2
25
413
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/5861/PCavalierRG17010033.2.jpg
995110fd7ed36cc46f17faf4cc4bed6e
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Middleton St George
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of Reginald George Cavalier amongst several loaded bomb trolleys. In the background are trucks and aircraft.
Photographs 2 and 3 are of a group of airmen watching a 4000 lb bomb being lifted on slings. Captioned '1000 lb bomb.'
Photograph 4 is of four Naval officers looking at the rear gun turret of a Halifax.
Photograph 5 is of three airmen handling bombs on a crane, watched by Naval officers.
Photograph 6 is a discussion between Naval officers and airmen beside bombs stored on the ground.
Captioned 'Visit of the Royal Navy, R.A.F. Middleton St George. 14th July 1942.'
Photograph 7 is of three Halifaxes, one coded 'Z-ZA', another 'T', a hangar, a truck and two trailers. Captioned 'View from Photo Section window.'
Photograph 8 is of four airmen sitting on top of a Halifax.
Photograph 9 is of Reginald George Cavalier in the cockpit of a Halifax. Captioned 'R.G.C. in cockpit of Halifax A/C.'
Photographs 10 and 11 are of a Halifax, one coded 'H-MP'. Captioned 'Halifax A/C. 78 Sqd.' [Squadron code MP is for 76 Squadron.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-07-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
11 b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010033
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 Navy
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-07-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Durham (County)
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Darren Sheerin
10 Squadron
76 Squadron
78 Squadron
bomb dump
bomb trolley
ground personnel
Halifax
hangar
RAF Middleton St George
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6096/PCavalierRG17010041.1.jpg
1ac37051a0dce0522cacbaadbc93263c
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Damaged Boston and senior officers
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 and 2 are of damage to the rudder of a Boston . It is being inspected by air and ground crew. Captioned 'Boston A/C, 88 Sqd returned from a raid on Transformer and Switching Stn near Orleans, France 3rd Oct 1943.' Captioned 'Air Crew Sgt Hoey, Sgt Gardner and Sgt Rodhem.'
Photograph 3 is a three quarters portrait of Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry. Captioned 'A.V.M. Basil Embury [sic]'.
Photograph 4 is of two officers in front of a tent. Captioned 'G/C. McDonald, W/C Maher.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-10-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010041
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-03
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--Hampshire
Language
A language of the resource
eng
88 Squadron
aircrew
Boston
ground crew
ground personnel
pilot
RAF Hartford Bridge
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6098/PCavalierRG17010043.1.jpg
f3bdc9945bbbc8005c71c5a59a6b5933
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Photography section
RAF Hartford Bridge, Hampshire. 1944
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of four airmen, including Reginald George Cavalier, standing at the back of the photographic trailer. Captioned: 'Photographic Trailer, 11th March 1944. Harold Pyatt, Frank Watson, R.G.C., Hal Ashley.'
Photograph 2 is of the inside the trailer captioned: 'Inside Photographic Trailer, Chalky White, Frank Watson, Les Seymour.'
Photograph 3 is of six airmen at the back of the trailer drinking tea. Captioned: 'Photo Sec S.H.Q. 137 Wing. Tea Break. Jock Sadler, John Vassell, Hal Ashley, R.G.C., Les Seymour, Chalky White.'
Photograph 4 is an airman in a tin bath. A leather flying jacket is draped over his shoulders although he wears no other clothes. Behind on the wall is a cartoon of Hitler with the message 'To hell with Hitler'. There is a funnel arrangement and cans labelled 'Fuel Oil' and 'H2O' on a shelf behind him. Captioned: 'Friday night, Bath Night, Harold Pyatt.'
Photographs 5 and 6 are of 12 airmen including Reginald George Cavalier, arranged in a group at the back of a trailer/tent arrangement. Captioned: 'Photo Sec, S.H.Q. 137 Wing, 88 Sqd Photographers, April 1944. John Johnstone, Chalky White, Jock Sadler, Sid Burton, Harold Pyatt, Joe Bazin, Ted Butterworth, Les Seymour, Frank Watson, R.G.C., Ton Thomas.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03
1944-04
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010043
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
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--Hampshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
1944-04
Language
A language of the resource
eng
88 Squadron
ground personnel
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
military living conditions
military service conditions
sanitation
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6100/PCavalierRG17010045.1.jpg
1bfc592b53e47bc9e8c38084bbc69ffc
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
137 Wing relaxing
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of a photographer taking a portrait of a French airman. Behind is the photographic lorry and awnings. Captioned 'Photographic tent.'
Photograph 2 is of Reginald George Cavalier painting a partially-clad woman on the canvas of a tent. Captioned 'R.G.C. painting a "Lady". '
Photograph 3 is of airmen outside bell and ridge tents, captioned 'Tent Site. 137 Wing.'
Photograph 4 and 5 are of groups of airmen and airwomen dancing on a wooden platform set on the edge of a coniferous forest. Captioned 'Open Air Dance, R.A.F. Hartford Bridge.'
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010045
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
Civilian
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--Hampshire
Language
A language of the resource
eng
arts and crafts
entertainment
ground personnel
military living conditions
RAF Hartford Bridge
service vehicle
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6101/PCavalierRG17010046.2.jpg
2f488b12e32da8d5ba3eca52e0705014
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Vitry en Artois billet
Description
An account of the resource
Photographs 1 and 2 are views of a house captioned 'Photo Sec Billet, 11th Dec 1944' (in heavy snow) and 'Vitry en Artois, Northern France. Photo Sec Billet, Jan 1945.'
Photographs 3 and 4 are street scenes in deep snow captioned 'Photo Sec Billet, Rue de Pont.'
Photographs 5 and 6 are of a house with a large church behind captioned 'Madam Mathia House, Jan 1945.'
Photograph 7 is Reginald George Cavalier with two women captioned 'Marie, Me, Madam, 11th Dec 1944.'
Photograph 8 is a street scene from an upstairs window of a horse, cart, man and dog.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-12
1945-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010046
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Vitry-en-Artois
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12
1945-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
animal
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6102/PCavalierRG17010047.2.jpg
5572cf485c89c41fff054764cec3271f
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
RAF Vitry en Artois
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of a group of four airmen standing in front of a 6' high post and wire fence in heavy frost. They are wearing battledress and are armed. Reginald George Cavalier is second from the right. Captioned 'Dec 24th 1944 Jock Sadler, Chalky White, Les Seymour.'
Photograph 2 is of a group of airmen around steaming drums. Captioned 'Jan 12th 1945. Washing Up.'
Photograph 3 is of a group of 12 airmen including Reginald George Cavalier standing in deep snow in front of a tent. Captioned 'Dec 24th 1944, 137 Wing, S.H.Q. Photographers.'
Photographs 4, 6 and 8 are of a crashed B-17. On the tail is 'L', 'O', 'MS' and '48593', the rest of the aircraft has been completely destroyed. Captioned 'Feb 1945, Crashed Flying Fortress A/C U.S.A. on Aerodrome, Vitroy (sic) en Artois. R.A.F. Vitroy [sic] en Artois'
Photograph 5 is four airmen standing outside a tent in heavy frost. Reginald George Cavalier is second on the left. Captioned 'Jan 1st 1945, Jock Sadler, Les Seymour, Hal Ashley.'
Photograph 7 is of a lorry with an airman standing beside it. There is snow on the ground and icicles on the lorry. Captioned 'Jan 1st 1945, Mitch Mitchell, Frozen Photographic Section lorry.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-12
1945-01
1945-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010047
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
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Vitry-en-Artois
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
1945-01
1945-02
Language
A language of the resource
eng
B-17
crash
ground personnel
military living conditions
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6106/PCavalierRG17010051.2.jpg
41a2df17e796b0b31dd3c0936be86730
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6106/PCavalierRG17010052.2.jpg
2aa5fcff81dd57c14e28db60f62b3da6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6106/PCavalierRG17010053.2.jpg
7b0e5c3c287c523f5c754c148b8ef8ed
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
Construction of Photographic Section Hut, Vitry en Artois
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of five airmen at work outside their trailer, captioned 'Photographic Mobile Unit.'
Photograph 2 is of four airmen including Reginald George Cavalier at work outside their trailer. Captioned 'Sid Burton, Les Seymour, John Vassell.'
Photographs 3, 4, 5 and 6 are of groups of airmen working on the foundations, captioned 'Laying the foundations.'
They are captioned 'R.A.F. Vitroy [sic] en Artois, France. Construction of Photographic Section Hut by 137 Wing S.H.Q. Oct 1944.'
Photographs 7 to 24 are of groups of airmen working on the assembly of the wooden hut.
Photograph 16 is captioned 'Jock Sadler, John Vassell, Les Seymour, Hal Ashley, Chalky White, Sid Burton'. John Vassell is marked with a cross and is further captioned 'John Vassell working at the Foreign office as a junior clerk in Moscow Russia after the war, was convicted of spying for the Russians, sentenced to six years.'
Photograph 24 is captioned 'The final piece'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-10
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
24 b/w photographs on three album pages
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010051, PCavalierRG17010052, PCavalierRG17010053
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Vitry-en-Artois
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
ground personnel
military service conditions
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/367/6110/PCavalierRG17010057.1.jpg
999a78c7e8ae63e9823aac532e081846
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
Cavalier, Reginald George. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
57 items. Photograph album showing pictures taken during Reginald George Cavalier's service as a squadron photographer. It includes material from his photographic course training in 1940, and service with 76 Squadron at RAF Middleton St George, and with 88 Squadron and 226 Squadron with 2 Group and 2nd Tactical Air Force at RAF West Raynham. The album also includes target photographs, images of Christmas parties, visits by VIPs including Eisenhower and the King, as well as captured German ordnance and aircraft in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
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
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cavalier, RG
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
RAF Gilze Reijen April 1945
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of a house in a wood, captioned '137 Wing S.H.Q. Photographic Section Billet.'
Photograph 2 to 5 are of trailers in the woods, captioned '137 Wing, Photographic Units.'
Photograph 6 is a three quarters portrait of Reginald George Cavalier leaning on the front of a lorry.
Photograph 7 is three quarters portrait of two airmen, Reginald George Cavalier is on the right. Captioned 'Chalky White, R.G.C.'
Photograph 8 is of three airmen standing in front of a wooded area. Reginald Cavalier is on the left.
They are captioned 'R.A.F. Gilze Reijen, Holland. April 1945.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-04
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCavalierRG17010057
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Netherlands--North Brabant
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
ground personnel
military living conditions
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/374/6508/POtterP1603.2.jpg
ee7e312aba3e997e0f0193f0f92645d1
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
Lancaster being bombed up
The first 100 Squadron Lancaster at RAF Waltham in May 1943
Description
An account of the resource
A Lancaster with a 4000 lb bomb on a bomb trolley underneath.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
POtterP1603
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05
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
100 Squadron
bomb trolley
bombing up
Lancaster
RAF Grimsby
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/375/6516/POtterP16020007.2.jpg
971ade355b0723234aea0ee967a42aa8
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
Otter, Patrick. Album
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. A multi page album containing images of scenes from 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook, and photographs of ground personnel in various situations including a bomb dump, an officers’ mess, a control tower, and medical and dental facilities. It also contains photographs of a sports day, family photographs and a sailing trip.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
POtterP1602
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
2016-03-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
RAF Ambulance and patient
Description
An account of the resource
Photographs 1 and 3 are of two military ambulances outside a two storey brick building.
Photograph 2 is of a patient on a stretcher being carried between the building and a military ambulance. There is a sign 'Officer's Entrance'.
Photograph 4 is of doctor talking to an airman.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
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
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
POtterP16020007
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
ground personnel
medical officer
Nissen hut
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/375/6518/POtterP16020008.1.jpg
bf91db504c345fa5fb2b335b35cc6efc
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Otter, Patrick. Album
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. A multi page album containing images of scenes from 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook, and photographs of ground personnel in various situations including a bomb dump, an officers’ mess, a control tower, and medical and dental facilities. It also contains photographs of a sports day, family photographs and a sailing trip.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
POtterP1602
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
2016-03-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Motor transport
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of an airman standing beside a car.
Photograph 2 is of a group of airmen.
Photograph 3 is of a group of airmen and a woman.
Photograph 4 is of a pilot standing beside a car.
Photograph 5 is of a four airmen, two airwomen and two nurses leaning and sitting on a military ambulance.
Photograph 6 is of a military ambulance being driven by an airwoman.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
POtterP16020008
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
aircrew
ground personnel
pilot
service vehicle
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/375/6526/POtterP16020017.1.jpg
afe317bb0f4fc89bc049725a746c55a1
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
Otter, Patrick. Album
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. A multi page album containing images of scenes from 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook, and photographs of ground personnel in various situations including a bomb dump, an officers’ mess, a control tower, and medical and dental facilities. It also contains photographs of a sports day, family photographs and a sailing trip.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
POtterP1602
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
2016-03-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
460 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of a Lancaster AR-Z waiting to take off.
Photograph 2 is of 460 Squadron's crest.
Photograph 3 is of a Lancaster in the air, close to the ground.
Photograph 4 is of the pilot in the cockpit of a Lancaster, captioned 'Lancaster waiting for take off 2nd aircraft in view through windscreen'.
Photograph 5 is of six airmen in a bar with beer glasses in their hands.
Photograph 6 is of an airman inside an aircraft.
Photograph 7 is of nine airmen marching, viewed from the side.
Photograph 8 is of a Lancaster in the air, close to the ground.
Photograph 9 is of six airmen walking, viewed from the side. Behind is a small building.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Nine b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
POtterP16020017
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
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
460 Squadron
aircrew
ground personnel
Lancaster
military living conditions
pilot
RAF Binbrook
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/154/6672/PWatsonD1511.2.jpg
2a2a1a3209001c85760d14253b393a16
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/154/6672/AWatsonD150811.1.mp3
62a0548539a8a65ad8ee4a134302b2d5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Watson, Don
D Watson
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Don Watson (1448934 Royal Air Force) and four photographs relating to Don Watson's wartime service with 61 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Don Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Watson, D
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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 audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GC: Ok. It’s 11th of August. I’m here, my name is Gemma Clapton, I’m here with Don Watson who served in 61 Squadron and we’re going to do a recording for the oral histories for the International Bomber Command. So if we start at the beginning just tell me how you got in to the RAF and your position within it please.
DW: I was called up in 1941 at the age of nineteen and went to Cardington to be fitted out. And from there to Yarmouth for square bashing. Square bashing took part up and down the promenade. From then on I was posted to Melksham in Wiltshire for my armourer’s course. A seven week course. And from there, after passing out as AC1 was posted to Wheaton in Lincolnshire. Just near Blackpool for the fitter armourer’s course which was a nice station to be on. Close to Blackpool for the gay lights of nights out etcetera. Blackpool Tower and Winter Gardens etcetera. But that finished when I was posted to 61 Squadron. We were then at North Luffenham and on to Woolfox Lodge where the squadron was being kitted out then with Lancasters and transferring from Manchesters. We weren’t there long. And went, were then we were posted to Syerston. A complete contrast to the satellite ‘drome that we’d had at Woolfox Lodge. This was a built barrack block buildings, hangars, workshops. Complete. Everything there for everybody’s convenience and help. And there we were for several months from ‘42 into ’43 during the time of the first thousand bomber raids where everything was put up. Training crews were used and all sorts. And during that period we had one or two incidents. The station commander at that time was very keen on his physical training and unfortunately during that period he passed away. The funeral took place in the funeral procession was passed down from the station to the main road and the crews — the aircrew and the ground crew were lined up on the side of the road to let this cortege passed. And there we were. The ground crew, aircrew, ground crew, air crew. On a humorous note the aircrew lad at the side of me, he said, ‘He’ll have the angels on PT in the morning,’ to much laughter. Here we are. It was his way of saying goodbye. He had the aircrew on PT in the mornings and all that stopped when he finished. And by this time Group Captain Gus Walker took over the station command. And he was a different type of man. Took a great interest in what the armourers and the fitters and everything were doing. Particularly on these big occasions when there was big ops on. He’d be around and looking see that everything was fine. And then on one particular occasion planes were taking off and there was a panic, bombing up again. And Group Captain Walker was in the control tower. At this time 106 Squadron was the other squadron with us at that time. Guy Gibson was the CO of that particular squadron at that time. During this operation on that particular afternoon there was a terrific bang. Group Captain Walker saw it and saw what was going on. Flames. Got in his car and crossed the ‘drome and they realised then that the bomb load had dropped. Four thousand pounder. Twelve cans of incendiaries burning under it and the thing, the whole thing dropped. Group Captain Walker was very concerned and ordered the ground crew to hitch up and pull the plane away. It was all too late. In the meantime the armourers whoever — ground crew, air crew, whoever had gone and ran for the Trent Valley. The plane blew up. Group Captain Walker lost his arm. And the ground crew chap lost his foot. And nobody could tell us then for some time why and how it had all happened and there was all sorts of stories of why it could have happened. Other planes passing by and this and that and the other. But of course the fact was that the controls at the front of the plane where the bomb aimer would control his plane. The bombs that he would drop have got little switches down and he would select each at the back of each of those switches were what we called jettison bars and obviously these jettison, they used these jettison bars if they wanted to chuck everything out quick. The bombs, bars went across so you didn’t have to do it manually. On this occasion, when we’d bombed up, the flight switch which was the main electrical switch would be put on. They’d call out, ‘Stand by. Flight switch going on.’ A chap put it on. Bang. Down it went. It was obvious that jettison bars had been left across. When the switch went down everything went. And so that went on for a time and nobody seemed to know quite what was happening but then we were instructed then, fitters, to make a bracket. A spring loaded bracket that was fitted to the bomb aimers panel so that those bars were always kept in a safe position. The way to push it then would be over a manual spring loaded situation. So it was obvious then that it was the jettison bars that had created the problem. Fortunately there was no loss of life. And for that everybody was very thankful. We, the armourers and everybody else were fitted out with a cycle each in those days. And of course a lot of us had left his bikes by the plane. The bikes went up with the plane and were never replaced. That was another incident that happened during my time at Syerston. Another little incident that happened when we was bombing up again. Flight switches that were bombed up, the corporal in charge said, ‘Stand clear. I’m going to put the flight switch down.’ I was standing just in front of the bomb and I said, ‘Hang on Bob I’ll check the nose fusing.’ So, I was standing on a position where there was no bomb. I heard a click in the circuit. The bomb dropped at my feet. A four thousand pounder. Obviously a short in the circuit and a narrow squeak. Another two inches in and I’d have been under it. Here we go. So, there were several incidents that happened during the time we were at Syerston. We went on then to move to Skellingthorpe. And by that time we joined up with 50 Squadron. Again, another satellite ‘drome. Fitted with accommodation in Nissen huts etcetera. But we got used to the situation very quickly and during the mornings we would be, the fitters would be maintaining the bomb gear. Carriers etcetera and the trolleys etcetera. Ready for operations. As soon as operations came on everybody put their hands to the deck. Fitters, armourers, all the lot got together to, in little groups to do the bombing up of two or three of these particular planes which was quite an experience. And hard work I might add. It was a hard winter. Sometimes it would be night and day. Bomb up. The planes would be then off and back again. Sometimes we would have to do duty to see the planes in. Watch for hang ups etcetera. Guns left unloaded and so on. On one particular occasion the planes came back and apparently the operation had been scrubbed because of high flying, cloud over the target. They came back early and had the delay bombs left on. And unfortunately one of the planes that the aircrew had left. The electricians were in the plane taking out the connections and at that time. Delay. Blew up and caused a load of damage. Again, apart from these particular three or four that were in the plane at the time there was no other life lost. So these are things that happened. To all intents and purposes my war was an easy war. When I compare what other people had to do. My brother went to Burma. Fought with the Japanese. People think VE. Back in to Europe hundreds of people killed, maimed and so on. Aircrew lost every few days. But we, hard work as it was we had an easy war. So I have so much to be thankful for. I was never posted overseas. I was posted overseas on one occasion. It turned out to be a reserve draught. Sent back to the unit and was then screened from overseas posting because the Bomber Command was then the only force that was taking the war to the enemy. And so I stayed with 61 Squadron for the whole of the war. There were different times when we had to move. Skellingthorpe. Had to leave for a few months and we were sent to Coningsby while there was being refittment done at the Skellingthorpe Station. I was there quite a few months and then back again. And on another occasion where I was posted to Waddington for base maintenance again at another few months. So some of these incidents I didn’t view personally. One particular occasion though that I remember bombing up one afternoon. The tractor was bringing three trollies of thousand pound bombs. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been put in their normal cradles but spread out across the bars of the carrier and unfortunately one of them slipped down. The tractor driver wasn’t aware of it and trundled along until the heat from the friction set the bombs off. And fortunately it was a time which was just towards the end of the runway so dispersals were quite far away. Otherwise it could have been an awful lot worse. And so all those bombs went off. The tractor driver and several people passing on the perimeter obviously lost their lives. These incidents were far and few between so most of our time was just hard work. And keeping our eye making sure everything was in place for the bombs to be loaded in a proper manner so that they could do whatever they’d got to do with that. With the bombs. I had a very interesting time in the airforce and then when 1946 came I was quite happy to be released. And five years of service. I don’t think I can tell you anything more detailed about all that.
GC: Well I was just going to ask did you have an engineering background? Is that why you became an armourer? Did you then carry it over?
DW: No.
GC: After the war as well? Or —
DW: No. I was a printer. An apprentice printer. And I went back to printing after the war.
GC: So there was no engineering.
DW: No.
GC: Nothing at all.
DW: No. No. It was a very intensive course. You had to make all sorts of bits and pieces that had to fit one another. You just got through. I got AC1 on the armourer’s course and fortunately it turned out I was top of the entry there but I only finished up AC2 on the fitter’s course. Fortunately, after I got on the squadron one of the armourer, one of the armourer sergeants suggested that I should go for a trade examination with the station armour officer which he did. And although I was being asked to go to AC1 he gave me LAC. And a few months after that my corporal tapes came through from records. Much to the dismay of several of my colleagues. In fact one of the fitters on the plane said one day when I was out doing a fitting job, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I see you’ve got your corporal’s stripes. Do you come out, do the come out on clothing parade no then.’ No. A little bit of humour. So that was my luck really. So [unclear]
GC: What was it like? Would you mind, sort of, just describing what the camaraderie, for want of a better description, was like.
DW: Marvellous. You couldn’t wish for better. No. Everybody was more than happy to work together. And I don’t remember of any incidents of real fall out. I could tell a story of one of the lads that came back after his, after he’d had his night out and he’d been away for some time. He came back and he was a little bit worse for wear. And he was causing a lot of trouble in the billet and he had a broken bottle and he had that in front of me and I was trying to settle it down because I was in charge, NCO in charge. With great difficulty but managed to settle it all down. But apart from incidents like that nothing. Nothing. Other than just got on with the job and everybody’s company was important.
GC: Were you although you was based in this country were you aware of the bigger picture? Were you aware of — what kind of information — what stories were you getting about the war going on elsewhere?
DW: Not an awful lot to be honest. It only come through in drips and drabs about when we, when the invasion was starting. We didn’t know until that particular night that the operations had started. And I was on duty that particular night and the planes came back and the aircrews came back with their stories. And the actual invasion had started then but until then we wouldn’t have known.
GC: So although that’s obviously relating to D-day — on a normal ops how much information were you given relating to an op? I mean besides obviously what you were arming the planes up for. Did you know where the planes were going? Did you know?
DW: No.
GC: You didn’t.
DW: No. We never knew. We didn’t know where they were going. We knew when they came back where they’d been. But we didn’t know where they were going.
GC: What about after the war. Did you just —
DW: After the war Skellingthorpe was sort of disbanded to a large degree. We was posted off to different places. I went, I didn’t go far. I went to Bardney in Lincolnshire which was just up the road really. And I was posted there to a care and maintenance situation. They was just getting rid of all the bomb gear and what have you and so on. Put away really. Carted away. So I was there for some time and during that period the Japanese war was still on and I was then posted to what they called the Tiger Force. Ready for moving out to Japan. And I had the inoculations and leave and all that ready for it. And then the Hiroshima bomb. Hiroshima bomb arrived and that was the finish and it was all cancelled so I never got out the country.
GC: So you served your entire –
DW: My entire time was spent in England. Yeah.
GC: I know this is probably going to be a delicate subject, but the planes are held with affection. Were they your planes? How did you relate to the planes rather than the aircrew?
DW: Well. Being a fitter armourer I wasn’t part of each flight if you know what I mean. B flight, A flight all had their own armourers to deal with each flight. Did their DIs — daily inspections. Etcetera. So they’d been more intimate with their particular planes than we were as fitter armourers who moved about. All around the squadron to all the different planes for different reasons. To deal with our bomb equipment etcetera. So I didn’t have a close relationship to any one plane, but we were pretty close to each one as we got used to bombing each one of these planes up. And terribly sad when they went missing but then we just got on with the job and bombed the next one up.
GC: You say you was a bomb armourer.
DW: Yeah.
GC: Did you not get a little bit nervous?
DW: No. No. There was — no, because you realised the potential of the things. They’d all got their safety pins and what have you in place as it were until the last minute as it were and then you took the pins out and that was it and that was fine. On that particular — when that bomb dropped at my feet I was a bit worried then I suppose. A chap came out. He thought I was squashed under it. I wasn’t and he said hang on a minute I’ll put the pins back in because by that time I’d pulled the safety pins out and he said I’ll get the pins back in. And of course I was all of a shake. The flight sergeant came along, he said, ‘Oh well. Let’s get on with the next plane then.’ And you think, ‘Thank you very much.’ So lucky again.
GC: Well luck was obviously on your side.
DW: It was.
GC: See, that’s the thing. The attitude seems to be that’s what we did.
DW: That’s right.
GC: That’s what we were trained to do.
DW: That’s all. Yeah.
GC: We did our job.
DW: That’s all it was. Yeah.
GC: Yeah.
DW: I mean I think if it had been otherwise you wouldn’t have done it would you?
GC: So what was, I mean obviously you were based in Lincolnshire. What was life like in 1940s Lincolnshire? Was it rural?
DW: Oh absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, course it was. And Lincoln was a [pause] we were fortunate Skellingthorpe was just two miles from Lincoln. We could, we could walk to Lincoln. We used to get the buses of course but we’d go there when ever chance and it was an overall NAAFI that catered for everybody. So there was a big meeting place for people to run into and chat to and people that you met on other squadrons and different associations. Different courses and what have you. Yes. Yes, we enjoyed it.
GC: Was it how we imagine it? Was it a big social?
DW: Oh absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.
GC: Is that how you met?
DW: No. Not in — ten years after. I think. 1951 before I met Margaret before we were married. Yes, it was a long while after. The war, the war had gone a long while by the time I met Mel. 1941. I came out in ’46. I was twenty four then. I thought right I’ve been in the air force five years. I’ll have five years without now. And so I got married in 1951. Yeah.
GC: Still married.
DW: Yeah. I went back to print. Didn’t enjoy print a lot but I was very involved in the music industry. Playing with the Salvation Army Band. And got to know enough about it to go and do some instruction and worked in Essex County and Southend Music Services for twenty five years. Teaching the kids. And when that finished the kids came to me. For the last four or five years I’ve been having pupils come to me on a Saturday morning and we progressed from there. But I’ve just had to give it up this term because my eyesight’s not good enough to do it anymore. But I’ve had a good go.
GC: Good.
DW: Ninety three now so it’s time to give up.
GC: Oh we never give up.
DW: Well I’m not going to give up.
GC: No.
DW: But I had to give that bit up because it just wasn’t possible anymore.
GC: I mean is there anything [pause] I mean I wouldn’t say would you do it again because it was service but —
DW: To be honest I wish I’d stayed in the service. And I would have liked to have been re-mustered to musician. But then the war ended. Everybody was going home. I’d got a band that my dad was bandmaster of. He wanted me back, so I came back. But I really should have stayed and done my time as a musician. That’s something I’ve regretted doing but other things take their place don’t they?
GC: Would you — well you say you would have liked to have stayed. What was it like coming back? Coming back from a regimented existence to normal life.
DW: I didn’t think too much about it because squadron life wasn’t quite the same as it would be in barrack life somehow or other. We were quite dispersed. We weren’t quite so regimented in those times as the army would be etcetera. We did our parades and all that sort of thing but it was a freer atmosphere than it would have been in a closed barrack situation.
GC: How do you feel now that the memorials are being made? Because the Bomber Command were technically the forgotten boys.
DW: Well its more than time isn’t it? And it’s sad that with all the effort that went in to those years of continual bombing on Mr Churchill’s instructions. Mr Harris, Bomber Harris never got the recognition that he deserved. Bomber Command never got the recognition it deserved. It’s taken all this time for people to come to terms with it and got it together. And thankfully now we’ve got two memorials now which will be there forever won’t they?
GC: Yeah.
DW: Because there was no, there was no Bomber Command medal or anything like that. There was an aircrew medal and the the medals for different campaigns. The European one was — the aircrew boys would get that, but we wouldn’t get any of that. We only just got the defence medal. The defence medal was green with two black lines on it and one of the wags who obviously hadn’t been away so much as me, he said, ‘You know what those two black lines represent?’ ‘No’. He said, ‘That’s are the railway lines you go home on every weekend you get the chance.’ So that, yeah. I was home pretty often. We used to have twenty four hour pass. We could be there one night and stay overnight and back the next day. And we could write our own pass out and sign it ourselves. All very useful.
GC: Ok. I think we’ll take a break. Let’s take a breather.
DW: A cup of tea
GC: A cup of tea.
DW: I don’t know whether –
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 Don Watson
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AWatsonD150811
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
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Gemma Clapton
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-11
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00:31:43 audio recording
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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.
