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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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Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
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
2017-07-16
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] Extract from 'BUT NOT IN ANGER' [/underlined]
Fate Deals a Blow 18
Shortly before 2000 hours on 20 December, 1950, Hastings TG574 of No 53 Squadron, Transport Command, prepared to take-off from El Adem, near Tobruk. The captain was Flight Lieutenant Graham Tunnadine and co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant S.L. Bennett. There were four other crew members and 27 passengers.
TG574 was returning from Singapore nearing the end of an experimental slip crew schedule. Since 1945 Transport Command's Far East route had been operated in rather leisurely fashion, the same crew flying the aircraft throughout and night-stopping at selected points. As postwar commitments increased, the Command felt obliged to abandon this uneconomic use of aircraft and revert to the wartime slip crew system, whereby the aircraft flew day and night, making only the essential refuelling and servicing halts, with fresh crews taking over at appropriate staging posts.
Early in December four crews were accordingly pre-positioned along the route, and TG574 was flown to Singapore trying out the new, fast schedule. She was now homeward bound, carrying the four experienced Hastings crews who had completed their legs of the flight – plus Squadron Leader Thomas Colin Lyall Brown, a Transport Command medical officer who was studying any aircrew fatigue problems emerging from the new timetable. Three other passengers had joined at Karachi.
After staging through Colombo, Karachi, Habbaniya and Fayid, the Hastings had made an unscheduled stop at El Adem to top up with fuel before pressing on to Castel Benito, Tripoli. At 1958 she was airborne and the passengers were mentally blessing the operations staff for having planned to complete their experiment in comfortable time before Christmas. The aircraft plodded up to 8,500ft, and they listened with experienced ears to the changing engine note as she settled down to the 185-knot cruising speed. All was well. Fully conditioned to the monotonous roar of four Hercules engines, some promptly fell asleep, a few played cards or read, while one or two watched the black and silver desert sliding past, lit by the three-quarter moon.
On the flight deck, Tunnadine, aged 28, with some 2,300 flying hours in his log book, told Bennett to get his head down for a while in the rest compartment rigged up just forward of the passenger cabin, as it would be his task fly the aircraft on from Castel Benito after refuelling. His place up front was taken by Squadron Leader William G. James, another qualified Hastings pilot.
162
There was a fleeting hint of trouble 42 minutes after take-off. One of the back-seat drivers thought he noticed a vibration, possibly caused by an engine becoming unsynchronised. Moments later, while he was considering whether to pass some gently chiding note up to the flight deck, there came a sharp bang from the front of the aircraft. This was followed by a violent juddering which suggested something badly amiss. Awakened instantly, the passengers remained seated, confident that whatever the problem, the pilots would ask if they wanted any assistance. After another minute or two, which dragged by like hours, the air quartermaster appeared and requested Squadron Leader Brown to go forward, then asked one of the most experienced pilots to talk to the captain on the intercom.
On the flight deck nobody yet knew exactly what had happened. Tunnadine reported that he had lost all power from the port inner engine (No 2), and had no elevator or rudder control. Only the ailerons were working. With nothing but lateral control, the aircraft was descending and there seemed to be little he could do about it.
Meanwhile, Brown, having negotiated a sizeable gash in the floor, found Bennett still on the rest bunk, pinned to the floor beneath a pile of wreckage, barely conscious, with his right arm severed and other grievous injuries.
It did not take the crew long to establish the cause of their perilous situation. What had happened was that the propeller of No 2 engine had shed one of its blades. In flying off it had scythed through the fuselage – where part of it was still embedded in the opposite wall – cut the tail control rods as well as critically injuring Bennett. The three remaining blades, out of equilibrium, had wrenched the engine – plus part of the wing leading edge and the port undercarriage – free from its mounting to fall away to the desert a mile and a half below. The disturbed airflow over the great gash in the wing was seriously aggravating the handling difficulties.
A rapid check by Flight Sergeant Idwal Johns, the engineer, showed that there was no hope of locating and repairing the severed tail control rods. RAF Benina, near Benghazi, had acknowledged 574's May Day call, and was only 19 minutes normal flying time away, but at the present rate of descent the aircraft would hit the ground long before that. After further discussions over the intercom it was decided that the only possible way of maintaining fore and aft control was quickly adjusting the position of the load. First the baggage and small freight items were shifted
[page break]
to the rear, but this made insufficient difference, so while one of them remained in contact with the captain, the passengers themselves moved aft. Gradually the nose began to rise, though there were several over-corrections and some hasty to-ing and fro-ing before Tunnadine was able to acquire reasonably positive control of the flight attitude by adjusting the position of one or two passengers. Having established the Hastings in level flight, he was then able to begin a gradual descent, headed towards Benina, which in normal circumstances would have been overflown. Next he tried gentle turns to port and starboard, using the throttles to boost or reduce engine power as necessary to swing the aircraft in the required direction. At the first attempt the nose went up and the aircraft began to shudder, indicating that a stall was imminent, but an urgent order to move some passengers forward brought the nose down again just in time.
Rarely can any transport pilot have faced such an appalling dilemma. The easiest of the decisions – whether to make a belly landing – had already been made for him since half the undercarriage lay on the desert surface some miles behind. The only way of achieving a reasonable crash landing would be to lose height as gradually as possible, then try to raise the aircraft's nose with a burst of engines just before she touched the ground. But he had only three engines and was already fighting the asymmetric effect caused by the unbalanced power on each wing. And how long those three engines would continue to operate was debatable; they had already exceeded maximum temperature in fighting the drag caused by the damaged wing.
As the Hastings neared Benghazi the beach to the north-east, with its mile upon mile of sand gleaming whitely in the moonlight, looked particularly inviting – but Benina's station commander advised against its use because of obstructions. Tunnadine was now able to talk on his VHF radio direct to the control tower at Benina, and he told them that he had decided to use their runway. A flarepath was laid out, the military hospital at Benghazi alerted and an army fire tender despatched to help on the airfield.
TG574 arrived overhead near Benina with about 6,000ft still in hand. The flickering flames of the gooseneck flares marking the runway, and the lights of Benghazi offered some comfort, though the most difficult part was still to come. Tunnadine made several wide circuits of the airfield, gingerly descending to 1,000ft, with the passengers still acting as a human counterweight to trim the aircraft. The six escape hatches were removed, but the large parachute doors were left in position lest any sudden inrush of air should affect the flying characteristics in any way.
Brown, still tending the terribly injured co-pilot, was no novice in flying matters, having made 80 jumps while on the staff of the Parachute Training School. He fully understood the perils of the landing which lay ahead, and knew that those in the front would be poorly placed if the Hastings crashed. Nevertheless he insisted that his duty was to remain with his patient. He had injected morphia and treated the injuries as best he could, and was lying down with Bennett in his arms, providing warmth from his own body and holding together the worst wounds with his hands.
At 2149 hours the medical officers and ambulances from Benghazi reached Benina. The flarepath was complete and the crash crews, ambulances and fire tenders positioned at a point on the perimeter track near the downwind end of the runway. Benina control informed Tunnadine:
'We are all ready for you to come in to land'.
'Going out to sea to make final approach', replied Tunnadine.
'Good luck. Hope you make it'.
'I'll need a bit of luck'.
It was now 69 minutes since Hastings TG574 had been damaged. As Tunnadine brought the aircraft down from 1,000ft by throttling back his engines he began to turn through 180 degrees to line up on the flarepath. The lights of Benghazi were on his port wing-tip. His airspeed indicator showed 140 knots, the lowest speed at which he could maintain any control. Ten miles away the flares showed up against the blackness of the desert. He dare not risk using the flaps, which might produce a nose-down attitude which he would not be able to correct.
For the passengers, knowing only too well the critical nature of the next few minutes, the ordeal was one of agonising suspense. 'Any one of us would cheerfully have jumped out on the end of an umbrella had one been available' said one of them afterwards. They waited in silence, each man alone with his private thoughts. Some were still standing, ready to move as required for instant trim changes and the nightmare atmosphere was heightened by the intermittent bellowing of the engines, since violent throttle movement was necessary to adjust the aircraft's attitude during final stages of the descent. When the aircraft was within feet of the ground, the passengers still standing slid rapidly into adjacent seats and strapped themselves in. Tunnadine was desperately trying to keep the Hastings level. The ground came nearer.
'I can't see the end of the runway'.
These were his last words to the control tower. After their exhibition of such superb airmanship, it was tragic that luck should desert the crew in the final seconds.
The aircraft struck the ground about a quarter of a mile short of the runway. In front of a gently sloping hillock which had obscured the lights. The initial impact was very gentle, though inevitably the propellers ploughed into the ground and the engine nacelles began to break up. Had it not been for the slope all would have been well. This caused the Hastings to become airborne again for about 100 yards, then the starboard wing hit the ground and broke off. The aircraft rolled on to its back, slewed round in the reverse direction and slid along the rough ground for 360 yards before coming to a halt. The time was 2155.
Crash crews were on the scene within 90 seconds, though fortunately there was no fire. To their surprise they found that most of the passengers had scrambled out, having suffered little more than relatively minor cuts and abrasions. Those still inside the fuselage, dazed and shaken, were quickly helped out. The wreckage of the hideously crumpled nose section held little promise of any survivors, and the four crew members on the flight deck were killed. Despite Brown's valiant efforts, Bennett also died before he could be rushed to hospital.
Apart from its unusual features this accident has a place
163
[page break]
in history for another reason. There is little doubt that most of the passengers owed their survival to the fact that the Hastings were fitted with suitably stressed rearward facing seats. This was the first major crash of a large passenger aircraft equipped in this fashion.
As the network of RAF scheduled transport services expanded during the later stages of the war it became apparent that there was a percentage of accidents where, despite relatively minor damage to the fuselage, passengers were killed or badly injured when the force of the impact wrenched the seats from their fittings and hurled them forwards. In 1945 the Royal Aircraft Establishment and No 46 Group made studies which led to the decision that future RAF transport aircraft should have rearward facing seats to protect passengers in these circumstances. The Hastings and the twin engined Valetta, which both entered service in 1948 were the first types so equipped. Rather more was involved than simply turning round existing seats, since to do the job properly they had to be specially designed. Those in the Hastings were stressed to withstand forces of 20g, and also featured a high back to protect passengers' heads. Two months after the Benina accident an RAF Valetta crashed in Sweden and provided more evidence of the seats' protective value. Although developments in aircraft design and performance have altered some of the parameters which led to the adoption of rearward facing seats in 1948, the RAF has continued to fit them on the basis that in any sudden deceleration it is better for the seat to take the first stress rather than the human body.
The subsequent inquiry into the Benina accident established that metal fatique had caused the propellor blade to break. It was pure bad luck that in flying off it should have caused such a crash. The blade had an arc of 360 degrees in which to leaves [sic] its consorts. In only about 40 degrees of this arc would it have hit the aircraft, and in still fewer could it damage the controls. It was additional bad luck that after Tunnadine's brilliant performance in coaxing the crippled Hastings to the brink of safety it should have struck the small ridge which launched it back into the air for that fatal somersault.
In the [italics] London Gazette [/italics] of 18 May 1951 it was announced that Squadron Leader Brown had been awarded the George Medal. The citation briefly described the sequence of events and ended: '... There is no doubt that he (Brown) consciously risked his life in order to save that of the injured officer. He carried out his duties in accordance with the traditions of his profession without regard for his own personal safety.'
Tunnadine and his crew were awarded the King's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air. But for the rigid rules restricting posthumous awards they would undoubtedly have been recommended for some higher recognition.
[page break]
[photograph]
T. G. 574 comes to rest at Benina
[page break]
CASSANDRA
JONAHS OF THE SKY
FOR about twenty-four hours sixteen gentlemen have been floating about in the blue (I hope), briny (not very) tideless (nearly), warm (I trust) Mediterranean.
They were on air-inflated rubber rafts, and some of them were quite important people.
They all belonged to the Royal Air Force and were in a Hastings aircraft that crashed in the Gulf of Sirte between Tripoli and Benghazi.
Among them was Air Commodore Morshead, who is the Chief Staff Technical Officer of Transport Command.
I suggest that if Air Commodore Morshead is not getting a little tired of being personally ditched and narrowly escaping with his life, together with those of other members of the RAF in this particular type of aircraft, he is a more patient man than he might be.
The Hastings is one of the most hapless aeroplane ever to climb into the hostile sky. Its record of peril is approached only by the Hermes – which is the civil version of the same machine.
Why these earth-attracted brutes are not grounded, I do not know.
Since 1949 the Hastings has crashed at Salisbury, Benghazi, Sicily, Ismailia,Greenland and Abingdon. It has also had many narrow squeaks that have fortunately ended in safe but breathless and blood-chilling landings. It has killed thirteen and injured many others.
The Hermes has been involved in at least nine accidents in the past two years, some of which have been fatal.
These machines, both the Hastings and the Hermes, share many odd and lethal vices among which shedding propellers – which most pilots find a handicap – has been noticeable.
How much longer do these four-[text missing]
[boxed with picture] CASSANDRA SAYS:
[italics] "Why this earth-attracted brute is not grounded, I do not know." [/boxed]
[page break]
[columns] a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. [/columns]
[a] 8.12.50 [b] 09.05 [c] TG530 [d] F/LT Hanson [e] Passenger [f] Lyneham – Castel Benito [g] 6.50
[a] 9.12.50 [b] 04.00 [c] TG530 [d] F/Lt Hanson [e] Passenger [f] Castel Benito – Fayid [g] 5.00
[a] 9.12.50 [b] 11.55 [c] TG530 [d] F/LT Hanson [e] Passenger [f] Fayid – Habbaniya [g] 2.50 [h] 1.00
[a] 10.12.50 [b] 04.15 [c] TG530 [d] F/LT Hanson [e] Passenger [f] Habbaniya - Mauripur [g] 7.10
[a] 11.12.50 [b] 01.55 [c] TG530 [d] F/LT Hanson [e] Passenger [f] Mauripor – Megombo [g] 7.10
[a] 15.12.50 [b] 04.50 [c] TG.574 [d] F/LT Foster [e] Engineer [f] Megombo – Changi [g] 6.20 [h] 2.00
[a] 18.12.50 [b] 02.40 [c] TG.574 [d] F/LT Foster [e] Engineer [f] Changi – Megombo [g] 8.00
[a] 18.12.50 [b] 13.10 [c] TG.574 [d] F/LT Stafford [e] Passenger [f] Mecombo - Mauripor [h] 6.40
[a] 18.12.50 [b] 22.35 [c] TG.574 [d] F/LT Davenport [e] Passenger [f] Mauripor – Habbaniya [g] 2.00 [h] 5.35
[a] 19.12.50 [b] 12.15 [c] TG574 [d] F/LT Tunnadine [e] Passenger [f] Habbaniya – El Adem No 2 Eng U/S. [g] .45
[a] 20.12.50 [b] 08.45 [c] TG.574 [d] F/LT Tunnadine [e] Passenger [f] Habbaniya - El Adem [g] 5.50
[a] 20.12.50 [b] 18.00 [c] TG.574 [d] F/LT Tunnadine [e] Passenger [f] El Adem – Bennina CRASH LANDED [h] 1.50
[a] 24.12.50 [b] 08.15 [c] TG [deleted] 514 [/deleted][inserted] 526 [/inserted] [d] F/O Perrin [e] Passenger [f] Bennina - Castel Benito [g] 215
TOTAL TIME ... [g] 967.40 [h]348.35
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
Fate Deals a Blow
Description
An account of the resource
Extract from "But Not in Anger". Story of a Hastings of 53 Squadron on route from El Adam to Castel Benito Tripoli which shed a propeller blade which struck the fuselage injuring the co-pilot and cutting the tail control rods. Relates story of crew flying the aircraft using passengers moving up and down fuselage to raise and lower the nose. The aircraft landed short of runway at Benghazi and the crew were killed in crushed cockpit but most of the passengers survived. George Medal and King's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air were awarded as result to an officer who tended the wounded co-pilot and the rest of the crew.
Top left - remainder of the extract.
Top right - photograph of the crashed Hastings upside down at Benina.
Bottom left - newspaper cutting - Jonahs of the sky. Story of a Hasting that crashed in the Gulf of Sirte leaving passengers and crew in life rafts. Comments on poor reputation of Hastings aircraft for crashes.
Bottom right - extract from Ned Sparkes's log book from 8 December 1950 to 24 December 1950 listing 13 sorties.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cole Christopher & Grant Roderick:
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1950-12
1950-12-20
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Libya
Libya--Banghāzī
Libya--Tripoli
North Africa
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. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Text. Log book and record book
Format
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One printed document, one newspaper cutting, one log book extract and one b/w photograph mounted on two album pages
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSparkesW17010028, PSparkesW17010029
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.
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Sparkes, Ned. Album
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
aircrew
crash
George Medal
pilot
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1401/27270/SMooreD1603117v10020.1.jpg
de494494519f927f0b665b17e692e2ba
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1401/27270/SMooreD1603117v10019.1.jpg
a15f9ba675769af90f015e8280016c68
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
Moore, Dennis
D Moore
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
2015-05-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Moore, D
Description
An account of the resource
37 items and two albums.
The collection concerns (1923 - 2010, 1603117, 153623 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, documents, photographs and two albums. He flew operations as a navigator with 218 and 15 Squadrons.
Album one contains photographs of his family and his training in Canada.
Album Two contains photographs of his service in the Far East.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Terrence D Moore and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] TAKEN FROM THE SERGEANT'S MESS KITCHEN COPY WHICH WAS USED TO MARK OFF THE "EGG & BACON" MEALS.
THE ORIGINAL STILL HAS 1945 BACON FAT ON IT!
Les Brown [/inserted]
[inserted][signature][calculations][/inserted]
[underlined] S E C R E T. [/underlined] [underlined] No 15 SQUADRON. [/underlined]
Serial No 1126. [underlined] 1st Battle Order for the 9th April 1945. [/underlined]
[a] A/C No. [b] Letter. [c] Capn & 2nd Pilot. [d[ Nav & W/Op. [e] A/B & M/U Gnr. [f] R/G & F/Eng. [g] M/Under.
[a] HK.699. [b] B. [c] [deleted] W/O. Woodman. [symbol] [/deleted] [d] Sgt. Relf. [symbol] Sgt. Gennoy. [symbol] [e] F/O. Moffat. Sgt. Hammond. [symbol] [f] Sgt. Dickinson. [symbol] [deleted] F/S. Freementle. [/deleted] [symbol] [g] F/O. Houston
[a] ME.849. [b] C. [c] F/L. Lacey. [symbol] [d] F/O. Blakney. F/S. [deleted] McKee. [symbol] [/deleted] [e] F/O. Underbakke. [deleted] Sgt.Coles. [/deleted] [symbol] [f] [deleted] Sgt. [indecipherable name] [/deleted] [symbol] Sgt. [deleted] [indecipherable name] [/deleted] [symbol]
[a] HK.799. [b] D. [c] F/L. Ayres. [symbol] [d] [deleted] F/S. Risley. [/deleted] [symbol] P/O. Greene. [e] F/O. Forsyth. F/O. Chambers. [f] F/O. Girardot. [symbol] P/O. Anderson.
[a] PA.235. [b] E. [c] F/O. Burns. [symbol] [d] F/S. Dukes. [symbol] F/S. Nicholson. [symbol] [e] [deleted] F/O. [indecipherable name] [/deleted] [symbol] [deleted] F/S. Deakins. [/deleted] [symbol] [f] Sgt. Giddings. [symbol] [deleted] Sgt. Franks. [/deleted] [symbol] [inserted] F.L. [indecipherable name] [/inserted]
[a] HK.648. [b] F. [c] F/S. McLennan. [symbol] [d] F/S. Fudge. [symbol] F/S. Noble. [symbol] [e] F/S. Ellis. [symbol] Sgt. Linsell. [symbol] [f] Sgt. Willacy. [symbol] Sgt. [deleted] Clear. [/deleted] [symbol] [g] P.O. Flack.
[a] LL.806. [b] J. [c] F/S. Sievers. [symbol] [d] [deleted] F/S. Clarkstone. [/deleted] [symbol] Sgt. King. [Symbol] [e] F/O. Hunter. J.D. Sgt. Williamson(396). [symbol] [f] Sgt. Wells. [symbol] Sgt. Blankharn. [symbol]
[a] NX.561. [b] L. [c] F/L. Gray. [symbol] [d] F/L. Berry. [symbol] F/S. Metcalf. [symbol] [e] F/S. Dykstra. [symbol] Sgt. Cooper(427). [symbol] [f] Sgt. Ferguson. [symbol] Sgt. Rawson. [symbol]
[a] NG.338. [b] M. [c] F/L. Rosenhain. [symbol] [d] F/O. Overbury. P/O. Edgecombe. [e] F/O. Lane. W/O. Drought. [symbol] [f] F/O. Foster. F/O. Taylor. [symbol]
[a] PP.672. [b] N. [c] F/O. Watts. [symbol] [d] F/O. Cox. [symbol] F/S. Taylor(520) [symbol] [e] Sgt. Chapman. [symbol] Sgt. Kenny. [symbol] [f] Sgt. Doherty. [symbol] F/S. Lewis. [symbol]
[a] HK.789. [b] R. [c] F/L. Bithell. [symbol] [d] F/O. Harris. F/S. Reece. [symbol] [e] F/O. Wallace. F/O. Schanschieff. [f] Sgt. Price. [symbol] Sgt. Draper. [symbol]
[a] PP.664. [b] U. [c] [ deleted] W/O. McGrath. [symbol] [/deleted] [d] F/O. Gilbertson. F/S. Cooper(356). [symbol] [e] F/S. Howard. [symbol] Sgt. Cheyney. [symbol] [f] Sgt. Watson. [symbol] Sgt. Sharpless. [symbol]
[a] HK.619. [b] V. [c] F/O. Darlow. [symbol] [d] Sgt. Porter. [symbol] Sgt. Gabb. [symbol] [e] Sgt. Cooper(900). [symbol] Sgt. Bathgate. [symbol] [f] F/O. Cork. W/O. Lane. [symbols] [g] F/S. Palmer. [symbol]
[a] ME.844. [b] W. [c] F/L. Clayton. [symbol] [d] P/O. Graham. F/S. Brown(297) [symbol] [e] F/O. Robertson. [symbol] P/O. Hardy. [f] Sgt. Fletcher. [symbol] P/O. Raine.
[a] NF.957. [b] X. [c] F/L. Jolly. [symbol] [d] F/O. Cope. F/O. Crowther. [e] F/O. Gourley. W/O. Hall. [symbol] [f] F/S. Wyatt. [symbol] F/S. Parsons. [symbol]
[a] NO.444. [b] Y. [c] [deleted] F/L. Lewis. [/deleted] [d] [deleted] F/S. Bellis. [/deleted] [deleted] F/S. McDonald. [/deleted] [e] [deleted] F/S. Cowie. [/deleted] [symbol] [deleted] Sgt. [indecipherable letter]atts. [symbol] [/deleted] [f] [deleted] F/S. Langan. [/deleted] [symbol] [deleted] Sgt. Parry(021). [/deleted] [symbol]
[a] HK.765. [b] Z. [c] F/S. Bruce. [symbol] [d] F/S. Rolfe. [symbol] F/S. Ardley. [symbol] [e] F/S. Knott. [symbols] [deleted] F/S. [indecipherable name] [/deleted] [symbol] [f] Sgt. Chettoe. [symbol] [deleted] Sgt. [indecipherable name] (994) [/deleted] [symbol]
[a] NG.358. [b] H. [c] S/L. Percy. [symbol] [d] F/O. Moore. F/S. Evans. [symbols] [e] F/O. Butler. F/S. Bourke. [symbols] [f] F/S. Clarke(655). [symbol] P/O. Forster. [symbols]
[a] NG.364. [b] P. [c] F/L. Ostler. [symbol] [d] F/O. McCulloch. [symbol] W/O. Spratt. [symbol] [e] P/O. Bartholomew. Sgt. Hands. [symbol] [f] Sgt. Hamilton. [symbol] Sgt. O'Keefe. [symbol]
OFFICER I/C FLYING RATIONS – F/O. HUNT.
F/O. HUNT'S CREW TO REPORT TO RADAR OFFICER.
F/L. BAGENAL & CREW – DUTY CREW.
[underlined] BRIEFING TO BE NOTIFIED LATER. [/underlined] [symbols] [inserted] Williams [/inserted]
[inserted] 79 [symbol] [/inserted]
(signed) N. G. MACFARLANE.
Wing Commander,
Commanding,
No 15 Squadron.
[page break]
SEE ENTRY 9/10th April 1945
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
15 Squadron Battle Order 9th April 1945
Description
An account of the resource
A document with the battle order for the squadron. It lists each aircraft and each crew member for operations that night. Annotated on it is 'Taken from the Sergeant's Mess kitchen copy which was used to mark off the "Egg and Bacon" meals. The original still has 1945 bacon fat on it' and is signed 'Les Brown'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
15 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-04-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typed sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SMooreD1603117v10019, SMooreD1603117v10020
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04-09
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Babs Nichols
15 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
mess
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1362/23341/MTurnerCF1042292-160822-08.1.jpg
9cc4b5e0b212740ea7ae595e70b78fab
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
Turner, Charlie
C F Turner
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Charles Turner DFM (1042292 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and photographs. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Barbara Turner and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Turner, CF
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
OPS. GELSENKIRCHEN 5.35 DAYLIGHT
[underlined] NO. 186 SQUADRON BATTLE ORDER – 5TH MARCH1945. Serial No. 25 [/underlined]
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘C’ HK. 694
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
W/O S.F. Cooke
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O C.D. Wale
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/O A.E. Dent
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/O A. Crispin
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt A. Graham
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt F.G. Victor
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt E.W. McGaw
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘E’ NG 146
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/L G.M. Templeton
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S J. McKey
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
P/O A.J. Beaven
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S W.V. Barker
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
F/S F.A. Mahoney
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Hargreaves
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt J. Coulton
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘F’ NG. 140
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/O A.P. Gillespie
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
Sgt P. Feasy
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/S F.I. Dow
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
W/O D.C. Strickland
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt R. Whitehouse
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt S.A. Bedwell
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt E.J. Roberts
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘G’ NG. 149
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/L A.N. Marshall
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O L.E. Jordon
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/O G. Arrand
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
W/O S.J. Spay
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
W/O L.H. Wilson
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
F/O A. Aspin
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt E.J. Roberts
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘J’ HK. 682
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/L E.L. Field DFC
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S P.A. Upson
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/O G. Littleboy
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S C.J. Morris
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt W. O’Connell
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
F/S C.F. Turner
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Enright
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘L’ HK. 802
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/O H.S. Young
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S D. Bone
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/S S.J. Reilly
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S F. Holroyd
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
F/S R. Lambert
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt J. Green
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt N. Simpson
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘Q’ HK. 659
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/L R.A. Hanson
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S L. Collins
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/S S.F. Mullett
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
W/O Robertson
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt S. Roger
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt R. Thomas
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt D. Say
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘S’
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/L F.H. Mason
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S H. Coleman
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
P/O W.G. Williams
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S W.S. [?]
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt D.J. [?]
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
F/S W.F. Upton
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt A. Heaslet
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘T’ HK. 794
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/O L. Idle
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O A.A. Purkiss
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/S J.K. Snell
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
W/O M. Honor
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
[?] MacDonald
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt A.G. Philbey
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt J. Hamilton
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘U’ NG. 293
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/S P. Gray
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S G. Merrick
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/O E. Marner
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
Sgt W. Jenkinson
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt I.W. Foster
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt E.C. Booth
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt F. Parkhouse
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘V’ RF. 126
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/L L.A. Green
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S J. Baggott
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
W/O K.E. Pryor
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S N. Robson
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt D. Furguson
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt W. Deards
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt L. Beamish
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘W’ HK. 796
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/O R. Goglier
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S McKendrick
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/S R. Hawkins
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S A. Scragg
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
F/S F. Boyle
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
F/S M. Gilmartin
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
W/O F.W. Lemon
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
(XY) ‘Z’ HK. 606
[underlined]Pilot [/underlined]
F/O J.M. Forand
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
P/O E.C. Audell
[underlined] Air Bomber [/underlined]
F/S A. Cecotti
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
Sgt D. Harris
[underlined] Mid Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt J. Degay
[underlined] Rear Gunner [/underlined]
F/S W.F. Trivett
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt J.L. Butters
(XY) ‘D’ NG. 137 TO BE PREPARED AS A SPARE AIRCRAFT.
OFFICER i/c FLYING: W/C J.H. Giles DFC BRIEFING TIMES WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER.
LEADERS: F/O RICHARDSON, F/L HOLMAN DFC, F/L BAXTER, F/L BUCKLAND DFC, SGT WALLWORK, F/L MACDONALD, W/O CASEY AND S/L DODWELL.
F/O VERRY, F/O DAVEY, F/S CORKAN, SGT BARWA, SAGT WARD, SGT HASSELL, SGT BROWN are to report to the Station Radar Officer at the time of the Navigators Briefing.
N.B. Alterations to this Order may only be made with the sanction of the Squadron Commander and notification to the Squadron Adjutant.
[signature] F/L
(J. S. Walker)
Flight Lieutenant, for,
Wing Commander, Commanding,
[underlined]No. 186 Squadron[/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Battle Order 5th March 1945
Description
An account of the resource
A battle order for 186 Squadron for an operation to Gelsenkirchen. It details each aircraft and all seven crew members for each aircraft.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
186 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-03-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typed sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MTurnerCF1042292-160822-08
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
186 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1507/28603/SEllisRHG918424v10021-0001.2.jpg
62f93f4c7d84e7827a97953cd208f3de
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1507/28603/SEllisRHG918424v10021-0002.2.jpg
ad7670b9bf1d1220ff6bedb347258708
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
Ellis, Roy
Royston Hazeldine George Ellis
R H G Ellis
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-09
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
Ellis, RHG
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Roy Ellis (1916 - 1943, <span>918424 Royal Air Force</span>) and contains correspondence, his decorations and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 199 Squadron and was killed 31 August 1943.<br /> <br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Norman Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on Roy Ellis is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/208468/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
No. 199 Squadron,
Royal Air Force,
Lakenheath,
Suffolk.
23rd September 1943.
Dear Mrs. Ellis,
I thank you for your letter of the 20th September 1943, and in response to your request I am pleased to forward you the names and addresses of the members of your husband’s crew, which are as set out below.
The necessary instructions have been given here, for your husband’s sycle [sic] to be forwarded to you on which Air Ministry’s sanction is being obtained.
With regard to your husband’s uniform jacket and trousers, please forward same to this Unit.
Pilot – Aus. 408833 F/Sgt. Harlem A.A.
Next of kin – Father, Mr. Bertram Julius Harlem, 34 Salisbury Rd, Ross Bay, New South Wales, Australia.
Navigator – 3079475 F/Sgt. Julian W.B.
Next of kin – Wife, Mrs. Marjorie Julian, 14 Newby Terrace, Ripon, Yorkshire.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner – Aus. 412129 F/Sgt. Gee F.E.
Next of kin – Father, Mr. Rupert Stephen Gee, Regent St, Forbes, New South Wales, Australia.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner – 1206613 Sgt. Elphick H.
Next of kin – Wife, Mrs. Vera Maud, Margaret Elphick, 22 Daison Cres. Torquay, Devon.
Air Bomber – 988491 F/Sgt. McLaren I.N.
Next of kin – Father, Mr. William McLaren, 86 Moss Street, Keith, Banffshire, Scotland.
Rea Gunner – 408569 Warrant Officer Finlayson A.D.
Next of kin - Father, Mr. Alexander Duncan Finlayson, “Mutcharinga” Yeoong Creek, New South Wales, Australia.
[page break]
Flight Engineer – 1603576 Sgt. Smith J.T.
Next of kin – Wife, Mrs. Ellen Louise May Smith, Hill Cottage, Virley, Nr. Maldon, Essex.
Yours sincerely,
[signature] F/Lt.
for Wing Commander,
[underlined]Commanding No. 199 Squadron[/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Mrs Roy Ellis from 199 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
The letter supplies names and addresses of Roy's crew members.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
199 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-09-23
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One double sided typewritten sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SEllisRHG918424v10021-0001, SEllisRHG918424v10021-0002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-23
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
199 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
killed in action
navigator
pilot
RAF Lakenheath
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1313/19080/PStachiewiczM17010045.2.jpg
516461309972479b0b38e5500c0d8d96
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1313/19080/PStachiewiczM17010046.2.jpg
d9a1440490bd0c41da67a61af79a4b32
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
Stachiewicz, Mieczysław. Album
Description
An account of the resource
58 items. An album of photographs, newspaper clippings and papers relating to Mieczysław Stachiewicz's escape from Poland through Romania, Greece, and France to Great Britain, and his tour of operations as a pilot with 301 Squadron from RAF Hemswell. The album also contains photographs of his friends and family.
These items were digitised by a third-party using technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by the IBCC Digital Archive.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stachiewicz, M
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
Wyciag z ksiegi strat Dywizjonu 301 w okresie maj – listopad 1942
Excerpt from 301 Squadron's loss book for the period May - November 1942
Description
An account of the resource
A list of 16 aircraft and crew lost between May and November 1942 from 301 Squadron.
Business card for P/O Harry William Bock, Polish Air Force.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
301 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-11
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten sheets and a printed card from a scrapbook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
pol
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PStachiewiczM17010045
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
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-05
1942-06
1942-07
1942-08
1942-09
1942-10
1942-11
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Other languages than English
301 Squadron
aircrew
killed in action
pilot
RAF Hemswell
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1953/36984/MHitchcockJS740899-170926-10.2.pdf
4d9c44defb4a1ad7706e7855eff9c156
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
Hitchcock, John Samuel
J S Hitchcock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hitchcock, JS
Description
An account of the resource
87 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant John Samuel Hitchcock (740899, 106813 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations, log books, uniform jacket, sunglasses, parachute logbook, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 37, 57 and 78 Squadrons. <br /><br />The collection also contains <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2142">an album</a><span> from his training in North Africa.<br /></span><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P J Hitchcock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE HANDLING OF WELLINGTON AIRCRAFT.
GENERAL. [/underlined]
These instructions are issued in amplification [three indecipherable words] in No. 3 Group Crew Order Book, Part 1, and are to be adhered to by pilots.
[underlined] PREPARATION FOR FLIGHT. [/underlined]
1. See that the main petrol cocks are in the "ON" position.
2. Turn on petrol cocks in pilots cockpit.
3. Prime petrol system with [deleted letter] Wicky.
4. Plug in starting trolley.
5. Engines doped at Nacell, 15 – 30 strokes.
6. Switch on Hand Magneto.
7. Set air screw control in coarse pitch.
8. Set 2 speed blower in "DOWN" position.
9. Set gills at position "10" on dial.
10. Put air intake in "cold" position.
11. Put mixture control in "NORMAL" position.
12. Set throttle 1/3rd open in slow steady motion.
13. Contact Starboard.
14.Press Starboard Starter Button.
15. Contact Port.
16. Press Port Starter Button.
17. Observe oil pressure 150 lbs.
18. Put air intake lever in "WARN".
19. On increase of oil temparature [sic], put aircrews in fine pitch.
20. Run up 200 r.p.m. stages to 1000 r.p.m.; allow oil pressure to drop to 100 lbs.
21. Put air intake in "COLD" and throttle back.
22. Open throttle till r.p.m. are 2500: draw back airscrew control to give 2250 r.p.m. open throttle, give plus 2 1/2 lbs boost, and check oil pressure at 80 lbs.
23. Throttle back to 1800 r.p.m. and check magnetos, check blower by snapping from M to S (oil pressure should drop to 50 lbs and regain normal in about 3 secs. r.p.m. should drop in S blower.
24. Return blower to M gear and airscrew control to fully fine.
25. Open throttle fully to obtain plus 5 1/2 lbs boost, and adjust airscrew control to give 2475 r.p.m.
26. Check cylinder head temperature at not more than 190° C.
27. Check fuel contents gauges.
/Cont. . . Page 2.
[page break]
. . . Page 2.
28. Check brake pressure.
29. Turn hydraulic power valve on.
30. Check functioning of flaps and return to "UP" position.
31. Check Oil Temperature gauges.
32. Check oil pressure gauges.
33. Check fuel pressure.
34. Check undercarriage warning device by pressing (KLAXON) button.
35. Checking warning lights on dashboard.
36. Set gills at position 10 for taxying.
37. Set actuating lever 2/3rds forward.
38. Open equalising cock. (UP).
39. Tighten throttle clutch if necessary.
40. Check cock on pipeline to instruments is in "PUMP" position.
41. Ensure that crew are in position and hatch closed.
42. Check controls for excessive stiffness or slackness.
[underlined] BEFORE TAKE-OFF. [/underlined]
1. Aircraft are to be taxied around the perimeter of the aerodrome to the position for take-off. On arrival at this position the aircraft is to be stopped in a position at right angles to the direction of the wind and facing the direction of circuit.
2. Check equalising cock for "ON" (UP).
3. Check friction clamp on throttles.
4. Check airscrew control for fine pitch, i.e. position for 2475 r.p.m.
5. Check flaps for fully UP position.
6. Check hydraulic power valve for "ON". (Mark 1A only).
7. Switch pressure head heater "ON".
8. Set gills to position 2. (light load).
9. Check blower in "H" [?] blower.
[underlined] TAKE-OFF. [/underlined]
Having ascertained that no aircraft are approaching to land, turn the aircraft into wind and run the engines up to about 1800 revs at approximately [indecipherable numbers] boost. When engines are running smoothly release the brakes and allow aircraft to roll gently forward for a few yards, and then open to full throttle for final take-off. When throttle is full open glance to see that plus 5 1/2 boost is being obtained.
For the take-off get the tail right up until the aircraft is approx. 2 to 3 degrees above the horizontal. Allow to run for 500 or 600 yards and then gently ease it off the ground, taking care not to depress the tail.
/Cont . . . Page 3.
[page break]
. . . Page 3.
[underlined] IN THE AIR. [/underlined]
1. As soon as airborne raise undercarriage (UP).
2. The nose of the aircraft is to be kept down until a minimum speed of 110 m.p.h. has been attained, after which a climb can be commenced.
3. On attaining a speed of 110 m.p.h. throttle back the engines to [symbol] 2 boost, and immediately adjust V.P. air screw controls to give 2200 r.p.m.
4. Climb to 500 feet, at the same time synchronising the engines and closing balance cock.
5. On attaining 500 feet throttle back the engines to - 1 boost, and adjust mixture control to "weak mixture" and climb at 130 m.p.h.
6. Particular attention is to be taken to ensure that the aircraft is flown in the "weak mixture" position with all boost pressures of less than zero.
7. Switch off hydraulic power valve. (Mark 1A only).
8. Adjust gills according to temperature.
[underlined] LANDING. [/underlined]
1. Circle aerodrome at 800 to 1000 feet.
2. Open equalising cock (UP) and CAGE directional GYRO.
3. Turn hydraulic power valve to "ON". (Mark 1a only).
4. Throttle back to -4 boost, and when speed falls below 150 m.p.h. lower undercarriage.
5. Lose height in such a manner that the aircraft will be approx. 500 feet in a position 1,000 yards down wind of the aerodrome.
6. Turn into wind.
7. On completion of the turn lower the flaps full. In a wind over 30 m.p.h. or with a full load the flaps should only be lowered to 500. The actuating gear to be operated as required. Flaps are not to be lowered at speed in excess of 110 m.p.h.
8. Put airscrews in fully fine pitch.
10. If night flying when the speed is reduced to 100 m.p.h. the landing light should be wound out and switched on.
[underlined] AFTER LANDING. [/underlined]
1. Raise flaps before taxying in UP.
2. Turn hydraulic power valve to "OFF", (Mark 1A only).
3. Taxi to boundary of aerodrome and move round perimeter. Check brakes before approaching hangars or other aircraft.
/Cont . . . Page 4
[page break]
[underlined] STOPPING ENGINES. [/underlined]
1. Move airscrew controls to coarse pitch. (Note that airscrews have gone into coarse pitch prior to switching off).
2. Switch off engines and pull up "cut-out" and hold it up until engine ceases firing.
3. Turn off petrol.
4. Switch off pitot head heater.
5. Switch off all electrical instruments.
[underlined] 13/7/40. [/underlined]
[signature]
Wing Commander Commanding [underlined] No. 37 Squadron. R.A.F. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Instructions for the Handling of Wellington Aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
Step by step instructions for handling a Wellington.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
37 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-07-13
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four typewritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MHitchcockJS740899-170926-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
3 Group
37 Squadron
aircrew
pilot
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/408/7346/SChattertonJ159568v10287.2.jpg
d678769370f8a3b813b2434aa2dbc4ec
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
Chatterton, John. 44 Squadron operations order book
Description
An account of the resource
Collection consists of 521 items which are mostly Operations orders, aircraft load and weight tables and bomb aimers briefings for 44 Squadron operations between January 1944 and April 1945. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by M J Chatterton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning Dewhurst Graaf and his crew, and Donald Neil McKechnie and his crew. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/109020/">Dewhurst Graaf</a> and <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/115642/">Donald Neil McKechnie</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
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
Chatterton, J
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] NO. 44(RHODESIA)SQUADRON. [/underlined] [underlined] 25TH JANUARY,1944. [/underlined]
[underlined] OPERATIONAL AND TRAINING DETAIL FOR 25/26TH JANUARY, 1944. SERIAL NO, 8/44. [/underlined]
[underlined] OPERATIONAL [/underlined] : The following crews and aircraft are hereby detailed for operational flying duties on 25/26th January, 1944.
[underlined] ND.517.U. (III). [/underlined]
F/Lt. Wiggin.
Sgt. Jones.
F/O. Maury.
[underlined] F/O. Roger. [/underlined]
Sgt. Dicken.
F/Sgt. Lloyd.
F/O. Rimmer.
[underlined] JA.843.O. (III). [/underlined]
F.O. Mercer. [inserted] D.F.C. [/inserted]
Sgt. Capps.
P.O. Purvis. [inserted] D.F.C. [/inserted]
[underlined] F/S. Barker. [/underlined]
P.O. Baker
F/Sgt. Pratt.
W/O. Wilkie.
[underlined] W.4933.Y. (I)(MIN). [/underlined]
P.O. Oakley
Sgt. Campbell.
Sgt. Cartlidge.
[underlined] F/S. [deleted] Binns. [/deleted] [inserted] HATTON [/inserted] [/underlined]
Sgt. Naylor.
Sgt. Dearling.
F/S. Pratt.
[underlined] ME.571.P. (I). [/underlined]
P.O. Manning.
Sgt. Wren.
Sgt. Woodwards.
[underlined] Sgt. Roberts. [/underlined]
Sgt. Davison.
Sgt. Hedley.
Sgt. Murray.
[underlined] ME.573.S. (I). [/underlined
P.O. Gee.
Sgt. Turner.
Sgt. Osborne.
[underlined] Sgt. Maxwell. [/underlined]
Sgt. Utting.
Sgt. Inglis.
Sgt. Moore.
[underlined] EE.185.K (III). [/underlined]
F/Lt. Hunter.
Sgt. Cooper.
F/O. Greenwood.
[underlined] F/O. Willis. [/underlined]
Sgt. Salmon.
Sgt. Miles.
Sgt. Alexander.
[underlined] LM.306.L (III). [/underlined]
F/Lt. Phillips.
Sgt. Carter.
F/O. Gourlay.
[underlined] Sgt. Taylor. [/underlined]
P.O. Bennett.
Sgt. Curtis.
W/O. Dowling.
[underlined] LM.434.F. (III) [/underlined]
P.O. Wright. [inserted] D.F.C. [/underlined]
Sgt. Bateman.
F/O. Garland.
[underlined] P.O. Soaper. [/underlined]
Sgt. Laker.
F/S. Snow.
Sgt. Miller.
[underlined] ED.611.J. (III). [/underlined]
P.O. Bartlett.
Sgt. Middleton.
F/S Sturgess.
[underlined] Sgt. Hoad. [/underlined]
Sgt. Scott.
Sgt. Swingler.
Sgt. Cowley.
[underlined] DV.166.B. (III). [/underlined]
P.O. Smith.
Sgt. Bennett.
Sgt. Farrow.
[underlined] F/O. Dutton. [/underlined]
Sgt. Hussey.
Sgt. Myers.
Sgt. Dack.
[underlined] NO. 1 STANDBY. [/underlined] C
F/LT. Dorehill. DFC.
Sgt. Turrell.
F/S. Wright.
[underlined] Sgt. Deacon. [/underlined]
Sgt. Gurr.
Sgt. Mullett. DFM.
Sgt. Woollard.
[underlined] No.2 STANDBY. [/underlined]
F/S. Barton.
Sgt. Thompson.
F/O. Sparrow.
[underlined] Sgt. Barnes. [/underlined]
Sgt. Willett.
Sgt. Joy.
Sgt. Hummell.
DUTY CREWS : F/S. Stephenson & crew.
Sgt. Butt & crew.
BRIEFING : NAVIGATORS: SPEC.: MAIN:
To be notified later.
Bus will leave Sgts. Mess at
Bus will leave Officers Mess at
Officer i/c Night Flying : S/Ldr. Cockbain.
Duty Flight Engineer : Sgt. Waugh.
Duty Electricians : ACs . Brown & Ramsden.
Duty Photos : As detailed by Sgt. White.
Duty Sigs. : LAC. Moore.
Duty Armr. N.C.O’s : Sgt. Leyland & Cpl. Gibbons.
Duty Flight N.C.O’s : Sgt. Gibbons & Arrowsmith.
Duty Clerk : Cpl. Pike.
Duty Signals Officer : P.O. Roberts.
[signature]
Flight Lieutenant,
for Wing Commander,
Commanding,
[underlined] No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Operations order 25 January 1944
Operational and training detail for 25/26 January 1944 Serial No 8/44
Description
An account of the resource
Lists crews and aircraft for operation on night 25/26 January 1944. Fourth member of each crew underlined in red. Includes two standby crews and duty personnel. First standby crew has aircraft letter 'C' alongside, Third row fourth crew member has 'Line overlap' annotated alongside it.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
44 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-01-25
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SChattertonJ159568v10287
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-25
1944-01-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Batten
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One-page typewritten document
44 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
flight engineer
pilot
RAF Dunholme Lodge
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2513/43503/MDavyFR1108748-190530-04.1.jpg
cb25a0b973c0d06add7d82c1e5ed5c25
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
Davy, Frederick R
Davy, F R
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection concerns Frederick R Davy (b. 1912, 1108747 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 625 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Frederick Popoff catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-30
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Davy, FR
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
625 Squadron Battle Order 18 July 1944
Description
An account of the resource
A list of aircraft and crew required for operations on 18 July 1944.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
625 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-07-18
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MDavyFR1108748-190530-04
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07-18
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
625 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1376/24336/MFordTA1585520-170411-31.2.jpg
875e614287c6acaa5e60685643b1c915
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
Ford, Terry
Ford, T
Description
An account of the resource
135 items. The collection concerns Terry Ford. He flew operations as a pilot with 75 Squadron. It contains photographs, his log book, operational maps, letters home during training, and documents including emergency drills. There are two albums of photographs, one of navigation logs, and another of target photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Julia Burke and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ford, T
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] BATTLE ORDER – NO. 75(NZ) SQUADRON – 6/7TH DECEMBER,1944. [/underlined]
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
E*
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Glossop
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
Sgt McNeil
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Mace
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
P/O Meehan
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Harvey
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Killick
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Haworth
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
A
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/L Barton
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O Birch
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Semple
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/O Stuart
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Smith
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Moore
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Williams
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
B
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Abraham
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O Glengarry
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/O Jones
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
Sgt Davies
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Hughes
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Makin
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Evans
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
D
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Leadley
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
Sgt Day
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Gill
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/L Galloway
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Clare
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
F/S Baker
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Heslop
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
Y
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Ford
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O Weeden
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/O Chapman
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S Tredinnick
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Muller
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Glover
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Fitzwater
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
X
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Gawith
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O Baker
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
P/O Taylor
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/O Picsse
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Jones
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Caldwell
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
{blank]
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
S
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Kilpatrick
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/O Tate
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Cattenack
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
Sgt Devonport
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Barton
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Halladay
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Olive
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
R
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Atkin
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S Coulson
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Thurston
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S Curtis
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Jones
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Madden
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Johnstone
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
X JN **
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/L Waugh
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
P/O Woonton
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
P/O Swetland
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S Kidd
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Southgate
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
F/S Nickells
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
F/S McDonald
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
O JN
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/S Jones
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
Sgt Jacob
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Petrie
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
F/S Humphrey
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Hall
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Talbot
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt McManus
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
F JN @
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Williams
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
F/S Sim
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
W/O Duncan
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
W/O Harrison
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Round
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
F/S Harrington
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
F/S Smith
[underlined] Aircraft [/underlined]
K JN
[underlined] Captain [/underlined]
F/O Simpson
[underlined] Navigator [/underlined]
P/O Woodhouse
[underlined] Bomb Aimer [/underlined]
F/S Hemingway
[underlined] W/O/Air[/underlined]
Sgt Dibbs
[underlined] F/Engineer [/underlined]
Sgt Johnstone
[underlined] MU/ Gunner [/underlined]
F/S Thomas
[underlined] R/ Gunner [/underlined]
Sgt Chippendale
*2nd Pilot P/O Parsons. **2nd Pilot F/S Wood. @2nd Pilot F/O Clements.
Reserve aircraft AA ‘N’ and JN ‘P’. Reserve crew – F/L Yates.
Times: Meal LUNCH. 1st Briefing 1400. 2nd Briefing 1500. Bus to aircraft 1605
[underlined] DUTY PERSONNEL [/underlined]
Officer i/c Flying: W/C Leslie D.S.O A.F.C. Engineering Officer: W/O Murphy. Sigs. Officer: F/O Jenkins. Radar: F/S James, Sgt Holdsworth. Electrical Officer: F/S Melhuish. Armourers: Sgt Conner, Cpl Moon, AC Spingham. Stores: LAC Elmore. Compass Adjstr: Sgt Dalby. Photo: LAC Sanders. I/Reprs: Cpl Pritchard, AC Thornton. W/Mech: Cpl Robinson, LAC Wooly. Electricians: Cpl Peel, AC Griffiths
[signature] F/Lt.
for Wing Commander, Commanding,
No. 75 (NZ) Squadron, R. A. F.
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
75 Squadron Battle Order
Description
An account of the resource
A battle order for 6/7 December 1944 detailing aircrew and aircraft involved in the operation. The target was Merseburg synthetic oil plant.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
75 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-12-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MFordTA1585520-170411-31
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Merseburg
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
75 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1922/36125/MMcCronSLW191097-170817-030001.1.jpg
01e155e9af9c293a43e7f8102e911767
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1922/36125/MMcCronSLW191097-170817-030002.1.jpg
d305e665c7204a70712d8b97cd4c8ac3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1922/36125/MMcCronSLW191097-170817-030003.1.jpg
c0b0c015961c69074830c3f13657595a
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
McCron, Samuel Lorne Wilfred
S L W McCron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McCron, SLW
Description
An account of the resource
39 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Samuel Lorne Wilfred McCron (R/191097 Royal Canadian Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He was training as a wireless operator / air gunner and was killed 30 November 1944 when his Wellington crashed. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ken Proteau and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Samuel Lorne Wilfred McCron is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/115416/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] Sgt. McCron S.L.W. Copy to Ottawa 9/12 [/inserted]
REPORT ON FLYING ACCIDENT OR FORCED LANDING NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO ENEMY ACTION.
[diagonal] TO BE RENDERED NOT LATER THAN 4 DAYS AFTER THE ACCIDENT [/diagonal]
In every case copies of this form are to be rendered as follows:-
[missing number] One copy direct to Air Ministry C.1. (Accidents).
[missing number] Two copies direct to Air Ministry, S.4. (Statistics).
(iii) One copy direct to Ministry of Aircraft Production (R.M.I.).
(iv) One copy through usual channels to Command Headquarters.
[In addition and only if casualties to officers or airmen are involved.]
(v) One copy to Air Ministry, P.4 (Cas.).
Indicate here by an X to whom this copy is addressed.
P.425995
If this incident has been reported to the Air Ministry by signal, quote Reference No. and date. [inserted][underlined] 9 [/underlined][/inserted]
A.666/FA 30/11.
Extra copies required for Dominion and Allied casualties; one for each authority concerned. When no casualties occur, one copy only if Canadians are pilots.
[a] 82 O.T.U. [b] Group No. 93 [c] Command Bomber [d] Serial No. of Form 72/44
[a] 2. DATE OF INCIDENT 30.11.44
TIME 11.30
SITE OF INCIDENT
(a) Name of airfield or landing ground
(b) Place (if (a) not applicable) Crow Park Farm, Sutton on Trent
(c) County Notts
Part (a) to be completed if the incident occurred on, or whilst taking off from or approaching to land on an airfield or landing ground.
[b] [c] [d]
3. NATURE OF AND PURPOSE FOR WHICH FLIGHT AUTHORISED:-
Nature { (i) Operational [deleted word/s]
Nature { (ii) Day or Night flying? Day
(iii) Purpose Practice Bombing
This flight is being included in this Unit's flying hour summary on {Form 765A [deleted words] (Delete as necessary)
4. TYPE OF AIRFRAME AND ENGINE and extent of damage (see footnotes to this section).
[a] Details of Airframe and Engine. [b] Airframe. [c] Engine Single or Port. [d] Engine Starboard. [e] Engine Centre Port. [f] Engine Centre Starboard.
[a] Type [b] Wellington
[a] Mark or series [b] X LN.167
[a] R.A.F. No. (and makers' No. for engines. [b] Hercules VI [c] SS5473/270929 a [d] SS10062/377042 a [e] a [f] a
[a] Total hours run [b] b [c] 343 b [d] 330 b [e] b [f] b
[a] Date last installed in Airframe [b] – [c] 17.2.44 b [d] 17.2.44 b [e] b [f] b
[a] c Extent of damage [b] E.2. [c] B [d] B
a To be quoted whenever an engine is damaged or fails.
b To be quoted only for incidents involving defect or failure of airframe or engines
c To be indicated as:-
E = Missing, unrepairable, reduction to scrap or instructional.
B = For repair at contractor's works or R.A.F. Depot.
AC = For repair by contractor's working party.
A = For repair by nearest R.A.F. unit.
U = No damage.
[page break]
5. ALL OCCUPANTS OF AIRCRAFT and FLYING EXPERIENCE OF PILOTS.
(i) Names to be entered in order of duty: 1st Pilot, 2nd Pilot, Pupil Pilots, etc.
(ii) Degree of injury to be classified as: Missing, Killed, Injured (admitted to Sick Quarters or Hospital), Slightly Injured (not admitted to Sick Quarters or Hospital), Uninjured. (Quote as M, K, I, I(s) or U as appropriate.)
Flying Experience if Pilots and Pupil Pilots. See Note (ii)
Part A. Total Solo (Day & Night). – Part B (see Note (i) below. Solo (Night). – Part C (see Note (iii) below).
[a] Duty. [b] Name and Initials (Nationality to be quoted if not British). [c] Rank. [d] No. [e] Degree of Injury. [f] Type Quoted in Part 4. [g] All Types. [h] Type Quoted in Part 4. [i] All Types [j] Instr[missing letters]men[missing letters] [k] Link Trainer.
[a] Pilot. [b] J.G. Rowe [c] F/O. [d] J.41261 [e] K [f] 27 [g] 204 [h] – [i] 22 [j] 45 [k] 50
[a] Nav. [b] J.A. Smallwood [c] F/O. [d] J.43567 [e] K
[a] B/A. [b] J.R.G. Farlette [c] P/O. [d] J.45515 [e] K
[a] W/Op. [b] McCron S.L.W. [c] Sgt. [d] R.191097 [e] K
[a] Gunner [b] Morris G.C. [c] Sgt. [d] R.278665 [e] Died of Injuries
[b] [underlined] Screened Instructors [/underlined] [f] Day [h] Night [j] Total/all types
[b] R.R. Waughman [c] F/O. [d] 171904 [f] 420 [h] –
[b] M.G. Jenson [c] F/L. [d] J.17291 [f] 140 [h] –
NOTE (i) Part B only to be quoted if incident occurred during night flying. (ii) Quote to nearest hour.
(iii) Part C only to be quoted if loss of control at night or in bad visibility or cloud by day is a possible contributory factor.
[a] 6. STAGE OF FLIGHT. A. Picketed or at moorings. B. Starting up. C. Stationary other than A or B. D. Taxying. E. Taking off F. In flight. G. Landing. H. Towed or manhandled J. Not known. [b] 7. DID FIRE OCCUR? If Yes, state "In air" or "On ground" as appropriate. If no fire state "No." [c] 8. CONDITIONS OF LIGHT IN WHICH INCIDENT OCCURRED A. Day (daylight). B. Dusk (half light of evening). C. Dawn (half light of morning). D. Dark (no moon or moon obscured). E. Moonlight. F. Not known. [d] 9. IF INCIDENT occurred when taxying on, taking off from or landing on a runway state "Yes".
[a] Quote A or B or C, etc. as appropriate. F. [b] On ground [c] Quote as A or B or C, etc., as appropriate and amplify in Part 12(B) if necessary. A. [d] No
[page break]
10. DESCRIPTION OF ACCIDENT (or summary of pilot's report, if available). In cases of engine failure, information should be given as to the behaviour of the engine and manipulation of the engine controls immediately before failure.
Duration of flight since last take off: Hours . . . Minutes . . . If engine failure occurred during take off quote height . . .
Pilot killed.
[word missing] engine had failed, he feathered his engine and height is approx. known at 8000' (Verified by bombing range). It is not known whether he jettisoned petrol or not. He made one circuit of the airfield at approx. 100'. The visibility was 2,800 yards, therefore this aircraft was lost in sight by control tower for most of the circuit. It is not known whether he was force landing or attempting another circuit.
Sgd: A.C. Grout. F/L.
11. REPORT BY APPROPRIATE SPECIALIST OFFICERS (A. E. Nav., &c.):– (i) If technical failure is involved, information as to the nature and cause of the failure is required; precise information as to the extent of the damage arising as a result of this failure is not required. (ii) If the non-embodiment of an authorised modification is considered to have contributed to the accident the serial number of the modification and reason for non-embodiment should be stated.
Port engine failure – unit's strip inspection of defective engine revealed:
(i) all front cylinder connecting rods fractured.
(ii) all front sleeve drive cranks fractured and sleeves seized.
(iii) Front big end bearing run.
(iiii) Pistons in front bank of cylinders disintegrated.
It is suggested that the primary cause of engine failure was due to failure of front big end bearing with consequential oil starvation of front bank cylinder assembly, also loss of oil pressure would render the spray jet (which, is houses [sic] in the crankshaft front balance weight), inoperative leading to seizure of the sleeves through lack of oil and overheating.
Accident being investigated by H.Q.93 Group.
Is Form 1022 or 1023 being rendered? If "Yes" state which } 1023 Signature Sgt. M. McIntyre S/L. C.T.O. 30.11.44
[page break]
12. REMARKS BY UNIT COMMANDER (to be given under three separate headings):-
Part A. Remarks as to circumstances of the incident. (If it occurred at night on or near an airfield the nature of the lighting system in use at the time is to be noted in Part A.)
Part B. Diagnosis of all contributory factors. The manner in which any particular factor contributed to the incident is to be clearly indicated.
Part C. General remarks (including any recommendation with regard to personnel, training, airframes, engines, accessories, etc., and notes of any action taken as a result of this incident).
A. Aircraft crashed and burnt while carrying out a single engine landing by day, at base – crew killed. Weather at time no low cloud. vis. 3,000 yards. (Port propellor feathered).
B. Primary cause was mechanical failure of port engine, cause being investigated by Headquarters No. 93 Group.
C. Accident caused by an error in judgement – contributory factors being investigated.
Signature Sgd: R.M. COX W/C Commanding Training Wing 82 O.T.U. Date 2.12.44
13. REMARKS BY STATION COMMANDER (and notes of any action taken as a result of this incident):-
Investigation – 93 Group Headquarters.
Signature Sgd: R.M. Cox W/C. Commanding 82 O.T.U. Date 2.12.44
([symbol] 11591 – 8836) Wt. 48544 – 3196 100,000 2143 T.S. 700
[symbol] 12342 – 8836) Wt. 15191 – 527 250M 5143 T.S. 700
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
Report on Flying Accident or Forced Landing Not Attributable to Enemy Action
Description
An account of the resource
RAF Form 765 (C) covering the accident to Sam's aircraft. The report concludes that an engine failed and the crash was an error of judgement by the pilot.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
82 Operational Training Wing
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-12-02
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two double sided printed sheets with typewritten annotations
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcCronSLW191097-170817-030001, MMcCronSLW191097-170817-030002, MMcCronSLW191097-170817-030003
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
82 OTU
aircrew
bombing
crash
killed in action
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Ossington
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1989/41032/MGeorgeDB1796593-171117-01.1.pdf
f5f12a5becf7229ddc35e52aa90ba02a
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
George, David Burrows
D B George
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
George, DB
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. The collection concerns Sergeant David Burrows George (1796593 Royal Air Force) and contains operation reports, correspondence, a biography and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 153 Squadron and was killed 22 January 1945. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Shelagh Wright and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br /> Additional information on David Burrows George is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/108520/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Raid Report Book - 9 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
A record of operations conducted by 9 Squadron aircraft between 15 February and 26 March 1944.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
9 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Augsburg
France--Marignane
Germany--Stuttgart
France--Nord (Department)
Germany
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
41 handwritten pages
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MGeorgeDB1796593-171117-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
9 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
mid-air collision
navigator
pilot
radar
RAF Manston
RAF North Killingholme
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tangmere
RAF Woodbridge
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/563/30565/MEdwardsAE2202190-161024-02.1.pdf
7dfb03f98dec5e4c851be8133025505d
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
Edwards, Allan Ernest
A E Edwards
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edwards, AE
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. Collection concerns Warrant Officer Ernest Allan Edwards (b. 1924, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 514, 7 and 582 Squadrons. Collection contains an oral history interview, biography, list of 42 operations and photographs of aircraft and people.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ernest Allan Edwards and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Operational notes
Description
An account of the resource
Lists 42 operations with dates, targets, aircraft, fuel, bomb loads, times and accounts of sortie for each one. Mentions Pathfinder marking, occasional air sickness, Master Bomber, number of aircraft lost on some operations, damage to aircraft on a few sorties and other details.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A E Edwards
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Cover and seven page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEdwardsAE2202190-161024-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
France
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Stuttgart
France--Lille
France--Laon
France--Paris
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Karlsruhe
France--Nantes
Belgium
Belgium--Louvain
France
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Aachen
France--Dunkerque
France--Calais
France--Rennes
France--Tours
France--Lens
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Nucourt
France--Abbeville
France--Vaires-sur-Marne
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
France--Creil
France--Le Havre
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Kiel
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-14
1944-01-21
1944-01-27
1944-02-25
1944-03-01
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-22
1944-04-24
1944-05-11
1944-05-19
1944-05-21
1944-05-25
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-04
1944-06-07
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-15
1944-07-02
1944-07-05
1944-07-09
1944-07-10
1944-07-11
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-27
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-03
1944-08-07
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-29
1944-09-09
1944-09-11
1944-09-19
1945-01-31
1944-04-19
1944-08-08
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
514 Squadron
582 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Lancaster Mk 3
Martinet
Master Bomber
missing in action
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Warboys
RAF Waterbeach
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-1
V-weapon
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1908/36273/MPerryWRP1317696-170719-09.2.jpg
ea66c5374462b30d7c8c12996ff9eeda
Dublin Core
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Title
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Perry, Pete
W R P Perry
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-19
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Perry, WRP
Description
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Sixty-nine items and an album sub collection with twenty-four pages of photographs.
