kinds of little incidents but they were well, sort of part of the daily routine, or night routine.
MC: For you, yes.
JT: It was.
MC: [laughter] So, yeah, I mean it’s, you talked about it, I mean you say there were lots of incidents. Can you remember other incidences? Did you ever get diverted coming back, apart from that one incident when you didn’t go back?
JT: I think that’s the only occasion, which we didn’t — What they did, they sent a fighter out from Tangmere, which we ignored [laughter] and went back anyway, but err, that’s the only time.
MC: You ignored the fighter. What was he there to do?
JT: Pardon?
MC: What was the fighter from Tangmere there to do?
JT: It was a, oh bloody hell, I don’t know.
MC: No, what, why did they send him out?
JT: To guide us into Tangmere.
MC: Aaahh.
JT: But we didn’t take any notice. We went back, yeah. What was it, I forget the aircraft now, I knew it —
MC: So you never got any problems with coming back in bad weather, to Skellingthorpe then?
JT: Oh we did have rough times. From time to time you came in you could hardly land because of the weather but we made it. We’d got a good skipper in Dougie Milligan, he really was. He was a, he wasn’t, he was just going for it as much as I should have been, but err, he was on the ball and a good skipper.
MC: Yeah. So the flight engineer, he was?
JT: Oh Jimmy James was a great lad, oh yeah.
MC: A name like Jimmy James? [laughter]
JT: Yes, well he had a garage in Liverpool and I tried to find out about him and I found out about a week after he died. I used to belong the Aircrew Association, I think it was. And I asked them to fish out for any documents and they said the only one we’ve got is Jimmy James and he died a week ago and he was our flight engineer. Our bomb aimer, the one I would like to get in touch with is Ronnie Pugh, ‘cos Ronnie Pugh came to our house. In fact there’s a picture of him at our house, he came to our house, he was a great lad was Ronnie. He was a professional pianist before the war, he played for Maurice Winnick and wherever we went, on the piano, we always had a gang round together. [laughter] No problems with drinking with him.
MC: So, he was the navigator you say?
JT: He was the bomb aimer.
MC: What about the navigator?
JT: Jimmy, was very —
MC: Jimmy, this was Jimmy James, no Jimmy James was the flight engineer.
JT: Marlow. He was one of two who were married. He was married, a lovely wife, a young lady. He’d just got married and she came with us a couple of times, not on train journeys, elsewhere, and Jimmy, he never came out a lot. He didn’t go on the binge like us so much but he was a great bloke, Jimmy. He, he was the one who worked for the Air Ministry before the war and he wanted to get a commission so it would stand him in good stead when he got demobbed. But he did get it just before we finished, he did get one. He was only a, Robbie Pugh already had one, he was a pilot officer when he joined us.
MC: And your mid upper? That was —
JT: Jock Bryman [?] he was a flight sergeant.
MC: Yeah.
JT: Big Scotsman, a canny lad. [laughter]
MC: You don’t know what he did before the war?
JT: No I haven’t got a clue.
MC: No, no. And in the tail, rear gunner?
JT: Johnny Austin, but I don’t know what he did before the war but he got frostbite and he was invalided out of the RAF, Johnny Austin was. We had a spare gunner for a couple of trips, I think.
MC: Did you, [unclear] did you know much about 50 Squadron when you were posted there? Had they told you much? Did you know of it?
JT: No, I didn’t know anything about it at all. Not the slightest, no. It was a good squadron, and I’ll tell you what, we had a good mob.
MC: Hm. [pause] Yeah, as I say, you talked about your birthday, and so your raid on your birthday was that railway junction.
JT: Yes, well I sort of [unclear]
MC: You couldn’t celebrate it in the air could you eh? Or did you?
JT: No, no, no we didn’t.
MC: [laughter] A successful operation though, um. So you probably, so I mean, it wasn’t um, it wasn’t 16th April you were on operations?
JT: We must have gone down the pub.
MC: So you must have been down the pub.
JT: We would do, yes.
MC: That’s a good excuse, but you didn’t need an excuse in those days.
JT: [laughter] Hardly.
MC: So I mean, if, if I guess you’re looking at your first tour was um, your first operation even was er, was marshalling yards at Tours.
JT: That’s right. I don’t rem — I remember going to the marshalling yards but I don’t know where it was. That’s when I got Jimmy Marlow to try again to get him to look out of the window but he wouldn’t look. He said ‘no fear’.
MC: And then you did the GVC, UVC marshalling yards, you did lots of the marshalling yards?
JT: That’s right. [noise of door closing]
MC: Even Paris, even, your third trip was to Paris.
JT: I don’t remember that.
MC: Marshalling again, marshalling yards.
OTHER: There you go, that was, was that leaflet dropping you were saying you were doing at the time? That’s the one, that‘s the Paris trip.
JT: Paris, yeah.
OTHER: ‘Cos you went from [unclear] Paris and then you went, started, you seemed to go to Germany and Munich.
JT: [unclear]
OTHER: [unclear]
JT: But I was in the Ruhr Valley.
MC: You went to Cologne?
JT: Oh yes and somewhere else, I forget.
MC: Cologne and —
JT: Two or three trips to the Ruhr Valley. Yep, they were always a bit hairy.
MC: Yeah, because of low level defence —
JT: The thing was you’ve got a battery of searchlights and the second you got near to them, the searchlights were on you and you were dodging the searchlights all the way through.
MC: Did you, I mean did you get hit, you never got hit any time by flak?
JT: Sorry?
MC: Did you get hit any time by flak?
JT: I think we did but err, nothing to, well nothing to put us off keeping going.
MC: Yeah.
JT: Although that was, always took the length of the runway. According to the skipper you had to hold it down to make it, take itself off.
MC: It took a while to get off with a full load?
JT: It did yeah.
OTHER: So that would have been, you know especially if you had long trips, with a full fuel load as well.
JT: That’s right he would hold it down to the end of the runway to make it fight to get off, yeah.
OTHER: Is this a —
JT: Poor old Johnny who was in the rear turret was wondering when he was going to leave the deck. [laughter]
MC: Were there many times when you came back —
JT: Yes we did get a recall once.
MC: You had to bring the bomb load back?
JT: . We had to go out to the North Sea, there was a dumping area out in the North Sea, we used to have to go and dump them there and we’d say ‘ah flippin’ heck’. Or sometimes you’d get a hang up with a bomb and in theory you still had to go out to the North Sea but in honesty, disconnect the camera, get rid of it [laughter]. We didn’t do it that way, we did go sometimes but sometimes we didn’t.
MC: What sort of dumping area, you dumped it elsewhere?
JT: We’d just disconnect the camera, pull the toggle and away we’d go [laughter]and put the camera back on [laughter] get a picture of cloud.
MC: Yeah, yeah [laughter] So did you have to bring many bomb loads back did you?
JT: Sorry?
MC: Did you have to bring many loads back or was there —
JT: We never brought one back, only, we dumped one but we never ever brought any back.
MC: Oh you always dumped them?
JT: Yeah, yeah.
MC: What sort of bomb load was it you were carrying?
JT: Probably thousand pounders, [unclear] in cans. Four thousand pounders with cans.
MC: Four thousand.
JT: Four thousand pounders with the cans, well, a load of thousand pounders with the, oh bloody hell what are they called, not flares. Oh I can’t think.