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Watson was working in the print industry before he joined the Royal Air Force in 1941. After training he served as an armourer with 61 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
61 Squadron
bomb trolley
bombing
bombing up
dispersal
ground personnel
incendiary device
Lancaster
Manchester
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Syerston
RAF Woolfox Lodge
service vehicle
tractor
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/376/7301/PHouriganM1804.1.jpg
710d60d65d0d6dc0948b05c33ec1e73c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/376/7301/AHouriganM180416.2.mp3
e72ccdc7eb2d57d68e893377766b8057
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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Hourigan, Margaret
Margaret Hourigan
M Hourigan
Description
An account of the resource
158 items. An oral history interview with Margaret Hourigan (1922 - 2023, 889775 Royal Air Force) and 156 target photographs taken by 50 and 61 Squadron aircraft during 1944. Margaret Hourigan served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a plotter with Fighter Command before being posted to RAF Waddington and RAF Skellingthorpe with Bomber Command.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Margaret Hourigan and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-04-16
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
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Hourigan,M
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: So, a quick introduction, this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. My name is Dan Ellin, today I am interviewing Margaret Hourigan nee Parsons it is the 16th of April 2018, we’re at the IBCC Digital Archive, Riseholme and also present in the room is David Hourigan. So, Margaret, could you start?
MH: Start yes.
DE: Start by telling us a little about your life?
MH: Yes, my childhood. If I start, I remember 1926, I remember the Great Strike. And my father was a miner when he came back from the War, the only job he could get, he was very badly wounded in the first World War. And I remember the, standing on the front step of our little house on Lowmoor Road and a man ran in toour front door. And the police outside, was it police or a soldier? On a black horse reared up and the man ran under the horse’s legs into our house and out the back door. And I don’t know what happened but police everywhere. I think the miners were striking, maybe they were being a bit angry, I don’t know. But my Dad was a safety man and so he was down the pit so it was OK. I remember that very plainly, I think it was 1926. I would have been four. And then, my Dad was very, very ill after that he got badly burnt at work. I remember [unclear] to think he was going to die. We were too little to know that. Anyway, he didn’t die, eventually he recovered. And I can’t remember moving but we moved to another house and my Nanna and Grandpa left and they had a fish and chip shop which we took over so my Dad worked there. He also worked at the pit, he also worked as a gardener for a doctor, and he also had his own allotment. So, he repaired our shoes and cut our hair when we had no money. And we were always well fed through the Depression years but I remember terrible scenes of children with no shoes in the snow. Awful things we saw at Kirkby. And I think then the miners didn’t get any help if they were injured at work. I think they went home and had to suffer. I can’t, I know we were all very Labour, when the Daily Herald paper came out we all thought we were in heaven, and all very Labour. I’m not now [chuckles] we were then. And we used to go to, when I was a little bit older, we used to go to Hucknall Air Display. There was a little aerodrome there, and they had Tiger Moths. I used to think ‘One day, God I’d love to fly them.’ And every year we visited until I went to work and then I decided that I would join up as soon as war was declared. Oh, belonged to the Labour Party League of Youth then and we were very hostile little bunch and when Mr Chamberlain came back from Berlin waving his bit of paper we all went mad and got very angry. And the Labour Party said they were going to disband us if we didn’t shut up. One of our trips was to go to the pictures and we sat down when they played God Save the Queen or King or we walked out according to our mood. Anyway, soon as war was declared whoosh we all joined up except one poor man who was a true conscientious objector. He never did join up and he had awful struggle, but he never gave in. We were all wimps, as soon as war was declared.
DE: What happened to him do you know?
MH: I don’t know. I know he was penalised and punished and treated like dirt. I don’t know. He didn’t die because one day David answered the telephone, somebody in Canberra saying ‘Anybody from Kirkby in Ashfield?’ And David rang up and said ‘Yes, my mother is.’ So he chatted I said ‘I remember his Dad he was a conchie.’ We never heard from him again. I mean I didn’t mean to be derogatory, I thought he was a wonderful man.
DE: Um. But you, you, you joined up?
MH: We joined the WAAFs yes. And I went to stay with my Auntie Margaret. She had a shop on Highson Green at Basford in Nottingham. And early hours of the morning I trotted off to Nottingham station. I went to St Pancras, how I got across London I don’t know. I’d never been before and I went to Kingsway and there was a male clerk there and a doctor. And they talked to me all morning and then the male clerk took me to the pictures at lunchtime. You know they had those newsreel places then, and I shut my eyes the whole way through because I thought if I can’t see, if my eyes aren’t good enough, they won’t take me I was sitting there [chuckles] [unclear] a right nutcase. Anyway, took me back to Kingsway afterwards and must have had a cup of tea or something. And the doctor said ‘You’ve got a heart of a lion.’ Always remember that.
DE: Um.
And then I had a medical, went home and I think it was very early January 1940 I got the call up. Freezing cold winter. I don’t know how I got to London, I suppose I did. And went to Watford, think it was Watford. And it was freezing cold there and a dirty, dirty billet the men had been in, and nobody had been in for months, anyway it was really dirty. And the water froze in the pipes, we couldn’t have a wash. The girls had water bottles that froze in bed. I woke up the next morning and I went to the sick bay, and I was covered in big red blobs. And the doctor said ‘Haven’t ever seen flea bites before?’ I hadn’t. Anyway, they must have gone away because we started marching up and down, up and down, and round and round, got our uniforms and then I was posted to Leighton Buzzard. I found I’d been enrolled as a clerk,special duties, so I must have talked well and got a very high classification. And went to Leighton Buzzard, started plotting. And then one day they said ‘You and two other girls are posted to Bawdsey Manor.’ It’s down near Felixstowe where Watson-Watt invented the radar. [unclear] arrived late at night, remember crossing water but it actually wasn’t an island, it was just a little inlet to get across to the house. And a man rowed the boat over and somewhere I met some soldiers. I don’t know how because they said would I ask the girls at the base if they would like to come to a dance? I thought they’d all be too posh to go but they ‘Oh yes.’ So, we went to the dance with the sailors, the soldiers and it was a huge house. Lots of rooms, lots of cockroaches. And in the morning I woke up and they had kedgeree for breakfast. I’d never seen it before. I was just used to cornflakes or porridge and they had this great big thing of kedgeree. Anyway, the Indian educated girls all loved it. A lot of girls had been brought up by their families living in India, they thought it was wonderful, I didn’t. Anyway, we started on the radar and we had a green screen, like a television screen, with a green line wavering line that went across it really quickly. And echoes, a big echo would be an aeroplane, and wiggle, wiggle so many in the group. I couldn’t do it, I hated it, made me feel sick. Anyway, I persisted and the other girls just had a little green handle, they could turn it and illuminate the echo and say ‘Twelve plus’ and ‘twenty thousand feet.’ I could not do it. So, I went to the WAAF officer in the end and I said ‘I hate it, I can’t do it.’ And there was a man in the office with her. He said. And she said ‘Yes, yes.’ I couldn’t go, he thought I knew too much. Anyway, outside was the big pylons, you know?
DE: Um.
MH: And one interesting day before I left we were walking, a WAAF and I, were walking along the edge of green grass and the Channel was here in front of us. And I could see ships out at sea and big black birds flying all round it. And I thought they were big huge seagulls. And as we were walking along we saw the Coastguard. He was dancing up and down, waving his arms at us. We thought ‘Oh, he’s gone mad.’ And when we caught up with him, just as we caught up with him, a low flying German aeroplane went over. It would only be a hundred feet, we could see the pilot laughing. And he said ‘I was trying to warn you.’ Well where could we go? Nowhere to lie down and hide. Anyway, he was laughing. The German pilot must have thought it was a bit of a joke. We were both in uniform.
DE: Um
MH: Anyway, he flew inland for a little while and he came out further down the coast, we could still see him. He wasn’t laughing when he came back out. And he went back. The black birds were the first attack on a convoy.
DE: I see.
MH: So that was that. Nearly written off before I started. And then I went to Fighter Command Headquarters at Bentley Priory in the ops room there, started plotting.
DE: And what was that like?
MH: Huge, and down, down, down underground. We lived in huts opposite and I remember I Winston Churchill coming in. I remember King George coming in, looking down on the plots. And must have started bombing. I remember Dunkirk about that time. I asked, anyway I got a bit lonely, the girls were all very posh shall we say. One girl’s father signed the pound note, I know that. If you told me who it was I’d tell you that was so but I can’t remember. But I know her father was high in the Government. They all came along with their gold braid to pick their daughters up in big cars and here’s poor little me from Kirkby. I had nobody to pick me up. And I decided to have my photograph taken. So, I went along to this photographer and I had a black velvet dress I remember and I said ‘Would you take it with me smoking a cigarette?’ He said ‘Indeed I won’t!’ I thought I’d be a film star. He said ‘Indeed I won’t!’ He did a lovely ‘photo. Anyway, I asked to go to 12 Group, I went to 12 Group headquarters then in Hucknall and I stayed there all through the Battle of Britain and the night bombing. I was plotting the night Coventry was bombed and there were so many plots on the table but we couldn’t relieve each other. We used to take time off, two people standing beside each other plotting and grabbing plots off. You plotted five minutes red, five minutes yellow and five minutes blue. Then you snatched the red off and started plotting red again and they knew the time upstairs, they could tell how old the plot was. And when they were over land the Observer Corps did all the plots. Out at sea we got the plots from the radar.
DE: Um.
MH: And the men who were plotting that night from Coventry, not one of the them left their posts. All of their houses were bombed, not all badly but all stayed with us. Thought that was rather wonderful. Didn’t get much praise at all really when they talk about the war now nobody remembers the Observer Corps do they?
DE: No, my grandfather was in the Observer Corps.
MH: Was he?
DE: How did, how did it feel then seeing, watching the plots of the German aircraft coming in?
MH: We were too damn busy to bother. We wrote a poem about it. I wrote it down somewhere I know. ‘A bloody raids coming roaring in, kicking up a bloody din. Who can spot their bloody game? Bloody seven, two and four, these and bloody thousands more. Across the bloody coast they came, bloody Jones is up above , he a bloody man we’d love. No bloody smoking says the cad, enough to drive us bloody mad.’ Because we knitted or sewed or read but the men got so bored they cracked up.
DE: Um.
MH: In the end, when we started we’d be half and half. By this time, this time, they’d might be two men left who were C3, they couldn’t go anywhere else.
DE: Right.
MH: So then after all that bombing I had trouble with varicose veins and I was going to hospital, hilarious story. Going to hospital for treatment. And one day I woke up, I didn’t know, somebody knocked on the door, I’d stripped my nightgown off, standing there stark naked and a big policeman walked in the door. And I stood there [exclamation noise], and I stood there and he shut the door and went out. I still stood there. And he came in again and I hadn’t moved. And I ran. He said ‘I’d never seen anything as pretty in all my life as your little bum waddling down the hall.’ He didn’t know it was me but I went to get the bus to go and have my injections for my varicose veins and he was there and I cut him dead. He said ‘I knew then it was you.’ Otherwise he didn’t. So that was all over the camp. ‘A WAAF’s been caught in the nude.’ And it was me. He said ‘Why didn’t you put some clothes on?’ I said ‘I couldn’t think.’ Anyway, Wing Commander Woods was the CO there and he said ‘Why don’t you put in for Bomber Command, there’s a sergeant’s job going there?’ So, I did and took me to Grantham for the interview and I marched in, polished up to the hilt, [unclear]into the hall, turned round and they were sitting at the table there. Whizzed round, slipped on my bum. And I tried to carry on, I couldn’t. Anyway, we all started laughing then that was OK, we were all at ease. And I got accepted and I was posted to Swinderby and then I went to Waddington. And then 44 Squadron left Waddington, the Rhodesians. We had no squadron there we had put in concrete runways. I don’t know why they keep saying that there were squadrons there, there weren’t. They put in a concrete runway.
DE: Yeah it was closed for a while.
MH: It was closed for quite a while.
DE: We interviewed a chap who was there when they were putting the runways in.
MH: Yeah, yeah. We had Irish labourers come in. They were awful, we hated them. I damn near got raped one night. They were so drunk luckily they couldn’t catch me. But we had to walk home from Waddington. I was with an Aussie sergeant, Bill. That’s all I know. And we walked up the hill, you know you get to the top of the hill? All the nice houses were. Over the top was flat. That side’s green,this side’s airfield. And we heard these men saying ‘No, no, no you hold her, you hold him and I’ll have her. No, no, no, no, you hold him and I’ll have her.’ I thought ‘What’d they say?’ And I said to Bill ‘There going to rape me!’ and as we were passing by, I don’t know if it was an ack ack army unit but there was a five barred gate and a shed. I knew there were soldiers in there, and I put my hand on top of that gate and I cleared it. And I ran into the hut, the men were all in the ‘jamas, laughing and talking, and I said ‘Those men are going to rape me.’ And a couple of them got dressed and then Bill arrived. He said ‘I couldn’t get over the gate.’ But I cleared it. Olympic runner honestly. Anyway, they took us back to camp and that was that. But we had lots of trouble with the Irish then, always drunk, always fighting. Anyway, I trained as a watchkeeper and then sometimes I went to Bardney, sometimes I stayed I went to Skellingthorpe. The first time I was at Skellingthorpe I was under flying control, little tiny ops room. All the room was full of men. Officers, group captains everybody. And the raid was coming through on my little telephone . And I never learnt French at school and the route was coming through in French. I couldn’t do it. I know what, one was [unclear]. On one of those photos we’ve taken upstairs. I can remember that. Anyway, I struggled and did it and you know your degrees, I put in sixty three degrees and all that. And I made, I did it alright. Anyway Flight Lieutenant Williams said ‘You did a good job Maggie.’ He helped me, sorted it all out. But that was my initiation Eventually, we moved to a big ops room at the Doddington end of Skellingthorpe and had a great big table in the middle. I had a little office and Squadron Leader Quinn was at that end in his little office. He was a station navigation officer. And intelligence there in another little room. Daddy, Squadron Leader Dodd, we called him ‘Daddy Dodd’ ‘cause he was in his thirties. Daddy Williams was in his twenties and I know Daddy Quinn was twenty-nine. We thought he was old. And I worked there from then on. I remember a Lanc’ crashing at the end of the runway and blowing a great big hole and all the windows in Lincoln High Street were broken. And this air gunner was still sitting on the hole. He must have been mad, never, ever heard of him again.
DE: Um.
MH: But that was, we used to go to the end of the runway and watch the boys go. Not so much coming back ‘cause they came back early in the morning. But I’d walk round the perimeter track and they’d be lying by the aircraft on a nice summers day waiting to take off. I never dared say ‘Good luck or God bless you.’ Thought they’d think I was putting a jinx on them, but I wanted to say something, but I daren’t, never did.
DE: Um.
MH: But in the, when we went to lunch mess at lunchtime they’d all say ‘What’s the petrol like Mag?’ It worked out, you know long or short trip. Or ‘What’s the bomb load?’ they’d know if that was a big one that was a short trip. Or a little one was a long trip. And they knew I knew. I knew they knew I knew but I couldn’t say anything to them. And we had Group Captain Jefferson there who was a very, very posh gentleman. It was all ‘Do, do, do,do you think Maggie. Do you think you could?’ I can’t tell you what he said, it’s too rude. But he always sat with me at night when they were off flying and Daddy Dodd used to go to Lincoln and stay at the hotel with his wife and we had a code that I had to tell him, if somebody was coming back early or something like that. He’d ring me and say, I can’t remember what the code was but ‘Yes, come back’ or ‘No, you don’t need to.’
DE: Right.
MH: We had a great rapport. And that’s pretty well it I think. I often went to Bardney and worked there. And I remember meeting the nicest man I’ve ever met in my life. A Flight Lieutenant Dennis Irving. He was a very Catholic gentleman who went to mass, said the rosary, prayed. Everybody knew, we all knew and yet he wasn’t a bit shy about it. Was a real Christian gentleman. And the funny thing was they all had to wear civilian clothes when they went home to Ireland. I worked with a WAAF who had to go home in civvies. And yet when my husband went in Ireland he said that he had to wear civvies there were U boat men in the pubs in full uniform. They weren’t happy.
DE: No, I can imagine.
MH: Anyway, I pretty well went along like that was escorted to station dances and pictures. I remember once going to the pictures, Casablanca. We all sang ‘You must remember this.’ The whole theatre was singing and really the rapport, you can’t imagine and the friendship. It was just something.
DE: Um.
MH: Sometimes I’d go to a meal and they’d be one sergeant sitting there, I can remember him. And I thought ‘I should talk to you.’ But how do you talk to a stranger who’s looking a bit grumpy? Anyway, I thought you’re not going to come back. And he didn’t. Sometimes things happen like that. I remember being madly in love with a boy. And I was hanging around the flying control and in the end the girls said ‘For God’s sake Maggie, clear off.’ [unclear] I had to go home. Anyway, he did his tour and went back to Australia. That was that. He was killed afterwards anyway. And one day Daddy Quinn said to me ‘Maggie, I’ve got good news for you. Mentioned in dispatches.’
DE: You were mentioned in dispatches?
MH: Um.
DE: What was that for?
MH: I suppose because I was a good girl, did my work well. I lost the citation, I’ve got the box, the packet that it came in but my son that went to America took everything, I never got it back. I’ve got the envelope and I’ve got the thing it came with.
DE: Right.
MH: It said.
DE: Well we could probably look it up and find it [unclear].
MH: That’s what came with it. You can’t look it up, it’s all gone.
DE: No, we can look it up in the Gazette. It says it’s dated the first of January 1946.
MH: [Rustling of paper] What this is? That’s what the citation was with.
DE: Yes.
MH: Yes, they said you could look at the what’s its name? The magazine.
DE: The Gazette?
MH: Yes, the Gazette. It’ll be in there. That’s what we did, a plotter.
DE: Yes. So what was your job like?
MH: In the operations room?
DE: In the watch office. What was your job in the watch office?
MH: Oh the – the ‘phone would ring in the morning. We had to get to work at nine o’clock. I was always late. And the ‘phone would ring and a voice would say ‘Ops on tonight, maximum effort.’ Or they’d say ‘Nothing on tonight.’ Soon as they said ops were on I rang the group captain and I rang both wing commanders from the squadrons and then flight commanders and then the bombing leader and engineer officer, flying control, intelligence. And they all started their work then and then we had teleprinters bringing all the information later on in the war so Groupie Jefferson used to come in and read it and the route and Squadron Leader Quinn would come in. He’d plan the route from that we were going to fly. Height, target. Then I had to look up the colours of the day and they had to fire those across the coastal path the naval ship or whatever when they were coming in.
DE: Um.
MH: And eventually they’d have to announce they briefing times and would have to announce the meal times. And then I would go off duty at five, five thirty. Would go down to the runway then and watch them going. And then one time I went off in the morning and it was terribly misty like it’s been here for the last week. Very low cloud. And Jock McPherson was in the control in his little black and white van at the end of the runway firing a Very cartridge. I said ‘Can I have one?’ He gave me one, we were doing one each. And fire it and the Lancaster would come out of the mist. Over the waafery, down to the end of the runway. If it had been three foot short we would have been killed. But nobody did they all landed, bang on the runway.
DE: Wow.
MH: I think they had a bomb load on too, I think they were coming back with a bomb load.
DE: Crikey.
MH: Anyway, they were hilarious things.
DE: Ah ha.
MH: Another time we were sleeping naked outside. There was a little garden, I think it was an officer’s garden, somebody lived there. A nice little garden of roses. We used to go out then take our clothes off and a bit of low flying went on [chuckles]. Anyway that was that I think. When the invasion was on that night I went out to the toilet, about five o’clock in the morning, or six. It was just turning light. The sky was black with aircraft. Couldn’t, could not believe so many aircraft and I thought ‘I’ll remember this as long as I live.’ Which I have.
DE: Did you know what it was then when you saw?
MH: Well, I knew when I saw it what it was. I didn’t know, didn’t know it was on until then. But we had two accidents. Another time a bomb went off in the dispersal. All of the Lancs were loaded and windows again went in the High Street. But the people were lovely to us. One of the girls that, a big store, don’t know what it was. Just above the Stonebow she always gave me silk stockings. They were very hard to get.
DE: Um.
MH: Um. And then one day the war was over. And 50 and 61 just disappeared. Groupie Jefferson just disappeared and a Group Captain Forbes came. And he was a very nice man, we always thought about him. He’d come back from Japan and his wife was interned. We could never work out how that happened, not Japan, Singapore.
DE: Um.
MH: Anyway, 463 came and they were being briefed to bring the prisoners back from Europe. And I was on, I went early and WAAF said ‘’I knew you’d come early tonight when they were here.’ All the officers were in the ops room being briefed. And I saw this blonde one leaning on the table at the back. I thought ‘Oh, he looks alright.’ I can’t remember him coming up to me but he must have ‘cause I went out with him that night and I married him. (chuckles). Two months later I married him and went to Australia.
DE: OK. Well why not?
MH: Um. It’s silly. Silly, silly, silly. I didn’t know if he had a job, didn’t know if he was a layabout or what. I mean they were all handsome in uniform, I never looked further than that. Anyway he went to uni, the Government paid for them all to go to uni if they wanted to and they’d matriculated, so he did. Did an economics degree and a commerce and he worked in the Government all his life. And I got presented to the Queen Mother when she came and had a good life.
DE: So, you met him after D-Day?
MH: After the war was over.
DE: Yeah.
MH: He was on 463 Squadron.
DE: And did you marry him in the UK?
MH: Yes I did.
DE: When did you both go to Australia?
MH: He went back that Christmas. We married in October, October the 30th He went back to Australia then Christmas and I went back the next August on the Orbita.
DE: What was that like?
MH: They divided all the first-class cabins for in about six. And there was hardly any water to wash yourselves. We were taking all our clothes off and going standing in a draughty doorway it was so hot. And when we were going down Suez Canal we were passing all the British ships coming home with all the troops. And they were ‘Where are you going?’ and the Aussies were shouting ‘We’re going to Australia, we’ve got all the girls.’ And the Englishmen ‘ Have they really got all the girls?’ We felt miserable then. The Aussies were awful. When we got to Port Said the people came along the boat, beside the boat, hauling up handbags and things for us to buy.
DE: Um.
MH: And the Aussies put hoses on them.
DE: Right.
MH: I know my husband said when he arrived back in Australia all the big dignitaries came out to meet the ships coming in and cheering the boys. My husband always called them ‘The Cheer Company’, cheer you when you go and cheer you when you come back. They put the hoses on them as well. And anyway then I had a horrible time. My mother in law hated, me she was Irish and blamed me for all the stuff going on in Ireland. I’d never heard of it. We were never taught at school anything about that.
DE: Um. So where did you live in Australia?
MH: We lived in Enfield, it’s not a terribly good area really. But they lived there, my mother in law lived there with her second husband. My husband’s father came back from the first World War with a, what did he have? Military Medal, and I think he was a bit shell shocked. He cleared off and left his family and never, ever heard what happened to him again.
DE: Um.
MH: Anyway, we’ve got his medal and he got a write up on. You know you can look it up on David’s mobile and he’s got all his citation.
DE: Yes. Never, ever heard from him again. Shame wasn’t it?
DE: Um.
MH: They had lovely grandchildren. I had eight children, three sets of twins, and two single girls. David’s a twin. I’ve lost three.
DE: Oh dear.
MH: Um. Anyway, that’s that. I think that’s told you everything.
DE: If it’s OK I’ll ask a couple more questions?
MH: Yes.
DE: What did your husband do after the war in Australia?
MH: He was an, he started off as an auditor and then he worked for the Leader of the Opposition who was a Labour man. Mr O’Halloran Giles, he worked for him. And then Mr O’Halloran-Giles.
DH: Mr O’Halloran?
MH: Um? O’Halloran Giles. Mick O’Halloran that’s right. And then he died and Frank Walsh was the second one. My husband worked for him and they were elected into office but my husband couldn’t go with him the Public Service wouldn’t let him transfer to the Premier’s office. So he stayed in the Public Works Committee and he worked for them for thirty odd years.
DE: Right, OK. Did you have a job?
MH: No.
DE: No.?
MH: Too busy. I beg your pardon I did have a job when I first went to Australia. My mother in law insisted that I went to work. And I was pregnant with twins, sick as a dog, morning sickness. And I went to work at [Myle?] Emporium, which was a bit like [TJ’s?] sort of place, and they were so sorry for me they put me in bed every day. They said I was the worst saleswoman they’d ever had. How could I go from my job to that?
DE: Quite.
MH: And [Lloyd?] used to meet me at the railway station on his way home and take me home. I couldn’t face his mother. And they drank and swore and called all the English ’Pommies bastards.’ And it was after the Bodyline cricket series when Ray Larwood was there, who was born, lived near where I lived in Nottinghamshire.
DE: Um.
MH: And were all Bodyline killers. She used to go on about it. Anyway that was that, eventually they left and sold us the house and left. We could never afford to move anywhere else then ‘cause all the children went to private schools. We had some nuns opposite our house. I had a knock on the door one day and they said ‘Can David and Diane come to school?’ I thought ‘Go to school with nuns, no.’ I said ‘No, we’re moving.’ Couldn’t think of anything else to say. I thought afterwards said to my husband ‘They looked, had nice faces.’ ‘Cause he was a Catholic, I didn’t know. Anyway they knew and anyway I went and said ‘Yes, they can come.’
DE: Um.
MH: They started off. And David and Diane went to school. Sister [unclear] had about a hundred children didn’t she David? All in one room. When I went there [hissing noise] they all had their front teeth missing. ‘Mrs Hourigan’s here, Mrs Hourigan’s here.’ Anyway I heard them talking one day and teaching them saying about Jesus and Jesus was God when he came to earth. And I said ‘What’s she saying? Jesus wasn’t God.’ So I said to her ‘Don’t agree with what you’re saying.’ So she said ‘Well the mother sets the religion, if you don’t like it.’ She said ‘Have to give it up, but.’ She said ‘Before you do that go for a retreat,’ I went for a retreat at Canberra College and I fell in love with it. What they were telling me, and the singing and the hymns and the incense. I was in heaven and I converted in 1954.
DE: Right, OK.
MH: Never regretted it. And with losing three children I can tell you I needed my faith.
DE: Um.
MH: David’s my right hand man. And when I came here for this reunion I had these photographs to give all these years. I’ve rung Bomber Command time and time again in London and they took a message once and I said that bombing photos and no idea, absolutely no idea what I was saying and then it’d only be a couple of months ago I rang my daughter who lived in Dorset died and my other daughter moved into her house. And I was telling Elizabeth and she said ‘Mum I’ll fix it.’ So she rang and she got Nicky Barr, is it Nicky Barr? Who said ‘I’m thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. We’re opening the memorial.’ She said ‘I’d love your Mum to come.’ So Nicky rang Annette who’s done the Australian contingent and Annette rang me and said ‘Do you want to come with us?’ I said ‘Oh, I’d give my right arm to come with you.’ So I did. And then when we were at? We were David, where I fell in love again?
DH: Coningsby.
MH: Coningsby. I saw the Millikin name on the wall. I said ‘I knew a Millikin.’ And Wing Commander Millikin’s in 61, 619 now.
DE: Ah ha
MH: And he said ‘You knew my, that would have been my grandfather.’
DE: Wow.
MH: He hardly believed me at first but when I told him things I knew about his grandfather he knew I was genuine. And he said ‘Did my grandfather kiss you?’ I said ‘I wish he would, he didn’t, he was married.’
DE: Well.
MH: But anyway he was really happy. And he was a lovely man his grandfather was. A happy one like this one, happy and kind.
DE: Um.
MH: We had all those events, I could tell you hundreds truly, things come back to me. I’m lying in bed at night, cor. Is the lake still at Skellingthorpe?
DE: Um, I’m not sure. Skellingthorpe has changed an awful lot because –
MH: I know it’s a town, village now.
DE: It was built on virtually all of the, all of the old RAF station yeah.
MH: I know the school’s Lancaster school isn’t it?
DE: Um.
MH: Where the watch office was they said, and the waafery was in the rookery.
DE: Oh right, yes. What was the waafery like?
MH: Oh, a few huts. I had to walk across an empty block to get in have a bath. Get your clothes off. You can imagine in the middle of winter going to have a bath?
DE: Did they have plugs in the baths?
MH: No, took your own plug. We found that everywhere we travelled, it all went to Ireland, there was never a plug in the bath.
DE: So what did you do?
MH: Put a plastic bag over it.
DE: Aha.
MH: And that sucks in stops the water flowing away. There was plenty of hot water.
DE: But it was a long walk from the?
MH: Not really a long walk, a cold walk.
DE: Cold?
MH: And being an NCO I had a room at the end of the hut. So all the girls were there, open beds, but I had a little private room. And a little stove and I used to fill it with flowers, from the. What’s those flowers David?
DH: Cinerarias??
MH: No, those big bushes, rhododendrons. Rhododendrons.
DH: Rhododendrons.
MH: Yeah.
DE: OK. Did you have any trouble with the girls in the rest of the hut?
MH: Never, never, no. One girl surprised us. She was sitting knitting baby clothes and suddenly they said ‘She’s gone.’ We didn’t know. Was pregnant. She’d gone. We had, some of the English airman used to be a bit snobby. When the Aussies came and the Rhodesians they were really, and the Canadians, they were really you know, didn’t care whether you were a sergeant or what. They were officers there agreeable but some of the British. One man I met, and he used to come in the ops room. They all came in the ops room at night when ops weren’t on and I had a kettle and a toaster and the NAAFI used to send me over a big lump of butter and a lot of bread and make toast. And anybody would turn up and have a slice of toast and a cup of something. And this man used to, flight lieutenant somebody or other, used to come and have a cup of tea and toast with me and Bill. Familiar yes, ‘Maggie fa, fa, fa’ and a couple of days later I went into town and I was walking up towards the Stonebow I remember on the right hand side. Met him with this civilian woman and of course I chatted to him like I had in the ops room the night before and he just cut me as dead as dead. I thought ‘You pig.’ The next time he came for cups of tea I tell you he didn’t get it. Hung his head. I thought ‘Don’t bother coming here.’
DE: I can’t say I blame you, that’s –
MH: No, no. But I found that, and they used to call the WAAF’s ‘camp bikes’ or ‘officer’s ground sheets’ was the pet one.
DE: Do you think that was justified or?
MH: No, [emphatic] no, no, no. When I look back and think how hard the girls worked. The MTT, the girls in the mess, and the equipment. And my friend used to drive the bomb trolley and people in the office, and teleprinters, telephone exchange, intelligence, meterology. We all worked so hard and we all believed we were shortening the war.
DE: Um.