The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant WR Pete Perry DFC (1923 - 2006, 1317696, 146323 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, correspondence, memoirs and documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Helen Verity and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
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[photograph]
[underlined] Admiral Shyte-Awk [/underlined]
ZN-Z Admiral Shyte-Awk, the aircraft that Pete Perry DFC flew doing a tour of operations, then on to his second tour when the war ended. First he flew Admiral Dumbo ZN-T, the flying elephant (and it was) so he was pleased to get ZN-Z.
A new station commander decided to inspect the airfield, ground crew, aircraft, etc. and took umbrage at the name of ZN-Z; he ordered the ground crew to remove it. As soon as he moved on, Pete's ground crew sergeant rang Pete for help and was informed to obey the last order, then was ordered by Pete to leave the name on! Pete then went to his Squadron C.O. who obviously stood up for Pete and his crew, knowing that they would probably feel superstitious about a change of name after flying successful operations in ZN-Z Admiral Shyte-Awk, so the name stayed.
[underlined] Why the Admiral Prefix? [/underlined]
At that time 106 Squadron was still the 5 Group designated ship attack Squadron and there were two Fleet Air Arm Observer lieutenants attached to them: every time they bombed a port, they went along to identify what German naval ships were there.
Audrey J. Perry
Dublin Core
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Title
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Admiral Shyte-Awk
Description
An account of the resource
Top - photograph of an airman in the cockpit of a Lancaster. On the fuselage below nose art of duck with peaked cap walking down road with sign to Berlin. Row of bomb symbols underneath.
Below - explanation that Admiral Shyte-Awk was the aircraft that Pete Perry flew during tour of operations. Explains how station commander ordered nose art removed but relented and explanation of admiral title.
Creator
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A J Perry
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Photograph
Text
Format
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One b/w photograph and accompanying text
Identifier
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MPerryWRP1317696-170719-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Sue Smith
106 Squadron
5 Group
aircrew
Lancaster
nose art
pilot
superstition
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2178/38180/PPalmerRAM17010006.1.jpg
6780cea279a4638d3890c999679600cb
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Title
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Palmer, Robert Anthony Maurice. Photograph album
Description
An account of the resource
Fifty-one items. Contains photographs, documents, telegrams and newspaper cuttings.
Date
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2017-10-30
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Palmer, RAM
Dublin Core
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Title
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Painting of Robert Palmer
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph of a head and shoulders painting of a Royal Air Force officer wearing tunic with pilot's brevet, medal ribbons including Victoria Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross and bar, pathfinder badge, and peaked cap. Captioned 'Painted by Arnold Mason 1948'.
Creator
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A Mason
Date
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1948
Temporal Coverage
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1948
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
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Artwork
Photograph
Format
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On b/w photograph on an album page
Identifier
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PPalmerRAM17010006
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
aircrew
arts and crafts
Distinguished Flying Cross
Pathfinders
pilot
Victoria Cross
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17105/BHollisANHollisANv1.2.pdf
a070b81c7aaffa390a66bba596e34d7c
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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Hollis, Arthur
Arthur Norman Hollis
A N Hollis
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Arthur Hollis (b. 1922) who joined the RAF in 1940 and after training completed a tour on 50 Squadron before becoming an instructor. At the end of the war he was deployed as part of Tiger Force. Collection contains a biography and memoir, his logbook, correspondence, training records, photographs of people, aircraft and places, his medals and flying jacket. It includes an oral history interview with his son, Richard Hollis.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard Hollis and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-07
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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Hollis, AN
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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A Memoir
By
Arthur Hollis
[page break]
[photograph of Arthur Hollis]
[page break]
A Memoir by Arthur Hollis
I was born in Highgate, North London, on 11th August 1922. My parents who had married a year earlier had an apartment there.
In 1924 they moved into a new bungalow near Hornchurch in Essex. It was all very rural then. We had gas for lighting and mainly coal for heating but no electricity. A special treat for me was to be taken down the lane to a forge to watch the horses being shod. At the age of four or thereabouts I was sent to a local "dames" school. It was mainly girls but there were a few boys. I didn't like it as the boys were not particularly favoured. I did have one little girl friend, Tina Branston. We were inseparable for years - in fact until my parents moved from the area around my eighth birthday. Tina was the penultimate child of a large family; the eldest was 22 years old and taught at the school. I was reproved by my mother for calling her "Christine" as, of course, all her family did. I was told very firmly "Miss Branston to you". Such were the manners of those days. Tina and I did have a favourite pastime which was to get into the long grass to explore in detail the differences between boys and girls. I thus had a very good early education between the ages of 6 and 7. I could also read, write and recite the multiplication tables up to number 12.
Events which took place during our stay in Hornchurch were the births of my brother Gerald and sister Rosemary. On each occasion I was sent off to Dover to stay with Grandpa Leigh (mother's father) and Aunt Mary who house kept for him. I loved my stays there in an old house in the lovely old town it was then and I was "spoilt rotten"
A great day at Hornchurch was when my mother was given a wireless - an old set which was operated by batteries. In the evenings we used to sit "listening in" with headphones over our ears.
As I have already recalled during the summer of 1930 my parents decided to move. The Ford motor factory had just come to Dagenham and the whole area was changing. They bought a house in Carshalton Surrey. The move took place during August. My parents chose a school for me to go to, more on the basis that I could walk there taking Gerald with me than for its academic attractions. It was an awful place and taught me very little. Anyway in the course of events I would have moved to a local secondary school at the age of 9 or 10.
My principal activity outside school was in the Cubs. By the time I left, when I went to Dulwich, I was a Sixer (platoon sergeant) with an arm full of badges indicating my ability to boil an egg or sew on a button or swim a length.
As mentioned later I was at the age of 8 in hospital for a mastoid operation. Shortly after discharge I was back in hospital again for a few days having gashed my leg very badly while riding another boy's bicycle. My parents thought things might be safer were I to have my own bicycle. For my 9th birthday I was taken to the then cycle manufacturer James and Co. in Holborn and bought a simple bicycle. This made a huge difference to my life. Apart from a few main roads which were taboo, I was free to cycle all over the district and beyond. It gave a great sense of freedom. Before my 12th birthday the bicycle was passed to Gerald and I was given a larger machine - a Raleigh with hub brakes and a three speed gear - a veritable Rolls Royce. For years thereafter Rodney Dove and I used to cycle frequently together all over Surrey and on some days would get to the south coast and back. When I was about 14½ years old I cycled alone down to Dover to stay with Grandpa Leigh. It was useful to have a bicycle there as another school friend (one "Clod" Jarvis) was in the Dover district at the same time
[page break]
and we were able to spend time together. I have used the word "Clod" as that was his nickname. He went to Rhodesia after leaving school and we wrote to each other rather infrequently. I found it difficult to write to an elderly gentleman as "My dear Clod" but I found out only from his widow that his name was Alan.
In 1932 my mother received a legacy from the estate of a widower uncle, Harry Webb, which amounted to about £2000. This gave my parents the background capital which was a financial protection for them. The plans for me were that I was to go to Dulwich College at the age of 11. Shortly after my 10th birthday I sat the Entrance Exam but was found to be weak in all subjects. I was immediately removed from the awful school mentioned above and sent to Wallington High School as I was now deemed old enough to cycle or take a bus. I flourished there under the headmaster who was an excellent teacher and determined that I should pass the Dulwich Entrance Exam next summer. I responded well and happily worked hard for and passed the exam.
In September 1933 I started in the 2nd form at Dulwich. It was hard going. Most of my contemporaries were there on scholarships from the London, Surrey or Kent County Councils and were therefore a pretty bright bunch. I was rather idle for the first few terms and content to coast along halfway up the form. When my time came to go into the Upper 3rd I was put into "Treddy's" form. Mr Treadgold is a legend to many Old Alleynians as a very strict task master. Personally, I respected and liked him. Whether through fear or dislike of failure I soon learned that by working hard I could be amongst the first few in the form. This stood me in very good stead later on.
I have jumped about slightly and could have mentioned that in the summer term of 1935 I was persuaded by my great school friend Rodney Dove, who was a very good swimmer, that we should try for a quarter mile standard medal (under 10 minutes for a bronze and under 7½ mins for silver). We both got a bronze, I in 9 min 7 seconds and he in under 9 mins. Not bad as we were both about 13 years of age. Rodney was an exceptionally strong swimmer. This may have contributed some years on in 1942 to his being picked, as an RNVR sub lieutenant, to carry out the horrendous task of riding a "human torpedo" and putting an explosive charge under an Italian troop ship. He did this and received a well earned DSO but was a prisoner of war until 1945. He was also a good boxer and we used to box together a lot when we were about 11 or 12. I later went on to become the Dulwich Middleweight Champion in 1939.
My mother spoke fluent French having spent some months at the age of 16 living with a French family. Between the two wars my mother's married brothers, Norman and Jack, lived and worked in Paris. Both had French wives. My parents visited them for Easter 1936 and took me with them. I had a tourist's view of Paris. During September 1937 I was kindly allowed to visit them for a fortnight on my own and spent many hours in the International Exhibition then on there as well as wandering on foot around Paris and Versailles.
I tend to be rather cynical when I hear someone say ''the best days of my life were at school." My reply is apt to be ''what a dull life." Nevertheless I did enjoy my years at Dulwich. I had many friends, some of them lifelong I was very sad when in the spring of 1939 my father said "I think that you have achieved most worthwhile things at Dulwich. I think that you should leave now and I will help you to become a Chartered Accountant." He was probably right and I was grateful. I had sat under some excellent mentors. I had obtained credits in all subjects in school certificate. I had obtained rugger and boxing colours. I was a corporal in the OTC with Cert "A". I was Form Captain and had been so on previous occasions. There was not much more that mattered to do. The Master (i.e. the Headmaster) was rather upset at my going but that was natural.
[page break]
So in early May I reported to the offices of Legg and Smith Chartered Accountants in the City of London. There were about five other Articled Clerks several years older than I was. My immediate senior Donald Draper became a life long friend. As junior I was given only rather menial jobs to do and I was rather bored but when war broke out four months later the managing clerk and myself were the only staff left, all the others being mobilized in various territorial units. My Principal, J.F. Legg said to me "You have rather quick promotion. I will give you any help you need." I had eighteen months very hard but rewarding work ahead of me.
One could not have had a more excellent man to work for than J.F. Legg. He was a friend of my father, they both having been soldiers in the 1 st battalion of the London Rifle Brigade when it went to France in 1914.
Unfortunately during the May of 1940 I suffered a burst appendix and was in the War Memorial Hospital at Carshalton for some weeks. This was a very serious condition at that time as there were no antibiotics although I think I did have penicillin when I had rather a relapse after three weeks.
I had had a four week stay in the same hospital when I was 8 years old having a mastoid operation, again very serious. During my stay there I was very sad to be told that Tina Branston had died of meningitis. That, together with scarlet fever and TB, were killers of children on quite a large scale. I mention these rather grisly facts to record how medical science has made great strides during my lifetime.
As soon as I was well enough after discharge from hospital I joined the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) when invasion by the Germans looked a probability. A parade looked like the Peasants' Revolt - no uniforms, no arms (apart from the odd shotgun or pitch fork). Afterwards as arms became available from the USA the Home Guard replaced the LDV. Although we all enjoy a good laugh at Dad's Army it was generally more efficient than that. There was not much time between the two wars. Men who had fought in the trenches were still only in their early forties; they could shoot fast and straight. There would have been a lot of dead Germans had invasion been attempted. I was made a corporal probably on the strength of having Cert A from the OTC. About this time I embarked upon my life of crime. I was cycling on Home Guard Duty without front or rear lights when a special constable loomed out of the blackout and charged me. I had to go before the local magistrate. I made an impassioned plea and thought I had won when he said "Very dangerous, Mr Hollis, pay ten shillings." A severe punishment - it was a week's allowance.
After my 18th birthday in August 1940 I felt eligible to join one of he [sic] services. Not the Army or the Navy as I was too young to be considered for combat duty and I decided therefore to go for pilot training in the RAF. I mentioned this to JF (as Legg was known). He was very sympathetic having himself risen to the rank of Lt. Col. in the 1914-18 war but he asked if I would defer for a few months to allow others to catch up with me for work in the firm. I agreed and volunteered my services to the RAF early in 1941.
The RAF had rather a bottleneck of potential pilots at that time and for a start I was sent on a 6 month course at Manchester University to study such subjects as higher mathematics, mechanics, meteorology, air navigation etc. I arrived at Hulme Hall, Manchester in early April 1941 and found myself with about 20 other RAF cadets. We were a happy bunch who helped each other along. Some were more advanced than others in various subjects. I do remember our being always hungry. Although the food in Hulme Hall was well cooked and wholesome, the whole country was now severely rationed and we were very lacking in meat and fats. We used
[page break]
to meet in each others rooms of an evening and make toast; a small amount of butter and plenty of jam was produced.
After leave in September we were ranked as LACs with white flashes in our caps to indicate air crew in training and mustered for a sea trip to the USA to be taught to fly. We sailed from Avonmouth at the beginning of November in a 7000 ton ship which in previous days had done the New Zealand meat voyages. We were now the carcasses. The North Atlantic in November is a cruel place. We had an escort of naval corvettes for the first part of the voyage but one could seldom see them as the poor devils spent much of their time half under water. We were in hammocks close slung together and as most people were sick, the nights were very unpleasant. I volunteered to fetch food from the kitchen to mess table, partly because I was the only one interested in eating anything and the kitchen was warm and fairly close to the centre of the ship thus having the least movement. It was a great relief to reach Halifax, Nova Scotia. I shall always remember that first breakfast on shore. Plenty of eggs and bacon etc. etc.- things then unknown in the shortages of the UK. Life was not very comfortable in this staging station where we stayed for three weeks. It was December, the outside temperature was -20c., the huts were grossly overheated by primitive coal stoves and the latrines outside in the open air were very primitive.
After about three weeks we boarded the first of several trains on our journey to Florida. A most interesting journey. In three days we passed from the snow covered land of eastern Canada to the semi-tropical atmosphere of Florida.
The RAF station of modem comfortable huts around a parade ground and a swimming pool was just south of Lake Okeechobee (Fort Myers 70 miles west on the Gulf of Mexico, Miami 100 miles south east on the Atlantic). After the sun went down the insects on the screens to our living quarters had to be seen to be believed. Four engined mosquitoes. We slept under nets. The station was run by three RAF officers. The flying and ground instructors were American civilians. The flying instructors were good, the ground instructors were useless. If we were to pass the written wings exam we should need to study our manuals very resolutely.
After a day or so of settling in, we were paraded and inspected by the CO Wing Commander Kenneth Rampling. He appointed me as Course Commander. I was made an acting corporal (unpaid) and had general responsibility for the behaviour of the Flight (about 50 cadets). There were four Flights in the school at one time. As one passed out another one arrived. We trained on the PT 17 which was the primary trainer of the US Army Air Corps - like a Tiger Moth but rather more solid. After about eight hours in the air, most of us went solo. Thereafter the training continued until the mid-term ten days leave. People went various ways. Some adventurous chaps got as far north as New York. I preferred to stay with a couple of fellow cadets, Peter Cowell and "Flossie" Redman on the Gulf of Mexico coast. We ended up at the home of three elderly ladies who had befriended us. I have since renamed them "The Golden Girls". I have also since been told that one of them took "a particular shine to me". - the opportunities one misses in life!
After leave we went onto the Vultee BT13A - a monoplane, and after a further short leave, onto the Harvard, at that time the fighter aircraft of the Army Air Corps - just as well they didn't have to fight the Battle of Britain although the Harvard was a very nice aircraft to fly. At the end of that course we took the Wings exam and qualified. On the evening before the Wings Parade I, together with my two section leaders, was invited by the three officers to a celebration at the Clewiston Inn where they stayed. What a night. I arrived back at camp wearing the C.O.'s trousers, mine having got wet in a rainstorm. The next morning the Flight was drawn up on parade and I marched up to Kenneth Rampling to report "all present and
[page break]
correct. Sir." He said "Christ you look 'orrible" to which I replied "not 'alf as 'orrible as I feel". Just as well the doting onlookers could not hear these remarks. Dear Kenneth Rampling; he was killed two years later as Group Captain DSO DFC. CO of a Pathfinder Squadron.
We were at that time officially sergeants although a number of us were expecting to be commissioned officers once we got to Canada. We set off on an evening train. After three days of various stops and changes, including several hours in New York, we arrived at Moncton, New Brunswick, from where we had set off the previous winter.
Life was better. I was now a Pilot Officer. I met up again with other friends of the horrible voyage out. They were now fellow officers, some of them destined for distinction such as Bill Reid V.C.
After several weeks wait at Moncton, we boarded a train for New York where we went aboard the Aorangi, the ship which was to take us back to UK. This had a maximum speed of about 15 knots. I have since learned that it was the worst month of U Boat sinkings. We were nevertheless oblivious of this and had a happy voyage. As we neared UK shores the Americans on board, feeling that they were entering a war zone, mounted machine guns around the deck rails. After they had nearly shot down a Spitfire, which was foolish enough to come too close, we RAF officers were detailed to stand by the guns telling them when not to open fire.
We landed at Greenock, the port of Glasgow, and boarded a special train which took us all the way to Bournemouth where we spent two or three weeks getting uniforms, having medical and dental checks, several days leave etc.
I was then posted to Little Rissington in the Cotswolds to fly Oxfords, twin engined machines, so as to practice map reading (much more difficult than in USA) and to prepare for the larger machines of Bomber Command. After several weeks I was posted to a Wellington OTU at North Luffenham, Rutlandshire where I crewed up with FO Dick Palmer (navigator), Sgts Ted Kemp (bomb aimer), Tom Cheshire (wireless operator) and "Jock" Walker (rear gunner). We started working together on cross country flights, range bombing etc. It was all rather dangerous; a number did not finish the course. When we stepped out at night there was generally a blaze indicating that Cottesmore, our neighbouring station, was flying. As opposed to the Wellington Mark Ills which we had, they had only MKICs which I had later to discover by experience were underpowered. I had one or two near scrapes. I was a pupil one night with others when the aircraft flown by another pupil went out of control. It was righted by the instructor who then "bailed out" the remainder of the personnel. I had my parachute incorrectly fastened so that when I jumped the harness would have gone straight up over my head. Fortunately it caught on the edge of my flying jacket, giving me just enough time to grab hold of it so that I could come down holding it by hand and I slipped it off on landing. As I lay on the ground sweating somewhat, although it was a cold dark December evening, I heard a voice "Don't shoot Dad ! It may be one of ours". I yelled "Don't shoot I am one of yours!" Soon afterwards I was before the fire of a Fenland labourer's cottage being restored with cups of tea. I should have liked something somewhat stronger! Soon I was pleased to learn that all had landed safely. I still have the flying jacket with the small tear in it that saved my life.
The last exercise at the OTU was to fly over enemy territory. I set out with three other aircraft to drop leaflets over Nancy one night. There was a massive cold front over the English Channel with dangerous cumulonimbus clouds. Two older more experienced pilots turned back. I pressed on but as there are dramatic wind changes on the other side of a cold front, it is unlikely that our leaflets went anywhere near Nancy. After a rather eventful return I landed at base. The fourth aircraft was missing. I will just elaborate on the words "eventful return". The whole of our journey there and back over France was over cloud. When I judged on our return
[page break]
journey that we had reached the English Channel or the low lying land over northern France I ventured to break cloud. I was then able to see what I thought to be the Cherbourg Peninsular. It was in fact the English coast, probably near the Isle of Wight. Feeling now completely lost I called May Day (the SOS signal). Immediately what appeared to be every searchlight in England lit up and waved me towards North Luffenham. I was so impressed that I forgot to cancel "May Day". I duly landed to be met by a very irate Wing Commander (Chief Flying Instructor).
We next moved on to Swinderby, Lincolnshire to convert on to Lancasters. There I collected two more crew, Sgts Bob Yates (mid upper gunner) and Don Adshead (flight engineer). The only incident there was a fire in an engine on a night cross country flight. The curious thing was that there were no visible signs although the engine was burnt out. Another lucky escape.
On finishing the conversion course we were posted to 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe, very close to Lincoln.
I have heard since the war from Tom Cheshire (wireless operator) and quite recently from Bob Yates (mid upper gunner). Both son with wife and grandson of Bob Yates have been to Westwell to see me. Letters are in my Log Book.
Our tour of operations was mainly spent in what was afterwards known as the Battle of the Ruhr.
The Ruhr area, although separate towns, constituted the German industrial area and was therefore very heavily defended. Its one consolation to us was that it was reasonably near (large bomb load, small fuel load). I hated the place. Late in our tour I was badly shot up over Essen, the main town. This is recorded in the citation for my DFC and written up in the Daily Telegraph. I'm told that it is also on the internet. Earlier in the tour I had about six feet of wing cut off over the Dutch coast and had to make my only early return. In order to achieve the maximum concentration of aircraft over the target, the practice was to congregate together over the Dutch coast and then move on to enemy territory. As it was very dangerous from the collision point of view to have so many aircraft circling around, the instruction was if one was early to do a "dog leg" so as to arrive at the rendezvous at exactly the right time but not before. One aircraft, I think flown by a Wing Commander no less, did not follow the instruction to "dog leg" but was circling with disastrous results for my wing and our morale. I could just about hold the aircraft in the air back to base.
We also carried out raids on the U boat pens at St Nazaire (rather useless as the concrete was too strong for the bombs then carried), Berlin, Pilzen, Hamburg etc. An interesting trip was with a special force chosen to bomb Friedrichshafen where special radar spare parts were stored. As it was then mid-summer, there was not enough darkness to return to the UK. We therefore went on over the Med to North Africa. The personal map which I marked up and tucked into my flying boot is in my log book.
The last trip of my tour was to Milan. Italian targets were regarded as fairly soft. My usual aircraft was pronounced unserviceable rather late in the day. Group Captain Elworthy. (later Marshal of the RAF Lord Elworthy) the then Base Commander was very anxious that I should finish on this trip. He therefore arranged for an aircraft at another Station to be available and took me personally in his staff car to that Station .. My crew were taken there by bus. There was at that time an accusation going around that crews were bombing short. I maintained that the aircraft cameras which were meant to record where the bombs landed were wrongly set. I therefore arranged with Ted Kemp that when the target came into his bomb sight he would give me a sign. I would count to ten and then call Bomb. We brought back an aiming point photograph. Many years later Bun and I were lunching with some Italian friends in Milan.
[page break]
After lunch we were taken for a walk and visited a rather ruined church which had been bombed in August 1943. An important feature which was being repaired consisted of a mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. As we were going home, I said to Bun "Guess who destroyed the Last Supper?" Shortly after August 1943, the Italians withdrew from the war. I think that the destruction of a religious artefact was too much for them! I recently told the story to an artist friend who remarked dryly that the bomb damage was not half as serious as the damage inflicted by the subsequent garish and overdone restoration.
I was then posted for instructor's duties to an OTU at Westcott, Bucks. I felt it was rather like leaving the Brigade of Guards for the Ordnance Corps but there was no choice. Most of the instructors were New Zealanders - a very jolly bunch of chaps. My immediate senior and Flight Commander was one Squadron Leader Fraser Barron DSO DFC DCM., a New Zealander.
He ranked at the age of 21 as a Pathfinder ace and was killed next year as a Group Captain, the immediate successor to Kenneth Rampling mentioned earlier in this narrative.
I also mentioned earlier the underpowered Wellington Ic. Westcott and its satellite station Oakley had Ics. I was sitting one night in the instructor's seat next to an Australian pupil pilot who was doing a cross country exercise. On returning he made rather a mess of the landing approach and I said "Go round again." Immediately ahead of the main runway at Oakley was Brill Hill. Good pilots could clear it easily but my pupil was not in that category. After looking up at the trees as we went over Brill Hill I let him have another attempt at landing. He did the same thing again, after which I said "Up to 3000 ft and we will change seats". The aircraft used for cross country flying at Oakley had no duel controls.
The autumn and winter continued. During March 1944 I had a message that my dear mother needed a surgical operation for kidney disease. I got compassionate leave and spent a week visiting her and we had nice talks. Alas, the other kidney, which had been expected to pick up and do the work of two, did not do so. She died within a few days. It was a severe blow to the family and her many friends as she was much respected and loved.
In the late spring of that year I had the great good fortune to meet Betty Edmunds, one of the staff in the watch tower at Oakley. I was OC night flying at the time. We soon discovered that we both came from Carshalton and had many mutual friends. Our friendship developed. We used to play tennis together. She always won. Partly because she was a much better player than I but also because whenever she bent over to pick up a ball I was completely unnerved and my mind was not on tennis. On her days off, if I was on leave, we met for a day in London. We also visited Cambridge on one or two occasions to see my brother Gerald who was spending two terms at Jesus College prior to National Service. In early September we got engaged. I said at the time " I suppose we ought to wait until the end of the war to get married.". She said" Oh do you? I was thinking about this coming 2nd December". And thus it was. We had a very quiet wedding as most young people were away on active service and anyway catering was very difficult to arrange. But it was a very happy day and we set off by train for honeymoon in Torquay.
We already knew that we both wanted children. Betty wanted four. I thought this might be rather too many to educate properly. Thinking about things over the years and knowing my darling Betty's quiet way of getting what she wanted, I think she had made up her mind to start our family on her honeymoon. I had no hesitation in helping.
After returning to duty, we used to cycle into Thame to spend the night at a hotel. This is rather an exaggeration; they were mainly rooms over bars in pubs. The beds were generally
[page break]
rather primitive and rattled terribly. I often wondered why the bar conversation would suddenly cease. We spent Christmas with Betty's parents at The Bull in Aylesbury.
At New Year there was an officers' dance at Oakley. As Betty was only a Sergeant she had to get her CO's permission to attend. This was refused. My fellow officers were most indignant that the Oxford ''tarts" were likely to be there but an officer's wife was refused. I didn't particularly mind as the signs were that Betty was pregnant and would therefore automatically leave the WAAF.
I have raced ahead and not mentioned that throughout our engagement we frequently spent nights with our friends Steve and Sylvia Hogben in their caravan. Betty slept on one of the narrow beds and I slept beside her on the floor. She had a firm intention, which I respected, of going to her wedding a virgin. I mention this as most young people these days would consider such conduct rather strange.
About two days into New Year I was telephoned by Group that I was promoted to Squadron Leader and was to command an instructor's flight at Turweston (Northants) satellite of Silverstone (now a racing track). I had 2 months earlier been categorised A2 by a visiting examiner from Central Flying School. An A2 instructor's category was rare and the highest one could obtain in wartime. At about the same time Betty was posted to Upper Heyford. Still in the same Group but quite far apart. Anyway news reached me that Betty was in hospital at Stoke Mandeville. She was suffering from the family weakness of cystitis which combined with the pregnancy and being generally run down made her quite unfit for RAF duty. After about a fortnight she returned to Upper Heyford to be discharged from service. I had previously phoned up the senior medical officer at Upper Heyford, explained the situation and told him rather emphatically that I didn't want her having to wander round the Station getting clearance chits which was the usual procedure. She told me afterwards that she got out remarkably quickly. She went to stay with her parents. Meanwhile I was searching for somewhere near Turweston for us to live together. A hard task. Any sort of accommodation was very difficult to find. Fortunately a Flight Lieutenant was posted and offered me his billet which consisted of 2 rooms with facilities in a council house in Brackley.
The tenants of the council house, Mr and Mrs Blackwell, made us very welcome and were pleased to accept some rent. I had at that time Sue, a miniature bull terrier bitch, a 21st birthday present from cousins Harold and Vi Fuller-Clark. When I was posted overseas as I later record, I was in some quandary as to what to do with Sue. Betty and I decided that we would give her to the Blackwells. They were delighted to have her and gave her a very happy life. Nearly every Christmas thereafter we were sent a photograph of Mrs. Blackwell with Sue. There was a strong resemblance but Mrs Blackwell was always the one wearing the hat.
After only four happy months at Turweston I was telephoned by Group to say that that I was posted as a staff officer to the advance party of Tiger Force then being formed to set up a Bomber Command on Okinawa. I was to proceed as quickly as possible to the assembly point which was a dreary RAF equipment storage station in Staffordshire. Having said a profoundly sad farewell to my beloved pregnant wife I proceeded there on VE day. The saddest day of my life as there was a strong risk that we would not see each other again. Events changed that somewhat as it became apparent that British Forces were not wanted in the Pacific by the Americans although Winston C was determined that we should go. I had a series of embarkation leaves and I finally sailed during early July.
During our stay at Turweston I was sent for a month to the Advanced Administration Course at Hereford. Betty came to visit me over a long week-end. We attended the Easter Sunday service
[page break]
at Hereford Cathedral. I was informed during the service that "the Widger'' (later named Jennifer) had quickened. I don't whether anything is to be read into that.
The ship that was to take me to Okinawa was the "Empress of Australia", a 25000 ton ship with four funnels. It had been the Kaiser's yacht (quite a yacht) until it was taken over by the British in 1919. Apparently our route was to be across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal across the Pacific and then on to Okinawa. We set forth from Liverpool.
The weather got warmer and warmer. As we neared the West indies we were amused by dolphins playing alongside in the bow wave. A wait for a day or so in the mouth of the canal and we then had the wonderful experience of passing through it. Fabulous locks and tropical birds of many colours flying alongside. For about two weeks we crossed the Pacific to Hawaii where we docked and were allowed shore visits over two or three days. Wonderful swimming and we were well entertained by the local residents. I was flirted with and mildly seduced by a beautiful young woman in the presence of her husband and boyfriend. I should put it the other way round as the boyfriend was clearly the favoured one. How one envied him.
While we were in Hawaii the atom bomb was dropped. I remember the mixed feelings with which I discussed the situation with my fellow officers. We were horrified that science had reached this far but grateful that our lives and probably about two million others had been saved.
What was to be done with us? There was a shipful [sic] of about 3000 craftsmen, builders, medical units, air sea rescue units etc. Surely we must be useful somewhere. After a certain amount of cruising around with a shore stop at the Admiralty Islands we went through a formidable storm to Hong Kong.
At Hawaii something must have got into the ship's drinking water. The whole ship's company was smitten with sickness and nausea. I went round to see the senior medical officer and said "Can't you do something?" He replied "Hollis, old boy, you'd better have some of my pink stuff-this is what I am giving out today but it won't do you any good."
We docked in Hong Kong a day or so after the British Pacific Fleet. They were very pleased to see us. They had declared martial law and were trying to stop the Chinese from looting the place. Headquarters had been set up in the Peninsular Hotel on the mainland side of Hong Kong. The original colony is on Victoria Island reached by Ferry. I had an office on the ground floor of the Peninsular Hotel. It was a cross between an information centre and a command post. I had a constant queue of ex civilian internees wanting a passage back to UK, Australia etc. , Japanese officers fully armed who with their discipline were being sent for guard duties etc etc. I scarcely slept for several days and was somewhat hungry as we had given up our rations to the ex occupants of the internment camps. The Japanese were later used for hard work in repairing the colony. They lived in POW camps and were not overfed.
After about a fortnight things became rather more normal. Marine Commandos arrived from Burma as did elderly colonial administrators from UK, the latter dressed in Colonel's uniform straight from Moss Bros. And I moved over to a newly formed RAF Headquarters on Victoria Island which at that time had a small provincial town atmosphere. There was Government House, the Cathedral, the cricket pitch and, of course, the statue of Queen Victoria and, about two miles away, the race course. At about this time I had word from the UK that I had a baby daughter and that Betty and she were both well. I think that a signal had been most kindly arranged by my father-in-law, Chase Edmunds, who had important contacts in maritime circles.
The air journey Hong Kong/UK was six days. One went by Dakota. The route leaving Hong Kong was Kung Ming then "over the hump" to Karachi -Aden-Cyprus-Rome-UK.
[page break]
Although distressed to be deprived of my loved ones, one could not have been in a better place than Hong Kong at that time. The weather was perfect between the great heat of summer and the murkier weather of winter. In winter it does not get very cold.
Although we wore normal blue as opposed to tropical kit, I swam in the sea on New Year's day. I was alone. There were few non Chinese apart from the forces. We had all the transport. A jeep was always available to me. We virtually owned Hong Kong. As Org1 (as I was in RAF language) I was involved in accommodation for growing numbers of RAF personnel. This involved a small amount of requisitioning but I did this distasteful task with great sympathy towards the Chinese population , a number of whom became good friends. I was invited to dine on several occasions with one H.S. Mok who was a fellow Old Alleynian . I was also involved in conducting Courts of Enquiry on various matters. A difficult job as the Chinese coolie always gave as evidence any story that came into his head. I also sat on a number of Courts Martial, being sometimes president, During my stay in Hong Kong both brother Gerald and cousin Dan Hollis arrived at different times on HM ships. We were able to see quite a lot of each other.
I had earlier put my name down for a permanent commission in the RAF. After my marriage Bun and I decided that this was not a good idea and the intention was that I would revert to the original plan of being a Chartered Accountant. Bun sent me out some books and I started to study - not very hard as the social life was too good.
In July 1946 my turn came to be demobilised. I set course for home first by taking a passage in one of HM ships to Singapore. After a pleasant three weeks there I got a place on the Empress of Australia (by a strange coincidence) and set course for the UK. I arrived in Liverpool one wet afternoon. The ship's tannoy went requiring the presence of Squadron Leader Hollis in cabin X. I proceeded thence and was greeted by an Air Marshal who was there for the purpose of offering me a permanent commission. I have always been pleased that I didn't accept. There were severe service cuts a few years later and I have had an interesting life.
I arrived home to Carshalton Beeches where Betty and Jennifer were. My first memories of Jennifer were of a nappied bottom hastily disappearing under the bed - no doubt to avoid the strange man who had suddenly appeared ..
After a short holiday period I had to get down to work. The final exam to become a Chartered Accountant was a formidable hurdle. We had no home but were offered a flat in Dover. Betty and Jennifer lived there and I went there at week-ends. I spent the week getting more practical experience with Legg London (as my original firm had become) or staying with my father to study. I had the right atmosphere for this as my father liked silence. All very well but for poor Betty it was a lonely life. After some months we received an offer to share a house with some cousins of Betty in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex. At least we could be together although we disliked the area.
In summer 1948 three events almost coincided: we moved into a flat in the Paragon Blackheath where we spent fifteen happy years, I passed the final exam and became a Chartered Accountant and Sylvia was conceived. Our joy at the last happening was tempered by the fact that Betty had five months of very intense pregnancy sickness. At about the end of this time she contracted measles. As a result Sylvia was born very prematurely and her life was only saved by being put into neat oxygen. It was discovered a short while later that neat oxygen destroyed the retinas of premature babies. Thereafter the oxygen was mixed with air but too late to avoid Sylvia's blindness.
[page break]
After some months I joined the firm of Hugh Limebeer as an assistant with partnership prospects. It was an interesting firm. After some weeks I was engaged on an audit in Paris and in the summer of 1950 I was asked to spend some months with a client in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The British had been a powerful force in the Middle East until about that time; shortly after my visit it was to change. I flew first to Paris, thence to Cairo where I was well entertained by representatives of the client. Lunch at Shepherds, a visit to the Pyramids, then tea and dinner before I boarded an Aden Airways Dakota to Jeddah.
Jeddah was then a very primitive town. I felt myself back in the Old Testament. Through the initiative of the client I was visiting, ducts had been built to take water from mountains about 100 miles away into Jeddah. Prior to that the water supply had been by donkey cart. Non Saudis were allowed to have alcohol provided that this was kept strictly private. I arrived on a Thursday; there was a party that evening which was normal. It was a place for parties but one met always the same people. The next day, Friday, was the Sabbath and therefore a holiday.
The custom was for small parties to meet at lunchtime on the Sabbath and drink beer. I was taken to a party and amongst the guests was St John Philby, the famous Arabist and Muslim. This didn't stop him drinking a large quantity of beer before going off to say his prayers. During my three months there I attended a few Arab parties; one in the desert given by a prince who I think was Foreign Minister. They were deadly dull affairs. Refreshments normally tea and sweet cakes, no alcohol, no women.
When my time came to go back to UK I decided to travel by sea and land. I first flew across the Red Sea to Port Sudan and waited there for the British India ship which was expected to arrive that week. It did arrive on the Saturday and after I had returned on board hospitality to my friends there, we sailed. This B.I. line started in Mombasa and called at all the African ports up to the Suez Canal. Thence Marseille and the U.K. I intended to disembark at Marseille, take the Blue Train to Paris thence to U.K. This I did. The Med can be very unpleasant in February.
During my absence in Jeddah Betty had some gynaecological pains. She consulted the local expert Keith Vartan. He advised that all would be well if she had another child. So on my return we bore this in mind. After a few months she was again pregnant but had a miscarriage. We put things on the back burner for a few months. After starting again Richard was conceived. Betty had some hormone injection to prevent any miscarrying. Shortly after that she was smitten with polio in July 1952.
During the period after my return from Jeddah in February 1951 and July 1952 Betty and I were very occupied with the girls' education. Jennifer was doing very well amongst the juniors at Blackheath High School - that was normal - she was always a self starter. Our problem was helping Sylvia with her blindness. A very harrowing experience. How does one teach one who has never seen about colours? How does one answer the question "Shall I be able to see when I am ten?"
I had a very full Autumn 1952. Apart from daily visits to Betty in the Brook Hospital, Jennifer also had a spell in hospital. Sylvia was living with her Edmunds grandparents. A cheering note was when in November I was offered a partnership with Limebeer and Co. starting next 1st April.
Becoming a partner did not immediately change the work I was doing. One is for at least a year or so doing work and services for clients provided by others. I inherited from others work in Belgium and Germany. In doing some work for an Italian client I met William Middleton who was a Solicitor. He had an Italian mother and English father. He had been brought up in
[page break]
Rome and had law degrees from both Rome and London Universities. His English and Italian were impeccable. Many leading Italian companies were putting a toe into U.K waters at that time. The first thing they did was to go and see Middleton and he invariably involved me. He must have been very impressed by our first working together. Also during the 1950s Limebeer and Co. took over a small practice through the death of a sole practitioner. He had rather specialised in musical clients but when we took over, some famous names had either died or disappeared. However one of those left was Yehudi Menuhin. We soon became good friends. I was able to help him become resident here without his being made bankrupt by our tax laws.
He expanded his activities and always involved me. I soon got to know his leading Swiss lawyers and they produced some work for me. I was well away. I also got involved with some stage clients - Dinah Sheridan and her daughter Jenny Hanley. All these people were not only clients but became good friends.
Soon after Yehudi had taken up residence in Highgate he set about his long held ambition of founding a school. For the first year or so it had few pupils, shared premises and no money. A management committee, of which I was one, was formed. Things changed shortly with the appointment of an excellent secretary, one Monica Langford. I well remember visiting with her and a fellow committee member (an old friend), F.R. (Bobby) Furber the premises which are now the Y.M. School. They were discovered by Monica They were then much simpler and on sale for around £25,000. We decided to persuade our fellow committee members that the premises must be bought and the money raised. What a task. I was looked to as the person to go about this together with a newly appointed Governor, Major General Sir John Kennedy. We gradually enlisted help from corporations and individuals, Lord Rayne being prominent. Sir John unfortunately died after a short while. Bobby Furber and I were joined by Lord Redesdale (Clem) and Sir Maurice Fiennes (Maurice). We got things well underway and had a lot of fun in doing so. I well remember some rather noisy and lengthy lunches at the City of London Club of which I was a member. I have been Vice President of the school since 1989 and from 1977-90 I was a governor of Live Music Now.
One of the Governors of the Y.M School was Ruth, Lady Fennoy (a Lady in Waiting to the Queen Mother and grandmother of Princess Diana.) She was a fine musician and very close to the Royal Family. Following her death the Prince of Wales organised a concert at Buckingham Palace in her memory. Betty and I were invited and when we were seated the whole royal family from the Queen downwards entered to sit in the front row.
During the late 1950s Bun and I had the idea of leaving the Paragon flat as our main home but buying a country house with some land for mainly summer use. A silly idea but whilst we were looking around we suddenly came upon Court Lodge. I immediately said "That is where we are going to live. Sell the Paragon flat and go for it." So in 1963 I bought Court Lodge. It was terribly run down and needed a lot spent on it. We bought from a most charming person, Mrs Harvey Moore. She was a niece of Lord Baden Powell and therefore keener on camping than creature comforts.
We moved in January 1964. It was rather cold and cheerless. There were open :fireplaces in every room but keeping them stoked was a full time task. We virtually camped from one room to the next while a team of artisans did their work. Anyway, we were able to put things back as they should have been and being a house of at least three periods of history we set out gradually to acquire furniture etc. to suit the rooms. I am forever grateful to my son-in-law Maurice Fitz Gerald for guiding me in the realms of books and paintings in which he has considerable knowledge. We attended many sales at Sotheby's and Christies where we had a lot of fun.
[page break]
Betty and I became very active once we were settled into Court Lodge. I particularly so during the late 70s and early 80s. I was Chairman of Westwell Parish Council from 1976-9 and in 1980 became Chairman of Ashford Constituency Conservative Association and in 1991 Vice President. Ashford Constituency extends from Chilham near Canterbury in the north and southwards almost to the sea on the Sussex border. During May 1982 I was installed as Master of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen for the coming year. I later wrote a full account of my year which was typed and bound. Copies are amongst my mementos. I was delighted when Richard later became Master in 2008.
During the 1970s/80s Betty and I enjoyed a considerable amount of social entertaining at Court Lodge. One highlight of our year was the occasion that came to be known as Jesus Night. This took place when our friends Peter and Belinda Gadsden (Sir Peter ex Jesus Cambridge and about that time Lord Mayor of London) stayed with us for the weekend so that Peter could shoot with me. We had a number of friends in the vicinity who were also Jesuans. We were joined by my brother Gerald (two classical firsts at Jesus) and his wife Audrey. I, although without the benefit of a Cambridge education, represented my grandfather Hollis who was at Jesus where he obtained two mathematical firsts in about 1880. Later as the older Jesuans tended to pass into higher service it opened into a Cambridge occasion and we were joined by a number of younger Cambridge friends including my nephew Adam, Gerald's son, and his wife Sarah, and of course Jennifer and Maurice.
Betty and I were very lucky with our continental travels during the 1970s and 1980s as apart from my fairly frequent visits to Italy, Maurice was in the Diplomatic Service and he and Jenny were during the 1970s resident first in Paris then in Strasbourg and finally in The Hague. We had most enjoyable stays with them. At least once a year when I went to Florence I took Betty with me and we used to manage about ten days holiday either in Florence or Venice where we were lent an apartment on the Canale Grande by friends Manfredo and Veronica Moretti degli Adimare. We also used to go annually in July to Geneva where I had some work to do over a few days. We stayed at the Hotel du Lac in the charming little village of Coppet.
One year in December I had various continental visits to make so we booked a rail journey starting in Amsterdam and ending in Rome, leaving the train at Mannheim, Milan and Florence en route. The whole of the journey was in snow. Rome was free of snow but very cold.
Whilst writing about travel I must not fail to mention a very good friend at Westwell, Simon Jervis Read C.B.E., M.C., scion of a distinguished family, Wykehamist, Chindit, Lt. Col., Diplomat and very knowledgeable naturalist and ornithologist. He quickly invited me to join in shooting activities, not only on shooting days but also for rearing and keeping. He was about to become UK representative of the EEC Field Sports Association when he suffered severe heart problems and was unable to travel. I was invited to stand in for him where travel was involved. This entailed travel to various places in Europe - Brussels, the Ardennes, Nuremburg, Paris, Zurich. Later Betty and I were invited as private guests on visits to Copenhagen and Senegal. The last was especially interesting. Senegal has great virtues in climate and people. The only disturbing thing was the poverty. On one occasion I was particularly moved to be asked by a young girl for "un stylo pour aller a l'ecole." Alas I didn't have any; I would like to have given her a boxful.
I have now lived in Court Lodge for more than four decades. During this time the house from many sources has acquired great character and beauty. When my darling Bun was in hospital for the penultimate time, just after our 65th wedding anniversary, she complained "I shall never see my lovely house again". I was warmed by the thought that she viewed it thus and she did see it again but, alas, not for long.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Memoir by Arthur Hollis
Description
An account of the resource
Second page has colour photograph of Arthur Hollis, wearing blazer with medals, standing in a field at an event. Narrative covers early life in Hornchurch and Carshalton including schooling and hospital admissions. Writes of Dulwich College studies and sport. Mentions visit to Paris. Career as chartered accountant. Joined local defence volunteers in 1940. On 18th birthday decided to apply for pilot training. Covers training in Manchester and the United States. Life in the States and training on PT-17, Vultee BT 13-A and Harvard. Describes subsequent training in Canada, journey back to United Kingdom and training on Oxfords and Wellington. Goes on with conversion to Lancaster, posting to 50 Squadron and describes life and operations. Instructor tour follows and goes on to describe meeting future wife and subsequent career in RAF including posting to Tiger Force and trip to Hong Kong and subsequent activities. Finishes with post war career and activities.
Creator
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A N Hollis
Format
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Fifteen page printed document with one colour photograph
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Photograph
Identifier
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BHollisANHollisANv1
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
France
France--Paris
England--Lancashire
England--Manchester
Canada
Nova Scotia--Halifax
United States
Florida
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
England--Gloucestershire
England--Rutland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Buckinghamshire
France
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Czech Republic
Czech Republic--Plzeň
Italy
Italy--Milan
Germany--Friedrichshafen
England--Oxfordshire
England--Northamptonshire
China
China--Hong Kong
Nova Scotia
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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
5 BFTS
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
British Flying Training School Program
civil defence
Distinguished Flying Cross
Harvard
Home Guard
Lancaster
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Oxford
pilot
RAF Little Rissington
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Turweston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Westcott
Stearman
Tiger force
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2067/34306/EHarrisATStimpsonMC440128.2.jpg
007be2a9aa05150c276c9425e19c242c
Dublin Core
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Title
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Stimpson, Maurice Cecil
Description
An account of the resource
124 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Maurice Cecil Stimpson DFC (1921 - 1944, 155249 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, documents, and pennants. He flew operations as a pilot with 156 Squadron and was killed 15 February 1944. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Tony France and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Maurice Cecil Stimpson is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/226992/">IBCC Loses Database.</a>
Date
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2019-09-22
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stimpson,
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
Postagram to Maurice Stimpson from Arthur Harris
Description
An account of the resource
The postagram congratulates Maurice on the award of his DFC.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
ACM Arthur Harris
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-01-28
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
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Oneprinted sheet with typewritten annotations
Identifier
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EHarrisATStimpsonMC440128
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-28
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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156 Squadron
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
pilot
RAF Warboys
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/171/2319/AAtkinsA151121.1.mp3
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Title
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Atkins, Arthur
A H Atkins
Description
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24 items. An oral history interview with Arthur Atkins DFC (d. 2022, Royal Australian Air Force), his logbook and 23 photographs. Arthur Atkins grew up in Melbourne, Australia and joined the RAAF. After training he flew 32 operations as a pilot with 625 Squadron from RAF Kelstern.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkins and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-05
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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Atkins, A
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Pending additional content
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 Arthur Atkins, a 625 squadron Lancaster pilot during the Second World War. The interview is taking place at Arthur’s house in Kew in Melbourne. My name’s Adam Purcell. It’s the 21st of November 2015. Arthur we’ll start from the beginning if you don’t mind.
AA: Right.
AP: Tell us something of your early life, what you were doing growing up, and what you did before the war.
AA: Yeah well I was born at 212 Prospect Hill Road in, Prospect Hill Road oh what was the suburb? Surrey Hills, Surrey Hills. Then we moved to Canterbury when I was about eight or nine and I attended the Canterbury state school up to grade six. Then the equivalent of grade seven I started Scotch College. I was there for six years and I mainly concentrated on business subjects because that’s what I thought I would be going into and I did. I worked in an insurance company for about three or four years. I didn’t do any flying then but I, when I was a small boy and I was in the Cubs, you know, the junior Boy Scouts, they, one Saturday afternoon, we went down to the old airfield on Coode Island and I had my first flight in an aeroplane at about the age of nine, I should think. Eight or nine. Two cubs in the one cockpit. I don’t know who sat on whose knee. I can’t remember that but we were both in the cockpit half standing looking out over each side I should imagine but that was my first experience of flying and then I entered the Sun News Pictorial’s competition for someone most likely to fly, be able to fly an aeroplane and they’d get a free instruction to pilot licence but I didn’t, I didn’t win. There was, I think there was about a hundred people went for it and I was just one of them. I flew the aeroplane, an old Avro Avian I think it was. Single engine thing. I flew it for a little while because I’d flown model planes a lot and I knew exactly what it should do. I thought I did alright but no, I didn’t win it but then in my last year at Scotch I went in, tried to get in to the Point Cook pilot’s training system. I think there was about twenty vacancies or something and I think there was about two thousand people volunteered for it so I didn’t get that one either. However, when the war broke out I got in to the army militia I think in the middle of 1944. Well, that was alright. I didn’t mind it. September ‘44 it was and I had three months. September, October, November. I decided I’d get out so one day when I was on leave I called in to the recruiting office in Russell Street, for the Air Force that is, and they immediately signed me up. Gave me a piece of paper showing that I was a member of the RAAF and my rank was AC2. Aircraftman class 2. And then I had to attend about three times a week at various places to fit me for going into the initial training school. Mathematics and so on. Anyway, I got in and I, that was in nineteen, but the thing was going on to the reserve where I had to do these exercises and so on, lectures, about a fortnight before Pearl Harbour. This. About two weeks before that and the date of that is, December the 7th. I think it was about November the 20th or something that I enlisted in the Air Force. Just as well because I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the, the army as easily as I did and I was unfortunately of course it was mid-winter at Somers. Coldest place I’ve been in my life and some people used to wear their pyjamas under everything else because they only gave us very sort of flimsy one-piece overalls to wear in the midwinter at Somers. By September things were looking up a bit and I finished the course then and they called me in to tell me where I’d be going to next as everyone had depending on your results and they said, ‘We want to make you a navigator,’ because I was very good at mathematics at that stage and I was also a qualified accountant at that stage but I said, ‘No. I don’t want to be a navigator. I want to fly the aeroplanes. Thanks.’ And they said, ‘Well, you came top of your course.’ Course number 28 at Somers. ‘So you actually have a choice of what you’re going to do.’ They didn’t tell me that at first. Only when I objected to being a navigator. And they said well seeing you came top you can choose to train as a pilot and I went up to Benalla and flew Tiger Moths. I was there for two or three months. It’s all there in the logbook but Benalla was good fun flying the Tigers. I never broke one or landed one badly or anything like that and I came out of that alright and they sent me then after about three months, around about Christmastime ’44, ‘44 I suppose it would have been. No, no, would have been Christmas, Christmas ‘43 because I got to England in, in ‘43. Yeah, it would have been ’42. Yeah. Christmas ‘42 would have been the date I finished at Benalla and went to Mallala, South Australia about forty miles north of Adelaide. Looked like the desert and felt like it. I think it was a hundred and eight degrees for three or four days on one occasion and the beds inside the iron huts were that hot you couldn’t sit on the iron bedsteads because they were too hot to be comfortable. But anyway that was, it was quite good. I was there for, until about April or May. Mallala, South Australia, yeah, I’ll put my glasses on. I can read what I’ve written. Yeah. Yeah so I left Mallala on the, in April ‘43 and went to Ascot Vale showgrounds and I was there, only there for two or three weeks with, and fortunately I had a friend I was with, a fella named David Browne and we used to just wander around the city for a while doing nothing just waiting for something to happen and then finally in May, about the middle of April, 25th of April I was sent to Point Cook to do a course on blind approach. That is flying the beam in to land and had quite a bit of other, other work too. In fact, for about ten days I was in charge of the control tower at Point Cook. Not that any accidents ever happened so I wasn’t tested there. I just looked out the window and talked to the, the blokes from the fire cart and the ambulance from down below the control tower and I remember saying, ‘What happens if something goes wrong? What am I supposed to do?’ They said, ‘Send a signal.’ ‘Signal?’ I said. ‘What’s a signal?’ Apparently they meant send some sort of a telegram to, to someone or other. The boss of the group, of that particular group. Anyway, that only lasted a little while and then I was on flying there on Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords. Mostly under the hood, you know, blind flying on the beam. After that I went to Bradfield Park in Sydney just prior to catching a boat to San Francisco and they put us on a, an American, converted to troopship so a small, sort of, it had been a coastal [trader] I think or something like that. Proper steam steamship called the Mount Vernon which was something to do with George Washington’s home town or something like that and we headed out across towards New Zealand. I was seasick but my friend David Browne wasn’t. I was a bit envious of him. He could still eat these rather sickly, sickly looking thick drinks that he used to get from the canteen while I was chuntering out over the rail. And we got in, finally we got in to New Zealand on the North Island. Auckland. And that was quite interesting. We got off the ship. We were allowed to stay to see New Zealand in four hours so we did that and two or three, there was a group of two or three of us just walking along in Auckland somewhere and we got picked up by a couple of girls who said, ‘Come home and have dinner with us.’ You know, and being generous to the troops so we followed them and went home and spoke to all their family and had a very nice dinner, the three of us, for nothing, you know, just because we happened to be in navy blue uniforms and the New Zealanders had the grey blue uniform of the RAF. But a funny thing happened. While we were just lolling around after dinner the fiancé or boyfriend of one of the girls arrived at the front door and everyone was a little bit embarrassed about that, picking up strange troops, you know, foreign troops, on in the street. So we said, ‘Oh well, we’re off now anyway. Thank you very much,’ we went back to the boat but the bloke who came to the front door was wearing a New Zealand Air Force uniform. He’d been on some island, I think, just north of New Zealand somewhere on duty and he’d just got some leave to come back to Auckland. Anyway, we got back on the boat and then the next thing we knew we’d, we were pulling into San Francisco harbour and sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge escorted in the last part of the trip to there by a blimp and we also saw a submarine. And there was a bloke working on a ship unloading it or loading it. An American ship alongside where we were and a couple of blokes sang out to him, ‘What are you doing sport?’ or something like that. He said, ‘Go home limey.’ [laughs] He thought we were British. He’d probably never heard of Australia. And while we were, we had about a month in America which was one of the most delightful times of my whole life because the Americans were very generous at handing out food, lifts here and there. We went down to New York on one occasion and we had a weekend in New York, in New York in 1943 which not many people from Australia ever experienced. And up, up the, up all the skyscrapers, the Empire State, and we went around to the theatre where the Rockets were dancing around the stage, about a dozen of them, high kicking on the stage. That that was sort of interesting. But then we, we found out that we could go in to any of the night clubs and just have a drink at the bar, and pay for it but you couldn’t sit down. You didn’t have to pay fifty dollars like the Yanks had to, to go in and sit down at a table. We could just go in and stand at the, at the bar and have a drink and watch what was going on and at one stage we were in the Astor Roof Nightclub and the band leader who was Harry, someone or other. Betty Grable, his girlfriend or wife, was sitting in the front row near the band. We were in the table a bit further back. We’d been, we were standing at the bar, a couple of friends and myself, air force people, and this bloke came over and said, ‘Would you like to sit at our table.’ I think there must have been just the two of us by that stage. One of them had gone off somewhere else and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s alright,’ and he sat us down at a table. He had his wife and two women. Married women probably. And we made up a nice party of six people all at his expense. Very good. Then we went back to his hotel afterwards and had a few whiskies I think, if I remember rightly. But that was how the Americans were with us. They asked some funny questions like, ‘Where did you learn to speak English?’ at times. I think they thought we came from Austria or something. Confused Austria with Australia. So, they didn’t know much about Australia, the Americans but we had, in New York, we had all the, comforts like free food, free breakfasts and so on that they had. Then a little later we got on to the Queen Elizabeth which was to take us to England or Scotland actually and it set off and I think there was a half a dozen of us together got into the, into the cabin which was allocated to us. Seven of us got into the cabin but there were only four, four, four bunks in it but fortunately I was one of the early ones getting in. I got one of the bunks. The last man in got the floor. Four days. The Queen Elizabeth mark one it was of course at that stage zigzagged all the way across the Pacific, the, sorry, the Atlantic to Scotland, one way, alternate turning movements you know with not all exactly the same but, so that was to fool any submarines that were watching and I think they, they said the speed they were doing at one stage was forty knots, the Queen Elizabeth. Well that’s about what forty five miles an hour or something like that. Not bad for a big boat like that. Anyway, nothing happened to us. We didn’t even see any submarines. Oh but yes that boat we travelled to in New Zealand and San Francisco on got sunk about three trips later by a Japanese torpedo so I’m lucky to be here. Anyway, the boat pulled in and then we went down to Brighton on the train. The same day the boat pulled in in the morning we got, all climbed on a train and went straight to Brighton in Sussex on the south coast. That was a beautiful time too. I liked Brighton. I could have stayed there for years but they only left us there for weeks and sent us to an RAF station at Andover. There wasn’t much flying going on there. I didn’t notice any. We were only there for, what, a couple of weeks doing ground subjects. Learning the way the RAF worked but the one thing I did notice we had a very nice room to sleep in and we had, we were all sergeants then by the way. The RAF conditions were way and above anything the Australian Air Force had ever thought of and you know we had people to clean the huts, sweep the floors out, make the beds and it was just like officers would have got in Australia if they were lucky and then and weren’t living in New Guinea or something like that but that was okay and then the next move was to Greenham Common where we were once again flying Airspeed Oxfords and an interesting thing happened the first day we were there. We got there in the afternoon and a couple of us, a couple of other fellas and myself walked out across the airfield the airfield a bit. Down one end of it where they, and they weren’t flying at the time we walked there. Must have been late in the afternoon. Anyway, we got to the runway and there was a big black patch about fifty or sixty feet across and we went and had a look at the black patch and we could see someone’s braces ends here and a bit of red meat there and so on. Someone had crashed an Oxford the night before and had burned out and they hadn’t scraped everything off the runway. They’d got most of him but they probably put a few bricks in the coffin because I was detailed because my name started with A and I was just taken off the top of the list and told, ‘You’re going to carry this coffin and load it on the train this morning.’ And that was my introduction to RAF flying, carrying what remained of the pilot to the local railway station where we shoved it into the guards van and said, ‘Goodbye Sport,’ and that was it. After that there was no accidents that I can remember at Greenham Common. We were flying, practicing flying on Oxfords and I got a, above average rating for flying Oxfords there because I’d had all that practice flying them at Point Cook. A bit unfair but I didn’t knock it back but then we went to a little place from Greenham to an airfield called Long Newnton. Long Newnton N E W N T O N. A pilots’ advanced flying unit. Well so was Greenham Common. That was 15 PAFU. They moved out, moved them all out because the Americans wanted somewhere to land, to store their invasion gliders so they shifted us from Greenham Common to Long Newnton and I remember we all got loaded into a bus or train or something and got out at the local station or was dumped off at the airfield at Long Newnton. Of course we didn’t hang around there. We thought we’d wander down and have a beer at the local pub. It wasn’t very far from the airfield. We walked in to the pub in the Cotswolds it was. The Cotswolds. And as we, we went into the bar and there was a couple of blokes in there. They must have been farmers. They were wearing just ordinary clothes which was a bit unusual in England at that time to find ordinary civilians in odd little clubs, they were mostly in uniform of some sort. And one of them said to me, ‘What do you think of the Cotswolds?’ I said, ‘Cotswolds? Is that where we are?’ And we were in the Cotswolds. I’d heard of them of course. I knew almost as much about the geography of England as I did of Victoria because I’d, you know, been buying books when I was a kid. All English comics and so on and a book called “Modern Boy” or something which consisted mostly of aeroplanes and steam trains and so on and we found it was quite a pleasant place, Long Newnton and we just continued to fly our Airspeed Oxfords there and train on them but we had one bad experience. We had to do night flying. Night, night cross-countries. A triangular course. You’d fly north, then northwest, then south west and bring yourself back to the, to the base. Navigating in the dark. Just flying on instruments and if you missed, missed one of the beacons, they had beacons were flashing lights like A for one of, one of the turning points and perhaps F or something for the next turning points. You had to know your Morse code so you knew where you were and then you knew where you were and one of our blokes didn’t come back. You know, it was all at night. Black as night. And England was black as pitch most of the places except for the odd airfields and the beacons, air force beacons like that. I think they were red but I can’t quite remember. There were two types. There was red beacons and white beacons and we were flying on the, I think the red beacons but he didn’t come back and we were just waiting around. Waited around for about another hour or so and someone came out and said, ‘You can all go home now. We’re cancelling the, the, the rest of the exercise tonight. That bloke’s crashed his Oxford and killed himself and we won’t be doing any more flying tonight.’ But it didn’t stop all the flying the next day. But after we’d spent a fair bit of time flying Oxfords we were put on to Wellingtons at um where was it? Lichfield, in the Midlands. 27 OTU. We never flew them. They, some, they split this particular group I was in into two parts. One of them, one part stayed at Lichfield and did all the practising on Wellingtons and the rest and the other half of the group did the Wellington flying at a place called Church Broughton. Church Broughton. And that was where I had my experience with one engine and when we were doing practicing circuits and bumps on approaches on one engine. Then you’d fire both of them up together and not actually land. Just practicing flying around on the one engine on the port engine. The starboard engine was, let me see, no, I think we had to, yeah, we had to power off on the port engine and just use the starboard engine for getting around. On the Wellington you weren’t supposed to fly against the good engine because, I don’t know, there was some reason for it. The Wellington didn’t have enough spare [?] in it to just fly very well on one engine and if you flew against the good engine you could be giving yourself a bit of bother. You mightn’t be able to control it. So, when the starboard engine went out and I was doing a left hand circuit as usual I didn’t quite know what to do and because, according to the rules we should have done a very big circuit around to starboard and landed and done a clockwise circuit. It was always anti-clockwise normal landing circuits in the RAF except on special occasions when the airfield mightn’t have suited a clock, an anti-clockwise approach. After that, well I was on Halifaxes. Halifaxes. Yeah, I haven’t got a picture of one of those here. They, they were quite good. We were flying Halifaxes for a month and, oh yes because I, with this engine off getting back to the Wellington with the crook starboard engine it was still giving some half power but there were sparks and things and black smoke coming out the back of it from somewhere and it had it there. We knew the engine had had it but I just, because it was giving us a little bit of power, I kept going on the anti-clockwise circuit and landed. Did a quite good landing too. Smooth landing but when we came to a stop on the runway and I tried to fire the engines up to taxi back to our parking spot I couldn’t do that. It just kept going around in circuits on the, on the good engine so we had to, we were all fitted with radio of course so I called up the control tower and said, ‘Send us out a tractor. You’re going to have to drag us in. We can’t taxi,’ and I got into trouble for not bailing the crew out which I’d never heard of them doing just because they had lost an engine and what else didn’t I do right? Oh I should have feathered the, feathered the propeller on the starboard engine. All good experience and I said, ‘Well it was still giving me a bit of power so I used it to pull us around into, into the landing, landing position.’ They said, ‘Oh that’s no good. You should have, you should have bailed the crew out and feathered the engine.’ Well I’d never had those instructions. I didn’t argue after that because he was, Australian he was the flight commander. He was a sour puss, I noticed, always. He got sourer than ever when I came back next day and he found the engine had to be changed but at least he didn’t have to change the bloody Wellington and he didn’t have to change the crew. They, we wouldn’t if I had bailed them out by the time they all got out I don’t think all their parachutes would have held them, held them up off, would have opened quickly enough to save them but that didn’t oh worry him. He just didn’t like, didn’t like the rest of us I think for coming in safely and not feathering one engine but I’ve read a lot of stories about Wellingtons trying to land on one engine and about fifty percent of them crashed and killed the crew. It’s probably through the wrong engine going or something like that. I don’t know. Anyway, after that we were on the Halifaxes. They were alright but we had a few worrying moments. The Halifax had four engines of course and there were a lot of Halifax squadrons flying at that time but they were mostly flying on the radial engine Halifaxes. What, we were training on the ones that had been rejected for operations and had the old early model Merlin V12 engines, you know and they had various faults. The Halifax used to have a bad habit of swinging to the left when you landed it. I was warned about that. Then I found out afterwards that they ran out of brakes. If you did, if you did a fair bit of taxiing you found you couldn’t, your brakes had ran out of air or vacuum or something. I don’t know whether they were vacuum brakes or air brakes but the brakes didn’t work if you’d run out of certain, certain distance. Anyway, the first landing I did in a Halifax, they were still using it for bombing here and there, the first landing I did in a Halifax I did a very smooth landing. I always did smooth landings and I was very pleased with myself. We just coasted down the runway just about, you know, ready to turn off in a cross runway and back to the parking area and suddenly the Halifax, I was quite relaxed, suddenly it swung around to the left like I’d been warned about, ‘Don’t let it swing on you.’ Well, I took that with a grain of salt and didn’t take a great deal of notice but fortunately, the, er the instructor who’d actually had done a couple of circuits with me on this practising single engine flying had got out and he wasn’t watching us. He saw us come in to land and he thought that was very good, got on his bike and rode off to the mess and then by the time the, the Halifax swung around to the left and did a circle, a half a circle on the grass he was in the mess on his pushbike, with his pushbike and no one in the control tower said a word to us about it afterwards. Anyway, it swung so far we went down the runaway and swung right around and was facing the way we came, on the grass. It swung to the left. The, I think the Lancasters had a, a tendency to swing to the right. You had to, when you, when you flew a Lancaster with the four throttles in your hand you had to push one further forward to, to stop the thing turning or running off the runway. When you were taking off that was. They were alright when you were landing her but they had a little tendency when you put the full power on to go one way or the other so you had the four throttles in one hand. You pushed one throttle ahead of the other. I don’t know whether it was the little finger or the first finger. I think the Lancaster tended to swing to the right. Well if it did you’d have to put a bit more power on the, on the outer, starboard outer engine to prevent that swing. But anyway, I, I just taxied the Halifax which was on the grass facing the way we’d come in, taxied on, got it back on the runway, took it down to where we parked it, got the truck back to the or our bikes probably at that stage, bikes back to the mess and nothing was said by anyone. Not even flying control. They hadn’t seen it and the instructor hadn’t seen it so we didn’t say anything to anyone about it but it was good experience though and I never did it again. I landed Halifaxes practically every day for the next month but I never swung off the runway again. I was watching it. You couldn’t relax until the thing had stopped, stopped rolling at your, at your parking spot. Then we went to a place called, I was commissioned by that time. I, I started off as a flight sergeant at, on the Halifaxes at, at Blyton which is in Lincolnshire and I was a sergeant pilot for a couple of weeks and then I was, I went to London and got my uniform as a pilot officer and lived in the officers’ mess which was not, nothing very special but it was better than, better than the sergeants’ mess but not much. Not much better but I liked that and I didn’t have to hand in my old uniform either. I’ve still got it. I think it’s in a trunk upstairs in the roof, roof space with a couple of officers’ uniforms. But I did alright with Halifaxes and the next move was to Lancasters at what was known as Number 1 Lancaster Finishing School at, at, Hemswell, Hemswell in Lincolnshire and we had about a fortnight there I think at Hemswell and then we were given a bit of a run-around at various holding units for a couple of days until we were, we’d finished our ten-day course at at Hemswell. Eleven days to be precise. Number 1 Lancaster Finishing School. No problems there at all. I’d had my problems with the Halifax and the Wellington. Hemswell was a piece of cake until we got to our operational station called erm Kelstern. I should remember that. It’s on the front of the house. Kelstern. And we were immediately given leave to go to London. You know, they probably had their hands full at the time. It was a busy station so we had a week in London on leave. Of course all this other stuff we had, weeks in London or the countryside and I went, used to get a ticket to Scotland, the northernmost railway station in Scotland so I could go anywhere between Lincolnshire or wherever I was. I wasn’t necessarily even in Lincolnshire. I could have been in the Midlands and I would just get a train. I think it was third class while I was a sergeant and first class when I was a pilot officer but I normally travelled third class because I found there were more interesting people to talk to in third class than in first class on those trains. And, um where was I? Oh yes when we finished our London, London leave on Kelstern which was 625 squadron they sent me up on a flying, on a, just a flight around the local neighbourhood to get used to the area and the approach to landing and so on. In a Lancaster of course because I was fully qualified Lancaster pilot by that time. Ten days at the Number 1 Lancaster Finishing School. Ten days instruction on Lancasters and low and behold we were just flying around the countryside admiring the scenery and then the flight engineer says to me. ‘The starboard outer engine is overheating.’ Cheers. [laughs] I’d learned my lesson so I just said, ‘Well feather the engine. Feather the prop. Turn it off and feather it.’ So we continued our flying on three engines, two on the left side and one on the starboard side and I had flown them on three engines. In fact I’d flown them at LFS on two engines and I knew they handled perfectly well on three engines so I didn’t hesitate to feather the, to shut that starboard engine down and feather the props so we just landed and I can remember the Lanc flew almost exactly the same on three engines, two on one side and one on the other, you know, on the approach to the strip, to the runway and just did a normal landing, and we just taxied it on the two inner engines to its parking spot and I, I said to the flight sergeant in charge, ‘You’d better have a look at that engine. It’s not working.’ He said, ‘Ok.’ The next day I went out to see how he’d got on with it and he said, ‘Oh there was nothing wrong with the engine. It was just the sender on the, and it wasn’t overheating it was just a sender on the, on the engine itself was faulty and it was sending out the wrong message to the gauge on the, the, um flight engineers panel.’ He had, he had the gauges in front of him. He could, he used to watch. And then I knew I’d got on to a good aeroplane. A couple of days later we were on our first operation because we’d had our leave. It didn’t take long for them to put us on to ops and about half of our crew flew with the remains of another crew piloted by a bloke called Flight Officer Slade and flight officer is not an RAF rank. It’s an American Air Force rank and he was an American and he wore a khaki uniform, the American flying uniform and when he was around in the mess or something he had on the American officer’s uniform. A flight officer, an American flight officer, was the equivalent of a pilot officer in the RAF. But that, that trip, oh when we were flying Wellingtons of course we did a lot of night flying too and we did fly over, over France one night with a load of leaflets and this was in the Wellington and that was all we carried. We had two cans. Two small bomb container cans which were about six foot long by eighteen inches high and wide packed tight with leaflets and when you got to the correct spot the bomb aimer who was down in the nose pressed the right button and the bottom of the canister after he’d opened the bomb doors of course and all the leaflets fluttered down below. Well, for some reason or other he had a nervous attack just before he, he had to release the leaflets over Chartres was the town about forty miles south, southwest of France. Anyway, we got to Chartres alright or the bomb aimer reckoned we were over Chartres so he pressed the button and in his haste he pressed the wrong button and this great canister, six foot long canister packed tight with leaflets hanging on a bomb hook disappeared from the aeroplane and went down with all its leaflets packed tight. When we got back they wanted to know where the, where the other canister was. I mean it could have killed someone, that canister, if it had landed on someone or put a big hole in the roof of the Chartres cathedral. I believe they have a cathedral in Chartres but we never heard any more about that apart from the bombing, bombing leader quizzing the, our bomb aimer as to why he’d just come back with one empty container and he had to explain what had happened. One of the reasons it might have happened because when we were crossing just before we were crossing the French coast heading for Chartres, this was at night of course, someone in the crew said, ‘There’s a searchlight on us.’ Well of course that rattled everyone including the bomb aimer. Searchlights. And after a while we found the searchlight was following us. Well searchlights are not mobile. Not that mobile.