MC: Incendiaries?
JT: What you say?
MC: Incendiaries?
JT: That’s right.
MC: Yeah, yeah and were there many mishaps, did you experience any mishaps?
JT: Pardon?
MC: Did you experience any mishaps at Skellingthorpe while you were there you know?
JT: No we didn’t actually, we didn’t get any hang ups, no.
MC: No, I meant did you have any accidents at Skellingthorpe or anything like that?
JT: Aahh, not that I can recall.
MC: So what did you personally think about the bombing raids then, about the —
JT: I thought they were a great success really.
MC: Yeah. And the morality of it, what did you think about that?
JT: I think Bomber Harris had it right. The only thing was he put a raid on once, I think Winston Churchill insisted and they lost a lot of aircraft that night but err, I thought they did a good job.
MC: Were you on that raid?
JT: No.
OTHER : That would be Nuremburg?
JT: Yep, That’s ninety six or ninety five.
MC: Yeah.
JT: Yeah, well that wasn’t going to go ahead but Churchill insisted that it did and we lost ninety six aircraft that night.
MC: Hmm, yeah.
JT: I mightn’t have been here now. [laughter]
MC: You didn’t do Dresden then?
JT: We’d finished.
MC: What did you think about Dresden then, you were aware of the Dresden raid?
JT: Well, it’s hard to say really. We never had to encounter the problems they had when they got there so we don’t know. I mean they said it was a walkover[?] for them. In fact a pal of mine who was a navigator in another squadron said he didn’t like, he regretted it said he was ashamed of going there but having said that and he came back but some people didn’t so it’s all right talking if you got back. Yeah. That was Ken Boxon, [?] Ken went to Dresden yeah.
MC: So what did you think about the way Harris was treated after the war?
JT: Sorry?
MC: What did you think about the way that Harris was treated after the war?
JT: I thought he had a very despicable treatment. I think for what he did during the war I think it was a crying shame. If it hadn’t been for him Bomber Command wouldn’t have been the force they were, I thought he was great.
MC: Good for Bomber Command.
JT: Absolutely, he was yeah, Butcher Harris. [laughter] But he didn’t get the justice he deserved.
MC: Yeah. And did you get your clasp, Bomber Command Clasp?
JT: Yes.
MC: You did get your clasp?
JT: I don’t think it’s worth a light. Little tiny thing, not worth a light. I don’t know why they bothered to make it to be honest. I think I brought it with me.
BT: In the box is it? Is that the one?
MC: So, yeah you did apply for your clasp and you got it. That’s um —
JT: No it’s not there.
MC: You said there was a lady at the end of the runway. She used to wave you off.
JT: Sure, she did. She came down, she’d wait for us to come back. She was the lady who used to treat us to coffee. She was the lady who gave me coffee that night when they called us in from Lincoln to go on ops.
MC: What was her name?
JT: Mrs Cook.
MC: Mrs Cook.
JT: Mrs Cook. She was a lovely lady and she’d come down and stand at the end of the runway and she would wait until we got back to the air traffic tower. She was lovely, really was.
MC: I suppose there would have been a few people waving you off?
JT: Sorry?
MC: I suppose there would have been a few people waving you off at the end of the runway?
JT: There were, that’s right there were, but she never, she never missed a trip that we were on, no.
MC: So did you mingle with the other crews much during the day?
JT: Well we did obviously but when we to, we had specialist briefing, nav briefing, WOP briefing, pilot briefing, but then, but at night you did OK, I mean we’ve got, if they were in the pub, the same pub as we were we’d mix in there but we never had, we had our own gang.
MC: Were you very conscious of the losses? I mean you know, were you aware of some of the aircraft that didn’t return?
JT: Well, the thing was, the following day there were empty beds. This was it.
BT: Yeah.
JT: That’s when you knew how many had been lost.
MC: Hmm. But it was never you.
JT: No. When you lose five out of eleven that’s a lot of [unclear]. We were, we were always there. We was very lucky.
MC: Is that what you put it down to?
JT: Yeah, it was luck, pure luck.
MC: And the skill of the skipper.
JT: And Dougie Milligan’s skill. Yep, yeah. He was [emphasis] skilful. When he got back he used to get, he got reprimanded once for taking his time coming in to land. He always complied with the instructions [background noise] for landing. Other air traffic come back ‘cos they went before him and they used to play hell about the, but Dougie never did, he always complied with them. [background noise]. The rules of landing. He was a good skipper.
MC: Which contributed to your success.
JT: Oh he did, without a doubt, yeah.
MC: So when you got your medals after the war did you? When did you get, collect your medals, did you apply for them straight away or —
JT: Ah. Did I? I can’t remember now whether in fact they —
MC: So what medals have you got?
JT: I’ve got the France & Germany, the Aircrew Europe, the Victory Medal and another but I don’t know what it is.
BT: Have you got them there John?
JT: They’re there somewhere.
OTHER: They’re in your blazer pocket.
JT: Ahh.
MC: Yeah, I was just asking you know about your medals, what you’ve, when you got them?
JT: I’ve got the Aircrew Medal at the end of it as well. I still put that on.
MC: Yeah. Then you’ll be err, France & Germany Star?
JT: France & Germany.
MC: That’s the one, I think it’s, that’s the one the clasp goes on.
JT: I don’t know, I don’t, didn’t go on, I never put it on anywhere. And then the Aircrew Europe.
MC: Yep.
JT: And then the Victory Medal and then err, I think I’ve forgotten what the other was. There’s certainly four of them. [unclear]
OTHER: No, no.
MC: So when you —
OTHER: They apologised to him.
MC: Talking about America, going back to when you were flying in America.
JT: That’s right.
MC: You say you flew in formation?
JT: Twelve Lancs in formation. Oh we were tight, it was a tight form, I could look out of my Astrodome and see the bloke in the next jar alongside me and we did that in tight formation over America. When we got to Army Air Corps Day the Yanks had three Superforts in formation. They were miles [emphasis] apart, they were absolute bloody rubbish and the commentator said ‘Ladies and gentlemen, don’t you think this is the best bit of formation flying you’ve seen today?’ and he had to apologise for it. Yeah.
MC: You’ve obviously [laughter]
JT: Three miserable bloody Superforts.
MC: You had twelve in tight formation?
JT: Twelve in tight formation.
MC: So you saw a fair bit of America then did you?
JT: Oh yeah we did.
MC: Whereabouts did you get to then?
JT: We started off at New York and Wash —, um, down to down south, oh I forget where it was and then we went to Hollywood, that area and then we went to Texas and we came back to Washington and somewhere else on the coast and then back to err, New York.
MC: So you flew the Lancs across did you?
JT: Oh yeah.
MC: You flew all twelve?
JT: Twelve yeah.
MC: Twelve Lancs across —
JT: That’s right. We stopped off in the middle of the Azores. We had to land in the Azores to refuel.
MC: The Azores?
JT: Yeah. And then we carried on from there to the States and one of our lads nearly wrote the Reception Committee off. He came up too tightly on the front and he had to pull up and the Reception Committee were lying on the deck [laughter] yeah.
MC: You got a good welcome from the Americans then?