MH: I never heard anybody say anything else. And David will laugh. I meant to tell you this story about David’s friend. When they were about eighteen, they were at Uni. And the man remembers to this day, he’s a professor now. Monash University but he knows Mrs Hourigan was angry with him. He said, what was it we were talking about? Bomber Command, we talk about Bomber Command the whole time my husband and I when we got back. We lived what had happened. And we were talking. And he said ‘Oh, they all went off.’ He said ‘They thought kill a few Germans tonight.’ And thought that of Bomber Command, and I said ‘Nothing of the kind.’ And David saw him recently and he said ‘Your mother still remembers then does she?’ He said ‘Yes, she does.’ I’ll never forget, I was so upset, so angry. And when I was in hospital last year the doctor said to me ‘I’ve heard that when they woke up in the morning they threw a dart at the wall. Wherever the dart landed they said ‘That’s where we’ll bomb tonight.’ I said ‘Nothing could be further from the truth.’
DE: So do you think in Australia Bomber Command has got an odd sort of reputation?
MH: I think it, I thought it was general because here for a long time we were wanted for being war criminals weren’t we?
DE: Um. Some people think that yeah. I just wondered if you thought it was different in Australia because you know I think.
MH: I think in Australia a lot of the people thought that the Bomber Command boys had been having a good time in England and they were being bombed by the Japanese. And when they went back it was ‘Oh you’ve been having a good time overseas, we’ve been suffering the Japanese.’ In fact when the War was over the squadrons were ordered to come back to fight Japan.
DE: Um.
MH: Only lucky that the Americans dropped the atomic bomb in August or they’d all have been coming back for that.
DE: Um.
MH: But I don’t think that they understood the War ‘cause they hadn’t been in it. ‘Cause when we’re lying in bed hearing the doodle bugs going round, buzz, buzz, buzz, and then the engine stop you think ‘Oh God, where’s it going to land?’ They had none of that.
DE: Quite, no.
MH: I remember being in Nottingham one night when Nottingham was bombed and I was with my Auntie. And she was a little way out of Nottingham and remember seeing all the incendiaries in the fields. We could see the bombs going down. And one night, we used to hitch, when we were in Fighter Command, we used to hitch hike to London on our days off and one night I remember being on top of a building and mines were coming down on parachutes. How I got up there I don’t know and the men were running around. What do you call them? Air raid wardens were running around with buckets and hoses and we’re up there laughing and dancing about, the WAAF’s and me. We never were in any danger ever when we were in uniform. Except those Irish men. Never forget them. But nowhere else, we went in, we were wandering around looking for a pub we could get a drink. [unclear] some places I can tell you wouldn’t go in. We’d open the front door awful, people with black eyes and black and they’d just look up, we backed out again. I don’t know what sort of den on iniquity it was, didn’t even know where we were.
DE: Um.
MH: But we’d hitch. And when we met the Canadians we cut all our buttons off and swapped with them. We came back to Nottingham without a button on our uniform. And they went off without buttons on theirs. I’ve still got Canadian buttons on mine somewhere. Don’t know where it is, my uniform is now. Think Michael took it to America
DE: Aha.
MH: So, that’s it I think.
DE: Okey dokey
MH: Are you happy with that?
DE: I’m absolutely very, very much so. I’m just having a look to see if I’ve got any questions I wanted to ask. Just going right back to the very start when you joined the.
MH: Um. WAAF’s.
DE: Did you, did you volunteer or were you?
MH: I volunteered.
DE: Why did you choose the WAAF’s? Why did you volunteer?
MH: I liked the air force. I used to read the Biggles books when I was a little girl.
DE: Um.
MH: You know Biggles and his second pilot was Algy and his engineer was Ginger, and I lived those books. And I just wanted to join the air force, thought it was wonderful.
DE: I was just wondering how volunteering during the war sort of fitted in with your early political beliefs?
MH: Forgot all about them. Voted Liberal ever since I came out, out to Australia. No, I remember in Hucknall a man, some officer I’ve forgotten who it was, he used to pick us all up, bit of a ratbag I don’t know. And he took us, this bunch of WAAF’s up to his house, he was filling us with gin I remember that, we were all merry. And he was asking us questions about politics and we were slamming the government, slamming this and that and he couldn’t believe his good fortune. We were telling him everything that was going to happen after the war. What we were going to do, burn the place down I think and start again. And then the next night he asked us to go back to his house again, we didn’t have any gin, he had another man there. He said ‘Tell him what you told me last night.’ Of course, we were all dumb, needed a gin to get us going again. He was very disappointed. We wouldn’t be wound up.
DE: Who do you think the man was?
MH: I don’t know who he was, he was some somebody, some politician I bet you. But when my husband worked for the Labour Party I was happy with them. Then we had a man who was a bit nasty, but he was openly gay and he was a nasty man as well. Had nasty habits and my husband had to work with him. Some of the time he really didn’t like him and I sort of went a bit off the Labour Party. And then I changed my mind.
DE: OK.
MH: And I thought in Australia the unions were running the show and my daughter’s husband, married a sailor, who was in Vietnam and the waterside workers wouldn’t ship any arms or food or anything over, and that put me off.
DE: Aha. OK.
MH: And one of the men asked me the other day, on one of the interviews what I thought about when people died. I didn’t always react you know, you saw missing, missing, missing, missing, missing. I know they were all terribly upset when Dambusters went and Henry Maudsley was a man from 50 Squadron who everybody loved. Oxford Blue and very educated. Lovely young man. And when we went into the chapel in Lincoln the candlesticks and crucifix are dedicated to Henry Maudsley, supplied by his family. So yesterday we put a poppy on him on the memorial. I forgot should have done one for Guy Gibson, I couldn’t think. ‘Cause I didn’t lose anybody.
DE: You didn’t?
MH: No.
DE: No.
MH: Not personally. But it was hard, I mean you knew that they’d been shot down. You knew the worry that they were going to be shot down. And some of them you looked at them and you knew they were going to get it ‘cause they were a bit –
DE: Bit shaky?
MH: They had a twitch or. And you always thought ‘Oh they’re going to cop it.’ And they did. And the mad ones, the ones you thought ‘You’re going to die.’ They survived ‘cause they were realistic, ‘We can’t possibly live.’ So.
DE: Um. Did anyone ever talk about lack of moral fibre?
MH: One man, one man, lack of moral fibre. It was awful. Ripped everything off him, all his ensignia, in front of the whole camp. I was reading about Group Captain Cheshire yesterday on David’s mobile. I saw ‘Group Captain Cheshire – Unknown Story.’ And read about him and he said with lack of moral fibre he had to be very strict because it could taint the whole lot of them.
DE: Um.
MH: He said he was very strict with it.
DE: So did you, did you see that actually happen with people having their?
MH: It did happen. It did happen.
DE: Where was that? Can you remember?
MH: Oh, I think it was at Skellingthorpe we had one. But they got sent away quickly because they’d taint everybody else. I know my husband said when he was flying his bomb aimer said ‘I can’t press the tit, I can’t press the tit!’ My husband said ‘You’ll faffing well press the tit or you’ll go with ‘em!’
DE: Your husband was a pilot?
MH: Yeah.
DE: How many ops did he do?
MH: About fifteen. He only came at the end of the war, he was only eighteen in 1942. I was two years older than him.
DE: Um.
MH: Never let me forget it. I was a cradle snatcher. [chuckles] But they looked so old the Bomber Command men, they all had grey faces. And there hair seemed to get colourless somehow they looked. Fighter pilots always looked gay and young and laughing. I know in the Battle of Britain I bet they didn’t but otherwise they were always gay and young. But the Bomber Command pilots always looked old.
DE: Why was that do you think?
MH: I don’t, because in the morning they’d know, ‘I might die tonight.’ And friends, people all around them were dying and I think that they knew how dicey their life was. And they’d live in a hut and come home and half the beds would be empty.
DE: Um.
MH: And sometimes when they took off in the morning they’d go to Germany and come back at say midnight and they’d be an intruder in the circuit. And one time was dropping bombs on the Waddington bomb dump. We thought it was hilarious at Skellingthorpe, bombing Waddington. They had Air Commodore Hesketh, we hated him. And he was a very bossy man, all his gold braid. And we didn’t have any of that at Skelly, only had the Groupie. They didn’t go around polishing boots and looking and making a parade and all like they did at Waddington.
DE: So do you think there was a difference between the permanent stations and the wartime stations?
MH: Yeah, I reckon. Well the Aussies were very casual. I remember one raid when the war began they handed, not when war began, when the D-Day began they handed the air force over to the army. It was the silliest thing they ever did. The army would call up, ‘Come and bomb this.’ And they’d get the bombs on the ‘plane. ‘No, don’t come now, we don’t need you.’ And then ‘Come and bomb this.’ They’d all get ready again, ‘No, don’t come we don’t need you.’
DE: Um.
MH: And in the end they said ‘Either take us off or the bombs sink in the ground.’ Anyway one time they said ‘We don’t need you, stand down but don’t leave the station.’ Course all the Skellingthorpe mob stayed around but the Waddington mob all shot into Lincoln. And within half an hour they called ops on again. And the police and SP’s were racing around trying to round the Aussies out of the pubs. We were all ready but they, they were very undisciplined like that.
DE: What was Lincoln like? Did you go out in Lincoln?
MH: Oh, incredible. At night when the bombers had taken off you just heard this roar, you can’t imagine. Well we had thirty six take off at Skelly, there were thirty six at Waddington, sixteen or seventeen at Bardney and Scampton and Woodhall Spa and East Kirkby all of them. All take off, all go over. They used to meet at Beachy Head and, or Reading sometimes and amalgamate there and then start flying out to Holland. But they’d just all roar over. Massive noise.
DE: Um. And of course working where you did you knew before they did where they were going?
MH: Absolutely. And when they did the Berlin run, I think it was 1944, they went to Berlin about five nights in a row. And Nuremburg was another one, they lost about ninety ‘planes that night. None of them liked going up the Ruhr, Cologne or. Some of them, I know they had fish names for targets and we had a [unclear] ‘phone scrambled if you wanted to talk privately you pressed the scrambler.
DE: Yes.
MH: I remember Air Commodore Hesketh rang one day. I didn’t know it was him. I picked up the ‘phone, I said ‘Hello, hello, hello.’ [loudly] ‘Air Commodore Hesketh here.’ ‘Oh,[long drawn in breath] beg your pardon sir .’ ‘I want Group Captain Jefferson.’ I suppose he said to Groupie Jefferson ‘She’s a right one in there.’ He would have defended me. I know he would. But we had a lot of fun, used to laugh a lot. And I never, ever worked out the bomb load. I could not do it.
DE: OK.
MH: I had to have one cookie, one thousand pounder, twelve SPC’s of incendiaries. And each Lancaster carried that. We had thirty two, thirty six whatever and I couldn’t do maths at all. I always rang Waddington the girls and said ‘How much bomb load have we taken off?’ And she would tell me. And I had to phone 5 Group and say ‘This much has gone.’
DE: Um.
MH: Once Groupie, Daddy Quinn came in with his slide rule. ‘Just do this Mag, just do this.’ I told him not to bother me. Can’t be bothered. I couldn’t cope, my little failing.
DE: You found a cunning way of getting round it.
MH: [laughing] We had, one night we had a camp concert. I was with this sergeant sitting there and a man who did tricks. What do you call ‘em? A conjurer. And he said ‘Two come up on the stage.’ He spotted us two sergeants sitting. ‘You come up.’ I had to get up and hold ropes and get things and next thing I kept dropping mine. Everybody was cheering, it was awful. Oh dear.
DE: Was that an ENSA concert?
MH: Yeah, yeah. And once we had some old ladies come, oh they were terrible. You had to sort of play a little tea thing in the afternoon. Fancy getting a bunch of airmen and airwomen and these old, fat old ladies with a cello, a big thing, and a piano and they’re all big stout old things in [silk?] dresses. We had to sit and listen.
DE: Not the sort of entertainment that you were after?
MH: No, no. No, no, no, no. Sometimes they were pathetic. I remember when I was young one of the WAAF’s in Skellingthorpe, not Skellingthorpe, [Waddington?] and this girl was singing. A pilot was sitting there she was singing at him and he was looking at her. Oh, they were so in love and she was really singing at him. She had on a pretty dress. All WAAF’s. We were slightly envious because in Fighter Command we didn’t see a man.
DE: Right, so Bomber Command was an improvement then?
MH: Bomber Command wall to wall men. But in 5 Command and 12 Group and Bentley Priory were just headquarters and Air Commodore um, you know the man who had his big wing and was always fighting? What was his name? Oh, can’t think. Anyway 11 Group fought with 12 Group because we had Douglas Bader and he wanted the big wings and [unclear] aeroplanes taking ten minutes to get off. He said ‘it goes in formation then.’
DE: Um.
MH: You could shoot them down. And he said, he said ‘if they drop after they drop their bombs it doesn’t matter.’ And 11 Group mostly were dropping them on my airfields. Anyway I can’t think, can’t think of the name. There was um. It’s gone, gone, it’s gone. It’ll come back to me, float back to me. My mind’s like a computer [unclear]. Anyway they had a lot of arguments about that. [unclear] once Douglas Bader came into the ops room we nearly all swooned away.
DE: Really?
MH: Um, um. See somebody with wings and young.
DE: Right. Yes.
MH: Never did get posted to ops in Fighter Command. I had this poor lover. David will laugh. What was his name? [unclear] and he followed me everywhere, he was a Canadian, and I did not want him. I never went out with him and they kept saying ‘He’s at the guardroom.’ And I wouldn’t go and talk to him and if I ever met a group of Canadians they’d say ‘You’re not Maggie are you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh, awful person.’ And in the end I asked one of them what happened to him. Killed, he flew into a hill.
DE: Oh dear.
MH: I had to pray for him all my life.
DE: Um.
MH: I didn’t want him though. He was about six foot six, he was, and I was only little. And this great big thing standing beside me. Only a little thing. Anyway that was, would have been about 1944 I suppose.
DE: Ah.
MH: Look at it now, 2018. He’s still on my conscience. You can’t make yourself fall in love though can you?
DE: No. And for you it happened with your blonde Australian from 463 Squadron.
MH: Um. All my babies were premature. I had nobody to help me. No mother, no sister, no aunties. No sisters, nobody. [rustling of papers]There’s my MID thing, is that good enough? Defence Medal, yeah MID. Ha, ha, ha.
DE: Well unless you can think of another anecdote to tell me?
MH: No, don’t think I’ve any more.
DE: I’m sure.
MH: We used hitch hike and sit on the tanks and drive to London. Never got into any harm. Just hop in the truck and it’s ‘Hop up love.’ And take us to London and drop us down, we stayed at the Waterloo Bridge. There was a Sally Army hostel nearby, we used to stay there.
DE: This was when you were on leave?
MH: On leave or weekends off. We worked night shifts we’re on, have a couple of days off. And what were those, Lyons Corner Houses then, they had like a restaurant. And they used to wheel a big trolley full of jelly cake, sort of like layers of cream and jelly. Could have a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Like being in heaven, used to have a slice of cake and a cup of tea.
DH: What was the story of your flight down the Ruhr after the war?
MH: Oh yes, yes.
DH: Oh, OK. Tell us about.
MH: Oh yes, we did a cook’s tour after the war. And I had two flights. I had one flight with a person just flying around over Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. And when we got back he said that he hadn’t filled his logbook in because I’d been sick on his log, which was a dirty lie and I was really angry about that. And then we did a cook’s tour down, what they call a cook’s tour, down the Ruhr when the war was over. Oh, the damage was awful. And we were going round Heliogland and the ‘plane was going like that. [chuckling]
DE: You felt a bit airsick [unclear]?
MH: I felt sick.
DE: How many people went on an aircraft trip, cook’s tour?
MH: Oh, I think a lot of people went on if they wanted to.
DE: Aha.
MH: And you were lucky enough to get someone that would take you.
DE: So where did you stand on the aircraft?
MH: I stood behind the navigator some of the time.
DE: Aha. So you could look out and?
MH: Um.
DE: Yeah.
MH: I was scared though. I was really scared.
DE: Of flying?
MH: Um. To say I’d wanted to be an airman all my life I was really frightened.
DE: Um.
MH: Once we got in the thick cloud I remember flying over Nottingham in what they called cumulus nimbus, real thick black cloud. And I thought ‘If anybody else is in the cloud with us what’s going to happen?’ But there wasn’t anybody in with us.
DE: No.
MH: And then when you’re going down, to [makes vomiting noise] I don’t mind now, I fly on all the big ones.
DE: Yeah. They’re a little bit different aren’t they?
MH: Absolutely. We flew home in the, what’s it David? sleeper. It was non-stop.
DE: The Dream Liner?
MH: Dream Liner, non-stop from Perth to London.
DE: Um.
MH: Horrible, too long.
DE: Yeah.
MH: Can you think of anything else I’ve told you David that I’ve forgotten?
DH: I just noticed you said you flew home on the Dream Liner but your home’s in Australia.
MH: Oh I forget yeah [laughs]
DH: Her heart’s still in England.
DE: Fair enough.
MH: My heart’s always been in England.
DE: Um. Well thank you very, very much for coming here and telling me these stories.
MH: Thank you. Thank you for listening.
DE: No, my pleasure.
MH: Um.
DE: I shall press stop. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Margaret Hourigan
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-16
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
Type
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Sound
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AHouriganM180416
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Format
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01:13:32 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Margaret Hourigan grew up in and around Nottingham. Despite holding Labour principles she volunteered for the WAAF’s as soon as War was declared and was called up in January 1940. She Hourigan served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a plotter with Fighter Command before being posted to RAF Waddington and RAF Skellingthorpe with Bomber Command. She met and married an Australian pilot, and emigrated to Australia after the war. Margaret and her husband had eight children.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
Temporal Coverage
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1944
44 Squadron
463 Squadron
50 Squadron
61 Squadron
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
control caravan
control tower
Cook’s tour
entertainment
faith
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
ground personnel
lack of moral fibre
memorial
military ethos
military living conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
operations room
perimeter track
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Bentley Priory
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Waddington
runway
service vehicle
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Dorricott, Leonard William
Leonard Dorricott
Len Dorricott
L W Dorricott
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Dorricott about her husband Flying Officer Leonard William Dorricott DFM (1923-2014, 1230753, 1230708 Royal Air Force). Leonard Dorricott was a navigator with 460 and 576 Squadrons. He flew 34 operations including Operation Manna, Dodge and Exodus. He was one of the crew who flew in Lancaster AR-G -George, now preserved in the Australian War Memorial. He was a keen amateur photographer and the collection contains his photographs, logbook and papers. It also contains A Dorricott’s First World War Diary, and photographs of Leonard Dorricott’s log book being reunited with the Lancaster at the Australian War Memorial.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Dorricott and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-07
2015-11-05
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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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Dorricott, LW
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Leonard Dorricott and five airmen
Description
An account of the resource
A group of six airmen sitting on a grass embankment. Behind is a lorry and a brick building. Leonard Dorricott is in the centre, front row.
Format
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One b/w photogrpah
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PDorricottLW15090013
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
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.
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Great Britain
Is Part Of
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Dorricott, Leonard William. Folder PDorricottLW1509
aircrew
ground personnel
navigator
service vehicle
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Twells, Ernie. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A scrapbook containing photographs and documents of Ernie Twells' wartime and post-war service including squadron reunions. The photographs and documents are contained in wallets in a scrapbook. The wallet page has been scanned and then the individual items rescanned. The scans have been grouped together.
Date
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2015-10-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Twells, E
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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A Lincoln and a Varsity
Lancaster and 4000lb bomb
Description
An account of the resource
A Lincoln and a Varsity taken from the starboard side, looking across a barbed wire fence.
A Lincoln with an experimental nose. In the foreground a man is sitting with his back to the camera, on his left is an Alsatian dog. Behind him is a VW Beetle and a bicycle. Behind the aircraft is a hangar identified with an 'E'.
A 4000lb bomb on a trolley. Three ground crew are preparing to load it into bomb bay of a Lancaster. The Lancaster has a cover over its nose.
A Lincoln and a Varsity taken from the starboard side, looking across a barbed wire fence.
Format
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Four b/w photographs from a scrapbook
Language
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eng
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PTwellsE15070059, PTwellsE15070060, PTwellsE15070061, PTwellsE15070062, PTwellsE15070063
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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
animal
bomb trolley
bombing up
ground personnel
hangar
Lincoln
service vehicle
-
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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
Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
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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Raettig, DW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
104/158 Squadron Bomber Command
[photograph of a Wellington]
I started my Air Force life as a Flt./Mechanic (Engines) at Squires Gate, Blackpool, in January 1941. Everyone remembers their service number – in my case 1136657 – and their first months in the forces. The endless marching around, inspections and going for your ‘jabs’ – mine took place in a church hall [italics] ‘Suffer Little Children” [/italics] was written above the stage. Not having been inoculated before, I didn’t really know what to expect, but at the front of the queue grown men were fainting even before they got to the doctor! A punch in the middle of the back by the orderlies seemed to be the cure – it certainly cured me!
It is possible that I am the longest serving member of 158 Squadron, posted to B Flight, 104 Squadron, 4 Group Bomber Command, at Driffield, in the 2nd week of August, 1941. Driffield aerodrome was built in the early 30’s, with the usual living quarters and 4 hangers – there were no runways, just a large grass field, the standard for an airfield in those pre-war days. The aerodrome had previously been bombed - a barrack block and a hanger had been badly [inserted] damaged [/inserted], it was rumoured that several personnel had perished.
104 Squadron was composed of 2 Flights of Vickers Wellington Mk. 2 bombers, powered by Rolls Royce Merlin X engines. The airframe was of geodetic construction, covered by a fabric which was stitched on with a very strong twine. It was designed by Barnes Wallis, who a few years earlier, had been involved with the airship R100 which was built at near-by Howden. The aircraft were mainly disbursed around the airfield, but some were parked in a field across a road which skirted the ‘drome. There was also a Blind Approach Training Flight, with 2 Whitley [inserted] bombers [/inserted], a Fairey Battle used for target towing for air-to-air firing; and most unexpectedly – an Autogiro – definitely not a helicopter! (used for weather observations over the North Sea) I serviced it on 2 or 3 occasions; and finally 4 Westland Lysanders, which were attached to a nearby army unit.
It was during October of that year (1941) that we were confined to camp. A number of aircrew and groundcrew were given 48 hours leave and the rest of us told that we had to prepare the aircraft for a special mission. We were later told that they were all going to Malta and spares would also be loaded on the ‘planes. As soon as I heard of the destination I volunteered to go (due to an accident, my parents were stranded on the island – and later Egypt) I was told that if any of the groundcrew failed to return from leave I would be considered. As it turned out one person failed to return on time and I was actually on the ‘plane when he turned up. [deleted] It was to be an [/deleted]
Aircraft and crews were soon replaced but it was around this time that U Uncle ([deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] a [/inserted] dual controlled training aircraft) crash landed. This was my time to take over servicing the ‘plane and as new aircrews arrived they all took their turn on the ‘circuits and bumps’ training. However, a few days later I was reading D.R.O’s (remember Daily Routine Orders?) One paragraph read (roughly) that anybody who could successfully design a means of hiding the exhausts on the Merlin engine would receive an award of £200 (the stubs glowed red hot and were thought to be an easy target for enemy fighters). I thought no more about it until someone came from our office and told me that U would be the aircraft to test any of the designs and that I had to move my ‘plane to the parking area across the road from the main airfield and to take reasonable precautions in case of fire. That afternoon I got the tractor to tow U across the road to the parking area
Page 1
[page break]
[deleted] Across the road] [/deleted] and [deleted] I [/deleted] surrounded it with as many fire extinguishers as I could get hold of. The following day the first test arrived in the shape of a cowling to be fitted on the starboard engine, on the inboard [inserted] side [/inserted] so that I could see it all the time I was testing. After fitting the cowling to the engine, I started up the engine and waited for the oil pressure g[inserted]u[/inserted]age to ‘break’, but it was obvious from the way exhaust gases came out that it was a failure. Over a period of several days more were tested until one passed the ground test, so I asked for an aircrew to fly the aircraft. When the crew came out and I explained what the test was they refused to fly it – well any sane person would, wouldn’t they? However, we came to a compromise by agreeing that just the pilot and I would fly as low as possible within the confines of the airfield – which we did – it was a case of ‘Down quick’. On the third occasion of a test flight the airframe mechanic asked if he could go up as he wanted to do a check. I told him no it was too dangerous, however he said it was fairly important for him to check the wing in flight, so the three of us went on the test. Very quickly it was a case of ‘down, down’ both from me and the airframe mech.. Apart from the exhaust burning the cowling, the starboard wing had ‘ballooned’ due to the cord stitching the fabric had worn away. It was all down to the skill of the pilot, he quickly feathered the prop., somehow managing to control the landing despite having a damaged wing, and landed safely. However, all our troubles were not quite over – having had to cut the starboard engine the hydraulic pump no longer worked the flaps or the brakes. So the Pilot’s problem was how to stop the aircraft from crashing into two 500 gal. petrol bowsers on the perimeter track just in front of the hanger. Fortunately, it stopped about 20 yards away. That was the end of U Uncle – the next day it was loaded onto a ‘Queen Mary’ lorry back to the Vickers factory. The problem of the glow from the exhaust system took a little longer – a few days later we received some cans of a specially thick red paint developed by I.C.I., with instructions to paint it thickly on to the exhaust stubs, which was duly applied. When the engines were run the heat turned the red paint black – problem solved.
… and now we are 158 Squadron
As autumn turned to winter it became obvious that without runways, the aircraft would be in difficulties with take-off and landing. At one stage we helped to lay a steel wire ‘runway’, which was duly tested but considered unworkable, so it had been decided some of the aircraft would operate from R.A.F. Pocklington, at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds.
Due to the lack of living quarters, some of the ground crew were based at nearby R.A.F. Melbourne (which was in the early stages of being built) and bussed to and from Pocklington every day. The bus used to drop us at the end of a short lane to our billet, where a farmer had conveniently (for us) built a potato pie to protect his crop from being frosted. There were about 15 of us and as each one passed the pie they helped them selves to a potato, then on to the cookhouse for tea. One of the gang would talk to the cook, while one of us grabbed a packet of margarine, which we soon found on a shelf at the other end of the counter. Later in the evening in front of a red-hot stove we baked and ate our baked potatoes – never have they tasted better! However, as they [sic] saying goes, all good things must come to an end, as an officer arrived one evening and ‘tore a strip off us’
It was during mid February at Pocklington that we were informed that we were now 158 Squadron and the recognition letters on the sides of the aircraft changed from EP to NP, so as we prepared for operations the airframe mechanic did the necessary alterations to the lettering. That evening the aircraft flew with the new insignia and more importantly, all returned safely from that first operation of the new squadron. 2 or 3 other raids were carried out from Pocklington with the loss of 1 aircraft.
The new squadron then returned to our own base at Driffield, and for the next 3 months was engaged in many raids on enemy targets in which many brave men lost their lives. Some however, were captured and for the rest of the war interned in P.O.W. camps. During early May, we were informed that the squadron was to move to another station and be equipped with Halifax Mk 2 Bombers. In due course we moved to different stations to learn more about these ‘planes.
About 20 of us went to RAF Leeming. The first question any sensible airman should ask on arriving at a new station is “What’s the grub like?” – the answer here at Leeming was mind blowing – pictures of a pre-war summer day, mother bringing a cool green salad to the table in the back garden and as a special treat a slice of [italics] pork-pie [/italics] – here the dream ended. Pork Pies (about 3” diam.) were available for breakfast, dinner, tea and supper at this station. You soon got your fill of them – it was a few years before I tasted another! On the whole our stay was like a holi-
Page 2
[page break]
day as we had no responsibilities and the weather was fine enough for some of us to swim in a small river at the edge of the ‘drome – including my friend Doug. Waddie, who not having any swimming trunks decided to hide behind some bushes and wrap his loins (ahem!) in 2 large handkerchiefs, jumped into the fast running river and immediately lost his dignity much to the amusement of a group of WAAF. I quickly picked up his towel and threw it across, but unfortunately my aim wasn’t good and it landed in the water – there was a great cheer as Doug. revealed all, to retrieve his towel. Shortly after this dramatic incident I was ordered back to Driffield, as I went down the narrow road from the Leeming ‘drome I noticed a fairly new factory with a notice ‘Pork Pie Products’ – so if any of you get posted there, you know what to expect!
Arriving back at Driffield, I was told that I had to report to the Group Captain. On entering his office he told me that he was as mystified as me as to what was going on but I had to check all the remaining aircraft and await further orders. One of my airframe friends joined me later in the day, and together we inspected the planes – there were only 8 or 9 Wellingtons left of the original squadron plus the Whitleys of the B.A.T. flight who had [deleted] there [/deleted] [inserted] their [/inserted] own service crews. On the next day more tradesmen arrived and we serviced those few planes. The following day, the 30th May 1942, was to be an important day in Bomber Command history. We were told to prepare the planes for a special raid. Regardless of trade we all helped each other – whether it was filling up with fuel or bombing-up and finally the aircrews came out started the engines and where [sic] off. It was an amazing sight, as squadron after squadron flew overhead for quite a long time. It was of course the first 1,000 bomber raid. Target Cologne. Two days later the planes were again prepared for ops. This time the target was Essen. That was the last Wellington bombing raid from Driffield by 158 Squadron. A few days later we rejoined the main squadron at the new station…
R.A.F. EAST MOOR
[photograph of a Halifax Mk 2 Aircraft]
Halifax Mk 2 4 Rolls-Royce Merlin XXII
About 9 miles north of York, close to the hamlet of Sutton-on-the-Forest, East Moor was one if the new breed of satellite stations, with well dispersed living quarters in the wooded areas.
The first days were filled with lectures mainly about the new aircraft and one I particularly remember was about security. After this meeting 2 or 3 of us decided to go down to the local ‘watering hole’, but just as we were leaving I was called back to ‘see in’ B Flight’s first new Halifax bomber. About half an hour later I went to meet my friends at the village pub and I saw them talking to a couple of civilians who on my entry, quickly left the premises. I was surprised at their quick exit and asked the lads what had happened. On being told that they had been asking questions about what type of aircraft etc., I asked the landlord permission to use his ‘phone and called the civil police and our own service police. On returning to camp we were interrogated by our police, but heard nothing further.