AP: [not that fast] anyway.
AA: And I found someone had knocked the switch. It could have been me. It could have been anyone else on the crew. It could have been the ground staff left it switched on and knocked the switch that turned the landing lights on. Well, in the Wellington the landing light normally, not being used, points straight down. When you want to use it you pull a lever and it swings the landing light forward on a hinge so that it points forward where you’re going to land. We never used it, we never used landing lights all the time, the RAF weren’t using them at the time because they had such good flare paths. Electric flare paths. Anyway, this light followed us and it wasn’t until we were well over the coast, flying over German occupied France with this bright light shining straight down and all I can think was the Germans must have looked at that and said, ‘Oh well that’s someone practicing. It wouldn’t be a foreign plane you know, flying with a light like, on like that,’ so they didn’t bother sending anyone up to investigate. I was lucky. Every now and again someone got shot down on those exploits. They called them nickels. N I C K E L S. Nickels. Dropping leaflets and practically everyone had to do a nickel as part of their course on the Wellingtons so we did ours. Anyway, we, he got the right switch for the second one, he didn’t drop that. He just opened the bottom and all the leaflets went flutter, flutter, flutter down to, down to the cathedral underneath, hopefully. Or just the town of Chartres, I don’t know where they went. Might have all gone down on someone’s farm. That was a bit nerve-wracking especially when we found the searchlight was on us. The next time I found a searchlight was on us when we were bombing um a town in Germany. It was the, er, near Frankfurt, just a little town southwest of Frankfurt where there was a General Motors factory. General Motors, USA. Opel. It was just described as an Opel factory which was still a General Motors subsidiary at that, well it was had been a subsidiary of German motors for some time. The Opels. Opel cars. And we had to do a turn on a town south, south of Frankfurt. It turned out to be a fairly hot town because approaching this town of, let’s see. I’ll just um [shuffling of papers] yeah I started my tour on Bomber Command in, in July. On the 4th of July, that was my first, with Flight Officer Slade. There, just trying to work oh Russelsheim. The Opel works at Russelsheim. That’s where the factory was and we had a turning point of probably about sixty or eighty miles south of Rüsselsheim. We were flying eastward. Basically directly east and then we had to turn north and fly north to Rüsselsheim. That’s right. Rüsselsheim and the turning point was over a town called Mannheim. Now, it was a stupid place to have a turning point because that had been bombed quite a few times and it was full of anti-aircraft guns and searchlights and we could see the searchlights and we could see anti-aircraft fire bursting in front of us as we approached, approached Mannheim and it wasn’t very long before we got picked up by a blue tinged searchlight, radar controlled from what we were told. We’d heard about these blue tinged searchlights, blue lights, and they were directly controlled by radar from the ground and if the radar picked up a Lancaster flying they could just about pinpoint it with the searchlights but they would have needed about five, about five hundred radar controllers down below to pick up every one but they used to pick out one and have a go at it. Well, instead of everything being black we got his blinding light lighting up the whole plane. I could hardly see the instruments because I was blinded. I had, you know, flying through the night to get your night vision then suddenly a thousand candle power light’s shining in your face practically and I remember thinking, ‘Jesus I’ve done all this training and now I’m going to be killed,’ I thought to myself. I pushed the stick forward fortunately and she dived quickly and I immediately lost the blue tinged searchlights. You see, when they, when they put that blue tinged light had about another half a dozen focussed on you. They could see the blue light and they, they, we had about six searchlights altogether lighting us up but we lost the light. Immediately black as pitch. And we went into a manoeuvre called the corkscrew and you sort of fly in a down to your left. Then when you are half way down to where you’re going you turn to the right and keep diving. You’re diving. You’re going very fast and then when you get down over to the right you swing it to the left and come up again and do two or three of those. Well, we were basically told that they were, you know, to evade, avoid if you get a fighter behind you if you get the words from the rear gunner, ‘There’s a fighter on you. Go into a corkscrew,’ at night and mostly we flew at night anyway. Half the time we flew at night and half the time I flew in daylight. That was, that was a different thing altogether but and you could go into the corkscrew. That was all I could think to do and I looked at the instrument panel, the airspeed indicator, just as we got near the bottom of where I was going to pull out and I think I was doing four hundred miles an hour. The top diving speed of a Lancaster at that time was three hundred and sixty miles an hour. So we were doing four hundred miles an hour. Actually, it was calibrated in knots. I’ve converted it to miles an hour and we had a full bomb load on. Rüsselheim, yeah we had a four thousand pound bomb on. That’s the high explosive one. What did they call that? They used to have a nickname for that one. Blockbuster or something like that and I don’t know what the other ones were but um oh yes we had just one high explosive bomb, one four thousand and the rest were incendiaries. It made a nasty mess if it landed on you. Anyway, it was a total of, oh I don’t know what it would be, about six or seven thousand pounds sitting underneath us so I was very careful to pull out gently from the bottom of the dive. I didn’t want to leave the wings behind which could have happened to us if you did it quickly. I think on that same raid I saw a picture of a Lancaster that came back with, with both of its ailerons useless. He’d dived too fast and pulled out to fast like the same thing I did but I pulled out fairly gently. I knew quite a bit about flying aeroplanes theoretically as well as, as well as practically and I knew you couldn’t pull out quickly ‘cause I knew what could happen but it didn’t so we just carried on and bombed the, bombed the General Motors plant and then came home again. That was one of the most interesting ones. Another interesting trip I did much later though. We did, did this trip out over the Bay of Biscay. There was an estuary, the Gironde Estuary not far from the, what would have been the Spanish border of Spain and, and the Bay of Biscay, French coast but anyway this Gironde Estuary, oh there’s some wineries up there, up the Gironde. Someone heard I’d bombed near the wineries. He said, ‘Well you’re lucky you didn’t bomb the wineries because I wouldn’t be speaking to you if you’d spoilt my, spilt my wine.’ But we didn’t. We flew from Kelstern almost due south right down to the south coast, then turned right, south, just before the south coast and flew down out to Lands End and at that stage flying to Lands End we took it down to fifty feet going over Lands End and we flew all the way around out into the Atlantic at fifty feet. Fortunately, it was a very fine day and not much wind and round in a big wide circle fifty feet all the way. I think we had four hundred Lancasters on that one. Something like that. And we had an escort though to fly over the Bay of Biscay, escorted of long range Mosquitos, fighters, in case some German type decided to have a go at us but, no one, no one showed up because we were flying at fifty feet. That was to be under the German radar of course and they never spotted us till us we were over, over the river and then they didn’t have time to get, get there and do anything. We’d gone by the time they woke up to what happened but I remember we did this two days running. We did it was the same, same town almost, almost the same spot in the Gironde Estuary. We came hammering over the Bay of Biscay at fifty feet. As we got to the coast we had to rise up a bit because there was about a thirty foot lump of hillocks and trees and stuff there so we went up a bit and as we crossed the beach I looked down and there was an old horse. You could see it was an old horse because we were only fifty or thirty feet from him looking down. It was slightly to my left just plodding along. An old draft horse it was and the driver was sitting up on the cart. He didn’t look up and the horse didn’t look up. No one, neither of them looked up. We just shot over the top of them at about thirty feet above them because they had come up on this slight rise, this twenty foot rise from the, from the sand where the estuary started and I don’t know what happened to them afterwards. We didn’t drop anything or do anything nasty to them. They were probably French anyway. Not that that would have stopped me if I’d, if I’d had to bomb them but we didn’t have to bomb them. We just went along the estuary until we found the fuel oil tanks that we were going to do a bit of damage to. They were, they were used from time to time by submarines that’d sail up this estuary at night and fill up there. We were, this flight was in daylight of course. Beautiful day. No wind hardly. Blue skies. Not a cloud in the sky. A delightful day. I think I had my twenty sixth birthday that day so I got a nice birthday present. A nice trip to southern of France to the Gironde Estuary at fifty feet over the Bay of Biscay and we dropped bombs on it and I’ve got photographs of the, of the target area with a ship lying on its side. It wouldn’t have been our bomb because it was someone in front of me rolled the ship over with a bomb. He was supposed to bomb the tanks but he might have just bombed the ship instead. Now that was, that was August the 5th. I know that because it was my birthday the next day. No. August the 4th that’s right. August the 5th was my birthday. The second, the next day we, we did exactly the same route. Flew down to the south coast of England, turned right, almost to the south coast, and went down through Somerset and all those places to Lands End and off the end of Lands End at fifty feet, gradually taking it down to fifty feet as we got near Lands End. And this was the second day and we were all going hell for leather towards the er the Gironde Estuary as usual at a little town call Pauillac. P A U I L L A C. Pauillac. This was the second day and they were both, both in Pauillac but slightly different positions in Pauillac and we had ten thousand pounds of bombs on board approximately. Ten thousand five hundred pounds of bombs carrying on that one and it took us seven hours fifty five minutes altogether but as we were approaching the estuary out over the bay the rear gunner called up, ‘Someone’s going in.’ I looked around and there was a great splash of water still hanging in the air. One of the Lancs had dived into the, into the water but what had happened he’d collided with one of his friends from the same squadron. They were showing how close they could fly together which was the last thing they ever did. One of them survived but one didn’t. Anyway, on that, that, that occasion we, we didn’t go back to Kelstern because there was something wrong with the weather by the time we’d gone. To have two bright, sunny days over England in a row was a bit unusual and it was just the usual thing you know. It had clouded over or something. This was August. Well August can be cloudy or it can be very nice in England. Yeah but anyway it was too cloudy or foggy or something to land there so we landed at a different airfield, a place called Gamston. Gamston. That was a Wellington training base I think, at the time. Gamston. So they had a nice, nice long runway. One interesting thing happened with that. We had to just fly back to our base next door. We just had one night there sitting in chairs, sleeping in chairs, in the mess. Well the next day we returned, the weather cleared at Kelstern. Took us fifteen minutes to get from Gamston in the Midlands, more or less, to Kelstern in Lincolnshire and I remember taking off. I didn’t think, didn’t think of it at the time but we didn’t need to take off like we had nine thousand pounds of bombs on board at all. You know, we had very little fuel. See, that trip was a fairly long trip. Took us almost eight hours in the air and we didn’t have much petrol left when we got back and they didn’t fill it up. They said, ‘Oh you’ve got enough fuel to get back to’ [Gamston], or to ‘Kelstern alright.’ I just took off as usual and as usual was I usually took off in a Lancaster with about fifteen thousand pounds of bombs on it something like that and about two thousand gallons of petrol which I carried on a short trip and I just opened the throttles up and she lifted off, off the ground in about two hundred yards or less, a hundred and seventy, a hundred and eighty yards or something. Just floated up in to the air. I realised then that I didn’t need to open it up to full bore really. I could have probably opened up and we’d never been trained to take off a Lancaster when it was a light load. You were always shown how to take off in a Lancaster as fast as possible with the load that you’d got but of course I flew it a few times with only a light load and I knew what I was doing but the excitement of the trip and seeing the Lancasters behind us causing a great splash in the Bay of Biscay had changed, took my mind off what I was doing I suppose but up she went and we were home in about ten minutes or fifteen minutes I put down here I think. Fifteen minutes trip back to Kelstern. That includes landing it too. And that was about halfway through my tour but we kept going various places. Le Havre, that’s right on the French coast when they, they were trying to get Germans out of the forts that they had or buildings they had taken over in Le Havre which is on the coast of France opposite England. We bombed them in daylight of course. Half of my trips were in daylight. Sixteen. I did thirty two altogether. I did one more than I really needed to so sixteen night and fifteen day or something like that and I used to like the daylight ones because you’d look up and you’d see about two hundred spitfires and about a hundred something else, American fighters, sitting above you, about one or two thousand feet just above where you were flying so we mostly did our, our operations at about fifteen thousand feet. Frankfurt for instance. We did that at about seventeen thousand eight hundred feet. That was a good one. I liked Frankfurt. That was the night one of my best friends on 467 squadron, which is an Australian squadron near, near the town of Lincoln. Just south, south east I think of Lincoln. 467 squadron. I think you mentioned you had a friend in 467 squadron. Yeah, Bomber Command, 467 squadron crew. A relative of yours -
AP: Correct
AA: Flew. Right?
AP: Yeah. A few months before that but yes.
AA: Yeah. Yeah. So he was in March or April.
AP: May, it was.
AA: Yeah, 10th of May that’s right. Yeah, well I had this friend of mine in, in, in 467 squadron he was a deputy flight commander and he said they’re having a very rough time at the moment because people are getting shot down all the time including our flight commanders and they made him a deputy flight commander as a flight lieutenant which was one rank higher than I was. I was a flying officer but fortunately for us I wasn’t in a, in a squadron where they were having a lot of calamities. It was just a little less than average. I think it was because I think it was because it was a more disciplined squadron. The RAF was a lot more disciplined than the RAAF. Particularly the RAAF squadrons in England. They were noted for a bit of a lack of doing the right thing a lot of the time. I know they didn’t do the right thing by me because I visited, that Australian squadron, 460 squadron at Binbrook two or three times for various reasons. Sometimes to deliver a Lancaster there or bring one back from there. It was only about four miles from us because the, the, and the circuits interlinked so you had to be a bit careful that you didn’t fly into a 460 squadron Lancaster going in the opposite direction. But what I didn’t like about it I hung my cap, fortunately it wasn’t the round cap just the four and a half cap on the hook in the hall like I, in the, in the ante room like I did in my own squadron and I found someone had stolen it immediately. I wasn’t there that long. I just had lunch there. Took about half an hour. I thought I was doing alright. I go back and no cap. Well, I didn’t need it to fly a Lancaster because I had a flying helmet which I still had that in the, in the Lancaster or something like that but anyway you had to have a flying helmet. I hadn’t lost that. Just the ‘fore and aft’ cap. So I reckon the Australian squadron of [inclined] to be full of ill-disciplined, bloody thieves in a large, large section of them and that was, that was my opinion of the RAF as against the Australians like comparing the Australians were like a bloody Boy Scout troops except not quite so honest as the Scouts would be. And I didn’t like them. My, my old friend Dave Browne was, he had a bit of bad luck. He was, he got to his twenty sixth operation. I think they’d just made him a flight lieutenant, second in command of his flight and he did a couple of operations the same night as I did. I bombed Frankfurt September the, September the 12th 1944 Frankfurt and Dave Browne got shot down on that same night so it wasn’t much good him being a flight lieutenant and second in charge of the flight. It didn’t do him any good. Frankfurt. We bombed from seventeen thousand eight hundred feet and one thing I noticed about Frankfurt as we flew over it in a, in a sort of south easterly direction and came around, swung around to the left and flew back past it and you could look down and see Frankfurt and it looked just like Melbourne at night with the streets were all lit up but it wasn’t lights it was the burning buildings on each side of, of the street. Frankfurt was on fire that night and I set fire to most of it. Or a lot of it. Anyway, we had a good one on that. Frankfurt. Yeah. You probably think it’s a bit rough to think of burning people alive but it didn’t worry us. I’d seen, I’d seen Coventry in England. I’d seen Brighton. I’d seen a street in London where I used to go past and walk down part of. It was there from the first time I got to England in 1943, about July ‘43 and I’d seen this little street. Very attractive houses still intact and one night around about this time I happened to be in London again and it was a complete shambles. The Germans had sent up a special, special group of planes, probably not very many and bombed the hell out of it or it could have been those flying bombs I don’t know. Probably more likely to be that. The buzz bombs. They would do that. They were quite erratic. You never knew where they were going to land. I was in London when the first ones came over on leave. I looked out of the window of the hotel I was on the third floor of. A private hotel. It was the top floor and I heard this bop bopbopbopbop sound going across the sky. Just sounded just like my old motorbike. My 350 Calthorpe. Same sound except that there was this light at the back of it. My Calthorpe never had a light at the back of it. Oh it had a little red light you could hardly see but never had a big white glow at the back of it and it certainly didn’t go as fast as the buzz bombs but I can remember the anti-aircraft guns in London were firing at the thing but they never hit it and I could see what was happening. I could hear shrapnel starting from the, the exploding bomb started to land on the roof. I was up on the top floor and I could hear the things clang clanging on the top of the roof. Steel pieces from the, from the shells that they were shooting up at the flying bomb and not getting anywhere near it. I got under the bed for a while but I thought, ‘What will I do?’ There was no air raid shelter there so I just stayed under the bed till things quietened down and stopped firing. You could hear the guns going off as well as the buzz bomb flying over London. Everything went quiet after a while and I heard where it landed. It landed somewhere near a railway station up in er it would have been north east London a bit. North east somewhere. I’ve used that station afterwards when on my trips. I went, I did about half a dozen trips to, back to Europe, after the war, after I was married, with my wife and we went all over England and Scotland and Germany too. France and Germany. I liked the Germans. We got on very well with them. My last trip to Germany was in 1993, 1993 I think it was. We went with a group from the RAF association over in, it was in South Yarrow then. Frank. A bloke called Frank someone or other was the leader and apart from a lot of trips around England which we did which was very nice that included a visit to the Victory ship down on the south coast somewhere. We cruised, we visited the battle areas in France and then when we got to Germany we got to, I think we flew to Berlin and they had a, a small bus waiting for us and with two German air force pilots as drivers. One’s the driver. One’s the, one’s the navigator. Very nice blokes and they drove us all over middle Germany and East Germany, Not the north and not the very south either but the middle Germany. Berlin and then over to the French border where the southwest part of Germany is and they took it in turns to drive and navigate and when we got back to Frankfurt where I had done so much damage they’ve got a new, big new wide boulevard through the centre of Frankfurt. I knew the name of it at one stage but I can’t remember it now but they can thank me for putting that there. I removed a lot of old scruffy houses from a great strip in the middle of Frankfurt and they’ve got a big boulevard like St Kilda Road runs through it. Well, I did that, half the work for them. But anyway these two German blokes we got on very well with them and they took us to a couple of their airfields on the east border of Germany which used to be East Germany. It had just been changed, just amalgamated with West Germany in about 1995 or something like that.
AP: Before that. 1990
AA: 1990 was it?
AP: ’89 or – [? Just.]
AA: Oh that’s right ‘93 when I was there and the remains of the war were still there the West German wall but we went to the West German border somewhere near a town called Cottbus I think and there was a, air force station. They gave us a very good reception. Nice light lunch and so on and showed us the latest airplanes they had and we climbed all over the latest fighter the Germans had. In fact, the leader, the leader of the expedition Frank Wilson, that’s his name, he was a Lancaster pilot, he managed to get inside in the cockpit and wriggle the controls of one of them which was in the, in the hangar we were standing in. Then they did a bit of a demonstration flight for us. Low flying and a few aerobatics and so on.
AP: Beautiful.
AA: That was good. Then after that they drove us, the two blokes in this small bus drove us to the river which is the border I think between France and Germany on the west somewhere near the Rhine yeah it’s on the Rhine town Wesel W E S E L Wesel and we were taken as guests, honoured guests to a annual meeting of the ex-fighter pilots association.
AP: Wow.
AA: And they were all, had all these long tables in this room there with these pots of beer and they were singing songs, you know, bouncing these songs around. Our leader, Frank, he had to make a speech. He got up on the, on the stage and spoke to them and I suppose about three quarters of them would understand. They speak a lot of English in Germany and they were bouncing their big pots on the, on the ground and I turned back to the bloke next to me, he was German but he spoke English, they made sure we had a English speaking people sprinkled amongst our travel lot so we could ask any questions. I said, ‘What are they singing now?’ You know they were stamping their feet and banging their pots on the table, wooden tables and they said, ‘Oh that’s, “We’re marching against England.” ’ That’s what he said [laughs] and I said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ Yeah and oh I got that plaque there from him, yeah.
AP: Nice.
AA: I got, we got a couple of pictures from him I don’t think they’re here. No. Mind your feet. I’ll just get the plaque down show you we got from him. From the opposition. There you are. How’s your German? Any good?
AP: Fair, Fair [?] it’s like an association of um fighter flyers associations.
AA: That’s right. Fighter.
AP: Yeah.
AA: They’re called flyers.
AP: [? ]That’s fantastic. I might take a photo of that later.
AA: Yeah. Well that’s come out its plug.
AP: Yeah that’s alright. It’s coming through the internal microphone now.
AA: Oh.
AP: Yeah, I couldn’t make it work so.
AA: That’s one of my favourite aircraft.
AP: Ah that’s an Anson.
AA: I used to like, I could fly them at night. Anytime. They’re good. Avro Anson.
AP: Yeah. Fantastic.
AA: And that’s the uniform we used to wear. That round cap beret with a sort of a what we called a goon skins they were, sort of one piece overalls and they used to try and make us wear them at, in mid-summer, at that place in South Australia where it was a hundred and eight degrees three days running and it was so hot you couldn’t sit on the metal beds inside the huts because they send they heat out more than the hut itself but anyway we talked, talked the boss into letting us wear shorts and shirts after a while. So, we weren’t so bad. And what else? On my last operation was on Cologne. Ah yes I, when I finished my tour in, here you are on, as a middle multi engine and that’s -
AP: above average yeah I read that.
AA: Well I got that for the Airspeed Oxford too but that was for being a good pilot but I think if you got back from thirty two trips he reckoned you must be above the average so he always gave that to someone who finished a tour which I did. Not everyone finished the tour. Old Dave Browne didn’t.
AP: Many of them didn’t.
AA: When my last operation was October the 31st on Cologne. What did we carry there? One four thousand. One blockbuster four thousand pounder and the rest in high explosive bombs but a lot of the times we carried about fifteen thousand pounds of bombs. Here’s one. Oh that’s fourteen thousand feet. Here’s another one thirteen, thirteen thousand pound bombs plus four five hundred pounders. Well that’s fifteen thousand pounds altogether which is about six and three quarter tons isn’t it?
AP: [?] yeah
AA: Divided by 2240 you get about six tons, six and a quarter tonnes. That’s a lot of weight you’re carrying and then there’s the petrol as well as that. Course that’s, that’s fairly high loaded. That was in Calais. We took part really in the invasion of Germany, of Europe. A lot of our work was supporting the, the British army. When they came up against a rather sticky situation they’d call for help from the RAF and we’d do a daylight trip on them so we wouldn’t bomb them instead of the opposition that they were complaining about and you know you killed a lot of Germans that way without killing any British. We never killed any British. We knocked off a lot of Frogs working with the Germans. Mostly in a little town just on the invasion coast. Where was it? [shuffling papers]. I don’t know. Another interesting thing was I’d flown over about eight different countries in Europe in a Lancaster. Eight. Including Sweden and Switzerland and Norway and Denmark and of course France and Germany and England and Wales and Scotland. I’ve been around in that Lancaster and that was a beautiful thing to fly. It was like flying, driving a Mercedes Benz. Beautiful. And probably your motorbike. Get as much enjoyment out of it except that that’s got a smaller engine than I had in my 350. Oh, yes, here you are. Have a look at this. There’s my motorbike.
AP: Oh fantastic. When’s that?
AA: Er that was -
AP: July 1938.
AA: ’38. I got that bike in ‘36. 1936. I wish I still had the damned thing. I shouldn’t have sold these things but I wanted to buy a car so I got a few shekels for that when I sold it, not very many and then bought a Singer Le Mans. A 1938 Singer.
AP: Fantastic.
AA: I haven’t got a picture of that but up there see those two top pictures.
AP: Yep.
AA: They’re of a car I had in England. That’s a Singer Le Mans. A nineteen, they’re both pictures of a restored, one’s been restored perfectly and the other is a lash up job um restored 1934 model Singer. Singer Le Mans because they did a lot of racing of Singer Le Mans and had a lot of victories and beat the MGs but then the next year in 1935 and, or ‘36 or something they had a lot of trouble with their brakes and they didn’t do any good at all but that, see that little black one.
AP: Yeah.
AA: In the corner? That’s the real one. That’s the one I had.
AP: That’s the one.
AA: In England.
AP: Was? As in this is when you were serving in England?
AA: Oh yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. So, how did you get that car and what happened to it?
AA: Well it cost me sixty pounds. It was in the, just advertised in the local paper in Louth which is the local town for Kelstern and I just went along and bought it for sixty pounds. I had sixty pounds. We were fairly well paid and I didn’t gamble like, like most of my crew. They seemed to lose all their money but I never lent them anything. No. I was thinking if they’re going to lose their bloody money it’s their own fault. One of the blokes in the crew wanted to get married and he sent me a telegram. Unfortunately he wanted to borrow twenty pounds off me but fortunately I was on leave at the time so I never got that telegram until I got back from leave after his marriage day so that got me out of that. But that had two exhaust pipes like, like your bike out there but they just came out of one cylinder, one 350cc cylinder. Now, that was a beauty. One of the most thrilling experiences in my whole life and that includes Lancasters and anything, any other bloody thing was when I got that bloody bike.
AP: That motorbike. Fantastic.
AA: Yeah.
AP: Carrying on for a moment with the car. How did you fuel it?
AA: Oh we got an issue of four gallons a month if you were operational air crew. Well, I was an operational aircrew for six months because I was still on the squadron and I did four months actual, four months actual flying in Lancasters but then the CO decided to keep me on the squadron because I had an above-average rating for flying Airspeed Oxfords. Well, he had an Airspeed Oxford at his disposal and he used to like to go to visit other squadrons and perhaps his girlfriend’s town, I don’t know, and he like me to come along the next day, with a navigator of course, and bring him and bring him his aeroplane back and he’d fly it back. So he’d fly it to from Kelstern to Westcott or somewhere like that get out there at that airfield and I’d fly it back until I heard from him.
AP: That’s not a bad job is it?
AA: Well, he, he kept me on the station from the end of October, November, December till about half way through January doing that and he gave me a DFC for it. For being a good boy. Actually, most skippers of Lancasters if they completed a tour successfully got a DFC but he made sure I got one and I used to fly him everywhere. I even did a couple of trips to London with him I think. Or at least one anyway. And most of that would be around Lincolnshire somewhere and oh yes I had to investigate a crash on one occasion and I was, this was the first time I’d flown his Lanc, his Airspeed Oxford. We had to go to a station on the, on the south east coast, the south east coast of England, you know, and one of our Lancasters, it was a very bad night. Where were we bombing that night? I don’t know. Anyway, we were coming back from the middle of Germany somewhere and we were all told to fly over, over the top of a cold front that was approaching to get home again. As they said, ‘You’re going out you don’t have to worry about the trip to’ wherever you’re going ‘but when you’re coming back fly at twenty three thousand feet to get over the top of this electrical storm which you’ll run into.’
AP: Higher than that
AA: Well I was flying at twenty four thousand feet and it was very comfortable. We had a very nice bombing trip, killed a lot of nice Germans and we were flying back and there was no chance of the Luftwaffe chasing us at that stage because the weather down below looked pretty crook at times. It was nice and clear upside where we were until the rear gunner called out, ‘Hey skipper, my oxygen has gone out. I can’t get any oxygen.’ Well, he wanted me to say, ‘Well, oh well leave your turret and come inside,’ and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted the protection from him at the back as the most vulnerable side for us. The rear. The Germans liked to follow us up from the back. If possible shoot the rear gunner and shoot the rest of us and I said, ‘Look Ron.’ Ron smith his name was. ‘Look, I’ll take you down five thousand feet and that’ll get us down to eighteen, seventeen or eighteen thousand feet. You’ll be alright there.’ And he lived. I took it down to eighteen, seventeen thousand feet and we went through the top of this electrical storm. It worried me a little bit because it was pretty rough you know. The old Lanc was bouncing around a lot and fortunately we didn’t have any load on at this stage. We were empty. Just the petrol to get home and the four propellers each had a blue ring around the tip. You could see the big round blue circle around the tip and on the windscreen this little zigzag all over the windscreen. Sparks coming down the windscreen from the lightning. We were loaded. Loaded with lightning. However, we got past there. We got through it. It was a bit rough, you know. It was a bit bouncy but that didn’t worry me much. I was, I was more concerned about what the lightning was going to do. Whether it was going to get any worse than it was but we got back and he didn’t say much when we got back. I think he was reasonably grateful but at least he could breathe on the way home. He got out of there and plugged himself in to, no, he didn’t, he stopped in the turret. That’s right. I think what he wanted me to tell him to get out and plug himself in to one of the other outlets inside not in his, he was right in the back stuck in the glass with a big opening on the back so he could see clearly and er but he stopped there and he didn’t have to warn us that there was anyone else coming up behind us. I didn’t think there would be. Not through that storm. They would have, they would have corkscrewed into the ground I reckon if a fighter had tried to fly through there. It was bad enough in a Lancaster but that day, why I’m telling you that story, we lost a couple of Lancasters and one of them that didn’t come back they found it had dived into the sand, and into the sandy soil off the beach on the, in Norfolk somewhere and I was detailed by the CO with the knowledge that I hadn’t started flying him around to his girlfriend’s houses or anything at this stage but he’d seen the logbook. He used to read through everyone’s logbook. We had to put this in every month you see and he used to read everything in it. Better than reading the “Sporting Globe” I suppose but anyway he read that something like the same thing, you know, the competition the Germans and the British but we got, we got I was just detailed to fly this Oxford which I hadn’t forgotten how to fly to this American airfield on the, on the east, southeast coast there somewhere in Norfolk or Suffolk or, no, I think it would be Norfolk really but anyway we found the spot where the Lancaster had crashed and it had dived straight down apparently and the engines were twelve feet under the ground we estimated. Just an estimate by what was left of the Lancaster sticking up out of the back of it and as we were looking at er, looking at it a farmer wandered up and said to us, ‘Good day.’ He said, ‘There’s more remains over in the trees there.’ and I said, ‘Well, look we’re just inspecting the wreckage of the Lancaster. Someone else will be coming for the remains.’ So, I didn’t want to get stirred up with the remains of the, of the crew but that was his greeting to us, ‘there’s remains over in the trees there.’ So in, at the hit, Lancaster bits and pieces including the tree must have flown in every direction to have hit and got the engines that far underground. Must have been a bad one. It must have dived down from about ten thousand feet or something. Fifteen thousand. I don’t know. Twenty thousand. I don’t know but I was very glad we missed that thing ourselves but that was the closest thing I think we had to get into trouble. But no I’ve been to Poland twice. We went across the North Sea as usual. Across Norway. Now, this trip took about nine hours. Crossed in to Sweden which was neutral. As we got to the central of the Swedish, you know, it’s a long thing, goes up and down and I think the best parts are down low somewhere on the Baltic. Turned right there and headed south and on the way down the Swedes sent up a whole lot of Bofors shells but they only go to sixteen thousand feet. We were at about eighteen or nineteen thousand and it was a very pretty show actually. They come up in their bright colours reds and greens sometimes. Mostly reds. They used come up and you could see them coming up and bending gracefully over, starting to fall and blow up there. Bofors, 40mm but every now and again some keen type of Swede or someone who didn’t like the British, in the Swedish army, would send up a shot from a German 88mm high explosive shell but fortunately they were about four hundred yards on my left as I was flying south to Stettin in er in what is now Poland and I don’t think they hit anyone on that night but certainly I never saw them hit anyone there with their shells. I think they might have been trying though. As I say there was a keen type on the end of a German 88mm gun or a Swedish 88mm gun but that’s just the same sort of explosion as the Germans had at about, you know, we were at about eighteen thousand feet. And Bofors were 40mm guns which most of the Swedes were just sending up to let the British know that they weren’t allowed to fly over Sweden on the, in the rules, I don’t know what rules ruled most in those days but they let us know that we weren’t particularly welcome unless we had plenty of money to spend sort of thing. The Swedes used to sell steel to both the Germans and the British.
AP: But they were neutral.
AA: Well so did I. So were the Switzerland Swiss but we went over a corner of Switzerland at one stage. Where else did we go? I think they were the only neutral, neutral countries we flew over. I went to Stettin. That’s in Poland now. Used to be spelled S T E T T I N when the Germans had it. Now it’s spelt S C H E and something else, you know, Polish.
AP: A Polish name.
AA: Yeah.
AP: Makes sense.
AA: That’s about it.
AP: Were there any, I’ve got a couple, a couple more specific questions that I’d like to ask if -
AA: Yeah.
AP: If you don’t mind. Were there any hoodoos or superstitions with your squadron?
AA: No. There was no superstition. Just hope. Just hope that it doesn’t happen to you.
AP: Fair enough.
AA: Yeah. Oh no. We didn’t actually think about that much because we, when I look back I think we didn’t worry. We were used to going to town. Drink all the beer in Louth which was the local pub. I had a nice girlfriend, a WAAF, I used to go around with all the time. We used to go down to Binbrook in that black Singer. The black, the little black one in the corner there. It was the Plough Inn in Binbrook. We used to go down there and drink bottled beer. She liked bottled beer. I remember we went to, there was a dance in the sergeants’ mess. I wasn’t allowed to go. Officers weren’t allowed to go to that and I knew she was going to be there so I said, ‘Oh I think I’ll see you there.’ So, I borrowed the rear gunners, well he owed it to me for saving his life. I borrowed his, one of his spare tunics. He was a sergeant and I went along to the sergeants’ mess in it, just wearing the same blue pants that I normally had on and with his jacket on with the one wing and I’m dancing around with my girlfriend and the flight lieutenant um he was the orderly officer or something. He was, no, the squadron, the squadron something. He had some official position anyway. His job was to sort of get around and make sure everything was going all right and also collect the belongings of the people who got shot down, which happened from time to time. They used to come in at about 3am in the morning and wake me up while I was asleep and collecting all someone’s belongings. Which was, I didn’t like my sleep being disturbed like that. But what was he? Anyway, I got the job as assistant to him so that I could stay in the assistant, not orderly officer, some other name they used to use for this particular job and he used to, his main office was in the same little building as the CO’s office. And anyway, he said to me, he was allowed to be there because he’s the orderly bloke or the, what did they call him? I was, they actually made me the assistant something or other. I might think about it later. Anyway, I was being groomed to be in his, in his place when he went on leave in about three weeks’ time and we got on very well together and he looked across to me and said, ‘Ah,’ wearing my gunners uniform, ‘Ah Flying Officer Atkins,’ he says, ‘Are you enjoying the dance?’ I said, ‘Yes thanks, sir.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh well that’s good. I’ll see you in the morning.’ Well of course he didn’t give a damn anyway. If no one else complained he wasn’t going to complain. Fortunately, the boss, Cocky, the wing commander, wasn’t attending the dance. He was probably attending his girlfriends, girlfriend in the local pub. He used to have her stashed up in the pub at times because I, I was very friendly with one of the telephone operators and she used to tell me who he used to ring up. She just, oh that was the life. That was the one I used to take down to the Plough Inn at Binbrook and drink bottled beer with and of course it was mid-winter when I was visiting Binbrook. Very icy roads and where it went down in to a bit of a dip it was icier than ever. I remember we drifted down in to this dip, this girl and I, and only a two seater of course. There, you can see that. There’s only room for two people in those, those cars and anyway it did a complete, it slipped around did a complete circuit around this -
AP: Just like a -
AA: Black ice.
AP: Just like a Halifax.
AA: Oh yeah. Yeah but when it went right around with a Halifax I had to drive it around. This one spun around like bloody top on the ice. I must have pressed the wrong buttons or something. Anyway, we, we just drove out of it, drove out very carefully, very slowly. Drove out and parked in its usual spot outside the side of the Plough Inn in Binbrook village.
AP: Nothing happened to you.
AA: Good.
AP: You said the circuits with Binbrook and Kelstern interlinked.
AA: They crossed.
AP: Yeah.
AA: Interlinked.
AP: Were they separated in some way like levels or something like that? Or was it just a case of -
AA: No. We always used to do the circuit at a thousand feet and as far as I know no one’s ever said to me, ‘Binbrook’s going to be doing it at the same time.’
AP: Sounds a bit terrifying. I should, I should declare an interest here. I’m an air traffic controller so that sounds terrifying to me.
AA: Oh, well, if you saw a Lancaster operation that would be terrifying just to look at.
AP: I think you’re probably right. I think you’re probably right. What five miles?
AA: Talk about fireworks. My first navigator, I had him until about the middle of the tour until his nerve gave out. After he, after I, after the war I met the, my wireless operator a few times. A fellow named Trevor something. Trevor Jones. A very nice bloke and an excellent wireless operator. Never missed a beat. He got all the messages out and all, sent them all back as they should have and that had a lot to do with surviving. If there was a shift in the wind he’d know that. And this navigator was very accurate. We used to, I used to time it in minutes the time arriving at the target. I used to think back, ‘Now will these bastards be asleep or will they be open or will they be up having their breakfast or what will they be doing?’ And that would depend on whether I was there three minutes before the bombing started or about two minutes after it. After they’d, after they’d dropped their first few shots off and were loading their guns again. And he told me that when we were, every target we were over instead of, he used to say, ‘Tom,’ Tom was the navigator, ‘Tom, have a look out. It’s beautiful,’ you know. ‘There’s fireworks everywhere,’ he used to say. Well there were too. You’d see them going off. Red, green, blue, black everything. Mostly, mostly red and green. And the man in charge of the operation would be circling this town. Say it’s Stuttgart or something, circling around saying, ‘Bomb the greens, bomb the greens. The reds are too far south,’ or something like that and giving us instructions. Then, ‘Go home now,’ or something or, ‘Wait,’ wait till we get to bomb the markers in or something. That didn’t, fortunately, the waiting thing didn’t happen but I used to hear him say, and sometimes he’d just tell us to take our bombs home. He said, ‘I can’t see the target. There’s too much dust and smoke. Take your bombs home and return to base.’ That was very annoying because I liked to drop the bombs. I didn’t like to land with a load of bombs on but sometimes we had to land with six and a half tonnes underneath you.
AP: Of high explosive. Thanks.
AA: Well -
AP: Question I like asking pilots. Your first solo. What happened?
AA: What the, the first solo in what?
AP: Your first ever solo. So the Tiger Moth.
AA: Oh the Tiger Moth. I did a very good landing. That’s all I can say about it. It was nice. I was, I knew a lot about aeroplanes because I used to fly, you know, model aeroplanes. Light aeroplanes. You could, you would wind the thing up, run along the concrete path and rise up in the air. Little ones. I did that for five or six years when I was a kid. I was very interested in them so I knew what they did. I knew how you bent the wings and how you bent the tail plane to make them level and that helped me a lot. A lot of these blokes had never been in an aeroplane or never seen a toy aeroplane even and had certainly never driven a car half the time. This bloke Dave Browne who was a friend of mine I was going to go and visit him and show him my, my new car, new car [laughs] a 1934 model at, at that place near Lincoln. I don’t think he had a driver’s licence. He’d never had one. He was eighteen. Just eighteen when he, he would have been when he left school. He left school and joined the air force. Got on the reserve. Nice bloke. What question did you ask me then?
AP: First solo.
AA: Oh first solo. Yeah. Well there wasn’t anything special. I liked flying. I liked, I liked flying the Tiger Moth. I knew I could fly it alright. I knew just how to fly it. So when my first solo came up he said, ‘Ok off you go.’ I just flew it up and around exactly the same as I did when I was with him. Did just the one circuit and landed it without bouncing it unduly. Some people bounced those Tigers fifteen feet into the air.
AP: I’ve done it myself.
AA: Oh have you?
AP: I have.
AA: Oh God. Well I never did. I never bounced it more than a foot or two feet at the most I don’t think.
AP: I’ve had shockers.
AA: But er I, I have flown them since the war.
AP: Yes [that was my next question]
AA: But only with an instructor. In the, in the back seat I think the instructor was. The funny thing when we were under instruction on Tigers during the war I was in the back seat and the instructor was in the front.
AP: Yeah.
AA: Well, when I flew them for a fifty dollar flight or something I was in the front seat and it was a bit unusual and the instructor was in the back. I remember on one occasion I went up in a flight in a Tiger and I was talking to the pilot and the instructor first before we went in and said, ‘I hope you’ll let me have a go at flying this thing.’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah. Well, have you flown them before?’ I said, ‘Oh yes. Yes, I’ve flown them plenty of times.’ He said ‘Oh? Where were you flying them?’ I said, ‘Oh at Benalla.’ ‘Oh Benalla,’ he said ,’Oh.’ He didn’t seem to know what the, Benalla was the, the head office for Tiger flying in the RAF, RAAF I mean, in nineteen, what would it have been? 1942, yeah when I was flying them in Benalla.
AP: Have you flown them much?
AA: ’42 ‘43 ‘42 ‘41
AP: Have you flown much since the war?
AA: Only in passenger planes.
AP: Yeah. [?]
AA: No. I’ve never flown anything except a Tiger Moth since the war but I have flown in the Concorde from -
AP: Oh lovely.
AA: From London to, my wife too with me, Heathrow to that big airfield near New York. What is it?
AP: JFK.
AA: Hmmn?
AP: JFK.
AA: Yeah, that’s it. Yeah and we were booked to fly in a helicopter from JFK to somewhere near the centre of New York and that was because we were doing a first class trip all around the world. I didn’t intend to do it actually do it first class but the way it happened I said, ‘Oh well first class will do,’ because they said it’ll only be about, what you’ve got to pay it will only be about five hundred dollars difference from flying first class all the way from Australia to around the world. So we went first class. I think the next time I we went first class too it wasn’t that bad it wasn’t that much difference to business class really. We used to fly business class mostly. I think we did six, six trips to England. First of all cattle class and then business class and then first class but Quantas’ first class was, it was the pits.
AP: Still, still more comfortable I imagine than a Lancaster.
AA: No. The Lancaster was very comfortable. I felt more comfortable in a Lancaster than I ever felt in a Quantas first class. Do you know where they put us? As close to the toilet door as that. The two of us. Right, right opposite the toilets. The blokes used to come in and out of the toilet doing their flies up and we were sitting, sitting there. Well that was the finish. I’ve never flown in Quantas since.
AP: Oh really?
AA: That’s right.
AP: There you go.
AA: You can tell them that. You can tell them as much as you like.
AP: I have one more question for you. It’s probably the most important one.
AA: Yeah.
AP: How, what do you think Bomber Command’s legacy is and how do you want to see it remembered.
AA: I think it will all be remembered by the people who were in it alright but well I think they’ve got this new place in the Green Park. That, that does a lot for them but I can understand why the people in, up the north decided to have a memorial. They’ve probably got relatives or sons or something or fathers or grandfathers who’ve been in it and they want to make a point of it. That they get remembered for what they did and you know the fifty thousand I think RAF types who got killed in Bomber Command. I think it was a figure something like that. I think it was about three thousand Australians in Bomber Command that were killed and I’m doing something to remember them in Melbourne. I’ve organised a new boat to be built by the rowing club in the city that I’m interested in and I’m putting David Browne’s name on it.
AP: [Beautiful].
AA: Instead of mine. They usually, if someone gives them a boat, they usually put their name on it. I had, I’ve given them a boat about twenty years ago, thirty years ago with my hard earned cash and I had my name on it. Arthur Atkins, on both sides of the point. Well they’re going to put David Browne’s name on it because he was a nice bloke. Well, that’s why I think the people in Lincolnshire are doing a good thing. North Lincolnshire? Where is it again? Where are they putting this memorial? Do you know?
AP: It’s, it’s within sight of Lincoln Cathedral.
AA: Oh.
AP: It’s on a hill. I don’t know the direction. I haven’t been there myself yet unfortunately.
AA: Ah yeah.
AP: But it’s on a hill within sight of the cathedral.
AA: That’s, that’s not in the freezing north of Lincolnshire.
AP: No. I don’t think it is.
AA: No. Well that’s where I was. Lincolnshire. Well Yorkshire was worse, of course. I drove my car from, all over England. Only one thing wrong with it. Oh well no, wrong, the most, the most, the worst thing that was wrong with it was the fact that it never had a hand brake and of course on one occasion the hydraulic main operating thing busted it’s rubber washer so I had no brakes and the funniest thing was I was going along a street and you know I just used to rev the engine and drop it down a couple of cogs if I wanted to stop it. Coming around, I came down the street like I was driving the car down here with just, fairly gently and I wanted to turn right here and just as I got turning right, you know, at about ten miles an hour or something a bloke with about four, four greyhounds were walking down the street crossed right in front of me.
AP: No brakes.
AA: No brakes at all and I wasn’t in a low enough gear to make any difference and I wouldn’t have time. So do you know what I did? I put my foot out like that and dragged it along ground and that stopped it. The foot stopped it.
AP: Like a motorbike.
AA: Eh?
AP: Like a motorbike.
AA: Well I had a motorbike once. I knew how to stop that. I knew what to do with that.
AP: Very good. Well I think that’s, you’ve been talking pretty well nonstop for two and a quarter hours now.
AA: Have I?
AP: That’s a pretty good effort.
AA: I’m sorry.
AP: No. That’s excellent. There’s some really good stuff in there. This, this is one of the easiest interviews I’ve said, I’ve done because I asked you one question at the start.
AA: Yeah.
AP: And then I sat back and just listened.
AA: Yeah.
AP: And it went. I timed it. It went for an hour and fifty before you took a break.
AA: Goodness
AP: So, thank you very much.
AA: No. I’m very, very interested
AP: Very, very much.
AA: In the air force and Bomber Command. I had a, it was the best job I ever had in my life was the air force. Especially the part when I was working for the RAF.
AP: Good.
AA: They were the real air force as they said. Not the Boy Scout air force like the RAAF.
AP: Fantastic.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Arthur Atkins
Description
An account of the resource
Arthur Atkins grew up in Melbourne, Australia. As a Boy Scout, he experienced a flight in an aircraft and knew he wanted to be a pilot. He transferred from the army to the Royal Australian Air Force and started pilot training in Australia. He travelled to Britain in 1943, via New Zealand and the United States of America. After further training at various stations, he was posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern. Among the operations he describes are leaflet drops over Chartres, the bombing of the Opel factory at Rüsselsheim, the Gironde Estuary, Le Havre, Frankfurt, Cologne and Stettin. He completed 32 operations. While stationed at RAF Kelstern he often visited the Plough Inn at Binbrook.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Purcell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-21
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Mal Prissick
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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02:13:42 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AAtkinsA151121
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Australia
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Poland--Szczecin
France--Chartres
France--Gironde Estuary
France--Le Havre
United States
Germany
France
Poland
California--San Francisco
California
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
27 OTU
625 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
control tower
entertainment
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
promotion
propaganda
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
RAF Lichfield
searchlight
training
Wellington
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/289/3444/PLarmerLO1507.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/289/3444/ALarmerLO151112.2.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Larmer, Lawrence
Lawrence Larmer
Laurie Larmer
L O Larmer
L Larmer
Description
An account of the resource
17 items concerning Flying Officer Laurence O'Hara Larmer (1920 - 2023, 430037 Royal Australian Air Force). Lawrence Larmer volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force and trained in Australia and Canada. He flew operations as a pilot flying Halifax with 51 Squadron from RAF Snaith. The collection consists of one oral history interview with him, wartime photographs of aircraft, aircrews and targets, his logbook, route maps, and an official certificate.
The collection was donated by Laurence Larmer 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
2015-11-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Larmer, LO
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview is for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive is with Laurie Larmer 51 Squadron, Halifax bomber during World War II. Interview taking place at Laurie’s house in Strathmore in Melbourne. My name is Adam Purcell it is the 12th of November 2005, 2015 in fact. Laurie we might start with an easy one, can you tell us something about your story before the war growing up what you did, before you enlisted?
LL: I was born in Moody Ponds eh in 1920, September 1923 and eh in 1931 or ’32 an old uncle of my father’s, my father was a painter and paper hanger by trade, during the depression there was obviously not that much work about but eh he managed and in 1931 or ’32 an old uncle by marriage of his died and he owned a hotel in South Yarrow and he left in his will that dad was to be given the lease of this hotel at a certain rental for as long as he wanted. So eh dad without any experience in the hotel business eh we moved into South Yarrow on the corner of Tourag Road and Punt Road and eh he ran this hotel until the old aunty the widow eh realised that the rental had been set in her husband’s will and she couldn’t do anything about it. So she did the next best thing as far as she was concerned, she sold the hotel. My father then moved to another hotel in Prahran and eventually in 1935 he went to a hotel in Ballarat and I went to school, St Patrick’s College Ballarat and I stayed there until I finished my schooling in 1940 eh in 1940 eh I got a job in the Department of Aircraft Production at Fishermans Bend where they were building the Beaufort bomber. Not on technical side, eh in the pay office actually I saw a lot about aeroplanes and what have you and eh in September 1941 I got called up for, I turned eighteen and got called up for a medical examination and eh it was for the army but to avoid going into the army you could volunteer for the navy or the air force. I volunteered for aircrew in the air force and was accepted. Did another medical exam, much stricter medical exam for the air force, aircrew actually, naturally and eh I then went back to work at Fishermans Bend until I got my call up sometime in 1942 and I went into the air force. So that is my pre-service history.
AP: Actually I might close that door if we can ‘cause it is noisy outside [pause] still there but it is not as loud. Okay where were you and how old were you when you heard war was declared and what were your thoughts at the time?
LL: I was, we were at Ballarat on the 3rd of September 1939 I was not quite eh not quite sixteen. I turned sixteen I turned sixteen a couple of weeks after the war was declared like most people I thought or hoped that the war wouldn’t last long and that I wouldn’t be affected. We were so far away that eh it all seemed a bit remote as far as we were concerned. And I certainly didn’t anticipate at that stage. I knew the talk was that kids of eighteen would be called up and I knew then or I thought then, the war would be finished before eh I got eh called up, but it was not to be.
AP: I guess you covered why you joined the air force based on some sort of experience with aeroplanes em why did you move in that direction in some sort of with aircraft. Was there some sort of inspiration that this was going to happen ?
LL: No I think that, I didn’t want to go into the army, the army just seemed to walk everywhere eh the eh hand to hand fighting didn’t sort of attract me. The navy didn’t attract me, I think there is a sort of glamorous feeling about the air force at that time. The Battle of Britain had just been fought and won and the eh airmen were eh I don’t know just a little bit different, and they seemed to just attract me a bit more than the other services.
AP: Can you tell me something about the enlistment process, were there interviews or tests or how did that all happen?
LL: The tests for the army of course was fairly simple, as long as you could stand up and breathe they accepted you for the A
army and that was only for home service. The fellows who wanted to go overseas volunteered for the AIF the call-up was actually for the militia because we didn’t have compulsory service for overseas, eh compulsory callout for overseas service. Eh the air force medical was much stricter, I always remember it was done in eh a place in Russell Street on the corner of Little Column Street were where Preston Motors were for many years after the war [cough] and eh we had eye tests which were particularly hard, they tested your heart and your blood pressure and all that sort of business which seemed a bit unusual for young fellows of eighteen, sixteen, eighteen we were at the time. I passed that and there was a delay of course of some months till they caught up. We were then to be trained under the Empire Air Training Scheme. That was sometime before I was called up, and I actually didn’t go into the air force until December 1942 so it was about twelve months after I volunteered for the air force I got my call-up to report to the service.
AP: Was there anything the air force gave you to do to sort of maintain the interest.
LL: We had to do school, night school, I went to the Essenham High School for two nights a week for about eight or ten weeks eh and we did maths and a few things like that. I can’t recall all the subjects we did, it wasn’t a matter of doing exams or anything. It was just to refresh us from our school days. Did a bit of geometry and angles and things like that, probably preparing us for navigation.
AP: Did you find that sort of training useful, did it help you when you got to your initial training school?
LL: It must have helped at initial training school. I was pretty good at maths even although I say so myself. This always confused me, I was never able to explain it. Two months, after two months at Summers which was the initial training school eh they came out one day, we were all there, they said ‘The following will train as pilots’ and they read a list of names. ‘The following will train as navigators’ they read a list of names and eh ‘the following will train as wireless operators’. And the balance for gunners. How they picked us I don’t know. I can only assume I must have done very, excellently, excellent at maths and those sort of things. Those picked to train as pilots and navigators stayed at Summers for another month. We did a bit of navigation and meteorology and a few things like that. But I, so I think that going back to school, the night school probably helped to refresh an interest in these subjects and it obviously paid dividends as far as I was concerned.
LL: What memories do you have of Summers, of ITS what was a typical day, what things did you do?
AP: Eh a lot of it seemed a waste of time we both knew an aircraft, they didn’t talk about an aircraft, they talked about Morse code and that was terribly important, I couldn’t take a word of Morse code couldn’t take a letter, I couldn’t understand it. Then a couple of nights later, the Aldis lamp I couldn’t even see that, it didn’t register at all. There was no way I was ever going to be a wireless operator and it wasn’t because I wasn’t trying, I just could not, couldn’t get the dots from the dashes in the Morse code. We seemed to do a lot of marching and eh, it was probably very necessary teaching us air force rules and regulations and all that sort of business. After a while you would say, ‘when am I going to see some action, when am I going to do something, when am I going to learn something about flying?’ Particularly once you had been charged to be a pilot you wanted to get on with it. Instead of that we did an extra month eh and then after that extra month I was posted to Benellah.
AR: Benellah was the– ?
LL: Elementary Flying Training School.
AR: What happened there apart from elementary flying training?
LL: Elementary flying training field, the first month we were there. Obviously the weather or something had held up the courses before and we were dragging the chain a bit. For a month we were known as tarmac terriers. We used to hold the wing of the aircraft because of the strong winds and of course Benellah which was a very open aerodrome no runways or anything it was just big one big huge enormous paddock eh and we’d hold, one fellow on either wing, the wing of the aircraft and we’d hold it till it got round there cause the wind would get under it, the aircraft was such a light aircraft, the Tiger Moth and then we would wait till they took off. You turned your back and you would get splattered with little stones and pebbles and that eh. And there would be fellows waiting down the other end when they landed to wait and hold them there and take them round. It was quite an interesting process, we had for half a day and the other half day we did, school, eh lectures on gunnery and eh basic flying without getting in an aircraft eh and navigation and a few things like that, meteorology particularly which was good. That was interesting even although we weren’t flying we saw these aircraft and we knew only in another couple of weeks and we would be there, then we started. We were allotted to an instructor, Jim Pope was my instructor, he was a sergeant a lovely bloke eh we then continued our lectures for half a day and fly for the other half. The next day it would be alternative, you know, flying and then lectures. It was good, I suppose after about eh it’s still sharp in my log book there, must have been twelve or fourteen hours or something went over to Winton one day which was a satellite ‘drome a bit further up the highway with another instructor. After we did one or two circuits and landings he said, ‘take me over there, pull up over there.’ Pointed to a spot where he wanted to go, he said, ‘now’, he said, ‘you are on your own, do three circuits and bumps and then come and pick me up’. I thought ‘goodness gracious me, here I am on my own’, you know, I was ready to go solo. And eh I wasn’t nervous it was just the excitement of it and you know you were concentrating on remembering all the things he told you to do and all that sort of business. I did three circuits and landings and went and picked him up and he said ‘that was good, alright son.’ Then we did eh, I don’t know whether we went back to Benellah, we stayed there, that’s right and he put me out of the aircraft and took another student and eh that was, that was. Then I went back to the normal side of the pad. The next day we done a bit further advanced flying eh cross country, and a few things like that. We were there altogether three months. Normally it would just have been two months, two months flying, but we did three months actually.
AP: What did you think of the Tiger Moth?
LL: Lovely, they were a breeze now you look back on it, in those days it was a pretty big aircraft, here you were sitting in the back seat. There were two seats, one in front, the pilot sat in front there, two little cockpits. Very basic, they had a control column it was just a stick that stuck up, a throttle which you pushed here, it was very, very basic. But we were told nobody had ever been killed in a Tiger Moth, whether that was true or not I don’t know that was, that was and it was good. I remember one day we had to do a cross country, this was sort of a bit scary I thought anyway. A mate of mine we had to go from Benellah to Ochuga [?], Ochuga [?] to Aubrey then from Aubrey back to Benellah. A mate of mine came up to me Tommy Richards he used to live at Clairbourne [?] and he said, ‘you doing this cross country this afternoon?’ I said ‘yes’. He said ‘so am I’ he said, ‘stick with me I know the road.’ He knew the way and then we flew back along the river and then down the highway you weren’t supposed to do that, you were supposed to go that way and the river might have gone down here but we had no problem. Before we left we had the whole thing planned out, had a little map on our knee and had it all. We got full marks for our navigation but it was only that Tommy had lived at eh, where did he, Clairbourne.