JT: We got a wonderful, wonderful welcome, incredible. Really did. But err, I wouldn’t have liked to stay there. Having been born there I wouldn’t go back there, no, no.
MC: Yeah, well, whereabouts were you born?
JT: Helena, Montana.
MC: You did say, yes.
JT: That’s right, yeah. [pause]
BT: We’ve been over there.
JT: Ken and Al have taken me back there and Beryl —
BT: And me.
JT: All the four of us went. They took us over there.
MC: You [unclear] you back yeah.
JT: When did we go?
OTHER: We went on your 80th.
OTHER: Yeah, yep, just as, well I’ll tell you when it was because we stood under the Twin Towers and three months later they weren’t there.
JT: That’s right.
OTHER: They were —
BT: That’s right.
JT: We beat a path between the Twin Towers.
MC: What’s this?
JT: Flying Fortress, fifty thousand feet, bags of ammunition and a teeny weeny bomb.
[laughter]
OTHER: That’s what they said about the Yanks because they were flying so high [unclear]
JT: [unclear] little tiny bomb and we had a four thousand pounder on and a load of ammo. [laughter] In fact we took a crew one night with us and they couldn’t believe it before we got off and where we were going how much bomb, how many bombs we’d got on board. They could not believe it. They did just one trip with us, only one, that was it.
MC: This was on an operation was it, you took a —
JT: Oh yeah.
MC: You took an American —
JT: Took the Yanks one night, I think we took three of the crew [sound of door closing] on the rear gun, one by the skip and one alongside the nav and me. They couldn’t believe where we were going and what load we’d got on. Yeah.
MC: Amazing. ‘Cos they, they didn’t have such a big bomb load.
JT: Well that’s where this little song came from ‘Fly fly a fortress, fifty thousand feet, bags of ammunition and a teeny weeny bomb’ [laughter]
MC: You did two spells at EHB, that was your, wireless operator?
JT: Wireless operator, yeah.
MC: Yeah.
JT: We went from Blackpool to EHB and then we went back for a refresher later on when I’d done my gunnery course, yeah. EHB.
MC: So at that time, there was, what was the living accommodation?
JT: When I went the first time I was an AC2, when I went back the second time I was a sergeant. [laughter] Different approach altogether.
MC: Absolutely yeah. Well thank you very much John for your time.
JT: It’s been a pleasure
MC: Some interesting stories and err, —
JT: It’s nice to talk to you.
MC: and it’s been great talking to you [emphasis].
JT: Thank you very much.
MC: Thank you very much.
JT: It’s a 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 John Tait
Creator
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Mike Connock
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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00:42:42 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATaitJT160610
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
John Tait was prompted to join the Royal Air Force, as he was American by birth and therefore he had to report to the police station once a month because he was considered an ‘alien’. He was a wireless operator and gunner, flying in Ansons, Wellingtons, Stirlings and Lancasters. He was based at RAF Skellingthorpe, enjoying the social life in and around Lincoln, flying bombing operations over the Ruhr Valley as well as various marshalling yards in France. At the end of the war he joined 35 Squadron who flew Lancasters in formation both in the UK and the USA. He was on the first aircraft that was allowed to fly over the White House after the war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
Wales
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Bridgend
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Tina James
35 Squadron
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
entertainment
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Lancaster
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Padgate
RAF Scampton
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stormy Down
searchlight
Stirling
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/192/3573/AJahnichenW180314.1.mp3
9c173e93f2f85dfff4ecb6704a84ed55
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Jähnichen, Wolfgang
W Jähnichen
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Wolfgang Jähnichen, a survivor of the 13 February 1945 Dresden Bombing. He recollects various episodes of the firestorm and elaborates on the legitimacy of the attack within the context of the bombing war.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Jähnichen, W
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PS: Bevor wir anfangen, bitte ich Sie folgende Fragen zu beantworten, damit wir sicher sind, dass dieses Interview nach Ihren Wünschen sowie den Bedingungen unserer Sponsoren gemäß registriert wird. Sind Sie damit einverstanden, dass dieses Interview als eine öffentlich zugängliche Quelle aufbewahrt wird, die für Forschung, Erziehung, online und in Ausstellungen verwendet werden kann? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ja.
PS: Danke. Das dieses Interview unter einer nichtkommerziellen Creative Commons Attributionslizenz, die mit den Buchstaben CC-BY-NC dass heisst das sie nicht für kommerzielle zwecke benutzt werden darf, das dieses Interview öffentlich zugänglich gemacht wird? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ja.
PS: Danke. Dass Sie als Urheber und Author des Interviews anerkannt werden? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ja.
PS: Danke. Sind Sie bereit, der Universität das Copyright Ihres Beitrags zur Verfügung zu stellen, damit es zu jedem Zweck verwendet werden kann, und sind Sie aber dessen bewußt, dass es nicht Ihren moralischen Anspruch beeinträchtigen wird, als Urheber des Interviews identifiziert zu werden, dem Copyright, Design und Patentsgesetz 1988 gemäss? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ehm, ich habe eine Zwischenfrage.
PS: Ja.
WJ: Auf welche Universität bezieht sich das?
PS: Das ist die Universität Lincoln, in England.
WJ: Ist das eine private Universität oder eine staatliche?
PS: Das ist eine staatliche Universität.
WJ: Ok, ich bin bereit, ja. Die Antwort lautet ja.
PS: Danke. Ich füge noch hinzu dass, ich kann Ihnen noch zusätzlich eine E-mail schicken mit weitere Informationen zum Projekt, auch ein Link zu dem Projekt, es gibt schon ein Besucherzentrum und das Archiv wird in einen Monat, knapp einen Monat online [unclear].
WJ: [coughs] Ok.
PS: Ich bitte sie jetzt um fünf Minuten, fünf Sekunden, sagen wir,
WJ: Zeit.
PS: Nein, Schweigen damit der Techniker.
WJ: Ja. Alles klar.
PS: Gut, jetzt, also fangen wir an. Dieses Interview wird für das International Bomber Command Digital Archive durchgeführt, das an der Universität Lincoln angesiedelt und vom Heritage Lottery Fund finanziert wird. Der Interviewer ist Peter Schulze, der befragte ist Herr Wolfgang Jähnichen. Heute ist der 14 März 2018. Wir danken Herr Jähnichen dass er bereit ist, sich interviewn su lassen. Ehm, also, Herr Jähnichen, wenn Sie mir erstmal von ihren früheren Leben erzählen können, wo Sie geboren sind und aufgewachsen, Ihrem Elternhaus, die ältesten Erinnerungen die Sie haben.