During the next few days, aircrew and groundcrew were arriving to bring the squadron up to strength. Again I was allocated to P, and was quickly introduced to the new aircrew as they came to test their ‘plane. When the crew came for their next flight I asked the pilot for permission for my new assistant (straight from training school) and I to go up for our first flight in a Halifax. We all climbed on board, and had a very pleasant flight on a lovely summer’s day – except the pilot didn’t warn us that he was going to do a few tests. The first inkling was when the outer starboard engine was stopped then feathered, next the starboard-inner, the nose dropped slightly and was corrected by the pilot, then the port-inner was stopped and immediately restarted when the nose dropped. Test over, and as the pilot lowered the undercarriage preparing to land, a horn sounded, not having heard this before, I asked the Flight Engineer what it was for. “It’s a warning to indicate that the landing-gear hasn’t locked” was the response. The pilot was receiving instructions over the radio. Climbing higher, he went into a fairly steep dive as he attempted to lower the under-
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carriage – still the horn sounded. After a few more attempts he was told to use-up some fuel, then land. All aircrew were ordered to crash positions between the main spars, while my assistant and I lay on the floor with our arms protecting our heads. It was a great relief when I heard the screech of tyres as we touched down – the horn continued all the time till we got to our base. Later, a ground check was made and an electrical fault was found on the system.
Towards the end of the first month at East Moor, planes were prepared for a raid which we learned later was the 3rd 1,000 bomber raid. This time against Bremen. During that month of June several raids were carried out and any loss of aircraft was keenly felt throughout the squadron, partly because we were such a small unit – 2 Flights – 16 aircraft maximum. [inserted] One [deleted] new [/deleted] innovation to our routeen [sic] was the introduction of a heater van [/inserted]
The following story may seem incredible, but it actually happened. All I can assume is that a certain Canadian F/Sgt. rear gunner found a cheap way of getting someone else to pay for his beer – My aircraft was based close to a narrow country road and one afternoon I was working by myself, on top of one of the engines changing plugs when I heard children laughing close by. Looking down I was horrified to see a lady and two young children (about 4 or 5 years old) sat by the side of the plane with a tablecloth spread out with plates of sandwiches, then from behind I heard a man call his wife to ‘come and look at this’. Turning round I saw a man looking into the aircraft though the entrance hatch. I told him to leave the field as he was trespassing. He said he wasn’t trespassing as he had arranged to meet his friend Flt/Sgt - - who had promised to take them on a flight and if I wasn’t careful he would report me to his friend and get me put on a charge. This was getting very silly, so I told him to go to ‘that building over there’ pointing to the guardhouse and they would get hold of his friend for him. So off he went. I don’t know what happened but he never came back for his free flight. Warning! If any of you get called up again (there’s no knowing the way things are just now, they are short of recruits) don’t try the free drinks trick on me, unless you pass me a bottle or two.
[italics] It was around this time that a Group Captain from a neighbouring ‘drome insisted on holding an inspection of all personnel once a month (I must have been born with 2 left feet!). His name was Gp. Captain John Whitley and he was later to become very important to me [/italics].
The Squadron was heavily engaged in August and suffered many losses, but one cheery note was that P.O. Chambers, who had been with the Squadron since the Driffield days, finished his tour of ops.. September was also a very busy month but towards the end we were less busy and I ‘volunteered’ (you, you & you!) for a special mission, in late October. Actually, there were six or so groundcrew, an MT driver and a bus. The instructions were to drive 10 miles south of York on the A19, open the secret instructions and carry on from there. Arriving at the 10 mile spot, the secret instructions were opened. We were to proceed the RAF Harwell and to prepare our Halifax aircraft for [underlined] Glider towing [/underlined]. As we were driven down we discussed the implications and came to the conclusion that someone ‘high up’ didn’t know what he was talking about – not unusual! As far as we knew, none of our aircrews had any training for towing gliders. However, on to Harwell, or so we thought, but leaving the road directions to the driver, it was a little surprising when we entered a small town whose main claim to fame was a statue of a lady riding a cock horse (what ever that is). Fortunately, one of the party knew the area, so beating a hasty retreat – (which included reversing into the statue) and sped like the devil in case anyone had noticed our arrival). We were late reaching the gates of RAF Harwell, only to be told that the operation had been cancelled – and no we couldn’t be admitted to the camp. Our driver pointed out that he had already driven over 8 hours and wouldn’t drive any further, so we had no alternative but to find somewhere to stay for the night. Fortunately there was a farmer near by who agreed to let us stay the night in his stables and led the horses into a field. We had a restless (and smelly) night and set off early next morning for our journey back.
On arrival, we were so exhausted that we went straight to our hut (most of the party were in my hut) and lay on our beds and began to doze off only to be wakened by a Flt/Sgt. telling us that we were supposed to be working on the planes and if not, we had to volunteer to fly on a special trip – it was the easy way out[inserted],[/inserted] so back to sleep. The next morning we were told that we would be
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taking over the duties of the squadron, whose own aircraft (Liberators) had been cannibalised one-at-a-time in order to keep their aircraft flying until they had only one aircraft. Our flight down to the South coast was uneventful, but the cloud base was rather low and we couldn’t see the ground so I cat-napped. Sometime later I awoke and was looking at a strange cloud rising just at the side of our ‘plane., about the size of a large black football – it then dawned on me and just as I was going to shout at the captain he called on the inter-com ‘Navigator we must be nearly there’. ‘Yes, just nip below cloud and confirm’. At least 4 German A.A. guns were firing at us, and looking hastily back, I couldn’t even see the Channel. Quickly climbing above cloud, we eventually reached our destination. But it was going to be one of those days best forgotten. I was given my instructions to try and keep the planes serviceable at all times and to make sure that all ‘planes were fully fuelled, as the trips were to be over the Bay of Biscay searching for enemy subs. Mine laying and submarine attack was the main aim.
As I got out of the ‘plane I saw a petrol tanker on the perimeter track, so I hailed him to come over, and told him we wanted to fill the aircraft immediately. ‘Sorry mate. You don’t belong to us’, was the response. So it was a case of ‘take me to your leader’ attitude. I climbed into the tanker, back to his base and had words with his officer, who more-or-less said the same thing. I was then passed up the ranks – Flt.Lt Engineer Officer, Squadron Leader, Wing Commander and finally the Group Captain. Repeating my request for refuelling the aircraft, I got the same answer – ‘No, I don’t know anything about you’. I tried another way. ‘Sir, someone must have sent a signal for reinforcements.’ ‘No, they would have told me about it’. Feeling that I was getting nowhere – ‘May I use the ‘phone , sir?’ ‘Yes certainly. Who do you want to ring’? ‘Our own base, there is little point in us remaining here, we may as well return.’ Ah! I’d hit a tender spot. ‘Now let us think this out’ he said. The solution he arrived at was that he would call in a WAAF typist, dictate an agreement to the effect that I was responsible for all the fuel used by our unit, and that we would both sign it – I know that it all sounds crazy, but that is basically what happened. [italics] (My recurring worry is that someone in the Air Ministry may find that document, and ask me to repay them for the fuel used. However, I am comforted that my fellow members of the Squadron will dig deep in their pockets to reimburse me.) [/italics]. However, having got permission I rushed back to fuel the aircraft, as a lot of time had been wasted and it was getting towards night-time. The tanker arrived and two of us, one on each wing, commenced to fill up. The driver warned us that if the ‘drome was attacked (France was only 20 or so miles away) the standing instructions were for him to pull away immediately. It rapidly got very dark that night, (remember it was early October). Suddenly, there was a big flash and bang, and without warning, the tanker driver started to pull away shouting at us as he went – we just had time to pull out the nozzles. Quickly fastening down the petrol caps, we slide down the wing stubs and met at the bottom. It was pitch-black by this time and we hadn’t a clue were [sic] any of the buildings were situated and just hoped that the rest of our party had found somewhere to stay. By good luck, the first building we got to was the NAAFI which was practically deserted, except some of our friends were there. They had similar experiences to us in that no-one on the ‘drome was interested in us – so it was a case of do-it-yourself – our lads just commandeered a Nissan hut, ‘pinched’ beds from other huts, bedding from several places and even broke into the coal compound. So, at least we had somewhere to sleep and in some sort of comfort. Someone explained that the big flash & bang we heard was their last Liberator blowing-up on its test flight. One can imagine that the whole camp, from the Group Captain to the lowest ranks, were so demoralised by the situation that there was no point in them being there. We had our own duties to attend to.
Our original instructions were [italics] ‘You’ll only be there about a week, You’ll only need your knife, fork and mug’[/italics] – we were to remain there until we were relieved early in December!. Things ran fairly smoothly at first, but then we all ran out of money.. The normal channels were tried – going to the accounts department and explaining the situation, but to no avail. Finally, a meeting was arranged with the whole detachment and a plan of action arranged – that on the next station pay parade we would disrupt the action by walking in front of the station personnel and prevent them from being paid. The pay day arrived and we caused absolute chaos – we were threatened with dire consequences, but eventually everybody calmed down and the Squadron Leader in charge of the parade promised to look into the affair straight after their men had been paid. We agreed to this and left the parade. The next day we were paid. So at least I could buy a cup of tea at the NAAFI.
We existed (couldn’t think of a better word) there for about 5 weeks – our only possessions knife, fork and mug. [underlined] [italics] No change of clothing. [/italics] [/underlined] One day, one of our own aircraft arrived unannounced, dropped off replacement ground crew (they returned the following day) and flew us back to…
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R.A.F. RUFFORTH
It was the 5th December when we arrived back again in the area of York. Rufforth is about 4 miles west of the city and was a typical war-time ‘drome, with 2 runways and scattered living accommodation. One difference to our previous home, there was a working farmhouse [underlined] within [/underlined] its boundary. I was allocated to P, which was based close to a country road.
Routine was slightly different than before, in that we serviced the ‘planes early in the mornings (remember this was winter-time and day-light hours were short. It would be dark by 5 p.m.) Aircrews air tested, and in the course of early afternoon we towed each plane by tractor, onto the runway, fairly close together, and at a 25o angle to the runway. The planes were then topped-up with fuel (some times overload tanks were fitted), bombed up – often with a mixed load of 2,000 lb. H.E.s and incendiaries.
On one occasion there was an electrical fault and a canister of incendiaries fell to the ground, fortunately very few ignited and we managed to throw, and kick them out of the way. The reason for parking the planes on the runway was to save as much fuel as possible as some of the raids were at Turin or Genoa. I remember on the return of one aircraft, how the crew waxed lyrical of how beautiful the Alps looked in the moonlight.
It was common practice for ground crews who were on night duty, waiting for returning planes, to cat-nap as best they could. One night I was awakened by an odd noise, looking out of the door of the office, I saw a horse, then noticed 2 or 3 more. Rushing back in I rang the control tower. There was quite a panic as the returning aircraft were due in about 1/2 hour. “A” flight office was informed and together with some control tower staff we just managed to get the last horse in when the first planes arrived. Well! I couldn’t face having to eat horse meat for the next week or two.
It was possibly early in 1943 when it happened – [underlined] [italics] the worst day of my life. [/italics] [underlined] The day started just like any other at Rufforth, early breakfast and off to work. After we had ground tested, the aircrew arrived and proceeded with the air test. Everyone going for an early dinner as the afternoon was very busy – only one tractor per Flight, and pulling the ground-starter motors over, ready to start the aircraft. The aircrews came out after briefing, engines were started up, and while the rest of the groundcrew cleared the area of ground-starter motors etc. I remained in the aircraft while the pilot checked the engines one at a time, checked the fine/course pitch, and so on until he was satisfied, checking the petrol and finally signing ‘Form 700’ – which contained the signatures of all who had done any work on the plane.
Closing the hatch, with the ‘700’ under my arm I walked to the Control Tower to watch the planes take-off. It was getting dusk but I could just read the letters on the side of my plane. As the pilot opened up the engines, I was horrified to see white steam pouring from the starboard outer engine – a sure sign of a coolant burst (the planes were all powered by Merlin XX’s at this time). I expected to see the pilot immediately shut-down and stop the plane, but no, the plane carried on gathering speed, as it reached the end of the runway and lift-off. I watched the aircraft as it slowly turned to port with steam still streaming out behind. Then inevitably, there was a dull thud and a flash as the ‘plane disintegrated, killing all the crew.
I was in a state of shock. Had I missed something on my check? My F/Sgt. was on the balcony of the control tower, and he called down to me [italics] “That was your aircraft wasn’t it? You had better give me the 700 before you do anything stupid with it.” [/italics] That statement certainly did not improve my already troubled mind. What of the poor crew – they must have realised that something was seriously wrong and tried to fly to the other end of the runway, so that they could land again. It must have been hell for them before the inevitable explosion. My mind was repeating all the event that had gone on during that fatal day. Would I be arrested and await a courtmartial [sic]? I eventually returned back to my hut, and my friends tried their best to console me
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On reporting for work the next morning the F/Sgt decided that I wouldn’t work on aircraft but work in the office and be a general ‘dogsbody’ for any one who wanted assistance. I heard nothing about the accident for 2 or 3 weeks, until one day I was asked to report to one of the offices, were [sic] I was asked by a Sgt. S.P. to verify that it was my signature on the Form 700 and that was all I heard about it officially.
I was in the office a few weeks later when our office clerk said to me that there was a rumour that we were moving to another station near the east coast called Lissett, do you know it? I thought for a moment, ‘Yes! It’s a hamlet on the Bridlington Low Road. I’ve driven through it a few times. It is notorious for a stretch of straight concrete road w[inserted]h[/inserted]ere idiot motorists ‘open-up’ to see how quickly they can kill themselves.’ – and so on to …
R.A.F. LISSETT
We were still working on Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, a newer version Halifax Mark 2. and Flights A, B, & C. I was very surprised when I was put in charge of R Robert, based just out-side what was to become the Radar Office and close to the bomb dump. [italics] (Most of those who served at Lissett will have realised how dangerous that base was.) [/italics] There were differences in some of the Halifaxes – they now had the large oblong shaped tail, apart from that, most of them had radar blisters under neath [sic], but the aircraft I was working on had a blister made of metal and the rear was wide open to the air. It was suggested that it was intended to be a lowerer [sic] gun position, which never materialised. I went on the first flight and when the ‘plane was airborne I crept into the blister and strapped myself in – I’ve never been so frightened, the flight itself was rather bumpy but the air-drag was trying to pull me out of the open blister. Very carefully I undid the strap and held tight-hold of it, at the same time pulling myself into the fuselage. What a relief!
Page 7
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
Dennis Raettig's wartime memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Wartime memoir covering Dennis Raettig's training at Blackpool and the posting to 104 Squadron at Royal Air Force Driffield in August 1941. Worked on Wellington aircraft and mentions that Driffield also hosted the blind approach landing flight operating Whitley and Battle aircraft. Tells of his time at Driffield including an attempt to deploy to Malta and deployment to RAF Pocklington during the winter. Notes that the squadron change number to 158 Squadron in February 1942. Relates training at RAF Leeming for squadrons eventual change to Halifax aircraft and preparations for the 1000 bomber operation on Cologne in May 1942 as well as the last Wellington operations shortly after. Goes on to tell of his time at RAF East Moor now with Halifax. with some anecdotal stories as well as relating story of a test flight and an abortive trip to RAF Harwell to prepare Halifax for glider towing. Describes another special operation trip to the south coast with problems with getting fuel for the aircraft. Talks of move to RAF Rufforth and describes routine as well as describing witnessing 'his' aircraft crashing on take off and its effect on him as the worst day of his life. Finally relates move to RAF Lisset.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D W Raettig
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven page printed document with illustrations
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
BReattigDWRaettigDWv1
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--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1941-01
1941-08
1942-02
1942-05-30
1943
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
104 Squadron
158 Squadron
4 Group
animal
B-24
Battle
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
crash
fuelling
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
incendiary device
mechanics engine
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Driffield
RAF East Moor
RAF Harwell
RAF Leeming
RAF Lissett
RAF Pocklington
RAF Rufforth
runway
service vehicle
take-off crash
tractor
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/8311/PRaettigDW16030005.2.jpg
e94bead96974589f69d8f5a6d62fb8be
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
Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Raettig, DW
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
Ten airmen with a tractor
Description
An account of the resource
Six airmen standing round and four sitting on a towing tractor. they are wearing battledress or tunic and three have side caps. At the rear a towing bar and in the background open ground, engine trestles and a line of trees. Dennis W Raettig front centre.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PRaettigDW16030005
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
ground crew
ground personnel
service vehicle
tractor
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/465/8348/ABaileyLMM151006.1.mp3
4e9091253c184e969b80538850e3ac75
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
Bailey, Lillian Margaret Mary
L M M Bailey
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bailey, LMM
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Lillian Margret Bailey
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Hello my name is Pam Locker and I have come from the Bomber Command Memorial trust
today to interview Mrs Margaret Lillian Mary Bailey; in her home, and Margaret thank you very
much indeed for agreeing to talking to talk to us and I am really looking forward to hearing your
story. So do you want to just start by telling me a little bit about your family and you came to be
involved with the WAAF?
MB: Well I was one of seven children, and in those days you had to do something some war work
and I volunteered to join the WAAF so that's how I got into the air force.
PL: Wonderful, and I understand that you inherited a new name?
MB: Thats right.
PL: Tell me about that.
MB: Well I was on this station and there was WAAF drivers we were all WAAF drivers and
there was three Lillian's on it and this officer said we can't have three so what’s your second name,
and I said Margaret since then I've been called Margaret.
PL: Oh my goodness! So tell me a little bit about your time at the WAAF , how did it feel at the
start when you first joined?
MB: Well I was a bit nervous at first you know, young, I joined up at Gloucester but I don't
know what the....where you get your uniform and...but I can't remember what it was called, then I
went to Ely near Cardiff, Barrage Balloon just while I was waiting to get posted to be trained as a
driver. I hung my coat in the porch one day and I had Ten shilling note in the pocket and that was
gone, of course I got told off for leaving it in me pocket they said it would teach you a lesson. So
I remember that from that house then I went to Cardington, near Bedford where I did my MT
training. And from there I went to Woolfox Lodge that’s near Stamford and that’s where they gave me
my new name there
PL: Right.
PL: And they were Stirlings and I wasn't there long then I went To Elsham Wolds
in Lincoln there was 103 Squadron and 576 and I was.....576 Squadron was just starting up and I
was sent to them, although it was after my MT training by the way.....I was there from 1943 to 1945 we
used to take the crews out to the Lancasters at any time of the day or night whenever they were going, if
it was night time we would go back to our billet and when we were called to pick 'em up we'd put
our battle dress over our pyjamas and go and pick 'em up anytime of the night or morning.
PL: Goodness....so were you able to choose what you wanted to do did you choose to be a
driver?
MB: Oh yes, I chose to be a driver some girls didn't carry on because they were too nervous
they'd sit up in bed with a steering wheel in their hand having nightmares but I was ok.
PL: Could you drive before?
MB: No, they taught you.
PL: Right.
MB: That was at Cardington, I think they still do it there now training . And Hiliary .. Hiliary
Roberts was stationed there with me she's the only one that’s alive now that were there, all the
others passed on.
PL: How many were there?
MB: Umm?
PL: How many of you were there altogether?
MB: In the section there were about twelve I suppose drivers because you did different times then
we had bad weather snow couldn't...the planes couldn’t take off we had no water so we used to
get the snow and melt it to wash and when it was foggy and that the crews were stood down so
we was stood down aswell and we all used to go into Scunthorpe or anywhere round like that.
PL: Anywhere in particular?
MB: Anywhere in particular?
PL: In Scunthorpe?
MB: Well in Scunthorpe there was a Toc H and this lady was in Toc H, she used to tell the
airmen and WAAFs that her house was open house and we used have you could have a bar there and
go anytime and they used to feed you and all that we used to call her Mum Martin so we used to
go there the pictures but then there was the Oswald at Scunthorpe but I only went once ‘cause I was
told I was too young or something to be in there so.
PL: So how old were you then?
MB: Nineteen when I joined up but some people look older than others don't they?
PL: Indeed, so the Oswald Pier was where all the Americans....
MB: Americans all around as well as Lancaster's we used to get loads go to the aerodromes for
parties and that, a lorry would pick us up and take us.
PL: So how was your...describe to me what a typical day would be like for you.
MB: Well you had.....there was two a WAAF site and a site on the aerodrome for the WAAFs
and for the WAAF drivers that were driving the crews to the aircraft were stationed on the
aerodrome, so erm you had different hours to do like so you'd get up go to breakfast and then go
to the MT section and that’s where you'd be where you were wanted to take the airmen seven in a
crew and we had little Bedford vans with a canvas roof at the back, you know we used to take
them out in that and then they'd be there for a long while before they took off depending on the
weather and the time and that and we used to be there with them like until they took off and then
we'd come back to sections what ever time you had your meals and then err you didn’t do nights
every time, you had shifts like and that’s when you took, two girls were on and two fella drivers
and we'd sleep in a little hut there and took them out and wait got back into bed then they'd call us
and we'd have to get up and go and bring them in and then we'd go back to our billets.
PL: So you must have got to know the crews very well?
MB: Oh yes very friendly with the crew but we knew that you know they wouldn't return a lot of them
Australians, Canadians ....and then when the war had finished they disbanded 516 so then I was posted
to Scampton I was there I don't know how long but I was there then we got shifted about a bit then I
went to Lindholme where I met my husband an MT driver.
PL: So how did you meet your husband?
MB: He was abroad , he was abroad Cairo and Malta all during the war so when he came to Lindholme
he wasn't used to WAAF drivers and we got friendly and then where did I go from there? Can't think
where I went from there but I got demobbed err, I got demobbed in 55? 56, and my friend and I
Kay who was at Lindholme we couldn't settle down into civilian life so we both rejoined went to
Wilmslow to rejoin ,and then err we were sent to Margate, Manston aerodrome Spitfires and then I got
married from there. She got married but she went out to Canada with her husband we kept in contact
until last year...I think she passed away.
PL: So firm, firm friendships made!
MB: Pardon?
PL: Firm friendships made at that time?
MB: Oh yes you had to didn't you really to pal up with people.
PL: So what year did you get married?
MB: I got married in 1948 I was still in the ... I was at Manston aerodrome then and my husband
was up at Hednesford up that way then when we got married I went up there to his camp with him until
I got demobbed and then he was posted down to ...where was it did I say the he got demobbed
we bought a bungalow.
PL: And what about your own parents?
MB: They lived in Essex, Wickford in Essex and my sister was in the land army two brothers were
in the army but we were all lucky we had all escaped got home.
PL: How wonderful, so you travelled about quite a bit.
MB: Oh yes yeah, didn’t go abroad they didn’t have WAAF drivers abroad we were only stationed
in England.
PL: So what...so when you carried on after the war ended what sort of driving did you do then? Was it the same?
MB: You'd drive to a shoe factory take the men’s shoes to a factory in Nottingham, and laundry
drive big lorries and do all things like that you know.
PL: So and did you did make friends with other WAAFs who were outside who weren't drivers
who were doing other...
MB: Oh yeah ...the cookhouse but you really mostly kept to your own you know.
PL: So in your area what other roles were played by the WAAFs ?
MB: Erm Hiliary my friend she used to drive for the Officers HQ she might have done a bit on the
squadron but mostly she was driving officers around and then there’s drivers for all sorts of things
women didn’t drive the tankers it was men that drove them.
PL: Why was that?
MB: Where was it?
PL: Why was it?
MB: Well they were big things weren't they tankers.
PL: Is that the pet….Fuel tankers ?
MB: Yeah ...oh yeah you used to have to swing the lorries swing em with ....
PL: Oh....
MB: No automatic....
PL: A starting crank....
MB: And once I was on the cook's early morning and the old Ford lorries and it wouldn’t start and
you were swinging your heart out and they were sitting there waiting coz they go to go and cook the
meals got it done and going in the end.
PL: So you must have built up some pretty good muscles.
MB: [Laughs] oh yeah.
Pl: So what other memories might you have?
MB: Well you'd make a date with someone and they didn't turn up coz they didn't come back,
they didn't come back. The WAAF sights were in a woods or something, and they were Nissen
huts and you'd hear the rats running over the top at night and when it was raining you could hear
that on there you'd have to get out to go to the toilet in the dark the ablution but thats was all in
life you just took it as a matter of course.
PL: Did it feel...
MB: It was cold yeah....and know one wants the bed near the fire they was those big round
because everyone was sat on your bed when you had a bed near the fire.
PL: [Laughs] oh i see so it was it like a big pot bellied stove.
MB: Yes .
PL: My goodness ,so how many of you shared together?
MB: The hut was about fifteen or twenty something like that quite a lot, Friday night was domestic
night we had to polish the floor and do your buttons and everything.
PL: And was their a sort of a hierarchy amongst your group? Was there...were there different err...
MB: Like a Corporal you mean? That was in charge?
PL: Yes.
MB: Yes, but they didn't interfere with you really not with the MT girls because we didn't go on
parade or anything because we were always on demand.
PL: So I understand there was some sort of incident with an accident in a lorry.
MB: I was delivering shoes to a factory at Nottingham, a shoe factory all the factories were there
and I was called into the office when I got back, or a few days later said I'd hit a lampost or
something, that I'd backed into this lamppost but when he said it was I wasn't there that day,
anyway I was crying , he said what are you crying for he said so ‘cause I said I hadn't done it, he
said you may as well own up to it he said. Anyway a few days later it came back that it wasn't me
that I was telling the truth I wasn’t driving the lorry that day.
PL: So did you get an apology?
MB: Well no, he said you were crying for nothing that’s it, it wasn’t that but you were so annoyed
because knew you hadn't hadn't done it.
PL: Of course.
MB: They were accusing.... they were saying say you did it and that’s that but I wouldn’t say
it.
PL: A tough life, disciplined.
MB: Oh yeah and another incident was, oh when i was learning to drive I came over the brow of
this hill and i came a little near to this car in the middle and the instructor wasn’t taking any notice
of me he said I was alright you know, course that upset me didn't it I didn't hit it but the other
driver got out and was effing and arring [laughs] that’s another incidence I had.
PL: But you didn't hit him?
MB: No, that’s all in learning isn't it?
PL: Absolutely, you was going to tell me bit about Kay
MB: Kay, I met her at...
PL: What was her surname?
MB: Harrison, Kay Harrison at Scunthorpe ‘cause she was sent from one of the other aerodromes
that had closed down they were all closing down up in Lincoln and erm we got very pally she come
from Huddersfield, was it Huddersfield? Up north somewhere and we were , then we went to
Lindholme and then when I rejoined we both went to Manston in Kent and we used to go up, get
lifts off Officers that were going up, that were living up there to go home to our homes, as I say
she married an airman as well. Oh yeah when we used to be driving in the lorry along the high
street and the men were with their wives she'd wink at them and they'd wink back at her [laughs]
we used to laugh our heads off you watch me she'd say and she'd do that. She went to Canada
she became a nurse the last person on earth I thought would be a nurse, but we never met after
that we just used to write we hadn't got the money in those days to travel had we . [pause] Then
when I met my husband I was a Roman Catholic and he was a Protestant, he came from
Roscrea? in Ireland and they were dead against Catholics and Protestants marrying so erm we
parted for ten months because his Father wouldn't have it you know and then when I was at
Manston , when we rejoined at Wilslow in the NAAFI club in Manchester was it we used to go
there Kay and I, before we went down, and we met this fella and he knew my husband Joe he
said, I said has he got a girlfriend and he said no he's always on his own now so we sent him a
card from Wilslow and he said he went down to Wickford where I lived and kept looking for me
couldn't see me anyway when I was at Manston this other airman that came he said about him soI
wrote to him we wrote to him and then from then on we got together his Father was upset because
he wouldn't go home he stayed on in the air force ‘cause he said i was going to be the only one and
he lost contact with all his family because they were dead against it you know but then in years to
come before Dave was born wasn't it he came down and stayed with us, and he doesn't know
why he was like that really , but this is what goes on in ....we were married sixty five years we
don't regret it at all he passed away February '13, two years ago so then I came to live here with
David we only used to live down the road.
PL: So how many children did you have?
MB: Only the one, I lost two yeah.
PL: Did you want to say something about Ernest, do you remember Ernest ?
MB: What about? Oh Ernest yeah, when we was at the reunion cause every year we go to a reunion at
Elsham Wolds I've been going there for about twenty three years I only missed last year because I
had a knee transplant and course we met up with this Earnest he lived in Barnetby that's near the
aerodrome he was only about thirteen I suppose, him and his friends used to come and look in the
WAAFs through the keyhole, he told us didn't he yeah they're all young lads, used to look through
the keyholes when we was having a bath and everything and the err he said they used to go up on
the aerodrome and get on the Lancasters
PL: Really?
MB: Yeah we don't know how they done that
PL:What? Get actually into the planes?
MB: Yeah.
PL: My goodness a dangerous game I would have thought!
Mb: But they've joined the reunion now so, there's not many of us left now but all they young
nephews and sons and that have all joined to keep it going, so every year it's always a weekend
isn't it we go up and have a reunion it's a hectic weekend we have, we all meet together and have
dinner in the evening Saturday evening then Sunday we have the service and we go up to the
aerodrome in front of the waterworks where we've got a memorial and the Lancaster flies over if
the weathers suitable and it comes swooping in it goes all ways we're all waving at it.
PL: How wonderful.
MB: That the highlight of the year that is, going to the reunion then the memorial on armistice day
we go, the week before we all meet there as well, I can't think of anything else.
PL: Could I just ask a little earlier we had a conversation about Bomber Command and how its
been remembered would you like to share your own thoughts about Bomber Command
MB: [pause] I don't know what to say....
PL: Do you...one of the things that you said was you felt it had been a long time coming the
recognition.
MB: Oh the recognition of the Bomber crews which has taken a long while mostly they said it was
because of us bombing Dresden but then they bombed London first and Coventry so why it was
put against us I don't know but at last they're recognising all what the young lads went through. I
remember once a Lancaster landing and the rear turret was hanging from the back of it and the rear
Gunner right down his side and the crew didn't know it was hanging there they thought it had
come off you know . That's one memory, then we saw them bailing out over because the
aeroplane was too damaged to land and all the crew would bail out on the aerodrome. I mean you
were young then you didn't take things so seriously did you, you should have done really you just
thought well this is what we've got to isn't it and you did it. But I, we all enjoyed our times you felt
like you were doing something it was either going in munitions or land army or something like
or the army and I chose the Air Force. And being in the Air Force was the best time of my life
because I was that age met plenty of friends. It was hard to settle down when you come out. But
we all kept in touch with all the friends WAAF drivers and my husband used to come with me,
they used to come to reunions and we went to all their funerals gone, there was Jean Clacker she
was a driver and she went out to one of the dispersal and she saw this airman there and she came
back and said "I'm going to marry him" and she did! [laughs] 'Oh I'm going to marry him' she
said.