AP: You were talking while they were about no one had crashed a Tiger Moth. Did you encounter any accidents or high jinks or near misses or things, did you know- ?
LL: No, not while I was there, no, no. The biggest problem I reckon and they warned us about it was low flying, we used to [unclear] go down low and then we will frighten this farmer down there. There might have been electric wires going across you know. And we had hanging down the wheels, they weren’t retractable wheels on a, on a eh Tiger Moth. We did a bit of low flying everybody did but eh no I didn’t go as low as some of the blokes did you know. They used to try and be real smart and fly at ground level almost but nobody while I was there.
AP: You go from FTS, next step is a service Flying Training School?
LL: Service Flying Training School we got some leave and got a telegram to report to the RTR expenses troop and eh the smarties knew where we were going. There is always a smarty in every crowd all lined up they call and he’s here and he’s there and we are going to Sydney that means we are going overseas. ‘How do you know we are going to Sydney? That’s where the bloody train’s going.’ ‘Oh right oh we are going to Sydney’, and we went to Sydney. We went to Barfield Park and eh there they kitted us out and eh ‘Don’t think because you are here that you are going overseas, you could be going to Queensland.’ Somebody said, ‘well that’s strange what did they give us Australia badges to put on there’ and then they said, ‘you have got these Australia badges but don’t put them on until you get overseas.’ That’s in case we are going overseas, I don’t know. Well we were there about three or four weeks I think eh and we did nothing and that was pretty awful. And what they do, they were waiting for a ship eh [cough] and eventually they got us all lined up one day with the kit bags we put on a train and we went to Brisbane and put on this ship there the Metsonia and eh [cough] we sailed out down the Brisbane River and out we just got outside the harbour and looking over the side we could see a submarine. ‘Goodness me I hope it is one of ours’ or was one of the Americans ‘cause we didn’t have any submarines at the time and eh we headed, they didn’t tell us where we were going. We had a fair idea it was Canada. We went to New Zealand first and picked up some New Zealanders and then went up the west coast of South America and eh North America and landed at San Francisco. At San Francisco they put us on a train, we went to Vancouver eh got off the train there and put us on one of the Canadian Pacific Railway trains. We went to a place called Edmonton in Alberta. Eh that was quite strange because we didn’t know exactly what was going to happen from there on in. There was a big heap of us there and after three or four or five days I suppose eh we got another posting. I was posted to a place called Dauphin which was in Manitoba which didn’t mean much to me at that stage. Manitoba is actually the central province of the whole of Canada. Dauphin was about ah, suppose it would be about a hundred and fifty mile north west of Winnipeg which was the capital. Then the train went through, there was nothing in Dauphin apart from the air force base and the little village really [cough]. And so when we got there eh we found that we were going to fly Cessna Cranes which was a twin-engine, little twin-engine aircraft, lovely aircraft to fly, lovely and eh that was where eh he made the point there before in crashes in Tiger Moths. I had an Australian instructor, there were a couple of Australian Instructors on the station the rest of them were Canadians. The Canadians were lovely people. The officers were friendly, they didn’t muck around with formalities and that, it was real good. Eh this Australian instructor I had was a Sergeant Lawley, Lawla, Lawley I have got it down, there we are. He didn’t want to be an instructor he wanted to get at the overseas and he was a most unfriendly fellow, but you know I was coping with him and eh one morning we got up and he and another trainee pilot had been killed night flying. It could have been me and eh and that was about the first experience I’d had with anybody sort of eh death, you know. I was nineteen years of age and you were not used to it. Anyway they gave them a full military funeral eh which was good. Then I got a Canadian instructor and then it was real great after that it was wonderful and eh I sailed through the rest of the course. And I graduated in September ’43 as a sergeant pilot, I reckon we were pretty good.
AP: So then comes a boat across to the UK presumably.
LL: Yeah, we got a bit of liberty and went down to New York and Washington which we could ill afford and eh we went to Halifax in Nova Scotia and caught a, and got a boat to, I can’t remember the name of the ship we got to England we went to England in [loud background noise].
AP: We might just wait for a moment I think [laughs].
AP: So we were talking about a boat across to UK, you were just about to embark at Halifax.
LL: The interesting part about that trip was the ship that we went on, I think it might have been the Aquitania. It was a big ship, a lot of Americans on board [doorbell interruption; laugh].
AP: Anyway let’s get back to the boat [laugh] the Aquitania.
LL: And eh there were a lot of Americans from the mid-west not only had they not been on a ship, they never even seen the ocean. A lot of those kids, they were sick all over, oh! it was awful and what we did because we were too fast for a convoy we went on our own. But they zig-zagged all day, that way and then that way all during the daylight hours eh because it takes a certain time for a submarine to line them up to fire a torpedo at them and that’s what. That didn’t worry us but it was most unusual and when it got dark we went whoosh straight ahead. And eh we lived in pretty awful conditions, it was wartime we had hammocks and had a long table that came out from the deck, from the side of the ship and if there were six blokes at the table, three either side you had to find your accommodation so one bloke would sleep on this bench there another back there. Two blokes one would sleep on the table and the other three would be in hammocks above. That’s how, and we couldn’t have showers, we couldn’t shave properly it was pretty awful. We landed at Liverpool and eh went eh got on a train, went to Brighton. We got off the train at Brighton and there was a fellow there, he was a Wing Commander Andy Swan, he was a Scotchman in the RAAF. He had apparently been in the Black Watch for many years before the war done his time, retired, came out to Australia to live and the war started. He applied for a commission and got a commission, they sent him back to England, he was ground staff what we call a shiny bummer ISD interested in special duties. He was a wing commander and he was a dreadful man, dreadful fellow. He saw us, we had been five days on the ship, unshaven, unwashed and feeling very, very lousy and he berated us on the Brighton railway station, platform. Eh he had us smartened up within no time at all, we were going to do this and what a disgrace we were. Anyway the following morning eh, no two mornings later we had a general parade in the hall and there was the padre there, the Church of England padre a fellow called Dave Bear, you might have heard the blokes talk about Dave Bear he was a marvellous fellow he put everybody at ease you know. He said ‘there are three religions in the services, RC’s odds and sods and the other buggers’, he says ‘I am one of the other buggers, if you want anything just come and see me.’ He had a sign above his shop, his store ‘abandon rank all ye who enter here’. And that is what he was like. He used to give advice on a charge or anything like that or help you to write letters home or whatever you wanted. He was a great bloke, didn’t make any difference what you were he was just a wonderful fellow. He virtually did sort of a lot, undid a lot of the evil things this Andy Swan had done. They tell a story of the fellow who finished his tour and is on his way back home and Brighton is what they called 11 PDRC, Personnel Dispatch and Reception Centre. So any Australian airmen who went into England went through Brighton and when they were going home they went through Brighton and they knew and this fellow had taken the stiffening out of his cap which we all used to do, made us look a bit racy. Swan pulled him up in the street one day and said, ‘where is the stiffening in your cap?’ ‘I lost it over fucking Berlin’ whoops and kept walking. And then after we had been there for a while I got posted. I think the first posting was to a place called Fairoaks which was just near Windsor Castle, pre-war it would have been the King’s private aerodrome. This was just a way of sort of getting us back into flying again and there we flew Tiger Moths for a while. Eh back to Brighton then went off and done a PT course and then we went off and did some more flying eventually I had been up to Scotland, I was flying up there at a place called Banff eh BANFF [spelt out] was out from Aberdeen, from Inverness, out from Inverness the Scotch people were lovely eh and eh got a posting then to eh Lichfield which was 27 Operational Training Unit. The OTU was where you formed a crew. Lichfield was an Australian OTU in that all the aircrew were Australian so we got I got an Australian crew. It was an interesting thing we had the pilots in the centre, the navigators in one corner and the wireless operators and the bomb aimers and the, and the gunners in another corner [cough]. They said, ‘alright, pilots you have got to go and pick a crew.’ It was as simple as that, I didn’t know anybody who was a navigator but a bloke came up to me, ‘you don’t look a bad sort of a bloke’, and he was a wireless op, he was a bomb aimer, a fellow named Bill Hudson and eh Bill had been a used car salesman in Sydney before the war. Eh he had all the fun in the world and he said ‘stay here’, he said, ‘I will get you a navigator, I know a bloke who is a good navigator.’ He didn’t of course, he went off and he brought back a bloke and he introduced him ‘This is Ron Harmes, so wait there,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a couple of gunners’ so he went off and got a couple of gunners. I said to him, ‘I am supposed to be picking this crew.’ And he said ‘I got it for you skipper don’t worry about it’. Then he got a eh, he got a wireless operator so eh, here we were we had a crew and I had nothing to do with it, we turned out to be good mates, we all got on very well together. A couple of them were different they eh, but we all sort of mixed in and did our job and eh. And eh there we flew Wellingtons, they were a big, heavy lumbering aircraft they really were. They had been used as a bomber during the early stages of the war but they couldn’t carry enough bombs and eh they couldn’t carry great distances, like a lot of the British aircraft the Whitleys and those sort of aircraft, eh Hampdens, twin-engined aircraft and that eh, just hopeless and the Germans had stole the marks on them because the Germans before the war, once the Nazis got in control they said, ‘who cares about the Geneva Convention, we will build the type of aircraft we need to win a war.’ The British they didn’t, they kept, the wing span couldn’t be more than a hundred feet. That is why when they eventually got the Lancasters and the Halifaxes and wing spans more than a hundred feet they couldn’t fit in the hangers because they had built the hangers to take aircraft with wing span of less than a hundred feet. The Germans it didn’t worry them they had aircraft with wing spans greater than a hundred feet. It was a silly situation but that was the way they operated eh and eh we flew these Wellingtons for a while and we were lucky and Bill was a good bomb aimer and we got highly commended for our bombing activities at training. Then eh I don’t know how many hours we did there, it’s in the log book there, we were posted to a place called Riccall eh, which was a Heavy Conversion Unit. I had been flying Tiger Moths and Cessna Cranes, and Ansons and Oxfords and what have you, you know. Then on the Wellington then boom, four-engined aircraft, it was like eh, like riding a bike and then getting driving train or something it was just sort of an enormous thing really. There we picked up our flight engineer. There weren’t any Australian engineers so we got an Englishman he was the only Englishman in the crew, good bloke too. I don’t know how many hours we did there but that is all in the log book. Then one day they said ‘right Larmer, your crew is posted to a squadron.’ ‘Oops, yeah okay, when do we go?’ ‘This afternoon’ [laugh]. So there we were on a train and eh they met us with a truck. We thought, by this time I got commission and eh they picked us up in a truck. Another crew arrived at the same time as us, this was an English crew. It was an English squadron but this other crew was an English crew, I only had the one Englishman and I, we were the only Australian crew on 51 Squadron at the time. There had been some there before and eh, we went to the orderly room, they told us where we were billeted told me what time dinner was in the officers’ mess and all that sort of business and report to the, you are in B Flight report to B Flight Office at nine o’ clock tomorrow morning. That I did and eh the squadron leader what was his name, Lodge he had nothing doing today. He introduced me to the other blokes, other pilots that were there. The bomb aimers had reported to the bombing leader and the navs to the nav leader and what have you eh, and then he called me back and said I will get you an air test, eleven o’clock. I got the crew and we done and air test at eleven o’clock. I don’t know what the point of it was, they had just done some repairs to an aircraft. Anyway we just hung around then for a couple of days. They said if you are wanted for flying, for an operation your name will be on a list in the officers’ mess. That was up at five o’clock at night you know, a couple of, we had been there about three days, and I got the list five o’clock you know. The following crews will report to the briefing room at 0600 hours tomorrow and my name was there. I went down to the officers’ mess and they said, ‘yes we’ve seen it’, so they knew, all the crew knew. And that was it were there, ready for our first operation which was a bit strange. Nobody took any notice of you, we were just another crew there and nobody sort of put their arm on your shoulder and said ‘you will be right son.’ Just eh, you were briefed, you had a meal and boom, off you go. They said, ‘you go and get dressed, you go and do this, you go and pick up your parachute, you do this, there will be a truck will take you out to your aircraft which was at your dispersal point.’ And that was it. Then eh we did another daylight and then a couple of nights later, a couple of nights later there was a list up eh one morning that there was a briefing at two o’clock and I was flying second pilot with an experienced crew. My crew weren’t going on it, just me and this other pilot went with another crew and he was in C Flight, I was in B Flight. That was a bit strange I had nothing to do except sit next to the pilot and you saw everything that was going on, the rest of the time when you were flying you were doing something, you were busy, you didn’t have time to be worried or frightened or anything like that. I don’t think I was frightened actually on this particular night. But you could see all the anti-aircraft shells exploding all around you and what have you. We got back and we were just taxiing around to a dispersal and we heard this other aircraft calling to eh traffic control V-Victor or J-Johnnie or whatever it was. ‘V-Victor overshoot.’ They had come in a bit high and they were overshooting, the second pilot, the other bloke that had arrived the same time as me, he was still a sergeant. The bomb aimer used to sit next to the pilot on take-off and landing and eh the pilot would open the throttles but then he would have to control, take the control column. So the second dickie used to hold the, hold the throttles open, apparently this bloke didn’t . He’d opened, the pilot had opened it, got onto the thing, the throttles came back, they only got, anyway it crashed, they were all killed, eight of them it was. Nothing was mentioned at debriefing, and the next day at lunch time I said ‘did somebody, what are the funeral arrangements.’ He said ‘what?’ I said, ‘the funeral arrangements for those blokes that were killed.’ He said, ‘there is no funeral, there is a war on son.’ Stone me you know these blokes that were killed in our back yard just across the road from the end of the runway. They buried them, slight, you know quickly eh but they didn’t get any military funeral or what have you it was just ‘there is a war on son.’ And that was it.
AP: Living conditions at Snaith, how, how and where did you live?
LL: Well we were billeted away from the station, of course everybody had a bike eh we were somewhere down near the local village and [cough] just had living accommodation there and as an officer and aircrew we got eh sheets which normally you didn’t get in the air force. Eh in the mess we got, we could get fresh milk and eh before and after a raid we got a meal of bacon and eggs which were luxuries in wartime England. The rest of the time eh the billets were pretty ordinary but you know you got used to them. I could never front breakfast, on one station we were on, this was just after the war we were at Leconfield and one morning for breakfast they’d have kippered herrings and the next morning would be baked beans on toast, they were, I could cop the baked beans on toast but not the kippered herrings, they were. We used to have to wait for the NAAFI which was the restaurant or café opened about eh half past ten or something to get some breakfast [cough] but basically the living conditions were pretty crude eh but that was wartime England you know, they, they couldn’t produce their own food, it all had to be imported and there were much more important things to eh to bring in to the country. But you know we survived, we complained about it mainly because we were eh used to Australian food and Australian conditions. But basically it was pretty good.
AP: Just sort of routing of that for a bit, what were your first impressions of war time England, what did you think, presumably this was the first time you were overseas?
LL: Well eh it was quite a shock, it took a bit of getting used to. When we got there in the November eh it was eh they had two hours daylight saving. Naturally you know that was to eh, you couldn’t have a shower, in Brighton the Australian Air Force had taken over two hotels, the Grand and the Metropole eh and they were eh big, real big hotels. They had stopped the lifts working, if you were on the third floor you walked up and down to the [cough] you could have a bath but the water could only ever come to a certain level. There were all those sort of restrictions you ah you put up with really. You got used to them I suppose after a while mainly because you saw the English and eh they were, they were probably worse off than we were, you know they were on rations and we didn’t have, when we used to go on leave, they used to give us the ration to give to the people we were staying with or wherever we were staying would want ration tickets. But eh you know you couldn’t drive a car, there was no petrol available for private, well there was for doctors and things like that but basically there were all those sort of restrictions. There were blackouts and we had a pretty miserable sort of an existence we found but you got used to it after, well a couple of years I was there, just over two years, just on two years, it was you got used to these sort of things. We were pretty well received the Australians they liked us, they thought we were colonials still but I think some of them still do probably. But eh we went, we were well received on the squadron eh mainly because they didn’t know how to take us. They were eh, we didn’t salute officers, we’d salute wing commanders and above but eh you were supposed to salute squadron leaders and you were supposed to salute flight lieutenants. If you were acting as a flight commander something like that, those sort of thing you know used to rile us. We used to go out of our way [emphasis] not to and that really used to get them going. They didn’t like us at all, and they didn’t know how to discipline us really, they were frightened, and we used to tell them we were subject to RAAF control from and they had headquarters in London and they would have to go through them, but they didn’t know really [cough]. But we survived I suppose.
AP: What sort of things did you do to relax if you weren’t on operations. Where did you go on leave, even not on leave, just when not on duty?
LL: Eh, not much at all, you used to hang around. When we were on the squadron and eh you see that there was nothing going today or nothing going tomorrow day, tomorrow eh you’d go to the pub in the village or you would stay in the mess. They might have a few drinks in the mess eh but eh basically we didn’t do anything with, we didn’t play tennis or cricket or any of those sort of things. I don’t know how we kept fit but we did [laugh].
AP: What sort of things happened in the officers’ mess, what did it look like first of all? What went on there?
LL: Eh very sort of strict, you didn’t sit at this table because this was where the senior officers sat and eh you as a new bloke could sit at that table up there you know. A couple of nights after I had been there a couple of days after I had been there I sat at the wrong table and they told me you know. I couldn’t say that it made any difference where you were sitting but that was what the sort of thing. This is where the senior officers sit. Not you know, when I got on the Squadron I was a pilot officer you know I hadn’t even graduated up to flying officer eh and that sort of thing sort of got to you a bit. I, I went into the flight office one morning, used to go in there, the flight commander you know, used to give him a sort of half salute. He was pretty good Colin Lodge, Plug Lodge they used to call him and eh he was on leave. I had been having a drink in the mess with this fellow I can’t think of his name now, eh he was a flight lieutenant and I had been drinking with him in the mess having a couple of beers with him. Eh I went to the flight office the next morning, I walked in and he is sitting behind the desk and eh I said ‘hello.’ And he said ‘you haven’t saluted.’ I said ‘I don’t have to salute flight lieutenants.’ And he said ‘I am acting squadron leader.’ I said ‘well you haven’t got the bloody rank, not showing it.’ Stupid stubborn you know, he said ‘I am acting flight commander and you are supposed to salute me.’ Oh I probably was supposed to salute the acting flight commander but I, as I say I had been having a drink with him the night before. And he said ‘go outside and come in again and salute me.’ I said ‘right ho.’ I went outside and went down the mess and had a shower. He never spoke to me again, never spoke to me again. Just unbelievable you know, that was the sort of thing. Eh we had one, this Bill Hudson I was telling you about the bomb aimer, we came back from a raid one day eh and after when you came back you dumped all your gear and what have you and you go up for a debriefing and you sit around the table, the intelligence officer sits opposite eh while you are waiting to go in, other crews that are there before you there had been a bit of a hold up and eh on our squadron the padres would give you either eh you could have a cocoa, or a tea, a coffee or something like that and eh an over proof rum. Well I had only one over proof rum, it nearly blew my bloody head off that was all. On this particular day, the eh two gunners didn’t drink and the wireless operator didn’t drink so Bill had two or three over proof rums. And we get in there and he was always a bit of a yapper our Bill eh there was a very attractive WAAF intelligence officer she was a flight lieutenant or a flight officer as they call them eh and eh she spoke to me first and how did we find it over the target area and did we this and that, one thing and another you know [cough] eh and then she said to the navigator and what about, did you have any trouble with your Gee box various [unclear] so and so. And then Bill he was looking at her sort of making a play for her, he had no hope and she didn’t wake up you know. He started to tell her about over the target area. Now there was flak coming up and eh and then the fighters and then the anti, the searchlights and he was wondering how he was able to do it. He was telling her this terrible bloody story and we were just about killing ourselves laughing you know and all of a sudden she woke up. It was a daylight raid and Bill had searchlights coming into his eyes you know. She didn’t think it was funny at all, I said, ‘don’t take any notice of him you know, just write down that we dropped our bombs and we got good photos of the target we reckon and so and so’. No. She wanted to put him on a charge eh for misleading and all that sort of business. Anyway I, I talked to her for some considerable time to try and break her down and I thought I had got, anyway I got to the flight office the next morning and the eh Squadron Leader Lodge said ‘what was this with your bomb aimer last night?’ [emphasis] I said, ‘oh no.’ she had reported it, he she demanded he put him on a charge. I had great difficulty restraining him from putting Bill on a charge and eh that gave us a much worse reputation than we deserved, you know. We were a good crew and we were doing a good job but eh just Bill had, had two over proof rums gone to his ruddy head. I will tell you one story it didn’t happen on our squadron eh but we heard about it in York or one of the local pubs or something. Eh after briefing and the mail all that sort of business, and you got out of the aircraft and had about quarter of an hour, twenty minutes and waited around, you put your stuff in the aircraft and the blokes would have a smoke, had a smoke. Just stand around and sort of relax waiting for time as I say, better get ready and so I can get out there, you know what time you had to take off. This wireless operator went up and eh and he said eh to the pilot, ‘I am not going skip.’ He said, ‘what do you mean you are not going?’ He said ‘I am not going’ he said. ‘You’ve got to go.’ He said, ‘I am not going.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I am not going.’ That’s all he said, so they sent for the flight commander and the flight commander sent one of the ground staff blokes off on a bike to get the -. He arrived out in his car and ‘you’ve got to go.’ ‘I’m not going.’ And that’s all he said, he wouldn’t give him any explanation or reason or anything you know, ‘I am just not going.’ Eh so they said, ‘you will be charged with desertion.’ ‘I am not going’, he said. They charged him with desertion, they locked him up eh they got a relief wireless operator and they were shot down and all killed. Eh he was court martialled and he got ten years in a military prison. I understand that he got out eh shortly after the war finished and they gave them an amnesty those blokes [cough]. But apparently from what I heard, what I subsequently found out later on eh that was all he ever said, ‘I am not going.’ He didn’t tell them why or, or that he wasn’t. He’d been, it wasn’t his first flight, he’d been before, eh two or three times before eh he just said he wasn’t going. Now I don’t know if he had a premonition or what but eh he survived and the other blokes didn’t and that was it. There is not much more I can tell you Adam, I think.
AP: There is one other thing, well there is two questions in particular that I have for you but one I have find out is, on your wings here is a little Guinness pin.
LL: [laugh]
AP: I am guessing there is a story behind that.
LL: On one leave we went to, went to Ireland eh and eh and one day there was a tour of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. We had to go over in civvies but they knew we were airmen because we had our air force trousers and open neck shirt, blue shirt and sports coat which the army, air force store had provided for us. That was the only way we could get into, get into eh Southern Ireland because it was a neutral country. Eh this fellow said ‘you want to, give you this you know, Guinness badge, it will bring you luck, wear it for luck.’ I used to wear it on my battle dress, I just pinned it onto the eh onto the wing after I got rid of the battle dress at the end of the war, that was all.
AP: Been there ever since.
LL: [laugh]
AP: Okay there is another question that I want to ask as well. Was there any superstitions or [? voodoos] on 51 Squadron, rituals that people would do that you were aware of, for luck I suppose?
LL: No one thing they did eh they did, we had to do thirty flights, thirty trips for a, for a, for a tour eh and anybody that was doing their thirtieth trip, you knew but you would never say to the bloke ‘is this your last trip?’ I said it to one bloke ‘is this your last trip?’ [emphasis] He very near hit me. That was a very bad sign, no I don’t think there was, don’t think there was anything like that eh, not that I can recall, no.
AP: Okay. Final question and probably the most important em, how in your view is Bomber Command remembered, what sort of legacy?
LL: We fellows in Bomber Command eh [pause] during the war you didn’t sort of think much about how good you were and all that sort of business but when you saw the figures at the end of the war of the casualties and eh this is a classic example. The casualties there, just the Australian casualties that is eh when you saw you realised they had a loss rate of something round about forty per cent. It was a bit higher for the English, forty two or three per cent you know it was pretty awful and eh Harris was treated very shabbily by the British Government at the end of the war. Harris apparently, not apparently actually he was a brilliant organiser absolutely brilliant but apparently he was a dreadful bastard he used to argue eh and he would refuse. They would tell him a target say on Monday, they would have to get a couple of days in advance obviously to plan up and how many aircraft they would need, which way they would go and all that sort of business. Eh and he would tell them he wouldn’t go, that ‘we are not going to that place.’ You know. Just refused to, he would argue with Churchill, he would argue with the Air Board, he would argue with the Air Ministry eh he was one of those sort of fellows but he was always right. They wouldn’t admit it of course but eh ‘we are not going there, you want us to go there because this suits you after the war you know, so we are not going there, but we will go there.’ They said ‘no we don’t want to go there till next week.’ ‘Well we are going this week.’ You know, and he would plan it and that would be a very successful raid and it would have done the job you know eh. And at the end of the war all the chiefs of all the commands like Fighter Command, Coastal Command and Training Command were all made Marshals of the Royal Air Force, Harris wasn’t they left his as an air chief marshal. He resigned his commission immediately got on an aeroplane and went, took his wife and daughter to South America, to eh South Africa eh I don’t know whether he ever went back. Somebody told me once that he thought years afterwards that they eh had relented and made him a marshal of the Royal Air Force. I am not sure about that I never heard anything about that. Eh and eh that without any publicity the fact that these three blokes got, or four blokes got air, or marshals of the Royal Air Force which was equivalent of a field marshal eh and Harris didn’t. We all felt a bit, ‘is that what they think of us, is that really?’ We had the idea that we won the war, Harris gave us this impression. We are doing this as opposed to the American Eighth Air Force eh, and they were sort of a bit at loggerheads, they didn’t do any daylight, eh night time flights they only did daylights the eh Americans and we did daylights and nights you know, whatever it didn’t make any difference. We went out over the North Sea and fly for hours over the North Sea without any landmarks eh to check your position eh. We reckoned that Bomber Command had done an enormous job and they had, there was no two ways about it eh and a lot of us sort of felt well, the bulk of Bomber Command felt let down, eh really. Fighter Command got a lot of publicity early in the war Churchill went on with this ‘never was so much owed by so much, many to so few’. Eh but their work finished in September ’41. And they didn’t really do anything further until eh the invasion. They went over with, a bit of protective force for the invasion forces but basically they didn’t do anything. Eh we never had any fighter escort, never, the Americans had fighter escorts they used to take them over there and then meet them on the way back but we never had any. So as far as Fighter Command was concerned they did nothing [emphasis] for three years during the war. Bomber Command flew in operational flights from the day the war started or the day after the war started until the day after the war finished, really. So that was a bit of a let-down, really. And then eh persevered it took seventy odd, sixty, seventy years before we got a little clasp that said Bomber Command, the Bomber Command Association like the old boys of Bomber Command like their association in England, they tried for years to eh get some recognition and they eh tried to get us awarded the eh congress, eh the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, CGM, eh they eventually knocked it back completely to ‘no’, said logistically couldn’t be done and all this sort of business and they went on and had a million reasons for it. And then they said well eh ‘we’ve got these ribbons.’ But no what does that show eh I’ve got a ribbon France, Germany Star which shows that I was in operations, but doesn’t show that I was in Bomber Command. So they said ‘we will give you a Bomber Command [doorbell interruption]. That’s typical.
LL: I rang our honours and awards section in Canberra week after week after week and I’ve given up. ‘Well’ they said, ‘your application is on hold.’ And I said, ‘why would it be on hold?’ ‘I don’t know why Mr Larmer but it is on hold.’ I said, ‘well get it bloody off hold.’ Eventually she then came back a couple of days later, ‘no, no it’s ok.’ I said ‘there couldn’t have been any bloody doubt about it, you know. You have got the exact figures and you have a copy of my log book’ and all that sort of business. ‘We are sorry about that Mr Larmer.’ ‘Now’, I said, ‘now how long is it going to take?’ ‘Oh it shouldn’t be very long now.’ Anyway eh I’d been waiting, oh, from the time I applied it was seventeen months and a mate of mine said, ‘why don’t you get onto John Find?’ I said, ‘no, no John Find couldn’t do anything.’ Anyway the next thing I know I get a ring from John Find’s producer. And eh I said ‘who told you?’ ‘Mr Bill Burke a friend of mine’. I said ‘Oh no, I said I told him I wasn’t, didn’t want to.’ And she said, ‘John would like to speak to you about it.’ Anyway he spoke to me and he sort of eh said, ‘are you serious, you know you have been waiting seventeen months?’ and I said, ‘yeah’ I said, ‘it doesn’t have to be fairly long, because I am ninety years of age, if it don’t get it soon it doesn’t matter.’ And he said, ‘no we’ll get it.’ And eh anyway he rang me back the next day, she rang me back the next day she said ‘John wants to speak to you again.’ He said ‘I have been speaking to the assistant minister eh, and eh he said within six weeks.’ And I said ‘ I don’t know what you drink in that place, but if you believe him, you know.’ I said ‘they won’t have it in six weeks.’ Two weeks later I got it, we got it you know. He rang me and said ‘Oh Mr Larmer your clasp for your Bomber Command clasp is coming through, you know it will be sent it down to you in the next week.’ Two weeks it took and I spoke to John Find afterwards to thank him and I said ‘I, I can’t understand it you know’. He said ‘Laurie they are frightened of us, we can give them bad publicity’, he said, ‘they don’t want any.’ He said, ‘we could have made them look very foolish.’ He said ‘and that is what we were prepared to do’, he said, ‘and they know it’, he said, ‘it is an awful way to exist.’ He said, ‘you couldn’t embarrass them but we could.’ Isn’t that terrible really and that was the thing. I wasn’t so much the fault of the people here in Australia, the people in England hadn’t done anything about it. It took an assistant minister here to get onto somebody in England to get them. They only had to put a fifty or sixty or a hundred of them in a box you know, it wouldn’t be as big as that, to get them out here and that’s what happened. So you know that’s what happened. Overall eh we reckon that Bomber Command and probably we are a bit unreasonable but I reckon we got a bit of a, you know rough end of the pineapple. Because eh towards the end of the war all the operations in the last two years of the war all the operations with Bomber Command all the news on the, on the BBC was six hundred of their aircraft went to Nuremburg last night, ten of our aircraft are missing. That was another thing, ten of our aircraft, but it was seventy men. Even meant you know you go on a raid and say three out of their aircraft went to Dortmund and they did bomb the railway yards and whatever they might have done you know. Five of their aircraft are missing that was thirty five men and that, that sort of eh took a bit of getting used to. Eh I could see their point from a psychological point of view everything was done to protect the morale, or build up the morale of the British people eh but eh it gave you the impression that aeroplanes were more important than blokes [ironic laugh] probably in war time they had plenty of blokes but were short of aircraft you know. There you are, alright you have heard all of that?
AP: I think we have heard all of that. Thank you very much it has been a pleasure for the last couple of hours.
LL: [laugh]
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ALarmerLO151112
Title
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Interview with Lawrence Larmer
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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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01:09:51 audio recording
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-11-12
Description
An account of the resource
Lawrence Larmer was born in Australia in 1920. After completing school he went to work on the Beaufort aircraft in the Department of Aircraft Production. He was called up in 1942 and volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force to avoid the army. His initial training on Tiger Moth aircraft was followed by further training in Manitoba, Canada. He graduated as a sergeant pilot in 1943 and was posted to Great Britain. He describes conditions at 11 Personnel Dispatch and Reception Centre, Brighton. At 27 Operational Training Unit, RAF Lichfield, he crewed up before posting to 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Riccall. His first operational posting was to 51 Squadron at RAF Snaith. Lawrence Larmer discusses in detail the process of crewing up, of relations between personnel on the station, officers’ living conditions, and a case of desertion. He also discusses his views on Sir Arthur Harris and recounts his experience of applying for the Bomber Command clasp.
Contributor
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Hugh Donnelly
Mal Prissick
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Canada
Great Britain
England--Brighton
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
Manitoba
United States
England--Sussex
Conforms To
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Pending review
1658 HCU
27 OTU
51 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
coping mechanism
crewing up
debriefing
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
mess
military discipline
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Lichfield
RAF Riccall
RAF Snaith
superstition
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/290/3445/PLeicesterD1601.1.jpg
c2820bc7a7d2d3b32e67a8ee5335b9ba
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/290/3445/ALeicesterD160501.1.mp3
d86dafc77cb44e9b7caaf069d8f6a1a2
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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Leicester, David
David Leicester
D Leicester
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with David Leicester DFC (1923 - 2021), and his log book. He flew operations as a pilot with 35, 158 and 640 Squadrons.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Leicester and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-01
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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Leicester, D
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: And I think we’re working. Yes. We are. So this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with David Leicester. He was a Halifax pilot with 158 and 640 Squadrons and a Lancaster pilot with 35 Squadron Pathfinders. The interview is taking place in North Plympton in Adelaide. My name’s Adam Purcell. It is the 1st of May 2016. So, David let’s start from the beginning. Can you tell me something of your early life? What you were doing before the war and how you came to join the air force.
DL: Well, really before the war I was at school when the war broke out in 1939. And I left. In 1940 I was at High School and was very interested in the, mainly in the Battle of Britain and what their pilots were doing. And I sort of made up my mind that if I happened to be in the war I would like to be a fighter pilot. My father was in the AIF during World War One so I was very keen to get into something. I left school at the end of 1940 and started work as an office boy in the rag trade, in a manufacturer’s agents office here in Adelaide until I was called up in August 1941 as — in number 19 Course EATS at the age of eighteen. Yeah.
AP: Did you, sorry did you say you had any prior military service up till that point?
DL: No.
AP: No.
DL: No.
AP: So you weren’t in the, in the army or the —
DL: No.
AP: CMF or anything.
DL: No.
AP: Ok.
DL: We did, prior to be called up, after we’d applied to join the air force we would, I was, I and others were too young at seventeen. We had to wait until we were eighteen before we were called up. So we did, we were put on the Air Force Reserve and while we were waiting to be called up we did a lot of the pre-entry work. Learning Morse Code, learning air force regulations and that sort of thing. So, by the time we actually got called up and went to the Initial Training School we had done a bit of pre, pre-interest work in the air force.
AP: Why did you choose the air force?
DL: Well, as I said I was interested in what the Battle of Britain boys were doing and I thought, oh boy that’s for me. Exciting and it, it was the one that attracted me the most. Even though my father had been in the AIF and told a lot of stories about the AIF. I wish I’d known more about my father‘s activities actually. As most of us say these days but the air force was the one.
AP: Can you tell me something of the enlistment process?
DL: The which?
AP: The enlistment process. The process of actually going to and signing the papers and all that sort of thing.
DL: Well I don’t, can’t recall a lot of that but I guess in the early 1941 I made application to the Air Force Recruiting Office. We were under age as far as the air force was concerned so we needed the parent’s permission which was freely given by my father and mother. And so I was really ready for, to be called up.
AP: Were there any medical type examinations or something that you can remember?
DL: Yes. We had to get, from our local GP we’d need to get a clearance to say that we were medically fit to join the services. But of course as soon as we went in we went through vigorous tests at Initial Training School. Initial medical tests to make sure we were alright. If we had a broken toenail it was more or less couldn’t get in. We were rejected.
AP: Can you remember any of the specific tests that you had to do?
DL: No. I can’t really. Tests on what we had learned prior to entry. Tests on Morse Code. Tests on what we’d learned as far as air force law was concerned, and the theory of flight. We needed to know quite a bit about that prior to going in. And they assessed us on the results of what we had learned prior to entry.
AP: The, you said before you were doing some, some study while you were on the Reserve. Where and how was that delivered?
DL: Well, we, we were mainly did our pre-courses. We had lecture courses on theory of flight and air force law. They were, they were given to us at a local school. But Morse Code and other things like that we learned at the local General Post Office. GPO. And we needed to reach a certain qualification particularly in Morse Code, again before being accepted. I can’t remember now how many words a minute we had to do but obviously those of us that were called up had passed the requirement.
AP: Do — alright, so this is in Adelaide. Sorry I didn’t clarify that.
DL: In Adelaide. Yes.
AP: You’ve lived in Adelaide all your life.
DL: Everything was in Adelaide. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Alright.
DL: I had never been outside Adelaide until I joined the air force.
AP: Excellent. So your Initial Training School. Where was that?
DL: That was down at Victor Harbour.
AP: What happened there?
DL: Well, that was mainly furthering education on air force law and theory of flight and a lot of drill, marching and all that sort of thing. Discipline. We learned discipline and had to do what an officer said. So it was very strict. And it was at the ITS, as a result, I guess of how we came through each subject and an assessment by a higher ranking officer. They chose whether we would be pilots, navigators, wireless operators or whatever was needed in the crew and fortunately I was selected as a pilot. And that course at Victor Harbour was about three months. No flying at ITS. Just strictly all ground work.
AP: What was, what was the actual camp like at Victor Harbour? What were the buildings like? Where did you sleep? All that sort of stuff.
DL: Well, the actual headquarters of 4 ITS at Victor Harbour was an old mansion. But as far as we were concerned as air force recruits we just slept in tents. Six to a tent. And that was it. And —
AP: They had classrooms and things like that as well.
DL: Oh yes. Yes. They built classrooms and as I said the actual headquarters of 4 ITS was called Mount Breckan which was an old English mansion built out here. And that contained many rooms. The air force had acquired that building and it had many rooms which we used for lectures and all the other requirements.
AP: Was that, that — I drove out of Victor Harbour a couple of years ago on the way back from Kangaroo Island. Is that the big house on the hill as you go, sort of out?
DL: Yes.
AP: Oh cool. Now I know.
DL: The big house on the hill. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Now I know where it is.
DL: It was actually a house built for some Englishman. I can’t remember now but all it was built as a replica of his home, or her home in England and was built almost entirely of imported material.
AP: Wow. Fantastic.
DL: A grand old building it was.
AP: Yeah. And I imagine the air force probably didn’t leave it in quite the condition they found it in.
DL: No. No. That’s right. No. It’s still there today.
AP: It certainly is. Yeah. I remember seeing it. Yeah. Ok so from ITS your next step would have been an Elementary Flying Training School.
DL: Yes, selected as a pilot. Well, first we were asked at ITS whether we wanted, what we wanted to be — pilots, navigators or whatever. We were given three choices and most of us put down number 1 — pilot. Number 2 — pilot. Number 3 — pilot because everyone that went in or most of all, almost all were, ninety nine percent probably of called up wanted to be pilots. But at the end of the course at Victor we were, looked at notice board to see what the next posting would be and fortunately for me it was to be a pilot and posted to Parafield in South Australia flying Tiger Moths at EFTS. Yeah.
AP: So you’re, you’re still in Adelaide.
DL: Yeah. I’m still in Adelaide. Yes. Still in Adelaide.
AP: Excellent. All right. Tiger Moths. They’re the ubiquitous training aircraft.
DL: Magnificent little aircraft. Yes. Because we didn’t know about any the other. That was, that was it as far as we were concerned. I’d never flown before. Never thought of flying. I’d never been up in an aircraft. But we had to. Our flying started within a certain number of hours and again like ITS we were assessed by superior officers as our flying capability and given an assessment at the end of the, at the end of the course.
AP: What was your instructor like? Who was your instructor? What was he like?
DL: Well, the instructors were just chaps that had finished their flying training and I think the chap I had, I can’t remember his name but he had recently finished his flying training at, at Parafield. And he was posted from Parafield to Parafield as an instructor. Some of them happened like that. But I wasn’t interested in instructing. So, and at Parafield there we were given three alternatives of what type of pilot we wanted to be. Fighter pilot, bomber pilot or whatever, or instructing. And again I put down, as many others did, fighter, fighter, fighter. And it looked that way that we would be fighters because from Parafield we were posted, some of us were posted to SFTS at Point Cook and flying Wirraways. The course at Point Cook was a four month course divided into two. Two lots of two monthly courses. Two months of what they called Initial Training Centre School and another two months of Advanced Training School. ITS and ATS, flying Wirraways at Point Cook. After the end of the first two months we were given leave and many of us, the South Australians we came back to Adelaide for leave. And when we got back to Point Cook we found that all the Wirraways had gone and they had been replaced by Airspeed Oxfords. That didn’t concern us terribly because ok it looked like single engine pilots were out but we could now be twin engine pilots. And we had to complete that first two monthly period again, over again. And still complete the four months within the prescribed time. So it was a bit of a rush. And it was at ITS — at SFTS the second two months when we received our wings and became sergeant pilots or some of them were officers but most of us came out as sergeant pilots waiting for another posting.
AP: So backing up a little bit more can you tell me something about the Tiger Moth in particular? What did it look like? Where did you sit? How did it fly?
DL: Oh the Tiger Moth is a twin-engined little biplane with a Gypsy engine. Not much bigger than a lawn mower engine but they had two seats back to back. The instructor sat in the front and the, we were sat in the back. And we spoke to each other through a funnel. Telling us, he was telling us what to do and giving, giving us instructions. We had to fly solo within twelve hours I think it was, or ten hours. And then most of us, there were some scrubbings but most of us were able to get through in the required time. I’m not sure what I, how many hours I took. Around about eight or nine I think. There were quite a few scrubbings strangely enough. Scrubbings, I mean chaps that failed the test and they had to be re-mustered as navigators or other crew members.
AP: Alright. First solo. Can you tell me about your first solo?
DL: Well the first solo was quite exciting. We’d go up, up with an instructor and land at a certain time and when he thought that we were, had done enough to go solo he just got out of the cockpit and said, ‘Here we are. Off you go.’ And that was it and we had to just go around on our own. A very exciting time getting the, getting, flying solo was the ant’s pants or mostly. When we would fly solo, amazing.
AP: Did, did you encounter throughout your training any accidents, or —?
DL: No. Not really.
AP: Did you see any?
DL: You’re talking about total training?
AP: All the way through.
DL: Hmmn?
AP: Yeah. All the way through.
DL: Yeah. Well, after we’d finished training at Point Cook many of, many of us were posted to England. To the UK. We were seconded by the RAF actually to replace aircrew. Aircrew were very short in England at the time. This is now in late or early 1942 perhaps. And we were posted from Point Cook to England. We went by ship to England via New Zealand. And when we got to England we were awaiting postings again. And a lot of us had all trained together and became close friends. And when we started off at a place called Advanced Flying Unit and that was still flying Oxfords. Still thinking we were going to be, or I thought we were going to be fighter pilots. After we’d done a course at AFU at Grantham in England I was posted as a lone figure to a bomber Operational Training Unit where all of the others went to further their single engine or twin engine fighting. Many of them finished up on Beaufighters or Mosquitoes. Now, why in the heck I was sort of singled out I’ve got no idea but I finished up at an OTU at a place called Honeybourne in England flying Whitleys. Now, the Whitley was Armstrong Arthur Whitley was one of the main bomber forces of England at, in the early part of the war, and Whitleys and Wellingtons were used for training purposes. And at the OTU at [pause] where did I say it was? Honeybourne. A place called Honeybourne. On my first solo flight at night in a Whitley an engine caught fire on take-off and I had to get up and go around and bring the thing back again. And I had to land wheels up. A belly landing. So that was during training. Yeah. And that was bad enough but quite an experience.
AP: I can imagine. Alright, so can you tell me how you got to the UK in a little bit more detail?
DL: Well when we arrived — on the way from New Zealand, Auckland to the UK we were in a South African luxury liner which had been turned into a troop ship. A vessel called the Cape Town Castle. The Castle Line ship was a South African ship. Now, this was, this was re-modified to take about two thousand troops but there were only about a hundred and fifty on it at the time. And we took off from New Zealand to England through the Panama Canal. And, but on the way across the Indian Ocean we came across some life boats with a crew from a vessel that had, a vessel that had been sunk by a U-boat, presumably. But then we, we carried on. Went to England via the Panama Canal and eventually arrived in Liverpool Harbour. Now the, Liverpool Harbour had been bombed by the Germans the night before and we had to stay about, oh three miles out. We couldn’t get near the harbour at the time so this large vessel anchored about three miles out and we were taken in to the city of Liverpool in row boats. Taken from, from the Cape Town Castle. So Liverpool was on fire. But then, there we boarded a train and went down to Bournemouth in the south of England.
AP: So this is the first time, as you were saying before, the first time you were outside of Adelaide.
DL: Yeah.
AP: The first time going overseas.
DL: Yeah.
AP: What did you think of wartime England?
DL: Well, at, initial, the initial because we didn’t know much about England of course. My father was very pro-English although he had never been there. But I remember, remember through my growing up days he always had, on the dining table, a huge map of the City of London and he would have been able to drive a taxi in London without any trouble at all. And this really got me interested in England. But the train journey down from Liverpool to Bournemouth was at night so we didn’t really see much at all. And the first we saw of it was when the next posting came which was only after a couple of days, for me only a couple of days at Bournemouth. From there I was posted to heavy, Heavy Conversion Unit. HCU in Yorkshire. So, I can’t remember now how I actually got from Bournemouth to Yorkshire but I remember being very thrilled at looking at the vast expanse of England. Even though it’s a very small area it seemed to have plenty of space. And I had heard that there was something like seven hundred aerodromes there so where the heck they put them all I really don’t know. But that was, by then I knew of course I was definitely on bombers. Getting to the Heavy Conversion Unit which were flying Halifaxes. So I I transferred from Whitleys to Halifaxes at the Heavy Conversion Unit. And it was at the Heavy Conversion Unit where we picked up our crews. For example, when, when pilots had, some pilots had finished their training they were sent to Heavy Conversion Unit. Same with the navigators and wireless operators and gunners etcetera. So we picked up the crew at, at Heavy Conversion Unit. Strangely enough on my first solo flight in a Halifax at night an engine also caught fire. But by then the training had been good enough to know exactly what to do without any, any problems. So we landed wheels down and only on three engines. So it was a good experience at the time. It was usual too for a pilot to be sent to an operational training squadron, yes an operational squadron, an operational flying squadron to become experienced in perhaps flying on operational flying. And the pilot would do two trips at least with an experienced crew at that squadron. And it so happened that, and I was sent to 158 Squadron to do my first second dickies we called them, with, with an experienced crew in 158 Squadron. And having done that back to the Heavy Conversion Unit to pick up the other six crew who I had obtained at Heavy Conversion Unit, and strangely enough when the posting came through we were posted to 158 Squadron, in Yorkshire.
AP: How —
DL: In East Yorkshire.
AP: How did, how did you actually meet your crew? How did you choose your crew?
DL: Well, it’s a funny thing. Strangely enough, as I said we crewed up at HCU and all navigators and other crew members came. Now, I was looking for a navigator so as soon as I saw one I said, ‘Are you looking for a pilot?’ Or he would say, ‘Are you looking for a navigator?’ And I’d say, ‘Yes,’ and the same with, we’d just see someone come into the mess or come into the — some, some pilots used to go out to the entrance gates of the aerodrome and as new crew came in pilots and the navigator or someone would just say, ‘How about flying with me?’ That’s how, it was as uncomplicated as that. We had no idea how good they were or how bad they were but that’s how we picked them up. Just by being in the mess with a load of, a load of other crew members.
AP: If you perhaps picked the wrong person. You discovered later that you weren’t suited was there any way out?
DL: Oh yes. Yes, that happened quite often. As a matter of fact a friend of mine from Adelaide he was on, finished up on the same squadron. He had got a very bad navigator. And so he just wanted him replaced so he would just, if there were any spare navigators on, around on the aerodrome he would, on the airfield he would just say, you know, or tell the CO that he wasn’t happy with his navigator and he wanted him replaced and that’s, he’d get him replaced. Sometimes, in his case the squadron navigation officer went on one trip with them and found out that the navigator was just not plotting his courses properly. Yes there was an out. Yes.
AP: What, ok, so, if you crewed up at the Heavy Conversion who were you flying with at the OTU?
DL: Well, nobody. Just, didn’t have any crew. Just an instructor. And I think on the night that I had the fire in the engine and crash landed I think there was a rear gunner. That’s all.
AP: Ok. It’s a little bit different to some other stories I’ve heard. So you did what a lot of what people did in the Operational Training Unit at the HCU instead. So it’s a little, a little bit different.
DL: What have others said about the crewing up?
AP: It tended to happen at the OTU. And so that’s where they started flying as a crew and then the Heavy Conversion Unit was just to add the extra two engines essentially.
DL: Oh well. It depends I suppose. I hadn’t heard that. I thought, I thought they all crewed up at HCU.
AP: Yeah. Well there you go.
DL: I’d never known, you saying that. Well OTUs, that’s strange because a, a Whitley or a Wellington didn’t have seven in the crew.
AP: Yeah. What, what tended to happen was they got the flight engineer when they got to Heavy Conversion Unit.
DL: Oh. I see. Yeah.
AP: So they were added on. But the, the six of them started out in those aircraft. But anyway that’s, that’s a —
DL: I hadn’t heard that.
AP: That’s different to your story but this is your story we’re telling.
DL: But is that how they got them at OTU?
AP: Yeah.
DL: The same way.
AP: Yeah the same sort of —
DL: Saying as hey you are you looking for a pilot?
AP: Or they’d put them all in a hangar.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Equal numbers of everyone.
DL: Yeah.
AP: And they say, ‘Sort yourselves out boys.’
DL: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. I think it’s one of the fascinating parts of Bomber Command stories that so often worked.
DL: Yeah. And the seven became a very very close knit crew. Each relying on the other. I mean it was, if you had a dud, you know, no good having someone who couldn’t do their job properly.
AP: Did you, jumping forward a bit, did you tend to socialise with that crew?
DL: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
AP: You all lived together and —
DL: Yeah.
AP: Went to the pub and all that sort of stuff.
DL: You became almost all day and every day together doing everything together and became very close. You had to rely entirely on other members of the crew, particularly if something went wrong or something happened. There was only one pilot and if anything went wrong with the pilot they had to know what to do. No one could fly it if the pilot got hurt. It was almost baling out the rest of the crew, which did happen a lot.
AP: So I guess going on from the doing everything with your crew what sort of things did you get up to when you were on leave, throughout the time in England?
DL: Well, mostly on leave other members of the crew, if they were English and mine all were on Halifaxes, I had two different crews, I’ll come to that soon, they, they would go home for a leave. So mostly then I, I would go down to London and go to Australia House and meet other, meet some of my friends and who I’d trained with or, but the Englishmen would — would go to their home. I was asked to their home on, some of them, on occasions, where I went. When I went and met members of the family.
AP: Alright. So you flew both Lancaster and Halifax. What was your first impression of a Halifax when you first saw it?
DL: Well, I liked the Halifax. We might come to that later about the difference between a Halifax and a Lancaster.
AP: Definitely one of my questions.
DL: I didn’t know how a four engine bomber should, should operate or how it should travel. The Halifax was a very nice plane to fly and it did everything it wanted to do. In fact it did it too quickly at times. But my first impression was, was very good. They had Merlin inline engines, very capable and reliable engines. They didn’t have any real fault except that they were very vicious in any control needed by the pilot. It was like, I always say it’s like the difference between a car without power steering. The Halifax was very direct in its operational command of the pilot. It was very swift in its control, which, as far as the wartime flying was concerned meant a lot. The Lancaster was, was a beautiful plane. Very, very, very easy to fly. Very nice to fly. Very comfortable to fly but it was much slower to react to the pilots control in wartime. The Halifax would get me out of trouble more quickly then would a Lancaster. I’ve had arguments about this with Lancaster blokes forever, since the war. Most of them they, they, at OTU these fellas that you’ve already spoken to did they do their OTU on Lancasters?
AP: No. Typically they were, they were Wellingtons.
DL: Oh yeah.
AP: Or perhaps Whitleys.
DL: Yeah.
AP: And in the Heavy Conversion Unit was where they flew.
DL: Yeah.
AP: In some cases they went to Stirlings first.
DL: Yeah. Right.
AP: And then there was another thing called a Lancaster Finishing School.
DL: Yeah. That’s right, Lancaster Finishing School.
AP: That’s where they converted into the Lancaster themselves. That was later in the war though.
DL: Yeah. That’s right. That was later in the war.
AP: Yeah.
DL: But in most of the Heavy Conversion Units they were, were Halifaxes that had been passed their use by date. And they, they were cranky old things and they, they didn’t impress some of the pilots. But they would go from a beat up old Halifax and go on to a Lancaster Finishing School, a brand new Halifax, a brand new Lancaster and they would, you know, compare the difference. Well that’s not fair. In my opinion it’s not fair and, but the Halifaxes, oh boy, that really got you out of trouble in a hurry and also the pilot’s escape hatch on a Halifax was in a better position than that on a Lancaster. You could get out. The pilot could get out of a Halifax more quickly, not by much mind you, seconds quicker than a Lancaster. So those seconds meant a hell of a lot.
AP: So you talk about the escape hatch in a Halifax. Where actually was it?
DL: Hmmn?
AP: Where was this, this escape hatch in a Halifax? I know the pilot’s one they could get out straight up or they had to go down the nose. Where was the Halifax escape hatch?
DL: That was straight up.
AP: Straight up as well.
DL: But I can’t quite remember why it was better placed but I don’t think the Lancaster one was straight up was it? It was slightly to the front or back.
AP: I can’t remember. I don’t know.
DL: The Halifax one was straight up.
AP: Alright. I guess we’re getting towards the squadron now. Your first squadron was 158.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Where were they?
DL: They were at a place called Lissett in East Yorkshire. The East Riding of Yorkshire, right over near the coast. You’ve heard of Whitby I suppose. Not far from Whitby and it was, it was near the east coast of Yorkshire. What they called the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was war built airfield. So everything was strung out all over the place. All of the buildings and the sleeping quarters were miles apart, or seemed miles apart. Whereas in a permanent, permanent air force airfield was quite luxury compared with the wartime airfield. But they had everything there. I quite enjoyed it at Lissett and had no problems with, with anything. There were, there were three Aussies, three Aussies there, one other chap from Adelaide and a chap from West Australia and myself. We were the only three Aussies on the squadron and we got away with murder. We used to go and have a bath in the officer’s mess. Between, between where the sergeant’s, sergeant’s sleeping quarters and the ablution block, we had to pass by the officer’s ablutions. So on one occasion, it was about half a mile between each of the, of these areas. On one occasion the bloke from Western Australia was walking past the officer’s ablutions. He was a sergeant walking past the officer’s ablutions. He couldn’t hear anybody in there or see anybody and no lights on. So he hopped in there and had his shower, no shower, they didn’t have any showers, hopped in, had a bath in the officer’s quarters. He told the other two of us about it and we started doing it as well. The sergeant’s bath only had, they had a rim painted around the bath, six inches of water. Well, the officer’s had twelve inches. So, but we got caught out but being Aussies we got away with murder almost. And the CO found out but he didn’t take any notice. He just said, ‘Keep it going.’ So, that was a funny one.
AP: What, what sort of thing happened in the sergeant’s mess?
DL: The sergeant’s mess, well it was like a community hall I suppose. It had eating quarters. Tables and chairs. It had a billiard table perhaps. And lounge chairs. English papers, and just a general place to go and relax if you weren’t flying. It was used quite a bit when we weren’t flying.
AP: What, what other things did you get up to when you weren’t flying?
DL: Well, mainly, if we didn’t go to the mess we would go down to a local pub. English village local pub and spend the afternoon or evening there. I got a story later if you like about that. What we did when we were on Pathfinders. The crew instead of going down to the pub. We did other things first but it was generally just a recreation, time off, relaxing in the sergeant’s mess.
AP: So, ok you were on operations at this stage.
DL: Yeah.
AP: You’ve already flown two as second dickie.
DL: Yeah.
AP: And then went back to HCU and then came with your crew.
DL: That’s right.
AP: Do any of your operations from Lissett stand out in particular in your memory?
DL: Well, yes they do. But I can’t really tell which was which strangely enough. We weren’t allowed to put in our logbook strange things that might have, may have happened. We had a intelligence officer, a squadron leader intelligence officer who was besotted with the fact that the Germans were going to land in England. He had dates and everything else. And he would not let us put in the logbook anything that happened that might give the Germans an idea that their defences were good. So, unfortunately in the first few, while he was there, the first few ops even if we got hit up to glory all we were allowed to put was, “No flak. No fighters. Good trip.” But the logbook, the logbook, I’ve got my logbook here. The logbook doesn’t really tell us what happened. Tells us, tells me what crew I had and how many hours it took. That’s about all. So you know, I got hit in the tailplane for example one night. Now, I can’t tell you what night it was. The night of Nuremberg. You’ve probably heard about that. I was on that. That was my thirty first trip actually. We had a bad run but I can’t really tell you what happened unfortunately which is disappointing. I was very disappointed with the log book.
AP: That’s wartime for you I suppose.
DL: So I’m asked questions like that I’m inclined to say what happened on nights with Bomber Command. Example, things that happened, not only to me but could have happened to anybody else. Most of them did happen to me but as I said I can’t tell of one particular raid.
AP: Well look if we don’t know particular dates that’s fine. We’re more interested in, in those, those, those particular things that happened.
DL: I know the date when I went to Nuremberg. I know the date that, I know things that happened but —
AP: That’s alright. Let’s hear some of the things that happened. It doesn’t matter if we can’t tell when it happened.
DL: At Lissett we had nights of absolute horror, nights of near death situations. Near nights where had parachutes on ready to jump. Twice on occasion I had parachutes on ready to jump. Being chased by a night fighter, a night fighter plane. Being shot at from the front, from the back, from underneath. Dodging searchlights, avoiding collision, landing short of fuel. All things like that. Could have happened to anybody any night. I did sixty eight trips and had my share of trouble but, you know some fellas got shot down on their very first raid. It’s very hard to tell. And I’ve been, you know, shot up one night when the rudders got jammed and things like that. But that could happen to anybody. So I prefer not to sort of talk about individual things that happened to me.
AP: That’s ok.
DL: All those things I mentioned did happen but I can’t tell you when and what night and where.
AP: That’s alright. The when, what night and where is less important I think then the feeling of it. What —
DL: Well, you know, you land short of fuel or you land on three engines many times and it’s, you come back and you think you’ve had a hard time and you look at another aircraft on the same, you know, on the airfield that’s come back all really shot up.
AP: So you mentioned there were two occasions where you had parachutes on ready to jump.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Why? Why was that? What sort of things happened there?
DL: On one trip we got hit in the tailplane, and the, just prior to that the rear gunner had spotted an enemy fighter and he, he told me as pilot to corkscrew. You know what a corkscrew is? And while we were doing a turn, a steep turn we got hit in the rudder or got hit in the tailplane. Didn’t know where but the rudder became jammed, and we were in this turn and the rudder jammed. We couldn’t get out of it. And so the engineer and the bomb aimer came in to help me by putting pressure on my feet to try and stabilise the aircraft. But we, we were circling. We had, we had to go. You know, we could have caused collision or whatever and we couldn’t. And so I told the crew to prepare for, to abandon aircraft. We had practiced the drill many times as a crew and, but the engineer and the bomb aimer were helping me with the feet on the rudder, trying to stabilise it. And we could, my feet kept slipping off the rudder pedals so the bomb aimer took off — he had two pairs of socks on [laughs] he took off one of his socks and tied my foot to the pedal. Anyhow, after a lot of trying, we eventually, something must have been stuck in the rudder cables must have come loose because it did free itself and we were able to get out of it.
AP: So, now as the pilot were you wearing your parachute the whole time?
DL: No.
AP: No.
DL: No.
AP: So you had to go and grab it from somewhere else.
DL: I’m sorry. Yes.
AP: Yeah. You were.
DL: I had used the parachute as a, as a seat of course. You know the parachute was a seat, yes. I always preferred the parachute with a seat. Everybody else had the clip on type.
AP: Yes.
DL: And I’ll show you something. A friend of mine did a pencil drawing of me years ago, many years ago which I’ve got down in a room at the back.
AP: Cool.
DL: And I’ve got the harness on for a clip on ‘chute. I’d a funny thing to tell you about parachutes. I don’t present myself, or I don’t think I’m a superstitious type of a bloke but I — usually with a parachute we, if we were on ops, say tonight. Or during the day we would go to the parachute section and collect a parachute. Parachutes were packed every time, even though they weren’t used. We took back a parachute to the parachute section. It would be repacked before it went out again. But I never handed mine in. I went to the parachute section one day and they were all girls that did this — packed the parachutes, and asked if she would pack my parachute. And she was a young girl. Probably eighteen. And I had my parachute. I kept it with me all the time and got this one girl to repack my parachute three times a week. So, but I never handed it in. I would have got into trouble but we just kept it. Just she and I kept it. And what was the question?
AP: We were talking about just parachutes in general.
DL: Yeah.
AP: We were talking about the time that, so —
DL: Yeah.
AP: You told the rest of the crew, ‘Clip them on. We might need them.’ Yeah
DL: Yeah. I can’t really remember the other time. It might have been the Nuremberg raid. We got badly hit on Nuremberg raid.
AP: By flak or a fighter?
DL: Oh, we shot down a fighter. We actually got the fighter, yes. We got hit by a fighter. In my logbook I’ve got just, I’ve written the word, “Wheels.” Why? — I really don’t know. I can’t remember what the word “wheel.” It was something meant to happen. I think the wheels didn’t come down. They didn’t, no, that’s right. The wheels didn’t lock down. Well they didn’t show that they were locked down. The green light didn’t come on. And we were flying around so long trying to get the wheels down that we were nearly out of fuel. And so we, the air con, air controller, air controller told us to go and crash land. They had special crash landing ‘dromes, airfields, but I didn’t have enough petrol left to go so we just had to chance that the wheels had locked down. They felt as though they were locked down but didn’t show. I think that’s the story. We had a bad night. Everyone had a bad night on the Nuremberg raid. But it was, we did, it’s very hard for an RAF bomber to have a [pause] shot down fighter confirmed. Have you heard the story? For example if we saw a fighter, if we saw a bomber go down, through a fighter, shot down, a fighter. We would have to take the time, the height, the latitude and longitude and all details like that. And we would have to do it and so would other, about another dozen other planes come in with the same, with the same news. And if they all confirmed well they would, if they were all together we would get it confirmed. The Yanks used to, you know the top one used to shoot the fighter down and then the next layer down would put the hole in him as well, but very, very hard. We did get a confirmation of getting a fighter that night.
AP: That was on Nuremberg.
DL: That was on Nuremberg. Yeah.
AP: Oh wow. Can you remember that engagement at all?
DL: Yes and no. It was, there’s been a lot of stories written about it. A lot of books about it and everyone’s got a different opinion. I think we took five hours to get there and three hours to get home. We were using tactics to try and put them off. We would head, head towards another German city and before we got there we would turn off and go somewhere else. The idea was that by the time we got to Nuremberg the fighters would be on the ground refuelling. But instead of that they were there waiting for us and there’s all sorts of stories told about why. Careless talk and all that sort of thing. But that was absolute horror. There were ninety six aircraft shot down that night. You know that story? Yeah.
AP: Can you, can you remember particularly the fighter that your gunners got? Can you remember that attack?
DL: The what?
AP: Particularly, the fighter your gunners shot down.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Can you remember that actual engagement?
DL: Yes. Yes.
AP: What happened there?
DL: Well the rear gunner just advised that he had a Messerschmitt on his tail, on our tail and to corkscrew. The same thing. Corkscrew. But while we were doing all of that the rear gunner was perfect. He was terrific. And I guess while we were, while we were doing all this throwing around he put a few bullets into it. Because it was very hard for us because they were using .5 cannons and we were using 303s. So, of course they, they could get us before we could get them. But, no I can’t, maybe except for throwing around and trying to get out of the way so that the — but the gunner just reported that he had got it.
AP: So how many —
DL: Other than that it was just routine flying. What you do if you’ve got a fighter on our tail.
AP: So, ok that is one of my questions. The gunner says, over the intercom, you know, ‘Fighter. Fighter. Corkscrew port. Go.’