WJ: Ja. Ich bin 1939 in Dresden geboren und dort auch aufgewachsen und haben in einen Einfamilienhaus in Dresden Gruna gelebt und habe bei diesem, in diesem Einfamilienhaus auch den Terrorangriff der Britischen Air Force vom 13 Februar 1945 persönlich miterlebt und sehr gut in Erinnerung. Ich bin dann ausgebombt worden, bin anschliessend dann zur Schule gegangen, habe an der Internatsschule des Dresdner Kreuzchores mein Abitur gemacht, Altsprachlich, Latein und Griechisch, habe dann in Hannover auf der Technischen Hochschule studiert Bau- und Verkehrswesen, war dann persönlicher, persönlicher Referent des Vorstandsvorsitzenden der Hamburger Hochbahn, anschliessend Gründungsgeschäftsführer einer Tochtergesellschaft der Rheinischen Bahn, die sich mit U-Bahnbau beschäftigt, war dann Abteilungsdirektor Verkehroberfläche der Hamburger Hochbahn und gleichzeitig Betriebsleiter und Sicherheitsbeauftragter und war bis zu meiner Pensionierung Geschäftsführer der Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe und in Personalunion des Mitteldeutschen Verkehrsverbundes. Anschliessend bin ich dann, anschliessend bin ich dann selbstständig als Berater von grossen und internationalen Verkehrsunternehmen tätig gewesen und derzeit bin ich ehrenamtlich in sieben Tätigkeiten da. Ich bin Vorsitzender einer grossen Deutschen Partei in einer Stadt mit 50,000 Einwohnern, bin dort Fraktionsvorsitzender, gehöre der Stadtverordnetenversammlung an, bin President eines Rotary-Clubes, bin Mitglied des Vorstandes der Deutschen Ingenieure VDI, bin Lesepate in einer Grundschule auf dem Wedding mit ausschliessich ausländischen Schülern und bin Mitglied vieler vieler andere Gemeinnütziger Gesellschaften, ich hoffe Ihnen damit genügend gesagt zu haben.
PS: Ich wollte vielleicht ein bisschen zurück gehen auf Ihr früheres Leben. Ob Sie mir eben ein bisschen von Ihrem Elternhaus erzählen können, in welcher Umgebung Sie aufgewachsen sind.
WJ: OK, ich bin, ja, ja, ich bin 1939 am zweiten August geboren und mein Vater war Rechtsanwalt, Dr. Hans-Georg Jähnichen, Fachanwalt für Steuerrecht. Und mein Vater wurde, als ich noch nicht ganz zwei Jahre alt war, zum Militär eingezogen und ist dann erst 1948 aus Russischer Kriegsgefangenschaft wieder zurückgekommen. In der Zeit von 1939 bis ‚45 habe ich in Dresden Gruna gelebt, in einem Einfamilienhaus bei meinen Grosseltern mit meiner Mutter und wir sind dort ausgebombt worden am 13 Februar 1945. Über verschiedene kleinere Orte sind wir dann bis zum Herbst, bis November 1945 da überall mal untergekommen und haben dann in Dresden Trachau 1945 im November eine Wohnung bekommen und dort habe ich gelebt bis zu meinem Abitur 1957, was ich an der Internatschule des Dresdner Kreuzchores altsprachlicher Zweig gemacht habe, mit acht Jahre Griechisch und vier Jahre Latein, umgekehrt, acht Jahre Latein, vier Jahre Griechisch.
PS: Wie war die Stimmung zuhause, also wie war, sagen wir, die Wahrnehmung der damaligen Zeit und des Regimes zu hause?
WJ: Ich stamme aus einer Familie die Sozialdemokraten sind, bei Ihnen würde man Labour sagen. Mein Grossvater war in dem Hitlerreich rausgeflogen weil er Sozialdemokrat war, hat dann im Hitlerreich Wiederstand geleistet. Meine Grossmutter hat mich beispielsweise im Kinderwagen gefahren und unter der Matratze hat sie Flugblätter gehabt und die hatt sie da illegal verteilt. Und mein Grossvater hat Wiederstand geleistet zusammen mit der Bekennenden Kirche, das ist eine Art der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, die sich von den Deutschen Christen unterschied, zusammen mit Kommunisten, zusammen mit Zeugen Jehovas und also Wiederständlern. Mein Grossvater hat dann 1945 die Sozialdemokratische Partei in Dresden mitwiedergegründet und hat dann das Buch weggeschmissen als es in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone zur Zwangsvereinigung von Sozialdemokratischer Partei und Kommunistischer Partei kam mit der Begründung, es kann nicht richtig sein dass die Kommunisten die Ziele und die Sozialdemokraten die Massen stellen. Daraufhin wurde er von den Kommunisten als Sozialfascist bezeichnet, das hat er nie überwunden, mit denen hat er selbst Wiederstand geleistet und deshalb bin ich in meiner Kindheit immer antikommunistisch erzogen worden, aber auch antifaschistisch. Antikommunistisch erzogen worden, Ich war nie Mitglied der Jungen Pioniere oder der Freien Deutschen Jugend, das sind die Jugendorganisationen der Kommunisten in Deutschland.
PS: Was, Ihr Grossvater hat nicht im Ersten Weltkrieg gekämpft.
WJ: Nein, da war er freigestellt, er war Stadtbaudirektor in Dresden.
PS: Was machte Ihre Mutter?
WJ: Meine Mutter war, hatte Gesang studiert und war Gesang- und Oratoriensängerin.
PS: Welche Erinnerungen, habe Sie irgendwelche Erinnerungen als kleines Kind vor dem,
WJ: Terrorangriff. Mein Vater war im Krieg, ich bin bei meinen Grosseltern und meiner Mutter gross geworden. Ich habe in Dresden gelebt, einer Stadt die bis zum 13 Februar ‚45 nie in Kriegsgeschehnisse einbezogen war. Lediglich im Oktober 1944 hat es mal einige ganz kleine Bombenabwürfe gegeben und da kann ich mit entsinnen da sind wir da aus Sensationslust hingeströmt und haben gesehen dass vier oder fünf Häuser kaputtgegangen sind, das war im Oktober 1944. Ich bin dann anschliessend mit meiner Mutter durch die Innenstadt gefahren, wir waren in der Frauenkirche, die ja auch in England sehr gut bekannt ist durch das Kreuz von Coventry und wie gesagt ich war ein wohlbehüteter Junge der, dem es relativ gut ging mit Aussnahme der politischen Überzeugungen und meine Grosseltern haben immer, da kann ich mich auch entsinnen, meine Grossmutter ist eine gebürtige Amerikanerin gewesen die dann einen Deutschen geheiratet hat und in Deutschland gelebt hat, die hat immer verbotenerweise, wir haben als Kinder gesagt, den Bum-Bum Sender gehört, das war BBC London, und das war in Deutschland verboten, da stand die Todestrafe drauf, sie hatt’s trotzdem gehört und ich durfte das als Kind nie wissen.
PS: Was, wie lebte man zu der Zeit, also, haben Sie Erinnerungen von den anderen Kinder, waren Sie in Kontakt mit anderen Kindern?
WJ: Ja, ich habe eine Sandkastenfreundin gehabt, die im Nebenhaus gewohnt hat. Wir haben in der Kriegszeit natürlich alles nur aus Lebensmittelmarken kaufen können aber es ging uns nicht schlecht, wie gesagt, wir wurden allerdings durch die Hitlerpolizei bespitzelt weil meine Grosseltern Sozialdemokraten waren. Wir mussten uns sehr aufpassen. Ich kann mich noch entsinnen, ich habe immer, wenn ich jemandem traf Guten Tag gesagt und man musste damals ‚Heil Hitler‘ sagen und das haben wir in unserer Familie nie gesagt. Und da ging ich mit meiner Mutter mal in Dresden spazieren oder einkaufen und da haben wir gegrüsst und da habe ich gesagt: ‚Guten Tag!‘. Und dann fing dieser Nationalsozialist an über meine Mutter herzufallen, ich war wie gesagt fünf Jahre, um zu sagen: ‚Frau Jähnichen, der Wolfgang, das ist mein Vorname, der muss doch den Deutschen Gruss sagen, ‚Heil Hitler‘ und so. Jedenfalls ich kannte das überhaupt nicht weil wir zuhause immer eben nur Guten Tag gesagt haben. Ich will damit nur mal unsere Einstellung zu dem Faschistischen Staat sagen.