PL: What was the dispersal?
MB: Oh that was where the aircraft drove in to be parked and there was a nissen hut there and we
all used to get in there waiting, to go off the crews to go off and that.
PL: Do you remember any of the others that were in your group?
MB: Err there was Margaret,
PL: The two Margarets [laughs}
MB: Yeah another Margaret, Margaret Hawkins and Eric that's her husband now Hawkins
....no...Eric I can't think of his name but we always went to the reunion but they've both passed
away so nearly all my friends have gone, Rose lived at err Ipswich.
PL: Is there anything else at all that you would like to share with us before we conclude the
interview?
MB: Only that I was glad I was in the RAF I enjoyed it although there was sad times and good
times and when we go to our reunion it brings back alot of memories although we all look a lot older
now. Oh I had my photo taken it's at Manston Aerodrome and a documentary a Spitfire was flying
in with a pilot and I was standing waving, distracting him and it's on a film but I've never seen it but a
friend of ours joined the RAF and he they were showing it to him and he recognised me
PL: How wonderful and when was that? When was the film taken?
MB: That was about 1948 or 47.
PL: Goodness, so somewhere there's a film of you,
MB: Yeah Somewhere....
PL: Somewhere your fame, fame at last
MB: You tried to get it did you? So, I know it's there ‘cause he's seen it when they joined up they showed
them all these films for accidents and all that Kay was there aswell but they picked me out , i don't know
why but they picked me out to do it.
PL: So you were told you had to distract him?
MB: Yeah.
PL: So this is Health and Safety 1940's style?
MB: [laughs] Yeah this is what they are teaching the trainees and all that what they shouldn’t be
doing.
PL: Well Margaret that’s absolutely wonderful thank you so much for sharing your....
MB: Sorry, I can't think of anything else but...
PL: I think all those memories are absolutely wonderful thank you so very much indeed
MB: You're welcome ...oh another thing I remember is when the aircrew the Lancasters were
taking off it didn't matter what time of the day or night we'd all be out there waving them off so
that made them feel good as well all waving and one airman that i was friendly with he err , we
used to meet up and go to the pictures and that and he said to me ‘we're all frightened we're all
scared none of us are you know….’ ...however young and boisterous and that when they went on them
operations they were really frightened, he never came back either and a lot were taken prisoner of
war and at the end of the war the Lancaster went out to bring them back from prisoner of war
camps and they said you wouldn't recognise them they looked so old been in a concentration
camp, so it was hard for them wasn't it.
PL: Very hard , do you know those concentr.....where they they sent?
No, i just know that they brought them back. I think that's all I can't remember anything else
PL: That’s wonderful thank you.
DB: He was a pilot wasn't he Mum?
MB: I think he was a Gunner......
PL: So tell me who Ken Duddle was
MB: He was the.....
DB: He was the chairman of Elsham Wolds
MB: He was the chairman of the Elsham Wolds but he's retired now?
DB: But in the war he was a pilot wasn't he?
MB: No i think he was a Gunner
DB: He was a Gunner was he?
PL: So what was his role? He would include the WAAFs in the memorial services?
MB: In everything, he included and we Hiliary and I appreciated that because the others I think they
think they are above you don’t they the Aircrew and they've got ranks Sergeants and warrant officers
and all that but then that goes on in everything doesn't it?
PL: So we've just been looking at some of your wonderful photographs and you've got a lovely
photograph of your wedding but tell...just share with us how you got your dress.
MB: Well when a WAAF got married and they, the Air Force lends you a wedding dress the
Americans have given these wedding dresses to the Air Force and we've borrowed them we had to
pay a pound to have them cleaned when we handed them back, as you can see it's a beautiful dress
PL: Oh when you handed them back?
MB: Yeah when you handed then back
PL: Not to get them cleaned before you wore them?
MB: No I expect the person that handed them back had it cleaned, they cleaned them I suppose but you
paid a pound.
PL: Wonderful.
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 Lillian Margret Bailey
Creator
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Pam Locker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-06
Format
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00:41:16 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABaileyLMM151006
Description
An account of the resource
Lillian Margaret Bailey volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and after a brief time in RAF Balloon Command was trained as a driver. She served at RAF Elsham Wolds driving aircrews out to their aircraft.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carmel Dammes
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1945
103 Squadron
576 Squadron
fear
ground personnel
Lancaster
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Elsham Wolds
service vehicle
Stirling
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/471/8354/ABirkbyB150729.1.mp3
40d49652d36d4a48be5610dad7fe0f43
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
Birkby, Bessie
B Birkby
Tess Birkby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Birkby, B
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftswoman Bessie Birkby (1924 - 2019) and two photographs. She was a Women's Auxilliary Air Force driver stationed at RAF Binbrook, RAF Kelstern and RAF Scampton.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bessie Birkby and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM. Ok so this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Annie Moody and the Interviewee is Bessie?
BB. Birkby.
AM. Birkby, and the interview is taking place at Bessie’s home Wath on Dearne on the 30th of July 2015. So if perhaps Bessie just to start with tell me a little about your background, about your parents and school and stuff like that.
BB. Shall I tell you my age first?
AM. Go on tell me how old you are.
BB. I am ninety one going into ninety two. I was married to my husband Walter Birkby he always got called Wally I got called Tess that was my nick name and eh we had been married sixty three years when Walter died. And eh anyhow I was eighteen when I joined, had to join, because eh my sisters were nurses but I worked in a shop. So it was either going in munitions or going in the forces.
AM. How old were you when you left school Bessie?
BB. I was fourteen.
AM. So what did you do straight from leaving school?
BB. Mostly working in shops, you know [cough] like grocery shops and eh I loved it but then of course I was working in a shop when both my sisters were nurses. So I had to choose, either going in the forces or going in factories where you make bombs and things.
AM. Ok, you could have stayed in the shop, but you wanted to do something?
BB. But I fancied going in, in the forces so I joined and eh my mum put me on the train in Doncaster and I was crying and she was crying but I still wanted to go. But I’d never been, I never left home or, my father worked in the pit and my mum she had five children. I was next to the eldest and eh so we were both upset at me going but I still wanted to go. I was going as far as Bridgenorth anyhow I got on this train and off I went. When I got there, it was a long journey and when I got there, on the last train. I remember where I had to change but I don’t remember where or anything. So I met up with the girls that were going in to join to be a WAAF.
AM. What year was this Bessie?
BB. What year was it it was 1942.
AM. ’42.
BB. Yeah and so [cough] eh when we got there to Bridgenorth, ‘course you had to have a medical and all sorts of thing like that.
AM. What was that like.
BB. Well I had never really been away from home, I never sort of got undressed in front of anybody and it, it was an ordeal. And eh but anyhow I carried on and I made friends and I was very popular because I could do make up, I could do hair and all sorts, I used to love it you know, beautifying. I got lots of friends because they used to come to me.’Oh Bessie will you do my hair or will you do this, pluck my eyebrows?’ And I really enjoyed it but anyhow we had to get up early to get your knife, fork and spoon and what have you. You had to go outside for to wash yourself and eh and anyhow we started marching, we used to have to go on parade. And eh so anyhow I don’t know how long I was marching and what and then of course I put in to be a driver but of course I had to go along to be em trained [?]. So I had to go with girls I go to me MT Sections and em got sort of well anything you know [a little confused].
AM. When you put in to be a driver did you have to have an interview or anything or did they say yes you can be a driver then?
BB. No I had to, in fact they sent me to a place where there were balloons you know and I had to practice putting a balloon up which was like driving a car.
AM. Tell me more about that, how do you put a balloon up.
BB. I was posted to Scotland and so and there we didn’t have we had to go in digs in peoples houses. This lady I went into she were a lovely lady and she took to me. In fact for years I wrote to her but we lived in Borough Muir West and and I were really I loved it sending the balloon up.
AM. What do you mean ‘sending the balloon up.’?
BB. You had to fly it.
AM. How big was it?
BB. Huge, didn’t you remember them balloons, well they were huge weren’t they?
Unknown Male. Like a Zeppelin.
AM. Oh like a Zeppelin? Oh eh I have got you.
BB. They were like as big as a caravan.
AM. Like a barrage balloon?
BB. Yeah.
Unknown Male. So that planes would fly into wires that were holding them.
BB. ‘course it got me going to change gear and one thing and another to learn.
AM. So where were you, were you on the ground.
BB. I were in a cage and balloon were over top of me, I used to have to send them up and Germans were coming over, you know it were queer. But anyhow I think I was there about six months and eh there must have been a place for me to start up for me driving and I was posted to Pwllheli in North Wales then again.
AM. So down, up to Scotland and then across to Wales.
BB. Yeah, down in Pwllheli oh that were, I was six months there but you had to do eh, besides learning to drive you had to do, learn how to eh maintain your vehicle in the morning you put and inspection for your water, your battery what have you and then [cough] you go out driving on the roads. I used to go in all these eh country lanes it were in Pwllheli.
AM. Who was it that were doing the instructing.
BB. We had men instructed.
AM. What were they like?
BB. Well I don’t recall.
AM. What were they like with you I mean, were they ok, women learning to drive?
BB. I were a ‘right with learning this balloon business I knew how to change gear, do the footwork because you had to do it like driving a car and so I was very lucky because I soon learned to drive but I was there six months so I had a thorough training but when you passed out you had to pass out on three vehicles.
AM. Different ones?
BB. Yeah a little one, small and then a fifteen hundred and then a thirty hundred weight and then of course later on it in the time I got to drive a two ton, were it, what were it, crew bus. I used to drive the crew bus. I was first posted to Binbrook when I passed out driving but there were lots of girls who failed and they couldn’t go back driving they had to remuster to another job. But I was very fortunate I passed it all and then I was posted to Binbrook and they were just forming our Squadron 625 Squadron and it was Bomber Command. I forgotten what Group was it One Group? Bomber Command, 625.
Unknown male. You were stationed, no you would have been in Five Group.
BB. Can’t remember.
AM.Anyway 625.
BB. 625 Squadron.
Unknown male. It would be in Five Group.
BB. Yeah and so they were forming this Squadron and then from Binbrook I was posted to Kelstern which was a few mile away because there was a lot of aerodromes in Lincoln at that time, weren’t there and so this were all new but we all had eh to sleep in these eh tin things, what did you call them?
AM. Nissan huts.
BB. Nissan huts and there were ten beds, you just had your bed and what have you. You didn’t have sheets, aircrew had sheets but not.
Unknown male. Aircrew had sheets.
BB. But not.
AM. The girls didn’t .
BB. And we were in these, fireplace in the middle and it were a little round thing and and I don’t know what it, I think it was coal or coke and that were only heating you had. You had to go outside for toilets and what have you, ablutions, it were you know. But, oh it were marvellous and at Kelstern I got very friendly eh and I were post, I were given a job on the ambulance. So I lived in sick quarters and eh with being at Kelstern when that snow came, nobody could get anywhere could they. It were terrible but I [cough] used to take the MO, the Doctor down into Lincoln and I used to drive him about on the small ambulance. There were bigger ambulances for a crew and eh this particular day we were going down into Lincoln and the MO he were a marvellous fellow and he had flying boots on, big coat but then eh, now he says ‘ I shall be about two hours so you go market, have a look round and meet me so and so, and we will come back to camp, to Kelstern.’ So anyhow I did that and I thought while I’m in, ‘cause where I lived down at the old mill at home we had apple trees, pear trees and all sorts. So I thought ‘ I will buy me self some apples.’ And I am [unclear] eating me apple and I went to pick the MO up like and I said ‘would you like and apple sir?’ he said ‘yes I would,’ he said ‘now don’t be getting tummy ache.’ You know before tea time I started reeling, the nurses were saying ‘we are going to fetch the MO to you.’ Because I were crying with pain and of course they fetched him from Officers Mess. When he came he said ‘my dear I will have to take you down to Louth Infirmary.’ They operated on me with appendicitis before midnight. Do you know he stayed with me because I was crying, I wanted me mum, Oh I were in a state. Me mum managed to come and see me I were in a farm house.
AM. So it weren’t the apple. [laugh]
BB. [laugh] No, well I don’t know what it were, anyhow he were brilliant and he stuck with me until next morning when I come round. In them days putting you to sleep it were horrible, dreaming and what not. Anyway he gave me some leave and I were at home about a month I think. Anyhow it was when that snow was on of course there were no flying. So of course I went back to Kelstern and then a month after we got a message to say we were all moving to Scampton.
AM. Just before you moved to Scampton what did you do then when you got back to Kelstern?
BB. I went back on the ambulance
AM. Still the ambulance, so you were driving the MO around who, what else were they using the ambulances for, the crew or.
BB. Well they used the ambulances to follow them back didn’t they? They used to be many a time crashes ‘cause they used to shoot at them didn’t they? It were horrible. Anyhow eh I carried on then and then of course we all went to Scampton, I can’t remember the date at all. So anyhow I know for a fact that all Lancaster bombers from Kelstern, they all got toilet rolls where bombs used to go and they let them all go over the fields and there were white toilet rolls when we moved, when we moved.
AM. Why was that then.
BB. It was just a bit of fun for the farmers, these were aircraft doing this. Anyhow we got to, to and of course with me this one job I did eh I didn’t always be on ambulance. I remember eh there were er er an Officer in command of our MT and he came to Kelstern and he said to whoever were in charge of our MT at that particular time ‘I want one of your best drivers, because I am going visiting eh we shall be away about three weeks.’ He says ‘ I want somebody I can trust.’ And and I was a good driver so they picked me. So he were brilliant now he says, we had a good car, it were really good and we set off and we were going all up North to go to Topcliffe and all them aerodromes and we had to visit all MT departments. He says as we were setting of he says ‘now then I want you to relax and I want you just to think of me as your father. Whatever you want you must tell me and if you are ever in trouble or whatever you do when we get to different Stations I’ll get you sleeping quarters. And I’ll see that you are put, well looked after and you will not have to be frightened and you will have to get in touch with me if, if you are frightened.’
AM. What did he think you would be frightened of?
BB. I don’t know.
AM. All them men.
BB. I didn’t think of it then. You know I weren’t frightened because we lived out, when, when we were girls we lived down on our own in countryside we used to go to school and we couldn’t go home for dinner because it were too far away. We lived down at old mill didn’t we?
Unknown male. Aye [unclear]I remember being down there.
BB. In fact when I used to go home on leave I used to arrange, I used to hitch hike home to as far as Doncaster when I had the leave and eh what I did I used to catch the double decker bus from Doncaster and it always used to go to Brampton Church where I had to get of me last call, you know and it always used to get there about ten o’clock. And where we lived at the old mill I got off the bus and then I come on some steps and to go down these steps and down the road and what I used to do. Me mum used to be watching out for that double decker bus, she could see it from where we lived. And I used to whistle we had two dogs and me mum used to say ‘go on she’s come our Bessie, go and meet her.’ And they used to come as far as bottom of green them dogs and come and meet me home. And we had a big long orchard going down another way didn’t we?
Unknown male. Yeah.
BB. He knows where old mill were ‘cause it were a lovely, lovely cottage where we lived.
AM. Sounds it.
BB. Aye me mum always used to, always she used to always save me a little bit of steak and give me a cuddle. She used to spoil me, anyhow that were, I’m cutting me tale aren’t I. Anyhow I did that for three weeks and I got leave again given and it were wonderful, I enjoyed it and he were a gentleman and we had a burst, we had a burst tyre, I think we were near Topcliffe and and he said I’ll do it and he changed wheel. I said ‘I can do it I am capable.’ He said ‘I’ll do it. ’Because I had been driving. It were marvellous that and, and I were right proud to think they had chosen me, oh it were lovely. Anyhow, and then when we were posted to Scampton that’s when I met me husband but he already got a girl, lady friend. One of me first jobs there was sick quarters again on the ambulance, well I had small ambulance but they had quite a few big ins. Because in fact they had another Squadron there besides our Squadron. In fact there were they had just done eh where they dropped them bombs?
AM. Oh Dambusters.
BB. Yeah we must have been at Kelstern when that was on, it was soon after that when we were posted to Scampton.
AM. So it was 617 Squadron the other one then?
BB. Yeah so anyhow.
AM. What was it like being there with, how many women and how many men ‘ish a lot more men than women?
BB. Oh yeah.
AM. So what was it like.
BB. Well it, I don’t know it well you just did a job you were twenty four hours on and twenty four hours off weren’t we. I really, I had a wonderful life. I met me husband I’d been there quite a bit before I met him.
AM. Tell me a bit more about what you did, you drove the small ambulances.
BB. Yes.
AM. And then what or were you just driving the ambulance right through because I’ve got a picture of you here with the.
BB. That was at Binbrook.
AM. Oh was that at Binbrook.
BB. That was me first.
AM. Right
BB. Yeah that was at Binbrook.
AM. So you were an ambulance driver at Scampton.
BB. And I have another one a lovely one it’s in a it’s in a, in fact somebody came knocking at door one day and said we’ve seen your picture in a pub in Cleethorpes. It was me stood agin a van an RAF vehicle and it’s a lovely picture and it was in this on this, and then above there were all women marching, another two pictures. I am on this picture but I can’t remember myself being on it because I couldn’t see properly, but anyhow.
AM. Tell me about meeting your husband then? [unclear]
BB. Well he already got a girl friend.
AM. On the Base.
BB. On the Base and she was a parsons daughter but nurses used to kid me on and they used to say Bessie ‘you can’t have him because.’ But they used to call me Tess, I didn’t get called Bessie ‘you can’t have him because he has got a girl friend.’ I said ‘I’m not bothered but I’ll keep trying.’ Anyhow he went on leave didn’t he and when he was on leave she went out with a Pilot. Well I didn’t tell him but somebody did so I go me, I don’t know how it came about but I got talking to him and eh, and eh he took me to the pictures and it were Pinocchio, they were a picture on camp and we started going out together then and he had to go to Italy ‘cause they went, what did they go for.
AM. Were they dropping propaganda leaflets and stuff like that.
BB. Aye and he came back with a big thing of fruit and he gave it me and then we went home and I met his mum and dad in Bradford. He lived in Bradford.
AM. What was Wally, he was an Air Gunner.
BB. Yeah he got to be Warrant Officer before he, ‘cause there is his warrant up there, aye but when I met him he was a Sergeant. Then he got to be Flight Sergeant then he were. He ended up looking after prisoners of war eh after war finished. I mean he stayed in a bit longer than I did but eh I came out because I were pregnant.
AM. You were married by then?
BB. I loved him and, and so well we had been married all them years.
AM. You had been married sixty five years.
BB. We had a lovely life in RAF because girls used to come and Bessie pluck me eyebrows, Bessie do me hair, they used to say Tess to me like
AM. Tess
BB. I used to have some gloves on and I used to have Tess written on them. I used to be, I used to drive crew buses at Scampton and it [unclear] ambulance job.
AM. So what was driving the crew bus like, what, what was that?
BB. Well, I mean many a time within two minutes, they’d one go off and two minutes after another one, they were two minutes
AM. Oh eh the planes?
BB. Hundreds, loads, fifty, sixty oh and we used to wait at the end of the runway eh no flying control weren’t it. We used to stop against flying, and then we used to sort of go, go and dodge about or what have you and be there when they came back. Used to be watching them but once when I were driving the ambulance and there were planes came back and Germans were following them because they used to have to put runway lights on. If you were driving a crew bus and you were going to pick lads up that were coming back and they used to say ‘be early for me.’ You know didn’t they, used to breathing down your neck and eh [cough] and there would be no lights on. And you would be driving on and you would see this black brrr and you would go on grass. Oh it were mad and I mean, and but it was sad and all weren’t it especially and there used to be seven coffins go out and you know. They used to follow them back did Germans. It were terrible, they were nearly ready for landing.
Unknown male. Yeah when you were in circuit.
AM. The German fighters, fighter planes.
BB. Yeah but I had a lovely life, I enjoyed every bit of it and I loved him all me life.
AM. Good.
BB. I did really.
AM. What did you do after the war, did you come out more or less straight away.
BB. Well I were quite well on with having me baby but eh I’d been in four years and eh and he come out [cough] eh, [pause] mm, I know I had two children, pity me husband was still in he were looking after Italians and and they were brilliant eh they didn’t make no bother for me husband he was in charge of them, in fact they made him a cabinet.
AM. Where was that Bessie?
BB. It was where Terries are, is it Ipswich where we used to go picking because we got into married quarters, I had me baby she was nine month old, he was still in RAF. And eh, and eh and we were in married quarters and we used to be picking these cherries and eh ‘cherries, excuse me.’ Eh but I had lots of jobs really, I didn’t only drive the ambulance and crew bus I had lots of jobs you, you, you were detailed you know they would leave you so long in the ambulance and then you would be so long on this crew bus and then you would probably eh. I used to have different vehicles, vehicles where I could pop in home going through to Sheffield, yeah I did. My mum used to say ‘Oh goodness me there’s our Bessie, look what she’s got that big thing.’ And I used to be in this two, three ton lorry and and you had to jump over wheels. They couldn’t believe it and eh [laugh] she used to, oh it were lovely. I did used to drive lots of different vehicles and of course I got to be LACW that were leading aircraft woman. But I could have been a corporal but you had to go inside and I didn’t want that job, so I never.
AM. You enjoyed the driving?
BB. I did, I loved it and of course me husband he didn’t drive then Wally but eh he had a, he had a motor bike and we used to go up on leave and I used to ride on the back of his motor bike, but when he got out of the forces he went to the School of Motoring and he got a job British School of Motoring. Because he went to Blackpool, Lytham St Annes with RAF. He had to remuster because eh when flying had finished you know. So; but they were happy days.
AM. Lovely, did you drive after the war?
BB. Oh yes it stood me in good stead that because there weren’t many women drivers. Yeah, I got a job as soon as I got me two little ones to school. Me mum used to live nearby because she moved from where we lived and she got near to where I lived an she used to have two children for me.
AM. So what did you do?
BB. I used to drive for eh, eh war veterans and I used to go out selling bread and cakes and what have you and I had a real good job there.
AM. It must have been, so this was in the 1950’s.
BB. Our eh yeah 1947 Jeff were born and Nigel were born in 1946. I didn’t come out while I think. She were born in March and I didn’t come out until the middle of February because I weren’t showing, couldn’t tell.
AM. As long as you weren’t changing wheels.
BB. I’ve still got me pay book and I’ve still got me husbands pay book.
AM. Oh I might have a photograph of them as well.
BB. I know.
AM. That was excellent, thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bessie Birkby
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-29
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABirkbyB150729
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Bessie Birkby grew up in Sheffield and volunteered for the Women’s Auxilliary Air Force in 1942. She first worked in Balloon Command in Scotland and then trained to be a driver in North Wales. She was then posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Binbrook but later transferred to RAF Kelstern and worked driving ambulances. She discusses driving the station Medical Officer into Lincoln in the snow and driving crew buses. She developed appendicitis, and had an emergency operation at Louth. Transferred to RAF Scampton, she again drove ambulances and crew buses, she met her husband Wally an air gunner and they were married for sixty five years. She talks about how the station was attacked by night fighters. While in the RAF she managed frequent visits home, sometimes in RAF vehicles. On leaving the Air Force she had three children and worked as a driver selling bakery items.
Contributor
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Hugh Donnelly
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
Wales--Pwllheli
Temporal Coverage
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1942
Format
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00:31:39 audio recording
625 Squadron
entertainment
ground personnel
love and romance
medical officer
military living conditions
Nissen hut
RAF Binbrook
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Kelstern
RAF Scampton
service vehicle
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/472/8355/PBlandC1501.2.jpg
47607dc4beca689cae653908ef391be8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/472/8355/ABlandC150817.2.mp3
7d011bdc0c7786974101ce4ef3b8516e
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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Bland, Charles
C Bland
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Bland, C
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Charles Bland (538762 Royal Air Force). He served as an engine fitter.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charles Bland and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Charles Bland and this is my story of what, the Air Force I suppose. I started off in grammar school, Boston and then I did my school certificate and my school certificate results were sufficient that I was able to become, join the Air Force as an aircraft apprentice in February 1942. February 1942. It was the first time you’d left home and we all had to arrive at Marylebone Station and it was February the 18th, I think it was, February the 18th, and so I left Boston, got down to London and, and found on Marylebone Station a great number of boys, all the same age as me. Most of them the first time they’d ever left home and so I consequently got on this train and I happened to, it was a non-corridor train and you had the compartments and I got in the compartment and they were all Geordies. You sort of, I mean, I’d never met Geordies before or anything and the, the chap who -
[machine pause]
Yep ok, we got in the carriage and that was the first time I’d sort of been away, more or less, and mixed with a lot of other boys from different parts of the country. Eventually we got there and we got to Halton and we, the first time we’d ever been in a room, we got to a room and there was twenty two of us in the barrack room and all of us were exactly the same. Most of us had never left home before and the most, I got, my chap in the next bed to me was a Scotsman, a chap named Jock Blythe and, but anyway that’s how we, we eventually got in and then we, then they, we all had to go off and go in the mess and we all sort of got together and then, of course, became the thing of joining the Air Force and the first thing we had was a medical, and the medical I failed. I failed because in this, for some reason or other, the Air Force had decided that you had to have bite, what were known as biting points and I had one biting point short so therefore I was not fit to be in the Air Force and for some reason or other, I was discharged. So I never joined, so they sent me back to Wendover Station and there was another chap who finished up, an armourer and myself who had failed our medicals and we stood on the platform station and waited for the train. Both, well, dispirited I suppose, and the next thing was, the warrant officer who was known as Beefy Paley eventually came on and called out our names. What was his name? Damn, I can’t remember. Anyway, he became an armourer. So he said, Charles Bland, so we all went back, the two of us went back to Halton and for some miraculous reason they found us a biting point, so I was in the, I eventually got in the service. So I -
MJ: What was your favourite biting point?