DL: Yeah.
AP: What happens next?
DL: That’s right. He says, he might say, ‘Fighter, fighter.’ Or they were called, what word they used. What words did the Battle of Britain use?
AP: Bandits.
DL: Bandits, yeah, bandits. So and so, and so and so. Corkscrew. I was always known as, I was never called skipper, I was always called, I was always the youngest in the two crews I had and I was known as Junior. Which someone had painted on my helmet. And he would just say, ‘Corkscrew. Corkscrew Junior,’ and he’d just keep giving an account of where the fighter was if he could see it still. But we were, yeah, so, he got close enough to us. He missed us fortunately, the tracer bullets going in, going past.
AP: And as the pilot, how, how do you do a corkscrew? What are the movements and how do you actually make a difference?
DL: Oh you’re just flying it all around. Up and down. Up to stalling point or down, you know. Just trying to, so that you couldn’t get which there was still enough room to get, to get his eyesight, his bomb site on us. His guns on us.
AP: So —
DL: That was just, just corkscrew was the best way of getting away from a fighter.
AP: How many trips did you do from Lissett?
DL: How many?
AP: Yeah.
DL: From Lissett I did twenty seven. And the 158 Squadron had three Flights. You know all about the Flights.
AP: Yeah.
DL: A B and C. And C Flight 158 moved to Leconfield and formed 640 Squadron. So, and I was in C flight, I was actually, I was flight commander of C Flight. And we moved over to Leconfield as 640 Squadron. And I only did four trips from there, from Leconfield. The — when we go to a bomber squadron it is a known fact that we would be expected to do a tour which would comprise thirty ops. Many were taken off. What we called screened at twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine. There were a shortage of crews at the time. This was in March ’43. There were a shortage of crews and although the squadron commander CO had said that we were, we were ready to be taken off the crew were getting a little bit, a little bit [pause] what would I say? They were getting a little bit cheesed off. I became flight commander and was only allowed to do one trip a month. And there’s a reason for that which we can get on to. And they were getting a bit cheesed off with waiting around, waiting to be — waiting to finish ops. Not nastily but they just felt that they were, had had enough. And so we’d done our thirty and I said, ‘Ok fellas. That’s it.’ But on the night of this Nuremberg raid Bomber Command called for maximum effort. Now, when, when they called for maximum effort it was every plane they could get on the airfield and any crew they could get. So there we were supposed to have leave and finish because we were still on the squadron as a crew they wanted maximum effort. We were, every crew was put on and so we were rostered to go that night. And so actually it was our thirty first trip, op. And after that, yeah, we did finish up. They all went. They were all posted to different areas of instructing and I was posted to the RAF College to do what was called a junior commander’s course. During the time at Lissett on 158 Squadron our CO had finished. He was in permanent air force but he had finished a tour of ops and he had been posted to 158 Squadron as CO, but, and he was, they weren’t allowed to fly. COs weren’t allowed to fly on ops although they, they had a plane at their disposal. A staff plane which was shared with a couple of other squadrons. But he had itchy feet. Now bear in mind that he was not allowed to but he had itchy feet and he decided that he would go on an op one, one night. And he didn’t have a crew of course so he took with him the navigator, a crew from 158 Squadron. The navigation officer, the gunnery officer, all the senior officers on the station and the flight commander of C Flight which was the Flight I was in was, he was a squadron leader navigator. Unusual but he was a squadron leader navigator but he went as the CO’s navigator. Well, they were shot down and didn’t return. Here we are at 158 Squadron. No CO. No leaders. No flight commander for C Flight. No one to roster the crews for ops the next day, or the next couple of days. What a mess. I’m, our crew, as far as C flight was concerned was the, had the most experience on the squadron and I was asked as a sergeant to fill in for the squadron leader flight commander because they couldn’t get one. Couldn’t find one, particularly in a hurry. So, on the next night sure enough there were ops on so I with the other two flights — A and B squadron leaders, went and rostered all the planes and the crews for the night’s op, and off they went. And we had done twenty three trips I think at the time. Or about that many and we were the most experienced crew in C Flight and on the squadron actually. There were other officers on the squadron but they had, they were just none of them had done many ops at all and didn’t have any experience with, and so it so happened for the next six weeks they couldn’t find a flight commander and so [laughs] I was asked to have the job and I was given the rank of squadron leader. Six weeks from flight sergeant to squadron leader [laughs] and took over C Flight. Well then, C Flight as I told you, C Flight then moved over to Leconfield to form 640 Squadron and I was acting CO there until they found a CO for 640 Squadron. Still, still with a rank of squadron leader. And so that was it. But our crew, after the Nuremberg raid we all split up and they were posted elsewhere and so was I —
AP: So —
DL: So there we are.
AP: As a flight commander what actual duties did you have and where did you do them?
DL: Well, the duties were split between the flight commander’s office and the ground crew out at the dispersal area where the aircraft are kept. The flight commander was really, did all the paperwork necessary for C Flight. Not, not the administration for the squadron but just for C Flight. But it meant getting the orders for the day. If there was going to be an op on for that night roster the crews and make sure they were all ready to go and had no problems with crews. I was helped a lot by the chap who was flight commander of A flight. In fact, he helped me, he helped me even to his own working. He gave me advice that, from a flight commander’s point of view. I still, a New Zealander he was, and he’s still a friend of mine. He lives up in Queensland and he’s still alive and he helped me magnificently. In the meantime also we had transferred from Halifax with radial, no with Merlin engines to Halifaxes with radial engines. Mark 3 Halifaxes. And so when we moved over to Leconfield we had Mark 3 Halifaxes which were even better than the Mark 2s. And of course the radial engines were better because they were air cooled whereas the Merlin was glycol cooled. Liquid cooled.
AP: So —
DL: And when, there’s an anecdote there. With the, with the appointment as flight commander we had, I had the use of a motorbike and shared the use of a Hillman Minx motorcar. Have you heard of a Hillman Minx?
AP: Vaguely.
DL: They were not too.
AP: No. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen one.
DL: A Hillman Minx. The air force, the RAF had a lot of these. Hillman Minx’s, little cars and they were shared with the other two and I had this use of this motorbike and the car and I couldn’t drive any of them. I was nineteen. I was. And I could fly a four engine aeroplane before I could drive a motorbike or motor car.
AP: So did you, did someone teach you how to do it?
DL: Yeah.
AP: Or how did you get around it?
DL: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Very good, alright. So after you’d been to Leconfield your tour finishes. You said you went to a junior commander’s course?
DL: I went to a junior commander’s course at the RAF college at [pause] where was the RAF college, Grantham I think.
AP: Cranwell.
DL: Cranwell, that’s it.
AP: Yeah.
DL: Yeah, Cranwell, now a junior commander’s course. There were about fifty of us. Mainly group captains, wing commanders, and a few squadron leaders. The idea was that the college was teaching these wing commanders and group captains how to be COs at squadrons. They had, most of them had finished their tour. Most of them were permanent air force blokes. Most of them had finished their tour and were being trained to be squadron COs. And I was put there, I don’t know why but I went to this course and it was just doing that. Learning how to run a squadron. But being more familiar with air force law and being more disciplined as far as a squadron was concerned. Now after, I don’t know how that lasted, I can’t remember that but after that that during that course we had a lot of exams and all sorts of things. And at the end of the course it was, I was found that I had done well in air force law. Now, I’ve never, I wasn’t interested in it at Cranwell but for some reason or other I — what happened then?
AP: No. That’s alright, the sun went down. The sun went behind a cloud. It just got a bit darker.
DL: What was I saying? As I did air force law and I was posted to a field somewhere as part of a, and I did well in organising Courts of Enquiry. So I was posted to an airfield somewhere, non flying to take part in organising Courts of Enquiry. Collecting evidence. Me and a couple of others there were, not just myself. Collecting evidence. This was mainly for crashes that had occurred during training practice and collecting evidence and all that sort of thing. And then the lawyers would come in who were mainly [pause] well they were seconded to the RAF. They wore a uniform although they weren’t in the RAF. They were like doctors and then they’d come in. Look at all this evidence and then find the pilot or whoever — why the aircraft crashed. And most of it was quite clear to me that they were fit on trying to make that the pilot error which I didn’t agree with. And I hated it there. Absolutely hated it. I wanted to get back to flying. And so I was friendly with a girl who was the personal assistant to the air officer commanding 4 Group. You know all about the Groups of course. And after I’d done a couple of these Courts of Enquiry I applied for leave. It was granted and so I went up and, to 4 Group headquarters and looked out, up this girl. Not romantically. I was just a friend and I was, she had an office outside of the Group commander’s office and I was sitting in her office with her just having a cup of tea and the Group commander came. She had a intercom thing on her desk and he came through the intercom and asked this girl if she knew of a spare pilot in 4 Group who could go down to 35 Squadron and take over a crew. They wanted a squadron leader. A squadron leader on 35 Squadron because 4 Group supplied 35 Squadron. The pilot had been injured and the crew were, were ok. And they wanted a pilot to take over this crew until such time as the other bloke could come back. So I’m sitting there, spare pilot and I said, ‘Hey, hey how about me?’ And she said to the air officer, commanding, you know, ‘Squadron Leader Leicester’s here. He’s looking for a job.’ So the CO said, ‘Send him down to 35 Squadron.’ So down I went. And when I got down there and made myself known to the CO he said that the pilot wasn’t as badly damaged as they thought he was and after a fortnight leave he could come back and fly with his crew. So I’m down there. And I said, ‘Well what do I do?’ He said, ‘You either go back to 4 Group or you volunteer.’ You had to volunteer for Pathfinders as a single unit. So I said, ‘Oh ok.’ I said, ‘I’ll keep on flying. Thank you very much.’ So then I was posted to the Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit flying Lancasters. Now, it’s funny but at this Pathfinder navigation, quite often when crews finish their thirty trips there’s one or two of the crew that don’t want to go instructing or anything like that. You’ve heard that story have you? Understand it?
AP: Go on.
DL: Yeah. And they want to keep on flying. So, if they don’t, if they can’t find a place for them the only thing they can do is volunteer for Pathfinders. And so within a week of being at the Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit in came a navigator, DFC and Bar. He had done flying, all his operational flying on Mosquitoes and he came in, navigator. And in came a bomb aimer DFC. In came an engineer and so on. Within a week or ten days I had a crew. And so we did a bit of flight training in the Lancaster and got to know each other and finished what we had to do. Strangely enough we were posted to 35 Squadron. We could have been posted to any other Pathfinder unit but we, it was usual for 4 Group to, 35 Squadron was originally Halifaxes. So that’s how that all came about.
AP: Alright. How did, in terms of the operational flying that you did how did Pathfinder flying vary from Main Force?
DL: Well —
AP: How was it different?
DL: Generally speaking for example the Pathfinders had a number of steps in a squadron. You’d start off at the bottom and step and then as you got experience you’d be given a different job to do. Now, when we, when we first got down to the 35 I think our aggregate in, every, every one of them had done a tour of ops. I think the aggregate was over two hundred. And so here we are at 35 Squadron as what we called a sprog crew, a new crew. And the first op that we were asked to do we were called a supporter. That was the bottom rank. Now, we would go in exactly the same way. Drop bombs with main force but carefully examine the work of what the Pathfinders did and so that’s as we got more experienced we got a different job to do. We didn’t carry bombs. We carried incendiaries. But we carried flares and as flares were required by the Master Bomber well we would drop them according to what was required.
AP: So you said that there were different levels of Pathfinders.
DL: Yes.
AP: So support was one of the bottom one.
DL: Yeah. I was trying to think of some of the levels. What was second? Supporter. An illuminator. Now, an illuminator would [pause] a raid is controlled wholly by the Master Bomber. Now, the Master Bomber would go in twenty minutes ahead of, ahead of main force with other Pathfinder aircraft and as an illuminator we’d go in early and we would drop an illuminator flare which would light up the whole of the area we were going to bomb. So, if we were bombing Nuremberg the illuminator would go in. If we were bombing the railway yards at Nuremberg the illuminator would light it up so bright that the Master Bomber could see quite clearly what he was looking for. And when he found the marshalling yards he would ask for a red flare to be dropped. And there would be a Pathfinder aircraft carrying red flares. And then when the red flare was dropped the Master Bomber would assess to where it was to where it should be. For example if it dropped on the Adelaide Oval instead of the Adelaide Railway Station he would be able to tell the main force of bombers it’s not in the right position and so on. And then the Jerries would start dropping red so we as Pathfinders would have to change them to green or something like that. And then others were visual marker. You could, dropping flares visually. You could see. And blind marking. You’d drop them at night. Or drop them above clouds. There was markers on little parachutes.
AP: How would you know where you were when you were above the clouds in that sense?
DL: Where that’s where navigators came in. They were, the navigator in Pathfinders had to be spot on. My navigator got the DSO when we finished.
AP: Wow.
DL: He came with the DFC and Bar. He got the, he got the DSO. He had to be, we worked to a tenth of a second and yeah, he was pretty sure he was right. He would have visual. He would have blind markers and they would drop them in the air but of course they had they would hang on parachutes so of course they’d drift all over the place. Then they had visual centrerers. That’s another name I can think of. The top job was Master Bomber. The second was the Deputy Master Bomber. You could get to Master Bomber class for example and never do a Master Bomber raid. Because there were eight squadrons in Pathfinders and each of them had their Master Bombers I guess. And we became Master Bomber status. You were given an extra crew member. There was so much radar equipment in a Pathfinder plane that the navigator just couldn’t handle it all. So, we had an extra man that was called a set operator. And he would just work entirely with, with a navigator.
AP: And would he be next to the navigator?
DL: Next to the navigator, yeah.
AP: On the same bench.
DL: Yeah. Just working all the —
AP: A bit squeezy.
DL: With all the equipment. Yeah.
AP: Wow. And so what, what level did you — what were you?
DL: I got to Master Bomber level.
AP: You got Master Bomber.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Did you ever do any Master Bomber raids?
DL: Yeah. I did. I did quite a few.
AP: Tell me about that.
DL: Hmmn?
AP: Tell me about that. I’ve never spoken to a Master Bomber before so —
DL: [laughs] I just told you about it. Just get there first. The Master Bomber is the first to get there and the last to leave and he’s flying around all the time assessing what’s going on.
AP: How would you communicate with the rest of the crews?
DL: By just voice over.
AP: On VHF. Or on the, what would they call it?
DL: I don’t, no. It wasn’t VHF.
AP: It wasn’t.
DL: No. It was, I don’t know what they called it but they were all on the same channel.
AP: Yeah.
DL: And the Master Bomber did voice over.
AP: RT.
DL: We would just tell them what to do.
AP: Excellent. So ok, how many, how many trips did you do with Pathfinders?
DL: Thirty eight, thirty seven.
AP: Thirty seven. Golly. Do any of those stick out in your memory?
DL: Do what?
AP: Do any of those stick out in your memory? Same sort of question we had before?
DL: The same sort. The same sort of things happened. We used to say in [laughs] on the squadron, Pathfinders squadron if anybody came back on four engines we used to rib them. We used to joke with them and say, ‘Haven’t you been there? Where did you drop your bombs?’ [laughs] One, one fella I remember he took the ribbing so [pause] so much to heart that on one occasion when he came back he called up for his turn to land and he was given his turn to land. And when he got down to number one turn to land on his downwind stretch he cut one motor [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
DL: That was the sort of things that happened though.
AP: Actually just ripping off that for a moment. The landing procedure when you all came back from a raid. All your aircraft are arriving at more or less the same time.
DL: Oh yes.
AP: How did that work?
DL: Well, more or less the same time.
AP: Yes. How was that organised because obviously only one can land at once.
DL: Yeah. Oh well, we had to stay while we were over enemy territory we had to stay as we, you know, as the raid instruction said. We couldn’t, we couldn’t drop our bombs and just put the nose down and whizz for home. We had to stay where we were supposed to be. But as soon as we crossed the enemy coast, to cross the English Channel it was everyone for himself. But we would get back. We’d come in on a beam. The pilot’s mostly would come in on a beam and we, we’d get back to our aerodrome and call up with the call sign, whatever it is and say, and say, request, ‘Request permission to land.’ And back would come the control, ‘Your position to land is number six. Circle aerodrome at six thousand feet.’ Something like that. And then he’d gradually bring you down to five, and four and three and two. Yeah.
AP: Yeah, that’s how it sort of how it works today.
DL: That’s how it worked.
AP: The beginnings of air traffic control.
DL: The first in, best dressed, [laughs] the one with the fastest plane.
AP: Alright. Were, you told me about, in your previous or earlier on actually, that’s right. You told me something you used to do instead of going to the pub with your Pathfinder crew.
DL: Well, yes, when I got this Pathfinder crew they were all top blokes. And, but when we had a day off flying and there’s nothing on tonight most of the crews would go down to the local pub. Most of them, if not all of them. And when, the first time we were off flying someone said to us, ‘Look, we’re all going down to the pub. How about coming down?’ Were inviting us to come down. And we said yes. I said, ‘Yes, ok. We’ll be there.’ But just before we left to go down to the local pub the rear gunner came up to me and said, ‘Junior [laughs] how about we don’t go down to the pub till later?’ He said, ‘I’d like to have our crew stay behind for an hour and I’d like to talk to you about, all of you, about aircraft recognition.’ Now, the rear gunner on Pathfinders I had, he was an expert on aircraft recognition. He was a Londoner. But boy he knew every, every aircraft backwards. And I said, ‘Oh yes. Ok.’ So we told all the others that we wouldn’t be down ‘til an hour later. And he put us in a room and showed us shots. How to recognise enemy aircraft and our aircraft. Amazing. He was absolutely amazing. So we had an hour with him, seven of us. And then we hopped down to the pub. Now, on the next time it came up one of the others, perhaps the navigator said, ‘Listen, Jimmy had you back for an hour last time. How about me having an hour?’ So I said, ‘Ok.’ And so the same thing happened except the navigator, he told us all about his equipment and how it worked and everything else. And then the third time the engineer had a go. And we were already, in fact we got quite a name and people used to rib us and call us all sorts of names and laughed and joked. Until one day one of the other, we were going and we were off and one of the other crew’s pilots came over and said, ‘Listen, we know that you stay behind every time,’ to, you know we used to do parachute drill and we did all sorts of things. And the pilot said, ‘Look, do you mind if we join you?’ And I said, ‘No I don’t mind at all.’ But I said, ‘Why join us? Why don’t you do it yourself?’ And so he did it himself. And it wasn’t long before every crew in that squadron was doing exactly the same thing. They would stop behind and an hour later at the pub, incredible, incredible. But oh boy we had, the crew, the crew I had were out of this world. I’ll tell you something funny about that too. Do you know that I flew with them for I don’t know how long and I did not know their names, their surnames, and I don’t think they knew mine. I was, I was Junior and that was it. No, surnames. What names. For, yeah for example, the bomb aimer’s name was Rusty when we were at PNSU, Pathfinder Training Unit. He introduced himself as Rusty. He was a London policeman. He had the DFC. He was Rusty. Now, what the Rusty meant I’ve got no idea. And the navigator was a New Zealander. He was Pat. His name, no I’m sorry we knew their surnames. We didn’t know their Christian names. His name was, he was called Pat. He was Patrick. What his Christian name was we had no idea. The engineer was Titch. A little Canadian. Flying Officer Lloyd. Didn’t know his, didn’t know his Christian name. And there was seven of them. Never knew. Jimmy, the rear gunner, we called him Jimmy but he didn’t have a J in his [laughs] he wasn’t J something Hughes. I knew their surnames. Didn’t know their Christian name. Incredible. And they didn’t know mine.
AP: One of the other, he was a Halifax pilot that I interviewed in Melbourne recently said, I think it was his mid-upper gunner, his surname was Bill so he was always Dingle.
DL: Yeah.
AP: That was it. He never found out his Christian name.
DL: That’s right. I’m the same.
AP: Seventy years later.
DL: Incredible. That’s good you’ve heard that story before.
AP: Yeah, a similar sort of thing to you.
DL: He was on a Halifax. What squadron was he on?
AP: He was 578 and then 462.
DL: 462 was an Australian squadron.
AP: It certainly was. Yeah.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Only on 462 very very briefly.
DL: Where were they?
AP: Oh bugger I can’t remember now. Burn, at 578. I don’t know where 462 was.
DL: No. I don’t. I don’t know where 578, I’ve never heard of 578.
AP: A place called Burn they were.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Anyway. They came out of 51 squadron same way as you.
DL: 462 was 4 Group. Halifaxes.
AP: 466 was the other one.
DL: 466. 461 was too.
AP: Yeah.
DL: But they were 3 Group I think. 461 were 3 Group, I think.
AP: I can’t remember. Alright, so you mentioned something earlier as well. Just going back to some notes that I took down.
DL: That’s alright. No.
AP: Something about as flight commander you could only do one trip a month and there was a reason for that, that you were going to say.
DL: Well the reason for that was when the CO of the squadron went and took all the officers with him an instruction was ordered that flight commanders were only allowed to do one a month. That was interesting too because the other, the other two got a bit of a reputation of picking what they thought might be an easy trip. No trip was easy. But they, some were easier than others of course. I used to put up on the board, on the 1st of the month that Leicester flies on the, well on this case, Leicester flies on the 28th of August. And my crew knew that as well so they could do all of their planning. And when it came to the 28th of August there was no trips that night. No flying. 29th the same. The 30th — Nuremberg [laughs] so that’s how I got to do that. They used to wait until they saw what the others used to wait, well the story thought of. They used to wait until they found out what the target before they decided.
AP: What that might be.
DL: Yeah. Yeah. Take the nearest one, or the shortest one. Or the less defended one or whatever.
AP: What else? Yes, alright. So you have a DFC and Bar I believe.
DL: Yeah.
AP: That’s also unusual. I haven’t met someone with a DFC and Bar before.
DL: Haven’t you?
AP: No.
DL: You know what that is.
AP: It’s a second DFC.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Yeah, so —
DL: Yeah, they don’t give you two medals.
AP: No, just the one little bar.
DL: I’m sorry to ask you that. Of course you’d know. But, you know, I had an interview last Monday, Anzac day and the reporter was a girl. She just didn’t know anything. She hadn’t done her homework. She didn’t know what the questions to ask. She had no idea what a DFC was let alone a DFC and bar, you see.
AP: So why do you have two DFCs?
DL: Why? Well, I think one was given for the Nuremberg raid, and the other was towards the end of, and I can’t think what raid it is now.
AP: So they were both —
DL: They were both immediate awards.
AP: Immediate, they were, both. Wow. That’s also unusual.
DL: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: So we might have to dig the citation out. I’m’ sure it’s there somewhere. Ok, cool. So how did your second tour, well your Pathfinder tour, end?
DL: It ended, well, we had been discussing it for a while. And we thought we had, had done enough. But I applied for a job. The then CO for Qantas was in England and this is early ’45. The war is coming down a bit. And he was recruiting pilots to restart the Australia — England route for Qantas using aircraft called Lancastrians. And I applied for that and was one of eight. They wanted eight pilots. And I applied for that and was actually picked to be one of the eight pilots. But when I got back to Australia I was still in the air force of course. I had to be discharged and I was discharged being deaf in one ear or not, not requiring the, not reaching the required deafness. And the Civil Aviation at that time, Department of Civil Aviation — Federal. Would not accept anybody or Qantas would not accept anybody who had any defect and so I was put out. I had stayed in the air force and I went to all sorts of troubles. But that’s what happened. I just missed out on flying for Qantas. The, it’s always been a bit of a sore point with me. When I joined up in 1941 with the air force medicals we had to go through an ear, nose and throat specialist. Now, when I came out for the discharge five years later, four years later, we had to go through the same medical procedure. Who’s there? The same, the same doctor. And the first words he said to me was, because I came back with quite a bit of publicity actually because of decoration and being a squadron leader at nineteen and all that sort of thing, and the first thing he said to me, ‘Oh you whippersnappers come back and you think you own the world.’ And he just, he gave me a bad report on my ears. And although I, it didn’t show in any other way and my own GP I went to who I saw during the war, before the war, he gave me a test — no. Nothing was wrong. But I went through all sorts of tests and the Department of Aviation said no. Qantas said no, so that was it. But I’m not, I don’t regret that because the fellows that did stay in, none of them liked it. You know, you had to fly straight and level. You couldn’t, you couldn’t spill a cup of tea [laughs] they just sat there and the aircraft did it all for them. So that’s the story.
AP: That’s not so, not so exciting for a bomber pilot, with sixty eight flights under his belt I’m sure.
DL: No. No.
AP: Alright, so your tour in Pathfinders. When did you actually finish flying with Pathfinders? When was your last trip?
DL: February. January ’45.
AP: So, you pretty well, at that point having done well more than the minimum you could pretty well pull the plug yourself.
DL: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok. And then go in. Ok, so coming home. How did, how did you get home?
DL: Flew home.
AP: Flew home.
DL: I flew home and as [pause] well we were temporarily, the eight of us were temporarily discharged from the air force and we flew two planes home. A Liberator and a York to Australia. We landed in Perth and then we were back in the air force. And we couldn’t go to be Qantas staff until we had been officially discharged from the air force. So that’s what happened. We actually flew home.
AP: And so you, you flew the aeroplane yourself.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Wow.
DL: Well eight of us did.
AP: Yeah. Nice. So you said something about publicity on your return. I’m just sort of curious as to what that was like for a twenty something year old.
DL: Well just that you know south SA boy makes good. And, you know, that sort of thing. And I still get a bit of that actually. You know on the march on Anzac Day the chap doing the commentating had obviously done his homework and he said, you know, he mentioned my name and said all about, you know, sixty eight trips and all that. My actual log book shows as sixty seven. But there was one trip where we had crossed the coast, enemy coast. And the raid — we were all recalled. It was aborted, officially aborted. And at the time we weren’t allowed to count it as an op. But later on —
AP: It did count.
DL: We could count it. Yeah.
AP: Right. How did you find readjusting to civilian life?
DL: Very, very hard. It was very difficult because, you know, we left home as we were eighteen and we came back we were twenty two, twenty three. All of the jobs had gone that we would have been perhaps been promoted to. Someone else had got those. And it was very hard to get anything. In the six months from the time that I left school at the end of 1940 until I was called up for the air force, or eight months I worked as an office boy for a company. A manufacturer’s agent in the rag trade. And when I came back of course that office boy job was no good. I wasn’t a boy anymore anyway. But he knew someone in one of the retail stores and I got a job as an Adelaide representative of a Sydney company in the rag trade. But unfortunately the chap in Sydney, the owner of the company in Sydney died at the age of forty two and it all fell through. So I then got in to the food trade. I worked for Cadbury’s for four years [laughs] and then worked for other food companies right until I retired in 1988.
AP: I guess the final question, possibly the most important one. How do you think, or what do you think is the legacy of Bomber Command and how do you want to see it remembered?
DL: Well, it’s a hard question but whenever I hear the words Bomber Command mentioned I think of the hundred and twenty five thousand boys that joined. A hundred and twenty five thousand. Plus of a hundred and twenty five thousand. Of which fifty five thousand would die. Forty four percent, you know. It’s a big — and in Pathfinders it was fifty percent. I think of them often. Particularly on Anzac Day and Day of Remembrance and any time I see a Bomber Command bloke has died whose name’s in the paper. It’s hard. I’m a very emotional type and I cry very easily and it really — Anzac Day gets to me. But I consider I was proud to be part of Bomber Command. I don’t know how else to put it. They played their part. They’ve been criticised badly in some areas for what they did and how they did it. I have no apology for that. I did what I was told. I did what I was trained to do. What else could I say? I call them a hundred twenty five thousand heroes. A hero to me, Adam is not the bloke that kicks the goal after the siren that wins the game. The hero is the bloke that stands on the front line and gets shot at. Does that sound alright?
AP: That’s a very emphatic way to —
DL: I’d like to talk about defences.
AP: Go for it.
DL: People often ask me what I considered to be the worst. I always say searchlights. You can dodge fighters, you can dodge flak with a bit of luck. You can be hit by a fighter. You can be hit by flak and get away with it at times, you know. A lot of people didn’t. It depends where it was hit. But searchlights were impossible. They were so bright that a pilot could not see a thing. Could not see a thing. And I can say, and once a plane gets caught in searchlights, one searchlight, well the other hundred and fifty all, yeah and you form a cone like that. The fighters can see you. The gunners can see you on the ground. None of the crew can see you. It’s absolute curtains. So, for that reason I say searchlights were the dangerous things as far as I concerned. And unless you were trained and told really how to avoid them it was curtains. Once you got caught you couldn’t get out of it. But you could fly through them and that’s what I used to do. I mean, I’m doing a hundred and sixty mile an hour. The fella on the ground training the searchlights can’t move that quickly here. So you’ve gone before he can get you. The thing I feared most was an engine failure on takeoff fully loaded. I had that on one occasion. I lost power on one engine. It’s frightening. You know, you think you’re going to not take off and you land with your bombs on, you know. How does that cover it do you think?
AP: That’s pretty good. Any final words before I —
DL: No. I thank you, and I thank you for what you are doing and the work that your committee and everyone else is doing. I think it’s marvellous. I’m glad that Michael did get in it because he you know he went to England for the, me with the Queen there.
AP: Yeah. He’s quite proud to show that photo.
DL: Yeah. I’m quite, very pleased with what you’re doing.
AP: Good. That’s absolutely the least we can do.
DL: You’re on the last Sunday in May are you?
AP: First one in June.
DL: First Sunday in June. Originally it started off to be the first Sunday in June. Why has it changed?
AP: It’s a contentious thing at the moment.
DL: Yeah.
AP: The first Sunday in June is the official day.
DL: Yeah.
AP: That’s in Canberra.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Canberra’s sort of the sort of main one.
[telephone rings)
DL: Can you excuse me a minute?
AP: Yeah. Go for it.
[ recording paused for chat]
AP: That’s alright. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. That’s right, the day that changed. So it was in, in Canberra and it still is the first Sunday in June except if it’s the long weekend when it’s the one before I think. So the concept was the Bomber Command Commemorative Day. You know, supposed to be the same day around the country and around the world.
DL: Yeah.
AP: I don’t know why it changed in Adelaide. Different Groups organised all the different ceremonies.
DL: Yeah.
AP: So it’s RAFA here and in Western Australia. It’s the Queensland University Squadron in Brisbane. I don’t know who does the Sydney one because most of them are in Canberra. And with our Group which is different. Separate to RAFA that does the Melbourne one. I’m of the opinion and our group in Melbourne is of the opinion that we should have them on different days. I think the Canberra one is the big one. That’s what everyone sort of wants to go to and I think all the individual States should be on a different day because that gives you a chance to, I can go to the Melbourne one and then go to Canberra. So it’s a bit like Anzac Day. I don’t know what it’s like in Adelaide but certainly in Melbourne and Sydney Anzac Day, the day itself that’s the day of the big march in the city.
DL: Yes.
AP: The Sunday before is typically when all the little suburban RSL’s hold their services. So that allows the veterans to go to their local one and then also go to the big one in the city. I see it as a similar sort of concept for the Bomber Command Day. However, in Melbourne there’s a long standing booking at the Shrine on the day that we want. So we’re going to have to, we’re still working on that. We’re going to have to negotiate to get the day that we want. But that’s what it is so I don’t know why it changed here. I’m in contact with Dave Hillman who organises it for RAFA South Australia.
DL: It won’t change here you say.
AP: I don’t think. I don’t know. I don’t know why it changed and I don’t know.
DL: I would have thought David would because originally it was the first day in June.
AP: Yeah. Yeah. I know last year the one in Canberra had to change.
DL: Yeah.
AP: Because of the clash of bookings.
DL: Yeah.
AP: So it actually changed after it had been advertised if you like but yeah I don’t really know. It was useful for me because I could go to both of them.
DL: Yeah.
AP: But this year I’m going to Canberra for the Saturday night. Flying back to Melbourne Sunday morning and then going to the ceremony in Melbourne. Anyway, yet more travelling. Now I’ll stop the recording because we are still going here but I’ll cut this bit out.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ALeicesterD160501
PLeicesterD1601
Title
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Interview with David Leicester
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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02:04:02 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-05-01
Description
An account of the resource
David Leicester grew up in Australia and worked as an office boy before he volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force. He completed 68 operations as a pilot with 35, 158 and 640 Squadrons and as a Master Bomber with Pathfinders. He describes how he always kept his own parachute rather than hand it back and always asked the same person to pack it for him.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
158 Squadron
35 Squadron
640 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Flying Training School
forced landing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Master Bomber
mess
military ethos
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Cranwell
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Leconfield
RAF Lissett
searchlight
superstition
target indicator
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/297/3452/PMcBeanLW1602.1.jpg
8c7fbfb2845990a68d2b4ba40cd383c3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/297/3452/AMcBeanLW161022.2.mp3
c1d0e5a458132c81e8eb1429d0346aaa
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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McBean, Lachie
Lachlan William McBean
Lachlan W McBean
Lachlan McBean
L W McBean
L McBean
Description
An account of the resource
117 Items. Collection concerns Lachlan William "Lachie" McBean (1924 - 2019, 430629 Royal Australian Air Force). He was a pilot whose crew had just finished their course at a Heavy Conversion Unit when the European war ended. Collection consist of an oral history interview and photographs of people, places and aircraft.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lachlan McBean and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-22
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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McBean, LW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive is with Lachie McBean who was a pilot at the tail end of World War Two. The interview is taking place at Lachie’s home in Ballarat in Victoria. It’s the 22nd of October 2016 and my name is Adam Purcell. Lachie, start from the beginning. Can you tell me something about your early life? Where and how you grew up and what you were doing before you enlisted?
LM: Yes, Adam. I was a country boy. I, we came from a place, a town called Seymour in Victoria. My people originally came from Moulamein in New South Wales but I was still, I was going to school in Geelong when I turned eighteen and on turning eighteen a friend of mine and myself both joined the air force. And we were told that we had to finish our school year out before we would be called up. So we did finish our school year out and then in January the following year we were called up then. So, I didn’t have any work experience or anything like that before I went into the air force.
AP: What, what were your thoughts and how old were you when you heard that war had been declared?
LM: Oh I think I would have been about fourteen or so and I remember, I remember the occasion very well when Mr Menzies announced that Australia had declared war. It’s quite vivid in my mind. I guess in those days being a school boy it didn’t, it didn’t have a great Effect on us but we were aware of people joining the services and going away. It was a little bit ahead for us being only about fourteen or so at the time.
AP: Did you have any thoughts about whether or how you might have been involved yourself eventually?
LM: Not initially. Not initially, Adam but as the time goes on when we were getting towards the age of eighteen it wasn’t discussed amongst school, school mates at all but we all, I think we all just automatically understood that we would be joining the services. There was no thought of, not in my mind, of doing anything else. I think everybody, almost everybody, just assumed they would be in the services.
AP: What — did you sort of see any effects of the war as like in those few years before you enlisted yourself. So home front type things.
LM: Sorry I didn’t —
AP: Sorry. Did you see any effects of the war? Like in, on the home front in the first sort of few years before you enlisted yourself? So as a, as a civilian essentially did the war have any effect on your life in Australia?
LM: Oh yes, certainly. Certainly by the, being aware of the people who were joining and going away and yes we were certainly as school kids aware of the effects of the war, but we certainly were pretty sheltered by it. Looking back on it I think we should have been more aware. But we still remember all of the, all of the more important things that were happening through newspaper reports of course and radio.
AP: Why did you pick the air force?
LM: It seemed to be an automatic choice. I just, I wouldn’t know when we picked the air force. I think I must have been always a little interested in the air force because I did know a little bit about some of the aeroplanes that were used prior to that. I remember, for instance, the Hawker Demon, the Bristol Bulldog. There was another one that I [pause] won’t come to mind at the moment. I remember when the Avro Anson first, first came out to Australia, well, pre-war. So I must have had a leaning. Leaning that way. I certainly didn’t give it a lot of thought.
AP: It was always, always going to be the air force. Alright. What about the enlistment process? So, once you were, once you were called up what happened next. How did you enlist? Where did you have to go and what did you have to do?
LM: Well, we, I went, I went to Melbourne. I can’t think exactly of where it was. We, in civilian clothing of course. We were put on to a troop train to go to Sydney that night. There was a troop train ran every night from Melbourne to Sydney. I well recall going for the troop train because there were all army, mostly army personnel on there and we were dressed in civilian clothing, young people. They knew we were in the air force. We got, we got a lot of cheek from the army blokes. And I do remember we were very pleased to get shut into the carriages that were there. Away from the [pause] what were they calling us? Blue orchids or something to that effect. But I know that we were quite pleased to get away from the army thing and I can even remember an incident on that troop train going. We were stopped outside, outside Wagga. I think it was just the southern side of Wagga. There was a big army camp there and a lot of the army people used to come from the camp, hop through and the train would stop and they would get a ride into Wagga on the troop train. And one of the, one of the army fellas was trying to get through the fence and he got his pants caught on one of the wires. And a train stopped there with hundreds of people hanging out the windows barracking at him [laughs]
AP: Can you remember much of the interview or medical process that you had to go through before you were accepted?
LM: No. I remember very little. Very little about it. We did a medical. We did a medical I’m not sure if it was on that day. Certainly we had to do a medical, a medical. But, no, I don’t remember any details about that.
AP: Were you on the reserve for any length of time or did you just go straight in?
LM: No. I went straight in.
AP: Straight in. Scratch that question off the list. Alright, so you were on a troop train up to Sydney. Presumably your Initial Training School was at Bradfield Park.
LM: It was at Bradfield Park, yes.
AP: Tell me something of that. What happened there? What was the place like?
LM: Well, it, it was a surprising place because it was the nearest railway station I believe was Lindfield and quite a built up area and the Bradfield Park camp was not very far from the station. Probably about a mile. But when at, at the camp you wouldn’t know you were in a built up area. There was a very steep bank at the back of the camp going down to the Lane Cove River. It seemed although, although in a, virtually in a built up area it wasn’t noticeable at all there.
AP: What sort of things happened there? What can you remember of what you did? What you learned.
LM: Well, certainly the thing that I most remember there was the drill instructor that we had. He was, he was a corporal, Corporal Sheriff. And Corporal Sheriff had more power than any officer that I’ve ever came across I think. He used to be a professional boxer and showed all the signs of it. He had a flattened nose. I had heard of cauliflower ears before I went into the air force but once I saw Corporal Sheriff I knew exactly what cauliflower ears means. His grammar was out of this world really. He, he would say to you things like, ‘What was the first thing I learned yous was when I seen yous?’ And you had to answer to him, ‘Corporal that yousil tell us nothing wrong.’ He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t stand you saying, saying, ‘You wouldn’t tell us anything wrong corporal.’ You had to say that, ‘Yous’il tell us nothing wrong.’ And I have great memories of Corporal Sheriff. And although he was rough and tough I now regard him as one of the people who had a lot of influence on my life. He was a strict disciplinarian. Disciplinarian. And he wouldn’t stand for anything but your best effort. And I think I learned a lot from Corporal Sheriff.
AP: What was the accommodation like at Bradfield Park?
LM: Oh well, I thought it was excellent. We were in a Nissen hut, about thirty people I think. And very good, and very good meals. Yes. It was, it was, naturally from a kid coming straight from school it was an experience. I hadn’t had any experience of the outside world and that was all new to me but I coped pretty well.
AP: Some of the, can you tell me some of the, well about some of the other people who were in your course? In your intake. Like — did you make any mates in particular?
LM: Well yes. I actually did go, one of my friends, the friend who we joined up together did go in with me so that was a help. And also another. I had another friend who unexpectedly was called up in the same draft. He was in a different flight from me but I knew him very well. But there were a few characters in amongst them. I had been used to, because I’d been at boarding school, I’d been used to living with other people. But there was certainly a few characters. One — Kevin Brennan, I remember was a great character. Another one — Lou Murray who was older than most of us. He was twenty five or six and had been in the army and Lou was a great character. That, we all got on pretty well together.
AP: There was a lot of helping each other out with the lessons and the study and all that sort of thing as well.
LM: I don’t know so much about helping each other out. Yes. I suppose we did. We all, we all [pause] well, we all coped. We all seemed to cope and we had, I can’t remember a lot about it but it was almost in a way like going back to school again because we, we had, most of the day was occupied with lectures of some sort or other.
AP: That was going to lead me to the next question. Was there any sort of time off or time spare at ITS and what did you do with it if there was? Was it go, go, go the whole time?
LM: We, we did have leave in the [pause] I’m not sure if it wasn’t every second weekend. No. It might have been every weekend we had leave and could go in to Sydney and do. Do little things. There wasn’t much in the way of sports from what I, what I remember. Quite a bit of work in the gym. But no, I don’t remember. I think we were kept pretty well, pretty occupied. I don’t know what we did in the evenings but we, we coped. I just don’t remember what we did in the evenings.
AP: That’s alright.
LM: We were not allowed out. We were not off away from camp in the evenings.
AP: So, I think it was at ITS that you did a selection board or something where they chose where you were going next.
LM: Yes. We had a Category Selection Board that we had to front up and I well remember that because I was the last one interviewed on, on the particular day. It was considered to be a pretty big ordeal for, for trainees to front the Category Selection Board. And when I was called, called into it there were three officers on the board and I certainly remember it well because Corporal Sheriff marched me in. He, he gave me, you know, ‘Right turn. Halt,’ in front of the, of the officers, ‘Left turn.’ And then said, ‘Sir,’ which meant that he handed me over to the officers. And at the time I thought I didn’t think. I thought there was something wrong with the interview. It didn’t seem to be going smoothly. And then I realised that I was, had put so much attention in trying to do everything correctly that I had forgotten to salute. We were supposed to give them a smart salute. And I waited until there seemed to be an appropriate answer and I threw a salute to the three officers. And something strange happened then because the one who was in the centre had a lot of papers in his hand and he picked these papers up and put them up in front of his face and he seemed to be shaking a bit. But the officer on each side of him both dropped their pencils on the floor and they took a fair while to get their pencils back again. I wondered. And when they did one of the officers made some sort of a comment which I thought was a bit like a school-girlish comment and they all burst into laughter. And of course, you know having this this recruit forgetting to salute them was a great joke to them. And after that the interview went, went pretty well. I know that they kept talking about my navigation. They asked what category I’d like to be and I said, ‘A pilot,’ and they kept talking about and saying my navigation was pretty good, ‘What would you I think if we made you a navigator?’ And I said, ‘Oh well if I’m made a navigator I guess that’s right.’ Anyhow, it turned out at the finish that they did select me for my first choice so that was lucky. But actually when I forgot to salute I was more worried about Corporal Sherriff standing behind me than I was about the officers. And in fact now that I remember it that Corporal Sherriff took me to task. He said, ‘You’s has disgraced me.’ [laughs] and he sent me down to his hut. He said, ‘At the double.’ He said, ‘There’ll be, there’s a couple of pairs of boxing gloves behind the door. Go and get those and meet me in the gym.’ Which I did. I was terrified about that and when I got there Corporal Sherriff was working on a punching bag and he was a lather of sweat and anyhow I thought this looks pretty bad but he said to me, ‘Put them down there and get out of me way. Clear off.’ [laughs] Which I did pretty smartly.
AP: Excellent.
LM: He was a great character, Corporal Sherriff.
AP: Obviously had you well, he had you well figured out. Or he had trainees well figured out.
LM: My word he did.
AP: Yeah [laughs] very good. Alright, so you’ve just found out you're a pilot. You then get shuffled off to EFTS.
LM: Yes. I went.
AP: Where was that?
LM: I went off to EFTS on Tiger Moths at Narrandera in New South Wales. Southern New South Wales. Yes. Can’t remember. I think there were two or three of us there but I don’t remember the other people who went there. So —
AP: What, what happened at Narrandera? Tell me about the learning there.
LM: Narrandera. Well it was, it was pretty interesting. The, it was in the wintertime and I’ve always thought since that you didn’t know what a frost was like until you’ve experienced one at Narrandera. You’d sometimes be flying at 7:30 in the morning and you could see the whole countryside absolutely white below as if it were covered with snow. It was very, and of course an open cockpit. When we got down you would probably not be able to feel your legs ‘til probably 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning. But Narrandera was good. Yes, we enjoyed that. And that’s about it, I think, for Narrandera.
AP: A question I have to answer every pilot — tell me about your first solo.
LM: Yeah, my first solo was interesting in that I was having a bit of trouble landing and I thought that I was probably going to get scrubbed because I could do, handle everything else but I was having a bit of trouble landing. And when it came to the critical time they gave me another instructor and he straight away, he straight away identified the problem that I was having with it. I was able to correct that to land it perfectly well. I had about two flights with him and then he, he hopped out and said, ‘You’re on your own,’ and so that was, I had no trouble afterwards landing. I think I was, I didn’t realise that, I think I was trying to sort of to wheel them on and didn’t realise, and hadn’t been really instructed by my original instructor about three pointing them. But it was just a matter of just one, you know, one comment, or one from the new instructor that fixed it.
AP: I can, yeah, I have a story that’s almost exactly the same. I was flying at Bankstown in a Cherokee and I’d completely forgotten how to land.
LM: Yeah.
AP: This was shortly after I’d got my licence. I just couldn’t land it. New aeroplane, new instructor ‘cause I was getting checked out there.
LM: Yeah.
AP: And I did about two hours with him and then, or two or three hours with him and I just couldn’t figure it out. And then I went with another instructor who had something like thirty thousand instructional hours.
LM: Yes.
AP: And he went, ‘You’re looking at the wrong place on the runway.’ It was as simple as that.
LM: Yeah.
AP: Fixed it. Never had a problem since.
LM: Well, I was trying to bring them in on a, I think, touch the wheels down instead of just holding it off. Stalling it on to the ground.
AP: Very good.
LM: Yeah. Very, very simple and very effective from the new instructor.
AP: How — did you spend any time there as one pilot’s called it, tarmac terrier? Starting engines up and things like that before you started.
LM: No. No I didn’t do any of that. No. No.
AP: Just straight into it. After EFTS you went to a Service Flying Training School.
LM: I went to, on twin engines on Avro Ansons at a place called Mallala in South Australia. Just north of, north of Adelaide. And I really, I really enjoyed being at Mallala. And —
AP: What happened there? Why did you really enjoy it?
LM: For some reason we, we used to have, I think, three days off every second weekend at Mallala and we could go into Adelaide. I’m not a city person at all but I really liked Adelaide. I felt at home over in South Australia and have ever since actually. But it was, it was a cropping area around Mallala and we used to do a lot of cross country flights to interesting places. Up to the Flinders Ranges and Port Lincoln over to the, to the west. They were, used to fly those with, with two trainee pilots. One would be navigator on the way out and swap over. Swap over with the other pilot and the course was very interesting. But for some reason I seemed to feel at home over in Mallala and I didn’t, I didn’t realise until later in life that my forebears first came to Adelaide in South Australia. And an old forebear arrived in Adelaide in 1838 and became an overlander. And I just seemed to feel at home there. So yes I enjoyed Mallala. Yeah.
AP: There was Ansons you said. What did you think of the Anson?
LM: The Anson. Oh I really liked the old Anson. They seemed reliable and not complicated. And I think a lot of people were not very impressed with them but yes I’ve still got a soft spot for the old Anson. Yeah. But they, they seemed to me to be simple and safe, yeah I enjoyed them.
AP: Where did you go from Mallala? What was next?
LM: I think, Mallala — after Mallala was to [pause] must have been to the Melbourne Cricket Ground as embarkation depot I think.
AP: Tell me about the MCG.
LM: Well, the Melbourne Cricket Club, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, yes. It was an interesting place to be. I lived there for three weeks. Under no circumstance were we allowed to set foot on the ground itself but we had parade grounds on the tarmac in front of the, I think it was in front of the old, the original old members stand. Yes, three weeks there for — I actually was, I was meant to go overseas a little earlier than I did because I’d been given pre-embarkation leave. My mother had gone to live in Canberra at that time and I had only a few days. I think about four or five days embarkation leave and the train, I was late back because of a train not connecting and when I got back the rest of the boys were all ready to go overseas and I remained there another couple of weeks. And, and by doing so the ones that I had been with had gone on a ship via the Cape of Good Hope. And the ship that I travelled on went via New Zealand and the United States. So I probably would have selected that way of going.
AP: Right. Tell me about that boat then. Tell me about that trip to the UK.
LM: To the — well we were taken to Brisbane. We were in camp at a place just north of Brisbane for two or three nights and embarked on a, on an American troop carrier called the Matsonia. The Matsonia was almost empty because they had taken troops to New Guinea and we, we travelled from Brisbane quite close to Lord Howe Island. I would think probably only a mile off Lord Howe Island. They’d got these remarkable high cliffs that I’ve always remembered there. From there to Auckland. Not allowed off the ship at Auckland and then from there to San Francisco, and we had about a week or so in San Francisco which was pretty interesting to young blokes like we all were. Not long left school. About a four day trip across the United States by train through — I remember going through a tunnel called the Moffat Tunnel which was, I think was something like seven and three quarter miles long. The longest tunnel in the world. I remember seeing the first snow I had ever seen. The place might have been called [unclear]. Salt Lake City. Places like that. Passing through. Detroit. Passing through them and then we had a week or so in New York. The American people were absolutely great to us. I know that on at least two occasions some others and myself had had meals in a restaurant and had gone up to pay for it and been told it’s already been paid for. And people had already paid for them and not even come up and told you they were doing so. That happened at least on two occasions. So, yes the American people were great.
AP: Can you tell me some more about New York?
LM: More about New York.
AP: Yeah. And your — well you spent a week there. What sort of things did you do?
LM: I think —
AP: What did you think?
LM: Well, first of all at San Francisco when we had a week or so there we were, we were camped on an island in the San Francisco harbour which was quite close to the famous prison island which is [pause] won’t come to mind now but there is a famous prison island in San Francisco and we were quite close to that. But in New York we, I know that we were billeted for a few days with a doctor who took us to an opera. It was, the opera was called, I believe, “Carmen Jones,” and it was all black, all black cast. He took us to his country, his residence in the country further to the north. I can’t remember just where but I do remember it was very cold at the time and I was with a friend of mine called Doc Davies from , who came from Perth. And there was a pond. He had a country property. There was a pond on this property that he had which was covered in ice. It was a beaver pond. The pond had been made by beavers and I remember Doc being, I suppose silly enough but walking out on the ice there and went through the ice and into the freezing water. But he was able to get out easily enough but, it — we looked of course at all the buildings. The famous buildings in New York. I think most of us went to visit Jack Dempsey’s bar. He was, I think, had been World Heavyweight Boxing Champion prior to that. That was a famous place. And anyhow it was a great experience for young people. From young people from the country in Victoria.
AP: You’re not the first person to tell me about Jack Dempsey’s bar, so —
LM: Is that so?
AP: Yes. A lot of people have mentioned it.
LM: Yeah.
AP: Yeah very good. Alright. Then you go across to England.
LM: Yes. We, we went to, if I remember correctly there were only seventeen in our party and yes, we, I was put in charge of the baggage of this lot and I was taken down to the wharf with all the baggage. The day prior to our sailing I think it was. But however we travelled on the Queen Mary and in New York harbour tied up along, beside the Queen Mary was the Queen Elizabeth. So the two biggest ocean liners in the world were tied up together. We were fortunate to travel up together in the Queen Mary which was a great experience. There were lots of rumours. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth carried lots and lots of troops to, to England. And there were lots of stories about u-boats looking for them. Hunting them. However, we had a, we had a — our trip was ok. I believe that the trip that I did was to that time had the record number of troops on it than it had so far. And I understand that there were twenty two thousand troops on because there were a lot of American troops being taken to England prior to D-day. And I understand they had one soldier sleeping in a bunk in the daytime and a different one sleeping in the same bunk at night. And I can remember them having the canteens on the decks and the American troops had to line up. To line up at these and they’d have to, they’d get their rations slapped on to plates and then they had to run for about a hundred yards away. They had American service police who were belting them on the backside with a baton and saying, ‘Get moving buddy.’ And they’d belt them on the backside with batons to make them run so they would clear the area out and not be hanging around there. And I might add they’re talking about the meals on troop ships the meals we had on the American troop ship, the Matsonia were absolutely magnificent because the ship was almost empty and probably four or five course meals, unbelievable for troops. Yeah.
AP: Lovely. This is the first time obviously that you’ve been overseas isn’t it?
LM: Oh yeah.
AP: Yeah.
LM: Yes. Yes.
AP: It would have made a fairly big impact I imagine.
LM: A fair?
AP: A fairly big impact.
LM: Oh yes. Oh well, but I guess, I guess we took it all in our stride. It surprises me now that they didn’t seem to be big deals. All the young people just seemed to take it in their stride.
AP: So you, you then land in the UK.
LM: Yes, at Greenock.
AP: In Greenock. And presumably you then, you probably caught a train down to Brighton or something similar.
LM: Yes we would have caught a train to Brighton. That was, that was our first posting in England, to Brighton.
AP: What did you think of England? Seeing it for the first time as a young Australian.
LM: I guess again, I guess again we just took it in our stride. We just accepted what we, what we saw. I don’t remember having any particular thoughts about it. No. I can’t think of any immediate. Any impressions that I had.
AP: Did you, when was the first time that you realised you were now in a war zone?
LM: Oh well it didn’t take long to realise that because of course there were — beaches were, were fenced off with barbed wire along there. There were anti–aircraft guns on the beach front. More or less in front of our billets. We were billeted in a couple of the big hotels. There was the Royal and the Metro. I can’t remember which one I was in but I know there were plenty of signs of wartime then. You often used to see in the evenings the, off the coast you would see what certainly appeared to be gunfire. I understand the little motor torpedo boats used to get involved in little actions off the shore. You saw plenty of signs of that at night. Occasionally at Brighton, even at Brighton occasionally sirens going, air raid sirens going off. Oh no, it was soon very very obvious that [pause] I think we could get down to the beach. The beaches were not sand. They were, they were pebble beaches and absolutely marvellous for throwing stones. Skipping stones across the water. And I had one friend Henty Wilson and I — there was one place you could get down to the water and throw stones and we regularly went down throwing stones in the water there.
AP: Where did you go next, after Brighton?
LM: I can’t quite remember. I was at Brighton for, for a while. I don’t remember quite where I went but probably there was a, we went to a camp which was an interesting posting. We went to one called Credenhill near Hereford and it was not to do with flying. I can’t remember the purpose of the camp. We did a lot of exercises. Climbing over walls with nets on them and through big pipes and all that sort of thing. We did a lot of, did a lot of, a lot of exercises but it was interesting in that camp because after we’d been there for a few days all of the pilots on the course were called in to be given a talk by an RAF officer. And I don’t think we, I don’t think we understood what the talk was about really. But when he’d finished his talk he, he said, he asked us if any of us would volunteer to retrain as glider pilots. And we could hardly believe this. Nobody was remotely interested in it. He not only asked, he not only asked if anyone would volunteer. He more or less pleaded. He seemed to be quite insistent and, but still nobody even remotely thought of doing. We thought it was a backward step. And I don’t think, I don’t think we thought any more about it after that but about a month later after breakfast one morning I can recall.
[phone ringing, recording paused]
AP: Now you were saying about a month later, a month after —
LM: About a month later, near at the end of the course we were out after breakfast doing some exercises and we could hear the drone of aircraft, and suddenly aircraft appeared towing gliders. Going straight over our heads. Not at great height. Probably fifteen hundred feet or thereabouts and the sky became full of aircraft towing gliders and if you looked to the north as far as you could see and looked to the south as far as you could see they were gliders everywhere there. Strangely, at the time we didn’t immediately realise what was happening. It was later in the day that it was announced that the D-day landing had occurred and then of course we came to understand why we were asked if we would consider remustering as glider pilots.
AP: Wow. That’s great.
LM: So that was a, that was a pretty interesting posting to that place.
AP: Wow. That’s a good story. I like that one.
LM: Strangely I, I can’t I can still see them going over today but I can’t remember. I think they were mostly DC3s towing the very big gliders. Mostly DC3s and I can’t, I can’t even remember anyone commenting on what the aircraft were that were towing them. But the sky was full of aircraft as far as you could see. North and South and even from where they were coming they took quite some time to go over us.
AP: Suddenly we understood. I like it. Alright, were there any other training, well there were some more training units. After that did you do AFU or something like that? An Advanced Flying Unit.
LM: Oh yes. We did, we did a refresher course on Tiger Moths and I think we did a beam approach course on [pause] I can’t remember what they were but we did, did an AFU or whatever on Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords, which were a bit of a step up from the Ansons I suppose they were but I would still prefer the Ansons myself. And yeah, that was I can’t think where we were doing that but it was quite a comprehensive course on Oxfords. There was, there was another interesting posting. I think it was actually where we were doing the Oxfords. Yes. I think it was. It was at a place, at a small village called Badminton which I understand is pretty well known because of horse trials they have there. But it was, it was interesting in that in doing this course and yes I’m pretty sure it was with, with the Oxford — on one of the runways the one that was mostly used on taking off it went directly over the top of a very, very large mansion. It was, I think about three storeys high this mansion, and stone. Had a magnificent looking garden and driveways around it and had a big area of park like grounds surrounding it with scattered trees and a herd of deer in the, this surrounding land. And the deer didn’t seem to be worried in any way by the aircraft going over but, but the home belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort if I remember correctly. But we, and when it took off and going up straight over the top of the building we’d only be probably two or three hundred feet over it, night flying as well. And we couldn’t understand why that would be allowed because, especially because it was the wartime residence of Queen Mary. Queen Mary being the wife of the late George the Vth. I think he died in [pause] probably seven or eight years prior to the war. Anyhow, that was Queen Mary’s wartime residence and here are these aircraft flying directly over the top of the thing. Could not, and once we were very fortunate that we were invited. The dominion blokes who were on the course. Probably about a dozen Aussies and three or four Kiwis. Might have been a Canadian, I think. A couple of South Africans probably. We were invited to go to this. It was called Badminton House I think. We were invited to go and watch a film being shown. The film was, “Pygmalion.” And we were taken over in a bus, shown into this very large room barely furnished that had a screen for showing the film on. It had a row of about oh probably seven or eight more or less comfortable chairs and then probably about three or four rows of wooden benches. And also had a table with cups and saucers and things on it. Very big room. Very high ceiling. I reckon probably about twenty foot ceiling or something. So we were shown into that room and after a while a door opened and two very good looking girls walked in there and that caused a fair bit of excitement amongst all of our blokes. And soon after that they were followed by a couple of fairly foppish looking young blokes about the same age. That caused a bit of comment too I can say. And then two or three other people came into the room and then Queen Mary herself came in and she stood at the doorway and she looked at all the troops and beamed at everyone, looking around. Then she took up her seat and we all sat down. The lights went out. They showed this film, “Pygmalion.” I think later called, “My Fair Lady.” A couple of, I know a few of us were a bit worried about that because we knew the word, ‘bloody,’ was used a couple of times [laughs] in this film. Anyhow, we watched the film and enjoyed that and when it was finished the lights went on and Queen Mary stood up. And we would only be sitting, you know, probably three rows, three to four rows behind her. Probably ten or fifteen feet or something behind her. And she stood up and she beamed at everybody again and walked out followed by the others. Not a word was spoken in the entire time from when the time the girls came in ‘til everyone went out. Not one word was spoken. We were then given our cups of tea and some sandwiches and off home. So we were pretty fortunate to have that opportunity. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Presumably Church Broughton happened fairly soon thereafter.
LM: Went to Church Broughton.
AP: Yeah. You mentioned Church Broughton.
LM: Well we would have gone soon after Church Broughton was OTU. Where we crewed up. Crewed up at OTU. Yeah.
AP: Tell me about that process. How you crewed up.
LM: I don’t remember much about it. I mean, I think the process was that we were, a whole lot of us were let loose in a room and we had to make up our own crews I think. And I don’t really remember much about that process but we came out of it with a crew. We had, two of us were Aussies, a couple of Scotsmen and a couple of Englishmen. Six in the crew at that time. But, yeah. I just can’t remember much about the process. I think, I think most people are you know, sort of understood pretty well what happened but, you know I just don’t remember much about it.
AP: What sort of flying did you do at Operational Training Unit?
LM: Well it was on Wellingtons there and first of all it was mostly daytime. It was getting familiar because it was the biggest step of all, I think of, of going from an Oxford on to a Wellington. It was , yeah it was a bigger step than [pause] certainly bigger than previously and then of course there was a crew there to be thought of us as well. And yeah, quite, quite a big step and did, did mostly daylight until I guess we became familiar and competent with it. And mostly night flying after that. And it was, it was good joining with a crew. We seemed to get on pretty well I think and I think most crews got on. Most people on crews got on well. I really can’t think of any times when there was problems amongst the crews. I guess there were at times but I’m not aware of them and, you know, our crews certainly got on well.
AP: What was I going to ask you next? [pause] So you’ve now been in England for a little while. What sort of things did you get up to on leave and when you were off duty?
LM: Well when I happened to have a few relatives that I was able to visit. I certainly didn’t do enough visiting them but I had an aunt, a sister of my father who actually lived at Hove which was within walking distance of where I was at Brighton. And I’m really sorry to say that I can only remember going up a couple of times while I was there to visit them. I had two half-sisters who lived in, were living in England then. One that was more convenient to go. I used to go there on leave to stay with them. She lived in Stockbridge in Wiltshire, I think. Might have been Hampshire. Later on I had a motorbike and I did a little. We had a lot of leave later. In the latter part and I was able to get petrol for my motorbike. I’m not going to go into too much detail how some of that petrol was got [laughs] but we seemed to manage that and sometimes on a few occasions the whole of the crew went. I remember going, all going to London once because one of the English boys lived in London and I used to like trying to do sightseeing and visiting, looking at famous buildings like Winchester Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral and those sort of places. I can’t think too much more of leave but certainly at the, mostly at the latter time, of course, when the war had finished when we did have quite a bit of leave and that’s when I did the motorbike work.
AP: Can you tell me something more about that motorbike? What sort was it and where did you get it from?
LM: Well it was a Norton 500 and it was said to be the fastest bike on the station and the way I got it was that the flight engineer that joined our crew after we’d finished OTU, when we went on to Heavy Conversion Unit the flight engineer that we picked up had been a, been a racing rider, motorbike racing rider. And he organised this Norton 500 for me and he taught me how to ride it and that’s probably the most terrifying time that I had when I was, entire time when I was in England because he used to go — belt down these narrow country lane. We’d do a left turn for instance and he’d yell out, ‘Go over.’ I didn’t know much about going over as you turned a corner and then he’d yell out, ‘Come back.’ And we’d have to do but had traffic been coming the other way there was no way we could not have collided. He absolutely terrified the living daylights out of me. I don’t know if he was putting on a special show or for me or not, just to show me how good he was but anyhow I was pleased when my lessons were finished on that. It was years and years afterwards that I, it occurred to me that I don’t know whether the bike was registered or not. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been insured and I certainly didn’t have a licence, and I didn’t think a thing about this. And I can’t remember what happened. When I finished either. I think I just left it on the station.
AP: What a shame [laughs] Very nice. Did you see or hear about any accidents while you were training?
LM: Any accidents?
AP: Accidents. Like flying accidents.
LM: Oh yes. Oh well, yes, there were. There were some. There was. On EFTS originally at Narrandera one of the chaps who was quite a good friend of mine he baled out. Had to bale out of his Tiger Moth. But unfortunately he hit the release button instead of pulling the rip cord and that’s the first. That was the first accident, but oh yes, there were. There were accidents throughout the training and it I remember, I remember when we went to Bottesford on the Lancasters when we were taken on to the station. The first thing I saw was that, well we all noted it, was a graveyard of two or three wrecked aircraft, which struck a bit of a cord. Yeah. But yeah, there were often accidents with undercarriage, through landing and that sort of thing. Taxiing accidents too. Fortunately, I wasn’t involved in any accidents at all.