PS: Welche andere Erinnerungen haben Sie an die Zeit?
WJ: Ich habe Erinnerungen dass Dresden eine wunderschöne Stadt war, mit vielen Flüchtlingen, die aus dem Osten gekommen waren, und zwar Anfang des Jahres 1945, als die Rote Armee, di Sowjetische Armee dann nach Ostpreussen und nach Schlesien kam, hatten wir in Dresden, Dresden ist eine Stadt gewesen damals 600,000 Einwohner, die hatte damals im Anfang 1945 statt 600,000 Einwohner eine Milion Einwohner, da waren viele Vertriebene, die aus den deutschen Ostgebieten gekommen sind. Es war eine völlig unzerstörte Stadt, wir haben im Krieg nie etwas erlebt bis dann der schlimme Bombenangriff vom 13 Februar 1942, 1945 kam. Das war ein Dienstag, ein Fassnacht oder Faschingsdienstag, ich kann mich entsinnen, ich war als Indianer verkleidet, wie man eben als Kind da so geht, und meine kleine Sandkastenfreundin war als Prima Ballerina verkleidet und wir haben sehr schön mit einander gespielt. Sind dann jeweils von einander unabhängig abends so gegen, was weiss ich, so gegen zwanzig Uhr zu Bett gegangen und ich wurde dann gegen einundzwanzig Uhr aus dem Schlaf gerissen, geweckt, weil Bombenalarm war aber ich nehme an da werden Sie extra noch Fragen dazu stellen.
PS: Ja, können Sie mir das eben jetzt so erzählen?
WJ: Ja, das kann ich Ihnen gerne sagen. Wie gesagt das war völlig neu für uns, wir hatten nie Bombenalarm in Dresden, das galt so quasi als der Luftschutzkeller Deutschlands, und die Sirenen heulten und ich wurde geweckt und wir sind in den Keller gegangen. In dem Keller, da waren wir drinnen ungefähr von einundzwanzig Uhr bis zweiundzwanzig Uhr dreisig, ohne das etwas passiert ist. Es gab ja mehrere Angriffe in Dresden, der erste Angriff war zwischen einundzwanzig Uhr, was weiss ich, zehn und einundzwanzig Uhr vierzig, so in dieser Zeit, da ist uns nichts passiert. Wohl aber ist die Wohnung meiner Eltern, in der wir nicht mehr wohnten, weil da Flüchtlinge aus Berlin drin waren, die ist total zerstört worden aber das hat uns relativ wenig tangiert denn wir wohnten bei meinen Grosseltern im Einfamilienhaus. Und dann, mein Grossvater war Stadtbaudirektor in Dresden, und er hörte dass die ganze Innenstadt brennt und das furchtbare Zerstörungen in Dresden sein sollen. Und dann, das habe ich nur so gehört von meinem Grossvater, passiert war in dem Stadtteil, in dem ich gelebt habe zum ersten Angriff nichts. Aber es kamen dann gegen Mitternacht, es kann auch ein Uhr gewesen sein, ein zweiter Angriff und diesen zweiten Angriff da wurde auch unser Haus getroffen, wir waren dann auch abermals in den Keller gegangen. Und dann meine Grossmutter war dann mal rausgegangen mitten in diesen Alarm und da sagte sie: ‚Unser Haus brennt! Unser Haus brennt!‘. Und dann sind wir fluchtartig aus dem Haus heraus, das Haus hatte eine schönen, grossen Garten. Und dann hatte ich so eine nasse Decke um, das hatte man damals so, und meine Grossmutter war neben mir und dann kamen Tiefflieger und diese Tiefflieger schossen auf uns. Das habe ich genau gehört und gesehen. Die flogen ganz ganz tief und sie schossen aus, entweder Maschinenpistolen oder Maschinengewehren, das weiss ich nicht. und da rief meine Grossmutter, mein Spitzname war damals Mell: ‚Mell, schmeiss dich hin!‘, da habe ich mich hingeworfen und da zischte es und da hatte ich mich auf Phosphor geworfen. Mir war aber deshalb nichts passiert weil ich eine nasse Decke um hatte aber es zischte, meine Grossmutter hat mich sofort wieder hochgezogen so dass mir also nichts passiert war. Offensichtlich hatten die Engländer auch Phosphor abgeworfen oder Phosphor Bomben abgeworfen und auf so eine Phosphorstelle hatte ich mich geworfen. Als dieser Bombenangriff dann zu Ende war, vielleicht eine halbe Stunde oder sowas dauerte das, die erste viertelstunde waren wir ja noch im Keller und dann brannte das Haus, dann waren wir draussen, sind wir aus der brennenden Stadt geflüchtet. Und ich kann mich entsinnen dass ich mit meiner Mutter und meinen Grosseltern über die Strassen gegangen bin und ich musste dann, wirklich im wasten Sinne des Wortes, über Leichen gehen. Die Strassen waren voller Leichen und wir sind dann in einen Vorort von Dresden, vielleicht zwanzig Kilometer zu Fuss geflüchtet und sind dann bei völlig fremden Leuten untergekommen. Meine Tante, die auch mit im Haus wohnte, konnte nicht da mitkommen, die hat dann am nächsten Tag erlebt, aber wie gesagt, das habe ich nicht erlebt, das habe ich nur durch Erzählen von Ihr, das gegen Mittag des 14 Februar, so gegen dreizehn Uhr, ein Angriff, aber nicht der Royal Air Force sondern der American Air Force stattgefunden hatte, als das brennende Dresden nochmals bombardiert worden ist. Und bei dieser Gelegenheit ist das Wahrzeichen der Stadt, die Frauenkirche, die jetzt wieder aufgebaut worden ist, auch in Schutt und Asche versunken.
PS: Wenn Sie noch etwas hinzufügen, können Sie auch ruhig frei weitersprechen.