CB: The biting. I have no idea. This biting point was how your teeth clamped together I think, I don’t know, I never did find out, but I was in the Air Force. I didn’t care much then. And so we, I came, went back and but then of course, because I’d dropped behind, I was at, my number is a hundred behind where I, where the chaps were originally, but anyway that all came, it all came about but so on February the 19th, February the 19th, I joined the Royal Air Force and got sworn in and got this number, 578762, but er, but you see where the people that I was with, I should have been 662 not 762 but anyway, I went back to visit the beginning. All the initial because there were several methods of getting in as an apprentice. There was service candidate in which was all based on the fact that you had a father or something in the Air Force. By examination which was then you went on, did the exam and various, how you finished up on the exam, or what was known as a direct entry. I was a direct entry because I had sufficient, I had [unclear], what they were called? Credit standards. I think credit standards in my school certificate in maths, physics and chemistry and that allowed me to go as a direct entry. I was a direct entry with others but all of us, a direct entry were in the beginning, direct entry and service candidate had the first choice and then the others who did the examination, depended on where you came in the examination, what you got, how you got treated, but anyway that was it. We all got uniforms and we all won and we all got our classes, all got our classes, but then you had to be, oh I remember this, in this, my barrack room where these, these, all these people joined in and you all had trades. Now, the trades all, you had the one, was the radio trades, ‘cause they went to Cranwell, they didn’t do at Halton but then the others that were all picked out. You all got selected, if you like to put it, what you were going to be. You’d put down on your exam, on your joining what you’d like to be but it didn’t, yeah, it didn’t necessarily mean you did, because, we, in this barrack room where we were, ‘cause we had all those, I wanted to be an engine fitter. Some wanted to be riggers, armourers and instrument makers. Those were the Halton trades and we, we came back and I always remember, oh God, I can’t even remember his name now. Damn, damn but anyway, anyway this we all went this way selected and we got selected and said, you know, I was going to be an engine fitter. That was all. Then there was Jock Blythe, he fancied airframes so he was, and he was alright, but then we had one chap come back and he come back to the barrack room after being selected, and he was in tears and we didn’t quite understand why he was crying, and we thought maybe something had happened, but he came back and said, you know, I mean we were boys and I mean, we’d only met each other but you know you’d think well, why, you know, some sympathy for why he was crying. And why he was crying was that they’d made him an air frame fitter, and he wanted to be an engine fitter, so that was why he was crying. I met him years afterwards and he always, he always used to say, you know he always used to, he was a crew chief same, crew chief with me [unclear] for years on, but it was this business that he cried when he was at Halton, went years on. Years on ‘cause he knew that he, he wanted a different trade. Oh that was something, yes, he cried because he was made an airframe fitter and not an engine fitter, and there we are, but then we did all the, we did all the training that was necessary. Well boys, when you get boys, boys together, all sixteen year olds and you see you, they, you sort of went, you, I think that you went there, you became a disciplined hooligan I suppose really. It was nothing. Because you all went there like choirboys but after you’d been with all this lot, you became as, you know, apprentices. I don’t know how you sort of became, I don’t know, you’ve got, because funny enough how, because you treated NCOs and everything as they were but you’d, I suppose you’d got a cheekiness and whatnot, I don’t know, but you survived. Well survived. I can’t say that but, but a chap, an ex-apprentice I met years and years later and he had been, he had been a Japanese prisoner of war, and for some reason he didn’t talk much about it, but he, his, he reckoned that his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war because he, he treated the Japanese the same way we treated NCOs and whatnot as apprentices, and he put his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war to the fact that he’d been apprentice, and that was his attitude towards authority. So that was it. But that was a digression from that. Anyway, I left Halton after I managed to get an AC1, oh, and I got thrown out of a class once through laughing, but then of course the, but then days as apprentice were something that, incidents, I’ll mention a couple of incidents. One which, because I mean you all swore, you did all sorts of things and the one was that I always remember we were doing, we had, of course, you had engineering drawing. We did all this business there and engineering drawing. Our instructor was, oh, very studious squadron leader I think. Obviously, he was just like a parson and of course, we all lot we had a, because you had, I mean as boys we buggered about, I mean it was, you know. It was one of the things and I always remember my, one of my colleagues, well I’ll say classmate [unclear], Rickards his name was, and he, he was on there and the he said, oh, and of course there that the thing was we always buggered about and of course, we were doing engineering drawing and his, his statement was, ‘Who’s the thieving sod who’s pinched my rubber?’ And this was part of everyone talked about, but the instructor was a bit like a parson he was, and he stopped the class and he said that, he said that it was getting beyond when one boy called another boy a thieving sod. Well, I mean that was of course, that all went and that, that was being an apprentice and then all sorts of things. You were hooligans really, because you did, you did, you know, filing and all the, all the rest of it. You learned how to file, you learned how to rivet, you learned how to do all sorts of things and the, another thing when you did welding or, welding was one and of course, we had, you always got somebody there who was, would get rather picked on. Picked on in a class and one who was a, who was trouble was a bloke named Bryce, he came from Devon and Trevor Boone was another, he was, Trevor Boone was a, he was a bit of a softie. He was rather, he had a tendency I suppose to be bullied a bit. Yeah, because Bryce was a bugger you see, he was, he, we’d do soldering abrasion, welding, welding and of course all doing, we’re doing, we’re doing that. Not arc welding, it was oxyacetylene and of course, then of course, a pair of pliers that you use and Bryce, of course, played his flame on Boone’s pliers, so that when poor old Boone picked his pliers up, he got his hands burned. Devilish things sort of like that. Oh, and then of course, you, ‘cause we had, there again, McDonald beds. Now, McDonald beds were solid iron beds but they had casters on because you had to, you had to make your bed up in the morning. You had this bed. One, the bottom half slid into the top half and your blankets had to be your biscuits which were the three biscuits. Mattresses, or whatever you like to call them, had to be stacked on one another. Your blankets had to be folded with, we had sheets, so the sheets had to be put between the blankets, and then one blanket wrapped around the whole lot that so it sort of made like a sandwich, if you like and it, that was it. Beds have to made up as laid down. That was the one of the comments that you had to do, yeah. But then we, when we managed and the time came then and of course, we had our drill and had to be marched up and down and of course, we had the pipes and the drums and we were all, and it was, it was you carried your books, you carried your overalls and you had these horrible ground sheets which were meant to be capes, and the trouble was when it rained, and you were marching and whatnot, your legs got soaking wet because the damned ground sheet came to your, it was only came just below your knees, you know, the edge of it, but there we are. What else did we do? We used to march back and forth and, oh aye, that was another thing. We had, because we had various engine, as engine fitters of course, we started off on basics, which was an old Gipsy engine, a four cylinder Gipsy engine we had and then of course, you, you moved off, but then of course, we were in, at Halton we were in, started off in what was known as the old workshops, and then they decided, because we had airmen and wartime fitters there, they decided that they’d move the apprentices to the new workshops which was, if anyone knows Halton, I don’t know if they’re all like that now, but the old workshops, the new workshops were newer buildings and across the other side of the road. I can’t remember our position now but anyway it was across the other side of the road and we all moved. There was er to, going down into the new workshops was a downhill run, if you like to put it, and of course, we happened to be when we, when they changed to the new workshops, we happened to be on the radial engines, which were mercury engines, Bristol Mercury’s, and we were on radials and then we had to move the whole class and our engines from the old workshops to the new workshops, and we had an instructor named Mr Petty. He was the instructor. And so as a class, we moved our engines, but the thing is, when you get a bunch of boys and all of us, they decided to move these engines and of course, these engines were in stands, on castors so we pushed them up to the top of the hill, but then there was a downhill run to the new workshops, so of course they decided then, of course, being boys and whatnot, we decided that the only way to get these down there was to run them down and stand on the stand so that it went down like a trolley. Well of course, this was all, this did very well until we came and there was a curb by the side and of course the next thing was, one of the engines of course, hit the curb and thank goodness there was a bank there. It went into the bank and tipped over but it was not completely over, but of course, it had hit this bank and of course, we came down. We had to heave this engine back on its trolleys and push it back into the workshops, and then of course the thing was, we all got there, and the comment, Mr Petty said that he could not understand why one of his engines had got soil amongst the cooling fins, but nobody enlightened him that it had fell, it had fallen over. But then you had, and I always remember, you know, all, you know, you remember these sorts of things. I remember we had another instructor was a Mr Palmer and Mr Palmer was quite a, he said, ‘If you’re using a hammer, use it’. Don’t, you know, don’t dilly dally with it. Use it. And there was a boy called Hind in our class and, Mr Palmer, I don’t know what happened there, whether it was a hard face or whatnot, but he hit something. The hammer head came off and it finished up in Hind’s stomach so it, it was quite funny really because all it was, was Mr Palmer just extricated this hammer head out of Hind’s stomach and carried on. Hind was a bit breathless but never mind. But there was the other thing we used to do oh, and that was again Butch Hind, was, we did magnetos of course, but then of course, using magnetos of course, you can charge, you know, the thing is, you get a spark and whatnot but they were doing magnetos, and it was found that Hind, by judicious of winding these hand starter magnetos up, that Hind could be charged up and I don’t know if it was, he wore rubber boots or, so he was, you had to gently sort of, Hind would hold the leads and get himself charged up and then someone would go up, put a finger near his ears and he’d get a crick across the ears, you know. It was, oh we did all sorts of things like this, I mean, it was ridiculous really. And we had, we had a lot of civvy instructors and we had one for basic was a Mr Tatum, and Tatum could do anything with a piece of metal that I know, but then you had, he used to be doing because you had to have your, some on the file and some on top. You had to hold the files correctly and if you weren’t holding the files correctly and you were doing something, you suddenly find you had a whack on the finger, because you weren’t correct and he used to come around and give you a whack on the finger. But it was, you know, I suppose, brutal really. I mean you wouldn’t have it now, ‘cause they was being mistreated or something. I don’t know but I mean, you just accepted it. You accepted it. Well he was, but I’m ok. There we are. Then of course, you had your various exams, and that was another one. Petty, another one. He got killed. He went aircrew and he became a pilot, he got killed in a Canberra. Colin Petty. And we had, during exams, there was various means of making bolts and one was what was known as a cold headed bolt, which had all these had different markings in, ‘cause this was all part of the thing of knowing what your markings of all these various equipment and steel and everything were, and one was, a bolt was known as a cold headed bolt and it was a bolt where the head had been pressed in cold. Not, not been turned. It was pressed and this had a ring around the top, but in the exam, it was, ‘How do you recognise a cold headed bolt?’ And of course, Petty didn’t know, and so Petty wrote, ‘Wears a balaclava helmet’. He got seven days for that, seven days jankers for that, for being frivolous on an examination paper. That was how, that’s how things were, you know, you got done for everything. You couldn’t smoke. Oh you got a smoking pass at eighteen, but you weren’t allowed to smoke everywhere and the toilets down in workshops of course. Toilets, yeah, and you could hear because you could have puffs, I mean, you could make a cigarette end last with a pin till the last puff. Oh dear, it was all sorts of things like that. As an apprentice, you did everything, always pushed to the limit, and it, and all your instructors. Oh, and there was another incident, I always remember that we had a named, chap named in our class, Dicky Burke, and Dicky Burke was, he was a oh, he was the same as anyone else, but one time we had a, we had er notes. A corporal, I can’t even remember his name, a corporal was giving, he was an instructor and of course he said we had to, I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, he said take, get your notebook and take these notes, and Dicky Burke said, ‘We’ve already got these notes’, and the corporal said, ‘It doesn’t matter, you’ll still do it’, you know. And under his breath, Dicky Burke said F you, and the corporal heard him and so he was wheeled up to the squadron leader, and in less than two hours, Dicky Burke was, was doing a stretch of twenty eight days in the guardroom, but he still had to come to, well he was doing a stretch but he, he, he was doing his spell in the guardroom but he still had to come to school. He still had to do his doings, so one of the corporal apprentices, a bloke named Ted Atkinson who was a friend of mine, had to go to the guardroom and march him down to school and then march him back up to the guardroom for his, his lunchtime and any off duty, so he did his twenty eight days on off duty, more or less, so he was one of these, one of these incidents that er, but he did the twenty eight days and was shovelling coal from one side to the other and all the rest of it, but as I say, they used to make you do anything. I don’t know, but that was Dicky Burke and his twenty eight days. I’m trying to remember humorous incidents of things and very, it was, of course we were apprentices anyway but then, of course, the other thing was they had Air Training Corps, ‘cause they were the civilian side. I mean, most of them were the same age as us but of course, we were apprentices as opposed to theirs was, well Air Training Corps wasn’t it? People that you join and they had the air training corps come and did a spell well in the camp near Halton, which of course upset those, a bit of an upset, and of course the apprentices raided them as normal, it was normal sort of business. Used to, oh dear oh dear. Apprentices. The other one was, all daft things really. And of course, you had not money, you used to get, we used to get paid a fortnight of three [unclear], nearly new two shilling pieces. That was our pay. Three, three every fortnight, which I mean you had, you could buy chips in the NAAFI and the old rock cakes and whatnot, but, but then of course, there was, generally you used to run out of money or something and they used to do odd, and there was one time, oh, what was his name? He was short of money, and then the thing was that we had, because there was twenty two of us in a room, twenty two of us including a corporal or a snag which was a LAA, a leading aircraft apprentice. He had one stripe on his arm and then you had a corporal apprentice, a corporal he had was probably in the bunk at the end of the room, was the corporal apprentice, but then of course, then they’d get someone short of money and one of the, one of the, one I remember is, I can’t remember his name now, never mind, short of money and then it said was halfpenny around the room. That would give him ten P. A halfpenny around the room and he’d run around the barrack block stark naked which was a, oh God that was brass and of course, he said he’d do it and that so everybody, but then of course, you had to, then had to, everybody, this was immediately transmitted all around the rooms that he was going to run around the block stark naked, and so that meant that everybody was, when he set off, everybody was at the barrack block windows, shouting and cheering him on as he went around. And that was another incident, anything to make money. And then there was, you had jankers, ‘cause that was another one. Your jankers, seven penneth for doing anything. No I managed to avoid that, I wasn’t caught smoking or missing church parade. Anything to scrounge. You get seven penneth and then, but then you were allowed, they decided that you, that the jankers would be separated from the other boys. For what reason I don’t know. And there was a Corporal Croft. He was a corporal in the DI we had and they put him in charge of, ‘cause we had the barrack blocks but then we had wooden huts, and they decided to put the, the jankers in the, or a wooden hut with this corporal in charge which was then, ‘cause he was Corporal Croft, and that was known as Croft’s Cottage, but I think, I think they abandoned that because you got all the ne’er-do-wells who wanted to pinch anything all at, do and that was not, they weren’t distributed cause they used to supposed to do jankers in the cookhouse and they were the ones that always got fed the best, ‘cause they always managed to purloin something. Food or something. It was, it was all part of the game. Part of the game. I mean the best of it was of course, some of the worst offenders became commissioned officers. That was the best of it wasn’t it? I mean years, years on. There was one there, Hammer Mallet, Tom Mallet. He was, he was one but he became a squadron leader engineer. Just shows you ,doesn’t it? How to become commissioned? Become jankers, you know. But then, that was the years. Went through that lot and of course came, I mean we were doing our drill with our rifles and bayonets and all the rest of it as well, and then came the day of passing out and then you had to do, but then you had your exams but then your exams depended on where you were doing, whether if you got, if you got called that you would do your oral exams and boarded, as they used to say, and you’d go for your board to these, you know, either senior NCOs or officers and you were questioned on your trade. I mean, as well as written exams, you had written exams as well which was, you know, like school and whatnot, but your boards were you were all against mostly to gain your trade. They asked you, you know, how you would identify some stainless steel or some question how would you do this or do the other, various things so, but then you, you’d do your board and then if you were you didn’t know how you were doing, you sort of go back again and then, and sit down and go back where you came from and then someone would say, ‘They want to speak to you again’. And you’d think, now that meant either one of two things. That A) you hadn’t got enough marks to pass out or B) you got sufficient marks that they were doing, that they were doing you that instead of AC2 pass out or AC1, you got an LAC. That, that was the thing but I mean, you had to know whether you’d done well enough or poorly or not because if they asked you back again and you’d done very poorly and you were only getting to re-boarded, you again to become an AC2 and I got, I had to go back again because I didn’t get an LAC. Anyway, I did, I finished up AC1, that was how I passed out. I passed out then from Halton, that was then and they said, right then, we are posted. Where were your choices to be posted? Well I come from Lincolnshire so I suppose you put Lincolnshire. I mean, ten to one you never got what you put down for. I put Lincolnshire and I finished up, posted to Kirton Lindsey. That was, and of course the thing was, in those days, and you used to get trains and you didn’t know where you were and blackouts, and you get on a train. There was several of us posted to Kirton Lindsey, I think about four, four of us posted to Kirton Lindsey, and of course, on these trains, you didn’t know where the hell you were going. You got a train, you had to get a train to so and so, and then of course, the only time you ever knew where you were, was if some porter called out, you know, the name of the platform or stop where it was, and we got out at Kirton Lindsey. There was four of us and some airmen as well, and so we got out there and some of the airmen were worldly, more worldly wise, get transport, and they eventually came, got transport and of course, it’s a blackout, you didn’t know where the hell you were. Got to, went to this, got to the station and eventually the guardroom and we were then sent to transit block. Transit block. And the transit room, you went in there and you, you were, I can’t even remember now whether you had, whether there was bedding in there or you had to go to the bedding store and get your blankets, I think. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Got there and eventually we got dished out to the general office, and then we were given wherever we were going, so it’s, you were sent down to the tech side and then they decided where you were going, ‘cause I mean, they were riggers or fitters. I finished up in R&I. R&I. We were doing majors on Spitfires there. Got R&I, some of them got others. And there was another place called Hibaldstow, which was a satellite of Kirton Lindsey. Two of them got sent to Hibaldstow. As I say I was sent to, to R&I. I don’t know, I think I was the only one out of our group who went to R&I, which is Repair and Inspection, which was the major. We were doing majors, majors on Spitfires but, so we used to have the flights when the flights board there, I mean, I mean, oh, and the other thing was, I must have mentioned this, the other thing they had now, so that we, we had, ‘cause we had WAAF fitters as wel,l and we had, I was put into, put into a gang with Corporal, Corporal Shear was in charge and I was put in this gang and of course, I was an, I was an AC1 apprentice fitter. Apprentice, ‘cause the others in the gang were all wartime blokes. One was a bank clerk, one had been, one was, one had been a waiter, I think, but they were a good lot anyway.
[pause for phone]
So we, now, we got to Kirton Lindsey now so that we got to the WAAF fitters, and I was put in a gang, and I can remember Corporal Shear was the corporal in charge, and all the others were wartime. Well one was a fitter, two mechanics I think, we were doing majors on Spitfires and Sadie was the WAAF, and Sadie was, I mean I was only, what, eighteen and whatnot, but I didn’t fancy her really, but I think she rather well she, I don’t think she fancied me. All she did was bugger me about really, ‘cause she would, if you were doing on the engine and whatnot on there and she was sitting on the main plane she’d, and you were doing something, she’d suddenly put her legs out and wrap them around you, you know. But she wasn’t really my type at all, so I didn’t really fancy her and she, the trouble with WAAFs. they either overtightened things or didn’t tighten things up enough. Couldn’t, plugs. they never put the plugs in tight enough and they’d bloody shear off a bloody two by eight or something like that. but anyway that was, that was the WAAFs. But incidents. Incidents, oh the other thing of course, they were Mark II Spitfires and they had Merlin 12s, and they had Coffman starters and cartridge so that you had a cartridge, and one of the things was the flight sergeants, ‘cause we had, oh all part and parcel, you had to, you had your sort of annual booze up and whatnot, and of course, then money had to be put in and the flight sergeant used to fine you for A) for being late if you were late for work or whatnot you’d, he’d fine you sixpence or something, which all went into the fund, and they used to do cartridge starters. I mean, you had to be starting a Merlin on, with a cartridge. You could do it with one cartridge or two but if you had more than two, he used to fine you sixpence a cartridge. So, so the thing was, you had to make sure it was primed and everything before you could, he’d be there, but he’d listen to you, and you would fire up on one and you’re all right. Fire up on two and if it didn’t fire you think, God there’s another sixpence gone you know. So that was the fine, I mean that was a fine for using too many cartridges, but that that was one of the things. Another incident here I always remember, we changed over from Mark II’s to Mark Vs and the Mark Vs were coming in, and this was during the summer of 1944. The warm weather. And we came, we were in, we were in R&I and of course, we were duty crew, if you like, and of course we were at, they were bringing in these Mark Vs and we were, all of us nice summer evening it was, sitting outside and we were all thinking of going down the boozer, and he said, ‘Righto we’ve got, we’ve got four, four spitfires coming in.’ And they were all sitting there in the sun, at the wall of the hangar and the first one came in and of course, then you were all sitting there. Who was going to see the first one in, and I said, ‘Oh bugger it, I’ll see the first one in’, and off I went in to see the first one in. Taxied in and, lo and behold, it was when, when the pilot of course, took her helmet off, it was an ATA pilot. A blonde. She had blonde hair, and who she was I don’t know, and of course, I saw this one in and of course immediately the others saw this girl taxiing this one in, they all rushed out to see the others in, but anyway I don’t know who she was, I’ve no idea. But I often think of the ATA pilots because, oh she was older than me but, and she had blonde hair and I often wonder, having seen ATA pilots, you know, years gone on and wondered who it was. But that was, we got Mark Vs then instead of, but then of course, the time came and then the incident I mentioned of the only time we got involved in Bomber Command In those days was, we had a Spitfire lab down at North Creake, which had Stirlings on and we had to do an engine change, and doing this engine change underneath the belly of a Stirling. That was quite interesting but then that was, then I’ve, then of course, my posting overseas came so then I went up to Blackpool and met all, a lot of the chaps who were at Halton with me. So that was, so we were at Blackpool there, getting kitted out. Marks and Spencers of Blackpool, well then because they had all the, which was Marks and Spencer, had all the kit in there so you, and when the tower, well anyway, that was September ‘44. We went, went to Gourock. Gourock and then we boarded this, I can’t remember even, can’t remember what my, my draft number was. Anyway, but anyway we were boarded on the Orion and the thing was, was this a battleship, no, it was a cattle ship, because there were five thousand, troops, troops in it. That was an incident. There was Army at the bottom, Air Force in the middle and the Navy at the top ‘cause they were the best. Anyway, so we, we went out on that, through the Suez ‘cause then, I think they’d cleared the Med of subs. We went to India via, via the Suez Canal and not around, around the end of South Africa. That was it, no incidents. We had some ex Australian prisoners of war on board and they were well fed, and they used to give us a bit of grub now and again, but and then eventually we got, got to India, but of course, the other thing of course, I’d better mention it that was the, the beginning of my marriage I suppose, ‘cause this friend of mine, who had had the, this corporal apprentice, had to go back to my brother in law who was, he was also at Halton but he was two entries after me, and my friend was a corporal apprentice, was in charge of his room and my brother in law, Bill, he, he gave my, he had a twin sister who became my wife, but he’s, this corporal apprentice started writing to Margaret, but then, I don’t know, it all petered out or something, and then of course, we came on, came on the boat going to India and of course, was one of the things, anyone got any girls to write to? And he gave me Margaret’s address and said, ‘Don’t tell her I gave it to you’. So I came out of the top of my head was a load of rubbish that I found her address floating on the deck of a bloody troop ship’ you know’ but anyway that was that. I wrote to her and of course that was, we got out to India and I was then posted from [unclear], I went to a place, I was posted down to Ceylon to a repair and salvage unit ,121 RS, oh R&SU I suppose. We just used to call it just RSU. So we went down by seven days on the rail, down to India, down all the way down in from Bombay, down all the way down India. Took us a week. Then to Ceylon and we eventually ended, finished up in a place called Vavuniya in Ceylon, and we formed, well I think we formed this R&SU there, We serviced Beaufighters. We had two Beaufighter squadrons and a Spitfire squadron. I can’t remember the Spitfires, but the Beaufighter squadrons were 22 and 217, and we did engine changes and then I got, I got detached to 22 Squadron because they were short of fitters, and I got detached there for a, for a spell. So, I was doing, working with 22 Squadron but then of course, everything changed and they decided that we were going on a, we got, we got sent, we got notification we had to pack up, what was it? Operation Marbrisca I think it was, and get everything, gear and of course it never came about and we then, we moved the whole lot, the unit moved up into India. And Marbris, that was an interesting thing because it was years, years later after I came back home and the I went to, went to school and there was a master at school who had also been out there, but he was in, in SEAF or SEAC operations and I mentioned about this, oh years about this Operation Marbrisc, and he told me what it was. It was in actual fact, they were going to take the island of Phuket. I mean we called it something else as you can imagine which is, I mean, is a holiday island now, and the idea was, they were going to build an airfield on Phuket and operate from there against the Japanese, but then he said that the casualty situation would be, was exorbitant and they cancelled it. So that was where we were going. This Marbrisc. Anyway, that was cancelled and we moved up into South India, basically to, I think it was preparation for the Malayan invasion, ‘cause we moved about. God, as an RSU, we sort of did anything. We did some servicing on Thunderbolts of all things. Then, then we sort of petered out and did nothing really. We sort of, all we did was, oh and then of course the next thing was, they said, oh we got issued with jungle green, so we all got issued with jungle green and we had, then we got to have equipment to do this invasion or whatnot, back up so we got a lot of new waggons and cranes and all sorts of things, all ready to do this repair and salvage, because we were supposed to, I think, we were supposed to service two Beaufighter squadrons and a Spitfire squadron. I don’t know whether they were the same ones that we had before but, but then of course, they dropped the atom bomb and that was, that was the end, that was the end of our sortie to Malaya, but, but then of course, the whole thing wound up. What was the next troubles? ‘Cause it became, the whole thing then, the war had ended and all the blokes that were in the war in Europe were getting demobbed, and people with the, on the unit with the same demob number were not being demobbed, because they were in the Far East, and then of course, we came, these problems what do they call them? What do they call them? Riots I suppose. I think they termed them as riots when they were bloody you know, I don’t know, you were nearly court martialled but anyway, but then of course that all, this came, the whole of India was like that but of course, we were regulars so we, we weren’t involved. They, we, we just didn’t get involved in all that, any of these struggles at all, but then of course, our lot folded up and we were posted to, and then they said, oh we’re going on occupation force Japan. {Unclear] and we went to a place in India called Tamberam, to get to move out but then they cancelled the whole lot so we were less than with all this gear and whatnot, in this Tamberam, and then they decided that we were going to be disbanded, we were. So all the equipment had to go back. All these new lorries and cranes and whatnot, so they were all moved and taken to a place called Visakhapatnam, I think it was. Viso we called it, and they took all this and there were hundreds and hundreds of vehicles. All just, all lease lend stuff. And that was, and they shifted us to a place called Redhills Lake, which had been a flying boat station, to disband. Well, and of course the thing was, and it had a lake there so we did a bit of swimming. That was for a while and apart from that, we did nothing, just sort out equipment, half of it got dumped in the lake and then the day came when I was posted. We were posted, we were distributed and I was posted to 353 Squadron at Palam, and that was Delhi, and that was right up north, and so the next thing was of course, to get the train from, was it Madras, I suppose. I think, I can’t remember where, so, to Delhi and oh, it was a troop train. It was marvellous, marvellous train because it had been a casualty train for, for carrying wounded, not a trooper and oh, it was most comfortable. Had a real good trip ‘cause against all the others we had a, ‘cause normally the trains in there you had same as the doings. You had the hard wooden benches and the ones that slap down on chains for sleeping on, but anyway that was, but anyway we got to Palam and that was 353 Squadron was a Dakota squadron, but then of course, they’d centralised servicing really so that it didn’t matter what squadron you were on, you were, you were put in workshops. I was in engine repair and in engine repair was you did anything really. A Pratt and Whitneys, it didn’t matter what came in and you said, because Palam was a, was a main, well it’s now Delhi airport isn’t it? I think, yeah, and Dakotas, but we used to get all the mail stuff come through. That was the Yorks. And we had also the, was it British Air? No, BOAC was it? BOAC in those days. And it had BOAC Yorks came because the airport was at, was at Palam. Well it was Delhi Airport, but part of Palam, but just around the peritrack and so I did, I did a spell with Dakotas and Yorks. I had engine changes on Yorks. We actually did minor a inspection on Lancasters that flew in. Oh, I did a couple of jobs on BOAC Yorks, but they had landing trouble and they had no fitters, and they used to get sort of co-opted on the engineer, BOAC engineers. They had no, no people at all, so I did a couple of jobs on BOAC Yorks while I was there and then of course, came a time that I didn’t get mid tour leave although I’d put my name down, I wasn’t lucky enough to get any. And then of course in April, oh, then of course the Partition was on. India was, and things were not, things were not very good then. You, you didn’t, if you wanted to go out you made sure that at least there was two or three of you together, ‘cause things, I don’t know why, they didn’t like us really. And then in April, I got a raise and I came home in April. I came home. I went out on the Orion and came back on the Chetril and then we arrived back. It was quite, they say about you know seeing England when you come back, it was, go on, anyway we landed at Southampton and we had to be shipped up to Burtonwood near, oh where is it near? Oh God, Burtonwood. Warrington isn’t it? I think it’s at Warrington. Anyway, when it comes to the point there, we got back to there and everybody was, of course all they wanted to do was get home, and they would have flown us and said this, that and the other, until everyone was chuntering and whatnot the bloke at Burtonwood said, ‘Right’, he said, ‘Get on the lorries and you can go to the bloody station’, you know, it’s up to you where, you know, you go. We’d got our warrants and I think there was, I think a train going south and a train going north and it cleared the station. Didn’t care, you really didn’t care where you went as long as you left there and on the way home. So, I sort of, I got from Warrington to Manchester, and Manchester and of course, while I’d been, while I’d been overseas, my parents had moved from Lincolnshire. They’d moved to Yorkshire, and so I didn’t know where I was going home so the er, got to, I got to Manchester and got to Leeds, and I thought what and I got my parent’s telephone number so I thought, oh I’d better, I’d better ring them and let them know, and so I phoned up and my mother answered and of course she said, ‘Oh your father’s in, in the Isle of Man at the moment’, ‘cause I said, ‘well can you, can you pick me up at the station?’ And so anyway the incidents, isn’t it? So, so I said, ‘Well I’ll go to Harrogate’. I had to go to Harrogate, from Leeds to Harrogate and the, get in the train and the, ‘cause I had two kit bags and your webbing and everything and you know you were sort of carrying these down, and of course I’d asked where the train, the -
[phone ringing]
Train was there and of course I’d got my kit bag on, and you know you’ve got a kit on, a kit bag on your arm, your webbing and a kit bag on the top, and of course there was an airman in a carriage doorway, and I says, I said, oh you know , ‘Open the door’, and I bend over and let the kit bag drop on the floor, and my father was on the, on the train and he picked it up, so and that’s how I met my dad. He came and then my sister, mother at the station. So, incidents, you know, that, ‘cause I came back and of course my father was on the train with the gear, and so my mother and sister at the station. The incident I’m trying to think of. Not that is, ‘cause I didn’t, oh dear, I didn’t stop by. OK now then, we’ve got to, we’ve got to Knaresborough, that was where my parents lived, so and the next thing I had to do, as I’d been writing to Margaret for, oh, since, when was it? 1945. I wanted to get down to Hereford, so I went down to, went down to, go down to Hereford but it’s quite strange really that I’d been writing to her there, but it was, I’d got down to, got down from Manchester, get down to Hereford and the, the last stop before Hereford is Shrewsbury, and I debated whether to get off the train. Why I don’t know but there we are, but anyway it all worked out. We met on Hereford station and that was, that was it, so the beginning of our relationship. Yeah. Anyway, then that all finished and the next thing was of course, we got posted and then, oh God, that was it. Posted, posted to Wheaton, Wheaton, what the hell was at Wheaton? I thought what on earth’s there? Blackpool, near Blackpool. So off I goes to, to Blackpool. Get back on the train, get off at Wheaton and what’s Wheaton? Trainings. Bloody training station, nothing to do with aeroplanes. Bloody drivers, fitters, blacksmiths, welders, everything bar anything to do with aeroplanes, and I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ So, anyway, of course, I arrived on the station and this is in, and I thought, you know, and I went and they said, you’re going to, you’ll be on one wing, I think it was. MTMs, Motor Transport Mechanics. So what the hell am I doing here? And anyway of course, I went in to the general office, off I went, report to squadron leader so and so, so I went to him and immediately I went in there and of course, there was a few, there was an MT fitter and whatnot, and me. So, anyway, I immediately said, complained, ‘What am I doing here?’ you know, and MT and all the rest of it, and this officer, whoever he was, said I was posted as an instructor. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about MT at all’. And this, I remember this officer, who he was, he said, ‘You’re an ex apprentice, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes sir’. ‘Well’, he says, ‘In that case’, he said, ‘You can do any bloody thing’. So that was that. That was me teaching motor mechanics, MT mechanics, and I knew nothing about bloody brakes or anything like that. Well, I think, anyway so I went down to this, where was it? Where I was supposed to be? The phase office, that was it, the phase, the phase office, and there was a sergeant MT fitter there, and I said, ‘Well I know bugger all about motor transport’. He said, ‘Well I’ll tell you what’, he said, ‘I’ll put’, he said, ‘you’ll be on’, I’ve forgotten what it was, but he said, ‘I’ll put you with, there’s a civilian instructor’, he says. ‘You can have a spell with him’, he said, ‘you’ll pick it up from there’. Oh God love us all. So, anyway, I was with this, oh I can’t remember his name, and he was an ancient civvy and so I was picking up brakes and steering, and I never knew there was a blinking theory on brakes and how line up and all this business at all, and of course I was doing this and that, was the, I was on the first week. There was a fortnightly course for this MT mechanics. A fortnight course so I was in there for a fortnight. I’d done one week and there was a fracas in there, and one of the corporal instructors had clobbered a, or hurled a coupling at one of the trainees, and he was then immediately taken off instructing, and the only person to take, put on, was me, and he was on the second week and I’d only done the first week, and the second week was completely, was ridiculous. But anyway, so I had to do it. Have you ever taught, taught people about something you know nothing about? Well, that was what it was with me, instructing people. I had to try to gain a, oh dear, it was ridiculous, but anyway. Then, of course, funnily enough, then they started to er, a phase on diesel engines. Well funnily enough I’d been very interested in diesels, even in India, and I had had my father send me books on diesels, high speed compression ignition engines and whatnot, and so therefore I knew quite a bit, and when they started this phase on diesels, I said well I, you know, I’d done diesels. Oh, they were quite, and shoved me on diesels straightaway, so that was, that was the way it went. I finished up doing diesels and did various other things and then of course I, I, I, I wanted to get away from Wheaton. I’d liked to get down south somewhere ‘cause I mean I was courting then, I mean, and it’s a long way from, from Wheaton, Blackpool down to Hereford, which I used to do on a blinking short weekend. It was bloody fast because I used to have to, I’d travel all night back and have, get my breakfast and kit bag and sort of virtually go straight to the classroom, you know, and get straight, but anyway, but then of course I, I got, I got a what was it a payform 36 posting, because for some reason, I don’t know how I managed it, but anyway down to Hereford. At Hereford. And I was still instructing but when I got down there, I found out there was nothing there, it was equipment assistant. Stores bashers. I thought what the hell am I doing here? But then of course, I got there and the next thing that I’d got there was another, in fact an apprentice, ex-apprentice was a bloke named Don Rigby, and he was posted there as an instructor. He was, he’d managed to get fitter one scores in his career and so the two of us there. What the hell were we doing here? But then of course, we went down to the general office who sent us to this. He said, ‘Yes, you’re definitely posted here’. I thought someone had made a mistake, you know, but then we went to, the pair of us went down to see this squadron leader, and I said, ‘Well what are we doing here?’ I mean. ‘Well you’ve got to tell them all about’, you know, ‘it’s yours to sort of give them an interest in the mechanical things of aeroplanes and engines’. And I thought what am I doing, and we had no syllabus, we had nothing, so we had to, between the pair of us, we sort of worked it out, but God what a, talk about a working week. I think we, our working week was about two or three hours, all week, working week was two or three hours, so we were there so I mean, but we got on ‘cause all the equipment, all the store bashers, instructors, were senior NCOs. We were the only corporals there in the doing but er, we got on very well with them because if they wanted to go off shopping, we’d take their class on, you know. It was, it was or if, you know, something they were getting short of time and they’d, they’d use our time and it was doing but anyway, that all went on and then that collapsed but then of course, at that period of time, I’d been courting. This was 1949 I get, I got married, we get married. So, I got married in 1949, got back off the honeymoon, to the bunk was a piece of paper slipped under the door and it says, ‘Go to the general office ‘cause you’re posted to MCOS’. MCOS. What the hell was that? MCOS. Never heard of it. Nobody doing and this was at Wythall, which is just outside Birmingham. So, Wythall. Wythall. I’d never heard of a Wythall. No airfield that I knew of at Wythall, but anyway MCOS. We’d no idea. So anyway gets to MC, gets to, my, my colleague who was the other corporal there, he got posted, he got posted to, he got his posting to Suez Canal, so he was, he was gone anyway and there was MCOS, so got down to Wythall and doing I found out that this was what was known as the Mobile Classroom Operating Section. So I was back on instructing only in a mobile classroom. I was, as I’d done diesels and they put me on wheels and tyres for starters because I’d been, I’d been steering and whatnot, but then that, that, I can’t remember but I think the instructor on diesels, he was posted and they knew I’d had, done diesels instructing experience and they put me on to the diesels.