AP: So after your OTU, you’re on a Heavy Conversion Unit. That was, you said was at Bottesford.
LM: That was at Bottesford. Yes. Yes.
AP: Ok. Can you tell me something about Bottesford.
LM: We picked up, picked up the seventh member of the crew.
AP: What, what did you do there? Actually tell me of your first impression of a Lancaster.
LM: Well, I guess they were, they were big and, was the first impression. Big and powerful. But seemed to be, seemed to be, you know perhaps easier certainly than the Wellington. The Wellington was pretty heavy on the, on the controls. And the Lancaster just seemed to be easier to come to convert on to. And they were, they were a marvellous aircraft yes. But that’s about it I think. I can’t —
AP: What did your position, your pilot’s position in the Lancaster? What’s around you? What does it look like? What do you feel?
LM: What was the —
AP: Well the pilot’s position. What does it look like and what does it feel like when you’re sitting in a Lancaster?
LM: Well, the viewing was very good. Seeing out of the, seeing out of the aircraft which was important. There was no obstructed viewing. They looked pretty high when you were sitting. Sitting in them when you first got in to them. Pretty high off the ground. They just, they appeared, they seemed to me to be fairly easy after the Wellington. And I suppose it seems strange with young people who are not even twenty one and that having, and not perhaps being mechanically minded or anything like that, but everybody coped perfectly well. I don’t think I can add much to that.
AP: That’s alright. Some, a place where many things happened was the mess at various airfields. What was the atmosphere like in a wartime mess?
LM: In the wartime, in the mess?
AP: Yeah.
LM: Well it was usually fairly lively most nights [laughs] and I think there was some who used to hang on there longer than others. But I think they were yeah, I just remember enjoyable experiences of the mess as far as I’m concerned. There were occasionally, there was a lot of line shooting went on there I think. You’d see people standing at the bar waving their arms and manoeuvring with their arms and I think that’s where there were a few tall stories there. But I used to, I used to enjoy going into the mess and everybody got there. We used to play darts and all that sort of thing in there and that was a great little hobby, like going down to the local village pubs at night. That was a great little thing and we used to do that a lot. Most of our crew would go down there. And we’d get home alright at night usually [laughs] without too much trouble. But I used to even have my own set of darts that I used to take down to play. And I can imagine the, all the locals how much it would have upset them with all these kids practically coming in and pinching their dartboard and making nuisances of themselves in the local quiet little pubs. They were a great atmosphere in those little country pubs, yeah.
AP: What, you’ve just gone on to the front door of whatever your favourite pub was, you open the door, you step in. What do you see?
LM: What do you see? Well you usually see a fairly good crowd of people in there. And you’d see the blokes, you’d see the local blokes sitting down and playing draughts. A few of the others playing, playing darts. You’d probably notice the great big pots they had instead of a, instead of what we would normally have. They’d have a pint pot and a pint was a pretty big, pretty big volume of liquid. But that’s what they mostly did have there. Oh yeah, well I just think often the pubs that we used to go into were little, little country pubs because you know having an airfield near them you’re not near built up areas. And they were a great atmosphere.
AP: What was the English beer like?
LM: Well, I think you were almost duty bound to criticise it [laughs] but, you know, for all that everybody drank plenty of it. I think it was thought to be warm and this and that and the other but everybody — it didn’t put people off drinking, drinking it. But I think for most Aussies I think it was part of your duty to be critical of it.
AP: Still is. Do any of your flights, all throughout your, your flying career with the air force do any of your flights stick out in your memory in particular?
LM: Do any particular ones?
AP: Flights, yeah, any of your flying. For whatever reason.
LM: I don’t, I don’t see, I don’t think of any being any being particularly remarkable for any reason because we finished our training. It coincided with the end of the war. Pretty neatly I think. We, ours were all routine, routine training flights. There were always times that everybody would have experienced, you know, some drama or other. That happened, you know all the time I guess. There were little things of drama. But I don’t remember any being of any particular significance.
AP: So the end of your, you came to the end of your training and it happened to be the end of the war. How did you find out? Did you know that the end of the war was coming? Did it, you know was there we’re just waiting for it to happen now or, how did it actually happen?
LM: No. It’s such a long time ago now. I think, I suppose my thought is that probably it was only in the last week or so that from from my point of view that I, it seemed it was going to. There was talk of it earlier but to my way of thinking it was only in the last when it was actually coming up to the last week or so that I realised that it was going to. You seemed to be involved in what you were doing and you know I really haven’t got, you know good memories of that time.
AP: What were your feelings when the war did end? You found out. It’s over. Now what?
LM: I I suppose, I think I just thought, well that’s it. That’s it, you know, what happens now? I can’t remember having thought about any great sighs of relief or anything. I think it was, in those days you seemed to, you seemed to live day to day. You did what you had to do and didn’t sort of speculate much on other things and, yeah. I just feel that you went on with life. What was happening, you just went on with it you know. One thing finishes, something else starts.
AP: What did happened next?
LM: What did happen? Well we were sent, from my memory then, when we finished the course, from my memory I think we were sent up by train up to 467 Squadron and we were not taken on strength by them. There’s nothing in my records about it but I think we were sent up to 467 and then, and then without being taken on to the station I think we were issued with new rail passes and sent back again to Bottesford. But that’s getting a long, long time ago and from what I understood was that the crews on our Heavy Conversion Course, the ones that were all English crews, as I understand it, they were, they were sent on to a tour of duty flying prisoners of war back from Italy. I think minus the gunners of course, but the pilot, flight engineer, radio operator and navigator. I think that they were sort of retained. That was my understanding that the English crews did that. And we were sent on leave virtually I think at that stage. We used to get leave extended by a couple of weeks all the time.
AP: And that’s when you were hurtling around on your motorbike most of the time.
LM: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Great. I’ve seen some photos of Scotland in your photo album there. Tell me something of that little trip.
LM: Oh well I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to Scotland. And my forebears came from the Scottish Highlands so that was all very interesting, and that’s the, that’s sort of the destination that I eventually headed to. I did a lot around the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Skye, that sort of thing. And, you know, I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity of doing that. The motorbike seemed to go pretty well and I don’t think I ever had troubles with it. I can’t say what else but yeah, I got, I saw a lot of the Highlands and you know the, the lands that your forebears came from. So I was very lucky there. I wouldn’t have been able to do so otherwise. And I was able of course, with the motorbike, to get down to where my half-sister was living in the south of England. So I don’t know that I can enlarge on that.
AP: That’s alright. So travelled all over England after the war ended essentially is a summary of it.
LM: Well yeah. Well I travelled more, you know, more Scotland and — yeah. More Scotland rather than over the rest of England. Yeah.
AP: So how did you get home?
LM: I came home on a ship called the Athlone Castle. It came from Southampton and I don’t remember it but I noticed in one of the photographs I’ve got there is a photograph of the Queen Elizabeth at Southampton. So therefore I’ve seen the Queen Elizabeth on two different occasions. We came home through the Suez Canal. I think we arrived in Fremantle just before Christmas and if I remember we had Christmas Day between Fremantle and Melbourne.
AP: Christmas Day 1945.
LM: Yeah, ‘45 that would have been. Christmas Day 1945. And one thing I do remember about it. It would be about Christmas Day coming across The Bight between Fremantle and Melbourne. I remember seeing quite a number of whales that were spouting or blowing I think they call it. Yes. Which was quite interesting.
AP: So how long before you were demobbed?
LM: Not long at all. I was demobbed, I think, within a couple of weeks of getting home. As I mentioned my mother had moved, moved to Canberra and I think I had a, just had a short bit of leave, about five or six days or something and was demobbed soon afterwards.
AP: What happened then? How did you find re-adjusting to civilian life? Getting a job. A real job for once.
LM: It was quite unsettling really and I had, we were given, we were on the ship coming home we were given a few lectures on the future thing. We were, we were given the opportunity to go to, to apply for the university if we wanted to. And quite a few of my friends did take that opportunity of doing a university course. I think quite a few of them went. They had a campus at Mildura at the time. Straight after the war. And I actually think I filled in papers to do engineering at the university but I scrapped that. Soon after we got back I wanted to go on, decided I wanted to go on the land and do something because my people had always been on the land in the past. That didn’t, I don’t think that that fact that families had been on the land would influence me but I seemed to come to that decision that I wanted to do that. So I scrapped my, any thought of going to the university, to do engineering. But yeah it took a while to settle down.
AP: So you were a farmer for your working life. Is that what happened?
LM: Yes. Yes. I actually qualified to get a soldier’s settlement block under the Victorian scheme and I think I was very fortunate for that to happen. And it happened in a great area as far as I was concerned. So yes, I was very, very lucky. And until eighteen months ago I’ve lived on that. We lived on that property until eighteen months ago. We were over sixty years there. So that you know that was a really good opportunity.
AP: That was, that’s Lismore I think you said, wasn’t it?
LM: Sorry?
AP: That was Lismore area.
LM: At Lismore area. Yes. Yes
AP: Tell me about the book you wrote.
LM: Well I knew that I didn’t know much about family history but I knew that I had an old forebear who’d come out in the very early days to Adelaide in 1838. I didn’t know much about him really, really at all, and I think the first real interest that was sparked when I was training at Mallala. I had to do a cross country from Mallala across the, across the Mallee country to a place called Pinnaroo, somewhere. And where we crossed the Murray River, I noticed on the chart, just near the place we crossed the river on that flight there’s a place called McBeans’ Pound, and that made me wonder why that would be. I didn’t know anything about it but I knew there was a branch of the family living near the Barossa valley in South Australia and had been there for a long time. I did actually ring them up and speak to one of them while I was at Mallala and I was invited to call out. We used to do a lot of flights around. I remember [unclear] Kapunda, and things flying over, over there. They lived, their property was near Truro which I don’t think I ever flew over, but I did ring one of them. I was invited to go. To go out and visit them. I didn’t get the opportunity to, but that’s, that’s all that I knew and later on I got to, got to hear a few. There were always stories told about this old fella. He settled up in the Moulamein area mainly in New South, New South Wales, but there were lots of stories that were told about him. In fact, when I was boy of ten or twelve or something like that people used to visit my grandmother. And that’s all they seemed to do was tell stories about old Lachie and, but though they were mostly stories about his closeness with money or his eccentric ways or less eccentric ways. When I was a little boy, about ten or twelve or something like that I used to get really annoyed at these people telling these stories and I used to think, you know that story’s not true, and this sort of thing. And eventually, that must have been the first time really thought of the old fella and added to that scene this place called McBean pound on the Murray River caused me to look into it quite a lot. And so eventually I did research and as much as I could and put together this little book that I wrote about him. And I think it’s probably, probably one of the most important things that I have done because all of this history about the old bloke would have disappeared if I hadn’t written it down. Heaps of people in the past have had the opportunity and no one’s done it. And it would have all disappeared so I am pleased that I did write that.
AP: Lovely. Alright. Final question. What, to you is the legacy of Bomber Command and of your time in Bomber Command and how do you want to see it remembered?
LM: To see Bomber Command remembered. Well I suppose [pause] I suppose one thing it certainly taught discipline and that’s anyone who served learned plenty of that. There were certainly huge sacrifices made by, by young people with everything before them and you know as long as that’s remembered and known by people then it can only be a good thing. It would be, you know very sad if a lot of this stuff was lost, and there are not very many of them left these days. But [pause] well, all I can say is that I hope every, you know, every move that made us successful in remembering the efforts of Bomber Command and I don’t think I can add any more.
AP: Before we turn off the tape any final thoughts, stories.
LM: It would be a great weight off my mind if you turned off the tape [laughs]
AP: Alright [laughs] thank you Lachie.
LM: Alright. You know to think of you coming all this way just to do that.
AP: Not a problem at all. It’s been great.
Dublin Core
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AMcBeanLW161022
PMcBeanLW1602
Title
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Interview with Lachie McBean
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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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01:22:58 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-10-22
Description
An account of the resource
Lachie McBean grew up in Australia and joined the Royal Australian Air Force when he was 18. He was a pilot at a Heavy Conversion Unit when the war in Europe ended. After the war he returned to Australia and became a farmer. He also took the opportunity to research his family history and wrote a book about one of his ancestors.
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
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1945
aircrew
entertainment
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
pilot
RAF Bottesford
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Credenhill
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/299/3456/PMcCredieJ1501.2.jpg
65b66e10d1346350936c2a2992ea9edb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/299/3456/AMcCredieJ151012.1.mp3
9f439848621d77a4eaa9d17bf9ee984d
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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McCredie, John
John McCredie
J McCredie
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with John McCredie (1921 - 2016, 418236 Royal Australian Air Force), his log book and documents. He flew two operations as a pilot over France during training and was later posted to India.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John McCredie and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-12
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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McCredie, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: So this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive is with John McCredie who was a pilot during the Second World War. The interview is taking place at John’s home in Hawthorn in Victoria. My name is Adam Purcell and it is the 12th of October 2015. So John we might start from the beginning. Can you tell me something of your early life growing up? [unclear] That sort of thing.
JM: Well I was born in Princes Hill. I should say that my military career was a bit frustrated by having a mother whose brother had been shot. Had his face shot away in World War One. And she didn’t want me to have anything to do with the military. So I went through school being unable to join the cadets. But on my eighteenth birthday I took the liberty of enrolling in the militia. My piece of resistance. I joined the Melbourne University Rifles. War broke out three weeks later. I did my first military camp at Mount Martha with the MUR. I did another camp at Mount Martha with the MUR in which I was promoted to sergeant and was sent on to an officer’s training course in the militia in Seymour in June I think, 1941. It was there that I ran into these fellas back from the Middle East who had rather a scorn for chockos getting commissions and I thought my God what has happened now is if I take a commission I will not be allowed to join the AIF. I can’t, in any case I’d been pressing my parents to join the air force for a long while. So, on my eighteenth birth I wrote from Seymour and demanded that I be allowed to enrol in the air force which seemed my way of avoiding the inability to transfer. I also, I think it’s a bit of history that everyone in my generation was pretty influenced by Kingsford Smith, Hinkler, Amy Johnson, The Centenary Air Race and then the Battle of Britain.
AP: Of course.
JM: So that flying seemed to be very much the way to finish the war. I got my parent’s permission. Got on the air force reserve — I think in August ’41. Came the Japanese and all service transfers were put at a stop. You weren’t allowed to transfer from the militia. And so I had the good luck of having my old battalion commander Colonel Ralph in charge of — Colonel Balfour I should say. Being in charge of a unit called, Lines of Communication, which dealt with inter-service transfers. So I went along to see the colonel and we had a chat about old days. And then I explained my dilemma. That I had qualified for a commission. I didn’t want to take it because I wanted to get into a voluntary service and I wanted to join the air force. And he said, ‘Well, you’ve just done a commando course at Wilson’s Promontory.’ Which I had. He said, ‘We’re enrolling the 6th Independent Company next month,’ I think he said, ‘And I can have you commissioned in that.’ And this was a Friday and I said, ‘Do you mind if I think of it over the weekend, Colonel?’ He said, ‘No. My boy.’ So I thought of it over the weekend. I didn’t really need to think. I’d got the idea at Wilson’s Promontory that if you took a commission in the commandos it tended to be considered a one way ticket. And I’d like to think that I had a return ticket. The possibility of a return ticket at least. And so I came back on the Monday and confirmed to him that I wanted to go into the air force. And that’s how I got transferred. I not only got transferred I got an accelerator transfer. So that I got in ahead of an old school mate who had agreed that we’d both joined up together and then had gone in ahead of me. So that was rather satisfactory. Anyway, I did my training. We all probably wanted to be fighter pilots but you had to show that aptitude and I don’t think I quite had it as a flyer. So I was put on twins and I went through training in Australia. Temora, and Point Cook. From there half of our course at Point Cook was transferred to England because there was a shortage of, supposed shortage of air crew in England and a shortage of aircraft in Australia. So that was all. I got to England. Spent three months enjoying myself rather than [laughs] I should say rather than doing nothing we spent time in Bournemouth, Whitley Bay, Brighton and then I was sent to a place called South Cerney for familiarisation. Did this on Oxfords. The same aircraft I’d flown in Australia. Had the good fortune and this is the vital thing in war — to have good fortune. I had an instructor who saw the crash coming before I did and dived. We just missed a crash at night in midair and that was a lesson in alertness. We did a night flying course at a place called Cranage where I met up with a lot of interesting people. A chap who’d been in the French Foreign Legion. Two Dutchmen. And a couple of people. An American I think. A strange way that Americans somehow got into the RAF. Anyway, after that I went to Harwell which was the Heavy Conversion Unit. Sorry. Not Heavy Conversion Unit. The OTU. And at this time of the war Churchill and Roosevelt had met at Casablanca and there this other question of supply and need came up because Churchill obviously went well briefed on what aircrews were doing nothing in England. And Roosevelt went well briefed on what aircraft didn’t have crews to fly them in the Indian theatre. So Harwell was turned into an OTU. More or less for sending people to the Far East. And it was my good fortune to be sent there at that time of the war because it was close to a one way ticket on Bomber Command in early 1944. So that is roughly the story of my relationship with Bomber Command. On, if you want to ask questions about that.
AP: Yeah. That’s alright. Well, I think we will definitely. It’s a nice overview of everything. This happened in my last interview too. I asked one question and ten minutes later he said, ‘And that’s how I got on a boat to come home.’ Like, well, we’re finished. Anyway, so yeah a little bit more detail I suppose. You were accepted in to the air force. You were still in the militia at this stage.
JM: Yeah.
AP: I think. Was there a time difference between saying, ‘Yeah you’re in the air force,’ and actually showing up at the ITS? Was there? Like how long did that take?
JM: Well, what happened was you applied for the air force which I did, I think in about, well it was after my eighteenth birthday. After my twentieth birthday which was on the 13th of August. They put you through a few tests like holding your breath under water or something and then made you breathe in and out. And did a couple of other things. Touch your toes perhaps. And then said, ‘Oh, you were on the air force reserve so you’ve got to do —’ and I was working in the National Bank at that time. So after I finished the officer’s training course which went for about two months I went back to the bank and then there would be this business of going in to a place on Flinders Street and learning the Morse code. What else? Aircraft recognition. Perhaps we, we were given something on that. Did they have link trainers there? I didn’t think they did. No they can’t have.
AP: So just your basic. Your basic. So you did that at sort of night school, sort of, sort of thing.
JM: Yes. Yes.
AP: Rather than, rather than they sent you something and you worked through it at home.
JM: No. No. I frankly forget how often. I think it was once a week.
AP: Something like that.
JM: I trotted in there and then I was called up again in the militia on the 7th of [pause] No. Sometime in November. And the bank fought too.
AP: Oh really.
JM: They said, ‘This man’s on the air force reserve. You can’t have him in the militia.’ And the militia insisted on having me and so I went back into camp and that was an interesting time because the MUR at that time was a polyglot unit taking in chaps AIF people and all that sort of thing. And I found myself having refused a commission they made me a wing sergeant major which was very funny. I had a little man as my orderly room corporal who later became my boss in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
AP: Connections.
JM: Such is life.
AP: Yeah.
JM: The – so that was a funny episode in my life.
AP: What, what memories, if any, do you have of your Initial Training School. So we’re talking air force now.
JM: Well we did all these things that some of which were of interest and some weren’t. I think we got sorted out into the sheep and the goats. Whoever were the goats I don’t know. You did these aptitude tests of various sorts. They somehow decided some people ought to be pilots. Some people ought to be air gunners. Some people ought to be wireless operators. Some people ought to be navigators. The eggheads seemed to get the navigation job. The [pause] I think most hoped to be a pilot ‘cause it’s, being a pilot is like being the driver of a car.
AP: Very much so.
JM: You’re the person who doesn’t have to worry about other people. The way that passengers might have to worry at the way you drive.
AP: Certain, certain control, control freak, you could say. Yeah [laughs] I understand. Where was your ITS. Was that at Somers?
JM: I went from Somers.
AP: Yeah.
JM: I did the ITS there. Oppy incidentally was my flight commander. He took us for drill. Oppy wasn’t considered a good class master but he was a good drill master.
AP: Oppy being the cyclist.
JM: [Procurement?] officer.
AP: Yes. That’s right. That’s what I thought.
JM: Later became a minister in the government in Canberra.
AP: Yeah.
JM: Again the oddities of coincidence — I once sold a car to him in Canberra [laughs] when I was on posting to somewhere. I advertised the car and Oppy came along and ‘opped into it.
AP: Alright. So you’re, I forget what you said, you were at Point Cook which was Service Flying Training School.
JM: Yes.
AP: I think. The other one was — where did you do your initial training?
JM: Elementary Flying Training.
AP: Yes.
JM: Was at Temora?
AP: Temora, that’s right. Temora, ah yes. Ok. I have to ask every pilot. Tell me about your first solo.
JM: What’s that?
AP: Tell me about your first solo.
JM: It took a long while. It took me ten hours and fifty minutes if I remember and a couple of my mates, Chumley and Ingalls, did it in about six hours. That frustrated me a bit. But before I went I can tell you a story that I think is of interest. I had an instructor called Lionel Watters and he’d been a Broken Hill coal miner. Led miner I suppose. He was a rough diamond I think you could say. A huge man and he was a very good flyer. He’d been an amateur flyer before the war and had taken to instructing. He wanted you to do things. He told you how to do them and came down like a ton of bricks if you didn’t do them properly. So we were doing stall turns on one occasion and well that story is one I’ll leave for a non-recordable [laughs] I’ll tell you another story however. That we were practicing emergency landings. What you do in a Tiger Moth for an emergency landing is select a nice field. The instructor turns the petrol off and says, ‘Now you go and show me how you’d land it.’ And before doing that he had said, ‘Now when you descend in gliding fashion the engine cools and every five hundred feet you should warm the engine.’ And so we’re about three thousand feet and he tells me, ‘Ok. Land it in that field, McCredie.’ So I start gliding and I glide and I glide and I glide and he said, ‘It’s rather cold up here today don’t you think McCredie?’ I said, ‘Oh not too bad.’ He said, [stress] ‘No. But your bloody engine’s feeling the cold.’ And he rammed the throttle on and flew away. And I suppose I can safely tell this tale about that he had a girlfriend nearby living on a farm and every day he’d like to convey a message to them that he was flying around. And this time he dove to about five feet [laughs] and that was the end of my lesson for the day.
AP: Beautiful. That’s, yeah there’s a number of stories of that sort of shenanigans, shall we say, in Tiger Moths.
JM: Yes. So from there my friends Chumley and Ingalls went on to singles and I went on to twins at Point Cook.
AP: Point Cook. So you’re flying Oxfords at Point Cook.
JM: Pardon?
AP: You were flying Oxfords at Point Cook you said or Ansons.
JM: Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords.
AP: Airspeed Oxfords.
JM: Yes.
AP: What did you think of those after the Tiger Moth? What did you think of those after the Tiger?
JM: Well, no fun at all. We did make fun. From, from Point Cook we flew at satellites. The first two months were at Werribee, the third month was at Lyra, I think and the fourth month was at Little River. Now by the time we got to Little River we had become bored with Oxfords but we were sent on cross countrys’ and it became the norm when you were sent on a cross country to try a bit of low flying. So this is strictly illegal.
AP: Of course.
JM: Having been influenced by Watters and his girlfriend I had found a little driveway near, I think, a place called Lethbridge. It was very nice to drive along and frighten the occupants. And I was not alone in doing this and I was lucky enough not to be the one who came home with a bit of a tree in his undercarriage. Sticking out of the fuselage or something. But that was [pause] so we had — it’s funny how those training memories are not as evident as later memories.
AP: [They might?]
JM: I carry, I had a, you flew with a pair and I had this fella who I think was more inept than me as a pilot as my pair. And some of his landings were quite hair raising. But that poor fellow was killed in training in Europe sometime later. In England sometime later. And one can say that without being surprised he probably should have been scrubbed.
AP: That was actually going to be my next question. With all of these. Particularly with all of these antics going on. Low flying and mucking around because let’s face it you were twenty years old and you’ve got an aeroplane so you’re going to go and fly it. Were there accidents and things that you saw?
JM: Well that one of the person hitting the tree at Point Cook it’s the only one I remember in training. In Harwell somebody came in and crashed on landing. But, and certainly at Harwell we had these ancient aircraft because we were going to India, or most of us, we had one of the last two units flying Wellington 1Cs. Those going on to ops in Europe had the, went through OTUs on Wellington 10s which were very much upgraded and could fly at the proper height. But the 1C could only — well in icing conditions I did two what are called, what the [pause] two little flights over France which were called training flights. And on the second one we iced up. The aircraft couldn’t climb above eight thousand feet. My navigator, bless his heart, took us back over a place called [unclear]. And [unclear] happened to be quite heavily defended so we had the sound, I don’t know if as a small boy you ever ran along a picket fence with a stick making a noise.
AP: Many times. Many times.
JM: Yeah. So you know that noise. Well that’s exactly what it’s like listening to the flak hitting a canvas covered aircraft like the Wellington. And we came home with a couple of holes but fortunately they didn’t hit or injure somebody. But I did have another incident at Harwell where again it was luck. Because I’d given some cheek to my flight commander which he got back to me in briefing when he decided he’d take people through fire drill. He said, ‘McCredie. You tell us what you’d do in fire drill.’ And McCredie got up and stuttered and stammered. Anyway, he made me repeat the words after him. And there was the luck of the game because about not very long later I did have a fire and that meant landing on, calling, ‘Darkie. Darkie. Darkie. Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.’ And finding Silverstone answer and having to go down there at night on one engine which was, you know, was something. I had to bail my crew out. The same navigator who took me over [unclear] I found crouching behind me when I landed.
AP: Oh really.
JM: So when I caught up with him again and we were forming crews on Liberators in India and he wanted to join up with me I said, ‘I’m sorry Tom.’ But, but that was, I had similar luck again in, when we were in India. Things were a bit dicey. The Japs had got right up to the border. The second Imphal line which was the border with Burma. The Indian National Army which comprised deserters from the British forces in Singapore were with the Japanese. There was this fear in India that things could erupt internally in spite of Ghandi’s passive resistance thing with the influence of the Indian National Army. And the four Liberator squadrons were sent on this around India show of force. In formation over Madras, Nagpur, Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta. Just to show the natives what they would be up against if we decided to have some sort of armed resistance. So on the first of these I had what was called a runaway prop.
AP: Oh dear.
JM: And with a runaway prop you just can’t go on flying. You know the, you know the problem?
AP: It’s the pitch. The pitch changes and yeah —
JM: Yeah. So I had to fly around with four hours on three engines but I’d noticed all the emergency things you do when you have anything like an engine misfunction. I had the, I suppose you could say good luck to survive an assault on an armed boat and so on. That was on the 1st of January 1945. We’d bombed the bridge in Burma. We’d been told Japanese were supplying their forces by sea and if you come across any shipping it’s likely to be doing this. Attack it. So we had a rendevous at a place called Kalegauk Island after the raid on the bridge. And so I saw someone going in on this boat and I went in and followed him. The first chap got shot down and I lost an engine but I had this totally new experience of losing an engine and it, well it was the luck of the game. We moved quickly enough to [pause] we had a fire. My boys reported the fire to me and I boldly told them to put it out.
AP: Do something.
JM: That’s right. [laughs] it’s funny in the way. The thing that’s reported they don’t put it out until they were told to [laughs]
AP: Initiative boys. Initiative. Alright.
JM: Anyway. I’m sorry if that’s —
AP: No. Listen, it’s all, it’s all part of your story and that’s still very valuable to get anyway. I can, I can assure you. I’m sitting here rapt. So getting to the UK. I suppose you finished at Point Cook. You have your wings ceremony at Point Cook so you’ve got your wings.
JM: Yeah.
AP: At that point. Then you go to the UK. How do you get from A to B?
JM: Yes. We got on the Nieuw Amsterdam on the 6th of March 1943. We crossed to San Francisco. The Nieuw Amsterdam was, had brought troops back from the Middle East before picking us up and I must say those troops didn’t do a favour by the wildlife they brought into the bedding.
AP: Oh dear.
JM: So I was travelling with my friend Ingalls who was on singles, I mentioned earlier but he was going to Europe too. Both of said enough is enough. We slept on deck for the rest of that voyage. We, we had a commander called [pause] a troop commander called Major Crennan. He was the son, I believe of Archbishop Crennan who was a catholic prelate somewhere. And Crennan later became part of the Royal Commission into Petrov. Part of the council for it. I think. Which was interesting. But he had no idea of discipline and he thought it would be a good idea if air force trips needed to be exercised so he would order us to march around the decks in military order and this sort of thing and there’s always a minstrel associated with military units and we had a minstrel on board who wrote a little verse. And what I remember of the verse went something like, in part, went something like, “Oh tell me quick what lunatic, what fiend of devilish notion, marched us thrice like bloody mice around the bloody ocean.” And this was distributed in a pamphlet that they’d brought out on board the ship which had some very witty things in it. And Crennan, I must say, to do him justice stopped behaving like a bloody lunatic [laughs]
AP: So you got to San Francisco.
JM: We got to San Francisco. We then had this devious crossing of America by train from Oakland to a place called [pause] oh dear. The name is going to elude me. But somewhere in Connecticut. And this was an American army base. And the trip across had taught us a few lessons I suppose. Such as don’t leave watches in your tunic pocket which you hang up in a Pullman carriage overnight because the Pullman porters seem to have very adhesive fingers. We got taken for Austrians and told what good English we spoke. People still do.
AP: They do.
JM: In America I’m told. Yes. We read books and I remember being introduced to Ogden Nash. Have you ever read Ogden Nash?
AP: I’ve never read Ogden Nash but the name rings a bell somewhere.
JM: Yeah. Well, you should look up on the internet a ballad of Ogden Nash’s called “Four prominent bastards are we.” “Your banker, your broker, your Washington Joker.” Four prominent bastards.
AP: Fair enough.
JM: Poor fellow who got taken down by them ended up saying he was a self appointed bastard and he was out to get it back. So that was part of my education.
AP: On your way across the US.
JM: On my way across. Apart from, no it was interesting to see America for the first time in its vastness and its variety.
AP: You didn’t have a chance to go on leave at all during that trip or it was straight across and get going?
JM: Well I had the misfortune to develop a carbuncle on the back of my neck so I spent the ten days we were at — Miles Standish was the name of the station.
AP: Rings a bell.
JM: At Miles Standish. I spent ten days in hospital there and had to fight to get out to join me fellows on the Louis Pasteur which we used to cross the Atlantic. And so apart from my first night there at which we attended the American mess and saw them doing all their modern antics which they were into. Not rock but whatever the dancing style of the time was. A bit ahead of us. So they had women in the mess and that sort of thing. So that was interesting insight. In hospital I had the interesting experience of having fellows who were very much against the Roosevelt government alongside me. They were southerners who felt that Roosevelt didn’t represent them. And —
AP: Fairly, fairly eye opening for a twenty year old I imagine.
JM: Yeah. And the interesting thing was I remember this fella saying, ‘And you’ve never had a hamburger?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘We eat meat pies in Australia.’ To which he replied, ‘What’s a [accent] meight pie?’ [laughs] So, so I had that experience of America that —
AP: Fair enough.
JM: Perhaps some of my fellows didn’t have. Then the crossing in the Pasteur was not luxury. Pasteur was shaped a bit like a canoe and it had latrines at each end. And the movement of the ship was like that. So that there would be an overflow from the latrines right through the mess decks. Mess deck comprising people in hammocks above tables. And our mess deck was right in the centre.
AP: That’s often the case.
JM: So we would be wading somewhat.
AP: So when was —
JM: And I won’t tell you what we were wading through.
AP: It was quite literally a mess deck.
JM: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. I suppose a fair few more people on there like more crowded conditions as well than crossing The Pacific.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: On that one as well.
JM: Yeah. So your hammocks your head lay between two pairs of feet. As people have probably told you.
AP: Lovely. And that took what a week or two weeks or something.
JM: Oh about five or six days.
AP: Five or six days.
JM: It was the height of the submarine campaign. Early ‘43. And we were on the alert and my friend Ingalls and I did regular eight hours on — four hours on, four hours off duty on the port. Rear port. Twelve pounder. So that was I thought I should have qualified for an Atlantic Star for it [laughs]
AP: That’s probably reasonable [laughs] What time of year was that?
JM: That was [pause] that was April.
AP: April. So that’s —
JM: Yeah.
AP: So it wasn’t too cold. It wasn’t like the middle of winter or anything so it wasn’t too —
JM: No. No.
AP: Too cold in the North Atlantic.
JM: No. But we saw a bit of the middle of winter in places like Utah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. I imagine. Not much fun. So your ship would have come in Liverpool or Scotland or something like that.
JM: Liverpool.
AP: Liverpool.
JM: Yes. And then we did this trip to Bournemouth by train and I remember writing home to my parents. Remember I had just picked up the card I had sent a few days ago and I wrote and said when you make your post-war journey to England which they had planned or they’d hoped for I said do it in April because, “Oh to be in England now that April’s there.” Because a magnificent sight. You looked in wonder at scenes you’d never see in Australia of little villages tucked away behind green fields and church spires coming up. It was very exciting for a generation brought up on English literature.
AP: And that was, that funnily enough was going to be my next question. Your first impressions of England as a, presumably this is the first time you’d travelled overseas.
JM: Yes.
AP: So, so for a yeah a young bloke to be travelling.
JM: Yeah.
AP: In places that you’d only ever read about.
JM: No.
AP: That would have been —
JM: No. No.
AP: An experience, I imagine
JM: What I, my mother was a very keen reader and one of the books I had remembered reading was, “In Search of England,” by HV Morton if you’ve ever heard of it but that took you around all the memorable places in England. So, yeah. Brian Ingalls and I spent a lot time visiting some places on HV Morton’s recommendation.
AP: Excellent. So you were in Bournemouth for some time. I’ve heard, I’ve heard a fair bit about Bournemouth because pretty well every Australian went to either Bournemouth or Brighton.
JM: Yes.
AP: Depending on what time they went there. At some time that unit moved to Brighton.
JM: Yes.
AP: I can’t remember exactly when that was but impressions it sort of depends on when you arrived and how long you were there as to what happened but a lot of not much seems to have happened. It was a sort of holding point.
JM: Well yes you were wondering why you’d been sent to England. And we did odd parades. Church parades which one did one’s best to avoid. I remember we were put up at a place called Durley Dean which — strange memory but my first residence in England and Brian Ingalls and I, I remember from there visited Salisbury to see the cathedral. And we visited Oxford. And I can remember going to see the “Maid of the Mountains.” And a pianist called Solomon gave a concert which the only thing I remember about it was his name. But one, neither Brian nor I drank at that stage so we were more interested in — oh we went to a place called Poole. I remember that particularly because of our train trip home. We had two young girls in the train apartment with us and we’d got chatting with them on the way and the train, the train went into a tunnel. As we came out I looked at Ingalls doing exactly the thing that I was doing.
AP: Excellent. Subtle. No [laughs] Lovely. Did you, did you have any impression of wartime England? Like what was your first sort of thought?
JM: My favourite story is, again it was Ingalls, we were at Whitley Bay. We were spent to an RAF commando course and had a corporal trying to control these air crew. Australian aircrew. Which he wasn’t very, well he was cooperative. We would say, ‘Look corp, we’ll march in proper order of parade and you just take us to someplace where we won’t be seen and we’ll all have a smoke.’ And that was our commando course. But from Whitley Bay Ingalls and I went in to have a look at Newcastle. And I think it was a Sunday and we were looking in this window and there was a bun in the window. And it, we must have been looking longingly at it because this old lady came up to us and said, ‘You boys look hungry.’ We said, ‘You don’t do to well on air force ma’am.’ She said, ‘You come home with me.’ She took us home and boiled eggs for us and there was an egg rationing in England and she gave us her week’s ration of eggs. That’s a story I’ve never forgotten. So it, I also, we had family friends the sister of whom lived in a place called Cawsand in Cornwall and she ran a boarding house there. So when we had leave instead of joining the Ryder Scheme which a lot of people did I would go and visit her then. I’d get to know something of the Cornish people. Met this family that rejoiced in singing the [pause] what is it? The Cornish, Cornish Floral Dance. Is that it?
AP: Doesn’t ring a bell. I’ve been to Cornwall once but it was about —
JM: Yeah.
AP: About twenty years ago. So I was quite young.
JM: Cawsand was a delightful place. The bus doesn’t take you there. You have to walk across fields with your kit bag over your shoulder. To get there on one occasion I I had to stay in the Salvation Army place in Bristol and I have to say that was the most uncomfortable night I have ever had to stay in my life and that includes sleeping in bedbug chapoys in India. No. No. Very unpleasant.
AP: So you’ve, you’ve been sitting there at Bournemouth for a while. Travelling around.
JM: Yeah.
AP: Next step I guess, oh next step was —
JM: The next step we went to Whitley Bay.
AP: Whitley Bay. That’s right.
JM: And we were there when the Fokke Wolves shot up Bournemouth.
AP: Bournemouth.
JM: If you’ve heard about that tale.
AP: I’ve heard about it. I’m aware of it but if you know anything about it.
JM: Yes. Well —
AP: Sorry. You were at Bournemouth or you were at Whitley Bay? You were actually at Bournemouth did you say or were you at Whitley Bay?
JM: We were, we’d been sent from Bournemouth to Whitley Bay to do this commando course.
AP: Another one of those.
JM: We heard all about it when we got back.
AP: It’s another one of those lucky things
JM: Yes. So but from Whitley Bay we visited Edinburgh. That was lovely except it was still British double time. It was still daylight when you took the girl home —
AP: Yes [laughs]
JM: From the local dance.
AP: I have heard a number of people lamenting that fact. Yes.
JM: Yes. That must have been practically, we must have been there about June the 21st I think.
AP: The longest day. Yes.
JM: And then from Whitley Bay I don’t remember [pause] yes we did go back to Bournemouth because we learned about the air raid then. And then we were moved to Brighton and Brighton was a place that one was very easy to dodge church parade. We were put up at the Metropole Hotel which was right next to the Grand Hotel which was the hotel that Maggie Thatcher was in when the terrorists attack on it. And the Metropole was a sort of twin hotel. We were on the fifth floor and had to go up to five floors of stairs.
AP: Stairs [laughs]
JM: And it was a Victorian, a Victorian hotel without lifts if I remember rightly. But no, Bournemouth was an enjoyable experience because plenty of entertainment and I remember seeing, “No. No Nanette.” That’s the only thing. We got up to London on leave and I saw a lot of plays in London which were very [pause] of course and went to places that weren’t plays like seeing Phyllis Dixie who was the strip woman and who noticed it when you moved from the back row to the front rows after the interval. And then after that there was the — they were great, great times times in Brighton. One had got used to being in England by then and knew one’s way about. Church parade was easy to dodge because we marched from the Majestic to a church through with about seven changes of direction so every time the platoon or whatever it was, turned a corner, the last three would drop off and head for, head for somewhere to have a cup of awful wartime coffee. Which was preferable to listening to sermon.
AP: Excellent. Now acclimatisation I think you said was next.
JM: Hmmn?
AP: You said after, after you’d been to Brighton for a little while.
JM: Yes.
AP: Your next unit was Advanced Flying Unit I think.
JM: Well one took leave and I think we took leave in from Bournemouth and from Brighton because there was nothing to do. You might as well have a couple of days off.
AP: Any — apart from seeing plays and things in London what else did you, did you get up to there. General impressions of wartime London I think is what I’m interested in.
JM: Yes. Well I didn’t drink so I I was more interested in seeing what I could of the entertainment side. My friend, Newman, this was from OTU that Newman excelled himself. He went to a place called the Gremlin Club in London and they started playing a tune called, “You’ll never know.”Do you know the tune?
AP: I don’t know the tune. No.
JM: “You’ll never know just how much I love you. You’ll never know just how much I care.”
AP: Ah yes.
JM: And so on which Newman sang beautifully. And he got up and sang it at the Gremlin Club and sang it and was invited to come back anytime and perform for them [laughs] but I never had that distinction in my visits to London.
AP: Fair enough. Where was your next posting? Where was your next posting after?
JM: South Cerney, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. And that was where I mentioned I had the good luck to have this New Zealand instructor who was so quick.
AP: Oh yes.
JM: That he saw what was coming in time. What else do I remember of that? We — I got into a bit of trouble for deciding to shoot up the flight club because the CO of the place had annoyed me once which was [laughs] I don’t know why I was so stupid when I was young but one does things. So I got put on a charge for that.
AP: But was that —
JM: It didn’t do me any good.
AP: So I imagine flying in wartime England there would have been aeroplanes everywhere.
JM: Well that was the problem, you see.
AP: Very congested. Yeah.
JM: South Cerney. Moreton in the Marsh. Other places all doing the same thing quite close to one another. All inexperienced pilots learning about the hazards of flying in England.
AP: It would have been a bit different as well when and I know from my own flying, you know, you’re doing navigation in Australia. You take off. There’s one town. And you, you know, you write that time down.
JM: Yeah.
AP: And then you fly and then the other town, the next town appears.
JM: Yeah.
AP: Whereas in England there’s a town there, and there’s one there and there’s one there and they all look the same.
JM: Yes.
AP: How was that to adjust too?
JM: Well, I [pause] yes I, you had your wireless contact of course which was only good when you were within five miles of base. It was not high frequency. So mostly you learned to identify the surroundings but the RAF had a wonderful TM. Have you heard about TM?
AP: I have heard of TM. Yes.
JM: So —
AP: Pilot Officer Prune.
JM: Every month it would come out and they would award the Most Highly Derogatory Order of the Irremovable Finger. The MHDO. If you’ve heard of that. I remember one of their stories of the CO of a training unit who was caught looking — had landed at the wrong airport and was caught looking at the notice board of the of the, in the officer’s mess to try and find out where it was. So he was awarded the MHDOIF.
AP: Yeah. It was not, not an unusual thing I imagine. Getting lost. I do —
JM: I don’t think I ever heard of anyone who did that. As I say I landed once at Silverstone purposefully.
AP: So you, when you went to OTU did you know before you got there that India was the ultimate destination or did it sort of happen after you got there?
JM: Well the funny thing is I, I went through life until five years ago when I read my letters home for the first time that I had written in May 1943 that we’d been given the option of volunteering to go to India and I had opted to do so. So I’d reassured my parents that being overseas didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fight the Japs. And I’d put my name down to do it. Now, for something like forty years they laboured under the illusion that I’d only found out when I got to Harwell. But that’s memory.
AP: So that, that letter was written before you got there.
JM: That letter was written in May 1943.
AP: And when did you —
JM: And I only read it about five years — my sister gave me my letters that I’d sent home.
AP: Fantastic. Ok and so then you went to OTU just after that was that. Was that the idea?
JM: I went to OTU in, I suppose, September ’43.
AP: Ok. So, so that, that was the process?
JM: Yeah.
AP: Ok. So you already knew when you got there.
JM: Yeah.
AP: So I suppose for you the OTU process for you would have been a bit different to the — let’s call it the standard.
JM: There was, there was no certainty.
AP: Of course not.
JM: That when you got to Harwell that one would go to, I think that was the point too. Because some of them were sent to a place called Melbourne, Yorkshire. On, I think, Halifaxes.
AP: Yorkshire probably was. Yes.
JM: From Harwell. Anyway, I went to India.
AP: How. What happened at OTU? What sort of training did you do on the ground? What sort of stuff?
JM: Well the flying was just getting familiar with operational flying conditions. Doing a lot night flying. Doing two nickels over France as I mentioned. Doing low level flying over water. Doing, I suppose, cross countrys’. I don’t just — but a lot of night flying. That was the emphasis. And then by this time I had found the delights of alcohol. So a typical night would be after supper we’d have a beer at the mess and then someone would say, ‘I think I’ll go along and see what is on at the New Inn.’ This was in Hampstead Norris which was a satellite of Harwell. So we’d trot along to the New Inn. And someone would say oh there’s a dance on so we’d find our way to a dance hall somewhere in the wilds of England. And so that, yeah I found myself deceived very badly by a beautiful English girl called Bridget Belinda Barnes. I remember it to this day because we had danced and I asked her for her name and she told me and I said, ‘That’s a mouthful.’ And she said, ‘Well my friends call me BB.’ I said, ‘Well do you mind if I just call you B?’ So we got on sportingly and then she got on a bus to go to Newbury where she lived. But she said, ‘You must come and see me tomorrow,’ and she gave me her address. And I thought this was terrific. To get to Newbury you had to bicycle so I got found of these English monstrosities that was, you know, to go push them on the level seemed like climbing a one in ten gradient. And the trip to Newbury is over the Berkshire downs. It was December. My gloves were quite inefficient so one would get down to the downhill business and put ones hands in ones pockets and go down. No hands. And then have to push up the next hill. So I got to Newbury which was about eight miles away and reported to the — and of all things Bridget Belinda Barnes had invited all her boyfriends to help in a bazaar [laughs]
AP: Very good. That was a long cold ride home.
JM: It was a long cold ride home. And I didn’t even go to the mess for a drink with my humiliation heart.
AP: Can’t trust them. So you said you started drinking by this stage. Was there anything particular that brought that on?
JM: I got sick of writing letters home, I thought, well someone told me that cider was a reasonable thing to drink if I didn’t like beer. And Gloucester is near Somerset. Full of Bulmer’s cider and so I went to the mess and drank cider. Pint of cider per pint of beer with my friends. And they wouldn’t come near me for days afterwards. It could have quite an explosive effect.
AP: Fair enough. Was that OTU?
JM: No that was at AFU.
AP: AFU. Right. Oh of course.
JM: Yeah. And so I I decided that beer couldn’t be as distasteful as that. And had no problems thereafter.
AP: It’s the English wartime beer. Did you, did you do the, I guess, familiar crewing up thing at OTU? Was that? How did that happen?
JM: I think, I think they were bestowed on us at OTU. In India we selected our crew and that’s where I came not to select my former navigator.
AP: That was. Yeah. So that’s I guess that’s a very significant difference from Bomber Command.
JM: Yeah.
AP: In a lot of cases. Obviously at OTU it’s I guess, you could say, it’s the tradition put you in a hangar and sort yourself out boys.
JM: Yeah.
AP: So ok but bestowed on you. That’s a bit different. Well we might as well go on to India while we’re here and enjoying having a chat. You’re at OTU. You finished the course. How did you get to India?
JM: Well we were sent to Blackpool awaiting a ship. And that was a piece of entertainment too. Yes. One used to go to the Blackpool tower of a night and you’d have a table there to which everyone had to supply a drink and by the time you became the last person probably propping the bar having to buy about a dozen drinks. But I hoped to meet some gorgeous woman there and don’t think I ever had any. No I never had any success that way but on my last night I decided I’d escort this damsel home and I suggested she might like to go into an air raid shelter with me and she said, ‘In there with you. You must be daft.’ [laughs] That was my last night in England [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
JM: So the ship, this is where the ship to India. This is where my good friend Newman did the dirt on me. Because Newman at this time was a warrant officer and I was only a flight sergeant. And he should have been in charge of the mess deck but he somehow manoeuvred it so that I was put in charge of the mess deck. And the problem with that was that when you hit a storm in the Mediterranean if you were in charge of the mess deck you were responsible for its orderliness inspection time. And as half the occupants vomited during a storm in the Mediterranean I had the problem of ordering people to clean it up which nobody would accept my orders [laughs]
AP: Oh dear.
JM: No. No. But it did have its advantages. We travelled to India and there was a commando unit on the ship also which challenged us to a boxing match. And as nominations were being made for who’d represent the air force I was able to nominate my friend Clem Walker instead of me to undertake our appropriate weight. The opponent promptly laid Clem Walker out. So that was a bit bad. We got off the ship at Bombay. Learned that our air force issue uniforms — pipe stem trousers were just not worn by anyone in India so promptly re-equipped ourselves at our own expense. Found places like Worli where there’s wonderful swimming pools where we were allowed entry. And that was great fun. We were entertained, being non-commissioned by a very kindly group of people. I don’t know whether they were YWCA or who but they brought some little Anglo-Indian girls into the afternoon tea to meet us. This is one of these occasions of being unable to make contact. The shyness was on both sides I suppose. We’d have had this somewhat racial attitude. And the little girls would have been so hesitant and lacking in self confidence that it was just, just hopeless. But if you were officer class you had an opportunity I think to meet the upper class Indian women in a way that British non-commissioned people, British other ranks we were called, BORs, and you just never had the opportunity of meeting the more companionable I suppose, more self confident Indian females. So what else in Bombay did I see? There was a racecourse. I never went to the racecourse, but some of my friends would come home and say, ‘Oh you should have been.’ Edgar Britt just gave us a tip for all the races of these Australian jockeys. Edgar Britt and a fellow called Roberts. And another fellow called Scarlet there. All the races were fixed apparently because the jockeys knew who was going to win [laughs] yeah.
AP: So you flew Liberators operationally. Am I correct?
JM: Hmmn?
AP: You flew Liberators operationally.
JM: Yes. Well from Bombay we went across to Calcutta at the height of the Bengal famine. That was unbelievable. Stepping off the train in Worli. Step over bodies. There were beggars with Elephantiasis. Do you know what Elephantiasis is? Our mess was, in the open air and after things had been cleaned up you would see these old women come along picking through our rubbish picking bones. Just [pause] and India’s population then was about four million then. The population of the same subcontinent now is about a billion and a half. So imagine —
AP: My sister —
JM: What problems they have.
AP: My sister actually lives in India. She’s in New Delhi now.
JM: Who’s that?
AP: My sister.
JM: Yeah.
AP: And she, yeah, founded and runs an NGO to develop education in certain parts of India so yeah I hear stories like that quite, quite frequently. Yeah. I think it’s a very different world. So tell me what you first thought of the Liberator the first time you saw one.
JM: Well I first went on as a second pilot to a man called Joe Morphett who was a flight commander. It’s one thing that convinced me that I was lucky to be an NCO because when I got my own crew we all slept in the same basha together. We became absolutely a glued team. But Joe Morphett — I never saw him except when we flew. The same with the navigators of that crew. The navigator rather. And I think there was another officer in the crew. Never got to see them outside the aircraft and it just convinced me that NCO, all NCO crews were a good thing. But I did seven or eight ops with Joe. On the last one Joe had [pause] Joe was an interesting man. I learned afterwards researching things that he’d been a schoolteacher. He had a degree in engineering and he had given this — we had a CO on 355 Squadron a man called Dobson who was a no-hoper in my opinion. He was, again like Crannon, a man who liked to discipline people if they fell out of line. So he, we had two aircraft blow up on the squadron on landing and this was considered a shameful thing. We had a situation where he was only getting about four of the aircraft of the unit’s twelve aircraft — how many aircraft did we have on the squadron? We must have had sixteen aircraft I think. And twenty four crews. And we’d get about four or five up on an operation because the rest weren’t serviceable. And he decided to apply discipline. So this didn’t work. We had the squadron minstrel like the one on Crannon’s ship come out with a rhyme that went to the tune of “St Cecilia, the squadron is a shambles. There’s no ops any more. Eighteen NCO lined up outside the CO’s door. They’re handing out the 252s and reprimands galore. On 355 old Barney” and it went on. And Dobson disappeared for a while and Joe Morphett took over the squadron. And Joe got up and gave a pep talk to the whole squadron on what they should be doing. He said. ‘Your petrol consumption is dreadful. We are having aircraft land at other posts because they’ve run out of petrol on the way back. Now this is unacceptable. There are ways of flying when you come back from a target if you fly the right way you will use much less petrol. And the right way to fly is to fly on the step.’ And what, “On the step,” means is you start off at the target at ten thousand feet and you very gradually lose height at cruising speed so that by the time you are near home post you have minimised your fuel consumption at the appropriate cruising speed and are ready to land. And so that was that. The next op we fly out with Joe Morphett. We were flying. We were bombing a place called Maymyo which is a bit of a hill station on the Burma route. The Burma road route to Chonqing and on, in our briefing we’d been warned that Mount Victoria which I think is one of the higher peaks in Burma had to be avoided. Somehow, coming home, Joe said, ‘Jesus we’re going to fly in to a bloody mountain.’ And you have a thing called the gate on a Liberator. If you go through the gate you increase your flying speed and your power and Joe went through the gate to get over this place. So we get back over the Sundarbans which, the delta at the mouth of the Ganges Bhramaputra system and an engine goes. Quick as a flash I said, ‘Perhaps it’s a pump Joe,’ and I put on the emergency pump and the engine came good again. Then the rest of the engines went. I put on all the emergency posts. To cut a long story short Joe said, told the crew to abandon. Somewhere into Bengal by this time. And he said to me, ‘This goes for you too Mac.’ So I released myself and kept going. There I find a blockage. The wireless operator, my friend Ron Vine is there and there is someone in front of him who won’t move. So I went back to Joe and said, ‘Anything I can do to help, skip?’ He said, ‘Get out.’ [laughs] So I went back and by this time Vine had booted Melville, the flight engineer in the bum, and Melville had descended. Subsequently breaking his leg we learned. Vine and I got out at God knows what height because we were within very short walking distance of Joe’s crashed aircraft. The man who’d been so determined that people wouldn’t run out of [pause] it was one of those ironies that you. Anyway, that was, I did one more op at Phulbani and then was sent to HCU. Heavy Conversion Unit at Kolar which is near Bangalore. Lovely climate but not much else to recommend it. Bangalore’s an interesting town but, you know.
AP: So ok so you parachuted from an aircraft?
JM: Pardon?
AP: You jumped out of an aeroplane you said.
JM: Yes. Yes.
AP: Where did you land and how did you get back?
JM: Well yes, that’s interesting because Vine and I, of course, landed within feet of [pause] this was about 4 o’clock in the morning. Vine and I landed within sight of one another. Must have been moonlight because Joe had seen the mountain and it was the 1st of April of all dates. And so we found our way to the village. It was the second village from where we — we went to the first village nearest. We knew roughly where the aircraft would be. The first village we woke everybody up and finally found someone who was able to direct us, who knew where the aircraft had crashed. So we walked over about another four or five hundred yards of paddy. We got to the next place and there found Joe had been taken out of the aircraft by the local people. Put under a tree. A mango tree. I couldn’t eat mangos for years after that but there was Joe with a great triangular piece rolled back across his scalp and a great chunk taken out of his thigh and after painkillers so we found the medical kit from the aircraft and tried to inject morphine without much success. Anyway, Joe said take it out and finally we persuaded someone to go and get help. And so we —eventually help came at about I suppose about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And on April the 1st in Bengal. That’s not very — May the 1st it was. May the 1st and that was that’s a hot season in Bengal and if you’re inland in Bengal you get the worst of things because you get the humidity and you get the continental heat before the monsoon hits it the heat becomes absolutely unbearable. But there it was [pause] I suppose it was by 3 o’clock we got help. Someone came with a wheeled the [unclear] which Joe was put on to and the medico was able to give him an injection which helped. And so we wheeled to, the squadron transport had somehow been invoked in the meantime. Or some military transport had been invoked and it was waiting for us about two miles along this track that we walked, behind Joe. The medico had bought some supplies for us because Vine and I had not taken food or drink from them. We were afraid. When you arrived in India you were warned never to eat anything or drink water because dysentery and cholera were such a threat. So we were absolutely parched. And the medico, Indian medico had brought along water and he brought some boiled eggs. Well I wouldn’t take even his water. I tried to eat the boiled, hardboiled egg. And have you ever tried to eat anything when you have no saliva?
AP: Very difficult. Yes.
JM: Anyway, we got to the end of this trail. Joe was to be put into the ambulance or whatever it was. He turns to the medico and says, ‘Can I bale out now doc?’ which I think is one of the wonderful heroic remarks.
AP: Indeed.
JM: So Joe Morphett was his name. He got the DFC in the Middle East and he got a bar too. His DFC on that occasion. And Vine and I were put into hospital with heat exhaustion. We came out in a few days. We were, Vine was a wireless operator. He’d been my W/op in Harwell actually. So we came out of that and then I did one more op with a man called John or Johns. WO Johns and I learned more about flying Liberators from him. Sorry Joe but I did. Than I did in eight ops with you. Anyway, after that we were posted to, or a few of us and my friends by that stage, you change friendships in the air force. You move, made new friends and Clem Walker who I’d given the job of representing us in boxing on the ship, and Butch Smith, a Londoner with a cockney accent and I were sent to HCU at Kolar where were we converted on to Liberators as captains in our own right. And it was there we chose our crews but I was a bit slow in getting around to a crew because I had to find a navigator and dodge the one I didn’t want to find. And I landed up with this Australian. A real rough diamond. Old Greg. He was considerably older than I was. He’d been on Wellingtons on air sea rescue in Madras for a while. And Greg reckoned he should have been first pilot but he got lined up with me as first pilot. So that, that was a bit tricky to start off with but we managed to find a modus vivendi eventually. He was a rough diamond as they say. My last meeting with Greg was in Calcutta. I was having a forty eight hour leave and learned he was about to depart for Australia on a banana boat having finished his own tour and I went to see him off. And he paid me a compliment of saying, ‘McCredie if it had been any other bastard I wouldn’t have stuck it out.’ [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
JM: That was a funny relationship with Greg.
AP: Do, do any of your subsequent ops stand out in your memory at all? Any of your —
JM: Hmmn?
AP: Do any of your subsequent operations stand out?
JM: Well, the time, the time I was shot up stands out of course. I mentioned that earlier so we did long operations. Fifteen hours and forty five minutes took place. Called [unclear] on the isthmus of [unclear] . Quite a long way down. The name eludes me for a moment.
AP: That’s, that’s a lot longer than most Bomber Command operations.
JM: Hmmn?
AP: That’s a lot longer than most Bomber Command operations.
JM: Yes. Well —
AP: Fifteen hours.
JM: The Liberator was designed for that. We carried six thousand pounds [coughs] Pardon me. I’d better have a drink [pause] We carried six thousand pounds to this place. The Lancaster for instance had a maximum bomb load of twenty thousand pounds. The Liberator’s maximum bomb load was twelve thousand pounds. But where we, when we flew at six thousand we could have two bomb bay tanks of fuel.
AP: Bomb bay tanks. Yeah.
JM: In place of the bombs so that would carry us comfortably for a sixteen hour flight. But if you went with no bombs as some people did on reconnaissance. My friend, my CO, Killarney later became a Pathfinder in South East Asia and he did one flight, I believe of twenty one hours in a Liberator.
AP: Nuts.
JM: A reconnaissance flight but —
AP: When you’re, when you’re flying as a pilot for fifteen odd hours you pretty much can’t leave your seat can you?
JM: Yes. Well you have a co-pilot.
AP: Of course.
JM: So it, it’s when you’re young it seemed to me, for instance my logbook inferred that within three— or two days or three days I I did two flights to Bangkok from from Bengal which were both over thirteen hours. Taking off on each occasion in daylight and landing in daylight. You made up for the sleep in the afternoons. Indeed the siesta was the common practice and then somehow about 5 o’clock you’d head, if you weren’t flying the next you’d head for the mess.
AP: Very good. What was, what was a tour? How long was a tour in India?
JM: Three hundred hours.
AP: Three hundred hours. So it’s an hour’s based thing.
JM: Three hundred hours or a year’s service. A year on the squadron active service.
AP: Yeah. Go on.
JM: So, what — my two nickels counted as operational service. The seventy odd hours I did at Phulbani counted as operation service. So by the time I reached three hundred my crew was not finished. So Clem Walker and I and Butch all said we’ll fly on. It was that stage of the war and we didn’t see much to stop us flying. And so I ended up with three hundred and seventy odd hours.
AP: Of operational flying.
JM: Yes.
AP: Wow. So what happened at the end of your tour? What’s next?
JM: I was sent on to Transport Squadron. Clem Walker and I were sent on transports to New Delhi where we, 232 Squadron — it was 99 Squadron in Dhubalia which was where I did the bulk of my ops. I don’t think I mentioned that squadron. 232 was the transport squadron I flew on for six months and we did milk runs to Bombay, Colombo, Calcutta. I went to Pegu in Burma on one occasion. Cocos Island and then I did one trip back to Australia as a second pilot. When I went to the transport squadron I was a second pilot for a couple of months. That’s when I did the trip home to Australia.
AP: What aircraft was this?
JM: Hmmn?
AP: What aircraft? What aircraft?
JM: Liberators.
AP: Liberators as well. Yeah. Ok.
JM: So managed to get home to see my parents. And [pause] but Cocos Island was the first time you had to fly there you wondered if the navigator was on the ball because there was a point of no return. But we did a few trips there and my old squadron, 99 Squadron was posted there after the end of the Jap war because it was participating in the Javanese campaign. We were helping the Dutch get back into Indonesia so when I visited Cocos Island I’d meet up with old mates from the squadron. That wasn’t very good for the passengers on the way back the next day [laughs] But Cocos Island was interesting. Huge crabs would come on shore at night. But transport flying was something that I must say never appealed to me. You felt like you had a purpose when you went on a bombing raid but and you got back to base if you were lucky but if you —
AP: Did you, did you fly at all after the war? No. Not at all.
JM: No I went back to — I took up the government’s offer of a university education and I’d worked out that Australia was going to need a Foreign Service. My sister had written to me and said Dr Everett had introduced this. ‘You should try and qualify for it.’ I managed to get myself into an honours arts degree at the university and applied for the cadet course in my first year. Didn’t even get an interview. Applied for it again in my second year. And then I had the thought I would go and talk to my professor who — Professor Crawford had worked in the Foreign Service. He’d been First Secretary in Moscow during the war. And I went along and saw him and said I’m just wondering if it was a better idea to write and tell them I’ll apply again when I finished my degree. He said, ‘That’s a very good idea.’ So I, I’d laid the foundation for his giving me a good recommendation the next year and managed to get into the Foreign Service which was an infant service in those days.
AP: I guess, summing it all up, what were your thoughts on your wartime service. How did it affect you? How did it affect your subsequent life?
JM: It well the first year at university was very difficult because I had all sorts of unfulfilled ambitions such as I wanted to play football again. And I managed to get into the university blues which were the B grade amateur team in those days and got myself injured in a way that upset my studies for a while. And it was a very much a party year. First year back so I had a bit of trouble settling down and it wasn’t until I saw myself being on the brink of being thrown off the course that I could really get down to, and apply myself, full time, to study.
AP: Sure.
JM: Which was essential.
AP: I suppose that’s, that’s pretty well the end of my list of questions. So we’ve been talking for an hour and three quarters now, believe it or not. And that’s absolutely fine.
JM: I hope your ears haven’t suffered too much from the bashing.
AP: Oh my ears. No. Not at all. I mean I have been watching the clock but it’s, yeah, it’s gone. Gone very quickly so thank you for very much. Really.
JM: Well I hope that’s helpful anyway.
AP: I think it will be.
JM: What are you going to do with all this?
[recording paused]
AP: We’ll be able to fix it later. Alright. Carry on.
JM: Yes. Well as an after, this shouldn’t be an afterthought because my squadron commander on 99 Squadron Lucian Killarney was an outstanding man by any classification. His idea of running a squadron was that everybody had to work together. The first thing he did was bring the ground crew together to explain that he understood perfectly the conditions which were very difficult in the Bengal climate. He understood there were problems with catering. We couldn’t always get what we wanted, ‘But what every squadron needed was to have serviceable aircraft and that’s on you people on which we all depend. We can’t do our job without you.’ Now I’d like to pay this compliment to Killarney as a leader as so distinct from the man Dobson on 355 squadron. Killarney managed to get twelve aircraft in the air on almost every operation and he did that by leadership. By explaining and getting the ground crew onside and it’s been my privilege to see something of him after the war and to know that he ran his furniture company with the same diligence and consideration and the quality of his furniture reflects that.