WJ: Na das sind, ich bin dann, wir sind dann geflüchtet in ein Vorort, sind von ganz fremden Menschen aufgenommen worden und ich war so verstört als fünfeinhaldjähriges Kind, ich habe 14 Tage kein Wort mehr gesprochen. Meine Mutter hat schon gedacht ich hätte irgendwie einen geistigen Schaden, ich habe 14 Tage kein Wort mehr gesprochen. Mir geht’s heute noch so, wenn Sirenen heulen, läuft mir ein kalter Schauer den Rücken runter. Und ich werde den Geruch des brennenden Dresdens nie aus meiner Nase heraus bekommen, ich werde diese Zeit in bis zu meinem Tode werde ich immer daran denken, das war das bis dahin für mich schlimmste Erlebnis meines Lebens. Und habe an diese Zeit ganz ganz traurige Erinnerungen weil ich praktisch aus einem geborgenen Einfamilienhaus wo wir recht gut gelebt haben trotz des Faschismus, der natürlich schlimm war, da gibt es gar keine Frage, wir mussten also, nur das habe ich als Kind nicht so gemerkt, aber meine Grosseltern, meine Mutter mussten sich immer vor den Nazis vorsehen, das sie nicht angezeigt wurden. Wie gesagt, meine Grossmutter hörte immer BBC London und das war natürlich verboten. Und aber wir haben in dieser Zeit in der andere deutsche Städte, ich denke Hamburg, Berlin, das Ruhrgebiet, Köln und wie auch immer schon zerstört waren, war Dresden nichts, alles intakt. Und erst am 13 Februar 1945 kamen diese schlimmen Angriffe, erst der Engländer und dann der Amerikaner. Ich bin mir bewusst, aber erst, natürlich erst nachdem ich in der Schule war, dass diese Gewalt, die da gegen die Zivilbevölkerung von Dresden ausgeübt worden ist seitens der British Air Force und der American Air Force darauf zurückgeht das Hitlerdeutschland den Krieg angefangen hat und das Hitlerdeutschland auch vorneweg Coventry und Rotterdam, nur mal um zwei Beispiele zu nennen, auch bombardiert hat und das dort ebenfalls Engländer beziehungsweise Holländer ebenfalls gestorben sind und ein ähnliches Schicksal erlitten haben, wie wir es dann, oder wie ich es dann 1945 erlitten habe. Ich sehe deshald den Krieg als eine ganz ganz schlimme, deshalb bin ich auch Sozialdemokrat, eine schlimme Sache an und werde aber nicht hingehen und sagen: ‚Nur die einen sind Schuld, nur die anderen sind Schuld‘, beide sind Schuld, aber den Krieg angefangen haben die Nazis, die natürlich noch viel viel schlimmere Verbrechen auf ihren Kerbholz haben. Ich denke beispielsweise daran dass jeder der Mosaischen Glaubens war, verfolgt und getötet wurde. Mein Vater hatte beispielsweise, er hat, er war Jurist und war mit vielen Juden befreundet und die gingen dann alle im Laufe der Naziherrschaft weg und ich kann mit entsinnen dass meine Mutter mit mir in der Strassenbahn in Dresden fuhr und da durften, das muss ‚42 gewesen sein, durften Juden noch mitfahren, mussten aber auf den Paron stehen, also durften sich nicht auf Sitzplätze setzen. Und da hat meine Mutter, als Solidarität, mit mir sich zu ihren Jüdischen Freunden gestellt und ist ebenfalls nicht in den Wagon hineingegangen sondern hat auf den Paron gestanden und hat mir dann, ich wusste gar nicht warum das ist, hat mir das erklärt was man diesen Jüdischen Mitbürgern für schlimme Sachen seitens der Naziregierung antut.
PS: Ja, ich wollte, wir kommen dann zu einiger dieser Themen wieder zurück, ich wollte jetzt zurück gehen zu einigen Sachen die Sie mir früher erzählt haben.
WJ: Ja bitte.
PS: Zum Beispiel der Luftschutzkeller.
WJ: Ja.
PS: Können Sie mir erzählen, wo war dieser Luftschutzkeller, wie hatten Sie Zugang, Sie und andere Menschen, wie hatten Sie Zugang zu diesem Luftschutzkeller?
WJ: Das war ein Einfamilienhaus und der Keller war als Luftschutzkeller deklariert, das war ein ganz normaler Keller. Wir sind aus dem, wir haben gewohnt im Erdgeschoss und der Ersten und Zweiten Etage und, als dann dieser Bombenalarm kam, sind wir in den Keller gegangen. Und, ja, und da hörten wir immer es krachen, und da Bomben fielen aber wir wussten natürlich nicht wo das war und dann ist ich glaube meine Mutter mal rausgegangen und hat mal geguckt, und hat dann gesehen dass das Haus über uns lichterloh brannte, so dass wir dann aus dem Luftschutzkeller herausgekommen sind, nicht durch die kleinen Luftschutzkellerfenster sondern noch über das Treppenhaus, das heisst, es brannte das Haus nur in der ersten Etage und in der zweiten Etage. Wir sind also noch während des Angriffes, sind wir noch aus dem Haus herausgekommen.
PS: Da gab es keinen Luftschutzwart, der euch hineinließ?
WJ: Es gab mit Sicherheit einen Luftschutzwart der spielte nur keine Rolle. Denn, es war, natürlich musste damals jedes Haus eine Luftschutzeinrichtung haben aber bei uns im Einfamilienhaus war das der ganz einfache Keller. Das hat der Luftschutzwart mit Sicherheit schon einmal begutachtet aber das war ein ganz normaler Keller eines Einfamilienhauses. Und wir sind nicht, weil der Luftschutzwart da irgendwie etwas gesagt hatte, in den Keller gegangen, sondern weil die Sirenen heulten.
PS: Hatten Sie, erinnern Sie sich ob Sie Angst hatten im Luftschutzkeller oder ihre Mutter?
WJ: Ja, ich hatte furchtbare Angst weil dieser Keller ja nur diese kleinen Kellerfenster hatte. Und ich habe richtige Angst gehabt, wenn ich durch diese Fenster raus muss komme ich da überhaupt durch, habe ich eine Riesenangst gehabt. Aber, wie gesagt, ich musste nicht über diese Fenster heraus sondern ich bin ganz normal über die Kellertreppe zur Haustur heraus aber das Haus über uns brannte schon.
PS: Und auch Ihre Mutter hatte Angst oder?
WJ: Mit Sicherheit aber wer hat damals nicht Angst? Das war ja, Sie müssen sich vorstellen Dresden war eine Stadt im Gegensatz zu Hamburg, zum Ruhrgebiet, zu Berlin, die noch nie einen Luftangriff erlebt hatte. Für die Hamburger, so blöd es klingt jetzt, Herr Schulze, war das schon Routine, weil die Berliner hatten praktisch alle zwei Tage so einen Luftschutzangriff, die gingen routinemässig schon in den Keller. Ich kann Ihnen auch sagen, Dresden hatte keine Luftschutzbunker, im Sinne von Hochbauten, wie sie beispielsweise in Berlin und in Hamburg heute noch anzutreffen sind aus Beton, das gab es alles in Dresden nicht. Dresden war eine unbefestigte Stadt. Ich kann mir nur deshalb vorstellen dass Dresden, dass man Dresden bombardiert hat, aus zwei Gründen. Erstens, es war ein Verkehrsknotenpunkt und alles was aus dem Osten kam, aus Breslau [coughs] und Königsberg in Richtung Westen und Süden ging über Dresden. Es war also ein wichtiger Verkehrsknotenpunkt. Zweitens, man wollte die Moral des deutschen Volkes brechen. Man muss fairaweise sagen dass viele Deutsche dem Hitler zugejubelt haben und diese Angriffe, die natürlich Terrorangriffe waren, da gibt es gar keine Frage, aber diese Angriffe sollten auch die Moral der Deutschen brechen, die ja teilweise noch bis kurz vor Kriegsende dem Hitler zugejubelt haben [coughs], man darf ja nicht vergessen dass viele deutsche, wie gesagt, wir gehörten nicht dazu, den, doch den Nazis nahestehend waren.
PS: Konnen Sie mir etwas von den, Sie haben vorher von den Tieffliegern gesprochen.