So that was that, but that was out on the road for six weeks and back at Wythall for a fortnight, so we roamed the countryside teaching. You went to any station that wanted you and you’d instruct on whatever’s going there, but there’s that was the biggest lot of rogues. The drivers, mostly the drivers, ‘cause you had a driver and instructor with each wagon and the drivers, I think they were the biggest bunch of rogues I’ve ever come across. Pinch anything. And oh, and then the other thing of course we, we were at Wythall which was, had been a balloon base, but Austin’s had taken half of it over to store, you know, their manufactured equipment and whatnot. Gearboxes and whatever you could think of and of course, it was, this was all partitioned by wire netting from the mobile classrooms and of course, knowing the drivers and whatnot and the people that were in Austin’s store place and whatnot, people got, stuff got passed over the wire which as the drivers were traversing the country, you’d get to a transport café and you could sell anything so, you know, parts of cars got sold but then they got wise with it, because the police, Air Force police and whatnot, got wise to it and you got, they, they stopped the wagons at the guard room and got searched and so you couldn’t have any, any Austin components in there, but they used to be fiddling the thing. They used to, somebody, one bloke even moved a whole family because, I mean, the classrooms were big and so they use it as a pantechnic and one chap moved somebody there. I mean they used to, these corporals would do, do anything really. That, but of course the thing was, you see, once you got to the station where you were instructing course they had nothing to do. You were doing the instructing. So they sort of you know did anything really. It was quite. They were a bunch, a really, especially one -
[Pause]
Right. So having, Wythall finished these mobile classrooms and then I got posted to the Middle East. The canal zone so, and the canal zone, went on a, oh what was it, oh I can’t remember the boat, but that was another one, anyway we got to, got to Abihad and Abihad was 109 Maintenance Unit, and that was the repair of Merlin engines, and they were set up, sort of posted on, to start up a repair service on Hercules but that never came about, and I finished up on the overhaul of the propellers. That was, that was a standard sort of a job but it was er, the mid, then of course we had the problems, in fact when my wife came out, the problems of the riots and all the rest of it which that we were, we lived in Ismailia, we had a flat in Ismailia but then all the problems came and we got, if you got enough points, my wife, we got a hiring on the Canal Road, which is not far off the Great Bitter Lakes, you know, where the canal goes through and we, we got this hiring which was a bungalow, it was sort of quite a complex of bungalows. It was typical Egyptian, oh, and of course, I must have mentioned that our bungalow was the only one with a bath, all the rest had showers. We had a bath and this bath must have been built by the Egyptian who made the tombs and whatnot, ‘cause it was like a big concrete but we were the only one with a bath, but then we had no hot running water so the only way we had a, the only way you could have a bath, in fact the ladies, my wife’s friends and whatnot, well, service people that lived there, they had a bath, you could have a bath and by having two primer stoves and put the zinc bath on top of the two primer stoves, get the water heated up enough, tipped in to this massive bath and put some cold with it and then you could have a decent bath. But the ladies, all the wives, there were quite a number of us there and of course my wife would ask the ladies if they wanted to have a bath, so they come and we’d heat, well my wife organised it and they’d have a bath then. Anyway, that was so that was it, but at that point in time was, was the, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and the point was then, then there was this big expansion programme of, I suppose with the V bomber pilots and whatnot and they wanted fitters and riggers back, back home and I was premature re-patted, but then there was a major problem of my wife was pregnant and of course, she had to come back and they, they, it depended on if they couldn’t come back, I’d have to go out, but then it depended whether the aircrew on the aircraft would bring her back. Would they have her and that and it was a Hastings flight and they said yes. So my wife who was, oh was she near, I wonder if, ‘cause that was, oh she’d be at least eight months. She must have been eight months so it was really, you know, it was touch and go, but anyway she came. They decided to take her so we, she came back in this Hastings or we came back in this Hastings and of course, the bloody thing went u/s in Malta, so we all had to get off and of course, she was the only woman on board the aeroplane. The rest was all, all men. She was the only woman and of course, then, of course in those days, there was no family accommodation. There was only women’s and men and so my wife finished up in this nissen hut all by herself and me in the, with the, ‘cause I was a corporal, with the rest of the men and because I was doing and then I remember in a morning, some chap out there says, ‘Is there a Corporal Bland in the hut?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am’. He said, ‘Your wife wants you’. I thought, Oh God, you know, we’re not going to have the happening in Malta, you know, but no well when I went out she said, ‘When are you getting up?’ So that was it but eventually we, they got the aeroplane serviceable and we came back, and then of course, they wanted to put us in transit, and my wife said no I’m not going in transit, I want to go home and I’d bought a camera out there and then I had trouble with the customs. I said, ‘You can keep the bloody camera’. But they didn’t like that much, but anyway, we finished up at, where was it? Swindon Station. God knows what. Coming back in the milk train ‘cause we were going back to South Wales to her home in Newport or [unclear] and so we had there. So we, we finished up on this, and oh, Swindon I’ll always remember that. She was wanting to lay down and I said, ‘Alright’. and then of course, it was a bit chilly or something. Was it? I don’t know, but I know a porter came in and lit a fire in this waiting room, ‘cause there was only the two of us, and so eventually we, she kipped down on me, but anyway we got the milk train, we got back to, got to Newport and got a taxi from there and of course, the thing, because she was pregnant, my wife wouldn’t, wouldn’t tell her parents that she was on her way home. So, so we arrived completely unannounced, caused consternation as you can well imagine, but anyway that was it. I got posted to Worksop and she had the baby in Pontypool, and I think she’d have been better off in a military hospital then she was in a national health. I didn’t, she didn’t get treated very well there at all, anyway, that’s by the by, so we got to Worksop and I was on Meteors. So, posted to Worksop. Worksop which was an old wartime airfield which had been renovated, and we got Meteors there. So of course, I was, I was then a corporal still and then I got, I passed my senior technician’s exams, so I was a corporal, but I wasn’t really due for my senior, ‘cause at the time, wasn’t due for my senior and then I got my third. My sergeant came through, so I was a sergeant senior tech qualified. So that was the way it went on for the time being. I hadn’t, the time was it, wasn’t to go for the chief so that was the way it was. So I was on Meteors there in R&I, in Meteors so that was, that was my spell there. Then that went on till was it 19, I think it went on until 1955, and then a friend of mine who was also at Worksop, and he was a great reader of AMOs and he said, he said there’s an AMO about this new V bombers and their looking for aircraft servicing chiefs. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘that’s a good idea’. ‘Oh’, but he says, ‘they’ve got to be aircraft fitters’. Well I‘m only an engine fitter, I wasn’t an aircraft fitter. He was an aircraft fitter. Anyway, he volunteered for it and because he was an aircraft fitter, he finished up with it. Anyway, he was waiting and then, then they changed it and he came to me. He said, ‘Ay’, he said, ‘They’ve done, they’ve done a change on the AMO’. He said, ‘They’re taking on airframe and engine fitters’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘Right’. So I went straight into the office and volunteered, and saying that was in 1955 and, yes and that was at the beginning of ’55. Must have been because then I had to go and they said alright, and I got this and I had to go to Brampton for an interview for this aircraft servicing chief. So I went there for this interview and a panel of officers, wing commanders and educators and electrical officers and so I had to, you know. What the hell for I don’t know. They ask you all sorts of questions. So that was it. You didn’t know anything about it at all until, when was it? It would have been, when would this be? July, August something like that, and it came through and told me that I’d got to, now I’d got to, where did I have to go first. I had to go Wheaton first, to get, to go on an airframe course. So I went on this airframe course, which was quite a small one. I don’t think I learned much more than I knew in the first place, but anyway I went on this airframe course and then from then on, I sort of moved on to, we had to then, had to go down to Melksham to go on the instrument and electrical course, so having done that, we went to Melksham, and then they allocated you from Melksham. It depended on how well you did, what you, what aircraft you went on, ‘cause the Valiant was in progress ‘cause there were Valiant crew chiefs, had been trained and I can’t remember how many crew chiefs there was. Twenty of us on the course? Was it? I can’t remember now how many, but anyway, then it worked out the Victor came in and the Vulcan and, and the Valiant but some Vulcan crew chiefs had been trained before, but out of my course there was four Victors that went on the Victor. There was eight, eight, was it eight? Yeah, eight Vulcans and the rest were Valiants. So that’s how I was, and they did you, on the, you were allowed to volunteer which aircraft you want, went, went on but it depended on your position in the final exam which aircraft you got. Unfortunately, I came top so I was able, I had my pick of Vulcan, I didn’t want the Victor. All the others were interested in was the Victor, I wasn’t interested in the Victor at all so I went and got on the Vulcan. So then from Melksham, we went on to Avro’s. Was it Avro’s? No Avro’s weren’t first. Where did we go? Boulton Pauls power fliers I think. Boulton Paul. Was there Avro’s then? I don’t know. A V Roe’s. And then you had to, Bristols was the engines you had to do that so that was the end of, I mean, this was taking you up from, so that was, what are we saying? Was it May? May or June? I don’t know, ’55? So this was 1956 and we were all posted to Waddington, all of us, and all the crew chiefs, the Vulcan crew chiefs, were at Waddington. Half of us had nothing to do. In fact, what did we do, because I’d been in, here it is you see, you come back, you’ve been MT, so you’ve been working on MT and you’ve got an MT driving licence and whatnot, so I finished up driving a bloody lorry, making a car park. That just shows you. Crew chiefs. We were doing sweated labour if you like. And then the first Vulcan arrived in, was it June? July? Anyway, whatever it was and that was it and of course, the only one that was Geordie Colley, who was the number one, and so it did a while and then he had to go down to Boscombe Down on intensified flying trials. And then during this space of time, they’d allocated crew chiefs for the OCU. The first squadron which was 83, which became 44, and then the second squadron was 101, which was going to be at Coningsby and of course, we’d all been buggering about this long, so four of us, we decided we’d try to jack up the system a bit and we get posted to Coningsby. We were all ready for the Vulcan when it came, what a doing that do? Anyway, I got nominated by the engineering officer to go as number two to Geordie Colley, so I finished up going down to Boscombe Down on the intensified flying trials with this XA 895. That was the first Vulcan. The other one of course, the one that crashed, was Broadhurst was 897 and I was 89, with 895, so I went down there with Geordie Colley and then Geordie Colley’s wife had a baby, so I was left on number 1 with this bloody aeroplane that I knew, well I say you knew nothing about. You were one of the one’s that knew anything and everybody, before they did a bloody job, came and asked you was it right, and you had no bloody idea either so it was, and that was the way it went. So I did my spell at Boscombe Down, fell out with the engineering officer, and so he sent me back, which was very nice. So I came back to Coningsby. I get back to Coningsby. No aeroplanes at Coningsby so what, what do we do? You’ve got a crew chief here with no aeroplanes in the wrong airfield because they’d decided the Vulcan wasn’t going to Coningsby, it was going to Finningley, so we got four, four crew chiefs all trained up in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything, you know. So I went in to the squadron leader, Coningsby was on C&M I think at the time, ‘cause they were, they were, they got some Canberras there I think, but then I went in to see, ‘cause I went there, went in to see the engineering officer, was a squadron leader OCUEng, and so anyway ‘cause then he says, oh, do airframe and whatnot. ‘What have you done, Chief?’ I said, ‘Oh, just instructing MT’. ‘Just the man’, he says. ‘You’re in charge of MTSS’. So here am I, a fully trained Vulcan crew chief, in charge of MT servicing, so that was, that was it and I thought, well crikey I’m a, you know, I’ve got sergeants here, MT fitters. I’m not, you know, qualified but anyway it didn’t matter, and then there was another chief tech there doing, so anyway and then the flight sergeant came so I was able to hand over to him without any trouble at all. And they put me then, the MTO said, ‘Oh you’d better come on the MT operating section’’ and that was, I went on the MT operating section and that was when, I suppose, I achieved an ambition as a small boy. As a very small boy, all I wanted to do was drive a big lorry, and so anyway, ‘cause I had the MT operating section and whatnot, the MT, I had a 658 to cover me on everything and I managed to drive one of these damned great snow ploughs. So I thought I’d achieved a very ambition of long ago when I was a little boy, so that was it, but then, then of course things all changed and then the next thing that happened they, where was I? Was I still at Coningsby? Yeah. Or was I oh, no we got posted to, did we get posted to Finningley? Got posted to Finn, oh the, we managed to get ourselves, four of us, back to Finningley, and of course at Finningley, of course there were new quarters. No equipment barrack equipment in them. We were posted, so the barrack warden, you know, he said, ‘I can’t’, you know, ‘I haven’t got the men. I haven’t got transport’, I haven’t got do this, that and the other to furnish these quarters, which need doing, so what we did, I got the 658 and I could drive the truck, so we furnished the quarters. The four of us furnished our own quarters out of the stores and all the rest of it, so we furnished our quarters so we could move the families in. So that was, that was Finningley, and then of course all this was done, and then the next thing, they despatched me back to Waddington, ‘cause they, they were taking the Vulcan to America on a bombing competition. So they detached me back to Waddington so that I could go on this, the SAC bombing competition with these, with the Vulcans and because you weren’t allowed to, you were only allowed, you weren’t allowed to have two crew chiefs per aeroplane, the thing was you’d got to have, in your crew, you’d got to have a crew chief standby in case the original crew chief went sick, so I was, this was the best of it was, I was an engine fitter and basically an engine fitter, so I went as an airframe, an airframe mechanic. I went as an airframe mechanic to Florida on the bombing comp, so that was it, but then of course that all went. Came back home and then of course the second squadron, ‘cause the first squadron, the ones that were at Waddington had all got, been crew chiefs and got their aeroplanes, and my friend who got killed, Taf Everson, he got 908, XA908 but, and anyway they, they, he went and everyone got their aeroplane and because I’d been in America, course I was way down the list, so I eventually, eventually when was it? Would have been ’57, would it, then? Yeah, ’57 aye, yeah. Came up and I went to, I had to go to Woodford and I picked up XH475 that was, that was my aeroplane, so anyway I went up there and got that and became part of the squadron, you know. That was the crew chief. Didn’t matter what you were. And of course, got this aeroplane and took it all over the place. Got stuck all over the place. Lost an engine in Goose. Pump failure. So that was on. Got hydraulic failure, the hydraulic system in, where was that? Oh God. It was, oh dear. Where was that? And that was in America. I can’t remember. That was somewhere and then of course we got, come back and you did the ranges. Then they had the, what was it, oh I can’t remember. The exercises you had to go to. Butterworth. Was it profiteer? I don’t know what it was, I can’t remember now. So I took 475 there. I was flying, I was flying with the wing commander’s squadron. Flew out there and got out there flying and whatnot. I had a day off and of course they wanted to do something, and they, my aeroplane, I had a day off and I came, went back and found that some daft bugger had closed the bomb doors on the safety razor and broken one of the bomb door links. Oh God. And that was, I said, ‘That’s a brilliant one isn’t it?’ So, anyway, only had to be, how am I, there we were, how were we going to get back and there’s all the gear we got there and of course, you opened the bomb doors and we could open them and put all the stuff in and then you had to, we’d close the bomb doors. The only way then was we had, got local blacksmiths to make a turn buckle, and with turn buckle, so you could close the bomb doors and once you’d closed them, we wound them up so that you couldn’t open them. Anyway, took the fuses out and everything, so I had a bomb door, bomb bay full of US equipment, all my tyres had been burnt and worn, so I said to the wing commander, I said, I said, ‘I’ve got no I’ve got no gear in as I can use’. I said, ‘If we get left behind, we’re stuck’. He said, ‘We won’t get left behind’. But then of course, the next thing that happened was, I don’t know how, CRACK. My bomb aimer’s window was cracked. Oh dear. So I said to the wing commander, I said, ‘We’ve got a cracked bomb aimers window’. I said, I said, I said ‘I don’t know, we’ll have to fly back with it’. I said ‘I’ll do a pressurization and see’, you know, ‘if it’s alright’. He said ‘we’ll do the pressurisation on the way home’. That was it. So I flew home with a bomb bay full of rubbish, a bomb er, cracked bomb aimer’s window and came home that way. Landed and that was it. We managed without any trouble. I can’t remember, did we have any troubles? I normally get all sorts of troubles and that but, but I didn’t. I think we got back home without, and then of course, that was it. And then of course the next one was the CnC and whatnot, wanted to go on a lecture tour of America or something but he, he didn’t go in mine. He went on, I forget, was it 909? I think it was, with his own crew chief, Bill Neane I think, but then that got, flew via the Azores to Bermuda. Got to Bermuda and the inverter failed and his brakes, the brakes failed. The CnC wanted another aeroplane to go in so that was it. God knows what time of night I got knocked up in my night quarter, and they said, ‘Chief, we’re going, we’ve got to take, get an aeroplane to Bermuda. His inverter’s gone, brake units so we’ve got to take all the spares’. So there’s me, middle of the night with a pannier, getting bits and pieces and loading it all up, and then off we get to go to Bermuda via the Azores. The Azores. Always remember the, the, was he, is it Portuguese? I think he was, this officer looked as though he’d come out of what’s the name? I can’t think of the place. He had tassels on his uniform and all sorts of things, and did I want compression. I said, ‘Did I want compression?’ I couldn’t figure out what he was on about. Eventually I worked out that he, ‘did I want compressed air?’ Oh yeah, I wanted compressed air, yeah, so, but anyway that was left there without any trouble at all. Got to Bermuda and then of course met the crew chief and the crew of this 909. Landed there, got off the aeroplane and I got, got met by two Canadian Navy petty officers with a big bottle of whisky. ‘Come and have a drink mate’, you know. We’ve got, you know. I said, ‘I can’t drink and do’ and anyway my other crew chief there I said, ‘Alright we’ll have a drink’. So managed to have a couple of whiskies, but we got to change everything on these two aeroplanes because of all the gear from his aeroplane had to be transferred from mine to his and all the rest of it, so we did a pannier change and wheel change with the only support we had, ‘cause it should take four men to winch a pannier down off a Vulcan, was two crew chiefs and two drunken Canadian naval petty officers. So, but we managed and that, that was that. We had a bit of a problem. They had an electrical problem on start-up. It was robbed of, robbed a component off the aeroplane and that was my aeroplane cause I’d been, I’d changed, I’d made, well I’d thought I was going to go through with, with 476 but then, I don’t know whether the CnC wanted Bill Neane. I don’t know what it was but I finished up with this heap of rubbish in Bermuda instead of going onwards. And then, oh dear that, where did we get to? Yeah. Two drunken petty officers winching the pannier. It was amazing we got it down but anyway, we got it down. We got the gear changed over and everything, and Bill Neane wouldn’t drink anymore so as I was stopping, I was stuck. These two petty officers and whatnot decided we should finish this bottle of whisky. Oh God. What a thing isn’t it? So that was it. Then they changed over, then of course, they all got in. The bloody aeroplane went u/s again. That was the one I’d brought in so the CnC had to go, he had a date in America, the CN not the CnC was he? Not the CnC. Whatever he was. Whoever he was he had to go on by, by American transport and how humiliating really. So then of course, I had to rob, I robbed the aeroplane, robbed the u/s aeroplane to get this one serviceable. Then of course, had to get to America, and of course the CnC was acting as co-pilot, so of course there was one pilot missing, so the only way was the co-pilot that came up, came over with me, had to go on to America with this, with this, this other aeroplane. I don’t know how they finished up but anyway the co-pilot came back, but then, then of course the problem came, of course, I had this, left with this aeroplane in Bermuda with brakes troubles and inverter troubles. They’d sent an inverter, they’d sent an electrician out via BOAC to give me assistance on this electrical stuff, but then of course, he came out and I said, righto we’ll, we’ve changed the inverter. We’re alright. We’ll change, do the brake change. We can do the brake change and of course he was an electrician, and of course all he had to do to help me was to jack up and whatnot, and of course then, there was, then came a sorry tale. I got the jack underneath to, to change the brake units on this and I found that the bogie beam had a crack in it, a crack right along the end. Oh, at the end. I thought, what the devil do we, so anyway, all I got, I said to the captain, I said, ‘We’re in trouble here’. I said, ‘We’ve got a cracked bogie beam’. ‘Oh dear’, he said. So anyway, I’ve signals going back and forth, this cracked bogie beam. I said ‘well could drill a hole at the termination of the crack, but then the bogie beam takes all the stress of landing’. So I thought, oh well, but anyways I left it up to the UK air to decide, so they sent out a Doughty draughtsman, techno, oh, stress man or something, to see whether there was any possibility of doing this and he came out, and of course, no. Obviously he wouldn’t say it was even, if it probably was, because if it had cracked and the aircraft had crashed, it would have been him, so that was, that was it, so I was left there with this bloody aeroplane, with the rain pouring down, wind blowing, with this, with this aeroplane. Salt air was making things go a bit rusty but anyway they decided, well they had to change the bogie beam, the bogie beam. I don’t know [unclear]. The bogie beam carries the whole aeroplane of four wheels on one side, you know so, and the weight of the aeroplane so that had to be jacked up. The thing was, was all the equipment, was getting the equipment out to me in Bermuda and of course, the Air Force in those days, hadn’t got any bloody transport aeroplanes at all I don’t think, so they had, they had to hire, hire a DC6 to carry this. So I’d got four jacks, one hydraulic rig ‘cause retractions had to be done, so I had four jacks and a hydraulic rig, and of course they sent it out in this DC6, but fortunately they sent two, a chief tech out of their hydraulic bay and another rigger who was, he was, he was ex Halton boy, the same as me. So we had a chief tech, me a crew chief, a chief tech rigger, a sergeant rigger and a sergeant electrician and the aircrew, and these jacks all had to be built up ‘cause they couldn’t fly them in the aircraft whole so they were all in bits, so I had to build all these jacks up, fill them with hydraulic oil and do everything there to get these jacks up before we could jack the aeroplane up. And the other thing was a negotiation with the, the master sergeant of the hangar, ‘cause there was only one hangar on Bermuda and that was, had the doors welded open so that the wind could blow through it ‘cause otherwise it would have blown off and this, as I say, this master sergeant looked like Geronimo. I’m sure he was Indian anyway and we got on but he was not, he was a hard looking man and of course then he said, I said, well you know trying to negotiate use of this hangar for jacking up. He said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘You can have the hangar but’, he said, ‘for twelve hours only and that’s all’. Twelve hours. I thought, bloody hell and all that, you know we’ve got to change and do hydraulic tests and everything on this, but anyway we managed it. And then a dry, to drive these axles out of the, of the bogie beam was, was the only way we could use - the Americans had solid chocs like sleepers and the way we drove these axles out of there was by one of these chocs and heaving it like a battering ram, but anyway we got the axles out. We got it all done anyway, and all the rest of it and retractions and the wind was blowing through the hangar, but we managed it. We did, we did it all. Much to, well we had to do it in the time, we hadn’t got much option and anyway, we got it out and on the, then of course all trouble started ‘cause then of course, I got water in the pitot system. That was ‘cause of all this terrible rain and the pitothead covers were bloody ridiculous so that was another job I had to do. Clean out, get all the water out of the pitot system. So that was it. ‘Righto’, he says. ‘That’s it. We’ve still got to do an air test’. So we got down to do, I forgot to mention that the only power, the only power source ‘cause the Vulcan bombers was a hundred and twelve volt DC and the only power source they’d got, ‘cause the Americans don’t use it, they use twenty eight volt but the, and only one we could do was borrow. They had a hundred and twelve volt for the, was it the Britannia on the, BOAC, BOAC side or British, yeah, British Airways side of Bermuda, so I had to borrow their diesel generator when they weren’t using it, so that was another thing. So I had to borrow this and then I had to tow it across the airfield to me. So anyway, that was, that was that was another thing, borrowing it and negotiating and all the rest of it. So we got that, got that done and eventually got it, got it started and, ‘Righto, we’re off’, you know and, oh that’s right. When I found that it goes boring off again and, that’s right and of course, they shut down and came back. I said, ‘What’s, what’s the trouble?’ ‘We’ve got no ASI’, no Air Speed Reading. This was when I found out that these pitothead covers were no good ‘cause I got water in the pitot system, so that all had to be drained, all that drained, done, everything else. ‘Have another go’. So we had another go, air test. Off they went and they flew around. I thought, ‘Oh we’re in business here’, they landed and I said, ‘Any?’ ‘Yes. Compass’. Oh dear God. Compass. I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ They said, ‘Our readings are wrong’, you know, somewhere along. I said well you know, so after much investigating, I thought, well it’s near impossible, the two pilot’s repeaters were duff. I thought it’s either that or the master indicator. The master. And I thought, if it’s the master, we’re in trouble ‘cause we’d got to do a compass sweep and all the rest of it for that. So anyway, back goes signals and the next thing comes out an instrument maker who happened to be an instrument maker off my entry of course, so I knew him personally. A chief tech. Instrument came back BOAC. I mean his, his, his excess weight baggage was off because he’d bought a compass, a master indicator, the blinkin’ whole bloody bag of shoots with him, and what state to do a compass sweep if he had to. Anyway, it turned out it was the two, as I thought it was, the two pilot’s repeaters were both u/s. Most unusual. So, anyway, that was, that was changed. I mean, mind you in this, [unclear] I know all this stuff had to be packed up and whatnot and landed on this DC6, to be flown back home and so that was another job. And where had we got to? Oh aye, the compass, that was it. Oh, that was it. Then the other things was, the thing that was before the compass, I can’t remember. Number 3 tank on the portside had developed a bloody leak and the Mark I tanks were not what I’d call brilliant. Anyway, the only way I could do it was, I thought, well I don’t know what I can do with this leak, and the Americans had some, had some peculiar sealant that they had, ‘cause they used a similar sort of thing that I used, and after much, as I say, I got to know this, my master sergeant quite well and I had a long chat with him, and I said, ‘Well have you got some stuff I can maybe cure this leak?’ ‘Cause I knew where it was. The tank where the pump housing and everything was, prone to split. The bolt holes tend to split so I, after much talk with this man I dropped the, I dropped the pump on number 3 tank and lathered this sealant in place, hoping it would do it because I mean, the tank change was beyond and so I had a go. It wasn’t, it wasn’t much good at all but then of course, we’d had the air test. We’d had everything done. We were all ready to go home, but with this tank and I said ‘well’, I said, ‘we’ve got the pilot who was’, Beavis, his name was. Who was he? He finished up a, was he master of the Royal Air Force or something? Mike Beavis, and I said to, and John Ward was the co-pilot, I said, ‘Well look. I can, I can put fuel it for you to go home’, because by this time, we were, we were, this was the only thing that was stopping us. I said, ‘To go home’, I said, ‘Look, we either if you can work it out with number 3 tank empty, we can make it’. I said, ‘Otherwise’, I said, ‘I’ll fill number 3 tank’, and this was number 3 tank port, I said, ‘And then you use all that fuel off that tank for everything to empty it’. And then I said, ‘What’s left we’ll just have to let it leak out’. And so John Ward did his calculations, that we could fly back with that number 3 tank empty, so I then sort of took all the fuses out, took the pump off it and everything. Well, the pump was there but I took the fuses out and everything so that the pump couldn’t overheat or anything, and that was, so we flew back from Bermuda to the Azores. So we land back to the Azores and so I said we were alright from the Azores back home with still number 3 tank empty, and then, of course, oh damn. The Azores, we started off on my pack that I’d got, with the battery pack that I’d got in the bomb, in the pannier, started up and was doing and then they said, Number 3 inverted, was the one that I’d changed, we’d changed in Bermuda. Number 3 inverter had gone down. I said, ‘Oh God’, you know, I said, I said, ‘Well we’re sunk’. I said, ‘I’ve no spare inverters that I can change’. I said we, we, I said, ‘Look. It’s, it’s number 3. We can go on’. Number 3 was the sort of standby. I said, ‘We can either’, to the captain, I said, ‘Look. We either wait here and I get an inverter to change it or we fly home on everything we’ve got with no spare’. So, after a bit of a discussion they said, ‘We’ll, we’ll, go home’. So we started up and flew home. Got, ‘cause we came from Finningley really. Course we landed at Waddington and of course, we had to there for customs clearance of all things. So we landed at Waddington and the wing commander was there to greet us, and my captain who was not the, not the first pilot, he was the navigator, ‘Oh’, he said, we could, he said ‘If you put a brake chute in, we could fly home couldn’t we?’ I said, ‘Look’, I said, ‘I’ll put you a brake chute in but’, I said, I said, ‘I’ll walk home’. I said, ‘That’s a bloody heap of rubbish this is’. A heap of rubbish. So anyway, the wing commander was there and so I said, ‘Well that’s it’. And, and that aeroplane at Waddington, took them a fortnight to get it serviced to fly it to Finningley. So that was, that was me. I came home after months in Bermuda and the wing commander said, ‘You’d better have a couple of days off’. But that was a bloody aeroplane. Bloody aeroplane. 909. XA909. It wasn’t mine, it was Fred Harrison’s. It wasn’t one I fetched, and then oh, after that, we went to, we went on a, to Butterworth. Went to Butterworth and then we, because this was when they shut my damned, did I tell you about that. I haven’t put that on there have I? No. I can’t remember, I’ve told that much. They shook my, they shook my aircraft [unclear], broken the bomb doors. I had to take 9, I had to take, the aircrew wanted to go, were minded to take an aircraft to Manila in the Philippines from Butterworth, and mine was u/s with the bomb doors, and the only one I could take was 909. The engineer said, ‘Do you mind taking 909?’ ‘Cause that was the one that was stuck in Bermuda, Bermuda with. I said, ‘I’ll take anything as long as its serviceable’, so, and that was the only, the only range I ever did where I had a serviceable aircraft from start to finish. I flew there no troubles. No troubles there and flew back and that was the only, only trip I ever did in a Vulcan where I didn’t have any problems.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Archive I’d like to thank Warrant Officer Charles Bland at his home in Lincolnshire on the 17th of August 2015. Thank you for the recording.