AP: Excellent. Excellent.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AMcCredieJ151012
Title
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Interview with John McCredie
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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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01:45:19 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-10-12
Description
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John McCredie grew up in Australia and served in the Militia before he volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force. He flew two operations as a pilot over France during training and was later posted to India. He later returned to Australia to continue his university education and went on to join the Australian Foreign Service
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Burma
Great Britain
India
India--Bengal
Victoria
Victoria--Mount Martha
Victoria
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1943
1945
99 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
entertainment
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Harwell
RAF South Cerney
sanitation
training
Wellington
-
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McDonald, D
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
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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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
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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
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/349/3518/PWhiteRR1601.1.jpg
fe069536c41a571ddb9dd906a128148a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/349/3518/AWhiteRR160607.2.mp3
8a1d50dfd1e1ebd27540c7db00715556
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Title
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White, Ralph
Ralph Robert White
Ralph R White
R R White
R White
Description
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Six items. An oral history interview with Ralph Robert White (1923 - 2021, 427630 Royal Australian Air Force), a training report and four photographs. He flew operations with 192 Squadron from RAF Foulsham.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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White, RR
Transcribed audio recording
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AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Ralph White. A 192 Squadron Halifax skipper. A Special Duties squadron he tells me. The interview is taking place at Ralph’s place in Burwood in Melbourne. It is the 7th of June 2016. My name’s Adam Purcell. Ralph, we might start from the beginning.
RW: Yes.
AP: If you don’t mind.
RW: Not at all.
AP: Can you tell me something of what you were doing before the war and where you were when you heard that war had been declared?
RW: Initially I was employed as a junior clerk or office boy at the Melbourne City Council. From there, when the [pause] when I turned eighteen I wanted to join the air force. But my parents were not signing forms. So I then made a very silly mistake and joined the army and I spent eighteen months in an infantry battalion. Which — when the, when the Americans came into the war 7th of December ‘41 the unit I was with got, were sent to Western Australia. So while spending my time in Western Australia I got up as far as Geraldton and they were looking for aircrew trainees to join the air force. So I volunteered as an air crew cadet in from Geraldton starting off with recruit training in Busselton and then sent as an aircrew guard while we were waiting to start ITS training. Poor aircrew. You were made aircrew guards which didn’t, didn’t worry us, being out of the army. The guard duty was ok except that when we got to Pearce which was the air force main ‘drome in those days — located nearby was petrol dumps. Forty four gallon drums of petrol in the bush and it was our job at night to guard the petrol dumps because light fingered Perthites were coming out and stealing forty four gallon drums of petrol. But once, not — I didn’t do it, but someone caught someone or someone had pulled up in a car so they felt suspicious and they fired a shot and we were never troubled with them again. So that was the start of my aircrew career as a cadet. From there, once initial training started after we’d done our duties as air crew guards we were sent to Victor Harbour. ITS at Victor Harbour. EFTS at Benalla. Went solo at Benalla on Tiger Moths. Over to Mallala on Ansons. Got my wings at Mallala. Came back to Point Cook to do beam studies and from there was sent to the UK to start with the RAF.
AP: How — alright tell me about your first solo.
RW: First solo. Oh God I wish you hadn’t as a matter of fact [laughs] At Benalla. Yes. Went about, it was about seven and a half hours I think that was there and I had a very good instructor. The instructor had four pupils. One of them was scrubbed. That meant three of us. But when it was my turn to do the solo trip Mr, Squadron Leader Kinnear was a very big man. And squadron leader. And I did the solo test with him which was the usual things. Loops, slow rolls, stalls and just little areas before we did the circuits and bumps just to pass the pilot’s test. And then coming in to land I really didn’t take into account that he was a very big man in the front cockpit. Which, when I came into land it sank too quickly on me and I bounced across [laughs] across the aerodrome which wasn’t the right way to go. However, I said to him there, I said, Oh, you know, ‘I’m sorry sir but I reckon I can do better than that.’ He reply was, ‘I wouldn’t fly with you again. Too dangerous.’ So I got, I got my wings. So that was that. So I wish you hadn’t asked me because it was not done in glory.
AP: It very rarely is. What was a typical day like at EFTS? What sort of things were you actually doing?
RW: What? At Mallala?
AP: EFTS. So Benalla.
RW: EFTS. EFTS would be — each time you’d practice something different. First was familiarisation. Just on there. With an instructor. Practicing stalls and spins and recovery. And from then on you were sent out to practice by yourself. Every couple of days they might give you a taxiing test or something of that nature. But it was just a matter of going up, practicing yourself and coming back. Stall turns. You know some aerobatics you did better than, or I enjoyed better than others. But as a slow roller I was impossible. The, I’d lose so many feet, about five hundred feet every time I tried to slow roll. It was never done graciously. But that was about it. It was a matter of getting, I think, eighty hours. I think I had to get eighty hours up before they’d pass you on to the next unit at Mallala.
AP: And what did you think of the — what did you think of the Tiger Moth?
RW: I loved it. I think it was great fun. It was more or less a joy ride really. Really. It was responsive. It never let you down. If you did the right thing the old Tiger would do what you told it. But apart from that it never gave me any trouble.
AP: An instructor of mine once said, ‘A Tiger Moth is easy to fly but hard to fly well.’
RW: Well yeah. Well, I can remember an instructor once saying to me, ‘No matter what way you fly as long as you do it smoothly,’ which was fair enough but they won’t let you down. The funny side in all of it really when you’re saying about Benalla, thinking back we had similar weather to what we’re experiencing at the moment. That, the first flights in the morning that took off this particular day when we, when we were coming in from whatever shift we were going to do the flying the afternoon there were five Tiger Moths all with their nose in the ground. All sitting up. They had landed but the ground was boggy and they all tipped over. All you could see across the field was Tiger Moths.
AP: I was, I was actually going to ask you about accidents in training. Were they common? Did you see a lot of them?
RW: Not really. No. The only trouble was that sometimes before you were told to do something I’d go out and say, practice stall turns, practice fancy slide slipping. I can’t think what other ones we were, but at one stage we weren’t allowed to, we weren’t allowed to do a loop until we’d had a few more hours up. And one of the boys tried to do the loop. Stalled at the top. Spun in. And actually he got out of it which was lucky. He didn’t get killed but just badly shaken up but showed him that, you know, when you get to the top of the loop you just have to have sufficient speed to get out at the top.
AP: Nothing has changed. The laws of physics are exactly the same. Yeah. Very good.
RW: But you can’t help enjoying flying a Tiger Moth. It was just pure fun.
AP: I would agree exactly with that. Absolutely. What sort of things happened at Mallala?
RW: Mallala was modest flying. The old Anson. It wasn’t a good, I don’t think it was a good aircraft to train on because with the coming in to land with an Anson you were given a speed. I think it was, from memory, sixty. I think we still operated sixty with dual aircraft. Flying two together. Two pilots. We were usually flying together so one would do one hour as pilot and you’d sit back and do navigating. And then the other chap would have a turn of his hour flying. And they were very bad because as you might remember from the Tiger Moth you don’t pick up a stall with your ailerons. And with an Anson you could pick up a stall with your ailerons. You’d have to pop out and kick the wing and it’d come good. It was that placid. It used to stall at forty seven. It was nearly stopped. So I, from that area, a lot of the chaps we were with that went solo at Mallala, from Mallala, and stayed in Australia they went on to Beauforts. And I often, I often put down to the fact that so many of our lads went on to Beauforts and spun in. And I think it was picking up their wings with their ailerons. But that was some of the things. Very awkward to fly solo. You had to do solo flying in an Anson but it meant getting out of your seat and changing petrol tanks and they were sliding ones. Ones that you slide up and slide down cutting off and they weren’t ever maintained very well. But you had to get out of your seat, get over to the side of the aircraft and try and change tanks and get back to the seat again before you hit the ground. Very rough. It was all good training. ‘Cause when we got to Point Cook after we got our wings we didn’t know we were alive when we got on to the Oxfords at Point Cook because they were comfortable. Automatic undercarriage and flaps and all those sorts of things. It was good.
AP: Moving up in the world.
RW: But learning to fly in Australia was very easy compared to going over to the UK. Picking up the practice of flying there that they were more precise. When you got to the UK in the RAF initially we had to wait a while before we could start flying. And I did something that you’d be familiar with. We had to learn aerodrome control. Which was, was good fun at the time but the practice then of course was the way you approached it you approached the landing and did your circuit before you landed each time which made it a bit of hold up when you were trying to land. The queuing up to get on the ground particularly if it was two squadrons on one station was a bit, a bit tricky. But the Ansons never gave us any trouble as I can recall really. The, the second pilot in an Anson used to set up as a single pilot but the co-pilot had to plunge his control in with, you know, a ratchet to get the controls picked up. And quite often it would jam and wouldn’t do it so you were left to hang on ‘til the co-pilot could do change over and change pilots. But they were very old fashioned. Lovely old things. They had no vices. That’s why a Lancaster has got no vices. I think they learned a lot from that.
AP: Avro. Avro. Yeah. Background coming through I suppose. Can you remember much of the process of a beam approach? You were saying you did beam approaches at Point Cook. Can you just tell how they worked and what they were.
RW: Well beam approach. Beam approaching the point, that of course, you understand that the beam approach is a beam. A signal that you’re getting and once you get on to a beam it’s a single note until you drift off the beam. If you go to the left well you get dit dit dit dit dit so you know you’ve come off the beam. Steady note and your, and the other one would be a dash, dah dah just to try and get you back on the thing. But the beam set up in Point Cook was what they called a four degree beam that went out in that. The further you got out the wider the beam was. And when we got to the UK of course, we said yes we’d done beam work. ‘Righto. Off you go and do beam work on Oxfords.’ But their degree of signal was point four — not four degrees. It was point four of a degree. So you really once you got near the control that was sending out the beam you had to be spot on. Which was good. Once again good training. But to be truthful when you think back on it we didn’t use the beam that much. Occasionally with the fog you might try and put it on but you were never left to go around training too long while the fog was coming in and you couldn’t find the approach.
AP: So beam approach though — you trained on them though.
RW: You trained on them but you never, never used it.
AP: Not usually used in anger.
RW: Well, I don’t remember. Maybe some other people did. I can’t remember. At Foulsham, when I, when I finally got to 192 the, the aerodrome there at Norfolk was on low lands but it was fitted with FIDO so we had the approach shown with the burning the old FIDO so we didn’t really need the beam.
AP: That’s, that’s one way of getting around it I suppose. Fair enough.
RW: I never used it anyway because each time, coming back we were usually in the mornings and it was ok.
AP: How did you get to the UK?
RW: Oh the UK. From Sydney. There on an American vessel. I think it was nineteen days to San Francisco. Across the States by train to New York. And then from New York to Gourock in Scotland on the Isle de France. A big French liner that eventually was sunk in the harbour. At New York — sabotaged. Sabotaged but we got there. It was big but very rough getting there and what I liked about it — when we landed in Gourock which was just up north of Glasgow I read the notice in the train. It didn’t say if there’s an air raid. It said when there’s an air raid you do — [laughs] so it was just a difference.
AP: That was, that was going to be my next question actually. First impressions of wartime. Of the UK in wartime.
RW: That surprised me because we got down to Brighton there. Once we got off the boat we went to Brighton to wait. To wait to start our training again. Flying training after doing the aerodrome control. But it [pause] very close. Brighton’s not that far. It’s only twenty two miles, I think, across the channel to, to the occupied France at that stage. And every now and then a 109 would come over and particularly on parade mornings. He’d come up, rip up to Brighton and try and catch us, you know if we were on the parade ground and things like that. That’s what you got used to it. And then of course going to London occasional raids coming across until — you know the raids really stopped and then started again with the buzz bombs and that sort of thing but we got used to it there. The people sort of take it naturally. I can remember even going down Brighton this 109 used to come across at regular intervals. But people would be queuing up for something. Old ladies. You know. Civilians. And blokes going to pubs. And as the warning came out that he was coming again people would just drop on the ground. Once he flew over they’d all stand up again. So that took a bit of getting used to.
AP: Just a part of life I suppose.
RW: It was really.
AP: Yeah.
RW: And particularly going in to London. To see them sleeping on the underground tube stations.
AP: Yeah. I’ll be there in a minute. So you mentioned aerodrome control. Tell me a bit about that.
RW: Well it would be so different from yours. The girls did it all. It was just that we were standing by in case we were needed. But originally the idea was you would ask for permission to land which was always cheating because within ten miles [laughs] ‘I’m number one.’ Everyone dodging their position, but the idea was you came over, identified yourself over the ‘drome. You went on the, about at a thousand feet straight down the runway, to the crosswind. You’d go cross wind and tell them when you were turning cross wind. Go across wind. Come down wind. Down wind, middle of the down wind you’d let the tower know that you were downwind. Then you were turning in to crosswind again and then once you were in the funnels you said, if you were in funnels you just notified you’re in the funnels and you were given the ok to land. But that’s all it was. It was just an acknowledgment and then you had each one doing it and then turn. And you spaced yourself out. Now, does that make sense to you?
AP: Yeah I can, I can understand. I’ve got a vague idea.
RW: It’s none of this coming straight in [laughs]
AP: No. No. Of course not. No. Of course not. Just sort of moving, moving forward a little bit.
RW: Yes.
AP: To, to operational life.
RW: Yes.
AP: You said, you know, when two squadrons arrive at the same time. How did they sort that out?
RW: Well, they just, as you, as you called in. Whichever your call sign was. They’d give you a spot. In other words you know, when you were overhead. If you were overhead you told them you were overhead. If you said you were approaching then they’d give you a situation. If you got too many there that, around, that they were, you were starting to stack them around the aerodrome which was a bit dangerous then they’d send you off on a cross country. Give you a, you know —
AP: Come back.
RW: Anyone short of fuel would be happy but being on special duties we didn’t carry a bomb so we only carried overloads. So at any time we came in we were always sent on cross-countrys. They knew we weren’t and of course cunning ones that had lost a motor you know they would say, ‘I’m approaching on three.’
AP: On three.
RW: Or something like this. To get priority. Feather his motor.
AP: One veteran I have interviewed for this programme said — he was a wireless operator and he said he patched in the more powerful power supply in to their RT.
RW: Yeah.
AP: So that they had a range of thirty miles.
RW: Oh yes. That’s it.
AP: Instead of fifteen.
RW: He’d be saying he was overhead and he could be thirty miles away.
AP: That’s right. Sneaky.
RW: And I think after a while the, I think the signal would come in and then they realised they were weak and you’d say, ‘Stand by,’ and if you could understand he was cheating a bit because we [pause] normally, on special duties, they were very secretive. And of course we only would, sometimes only use two out of the squadron and things of that nature and wherever you were sent was a little bit off key because instead of being through Bomber Command you went through Air Ministry. Which was rather unusual. Now, now you might have to correct me here but I think our instructions came through Air Ministry. From department A14. That doesn’t mean a thing but it was out of Air Ministry. It wasn’t out of Bomber Command because old Butch, he can’t stand — unless you were dropping a bomb you’re no use [laughs] but we were given that and would have been given the — I’d better not get too far ahead of myself.
AP: That’s alright. We’ll, we’ll —
RW: But that was the idea. There was always a little bit of a give and take with the approaching.
AP: Very good. Alright. After Brighton what happened next?
RW: After Brighton, went back on to Tiger Moths. Of all things at a place called Fairoaks but it was really Windsor Castle’s —
AP: Take a couple.
RW: With Fairoaks and we were given, and we were now sent to Smith’s Lawns. Smith Lawn, which was Windsor Castle’s own private airfield. So we did our flying from Windsor Castle. Smith’s Lawn it was known as. And that was just, just routine. Getting familiar with English conditions and flying the Tiger Moth. We weren’t particularly given any aerobatics to do. It was mainly cross-countrys and things of that nature to get us used to the countryside really. Because as we, as we went there you got a bit sick of just doing cross-countrys because I remember once that they’d taken all the street names down. I shouldn’t say town names so it was always a cunning move if you were ever lost was to try and nip down to a railway station to see what the [laughs] where you were. And they didn’t have that there so I was going in and out doing this cross-country. So many hours up and back on different courses they give you. And I’d put, “Crossed road. Crossed railway. Crossed road.” I couldn’t mention, I didn’t know a town. Any there. When I handed my navigation papers in the instructor very sneeringly said, ‘What did you do? Go by road and come by rail?’ [laughs] But no that was the sort of training we did there and from there on I don’t know how many hours we would have done there. It was very interesting being at Smiths Lawn being Windsor Castle. We had one of the lads on flight with us. An English lad. Or English Czechoslovakian. He was royalty from — Prince, oh I know, he was Prince Peter. And he was from Yugoslavia or somewhere. One of those states over there . And as a result with the prince there the RAF were looking after him a bit. So when it came Sunday we were all invited to go to the chapel at Windsor Castle with the royal family. And it was interesting too. He of course went off and sat with the royalty. The ones he knew. But we, the lads we all stood at the back there of the chapel just having a good look around. But of course it was Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth were there with the King. King and queen. And afterwards we went for a bit of a tour around the, around the castle and we got to their own home garden and of course the royal family were interested in growing food for, for the sake of wartime restrictions. And we noticed that Princess Elizabeth’s garden, she had a plot of her own, it was perfect. You know beautifully done. And I thought, oh I know what’s happened here. You know they’ve got the gardeners to do it for her. Then we were taken [laughs] then we were taken to see Princess Margaret’s garden and it was a shambles [laughs]. Weeds and everything. So no she obviously did her own gardening and so did the king and queen. We presumed. We didn’t look at theirs. But that was just one little thing.
AP: Yeah.
RW: That was Smith’s Lawn. While we were waiting then to go back to, to go on to Oxfords. Our next.
AP: What particularly made England different to fly in than Australia?
RW: The, the amount of flying from Tiger Moths and the Ansons we had there was that here we have set towns. You know you’d go to Benalla. You know you’d hardly, I’ve forgotten half the towns up there now. Wangaratta, and the different, Winton Lakes and things but in England there were villages and towns and little bits and pieces here, there, everywhere. Like a patchwork quilt compared to an expanse. And that’s what we got used to. One of the things that the aerodromes, usually — not like ours you know. Benella was miles away and there wasn’t another aerodrome anywhere near it. But if we were in England there was an aerodrome somewhere near you somewhere so you had to watch your pick. In fact, it got to the stage of, really in the UK that on the approach to the different ‘dromes — like Foulsham would be FU. You’d see FU up there so you’d know you were heading for Foulsham. But there would be five or six ‘dromes all around that you could jump into if, if you knew who they were. But you had no identification really from small towns. In other words I’m thinking of when we got to South Cerney when we did proper navigation we flew at Bibury which was a little village say a couple of miles away. Then further north was Cheltenham and Gloucester and places. Not Gloucester. Oh, Cheltenham. See I’ve lost track of the towns but they were bigger towns heading towards Manchester and the Cotswolds and places like that. But it was different flying. You had to get used to the difference of finding out where you were. But eventually that was while we were just flying on AFU. Just on, we were virtually doing solo in the Oxfords.
AP: Alright. What happened after that?
RW: After that. That was beam. Once we got on to Oxfords you went and did the beam course again and then you did advanced flying. Even to the extent of, a lot of the instructors you had at AFU were ex-operational pilots having a rest from operations. And the, it was just a matter of flying around and getting used to things. One of them even said you know who we were flying around with the instructor would get in and say oh we’ll go in flying here, there and everywhere and go down towards Bath or some place like that. And he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’s too nice just to be sitting here doing nothing.’ He said, ‘How would you like to try a roll?’ And I thought, my God. A roll. I was rotten in a Tiger [laughs]
AP: Rolling in an Oxford.
RW: He said, ‘Let’s do a roll.’ I’d do the roll, but of course he did the roll but it meant that we had to stay in the air for ten minutes because all the gyros had tumbled [laughs] So that was, that was your training for not using your instruments all the time. You couldn’t use your instruments for ten minutes. But that was it. He was a Canadian pilot but he didn’t, he did the roll alright but it was a barrel roll. But I thought I’ll do it when I’m not seen.
AP: A bit flak happy perhaps.
RW: He could have been. Yes.
AP: Yeah.
RW: I think he was actually relaxing after operational stuff. I don’t know what he, I can’t remember what he came off to start with but a lot of them weren’t staff pilots there. You had a lot of staff pilots on these places to beam courses.
AP: Alright. And the next step was Operational Training Unit.
RW: OTU. Yes. OTU was good. That was on Wellingtons. Wellington 10s. I did pretty well on, on Wellingtons except the aircraft we were flying. They were clapped out. We had to do, you know, cross countrys at night and this sort of thing to imitation targets and that type of training. Getting used to it. Getting used to night affiliation where you’d get attacked by a fighter aircraft with cameras to see how you go. But on one occasion there the aircraft I picked up was u/s. It was u/s. You couldn’t fly it that night. So we had to get out of that, go and get another aircraft and then pick up with a dummy raid. But it meant I got attacked left, right and centre but halfway through it I lost a motor. And then I had a fire in the, a fire in the wireless ops room. He put the fire out. I said, ‘Righto Lin.’ They were always grizzling they never came out front to have a look out. So I said to Lin, the wireless op, I said, ‘Come up and have a look out now. Now that you’ve put the fire out.’ No sooner got him sitting up front there than the motor went. And of course — had to go home. So we came home and of all things had to do a, I had to a left hand circuit instead of a right hand circuit because I’d lost the port motor. And it came in on one and put it down beautifully, I say it myself because It was a perfect landing and the crew reckoned it was only perfect one I ever did [laughs] But that was, that gave me a, I think that started off why I finished up on special duties because I got reassessed as above average and then, well volunteered for required, didn’t require, ‘Would you volunteer for Pathfinders?’ ‘Yes,’ and was accepted for Pathfinders. And the crew. And that was at OTU so that was on Wellingtons to then, and got, and got a commission. I was commissioned from OTU and then finished up joining, doing heavy duty conversion to the big, to the Halifax 3s and eventually a squadron.
AP: Tell me how you met your crew.
RW: The old — everyone in the hangar [laughs] Yes. Now, the, the hangar there. There was twenty pilots, nineteen navs because I had, I had a navigator with me that I wasn’t satisfied so I had to leave him behind to do more training. Bomb aimer, wireless op and forty gunners. And when I went in to the place there a little bloke came up to me and said, ‘Have you got a crew yet?’ and I said, ‘No. Would you like to be mine?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And he was the wireless operator. In the meantime he’d gathered a bomb aimer and one gunner. But that was, it just sorted out. Eventually the navigator was replaced because he would have been a sick, a navigator gone sick the previous course so he was a spare and I picked him up as a spare and I used him all the way through.
AP: What — what sort of things did you do when you were on leave in England to relax?
RW: We’d go to Lady Ryder’s billets and things. I didn’t have a girlfriend or anything like that. I was sort of a bit keen on the flying and all that sort of thing and a bit more, I was interested in, you know, I wanted to be a pilot and that was it. But a lot of the boys had girlfriends. The crew. OTU there was an Australian pilot. We jumped up together. We’d flown since the time we left Australia till we came to OTU and he and I would probably go to a different billet as they were called in those days. Staying with different people and enjoying the peaceful side. Go to Edinburgh for a trip up to see what Edinburgh was like. Glasgow. But that’s about all on leave. There was, I didn’t have any relatives over there to visit but that would be about all I can recall really what we did on leave. Go and get, go to — you’d mix with different courses you were on. Perhaps you’d get someone a bit familiar when you were at AFU. There would just be pilots only so you were more or less stuck with pilots. Perhaps if you met a mate there you would go and have a few drinks and go into town for a night. That business. Have a drink up.
AP: What was, what was the local pub like? What sort of things happened?
RW: The local pubs. The AFU was Cheltenham and you got to know how to get over the back fence. And that rationing had come in and every now and then they ran out of beer so you had to know which fence you have to go in. A lot of the beer in the pubs in, particularly in Cheltenham, very posh towns there. Very lovely towns really. And to go into the pubs in our dark blue uniforms quite often they had, instead of beer they’d have ciders and you got used to watching your step there. I was leaning on the bar, with my elbow on the bar, sort of, say drinking and with that the barmaid come up and said, ‘Love take your elbow off the bar, it’s in all the drinks.’ And I said, ‘Oh sorry.’ She said, ‘No. It takes the dye out of your uniform.’ [laughs] So I had better watch this. You did meet the locals in the pubs. They’d quite often take you on. Or they’d be playing darts and they’d be all over the place like madwomen on scooters. You know they’d be throwing their — and whatever game they’d challenge you to a game. And of course immediately they challenged out came their special darts. You’d play them. You’d play. They’d beat you and you’d have to buy them a beer. But they were cunning. They conned us [laughs]
AP: What, what was your first impression of a Halifax?
RW: The Hali I thought was lovely. I was very impressed. Actually when I did the aerodrome control it was Halies then but of course they were the old Hali 2s and 5s when I was doing that. And once again when you’d done Conversion Unit. They’d all been all clapped out. The aircraft we were flying had been ex-French squadrons we were using but when I got used to her she was beautiful. I loved the Hali. She was good to fly. She was responsive. Never gave me any trouble. The only thing I’d say that was wrong with the Halifax I think everybody had the same trouble — brakes. The brakes weren’t effective. You know, you’d have full brake on and you’d still keep going. But I liked the Bristol Hercules. They were very powerful engines so she could climb like a homesick angel as we’d say. They were good. They were comfortable. They were responsive to fly. I had no complaint with them.
AP: Alright. Now you’re getting towards your squadron at this point. Where was that?
RW: Squadron. Yeah. 192.
AP: Where was 192 based?
RW: Hmmn?
AP: Where was the squadron based?
RW: This was in Foulsham in Norfolk.
AP: Foulsham. That’s right. Cool. Right. So where and how did you live at Foulsham?
RW: Lived there as, once again an officer at that stage so that was in billets mainly. Mainly pilots together because the crew was still — the flight engineer was, he had done a special tour. He had already done one tour, the flight engineer. Which we picked up at Marston Moor when we did the conversion. So he was, he would be in the officer’s mess with us and and the rest of the crew would be in NCO quarters. But we were usually two to a room perhaps. That would be — mostly if you got a room on your own you were lucky. But they’d bunk you in with someone else. And 192 of course had, as I’ve showed you that photo with, they were all the Halifax pilots but we had a Mosquito flight on 192 because when you, when you accepted special duties we weren’t bound by the thirty, thirty trips for a tour. We had to do forty five straight. And once you were forty five straight you were tour expired. They never wanted you again on that. For that reason. So you were a little bit different from Bomber Command itself because we had our own set up there. And it was comfortable. Good living. It’s just someone that spoke to me the other day. In fact it was Laurie Macpherson? Laurie. Laurie Larmer?
AP: Oh Laurie Larmer. Yeah. of course.
RW: Laurie. We were talking to him and he said, ‘Whitey, can you remember when we got the bacon and eggs before we went on a trip?’ And I said, ‘Oh yes.’ He said, ‘What time did you get it?’ And I said, ‘We used to get it about, I don’t know, depending on what time we were going out. 11 o’clock. I don’t know. 12 o’clock. Depending on when we were going to fly out. Yeah.’ He said, ‘Ah. We used to have ours in the morning.’ And I said, ‘What?’ Then I didn’t realise. He was doing daylights.
AP: Oh of course.
RW: Because we were all, we were still doing night work so it was just one of those things. You forget little things like that. The same old thing. People could never get used to it. Telling you about, you know how the Benzedrine tablets were there to take, you know. These days we would have had so many druggies we wouldn’t have known what happened [laughs] But that was, I didn’t realised that the Benzedrine tablets were to keep you alert whilst — I never used them which I was lucky to say. But some people did. They’d sort of get their Benzedrine, they’d take the wakey wakey as it was called and of course then all of a sudden the op would be cancelled and they were bright eyed. They’d sit there playing billiards half the night because they were awake [laughs] I learned that but I believe the idea was you took your Benzedrine tablet when you were coming in to the target and of course — so as far as we were concerned we found that very often we didn’t have targets. We, most of the time if it was a special we were escorting a bomber group out you’d got the track drawn in. I think with operational units the track was in the, the navigator didn’t have to alter course for as long as it was in the ten mile bracket that they gave for the ten. Now we were, one of us would be on one side and one, the other from 192 would be on the other side checking on the counter measures. It was all radar. Radar. Radio and radar counter measures. Basically with the special operator. And of course depending on which operator you had, he wasn’t a regular one. When you had to there were two waves going in. We had to hang around the target area whilst the next wave was coming in which was usually two minutes and two minutes and two minutes. So it was always hang around waiting and not very often we would change over. We wouldn’t be in communication with the other 192 bloke and just hang around. The big thing was that when we did go out because normally we would just wander. They’d give us so many set courses to go and fly and we were just flying with the, with the RCMs listening in to what they could do. If they, if they went on a target then the German speaking one would — with 192 they can tune into the, we could tune into the Germans talking. And of course no good for us but the German translator he could chip in to give them the fighters the wrong info which was a bit sneaky [laughs] But no the funniest thing was that on one of the ones that we were in just out of Oslo. Norway. Tonsberg. When we came and the bombers had done their two minutes and we were hanging around waiting for the next wave to come in and while we were doing and whilst we were there we were having a marvellous time. We could see the lights of Sweden in the distance so we were busy. So busy were we looking around not being alert. We were looking at the lights of Stockholm or wherever it was and over us — we were here and over like that, it would have been as high as this ceiling an 88 went right, just over us like that. Here I am down sitting here. We’re having seven or eight blokes all supposed to be looking out for it and he just went. In fact I can see, I can still see the dirt on its belly to this day and I ducked [laughs] But it one of those things that only goes to show you, you know a moment’s lack of concentrations. Everyone’s gazing. And I think the German bloke was doing the same thing. I think he was looking at the lights and wasn’t looking because after a while our operators could pick out when, when we were being tabbed. And the Germans were very good at your height. The flak bursts were pretty well spot on with the height but they couldn’t find you just where you were. And the rear gunner was always very much aware that if he saw two flashes coming very close to his tail he’d let us know when to divert and get away from it. But that’s about it really. About the only excitement we ever had. Except that while we were cruising around, and before all this aircraft where the 88 went over us the crew said, ‘How about,’ because we had money. We carried the gold sovereigns to give to the patriots, ‘Why don’t we have a forced landing in Sweden, spend the money, wait for them to rescue us and we’ll go home and perhaps the war will be finished.’ Which it wasn’t at that stage. And I was the most miserable man you’ve ever met. ‘I said Martin. Mark. You won’t do it. You won’t do it,’[laughs] It was just a bit of a joke but that I think was why we were, I can say messing around arguing about whether we should make a forced landing in Sweden just to get rescued.
AP: A very, very forced landing.
RW: Where was the honour amongst thieves I don’t know.
AP: So what, what sort of things— you were talking about the German speaking operators.
RW: He was special, he would come in once we’d — we didn’t know what they were doing really. We had no idea. They, they’d come and get on board. They were always known, as far as we were concerned they was a co-pilot. Just a squadron bloke learning to, if you got, if you were forced down he was Milner. I only knew him. He just joined us to do an experienced trip. You know. You knew nothing about him because you couldn’t let on that he knew how to speak German if you were forced down. But that’s about it really. I don’t know really what else I can tell you.
AP: What I was just trying, I have been reading a little bit about the radio counter measures.
RW: Indeed.
AP: And the sorts of things that were done.
RW: Initially we were told about the idea. Because, you know we thought oh bloody hell, you know. We want to drop bombs when you go there and special duties were ok but it was just special duties on what we were doing. Just fiddling around with the special operator. And it was initially told to us that the Window was cut to a certain length and it had to be cut to the length of whatever the radar, or the radios were working on. So that the window would be effective against jamming the radar. But I don’t know if that’s right or not. That’s my recollection of what we were told we were doing. And the idea was that if you, no matter where were just floating around in a — going up to Norway you know. It was still active so far as the Germans were concerned because at that stage we’re now getting there that France had been occupied up to Paris at that stage. So there’s nothing, we didn’t have to be required to go to Italy which we were initially sent to get to know, you know, what was wrong with the Italian radar. But it was all German so it didn’t make much difference I gather. But it’s, we had to, we had to take a photo of where we’d been though. You must remember that no matter what, what jobs you did you still had to take a photo of something to prove that you’d done your trip. Which evidently at times certain blokes would get the twitch. All they’d do is go out and wander around the North Sea, drop their bomb and come back. And so then you had to take a photo of your ,where you’d been to prove that you’d done a trip.
AP: How, how would you time that as a special operator? Without a real target. You just go somewhere and say that’ll do?
RW: With the real target you’d just go and bomb him. If, in the case of the one I just mentioned. Tonsberg there. That at some stage of the game you’d go over the near target, let go of the photoflash and go home. But until, until you’d got your trip because obviously there would be a timer on your camera because we were supposed to stay there for always for the second wave to come in so they’d have to. You’d have to prove your point.
AP: So, so your tour essentially was just go flying?
RW: Go flying.
AP: In random directions.
RW: The only.
AP: And then come back.
RW: The only thing we had that, I’d say that JU88, I would think that he’d been sent. Because he was almost the same height as us, you know, just over the top of us, that I think he’d been sent to find us and he didn’t find us thank God because otherwise, it might have been a different story.
AP: So —
RW: That’s about the only excitement I can give you, Adam.
AP: It sounds like an ideal tour for someone who just wants to fly an aeroplane.
RW: The only thing is if you had to fly you’ve always got the twitch. No matter where you are you’re supposed to be, you know ready and willing and able to do evasive action. Because every time we did there because when the war finished they even sent us out to do [pause] oh God. Simulated attacks. I can’t think of the word. Affiliation. Fighter affiliation. You had to do fighter affiliation and then do corkscrews and that sort of thing. So you were always on the tip of your toes. It wasn’t relaxing flying.
AP: Of course not. What —
RW: The only part that was relaxing was the fact that the Bristol Hercs were a very reliable motor. Hardly coughed.
AP: The — you were saying before about doing aerobatics in an Anson and they toppled the gyros.
RW: Yeah.
AP: How did a corkscrew —
RW: Oh no, the Oxfords
AP: The Oxfords, sorry. Oxford. Anson.
RW: The Oxford. Yeah.
AP: They’re very similar [laughs] but how did a corkscrew affect the gyros in the Halifax?
RW: Oh the, well we didn’t go out. We didn’t. You had a certain a certain limitation on what we could do. With the gyros were of course actually in the cockpit. They were in the Sperry panel there and the gyros were set up in the thing. Whereas in the Halifax the master control was down the back end where you had the gyroscope down there which was in a cradle. And a bit like a centrifuge I suppose it would be called. But it didn’t affect them at all.
AP: Ok. So it was sort of more designed for —
RW: Because really we didn’t, you know, with all due respect to the Hali a thirty degree you very seldom would put her wing down to forty five to do it. But as long as you were giving your gunners maximum deflection that’s all you had to do. And of course when you do your corkscrew and of course up top you were a sitting beauty for any [laughs]. Anyway, but you didn’t really throw her on her back. No.
AP: Right.
RW: But the old Sperry panel, I think it was the gyros were fitted in the panel. I gather that they were. I could be wrong on that.
AP: Not a, not a technician so I don’t know. How did you, how did you cope with the, I guess the stress of these operations? Was there stress?
RW: I think there was. I think you slept well. I think you were actually six, eight hours. See the minimum you would do would be six and a half and otherwise eight. Eight hours. By the time you’d done you were tired really and you went to sleep. I think we, we only had to operate once every three days. It gave you time to recover from the stress because I think once you were where you’re going and you’re going over enemy territory no one’s very friendly to you if — whatever’s happening. There will always be flak around you. Not intensive as the target. To be truthful I’m not too sure. I think we were young and stupid. [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
RW: I don’t think. I think it must affect people differently because up until that stage, you know, until we got to squadron it was just joyful flying. Whether you were doing a conversion on to a four engine aircraft you were still just practicing over England. But once you went over the enemy coast you really felt you, instead of relaxing you really would hang on and I presume that’s what it was. And I think as a captain of the aircraft you’re inclined to get a bit snappy with people and I think that at that stage you got on well with your crew but you very seldom complained to them about it. They crew would complain. The navigator would always complain that you weren’t flying, you know, true course that he wanted. And this and that and all the rest of it and, and of course the bomb aimer had nothing to do and he was our second nav. And they used to always be, we had the friction between the navigator and the bomb aimer in jobs to do. In other words it was a bit useless having a bomb aimer on but he had to be on there to say it was an ordinary bombing aircraft.
AP: Ok.
RW: And that bit. My navigator had, the navigator I got was a very good one. Thank God I did because as I say I had to lose the first one and, but he was always late. Once, you know you’d go to the briefings for whatever we were doing that particular night and he would always be the last one to get in, you know. He’d always be dawdling to get in to the briefing. And it used to irritate me a bit and I’d tick him off for not getting there on time. And eventually I thought I had to teach him a lesson because we were, the boss, or the flight commander said to me would I go down to Woodbridge. You know, it’s an emergency ‘drome down there. Evidently someone had left something down there and so they decided to send an aircraft down to pick it up. A table or whatever it was [laughs] but I went down to Manston to, I said, ‘I’ll go down and pick it up for you.’ So I told Derek and the gang to, you know, ‘We’ll go off about half past ten. We’ll go down to Manston. Pick up this table they want us to get.’ And of course I’m waiting there. You have to pick up your ‘chutes and all that because you were going out and Derek’s not there. So I said to Terry who was the bomb aimer/navigator, I said to Terry, I said, ‘Could you navigate me down to Manston?’ He said, ‘Oh yes.’ I said, ‘Right. We’ll go.’ So we all marched out, went out to the aircraft, picked up the aircraft less a navigator. And went down there and when I came back of course there was a furious navigator [laughs] ‘How dare you take off without me.’ I said, ‘Just to show you you’re not essential.’ But you know it’s one of those silly things. One thing that you can find that you get a bit snappy with them but the — when you’re taking off with, well you’ll probably see on those pilot’s notes where the controls are very far apart and I haven’t got a very big hand. So taking off, and with four, four Bristol Hercules all pulling in one direction your aircraft wants to weathercock and quite often you’d let two go. Let two of the throttles go and just keep going with two. And your engineer would be standing behind you and he would be watching his gauges which he was supposed to do because when you’re taking off your fuel pressure goes down. And anyway, he was supposed to carry on just when I got full bore, then he’d bring the other throttles up to me and once we were taking off and it was on this Manston trip I think that he must, the fuel pressure lights were blinking like hell because I could get a reflection from them and I thought it was trouble. And he had shot the two throttles up and locked it. Locked the throttles on, which is grip. And of course all of a sudden I started doing a mighty spin so I had to unlock it and take them back and I ticked him off for not watching what he was doing. But he was really watching the pressure gauges. But you can get a bit crusty with them I’d say. If I was under tension. I don’t know. I think so. I think probably the tension caught up with me in later life.
AP: How did your tour end?
RW: The war ended.
AP: The war ended. Oh fair enough.
RW: I only got twenty two in so had I, had I got a full trip tour to — it finished on the — the last op I did was the 25th of the April which, the war was still going, but you know, it was knocked off. And initial thing was when I said that we were only going to do forty five trips. We were going to do thirty on Halifaxes and fifteen on Mosquitoes. So the final fifteen I would have been transferred from the Halifax flight to do fifteen on the Mossies. So that, I missed out on that. So that just finished. After the war we then did [pause] it was called Operation Post Mortem where we took English radar operators over to the German side of things for them to operate the German equipment and we then put on a mock raid in daylight so that they could see the effectiveness we did. We did a mock raid with Lancasters. The whole lot. In daylight. Over to [pause] I can’t think. Gjol. A place called Gjol in Denmark. We did that as a bombing trip and it showed us, you know where the faults were in the British equipment and where the faults were in the German equipment. It was quite an interesting exercise. But after the Post Mortem then the squadron disbanded and that was it. And I came back at Christmas time.
AP: How did you then find re- adjusting to civilian life?
RW: A little bit ratty I think, then. I think I was getting stuck into the grog too at that stage in the game and I think that might have been a little bit of an indication of what it was but that was when we came back home. And as you can imagine I said I started off as an office boy in the Melbourne City Council. And it, you know it was a pretty dead sort of existence after [pause] after the flying days. And then I didn’t settle so I went off and went into insurance broking. And that was what I finished the rest of my days as. I only flew once. In 1953 they called us up on the reserve to train as instructors and we’re back at Moorabbin on Tigers. So I got some flying in again. But I tell you what. I wasn’t the brave boy I was at Benalla. When, you know — I think we had to finish, at Benalla we had to finish our aerobatics by three thousand feet and I’d get to three thousand feet — too bloody cold. This’ll be fine. Another thousand [laughs]
AP: That’s —
RW: So there it is. It caught up with me eventually. That’s about it I think unfortunately.
AP: So how [pause] my last question then.
RW: Yes.
AP: How is Bomber Command remembered? What’s its legacy? I mean, how do you want to see it remembered more importantly?
RW: I think what you’re doing now is ideal because being an odd bod which was the only thing left for us originally when we came back in so far as the Air Force Association which we, you know, we kept up straightaway through ourselves and odd bods there, But I think what you’re doing at the moment is something peculiar, special –not peculiar. Special to Bomber Command and the Bomber Command boys and seeing you’re part of their group then that’s the place I find it’s more comforting. And I think that now we’ve started to take it there I think quite a few bomber boys including myself were very disappointed with the RAF not giving us the bar for the odd bods. For the area we did. And eventually John [Frayne?] and Laurie — I think we both complained to John [Frayne] that nothing was done to remember Bomber Command and I don’t think we actually had a day declared which now is taken as been either the 30th of June or the 1st of July. I take it. Would that be right?
AP: As in the one we’ve just done?
RW: Yeah.
AP: So it’s yeah. The first Sunday in June is the day.
RW: 1st Sunday in June.
AP: Yeah.
RW: I had an idea it was either going to be the 30th no, the first Sunday in June.
AP: The first Sunday in June.
RW: Now, that’s, that is ideal. I think it’s just what we need there. Because Anzac Day really doesn’t mean as much to us and now that we are just going to travel in a motor car I don’t find is it’s like a parade really. But I think what we did yesterday was worthwhile and just feel that though yesterday was unlucky that the weather didn’t give us much chance to talk. Plus that bloke pinched my umbrella [laughs] so if it’s raining there you’ll have to blame whoever it was. I don’t say pinched but he obviously took it by mistake. No. That was I think full marks to Jan Dimmock and the rest of you good folk on the committee now as I know. I thought you were doing it by yourself at one stage of the game.
AP: Not quite. We’ve got some good help.
RW: No. But you did a sterling job but you were battling by yourself for quite a while weren’t you?
AP: I wasn’t. There was, it was Jan and Ed Robbin set up the first one.
RW: Yes.
AP: I came on board about three years ago.
RW: Did you. That was round about the same time as —
AP: So I’ve been involved with about three now.
RW: I took an interest in Bomber Command then.
AP: It’s been, personally I moved to Melbourne about five and a half years ago so.
RW: And you came down from Sydney?
AP: I did.
RW: Three years ago did you Adam?
AP: A bit more than that but I so my background is Sydney. So I was in Canberra on Saturday night.
RW: Yes.
AP: At that gathering.
RW: At the gathering.
AP: And then came down early for our one on Sunday.
RW: Are they in each state?
AP: Not quite on the same day.
RW: No.
AP: There’s a few different days around the place.
RW: Ok.
AP: But yes. Except for the Northern Territory each capital city has a ceremony.
RW: I was just going to say yesterday we didn’t realised that there was that RSL thing was on at the shrine as well.
AP: Yeah. Yeah.
RW: Has that affected our attendance?
AP: I think it affected some of the dignitaries.
RW: Did it? Oh yes. Because there was quite a few apologies.
AP: Yeah. I think it kept their numbers down a little bit.
RW: A little bit.
AP: Yeah. And it meant that we had to sort of rush through a bit and get out quite quickly afterwards but —
RW: Was that, were they before you?
AP: They were after. They were at 4 o’clock.
RW: I wasn’t aware of that.
AP: Yeah. Neither were we when we booked it.
RW: Serve them right.
AP: Yeah. Oh well. But yeah it all, It worked out quite nicely. We’re looking forward to the next one.
RW: Yeah. Looking forward to the next year. That’s good. And thanks Adam.
AP: Any final words before I turn the tape off.
RW: No. Just to wish you well and whether you find as I say I have no memorabilia that I can really give you that is of value because a little thing that actually happened there. When I was getting commissioned I had a month off or something. They did all the commissioning in the UK. And I was down — staying down in London whilst I was getting measured for my uniform I think. Something like that. And I had a bike, a kit bag and a suitcase, and I was going to Earl’s Court which was where we stayed overnight on leave. And whilst I was booking in I had three things to get inside. So I left my suitcase, took my bike and kitbag in and someone pinched my suitcase from outside. And in it was all the, all the papers. Quite a lot of bombing atlases and maps I had there but someone pinched it and eventually when I got back I found out that he got six months for pinching it. But did I have this Halifax book there.
AP: Yeah. I think it’s in this pile.
RW: Halifax. There was just something to read. That’s something that you don’t really see. We used to call them H sheets. That was [laughs] there was my perfect landing. I had to keep it [laughs]. The little bit down below.
AP: That’s commission of — yeah. Very nice. Perfect single engine landing. You’re, you’re not the only veteran who has told me flying a Wellington and something —
RW: Goes wrong.
AP: Engines stops or something like that. You’re about the eighth.
RW: Eighth. Really?
AP: It happens a lot.
RW: Mind you the poor old things were clapped out.
AP: Yeah. Of course they were.
RW: The very thing that happened with that there — the Halifax that I ended, the Wellington that I changed over to and took the one that the engine broke down — the reason why it made such a fuss is that ten days later that Wimpy was out on a cross-country in daylight because that was at night time, but daylight, and it went in. Killed the lot of them. And it sort of brought it to light the fact that that particular one because it played up with me because I had a fire and the engine and the throttle, actually it was the throttle connection that vibrated out so it must have been vibrating terribly to ruin it within ten days from being —
AP: It happened again.
RW: Previously being done.
AP: Yeah.
RW: So it was a bit of a shame.
AP: Yeah. Who was the last bloke? Someone told me a very similar story as well. How they flew. And it was a Wellington and it had a problem and then a couple of days later someone else flew it and in they went.
RW: Well, that was it. You just couldn’t.
AP: Yeah.
RW: You know, you can’t, you couldn’t tell and that happened and that’s happened when you finally got there. You said what did I think of the Halifax because all of a sudden I’m not flying a 2 or 5 at Con Unit but I’m flying a brand new 3.
AP: Yeah. Like me driving a brand new car.
RW: Yes there you are. That’s right. Everything’s right. But thanks very much.
AP: No worries. I shall turn this off.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AWhiteRR160607
Title
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Interview with Ralph White
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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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01:09:52 audio recording
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-06-07
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Ralph White grew up in Melbourne, Australia and originally joined the army. He later volunteered to become aircrew and undertook initial pilot training at Benella and Mallala in Australia before sailing to the UK via San Francisco and New York. He flew operations with 192 Squadron from RAF Foulsham and recounts and attack by a Ju 88. After the war he took part in Operation Post Mortem. English operators went to Germany to test their equipment while his squadron mounted a mock operation. This was to see how effective the British and German technology had been.
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
New York (State)--New York
Victoria--Melbourne
Victoria
New York (State)
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
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Julie Williams
192 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
crewing up
Halifax
Ju 88
pilot
radar
RAF Foulsham
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1170/11739/PGoodwinWJ1701.1.jpg
8b4ec729b85f1c3409510581a2237ccf
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1170/11739/AGoodwinWJ170607.2.mp3
e3c8203b31a0ff85ab7d6725b4be77a1
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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Goodwin, Wal
Walter James Goodwin
W J Goodwin
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Walter Goodwin (b. 1921, 419914 Royal Australian Air Force) as well as his log book, a story about visit to Cape Town, certificates, flying operation guide for Haverfordwest and photographs. He flew as a pilot with 463 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Walter Goodwin and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-07
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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Goodwin, WJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Wal Goodwin who was a pilot with 463 Squadron on Lancasters. The interview is taking place at Wal’s place at the Basin in Melbourne, in Victoria. My name’s Adam Purcell and it is the 7th June 2017. Wal, we might start at the beginning if you don’t mind. Tell me something about you early life. How you grew up and what you were doing before the war.
WG: Oh. Well, my father was a farmer and we had conscription and I put in, in the Army for quite a while and then they decided because I was a Reserved Occupation they kicked me out, which I didn’t complain about. Not that I had any complaints out there either because they knew I had a driver’s licence so I had the, quite often had the job of seeing, driving the CO around in a beautiful new [unclear] [laughs] which was much better than doing route marches. But after I got back, about three months later I enlisted in the Air Force. But I had to wait to be called up and there were a lot of things that we had to learn because there was so many subjects we had to know which were way above whatever I had done. There was maths. And I was very lucky in one respect. There was a Post Office fellow, a guy that worked in the Post Office down in Boronia and he taught me Morse Code which was a great thing because a lot of the fellas were scrubbed because they couldn’t handle Morse Code. You had to be able to take and send twenty six words a minute and there was no way of faking it. You had to get it accurate and if you weren’t accurate you were out. And I was a bit lucky with the maths side of it. I did a correspondence course for, for the three months I was waiting and so that got me back on track but it was way above what I had done, learned at state schools. So that was a help. And then when you went to Bradfield Park, the initial training course at Bradfield Park was really nothing to do with flying. Although there was a lot of ground work and all the subjects we had to learn as well and there were, which were only be about a hundred guys on the intake I was on and they all wanted to be pilots but there would only be fifteen I think that qualified to go on to elementary flying. So I was posted to Narrandera to do elementary flying and I was a bit lucky there because if you couldn’t go solo in in six hours you were scrubbed. Anyone could learn to fly but there’s a time limit on it and if you couldn’t do it in six months, six hours you were out. Well, I was a bit lucky really because one of my mates [Salle Colewall] for some reason he couldn’t fly and he was filling in his time at that stage in the office. And when I was younger I used to get quinsies which were an abscess on the tonsil which are pretty painful things and I was home on leave from Narrandera one night and going back and I felt this quinsy coming on. So I went straight to this doctor and they put me into the hospital in Wagga Wagga and took my tonsils out which took me off course for about six or eight weeks I suppose. Quite a while. And part of the recuperation we were sent to a farm at a place out of Wagga at a place called Mangoplah where Charlie Harper had a farm. And it was quite an experience because there again because I had a driving licence. Mangoplah was quite a few miles out of Wagga but they used to go in to Wagga Wagga for their shopping and they got me to drive their Ford truck and the roads were all corrugated and I’d never met corrugated roads before and I, going, driving slowly. And a lady said, ‘The only way to handle these roads is go like hell.’ [laughs] So I tried and it worked. But I was there for probably five or six weeks recuperating and when I got back to Narrandera because I hadn’t had any flying experience in that time and according to my records I wasn’t there. But that’s when [Salle?] came in handy because he was in the office and said, ‘He couldn’t be because he was in, in hospital.’ So I was back on course again with a different instructor and I can remember he told me to do a slow roll and I told him I’d never been taught how to do it and he told me I was a bit of an [embarrassment ] But I proved to him I hadn’t because I went in that way and came out [unclear] [laughs] So I finally finished my course in Narrandera and then we were posted to Point Cook to Airspeed Oxfords and that was quite an experience flying a twin-engined Oxford after a Tiger Moth. Tiger Moths, you could, you could do anything in a Tiger Moth so a very very safe plane. But there was a couple of guys who were scrubbed from there as well. One guy was about to take off and the CO was taking me out for a test and suddenly he said, ‘Taking over.’ And he taught me so much in that five minutes that I never forgot. He turned the thing around, right around. So actually down and put the plane down right alongside the chap who was about to take off. He was taking off with, they had a little luggage compartment in there, just behind the cockpit and that was open. He was flying, taking off without opening and he never flew again. And another one he was a bit unlucky in a way, he landed downwind which another thing you recommend because Tiger Moths didn’t have any brakes and he got, before he went in to the drain at the end of the runway he managed to stop. He got out and turned this thing around and took off the other way. But the CO happened to see that so he never flew again either. There were all sorts of reasons why they were scrubbed. Anyhow, flying Airspeed Oxfords was quite an experience. The, my instructor was, he used to fly air ambulances in Sydney in peacetime and everything he’d tell you was just like taking candy from a baby which it was eventually. We, we learned an awful lot on the Airspeed Oxfords. They were, I was lucky really when you had, you didn’t have a choice but we got either posted to Ansons or the Oxfords and I’m glad I had the Oxford because they had hydraulics whereas the Ansons you had to wind everything up and down. And they were very safe plane but the Oxford had a few quirks about them. If you had a dent in the cowling that would put up the stalling rate by quite a few kilometres an hour but I managed to get through it all alright. And then we had to do a cross country flight up to, oh it was around almost to Ballarat and then back down again but you had to find your own way. It was common knowledge. Everyone that had done the course before would tell you when you did that all you do was follow the line. There’s a [unclear] plantation with a ring fence. You follow that down and you go straight [laughs] on to Point Cook. That was a big help but one fella did low flying down Geelong Road and he got a bit low down and took the tips off the propellers. He didn’t fly again either [laughs] But from there I was posted to embarkation depot in Melbourne. We started out at the Melbourne Showground and while I was there I got the mumps so, I missed the [unclear] By the time I was cleared of the mumps all the guys that I’d trained with they’d already been posted. I don’t know where they went. A lot of them went to England but not all of them. I never kept track of it after that. And then we moved from the Showground to the Exhibition Buildings for a few months and from there we went to the Cricket Ground which was quite an experience staying at the Cricket Ground. And eventually we went. We were posted. We went on a Dutch ship, the Niew Amsterdam which was a pretty big ship and we went from there and then we stopped off at South Africa and Durban for about four weeks because they took on about five hundred Italian prisoners of war and about the same number of Polish women. Girl refugees which were going to England so they had to change the ship over so everyone was segregated and of course it was quite an experience. Pretty well uneventful until we got up to Freetown and they took on supplies and one silly guy decided to buy a monkey. I don’t know what he was going to do with it but fortunately they found out before we sailed that he had a monkey so they, that was the end of his monkey. We went unescorted all the way because it was a pretty fast ship and it did a zigzag course which took a bit of getting used to but they reckoned that way you to go so submarines wouldn’t be able to get it. So we finished up in Scotland and went by train from there down to Brighton on the, right on the English Channel. And the first night we were there they had, there was an Englishman who had just defected to the Germans. His name was Lord Haw Haw and he used to do a radio broadcast every night in English to the English people and that the intelligence was pretty accurate because he heard that there was a group of Australians had arrived in Brighton that night and they were going to give them a warm welcome. So we had a quite a lot, a lot of planes going over and they dropped bombs where we were in Brighton and one of them was shot down and it crashed just a couple of streets away from the hotel we were staying at. And for me we, there were so many pilots around. There was. They didn’t know what to do with them so they sent us back to a private airfield flying Tiger Moths again. And from Tiger Moths we had one guy [Danny Maddox] was his, he was a civilian who ran this, this Tiger Moth station and they were all civilians and one of the guys [Danny Maddox] decided, he had a girlfriend and he decided he was going to go and see her in the daytime when he was flying. The only trouble was he tried to land at an airfield, in a wheatfield and he tipped it up. So, he rang the CO, told him he'd crashed a plane and the CO said, ‘Is it flyable?’ He said, ‘Oh, if you send a couple of guys out to stand it on its wheels it’ll be alright.’ [laughs] From there we did a, what they called a BAT course. That’s where you, a beam approach. You did everything by radio. You couldn’t see the instruments. You had to do everything on your instruments of course. It was quite, quite an experience. I really enjoyed it but it taught me a lot about instruments though. At Narrandera we used to do what they called a link trainer which was just, they all called them the horror box because if you could do it they were like a simulator you could do anything in the things but you never crashed. And quite often at night time I’d go back and do another course on on the link trainer because it was, I think that helped me a lot but this instrument flying one was really something. But we found flying in England was a lot easier, especially at night time than it was in Australia because in Australia at night time all you had were flares down the side of the runway and you had to come in until you virtually lined the flares up all in one line. I mean, you, that was it. You landed. But over there they had the control lights. If you were too low it’d be red. If you were on course it’d be green. If you got too high it’d be yellow. So, you come in on this its green and they had a, you had to come in at a separated speed and you had to lose height at certain times otherwise they had what they called the outer marker beacon and then an inner marker beacon and then a cone of silence and you had to be about fifty feet when you came over the cone of silence and you had to pull everything back and you’re on the runway. Which was really good. But from there I got sent on a [pause] down to a place called Haverfordwest in South Wales on flying control duty in the, in the control tower where it was getting, and it was quite funny really too. They had a radio channel that was monitored twenty four hours a day. It was called Darkie and if anyone got in to trouble they’d press Darkie and they, they would be directed to the nearest airfield. Well, this night there was a fella calling up for Darkie and we couldn’t get him. He’d got the, had the transmitter down all the time because we couldn’t get him. But it’s a funny thing I’ve often wondered about that. I reckoned he just must have just gone off into the night and crashed. But in reading a report from a, in a book that I got a bit after the war this guy he was doing his OTU at, in Scotland and the navigator should have been able to tell him where they went, where they were but the navigator had no idea. It was night time and it was cloud and the navigator didn’t know where they were, the pilot didn’t know where they were and they just kept on flying and eventually he was very lucky because the clouds broke up and underneath him was the Isle of Man and he was able to land on the Isle of Man. But in report he was, he was afraid he was going to be scrubbed because of that but in the report it said the navigator was the one who really got the blast. But he said to him as a navigator he wasn’t very good but as a pilot he was proficient. Well, I was there for another couple of weeks and this was after the D-Day landings and there were planes flying backwards and forwards across the Channel and the Navy was shooting at everything that came in sight. So they put me on a destroyer at Milford Haven as aircraft identification and they were taking a convoy of ships up the Channel to Cherbourg or what was known as a Mulberry Harbour. That was a harbour that was built up in Scotland [coughs] Built up in Scotland and it was, it was a huge thing. It was about a mile long. How they did it. We got there without any problems and we were on the way back to Milford Haven when the admiral was on board the destroyer I was on and he got a call to go to Portsmouth and I was, I’ll never forget it, I was on the catwalk on this destroyer when it turned around and I was up to my knees in water. Anyhow, we got to Portsmouth. Portsmouth, and from there got posted back to Haverfordwest and then the next day I was sent to Moreton in Marsh for OTU. That’s where I first met my crew. They put a whole load of us pilots and all the guys in a big room and we had to pick a crew. We’d nothing. We knew nothing about them at all except that they’d done their course and must have been proficient in whatever it was they were. I was very lucky. I managed to get a crew which we all got on very well with. Yeah. And the only one that I didn’t get was the flight engineer. He, they sent me a flight engineer and he came from Newcastle but he was quite a nice guy too. But we never had any problems. We just, we all got along very well with and we finished our OTU. The only thing was there’s something that I’d forgotten about until a couple of years ago when my rear gunner and mid-upper gunner reminded me that I’d, we were flying at seventeen thousand feet and suddenly started coming down, losing height and I can never, couldn’t get it back and we were coming down down down, getting lower all the time and everything was working as it should have been. I’d forgotten about it because, but when we got down to about six thousand feet I told them to prepare to jump out and when we got to about six thousand feet I was able to hold it at six thousand feet. So we finished the flight at six thousand feet but I reported it as an unserviceable plane, told them what the problem was but the next day we were posted to Winthorpe to the Lancaster. So I never really found out what the problem was. The only thing I can think of is that you had a constant speed propellers but [pause] you took off in fine pitch and then you put in a course pitch and from then on they took over and the only thing I can think of is that for some reason they changed over to fine pitch which would give you, you wouldn’t be able to climb very far on fine pitch. But that’s the only thing I can think of. I’d forgotten about it until just a few years ago when my rear gunner told me he always wanted to do a parachute jump. And he did two parachute jumps down at Wollongong but he said he was never so glad as the night I cancelled the order to jump ship. Now, I never, to this day I really don’t know what caused that. But then we went to Winthorpe. That’s where I met a guy that took me on a conversion course or an initiation course on Lancasters told me that he was very glad I was flying Lancasters and I never had any trouble. But the funny thing was there was an Englishman on the same course and he’d had no problem landing the Wellingtons and yet he reckoned he couldn’t land a Lancaster which doesn’t make any sense. I think he just didn’t want to go any further but I don’t know what happened to him. They took him out one day to an airfield that wasn’t used very much and they had him doing landings all day but I don’t know what happened after that. So from Winthorpe we were posted to 463 Squadron and [pause] I was, we were still on training at that stage and I can only remember they used to have a spoof raid which they called them, where the main course, main flight, the bombers would take off but this other lot would, one or two planes would take off a few minutes earlier and go on a different course and they’d throw out these strips of aluminium which they reflected on the German radar as planes that they didn’t know. And the idea was to get their planes up in the air somewhere away from where they, the main force was going. But the night war ended over in Europe we were flying on and all of a sudden all the lights came up all over the ground so I asked the wireless operator what was going on and he’d been listening to music so he didn’t know. Then he rang back and told me that the war was over and we had been recalled an hour earlier [laughs]. So we went back to base and I called up for permission to land which you have to do and of course and no one answered me. So I flew down over the control tower and never got any result from anyone. So I took a chance on what the wind was doing, what direction it was coming because we couldn’t see very much and when we landed we called up for transport to get us to go from dispersal back to the control tower and nothing happened. No one answered so we had to load all our gear for quite a long walk back to the control tower. And when we got back there all the guys were very much inebriated or had [laughs] had a little bit too much to drink. But it was quite a relief really to know that the war was over down there. And then we did several they called them Cook’s Tours. We took mostly WAAFs who had been in the offices around the place on these Cook’s Tours over Europe and showed them the bomb damage and all that sort of stuff and then that’s where instrument flying came in very handy because we were flying in cloud for oh, probably an hour. And it sounds silly but you, you swear blind your bum was six foot, six inches off your seat. You could really reckon you were upside down but you, that’s where I, you had to be convinced that the instruments are working. One of them might get out but not all them. And I finally got out of the cloud and when we came back I landed and the CO happened to be in the control tower and he, he said, ‘The pilot of that plane report to control tower immediately.’ I thought what the heck have I done? And he said, ‘That’s the best, best landing that I’ve ever seen.’ From there we did, we were supposed to go down to Italy to bring the prisoners of war home but it turned out that they had, in Italy they were all grass runways. So they didn’t have any concrete runways and they’d had a lot of rain there and the Lancasters that had gone down were all bogged. So we never went down there but the war was still going in, in the Pacific and the whole squadron were posted to, to go to Coningsby to do a conversion on to Lincolns. But the war ended over in Europe before, in the Pacific before we started on that so the next things happened pretty quickly from there on. That’s a photograph taken there of our squadron after the war. But we, we never actually got to Coningsby. I was posted back to Brighton and within three weeks we were on our way home. So that’s about it.
AP: There’s your quick story. Can we go back and fill in some gaps?
WG: Yeah.
AP: How old were you when you actually enlisted?
WG: Pardon?
AP: How old were you when you, when you actually joined the Air Force?
WG: 1942, I joined.
AP: So, how, how old were you at that point?
WG: Twenty one.
AP: Twenty one. Oh, of course because you had been a farmer.
WG: Yeah.
AP: The farm wasn’t a Reserved Occupation. That’s what —
WG: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok. That makes sense. Where were you when, when war was declared? What can you remember of that time? What were you doing? What were your thoughts?
WG: Well, that was [pause] well the Japs came in to the war when I was out at Seymour in the Army. So that would be, well ’41/42. ’41 I think it was. So, I would have been in the Army up there at that stage and as I said I enlisted in the Air Force in about six, would have been when I was called up would have been about three months later.