WJ: Ja, wir kamen aus den Keller raus, das Haus brannte lichterloh, es war also hell obwohl es abends so, nachts so gegen eins war, also es war nach Mitternacht, da man sah alles genau, das Haus brannte, die Nebenhaüser brannten, also es war nicht dunkle Nacht. Es war natürlich dunkle Nacht, aber durch die Brände war natürlich alles hell. Und dann sind wir in den Garten gegangen weil unser Haus brannte und, das habe ich Ihnen gesagt, da kamen die Tiefflieger und da haben wir uns hingeworfen und diese Tiefflieger und das weiss ich definitiv haben auf uns geschossen. Die wissenschaftlichen Forscher sagen: ‚Nein, das ist nicht so‘. Ich kann es aber wirklich bezeugen, dass die auf uns geschossen haben [mimics the noise of a machine gun]. Und das kann nur von oben gekommen sein denn es gab ja keine Panzer und keine Infanterie. Das waren Schüsse, ich kann Ihnen nicht sagen ob es ein Maschinengewehr oder eine Maschinenpistole war, das weiss ich nicht, aber es waren Maschinenschüsse, Maschinengewehrschüsse und die konnten nur von den Flugzeugen kommen weil es ja keine, keine Kampfhandlungen auf der Strasse gab, es gab ja keine Panzer und dergleichen mehr die da irgendwie da in Dresden einmarschiert sind, das ist ja erst, das war ja dann erst die Russen am 7 Mai 1945, aber wir sprechen ja über den 13 Februar.
PS: Sie haben mir auch von Ihrer, sagen wir, von der Erfahrung mit den Phosphorbomben gesprochen.
WJ: Womit bitte?
PS: Mit dem Phosphor.
WJ: Phosphor, ja. Ich habe, da müssen irgendwelche Phosphorbomben abgeworfen worden sein, die allerdings nicht das, also mit Sicherheit hat unser Haus gebrannt dadurch dass Phosphorbomben geworfen worden sind, aber nicht alle Phosphorbomben haben das Haus getroffen. Es sind auch im Garten Phosphorbomben da gefallen, da so genau kann man die ja auch nicht zielen, die sind ja aus grosser Höhe gekommen. Und auf so eine Phosphorbombe habe ich mich hingeworfen weil die Tiefflieger kamen, das heisst also die Phosphorbombe muss schon eher aus grosser Höhe abgeworfen worden sein, ein Teil der Phosphorbomben haben das Haus getroffen, ein Teil nur den Garten. Und auf diese Phosphorbomben die im Garten gefallen waren, auf die hatte ich mich hingeworfen und das zischte und da hat mich meine Grossmutter zurückgezogen und mir ist deshalb nichts passiert weil ich rein profilaktisch eine nasse Decke hatte. Es zischte nur furchtbar, ich habe damals als fünfeinhalbjähriger gar nicht gewusst was Phosphor ist, das haben mir dann erst, haben mir meine Grosseltern und meine Mutter erst erzählt. Ich habe nur gemärkt es zischte und meine Grossmutter hat mich sofort geschnappt und hochgezogen. Aber wir haben uns deshalb hingeworfen weil die Tiefflieger kamen. Ich kann mich auch entsinnen dass wir regerlrecht die Kanzel gesehen haben. Die müssen in einer Höhe, was weiss ich, von fünfzig Meter oder so etwas geflogen sein, aber wie gesagt auf die fünfzig Meter möchte ich mich nicht festlegen, denn ich war damals ein Junge von knapp sechs Jahren und kann das nun nicht so genau schätzen aber es waren Tiefflieger, ich habe die Cockpits gesehen. Und wir sind daraus beschossen worden, nun weiss ich nicht ob wir aus dem Cockpit beschossen worden sind oder aus dem Heck, das weiss ich nicht. Aber wir sind von diesen Tieffliegern beschossen worden. Und zwar mit so, mit Feuerstössen [mimics the sound of the maschine gun] also nicht nur irgendwie mal einen Schuss und so etwas.
PS: Jetzt wo Sie sich an diese Episode erinnern,
WJ: Wie bitte?
PS: Jetzt wo Sie sich an die Vergangenheit erinnern, kommen Ihnen bestimmte Bilder von Gebäuden vor, oder?
WJ: Ja, ja, ich werde nie vergessen wie, also ich kenne natürlich unser Einfamilienhaus im unversehrten Zustand und wir haben ja dann anschliessend in Dresden gelebt und Dresden ist ja erst, zehn Jahre später hat man angefangen wieder Dresden etwas aufzubauen in der Stadt. Die ersten zehn Jahre nach Kriegsende war Dresden eine reine Ruinenstadt in der Innenstadt. Es gab in der Innestadt quasi kein intaktes Haus mehr, in den Vorstädten ja aber in der Innenstadt die Strassenbahn fur durch, im Anfang konnte die Strassenbahn gar nicht fahren, das ist klar, weil ja die Trümmer überall lagen, aber dann nach ungefähr, nach sagen wir mal vierzehn Tagen, drei Wochen fuhr dann die Strassenbahn wieder aber die ganze Innenstadt war ein einziges Trümmerfeld. Und ich kann mich auch entsinnen, wie auf den Altmarkt, der Altmarkt ist der Hauptplatz von Dresden, ich glaube drei oder vier Tage später, Gerüste aus Stahl aufgestellt worden sind wo die Leichen verbrannt worden sind. Man, wir hatten damals als ich Kind war gehört das es in dieser einen Nacht in Dresden 35,000 Tote gegeben hat, neueste Berechnungen haben gesagt es sind nicht 35,000 sondern 25,000 gewesen aber Sie können sich vorstellen und es spielt jetzt keine Rolle ob 25 oder 35,000 Tote da sind, das die lagen ja überall rum und die wurden dann am Altmarkt da aufgestapelt, das war alles abgesperrt und wurden dann dort, ich sag mal, wie ein Freilichtkrematorium dort verbrannt und die Asche dieser dort verbrannten ist dort auf den Heidefriedhof in Dresden in ein Massengrab beigesetzt worden. Jedes Jahr findet am 13 Februar in Dresden eine Gedenkveranstaltung an die Toten des 13 Februar statt, auf dem Friedhof. Leider wird diese Gedenkveranstaltung von der AFD, das ist eine rechtsextremistische Partei, dazu genutzt um hier Stimmung gegen England und gegen die Alliierten zu machen. Natürlich war das nicht schön was da passiert ist, das war ganz ganz schlimm aber diese heute stattfindenden Demonstrationen vergessen immer dass es Deutschland war, was den Krieg angefangen hat.
PS: Also jetzt wollte ich Sie auch nochmal, eben zu diesen Thema wollte ich Sie eben fragen,
WJ: Ja bitte.
PS: Haben Sie noch etwas hinzuzufügen über Ihre, sagen wir, Ihre Ansichten, wie Sie das jetzt, ehm, wie Sie das jetz heute sehen? Zurück auf die Zeit eben.
WJ: Ich, Ja aber da hat sich nichts geändert denn ich komme aus einer Antifaschistischen Familie. Wir haben immer gewusst dass Hitlerdeutschland den Krieg angefangen hat. Und das was uns passiert ist haben wir Deutsche anderen Völkern auch angetan, so das man nicht hingehen kann, das man sagt: ‚Das ist die Schuld der Engländer oder der Amerikaner‘, das ist genauso unsere Schuld die wir als deutsche den Krieg angefangen haben. Wissen Sie, ich bin als Deutscher stolz auf unsere deutsche Vergangenheit, auf Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, aber ich muss mich auch dazu bekennen, das eben auch es Deutsche waren, Verbrecher waren die den zweiten Weltkrieg ausgelöst haben, die Juden verbrannt haben, alles das, dieses Unrecht ist ja damals von deutschen Boden ausgegangen. Das darf man nicht vergessen bei dieser ganzen Sache. Natürlich ist das ganz ganz schlimm was passiert ist und deshalb sag ich, ich bin ja jetzt ein Mann von achtundziebzig Jahren, desshalb wende ich mich ganz aktiv gegen die Machenschaften der AfD und anderer rechtsradikaler Parteien in Deutschland.
PS: Ich wollte Sie noch fragen, Ihre Erfahrung als Ausgebombter,
WJ: Ja.
PS: Gibt es eine Verbindung zwischen, ehm, hat Ihre Erfahrung als Ausgebombter eine wichtige Rolle gespielt für Ihre Ideale, für Ihre, sagen wir, politische Ideen, gibt es eine Verbindung?
WJ: Ja. Nein, nein, da nicht aber als wir ausgebombt waren, da waren wir natürlich Menschen zweiter Klasse. Das heisst also wir haben keine Wohnung gehabt, wir, es gab ja auch nichts zu kaufen. Wir haben da rumgeirrt, sind dann in der Umgebung von Dresden in einem Kinderheim untergekommen, das heisst ich habe vielleicht ein halbes Jahr oder ein dreiviertel Jahr überhaupt kein Zuhause gehabt, wir haben da mal im Kinderheim geschlafen, mal dort geschlafen, erst dann haben wir durch Zufall eine Wohnung wieder bekommen. Dann natürlich war man als Kind dann, ich sag mal, neidisch auf die die nicht ausgebombt waren. Aber ich bin ja durch meine Eltern immer so erzogen worden, wer Sturm säht, wer Wind säht wird Sturm ernten. Das heisst also, dass hier man nicht von einer Schuld sprechen kann, näturlich ist es für mich schwer zu ertragen oder halte ich es für falsch dass Ihre Queen den Harris ausgezeichnet hat, das halte ich für eine sehr schlechte Art, das ist das einzige was ich den Engländern regelrecht übelnehme. Weil der Bomber Harris das alles angeordnet hat, dass er das machen musste, habe ich Verständnis aber ihn dann noch dafür auszuzeichnen, das halte ich für schlimm gegenüber den Opfern die durch diese Bomber zu Tode gekommen sind. Wie gesagt, den Grund weshalb die Bomber nach Deutschland gekommen sind, der Grund ist in Deutschland zu suchen, das ist richtig, aber trotzdem halte ich es für falsch wenn man so jemandem, der wirklich darauf ausgesehen hatte, drauf abgesehen hatte, die Zivilbevölkerung zu töten, nicht irgendwie ein General Montgomery und so, Hochachtung dafür gibt’s überhaupt nichts, aber der Harris hat ja bewusst die Bevölkerung, das war natürlich eins der Kriegsziele, das muss man sagen, den auszuzeichnen, halte ich für schwer, einen schweren Fehler den die Queen gemacht hat. Wie gesagt, Hochachtung vor Montgomery, Hochachtung vor Winston Churchill, gibt’s überhaupt gar keine Frage, der eine als Militär, der andere als Politiker, haben sich völlig korrekt verhalten. Aber diejenigen die dann diese schlimme Vernichtung der Zivilbevölkerung befohlen haben, die noch auszuzeichnen, dass sie das machen mussten, dafür habe ich auch Verständnis, aber sie noch auszuzeichnen, sie zu adeln, das halte ich für einen ganz ganz gravierenden Fehler den die Queen gemacht hat oder genauer gesagt, den die Berater der Queen gemacht haben, in dem sie die Queen animiert haben, den Harris auszuzeichnen. Dass er seine Arbeit machen musste, dafür habe ich Verständnis, aber ihn dann noch auszuzeichnen das halte ich für falsch. Das wäre dasselbe, als würde man im Mittelalter einen Henker auszeichnen, ein Henker der musste seine Arbeit machen die, die Richter haben das so aufgeordnet, der wird aufgehängt, und der Henker hat das machen müssen aber da wird doch nie jemandem auf den Gedanken gekommen sein, den Henker auszuzeichnen. Also das ist für mich ein ganz ganz schwerer Fehler ihrer Queen gewesen. Die Auszeichnung. Bitte, ich habe vollstes, vollste Hochachtung vor Montgomery, beispielsweise vor Churchill, vollste Hochachtung und das ist auch einen geben musste, der diese Befehle ausgeführt hat, wie Harris, auch dafür habe ich Verständnis, aber ihn noch auszuzeichnen, der wirklich die Bevölkerung da getötet hat, nicht ermordet hat, getötet hat, das halte ich für schwer, einen gravierenden Fehler. Aber ich will nicht derjenige sein, der im Glasshaus sitzt und so tun, als hätten die Deutschen nicht ebenfalls gravierende Fehler gemacht. Natürlich, auch das, nur Sie haben mich gefragt nach meiner Erinnerung.
PS: Gut, also ich, ich würde jetzt Schluss machen.
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Title
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Interview with Wolfgang Jähnichen
Description
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Wolfgang Jähnichen recollects being a five-year-old boy in Dresden at the time of the 13 February 1945 bombing. Gives a vivid account of the attack and recounts various episodes: the time spent with his mother in the cellar used as air raid shelter, being strafed by aircraft, incendiaries, corpses piled up and cremated in the Old Market Square, and the city flooded by refugees. Describes growing up in a socialist environment mentioning different anecdotes: resisting the regime within the Confessing Church, subversive propaganda leaflets, and listening to Radio London. Discusses the political exploitation of the bombing today and criticises the knighthood bestowed on Arthur Harris, comparing the decision to knighting a medieval hangman for just doing his job. Elaborates on the bombing, dubbed as ‘terror attack’, but stresses German responsibility in starting the war. Mentions Coventry and Rotterdam, emphasizing how civilians supported he regime until the end of the war. Describes how the attack shocked and caught everyone off guard because it was completely unexpected, unlike cities like Berlin and Hamburg where air raids had become part of everyday life. Stresses how Dresden was considered an open city, unprepared and undefended. Gives two justifications for the bombing of Dresden: it was a legitimate target as transport hub and the the operation was intended to beak German morale - he was so shocked that he didn’t utter a single word for two weeks. Remembers hardships and homelessness at the end of the war. Tells how the stench of burning Dresden still haunts him, and the sound of the siren still sends shivers down his spine.
Creator
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Peter Schulze
Date
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2018-03-14
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Format
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00:51:44 audio recording
Language
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deu
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Germany--Dresden
Temporal Coverage
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1945-02-13
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
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Pending review
Identifier
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AJahnichenW180314
anti-Semitism
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
childhood in wartime
civil defence
displaced person
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
perception of bombing war
shelter