AP: What can you remember of 1939?
WG: Well, that would be, in those days I was just a farmer.
AP: Did you suspect when, when you became aware that war was on did you suspect that you would be involved at some point? What were your thoughts about that?
WG: No. To this day I don’t know why I enlisted in the Air Force [laughs] It was just something. I’ve no idea why I did that. Anyway, I decided I had to do something and I wasn’t really crash hot on being in the Army so I decided the Air Force would be better. You know. I had no idea. It’s funny because my younger brother enlisted in the Air Force just before I did. It’s funny how people, what their ideas are because she told him he could enlist in the Air Force as long as he was a rear gunner which was the most unrealistic thing [laughs] I mean, that’s the last job you’d want. But —
AP: So your brother did serve with Bomber Command as well? But did he —
WG: No. He was a fighter pilot.
AP: Fighter pilot. Ok.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Can you tell me much about the process of enlistment? What did you have to do? Did you have to do interviews and any extra training or anything? Any medical exams before you enlisted?
WG: We all had a medical exam and that was about it. And then we were called up and were put on a train and we turned up to Sydney and, where we did as I’ve said I didn’t do anything, learn anything really about flying except the theory of flight. That was about the only thing. But we had to pass in meteorology and so many [pause] There was about fifteen or twenty subjects we had to study. Law and administration and, as I said before Morse Code. That included aldis lamps and semaphore which was all part of it. I can’t remember the rest of the things. We had to be able to take a Bren gun apart and put it back together with your eyes closed which is quite a thing to do. But I don’t think there was anything. We did a lot marches in, in Sydney while we were there. Never did any marches in Melbourne.
AP: So, you mean like a march down the city street.
WG: Yeah.
AP: As a recruiting thing or just to get from A to B or —
WG: Oh no. It was just something they just decided to do. I don’t know why they did it but we did two or three. Three I think in Sydney. Marching down the street in Sydney.
AP: What did the local population think of that? Do you know?
WG: Oh, there was always a crowd of people out to watch it. But I don’t really know what they thought about it because we weren’t privy to that.
AP: Was it, was it a serious thing or was it like a joyful thing or, what was the mood on a march like that?
WG: Well, no one complained about it. It was just something we did. At one stage after we, when we were in England we were posted up at [pause] north of England and they had a lot of what they called six weeks wonders. There was a guy trained in administration but they didn’t know how to handle anyone. And I can remember at one stage that we were all marching, we still had to do marches and we were marching past a, I can’t remember [pause] it was, if it was for some reason the guys just kept dropping off. This fellow was in front leading the marching and by the time he got back to base there was only half a dozen guys behind him. And the day we were passing out up there unbeknownst to the, the officer in charge they all decided they would silent hop. Normally when you stopped you banged your foot down like that. It was something that always happened and this day when he called out, ‘Halt,’ there wasn’t a sound behind him. He spun around. Everyone was there, which rather surprised him. He thought he’d lost them all [laughs] While we was there this chap came in in a Lancaster and it was probably one of the worst landings I think you’d ever see. He touched down and up and down and up and, and when he finally got it down there a big roar went up. And I remember the last flight I did in England was at a [pause] I don’t know why I had to, I don’t know why I was there but there was a chap, Johnnie Blair. He was senior to me. I was only a flying officer and he was a flight lieutenant and I had to go along as his second pilot for some reason. This is what they called a gaggle where everyone just flew in a heap at night time and it was the worst flying I’d ever seen. I was tempted to take over many times but I thought well, he’s, he’s my senior, it wouldn’t go down too well. But we got back alright and I never saw him again. That was just a few days before we were posted to Brighton and the funny thing is he joined, he was a pilot with TAA in those days and this was quite a few years after the war and I was up at Mildura and I was there having a meal and this guy come in and he looked. He came over straight away to apologise. He recognised me even though he was a civilian pilot and this was quite a few years after. He reckoned he didn’t know he was going to fly that night and he had too much to drink [laughs] But he remembered that years afterwards.
AP: Oh dear. That’s great. Ok. Well, we’re talking about flying. Tell me about your first solo.
WG: Oh, it was uneventful. I did everything. No drama at all. That was on Tiger Moths. We had a lot of funny experiences because the airfield at Narrandera, they had a satellite field a few miles away where we flew. And I can remember one day these, the pilots used to get really cheesed off with it because they didn’t want to be instructors on Tiger Moths and this guy undid his straps on his parachute and walked out on the wing and sat there on the wing. The Tiger Moths, you could fly them with your hands out at the side really. They were, I don’t think any Tiger Moths crashed while I was up there. I think if you crashed you’d have to have done something silly. They were, they were a reliable plane. Yeah. I don’t think I had any dramas. When we were at Point Cook we had what they called a crash mate. There were, there were two of you and one guy would do his hour or whatever flying or whatever he had to do and then they’d change over. Well, my crash mate, his first solo flight was from Werribee and they’d, and he was coming in to land at the same time as another plane and they were both killed. So that wasn’t a very good experience. We didn’t know what happened to him. We only found out afterwards. So that taught me to make sure you knew everything that was going on around about you. Which reminds me, when you were coming in to land you always had to call up for permission to join a circuit and you always had to go downwind, crosswind and then put it, come back downwind and this guy he was supposed to meet his girlfriend that night and he decided to come straight in. I could see him coming and I thought well I’m not getting off the runway for him and he had to land on the grass alongside, just behind me. And unfortunately for him the CO happened to be in flying control and saw that. He didn’t go out that night. He was a bit of a rat bag but he was still flying a couple of years ago. He was flying, delivering newspapers down to, well down as far as Eden. Dropping them off. So, he was still flying so he must have been able to fly all right.
AP: Didn’t set him back too much. What can you tell me about Narrandera? The airfield. How did you live there? What sort of things did you do on a typical day?
WG: Well, I was lucky in one way. My cousin had trained at Narrandera and my brother had as well and they got to know a Mrs Andrews who was the wife of the doctor and we could go and spend a weekend when you couldn’t go and come home and get back in time for anything. So we, quite often we’d spend a weekend with the Andrews family which was quite good. Otherwise, we just stayed on the station.
AP: What was a day like? When you were learning to fly on a Tiger Moth what sort of things did you do on a typical day? How, how did it run?
WG: Well, as I said earlier quite often I’d spend time on the link trainer. Apart from that there wasn’t much else to do. I didn’t have any social habits. Really, really nothing in Narrandera itself. The town was very very small.
AP: Ok. Can you describe a link trainer?
WG: Pardon?
AP: Can you describe a link trainer? What did it —
WG: Well, it was like a big box and had all the instruments the same as a plane would have. You were completely enclosed in this thing and you could do anything. You could put it in a spin and whatever and, but you couldn’t hurt yourself. So the one thing we had if you did anything wrong you’re not going to hurt yourself.
AP: Very good. What about Point Cook? What was that like as an airfield to fly from?
WG: Oh, it was quite good actually. It was wintertime when I was down there and at that stage I was importing Vultee Vengeance planes which they came boxed and they were assembled down there and the pilots had taken [unclear] do a circuit to make sure they were flying alright. And I can remember one day I was walking behind one when he decided to rev it up and I was blown over and down the runway on my backside. But it was, it was only the bare necessities at an airfield. Nothing special about it. But they didn’t, they didn’t have concrete runways. They were all grass which meant you could fly in any direction but there was nothing special about it.
AP: You said you stayed at the MCG for a little while. That would have been something of an experience I imagine.
WG: Well, it was. A lot of things in the Air Force disappear and they did a stock take of things while we were there and it’s amazing how people would get off with things from the store room which, you’re not supposed to go to the storeroom only if you need another uniform or shoes or something. And it was amazing the amount of stuff that was missing. Which reminds me of another time we were between sometimes it must have been after [pause] no, it would have been before we started OTU. We were at a place called Burton and it had a coal dump at the back and they had a whole lot of fire buckets and things like that and one of the guys used to take the fire bucket into the town and sell them. And he sold buckets full of coal as well. They never caught him [laughs] And I remember he had a verey pistols and a cartridge you would fire if you were in distress or something land or something and there was a big flare at the end of it and one day I had one and I was trying to light it with a cigarette lighter and I was keeping well away from it because I knew that it was going to if it, if it lit it was going to go off. Well, two of my mates [unclear] and Bob Hines decided to take over and they were crouching over the top of it when it went off and they lost all their eyebrows and half their hair and everything else. They weren’t going to go to the doctor. They went to the chemist down the street.
AP: Yeah. Ok. So, when you get to England you said there was something like the first night there was a a Germans attacked.
WG: Yeah.
AP: What were your general thoughts about wartime England? What were your general impressions?
WG: Well, we had been through London in daylight and they had big barrage balloons up in the air and all the damage that had been done so you didn’t feel any sorrow for anything that happened over in Germany because London was pretty badly bombed. But we didn’t know that at the time it just it wasn’t until the next day we knew that the plane had been shot down. We, we knew the Bofors guns. They had Bofors guns all along the, the promenade so we, when we heard them going off but that’s about all there was to it. They didn’t last very long.
AP: What did you think of the civilian population and how they were handling things? Did you —
WG: Oh, it was amazing how they handled it really. A lot of them used to sleep at night under the railway stations in the Underground. London got a, it had done a lot of damage to the buildings and the houses but there were so many people who were spending their nights in, in the underground railway stations. Hundreds of them. They did that week after week. And it was funny when the what they called the buzz bombs they were just a little two stroke engine and a bomb and wings and they’d fly over until they ran out of fuel and then they’d crash. Well, the Hurricanes used to fly alongside them and tip their wing up and turn them out to sea so they crashed out to sea. So they didn’t do that much damage after they realised what they were. But then when the V-2s came along that was a different story because you couldn’t do anything about them. You didn’t know they were there until [pause] and I reckoned we were pretty lucky because we were at the Victoria Station and were about to get into a taxi when this woman for some reason wanted a taxi in a hurry so we said, ‘Take ours. Take it.’ And a V bomb came over just a few seconds later and I reckon we would have been just about where it was. So, as I said lucky we didn’t get that. But there was nothing they could do about them. They were just going too fast.
AP: You said something about a beam approach course.
WG: Eh?
AP: You mentioned something about a beam approach course [coughs] Excuse me, that you did earlier.
WG: Yes.
AP: Flying the beam. How did you do that? Can you remember the process of it?
WG: Well, it was set up for landing when there was a fog on for some reason. Before that they had what they called, well they still had what they called FIDO where they had pipes of oil down the side of the runway and they’d light them. Well, this took over from that and you’d have to find where the runway was for a start but they had different signals for, one side would be dit dit dit and the other side would be da da da but when you, you got on the where it was quiet you knew that’s where the runway was. So you did your circuit around, and you had to have everything accurate. Your rate of descent had to be right any you had to be at a certain distance there. The marker beacon, you had to be seven hundred and fifty feet and your rate of descent had to be accurate or you had a gauge telling you what that was and then had an inner marker which was a different sound again and then, and then a cone of silence which everything went off and you just pulled back on this control tower and you were there which made it very simple.
AP: How often were they used in anger so to speak? I know you trained on them. Did you ever —
WG: No.
AP: Do you know of anyone who —
WG: No. I never knew of anyone that used them.
AP: You have to wonder the point don’t you?
WG: Well, London used to get fogs and —
AP: Yeah.
WG: Their Meteorology was very very good except for one night I remember we were supposed to do a cross country flight and we had to take off north and then we had to come back over the airfield and then and we had to be at about twenty thousand feet. And it, the Met told us that it would be a windspeed of about fifteen or twenty knots but they got it completely wrong because it was over two hundred knots and I can remember it took us over half an hour to fly across the airfield and, and it went on and on and on. I could still see that there was one plane up there and one down just below me and one was just going veering away so I had to make sure I stayed in the middle and hoped to hell they didn’t change. Well, after about an hour I decided that we were never going to be able to finish. We didn’t have fuel enough to get back again so I aborted and went back and the CO told me off ‘til the next morning when the planes were all over the country and they’d all ran out of fuel so he decided I did the right thing which I think I did anyhow.
AP: Was what aircraft were you flying at that point?
WG: Lancaster.
AP: That was a Lancaster [unclear] Cool. Alright, turning to thoughts of leave. You would have got leave in England fairly often. What did you do?
WG: Well, there was [pause] quite often I wouldn’t go on leave. But when I was, before I got a commission there was a what was known as a Victoria Leagues Club where other ranks could go in Vauxhall Bridge Road. It was the Duchess, the Duchess of Devonshire was a patron and you’d pay about two shillings for a bed and your breakfast. But it was only for other ranks and there was, the person who really ran it was an Australian Red Cross girl, Virginia [Herman] and I got to know her very well and quite often I just spent half a day helping her in the office because there was a lot of office work that I could do to help her. But then I got, we got an invitation to, for an evening at the Duchess of Devonshire’s residence in Knightsbridge and so I think that was the Red Cross girl organised it for me and I went out there and that’s, and the present Queen Elizabeth happened to be there. She was in the Land Army. Just an ordinary girl in those days and we had a dance with her and Princess Margaret. Quite a nice night. Something I can remember which not everyone’s had.
AP: That’s quite a good claim to fame actually. I like that one.
WG: But once I became commissioned I wasn’t supposed to go to the Victoria League Club but I kept my old uniform and if I was going on leave I’d go down there because you get sick of London. There’s not a lot you could do there. I wasn’t a great one for going and getting drunk or anything like that. But it’s funny because my wireless operator was a funny little guy. He was only very very little but he was walking down the street in London and there was a couple of New Zealand guys trying to break in to a car. They reckoned they’d lost their keys so Shorty said, ‘Oh, I can get in there for you.’ Just then the police came along and grabbed him [laughs] So he was arrested, spent the night in jail. There was an American guy in there as well and as he was going before the judge he put something in Shorty’s pocket. He didn’t know what it was but when he, he finally, the judge believed what he said and when he put his hand in his pocket there was a brand new watch. So he sold that and got his uniform cleaned.
AP: Ok. Characters. What was your first impression of the Lancaster when you first saw one? What did you think?
WG: I think. Well, I thought it was a marvellous plane. I didn’t realise how good they were but one night we were supposed to go, take off early in the day and went in flying and like the day before, it was summertime and for some reason when we were coming in to try to land everything was just a blur of lights. I’ll never forget it. It was just a blur of lights and the instructor said, he he aborted it, the whole lot and said, ‘The student is showing signs of fatigue.’ But the next night no problem. I don’t know what it was. There was something about it because we had never any trouble flying at night with landing. But with the Wellingtons they were a different story. They were a sleeve valve engine on them and if you throttled back quickly the, it would backfire and the carburettor catch alight. Well, in the daytime you didn’t see it but in the night time you did see it and the only thing to do when that happened you opened the throttles and it sucked it all out. And this guy, I was supposed to take off after him on his first solo flight at night and he’d throttled back and see this sheet of flame they reckoned [he was surrounded going in]. The poor old instructor said, ‘I think we’ll have to shoot him down.’ [laughs] But after four attempts he did come down and landed all right. He took a chance on it but you don’t really see the flame in the day time but at the night time it’s very very visible. It’s something you just have to watch out for.
AP: So the Wellington was a challenging aeroplane then in some ways.
WG: Not really. A lot of people didn’t like them. One of my mates he had to have a certain length leg to be able to put on the full rudder when one engine gave out and he was too short. He started off flying Wirraways in Australia but he, his legs were too short and he couldn’t. He couldn’t handle them. He tried to join Oxfords at Point Cook and did all the things that I did, the beam approach and all that until he got to OTU where he couldn’t, couldn’t handle the Wellington. But they were a very good plane really and they were the first plane that bombed Berlin so, but the only thing I, trouble I had was when I lost height with them. But I never had any trouble landing them ever.
AP: There’s one thing I’m really interested in as well. You said you were at Haverfordwest, I think.
WG: Yeah.
AP: At Haverfordwest. Flying control.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Declaration. I’m an air traffic controller. I’m very interested in your experiences there.
WG: Oh. Well, they were really flying looking for U-boats and that sort of thing and I can remember one day when a Halifax came in. Yeah. A Halifax. And it had been shot up and they’d landed. The undercarriage was blown away. I never, I didn’t think anyone could get out a plane that fast. The whole crew were out. They landed on the grass and the whole crew were out but the plane was still going off down the runway. You can do it if you wanted to. But otherwise it was pretty uneventful. One of the things that I will never forget though was I had to do a couple of nights on pundit duty. Every airfield had a call sign and this pundit duty was an alternator. It had a big diesel engine and it was roaring all night and this thing was going. It was clacking out the three figures for the, to identify the airfield. So, I never got much sleep that time.
AP: So —
WG: There wasn’t much to do though. It was just to make sure that it was alright. Everything didn’t stop. Another time I was on the [pause] controlling on the runway and the guys were supposed to end up being flying, shooting bullets and they had to clear them again before they came in but he didn’t. He was clearing his guns on the runway. Everyone was diving for cover.
AP: So what did the runway control duty involve? What did you actually have to do there?
WG: Well, the control duty was only really if anyone was taking off you had to give them a green light or not. Whichever way. It depended if something was, an obstruction on the runway which could well be they had to stop anyone landing. So you either gave them a green light or a red light.
AP: That was like an aldis.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
WG: And the only thing wrong with the Lancasters if you had to stop before taking off they’d overheat because they depended on the air flowing through to keep them cool. If that happened you had to turn around the other way and rev them up until they cooled down again otherwise they’d blow all their oil out, coolant out which wouldn’t be a good thing.
AP: No. No. Not at all. And did you do much in the watch tower there as well? The control tower.
WG: I was in the control tower for about three weeks. That was before I went on the Navy excursion and after that I was posted to OTU.
AP: So, what can you remember about that control tower? What did it look like?
WG: Oh, it was just up in the air. It was a view windows all the way around and you could see everything that was going on all the way around you.
AP: Who else was in there?
WG: Pardon?
AP: Who else was in the tower?
WG: Oh, who was qualified. Yeah. We were, we were only doing what we were told to do because we didn’t know anything really about it.
AP: What, so what sort of things were you actually doing?
WG: I don’t remember doing anything very special. That night when the chap was calling up Darkie I was on the radio trying to get him but couldn’t do it. That’s the sort of thing we did.
AP: So just an extra pair of hands to fill in.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Get the coffee or whatever [laughs]
WG: Yeah.
AP: Alright. Cool. What did you think as the only Air Force officer on a Navy vessel? That would have been a bit odd.
WG: Pardon?
AP: When, when you were with the Navy what was the —
WG: Oh, I was the most popular guy in the Navy because they gave them a tot, a tot of rum every night and I didn’t drink the stuff. So I was the most popular fella. They all wanted my tot of rum.
AP: And were you, you were just sort of on the bridge there or —
WG: No. No. We, we was just there and if we were needed they’d call up. We didn’t have anything.
AP: Any duties as such.
WG: We didn’t have to do anything.
AP: Yeah. Ok. Alright. We might move on to Waddington. You weren’t there for very long I gather.
WG: Waddington?
AP: At Waddington. Yeah.
WG: No. I wasn’t at Waddington at all.
AP: Ah. Ok.
WG: 463 had been at Waddington but then they turned, they moved to oh what’s the name of the place there? Skellingthorpe.
AP: Skellingthorpe. Alright.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Tell me about Skellingthorpe.
WG: Very basic. Everything was very basic. Waddington was more of a permanent airfield whereas Skellingthorpe was just one that he been built during, just as for the war.
AP: How did you live there?
WG: Oh, we had all the amenities we needed. Had a mess hut. For a long time they used to have what they called high tea. I thought that was a main meal but I found out after that wasn’t a main meal. Once you became a commissioned officer you lived in a different world. You had a, I had a room to myself with a batwoman that came in to do all, all your necessary. Take your laundry or whatever. And they paid her a little bit extra for their meals but their meals were one hundred percent better than the ordinary troops got and one night a week we had a, what was called a dining in night. We had to be there in dress uniform and the CO shouted everyone a glass of port. I missed that for quite a while because I didn’t realise that the high tea wasn’t a main meal although it could well have been.
AP: So —
WG: The meals were much much better than the troops had.
AP: What was a high tea? What was the high tea?
WG: Pardon?
AP: What was the high tea? What did it involve?
WG: Oh, well it was a meal really. You could, could exist on that without any problems. But it was just called high tea. You had a normal meal. Your normal meal.
AP: What was, what other things happened in the mess? Did you get up to any high jinks there or —
WG: Not really. They had a bar but I wasn’t one that did a lot of drinking anyhow. Otherwise, it was just, one experience I’ll never forget was when I was orderly officer you had to go around the camp with the military police. They’d go around with you and they set me up because I was new on the station and there was, you had to check all the lights were all out by 10 o’clock and everyone was supposed to be in bed by 10 o’clock. But we came to this hut where there was a fair bit of noise going on so I opened the door and looked in. There was, this was the WAAFs quarters and this WAAF standing there with nothing on. Just the standard equipment [laughs] I couldn’t get out of there fast enough but the MPs knew what it was. They just set me up.
AP: Very good. Very good. Alright, so the war ended you said when you were on your first essential operation wasn’t it? Was that, did I understand that correctly?
WG: It wasn’t. That was a training flight.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
WG: [unclear] the training flight when Johnnie was listening to music. That was when it ended in Europe. That ended, was the night after when I was with Johnnie Blair and I was his second pilot.
AP: Yeah. And so then at that stage you, so you didn’t actually fly in any operations. Is that, that correct?
WG: No. We were still listed as learning.
AP: Ok.
WG: Yeah.
AP: At that point. Yeah. Alright. Alright. So, someone I, well you’re the first person I’ve spoken to who’s told me about a Cook’s Tour. Can you tell me more about it?
WG: Oh, Cook’s Tour. Yeah. There were a lot of ground staff on every station you were on, and they, they could be radio operators and all sorts of things but they were all WAAFs and we took them. There were two different routes. You flew over a fair bit of Germany, Munich and you crossed to Holland. And I could still remember something that I’ll, I thought I wish I hadn’t done it but we flew down low over the train on the [unclear] line and we flew down low. There was a train and it stopped and everyone [laughs] everyone piled out. Then we waved our wings at them and they all waved back [laughs] That’s something. I shouldn’t have done that.
AP: Wow. So, when you got back to Australia did you have a bit of time or a bit of trouble adjusting back to civilian life again when you got there?
WG: Oh, a lot of trouble. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: What sorts of things happened?
WG: I can still remember the day I was demobbed. I went in there as a flying officer and they made a point of telling me, ‘You’re mister from now on.’ I’d have liked to have stayed in the Air Force really but the way things were at home it just wasn’t practicable. But it took a lot of adjusting to civvy life again.
AP: What did you do after the war?
WG: Oh, my father still had a market garden. We planted an orchard with my brother, an older brother and we had an orchard and grew flowers and I used to do the marketing. Go to Victoria Market in the middle of the night about three, three times a week selling the produce. Couldn’t do it now. It’s a different world. But the old Victoria Market was quite an experience. I remember there was one chap down there he used to have flowers and his name was Eden and he sort of lost his marbles. He went around one day how long you’d be coming in to the market and telling him oh you’ve been here too long, writing me out a cheque. I don’t think anyone ever cashed his cheque. But that, I did a lot of the marketing before during the war before I joined up and it was pretty difficult driving with your headlights blacked out. Headlights were just a slit across and it was pretty hard on a dark night or wet night to see where you were going. I managed to make it all right. Didn’t have any crashes. But I’m glad I’m not doing it now.
AP: We might just jump back a few years again then as well. Most people that I’ve interviewed before the war if they joined up a little bit later they were still at school or something like that but you were actually working.
WG: Yeah.
AP: So as a civilian in Australia how did the war have an effect on your life in the first few years?
WG: Oh, it was just hard settling down to having to make your own decisions about everything because you had to earn a living which in the Air Force it was all [unclear] out. Yesh. Apart from that it was just something you had to get used to.
AP: So, my final question when you look back on your Air Force service what does it mean to you and what does Bomber Command mean and how should it be remembered?
WG: Oh, you’re talking about something I’m glad I did. I’m really, I was pretty proud of what I managed to achieve in the Air Force. I think someone had a guardian angel on my shoulder because if we’d been three months earlier I probably wouldn’t be here now because three months earlier Bomber Command were, their attrition rate was almost one hundred percent. And so we were very lucky. Ron, my mid-upper gunner I didn’t know until after the war that he started off trying to fly Tiger Moths and he couldn’t make it. I don’t know what it was but if he was doing anything he’d always turn to the left. If he was driving a car and he didn’t know where he was he would always turn to the left. And it must have been something to do with that because I never knew anything about that but he finished up a mid-upper gunner. He’s still going too. Shorty was a bit of a troublemaker. We, quite often, we had the living quarters and the mess hut were a long way away from the flight things and we used to all have push bikes and Shorty didn’t have a push bike so he would just take the first one he could find around the place. I can remember when first we got to Winthorpe we didn’t know where, we went into the town, Newark. It was only a few miles down the road. Then there was an, the Air Force had their buses take people into town and bring them back at night and we got back pretty late at night and we thought we knew where we were going and we were, it turned out we were walking through the CO’s tulip patch and the adjutant came out and the CO it was and I could see the moonlight shining on the brass around his hat and I saluted him and did everything right. And he said, ‘Do you know who you’re talking to?’ I said, ‘The commanding officer.’ And Alan Short said ‘Oh, what of it. Have a cigarette.’ And he said to report to the adjutant next morning at 10 o’clock. We thought we know [unclear] he doesn’t know who the hell we are. He knew who we were alright and we went in front of the adjutant the next morning and they called us. We were having lectures and they told us to go and report to the adjutant. They told us off a treat and they reckoned Alan Short was going to be sent home straight away and I said, ‘Well, if he’s going I’m going too.’ After giving us a good dressing down he said ‘Jolly good show.’ [unclear] So that was the end of that and the next day I got my commission.
AP: Oh really. Everything changed.
WG: There was lots of little things happened. Shorty used to, I had an electric iron when I, before I got a commission we all lived in the same hut and he, he’d break in to the butcher’s shop on the way at night time and bring out a steak out or something and cook it on my electric iron [laughs] Do that time and time again. One night the MPs were after him and he was a bit of a ratbag in lots of ways because they’d be looking for him and he’d sing out, ‘Hey, over here.’ And by the time they got there was somewhere else [laughs]. They never caught him. And he, I remember one night he went to the kitchen and he brought back, a lot of the kitchen staff they wore clogs, wooden clogs and he brought these clogs in. So I grabbed him by the curly hair and told him to take them back straight away. Well, he did take them back because they’d be wanting them the next morning because the kitchen, the floors would get wet and normal shoes would slip whereas the clogs they wouldn’t. One Christmas I remember they had a big Christmas dinner and out on this side of the runway they had a big kegs of beer. So, there were a couple of the guys went around to the field, found one that was pretty full so they took it back to the hut and they were drinking beer out of anything at all until Kenneth, the navigator got sick of it and he threw a slipper to the light and put the light out.
[pause]
AP: Any final thoughts?
[pause]
AP: No. Right. Thank you very much, Wal. It’s been an absolute 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 Wal Goodwin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Purcell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGoodwinWJ170607, PGoodwinWJ1701
Format
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01:31:39 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Wal Goodwin grew up near Melbourne, was conscripted in the Australian Army but was discharged due to his father’s reserved farming occupation. He later volunteered for the Australian Air Force and received his initial training of meteorology, Morse code and semaphore in Sydney, plus basic combat training – including dismantling and reassembling a Bren gun blindfolded. He recalls a march through crowded streets of Sydney. Wal took flying training at Narrandera by Link Trainer and then Tiger Moth but stopped due to tonsillitis. Further training was undertaken at Point Cook on Oxfords. Next, he awaited embarkation to England at the Showground and Melbourne Cricket Ground. Delays ensued, contracting mumps and then, after departing Australia, Italian prisoners of war and Polish female refugees were added to the sailing vessel at Durban, South Africa. In London, Wal saw barrage balloons and the destruction of the Blitz. In Brighton, Wal listened to an accurate broadcast by Lord Haw Haw and undertook an instrument flying course. He assisted in the control tower at Haverfordwest, then transferred to Milford Haven for aircraft identification. Wal’s destroyer accompanied a convoy to Cherbourg following D-Day. Wal crewed up at RAF Moreton in Marsh and converted to Lancasters at RAF Winthorpe before being posted to 463 Squadron. He completed a decoy operation when the war ended. Unable to contact RAF Skellingthorpe, they landed unassisted and returned to a party at the control tower. Wal was invited to a function at the Duchess of Devonshire’s residence in Knightsbridge where he danced with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. He remembers flying Cooks Tours. On return to Australia, Wal missed comradeship and struggled to adjust to civilian life; working on the family farm despite hoping to remain in the Air Force.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Victoria
Victoria--Melbourne
New South Wales
New South Wales--Narrandera
New South Wales--Sydney
Great Britain
England--Brighton
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Sussex
Wales--Haverfordwest
Wales--Milford Haven
Wales--Pembrokeshire
France
France--Cherbourg
South Africa
South Africa--Durban
Victoria--Point Cook
Victoria
England--Gloucestershire
New South Wales--Wagga Wagga
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
463 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Cook’s tour
displaced person
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
propaganda
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Waddington
RAF Winthorpe
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1172/11741/PSouthwellBR1601.2.jpg
9a7c396496641eda96c6db3449a4f406
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1172/11741/ASouthwellBR160903.1.mp3
5ddd2f3974411b29035fa9bcd8f13711
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
Southwell, Brian Robert
B R Southwell
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. An oral history interview with Brian Robert Southwell (b. 1916, 402261 Royal Australian Air Force), his log books, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 148 and 178 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-03
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, BR
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 Centre is with Brian Southwell. He was a pilot on Wellingtons and Liberators and numerous other aeroplanes post war. The interview is taking place at his brother Don’s house in St Ives in Sydney. It is the 3rd of September 2016 and my name is Adam Purcell. Brian, can we tell, can you, or let’s start if you tell me something about your early life growing up. School and first job and things like that.
BS: What I’d done early?
AP: Yeah. Tell me something about your life before flying.
BS: Well I was always interested in flying but at the time, at that time it was, the Depression was on and we had no money to go fiddling around, looking at aeroplanes [laughs] around the joint. So I had to, I had to sit back and get an office job and that. So I was just started off doing some accountancy which didn’t, which didn’t interest me at all. I went back to flying and I built that model aeroplane. The Moth. And while I was doing that I got to know a whole lot of de Havilland’s. You know the people out out at the factory there. And they were very helpful in getting me all the drawings and all sorts of things there to operate with. And I met all sorts of people that had, a lot of them had their own aeroplanes and I got very friendly with a man called Axel Von Goes. G O E S. His father was the Swedish consul in Sydney. I was chatting away to him there and he said, ‘I’ve got an aeroplane here,’ he said [laughs] he said, ‘It’s mine.’ And his was a little, a Leopard Moth. So he bought the, he had the sort of, the Leopard Moth there and he took, took the aeroplane up to barrel there and he landed on a racetrack over there. He made a little error on the place and knocked the tail on the fence and then smashed it all up. So he, he sold, sold the wreckage to de Havilland’s. The next thing, he appears he’s says, ‘I’ve got another aeroplane,’ I said, ‘Oh no.’ So he bought a Fairchild 24 that he got [unclear] with. And he decided he’d go to England to learn a particular skill. To do a course there. So I went down to England too with a ship with the Fairchild 24 and it fell off the sling there and headed out along the bloody ground. He got away alright there. He got to England alright, did his course there and he said, ‘I’ve sold the bloody Fairchild, he said, ‘I’ve sold it to a Dutch crew. A Dutchman.’ So he sold that to a Dutchman and still get him without an aeroplane. So he started off going back home via America. So he darted into a factory there and he ordered a bloody Stinson which he bought. That’s, that’s been going for quite a long, quite a long time and we used to get the aeroplane and we’d go to do all sorts of trips around. Yeah. Brisbane, Melbourne and all around, around New South Wales there. It was a beautiful little aeroplane. What does he jolly well do? [I’m with A&A [?] at this stage of the game he said, ‘Will you come up and do some checks with me on a Stinson.’ I said, ‘Well what have you done to the bloody thing?’ And what had he done. He’d put a new engine in it. A different engine in it. A 5-cylinder radial engine in it which ruined the whole bloody aeroplane. Poor old Axel. He went to Melbourne and he got married. He didn’t get any enthusiastic from his wife and children. So that was it. Yeah.
AP: So did Axel —
BS: Was that enough for you?
AP: Did Axel teach you to fly? Was it, did Axel teach you to fly and you flew with Axel? Is that the story? Brian. Did Axel teach you to fly?
BS: I did a lot of flying with him. He was unofficial. He wasn’t an instructor. But he’d aviate the thing around the place.
AP: So —
BS: I recollect he used to be a great enthusiast at stall turns. We took this Stinson over his house at Rose Bay. He had a house in Latimer Road, Rose Bay. Anyhow, we get up top there and were doing all the stall turns and what have you, around the place and the bloody engine stopped. So we [laughs] what did we have to do? We had to land on the golf course. You can see now all the people looking out of the flats [unclear] as we went gliding past with no propeller going. Oh dear. Oh dear.
AP: Very good. So, Brian where were you and what were you doing when you heard that war had been declared?
BS: What was that?
AP: Where were you and what were you doing when war had been declared?
BS: I can only just hear you.
AP: Sorry. Where were you and what were you doing when war was declared?
BS: Oh, when war was declared I was working in an office. I got out. It was pretty well into the start of the war. I was in the 22nd of July 1940.
AP: And so you, you went straight into the Air Force.
BS: Oh yeah. After, when I had to go up to Bradfield Park out at Lindfield here. And that was the ITS [Initial Training School] place. Then I had to go out to, out to Mascot, to 4 EFTS [Elementary Flight Training School] to learn to fly. And after I’d qualified on the Tiger Moth, I was sent off to 3 SFTS [Service Flying Training School] in Amberley in Queensland to fly an Avro Anson. That kept me going for a little while. I was sent home on leave and what have you and the next thing, I’m, I’m posted off to England on a bloody ship. No one recorded any of that around the place but I can assure you I was given, handed a ticket mind you. A first-class ticket to England. That took us bloody months and months. We were, we went to South Africa. Across to Fremantle. To South Africa. Went up to Puerto Rico. I had quite a look around there and we finished up getting over to England. That was an embarkation place where you decided what you were going to do. The sent us off to different, I was sent out to this ferrying. Crowded with the little aircraft. Not the Liberator.
AP: Can you tell me, Brian about your first solo?
BS: First solo. Yes. I remember the man’s name. The instructor was Mr Campbell. Mr Campbell that was running this out at, out at Mascot. All the training place there were mainly ex-civilian pilots and they were taken into the Air Force. They were made flight lieutenants and off they went. Yeah.
AP: And —
BS: More?
AP: What happened on your first solo?
BS: Oh, the first flight. I remember I took off on the one six area from the south there and I went down to the flying area training and [laughs] and had a little run around. Before I went old Campbell said, ‘Watch you don’t bloody well bend that bloody aeroplane.’ I said, ‘Alright, I won’t bend the bloody aeroplane for you.’ So I, 5 ASC I’d done the thing and it’s it didn’t took a very long flight. He was pleased to see me back I can assure you. Yeah. He died later on.
AP: So —
BS: There was a lot happened to those. He was somewhere over overseas and where you turned one engine and he turned it back into a, into a bloody hill. That was it. Yeah.
AP: Did you, did you see any accidents?
BS: What was that?
AP: Did you see any aircraft accidents during your flying?
BS: Accidents?
AP: Yeah. Particularly during your training.
BS: No. Only the, you know Liberators and what have you. There you saw the bloody Germans and what have you getting, getting all annoyed [laughs] Yeah. Because we were, we were operating a very [unclear] like up to a max number of about four in a flight you know. It made it a lot easier than the people in the Bomber Command who had ruddy dozens and dozens of bloody aeroplanes. Because we used to, we were in North Africa in a tented, tented camp shared with Americans. And the Americans fortunately supplied all the food which was, which was very good. And we used to, of a night time we used to go up the Adriatic Sea and you’d see the Mount Vesuvius as you went past there and you’d go right up to the top and you’d go up to the Danube. And you’d go about twenty miles down the Danube and you’d let all the fellows out. All the Yugoslavs. They were, they were quite interesting people except that they didn’t speak much bloody English. They did, they did what they could. Yeah.
AP: So, what did you think of wartime England?
BS: What did I?
AP: What did you think of England when you first got there?
BS: How’d I get there?
AP: What did you think of England when you first got there?
BS: Oh, I thought it was, it was excellent, yeah. I liked it very much because I had, I had a lot of relations over there. In Maidstone in Kent. And I used to visit him quite a lot on my leave. He was very popular with a lot of my crew because he owned a bloody brewery [laughs] . Fremlin’s Brewery. One other thing. English people were very good.
AP: Did you, did you see much effect of the war in England?
BS: I saw a few bombs around in London while I was there. But as I say I used to spend most of my time down at Maidstone in Kent. I kept away from the action of the aircraft. Because this person as I used to go to see in England her daughter is down in Melbourne. She’s still here. And the place in England it was absolutely fantastic with the aircraft people. And there was some people in the, who I used to go and stay with there at Maidstone he used to or she used to have people in for dinner. Anyhow, this particular night they brought in this flight lieutenant but he was actually First World War. So he sat back and told us all about what it was like as a controller and what have you in England. He said, he was up in the tower there. He had the green light, you know. The red light there to operate in. A noise came over and he said, ‘I’ll give this bloke the green light.’ So he gave the green light. This bloke came and landed. Unfortunately, he was a bloody German. A Focke Wulf 190. He thought [laughs] this is good. He goes along and then another German came around and there was three of them altogether they caught. All Germans. On the green light. Yeah.
AP: That’s, that’s incredible. Alright. So when you, you first get, got to England you would have gone to Bournemouth, I think.
BS: Bournemouth.
AP: Yeah.
BS: That’s right. There were places there. One was Bournemouth and the other was Brighton.
AP: Yeah.
BS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: What did you do after you’d finished at those places?
BS: What did you say?
AP: Where did you go next after, after you’d just —
BS: I went on those trips to — out to the Middle East.
AP: Did you do an Operational Training Unit course in England?
BS: Did I what?
AP: Did you go to an OTU [Operational Training Unit] in England?
BS: What did you say?
AP: Did you go to an OTU in England?
BS: I think you’d better call [unclear]
AP: Ok. Alright. Let’s, you were talking about going to see your relative in Kent. What, what things did you do on leave?
BS: What would I do with the people in Kent? All sorts of people. They used, they used to take me to see, put on a bloody show. Show all the locals what the RAF were and what have you. Yeah.
AP: Did you [pause] ok. Tell me how you met your crew.
BS: Which?
AP: How did you meet your crew?
BS: They were just picked out. I didn’t any. I had two bloody gunners out there and [laughs] they were very nasty little fellows. They were interested in taking, escorted away from the establishment. Constantly, ‘Get away and don’t come back here.’ I took them back to Australia. Salmon. Ted Salmon and Mr Kipp. I forget the other one’s name. [unclear] No. I can’t remember the —
AP: Right. So you went to the Middle East.
BS: What’s that?
AP: What did you do in the Middle East?
BS: In Italy?
AP: In the Middle East. In the Middle East.
BS: Oh sorry. We used to operate out of Derna. That’s on the North African coast there. We were all living in tents and it wasn’t very comfortable I can assure you there. And we used to do bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi and on the ships and what have you. We knocked a few ships off the place. And Crete. We used to go give old Crete a bit of a, a bit of a rumbling over. I had the air forces, the Lord Trenchard, he came down to see us at the squadron and he said, ‘I’d like you to try and get rid of some of these [unclear] like Maleme at Crete. And he said we’ll have all goes on this. So, he was alright. About five bloody days we hopped down in at this place. You’ve never seen such fires in all your life. Yeah. It’s the question of you’re getting around getting this information because there’s so many other people have gone now that can tell you where all these things were and what have you.
AP: This is why I’m talking to you now Brian.
BS: Yeah.
AP: While you’re still here.
BS: Oh, I know. I belonged, when I, I retired in 1976 and I would join a lot of these historical societies and what have you there but they were more interested in writing books out themselves rather than about the people that were involved in those days. So —
AP: Can you, can you tell me something about when you were operating out of Libya?
BS: Out of where?
AP: I think you said Derna.
BS: Derna. Yeah.
AP: You said you were based in Derna.
BS: Yeah.
AP: What, what was that place like to live in?
BS: That was very interesting. Very, very old houses and that there and on your day off you could go down into the village. A lot of them were just as left you know. People living in there and they were quite, quite to do with, but what we used, of all places we needed the bloody Arabs and, but the Arabs were the American source of pistols. And the Americans used to get on a truck and go out in the desert and find one of these big Arab compounds and get themselves a nice Beretta or some other gun [laughs].
AP: What, what things did you do to, to keep yourself amused? What did you do to keep yourselves amused when you weren’t flying?
BS: When I was flying?
AP: No. When you were not flying what did you do in Derna?
BS: I used to go around. The man that ran, who was the managing director of the brewery. He was, he was a very friendly. He used to put me on to all sorts of people that he knew to put you on to about what goes on around the place.
AP: And, and what’s sorts of things were going on around the place? What sort of things did you go and do?
BS: Well, there wasn’t much out there to do other than to go to the pictures. But I never used to be interested in theatres. No.
AP: Alright. Were there, were there any superstitions or hoodoos on your squadron?
BS: Any hoodoos?
AP: Or superstitions or anything.
BS: No. No. No.
AP: No. No squadron lore. Oh, worth a try. Ok. Let’s talk about your operations for a little while. In, in the Middle East what sort of work were you doing? What sorts of targets were you bombing?
BS: Well we were doing all the bombing up in Tripoli and Benghazi and the shipping around the place. But we were also but I got, I was in hospital for a little while and I had to go with a couple of other blokes to fly with and they took me to see [unclear]
AP: What — ok. So, you were flying. What were you flying? Liberators or Wellingtons?
BS: Oh, sorry, I told you we went up to Belgrade. Belgrade. And —
AP: And what did you do at Belgrade?
BS: At Belgrade we had a look at the locals at low level. Because those Liberators you know had huge bloody engines. Four engines in them in there and when you came down low you used a lot of fuel and with the fuel there was a whole load of flames coming out of the bloody thing. Oh yes.
AP: And what, what other fun things did you get up to in aeroplanes?
BS: A couple of times around, a couple of trips. On one, one of the COs as a matter of fact. He said he’d like to go and have a good close look at Belgrade. He didn’t realise how close it was going to be [laughs] Because Belgrade’s got a lot of bridges around the place. Anyhow, we levelled out and it was all lit up. We were right on the bloody deck there and there was people running everywhere. We went flying up and away and then it was to Derna again. To get up to Derna was six hours and going back was six hours. And all, all these men from, the Yugoslavs and what have you they couldn’t speak much English around the place. They used to be parachuted out the back of the, back of the Liberator.
AP: So, you were dropping parachutists.
BS: Yeah.
AP: As well as bombs.
BS: Also, a whole lot of supplies they used to give them. All sorts of stuff for the locals to live, you know. There was gold and all. You name it, it was around.
AP: So, this was what you used to deliver with the Liberators.
BS: Yeah.
AP: Wow. Wow. So, what, what did you do next? Where did you go after that?
BS: Where did I — ?
AP: Where did you go after that?
BS: I went on, I went to do a flying school at the RAF school of flying. I was in an airfield for about a month on Airspeed Oxford aircraft. That was a very nice interlude. Resting. Yeah.
AP: Did you, did you, you were an instructor I believe.
BS: Oh yeah.
AP: Can you tell me something about that?
BS: It was quite interesting. The chief there, he called me in and told me this, ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I wish you could keep [unclear] a lot of people wanting to pay, to come for flying in the RAF.’ And he said, ‘The parachute girls are alright,’ what have you. ‘We’ll give them a ride.’ So I was appointed the overseer to the passengers.
AP: So, when —
BS: He’s dead now. Bill.
AP: When you were —
BS: When I got [pause ] I’m just trying to think there. I went to this flying school. What he said there was that the people who were a much higher rank than I was. I was a warrant officer at that time. So he said, ‘You’d better get yourself a commission.’ So I said, ‘That’s alright. Thank you very much.’ So he said, ‘Go in and see this place.’ I went down to a magnificent old house in 5 Group and listened to what I had to say. They had this magnificent big old table there with, magnificent carved chairs and what have you there and all these people asking me silly questions. And I think they thanked me very much for my interest and I said, ‘Thank you,’ and off I went out. A couple of days later the bloke said you’d better get down to bloody Melbourne and get yourself some uniforms, the officer’s uniform store. So, I went down to Melbourne — to London at least and went to a place in Saville Row of all places. I was in there for, I went a few times. I had to go in there to check out. Then I was, another day I had to go down to get a uniform, not a uniform, an overcoat. I wore it. A beautiful overcoat from Saville Row in London. Yeah.
AP: And that was part of your officer’s uniform?
BS: The real old-fashioned tailors and they were sitting up on top of a bloody chair and this little —
AP: What —
BS: I’m sorry if this is a little bit boring for you.
AP: That’s alright. I’m coming up with questions. Its ok. So, you’re in London. Right. At Saville Row and all that sort of thing. What, what did you think of wartime London?
BS: What was this?
AP: What did you think of wartime London?
BS: I can’t hear you.
AP: What did you think of London during the war?
BS: London itself?
AP: Yeah.
BS: Oh, I didn’t [unclear] impressed with it. Yeah.
AP: Was it —
BS: There was very opportunity to get around looking at all the sights around the place.
AP: And what sorts of things were you looking at in London?
BS: Have you seen Felicity’s little, did she show you that?
AP: I did. Yes. Very good. Alright. So, who were you instructing at Lichfield? Who were you teaching?
BS: That’s 27.
AP: Yeah.
BS: Lichfield. Staffordshire. Is that? Where the potteries were. All the potteries were around there.
AP: Can you tell me a story or two from Lichfield?
BS: Oh yes [laughs] I can. At Lichfield it was very interesting because there is a big cathedral church at Lichfield. It’s the only one in England with three, three spires on the thing. So, I had a friend, he was Warrant Officer Webb and he used to fly the Moth Minor. That was for recreation. He would go for a ride in the Moth Minor. So, he called me up and he said, ‘How about we go for a real run around in the Minor?’ So I said, ‘Alright. We’ll go running around in the bloody Minor.’ So away we go. Anyhow, he didn’t do much around there. He got right down on the spires. He was amongst the bloody spires there [laughs] And when we got back, we got back to the to the RAF station there and the CO was really jumping up and down, ‘What on earth were you annoying [laughs] annoying the bishop down,’ [laughs] He said, ‘You were flying down his spires.’ So anyway, we dined off that for a while.
AP: What was the —
BS: I’ve never been so close to a spire of a church in a Moth Minor.
AP: Can you, can you tell me about the pubs in England? The pubs. Did you go, you know when you were on time off, when you had time off did you go to the nearest pub to have a drink or something?
BS: I used to go, it took me a lot of time to get the train down to Maidstone in Kent. To my relatives there.
AP: Alright. So, what, what happened after Lichfield?
BS: When I finished up all my operations and what have you they said you were going to go, you were going home. I said well that’s very good. Off we go home. I get down to the bloody docks there and we were going to New York. Here we are sitting, sitting and there’s a bloody great Cunard liner. The Aquitania was there and it was full of American troops on the way home from Europe and what have you there. Crammed on that ship was sixteen thousand army people. Yeah. Sixteen thousand. I was very glad I was in the officer’s mess to get a decent feed. What else would you like to —
AP: So, you went, you went to New York on that boat.
BS: Oh sorry. That was another one. When we got to New York what was it? Oh, we found, they found out that the air attaché was an Air Marshall Williams and he was in the Pentagon. And they organised all these, these aeroplanes they’d bought, the only places we had for them was they organised a bloody crews for them. So, the snag was that you had to have an instrument rating to fly in America. So they had to find somebody to do this. So I get shoved off. I shove off to Chattanooga in Tennessee. To Smyrna, Tennessee. I was down there for a month to do all my training for the white card and what have you. That was it. I got my white card. Yeah.
AP: What, what sort of training did you have to do for the instrument training?
BS: The training out at Smyrna was absolutely excellent. First class. The visit to the Pentagon was a very interesting thing. It was a huge place.
AP: Tell me more about that. Can you tell me more about the Pentagon? Can you tell me more about the Pentagon?
BS: I’m not really sure but, Felicity and I think she seems to know more about me in those days these days.
AP: Right. So you did your instrument rating training in the US. What happened?
BS: Oh yeah.
AP: What happened then?
BS: Well, I was able to fly anywhere in the United States with my white card. With a Liberator. I could just trundle out, fill up the tank and off we’d go. That was it. Yeah.
AP: And, and so where did you go?
BS: Oh, I went to Kelly Field the place I went to. They were very good. The instructors at the place. They were a lot of ex-airline pilots and they were very good.
AP: And, and what did you then do with that instrument training?
BS: Around New York we were really feted. They treated us like bloody kings. It was quite a novelty, I think. The American there. Aircrew flying around New York. But after it was Pan American that would go with them around the place and they used to have special trips from Australia to New York. For a hundred and thirty-four dollars Sydney to New York. So, I would go there every time of the week. I wanted to. My sister, she was there for twenty eight years at the consulate there. Yeah.
AP: So then, after you did this training in, in the US then you flew to Australia. Can you tell me about that?
BS: After I’d finished the training thing I was a trainer. Up to Sacramento in California. Sacramento is the capital of California and I was told to take one of these great new aeroplanes which I did. Got the aeroplane. Off I trundled with this great monster and that was it. That was, then after I’d arrived back in Australia I got sent off down to Tocumwal. I knew some fellows in the air force and I sort of said, ‘Listen. There’s no future in joining the bloody Air Force.’ I got out of there very rapidly.
AP: Can you, can you tell me a little bit about flying across the Pacific? What was that like in a Liberator? The brand new aeroplane. What was it like to fly across the Pacific in a brand new aeroplane?
BS: Across the Pacific. Well it was quite, it was quite plain because we didn’t have all the things there are around now. Radios and what have you. I remember it took us, took us to go from Sacramento to Hickam Field in Honolulu there, it took us about twelve hours. Yeah.
AP: Can you tell me a story about that trip? Can you tell me a story about that trip? About that?
BS: No. Strange to say it was very uneventful. The four engines all went nicely. And I, [unclear] Amberley, Queensland. I remember getting back there about 5 o’clock in the afternoon. I was most relieved. The locals were alright. So I got down on the bloody deck and flew over Redcliffe. Ambled in. There was nought to do there. The customs were all, had all gone off for the night so had to come back the next night to do our customs check. Yeah.
AP: And how many hours were on that aeroplane when you arrived?
BS: Oh, I couldn’t tell you. [unclear] Maybe thirty something hours.
AP: And you did almost all of them. Pretty cool.
BS: Well, it was all a piece of cake sitting back in a nice bloody new aeroplane, you know.
AP: So, so what happened after that?
BS: Well I got sent down to Tocumwal. I was popular down there because all these people down at Tocumwal thought that they were going to America to pick up these aeroplanes.
AP: What, what did you do at Tocumwal?
BS: After that, after that I joined, joined the A&A [ANA?]
AP: And can you tell me some stories about that flying perhaps?
BS: Australia deteriorated in a lot of areas as regards to the RAAF.
AP: Sorry? Say again. What were you saying then? What were you saying then, Brian?
BS: What was I saying?
AP: What were you saying just then?
BS: What was I —
AP: What were you saying? Ok. Don’t worry. So could you tell me a story about A&A?
BS: A&A. Well it was quite interesting. I started off on a DC3 and a DC2. Very good flying. I was the first officer at the front there writing out books and everywhere you had bits of bloody paper to fill in around the joint. Yeah.
AP: And what —
BS: A&A unfortunately deteriorated rather more than some [unclear] to whatever [unclear] staff didn’t like us very much. That’s when I had the, they had that Convair that John was talking about down at Woollongong.
AP: And can you just, because we weren’t recording the conversation earlier can you tell me your story about the Convair and Sydney Harbour Bridge.
BS: Oh yeah. Well that was a remarkable aeroplane. The Convair. because you sit over the top at nine thousand feet there and all you’ve got to do is slam the wheels down and look out and see where the runway is and what have you. And you adjust the rest of the, the rest of the descending and you could go down from the Harbour Bridge down to [unclear] there. Very bloody quickly time. Yeah.
AP: So it was a very, a very manoeuvrable aeroplane.
BS: Oh yeah. There was a, there was a 340 [unclear] TAA [?] and so on.
AP: So you had a fairly varied flying career. I think there’s something like twenty-seven thousand hours in your book.
BS: Twenty. I finished with twenty-seven thousand and seven.
AP: And seven.
BS: Yeah.
AP: And what is, or how many different aeroplanes did you fly?
BS: What with, as a passenger, that was quite a bloody aeroplane so I managed to get wheedled into a little [unclear] and have a look in it.
AP: As a, as a pilot what is your favourite aeroplane?
BS: Oh sorry. As a pilot I only flew the, the Wellington I flew. That was another. Another bomber.
AP: What, what was your favourite aeroplane? What is your favourite aeroplane, Brian?
BS: The Liberator was my favourite there. You could really get around in that.
AP: I’m sorry. I did, I missed that. What was your favourite?
BS: The best one I used to fly around in was a little Stinson with my friend. The Swedish consul’s son.
AP: Very good. So, what, when did you retire did you say? When did you retire from flying?
BS: When did I — ?
AP: Retire. When did you retire? When did you stop flying?
BS: Oh sorry. Age sixty. ’96.
AP: And what did you do then after you retired?
BS: They very condescendingly gave me a private licence notice. I never ran it up. The only thing I’ve ever flown in, a chap offered a ride in his private aeroplane which frightened me no end. It was a bloody Rapide. A de Havilland Rapide.
AP: You told me a story before as well about Keith Smith.
BS: Who’s that?
AP: Did you tell, you told me a story about Keith Smith before.
BS: What’s the name?
AP: Keith Smith. You told me a story before about Keith Smith.
BS: Keith Smith.
AP: Keith Smith.
BS: Oh Sir Keith Smith. Yeah. I used to work in an office once. I used to go around and see old Sir Keith about is writing the cheques out and do all sorts of things there. I got friendly with him. He was a very nice man to talk to. And another fellow I used to talk to was Sir Hudson Fysh you know, from Qantas. He was another good fellow.
AP: What did you have to do with him?
BS: I used to carry him from Adelaide to Sydney on occasions.
AP: And you said you went flying with Keith Smith.
BS: I never flew with Sir Keith Smith. I only saw him in his office.
AP: Oh ok. Alright. Ok. Tell me your, your favourite flying story. Can you tell me your favourite flying story from your flying career?
BS: My flying what?
AP: Can you tell me your favourite story of your flying career.
BS: [unclear] No.
AP: No? [pause] Alright. How, Brian, how did you find, after Air Force how did you find readjusting to civilian life?
BS: It was very interesting Adam because as I say I was a bloody clerk you know sitting in the right hand seat of the aeroplane with bits of bloody paper and books and what have you. Do this. Do that.
AP: How, how did you find civilian life after air, the air force?
BS: [unclear]
AP: How did you find civilian life after the air force?
BS: The civilian flying was quite interesting. I used to, to fly to England with the RAF. They were very good at the OTUs.
AP: So, in, in what way were the RAF very good?
BS: Well I used to go to work at 9 o’clock in the morning. Had my breakfast. I waddled down to the flight and have a chat around the joint. Come along and so many people want to go flying today. If you could fill in. I’d say, ‘Alright. I’ll fill in. Give these people a bit of a run.’ We were going in a smaller aircraft than the Liberator. The Liberator they never ever took us to go flying with passengers in them. Around the place at all.
AP: What did you think of the Liberator as an aeroplane? What did you think of the Liberator?
BS: The RAF?
AP: Of the Liberator. What, what was your impression of the Liberator?
BS: Absolutely fantastic. I was very careful of those bloody big bits out the back though [laughs]. The rudders and things down there.
AP: And how, how easy was it to fly?
BS: Quite good. One thing, we didn’t have a lot of bombs in there. Very well. When you laid it up with six thousand pound bombs there.
AP: And were you ever involved in any crashes?
BS: No. Never any crashes. No.
AP: Were you involved in like the aftermath? Like investigating any crashes or something like that. There’s a, something in one of your logbooks I found which —
BS: We were going down to Melbourne. The little aerodrome down there. The little one for aircraft.
AP: Moorabbin.
BS: Err —
AP: Moorabbin.
BS: Moorabbin. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. So, there’s a, there are a few photos in one of your logbooks. It’s in an envelope and it says crash — Victor Hotel Charlie X-ray Delta. Higgins Field, Cape York. 5th of May 1945.
BS: Where’s that?
AP: This is in your logbook.
BS: Oh yeah.
AP: And there are some photos of that.
BS: Was it May?
AP: Yeah. May 1945. Yes.
BS: That was a very frightening thing.
AP: Can you tell me about it?
BS: Oh yeah. When we used to transfer from one crew to the other at Higgins Field. That’s the name of the aerodrome right at the top of the point there. So, these characters, they came roaring in and it was pelting with rain and what have you there. And they got caught. Caught out. They smashed the bloody thing as you see there. She was really a mess because there were bits, bits of people and bits of bloody freight and all sort of things they’d got on the joint. They brought a lot of material. Rolls of fabrics. The Tiger Moth. And in the crash they all came loose and they were rolling all over the joint. This big roll of fabric.
AP: And what was your involvement?
BS: [unclear] I went up there to have a look at the crash and I found a man with this RAF Tiger Moth. He said he’d take me up and have a look around which he did.
AP: So, you were, you were up at, where was it? You were up at Higgins Field at that time.
BS: Higgins Field. Yeah.
AP: So you were there when it happened? Brian, Brian. Were you there when the crash happened?
BS: Was I there? Yeah. I was. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. So —
BS: I was sitting with a crew waiting for the, to get an aeroplane to go flying again.
AP: And, and what happened after that?
BS: Well there was no action going there at all after all the people were dead.
AP: Yes. This is true. Can you, what was I going to [pause] yeah. So tell me, tell me the story of your caricature. I’m just looking at your logbook and I see a little caricature of you. A little, a little cartoon.
BS: Yeah.
AP: Can you tell me about that?
BS: The cartoon.
AP: Yeah.
BS: I don’t know who the artist was. That was in, sent up to Melbourne to go to London to get the cartoonist to get going but I never ever got a copy of that thing. I was going to get Felicity to copy that. It’s a beautiful head [laughs]
AP: Yeah. It is. It is. I guess we should, we should go back to the beginning. Can you tell me about your model aeroplane?
BS: The model aeroplane?
AP: Yeah.
BS: Well, I decided to make this bloody, this bloody model and I approached de Havilland down at Mascot and I told them what I wanted to do and what have you. And I said could I have some access to the drawings and the store. The store and what have you there. No problem at all they said. Which they did. They folded now. Folded up. The company have. de Havilland’s. They have a big museum in Salisbury. Near Hatfield in England.
AP: How, how long did the model take you to build?
BS: It took me eighteen months to make that model.
AP: Wow and —
BS: You know all these bloody ribs, you know. Bloody pages of them.
AP: And what happened then? What happened to it after that?
BS: Well, I was approached by the Australian Women’s Flying Club for an instructional thing. They wanted to use it and they said, ‘Yes we’ll look after it,’ the war and what have you, I never heard another bloody thing from them.
AP: Oh really. Not very nice.
BS: Yeah.
AP: There’s another photo in your logbook. This is logbook number three. It looks like it’s a Stinson or an Auster or something. It looks like it might be you standing next to someone.
BS: What’s that?
AP: There’s a, there’s a photo in your logbook. In 1946 I think.
BS: [unclear] Felicity here. She was looking at all these things and telling me and I haven’t a clue what she’s talking about.
AP: It looks like it’s a Stinson because there’s an entry that says Sydney, Old Bar, Coffs Harbour Casino, Brisbane and it’s in Victor Hotel Alpha Charlie Zulu.
BS: The which?
AP: Alpha Charlie Zulu. It’s a Stinson.
BS: Yeah. That was my friend Axel.
AP: Yeah. Can you tell me something of that flight?
BS: Well that aeroplane was a magnificent aeroplane but as I say I had to keep away from the A&A and CAA [?] The A&A, and they took a dim view if you went flying in other aircraft with other people.
AP: Why was that? Why? Why?
BS: It mentions in there about ACZ [?] does it?
AP: Yeah. There’s a photo of it. There’s a photo of you. And it must be you and Axel.
BS: Yeah. Yes.
AP: It looks pretty cool. Let’s have a flash through it. Now —
BS: He was, he was quite a character that bloke. I used to like him but a lot of people didn’t like him but I thought he was rather good. He was educated in England. Do you know where it is? Eton College.
AP: Eton College.
BS: Yeah. Eton College. Yeah.
AP: Something else I found in your logbook is a map of Tripoli. There’s a, there’s a map Brian, in your logbook, of Tripoli and it has anti-aircraft guns marked and it’s got a big red thing that says “Secret.” Do you know anything about that? Brian. There’s a map in your logbook of Tripoli.
BS: Is there?
AP: Yeah. What, can you tell why? Why is Tripoli important?
BS: Tripoli?
AP: Yeah.
BS: That’s the target. Target sheet that is. We were given those to sit there when you’ve got sitting there like a bloody idiot watching where the bombs go.
AP: And can you also tell me about — it looks like a Slovenian or a Polish nickel. It looks like it’s a Slovenian or a Polish nickel. It’s got a photo of Essen in it. Do you know? It’s in your logbook. You were telling me. You were telling me earlier.
BS: As I told you Felicity was looking at these things. She never told me about that. She doesn’t realise that I can’t bloody well see.
AP: It’s unfortunate. There’s also, that looks like it’s an Italian one. So, can you tell me about a nickel raid? What a nickel raid was?
BS: About what?
AP: What was a nickel operation?
BS: A nickel was leaflets.
AP: Yeah.
BS: Leaflets there.
AP: Can you tell me about that?
BS: You’ve seen one in there have you?
AP: Yeah. I have.
BS: As I told you when you opened the bomb doors all those things used to float around. Be all over the bloody place. That was it. A nickel. That was, that was a slang name for a [unclear] out of the cabin.
AP: Cool. What’s this? That’s another map of Tripoli. Alright. Well I think we’ve come to the end of my questions. So thank you very much. Thanks very much Brian.
BS: Thank you. I’m sorry [unclear]
AP: No. You’ve, you’ve told me some good stories so that’s really cool. So I’m going to turn the microphone off now and I’ll go and get Felicity. Ok.
BS: Thank you. Yeah. I’m very pleased to see that someone’s around that’s still around looking into what goes on years ago.
AP: I wouldn’t end. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
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 Brian Robert Southwell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Purcell
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
2016-09-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASouthwellBR160903, PSouthwellBR1601
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:01:07 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Brian Robert Southwell was born in Sydney and lived during the Depression which saw him have to set aside his interest in aircraft in order to secure a steady wage with an office job. He spent eighteen months making a model aircraft with the support and practical help of the de Havilland aircraft company. He made friends with the son of the Swedish consul in Sydney who was an aircraft enthusiast and he was able to fly with him. When he was able to volunteer for the RAAF he began training as a pilot on Liberators. He was a member of a special squadron dropping supplies and partisans into occupied areas. He also took part in other bombing operations while stationed at RAF Derna in North Africa.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Michael Cheesbrough
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Libya
Libya--Darnah
New South Wales--Sydney
North Africa
Libya--Banghāzī
New South Wales
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1945-05-05
aircrew
B-24
Fw 190
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Lichfield
training