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Title
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Interview with Charles Bland
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-17
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Sound
Identifier
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ABlandC150817, PBlandC1501
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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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Description
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Charles Bland joined the Royal Air Force in February 1942 and went to RAF Halton as an Aircraft Apprentice.
He tells of his training at Halton, and describes the different trades and his exams to become an Leading Aircraftsman 1st Class, where he was then transferred to a Repair and Inspection Unit (R&I) working on Spitfire engines.
Charles then went to India via the Suez Canal and then on to Ceylon to 121 Repair and Salvage Unit, looking after 2 squadrons of Beaufighters and 1 squadron of Spitfires, but he says that because he was an apprentice, he could turn his hand to anything.
He was posted to instruct at a Motor Transport Unit, and spent time learning about the maintenance of other equipment including diesel engines.
Charles was posted to 109 Maintenance Unit, repairing Merlin engines, however at this time the V Bombers were coming into service. He trained as a Crew Chief and after passing these exams he was assigned to the Avro Vulcan XA908, at RAF Waddington.
Charles related the stories of the work he did when the Vulcan had hydraulic failure at Goose Green, the bombing competition in Florida where the aircraft suffered broken bomb bay doors and a cracked bomb aimers window, and the trip home from Bermuda with no fuel in one tank and a broken bogie beam.
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:21:37 audio recording
Beaufighter
C-47
fitter airframe
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
Meteor
military discipline
military service conditions
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Coningsby
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Kirton in Lindsey
RAF Waddington
RAF Worksop
service vehicle
Spitfire
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/PCoultonWA1608.1.jpg
15510534c70ff503e12c0b6afc5bca75
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/ACoultonWA161020.2.mp3
cd9c3d503ae278ab9f2db39c0cf651f9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Coulton, William Arthur
William Coulton
W A Coulton
Arthur Coulton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Coulton, WA
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection concerns William Arthur Coulton (b. 1925, 3050209, Royal Air Force). He served as an engine mechanic at RAF Witchford and RAF North Luffenham before being posted overseas to Palestine. Collection includes an oral history interview, some artworks, a wedding photograph and a photograph album.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William Arthur Coulton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2016-10-20
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 20th October 2016, and we are in Freemantle Court, near Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and we’re with William Arthur Coulton who’s going to tell us about his experiences in the RAF on the ground. So Arthur what are the earliest recollections that you got of life?
AC: The earliest – Twyford, at Twyford, the village of Twyford in south Derbyshire. Yes, I – the fourth, three or four – yes – south Derbyshire.
CB: That’s where you lived?
AC: That’s where we lived, we lived in the the holdall [?] of south Derbyshire Twyford had been put into two two houses. Yeah, two residence. Went to school, the village, the little village school, well a matchbox school I went back some years ago to see the place and I was surprised how small the school was. Yes. And we left, we left Twyford. My father worked, a farm worker and he got a job in Ash— Ashford or near Ashford. We went to live up there and he had the misfortune to get gored by a bull and he, he never worked the bulls for four years, and that that finished his farm working, and then he went to work in the foundry of all places. Yes, yes. [Background noise]
CB: And then where did you go from there?
AC: Where where did, where did the – we went to live at Holbrook in Derbyshire. Yes, ‘cause its two Holbrooks you know? One in Lincolnshire, and my parents stayed there for the rest of their lives. And actually I’ve got a young sister still lives in Holbrook and from there I joined the air force.
CB: When when did you leave school?
AC: 14.
CB: At 14?
AC: Yes.
CB: And what did you do then?
AC: When I left school? I went to work for Derby Co-op. Yes, I went as errand boy at Derby Co-op. and I stayed with Derby Co-op until I was 18, joined the air force. Yes.
CB: Why did you join the RAF and not one of the other services?
AC: To be quite honest, you want the honest there?
CB: Yeah.
AC: I didn’t want to be gun fodder. I didn’t want to join the army. I didn’t want to be in the front line. That’s me being honest about it.
CB: That’s good.
AC: Of course, I was in the ATC, so you automatically you got the preference to go in the air force and I enjoyed the air force. I trained as a flight mechanic. I –
CB: Where did you join up?
AC: In 1943.
CB: Where?
AC: At Birmingham. That’s where I went through the details, at Birmingham, and when I joined up from Birmingham we went to – oh, we went to Cardigan [?] and we got issued with our uniform at mob office yes. And then I got – where’d I go then? I got posted to me square bashing at Skegness. When they told me I was going to Skegness, I asked me Sergeant if I had me bucket and spade. He said, ‘You won’t have a chance to use it.’ [Chuckle].
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that though?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that.
AC: Yes. Yes yes. Yes he did.
CB: You horrible little man.
AC: Yeah I was a horrible little man.
[Shared laughter]
AC: Yes. I I — do you know Skegness?
CB: Yes.
AC: Imperial Hotel? I know that place very well. That was our mess hall and I know what the cellar was like. I got fatigues down there more than once. [Laughter]. Yes. I was a bad lad, I got caught you see. The policy is that do anything you like as long as you don’t get caught. That’s the —
CB: That’s a cardinal rule?
AC: Pardon?
CB: It’s a cardinal rule.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes. I got caught several times.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, I was —
CB: So what did you learn there? When you weren’t misbehaving.
AC: What did I learn? I was trying to find out how I could get away with it. You know to find the loopholes. [Chuckle]. Oh dear. I didn’t do too, too bad. No.
CB: So what did the course, this is a training course, Initial Training Wing, this is the training wing —
AC: Square bashing.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You know, up and down, marching like a lot of silly hooligans. Yes, and what they call the Commando course running around in a woods there with barbed wire, yeah and that, and one of you had to lie on it while the others run over you. That wasn’t very comfortable – you had to take it in turns. Yeah. You lay on barbed wire. Not very nice
CB: No.
AC: Yeah.
CB: What was worse the barbed wire or peoples feet on your back?
AC: I would say people’s feet on ya. Yeah.
CB: Okay, so what else did you do?
AC: Yeah. They put —
CB: They —
AC: They put — and that was at Skegness that was, where we did the training. And then we was what you was going to be, you was sent to them them units. And first of all they sent me to Newcastle-on-Tyne of all places. And I was there on me own, with you know, I didn’t go anyone else. Then I went on my own to Weston Super Mare to Lockheed, you know that?
CB: I do know. But just quickly what did you do at Newcastle-on-Tyne? What was the purpose of that?
AC: Just — just waiting patiently.
CB: A holding unit?
AC: Yes.
CB: Okay.
AC: Yes. Then I went to Lockheed and I did me engineering course there.
CB: How long did that last?
AC Pardon?
CB: How long was the Lockheed course?
AC: Erh. Was it? Was it 16 weeks? I think it was. I’m not certain now and then we went to — was posted and I was posted to to Newmarket. And the engineer — the sergeant said to me, ‘Where you going?’ I said, ‘Romney Marsh [?], Newmarket.’ He said, ‘You’re going to a holiday camp.’ I said, ‘As good as that?’ And it showed me how good it was. [Laughter]. It was it was — You couldn’t beat beat Newmarket. It was lovely.
CB: That was on the racecourse then was it?
AC: On the racecourse, yes.
CB: So, what was so really special about it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: What was really special about it?
AC: Well, you could just say. Freedom. You know you was in the forces but you had a free life like. Yes. And our billet was a Nissan hut in Frank Buttress’[?] paddock, one of his paddocks. There was about 12 Nissan huts in there, and he didn’t mind you going round the stables, looking at the horses. I went round one day and a blinking horse — I — [unclear] all at was it nipped me. I I, well that’s the end of my life with horses. [Chuckle]. Yeah. But I liked Newmarket. That was a good station to be on. I was there 10 months and then they posted me to 115 Squadron at Witchford, Ely and I stayed there right to the end of the war. And I was on A and B aircraft as a flight mechanic.
CB: So you’re a flight mechanic, and A and B were the tasks that you did, so what were those?
AC: A and B was the two aircraft.
CB: Right.
AC: A and B and the number — what you call it — the code number was KO. That was the aircraft, KO. And we went to, when the war ended and I went to North Luffenham. Have you ever been there?
CB: I know, lived there.
AC: Pardon?
CB: I used to live there.
AC: Yes. I went to North Luffenham and I remustered into the MT [?] as a motor motor mechanic. And I stayed there for about four weeks, I think. And I was working on an American claptrap[?] vehicle. And a chap came along out of the distance and waving the papers and said, ‘You’re posted overseas.’ Well I said, ‘If that’s if that’s the case I’m packing up here now then going.’ And I went overseas. I went to Palestine and I was with 32 Squadron Fighter Squadron. Famous 32. Yes, and they had Spitfires but I was in the MT then and I worked in the vehicles, and we went into Jordan on exercises with the army and from there, went back there. Yeah I was demobbed. I got my demob come through while I was at there at Palestine. Was it? No. Sorry no. At North Luffenham that was where I got me notification of demob and I got demobbed. I went to work in the local garage.
CB: Where?
AC: Ely.
CB: In Ely?
AC: Cambridge.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. And then I did five years in there.
CB: How did you come to do that in Ely when you were in from North Luffenham?
AC: What?
CB: Why did you choose Ely when you were stationed —
AC: I got married.
CB: — at North Luffenham?
AC: I got married. She come from Ely.
CB: Oh right. Sounds a pretty compelling reason.
AC: Yeah, I got a photograph of her there.
CB: Yeah, we’ll have a look.
JS: She’s lovely.
AC: Eh?
CB: We’ll look in a minute. Yeah.
AC: Yeah. I I was stationed at Witchford at Ely. You know the aerodrome. Witchford. That’s how I come to meet the wife and, of course, when I got demobbed, I went I lived in Ely, went to work at the local garage.
CB: Hmm.
AC: And I stayed there till one day a coal merchant who I knew quite well, he was only a bit older than me came in and asked me if I’d go and run a dairy business for him he’d bought. I mean all above all things from a mechanic to a dairy. I said, ‘Yeah I’ll go, Joe. I’ll have a go.’ And I stayed with the milk industry for 33 years and then I retired. Yes, I built up a good business. I amalgamated with another dairy. We we had a good business. We had nearly 6000 customers
CB: Hmm.
AC: We had quite a quite a business and, well, we had 14 men work for us.
CB: Hmm.
AC: Yes but I say we — that was hard work. It is hard working in the dairy trade. Yes.
CB: What’s the hardest thing about working in the dairy trade?
AC: Delivering the milk and satisfying the customers. Yeah you get a lot of dissatisfied people if you was a bit late. They never realised that they could have had extra milk and kept always had a bottle in hand. That’s what — there’s a lot of people like that. Yes.
CB: So you met your wife when you was at Witchford?
AC: I met her at Witchford.
CB: What was was she in the RAF?
AC: She was in the NAAFI.
CB: Oh was she, right.
AC: I was a canteen cowboy.
CB: What was her name?
AC: Hilda Elsie.
CB: Hilda and she was a canteen cowboy.
AC: That’s was that they called them you know. They called —
CB: Not cowgirl?
AC: If you was a NAAFI girl, you was a canteen cowboy. [Laughter] Yes.
CB: And was her tea any good?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Was her tea any good?
AC: Ehhhh. Not too bad. I did know one thing about it. I used to get egg and chips.
CB: Oh.
AC: The chaps used to say, ‘Where’d you get your egg from?’ I said, ‘Hilda brought for me.’ They said, ‘Will she get me one?’ They wouldn’t ask her. [Laughter] ‘Cause her parents got poultry.
CB: Oh.
AC: Yes. So I got egg and chips, I did.
CB: Interesting. So you settled down for the five years in Ely, but actually you continued in that area did you with the – with the milk?
AC: Yes. Oh Yes. Oh yes I continued in that area.
CB: Hm.
AC: But — and the dairy ran —we got progress — we got a bit of land and we build a dairy to — the purpose was to vehicles. And we had — eventually we had all electric vehicles. We had one electric vehicle that could 55 miles, around Cambridge doing 55 miles.
CB: Hm.
AC: Didn’t do —it was never more than 88 miles through the premises, but it got the capacity for 55 miles. Yeah.
CB: So what was the area that you were serving? It was Ely and the villages, was it?
AC: The villages, yes and Ely and surrounding villages. Yes.
CB: To what extent did you use your engineering skills —
AC: Kept the vehicles —
CB: — after the war.
AC: Kept the vehicles going.
CB: As well as running the business.
AC: Yes. Well I had a partners and I used to look after the vehicles. Yeah. I got a dab hand at the electric vehicles. Yes.
CB: Now, going back to the RAF when you went to your training at Locking [?], what did they do to train you from scratch to be an aero—engine mechanic?
AC: Yes. We we had in this big hanger, we had sections set off in bays and there was in our gang there was 15 of us. The the instructor, he was a sergeant who instructed us and he instructed us on engineering and I really really liked it there.
CB: So how many bays would they have in the hanger? Was there a different — did they do a different task in each bay?
AC: Of all the things what we had in the hanger, we had Blackburn Botha did you know about them?
CB: — Yeah. Blackburn Botha. Yeah.
AC: They got two of them. Yes. [unclear] Our job was to strip them and put them back again.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You strip the engine down. Rebuild it and put it back again.
CB: What were those engines? Were they radials? Or were they inline?
AC: Inline. Yes. Yes. Inline.
CB: And what other engines did they have as well.
AC: I I can’t think of what — a Sabre engine.
CB: A Napier Sabre?
AC: Yes. Yes. I can’t think what aircraft that was out of.
CB: That was off the Typhoon.
AC: Was it? I know it was a big engine.
CB: Yeah. 27 litres.
AC: Yeah.
CB: And did you have Merlins there or where was your introduction to the Merlin?
AC: Yeah there, but it was the early Merlin. The Merlin Mark I of all the things to teach us on. Yeah the really early — Christopher. Come from the Boar War I think. Yes.
CB: So, if you had — if there were these bays, you stayed in the bays did you, as a group of 15?
AC: Yes.
CB: And learned all the aspects of engine repair and maintenance. Is that right?
AC: Yes. Yes that’s right. We were instructed on it and you had diagrams and you drew diagrams, and — I can’t think how many was on there. But I but I really enjoyed it. I liked the job.
CB: It was a mixture of hands on and classwork was it?
AC: Yes.
CB: So, did you — you had a notebook that you kept?
AC: What?
CB: You had a notebook in which you progressed —
AC: Oh yes.
CB: — your training.
AC: Yes. I I, though I say it myself I think I was a good mechanic, but was I good? When I went into Civvy Street at the local garage at Ely. The first job the foreman said to me, ‘I want you to rebuild that engine there and put it in a car.’ And it was all in bits. And he’d re — it. So I rebuilt it. I’d never seen it before. It was all in tin boxes in bits. Yes. So I built it. I went [unclear], it went when I put it in the car. Yes.
CB: What was his reaction to that?
AC: Oh, he thought I was all right. Thought I was a good bloke.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well, there’s there’s about 12 of us mechanics in the garage. Three of them were ex RAF men. Yeah so — we did all right.
CB: And in your training, you had this group with you, so the 15 in the bay, were they — did some of them move along with you or did everybody go to somewhere quite different?
AC: Yes. Two of them — went, when we finished, two of them went with me to Newmarket. One was named Chris Rudge [?] and I can’t think of the other ones name. But but this Chris Rudge [?] had a bad reputation. He — nobody liked him.
CB: No?
AC: Instead of calling you a ‘B’, he called you a ‘Got blood like Rudge.’ That’s what they used to say. Yes.
CB: Right.
AC:Yes.
CB: So he was the one who was disruptive, was he?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He was disruptive influence in the —
AC: Yes.
CB: — in the bay.
AC: Yeah, nobody liked him. No.
CB: And what was you classified as? You were cadets at that stage, what rank?
AC: No, we weren’t classed as cadets. I was a — I was a LAC. Yes I was LAC then and, of course, the flight mate can’t go any more than a LAC until he remusters [unclear]. That was my biggest mistake. I didn’t remuster. See If I had remustered —
CB: Why didn’t you remuster?
AC: I never thought I was — I was young and silly. See I I was 19 and I hadn’t got a clue what – I was young and silly. Yes. I regret it but never mind I learnt more when I went in the garage job. I had a good experience.
CB: What time of the year were you are Locking [?]
AC: Locking? [Pause] Yeah, autumn. Yes, ‘cause I went down Weston—Super—Mare. Had a girlfriend there and we walked round the Winter Gardens. Yeah, and it was autumn. Yes. That brought back memories that does. Cor she was half —
JS: [Laughter]
AC: Memories, eh?
CB: So she wasn’t in the Air Force?
AC: No, she was civvy girl. Civvy girl. Yeah.
CB: So, she showed you all the excitements of Weston-Super-Mare?
AC: Very. Definitely. Weston-Super-Mare there’s not much there.
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: Eh?
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: No [Laughter]
CB: Particularly, the places that were difficult to find you in?
AC: Yes.
CB: Down the pier?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Along the pier?
AC: How long was I there?
CB No, no the pier.
AC: Oh beer.
CB: Pier pier.
AC: Yes.
CB: And when you travelled, how did you get around from Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare? Did you walk, cycle or bus?
AC: [Mumble] From Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare it’s only two miles.
CB: Oh right.
AC: You walked. Yes. Yeah. Then you crept in — when you crept into camp you went through the hedge, the hawthorn hedge. That was — there was a gap and you crawled through it. You missed — you missed the guardroom then.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Naughty boys. [Chuckle]
CB: What was the accommodation when you were at Locking [?]?
AC: Pretty warm. Wooden purpose — built buildings. They had wood corridors from the rooms. You never went outside to get a wash, you went down these corridors to the ablutions. Showers. Was — as I say it was pretty warm building. Yeah. Locking, I understand the Fleet Arm have got it now.
CB: And when you went to Newmarket, what were you doing there? Was is it an extension of your training or what?
AC: No, I went there as a fully blown mechanic.
CB: Right. So what were you called then? Your title.
AC: [Mumble] I was LAC. Leading aircraftsman.
CB: But did you were an aircraft mechanic or were you a —
AC: Aircraft mechanic.
CB: And what aircraft were you on there? Was there a squadron that you were —
AC: Spitfires.
CB: Spitfires right.
AC: Lovely old Spitfire. We used — used to love to get in them and warm them up in the mornings. Oh that was the best bit about that. Squadron Leader West was the CO. There was only six Spitfires. Was only a little group of u, but we had a good time until he decided to post me and he posted me to Ely, Witchford —
CB: Yeah.
AC: — on Lancasters, and I always remember I went you went into see the CO and he said to me,: ‘What do you know about Merlins?’ That was it. And I said, ‘Well, I was on Spitfires.’ And he didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all.
CB: ‘Cause he was a bomber man?
AC: Well, the Spitfire has got the same engine, ain’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: [Chuckle] He didn’t like it. So,I made an enemy with him first of all.
CB: How well did you adapt to the bomber activity?
AC: Ohh lovely. I had a good crew. I had a good — I was with a good mob. I was with a real good mob. We had a Sergeant [unclear] Wakeman [?] He was a real a real gentleman. He was he was a nice chap [unclear]. We called him [unclear] we didn’t call him Sergeant. So we know how how good he was. But, of course, the Air Force had a better relationship with everybody than they did in the army. Definitely. Yes.
CB: So were you on the flight line or were you in a hanger?
AC: I was on the dispersal ramp side.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah. That was the best place to be to get the ‘flip-up’. Yes.
CB: So what what would get you the trip up in the aircraft? What what was the —
AC: Where’d we’d go in? Lancasters.
CB: No no. How did you manage to get the flights.
AC: Oh, we’d get one easy as pie.
CB: [Cough] For what reason?
AC: Just just as the crew said, as the pilot said, ‘Can I have trip up with ya?’ He’d say, ‘Get in.’ You weren’t supposed to but you get in.
CB: So why would he be flying at that moment?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Would he be flying for air test or cross country or what?
AC: Air test. Air test or — yeah, what’s it? Air gunners practice in the [unclear]. Yes. Oh, went up several times. Well well the — on dispersal when a Squadron Leader an Australian, Robbie, had — what ya got to do is say, ‘Robbie, can I come up?’ And he said, ‘Jump in.’ [Chuckle] You weren’t supposed to but we used to get in. He’d take one of ya. Two of ya. And then you — I got up to the front as a Flight Engineers seat to get a bit of practice. I thought it were quite nice. As I said, I enjoyed my life in the Air Force. I really enjoyed it.
CB: Yeah
AC: I wasn’t one of these that wanted to go home to mother. No. It it was nice. Yeah.
CB: What sort of routine did you have on the squadron?
AC: Maintenance.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Yeah just maintenance.
CB: But but what time would you get up? And were you on a shift or how did it work?
AC: Yeah it it – there was no such thing as shifts. You was all in a crowd. You know, you got —I think there was about seven of us in our mob. We had to look after two aircraft. Yeah, A and B. [unclear] What was that? And eh, what else was there? I was there I was there till the end of the war at Witchford and A carried a big bomb. You know the big 22000lb.
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Yeah, the Grand Slam. That big ‘un. Yes. I carried that —
CB: So that was a modified Lancaster to make it fit?
AC: Oh yes, it it – the bomb bomb doors was differently. They lapped around the bomb.
CB: So who did the modification for that?
AC: [Unclear]
CB: You did it.
AC: No.
CB: On the airfield?
AC: No, I did it — the Air Force did it in the hanger [?]. And that was a pity, I never I never — I should have asked to have gone in the hanger to make it work. I would have learnt more. But, as I say, I was young and silly and having a good time at the dispersals.
CB: So on the dispersal, what were the tasks you had to do in a day?
AC: Main — maintenance on the engine. Yeah, giving a check over and that.
CB: So would you have a ladder for that or a gantry?
AC: A gantry. Yes, yes used to have a gantry. And, course you, you walked over, over the wings and that and you sat [unclear] screwing the tops in. Yeah, wasn’t weren’t supposed to — you were supposed to use the gantry.
CB: But but nobody fell off?
AC: [Chuckle] Well you know [mumble] when you change the engine at the dispersal. They used say ‘Put the fan on and then they’ll think we’re finished.’ That was the propeller.
CB: Yeah
AC: [Chuckle].Yeah.
CB: So, you could do an engine change at dispersal, could you?
AC: Yes, yes. We used to change them there.
CB: What would be the reason for changing an engine?
AC: If it got over heated. Yeah, ‘cause they got over heated and burned the aluminium. The heads, the rocker cover, the nuts be melted — be melted into the aluminium when it got hot.
CB: So what would cause the engine to overheat?
AC: Well, lack of coolant. Yeah.
CB: So, it would be damaged by flak or enemy attack in some way would it.
AC: Oh yes, if it was leaking. Yes.
CB: And what was the coolant on those engines?
AC: Drycol.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. The bloke who used to be in the hanger working on the Glycol tank. He had to take him into the sick bay and pump him out because he was drinking the stuff. You know it tastes like pear drops.
CB: And it made him high?
AC: Pardon.
CB: And it didn’t do him any good?
AC: Didn’t do him any good. No. Didn’t do him no good, but it tasted nice you see. That was the reason.
CB: So on the flight line, you’re — the aircraft you’re prepare it for an operation.
AC: Yes.
CB: What was the procedure for handing it over to the crew? How did they know that it was working?
AC: Well, they’d be notified by phone that — yes. It was when they expected it. It always come up with the kit. Yeah, I mean I changed one day while they were waiting — waiting to take off, I changed the hydraulic pump on the inboard — the starboard inner while the other engines were running. Yeah, yeah I did [unclear].
CB: So had this engine been running earlier?
AC: Yes.
CB: So it was a bit hot was it?
AC: Oh, yes it was well hot. But as I say I liked my job. I enjoyed my life on it. I used to volunteer to do it.
CB: And what was the link between the ground crew and the aircrew?
AC: Very close. Very close. They was very, very close.
CB: And was there one crew member more than the others or any of the crew members?
AC: All the crewmembers were like — I was on A and B, and they was flown by an Australian Squadron Leader, Robbie. We called him Robbie, and he name was Robertson actually.
CB: Right.
AC: We called him Robbie. And he, he was all right with us. You see the ground staff and the aircrew they had — well a close—knit unit, didn’t they? They they relied on you. Yeah, they were very close to ya. There was no ifs or buts about it.
CB: So you talked about clearance for their aircraft mechanically before it flew, when it came back what sort of debriefing did you have with the crew?
AC: Oh, we didn’t have any debriefing with the crew. All they said was if anything was wrong and that was done and the NCO used to ask us what was on the Flight Engineer and then that’s what we got set into. Yes.
CB: Was the main link between the Flight Engineer and the chief, the crew chief or would it be the other member of the —
AC: The Flight Engineer and the ground staff, he NCO and the ground staff was always very close. Yes, they consulted one another.
CB: And how many times did the aircraft come back damaged?
AC: Oh, I couldn’t tell ya. There was a lot of holes in it at times.
CB: And how did you feel about that?
AC: How did I feel? [Emphasis] I had the job of patching ‘em. You see I was on engines but I helped to do the patching. Riveting of a patch. Oh yes, some aircraft got real patchy. Yeah.
CB: When you say real patchy were there a number of — what sort of damage did the aircraft have?
AC: Well it, it would be shrapnel. Shrapnel holes ‘cause they were jagged. We put — just put a panel of aluminium over them. Yes.
CB: And how did you secure the aluminium plate?
AC: Pardon?
CB: How did you secure the —
AC: Rivet them.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, pot rivet them. Yeah the old pot rivets. Yeah. That was that was a regular job that. Yeah.
CB: There was a case in 15 Squadron of a Lancaster coming back without the rear turret because it had been knocked off by a bomb falling from above. Did you see that?
AC: We had the — I dunno whether if you read about the rear gunner what bailed out, well he come from Witchford. He was at Witchford, he was on ‘C’ flight and he bailed out and he shouldn’t have lived. When they got back, they found they got no rear gunner. [Chuckle]. And he was a prisoner of war. [Chuckle]
CB: So what had happened to him then? Why did he get out and how did he do it?
AC: I think he heard the pilot prepare to — you know, to bail out and he only gone to bail out and he didn’t hesitate. He opened the door and went. [Chuckle].
CB: With or without a parachute?
AC: With a parachute, but I’ll you what you looked a little bit sick when you saw the aircraft flying above ya and going home wouldn’t ya? And you was going down into captivity. [Chuckle] Oh dear. It wasn’t very nice.
CB: What other good stories do you remember about being at Witchford and 15 Squadron.
AC: Oh yes. That was one of one of them that — rear gunner bailed out and he shouldn’t have done. We — I was on A and B and they’re good, they do a very good [unclear] and I said Robbie was a pilot on it. Australian. He later went to make a Wing Commander and he was in charge of the Squadron. Yeah Robbie. We called him Robbie, that was something about it weren’t he?
CB: Well you were an ‘Erk’.
AC: Pardon?
CB: You were an ‘Erk’ and he was a —
AC: We called him Robbie —
CB: He was a senior officer.
AC: Yeah. You called Robbie. He didn’t mind. Well that was that the spirit between the aircrew and the ground staff, wasn’t it?. [Background noise]
CB: Absolutely. So that you got A and B aircraft —
AC: Yes.
CB: — the two aircraft, what about the other pilot? What was he like?
AC: Oh well, we had different pilots. It was mostly a Scotsman who used to fly. He was all right, but we did have a South African and he got his South African Air Force uniform. Khaki, and he always flew with his hat over the top of his helmet. Yeah.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Yeah, yeah he did. His name was Martin. He [unclear] was a Flight Lieutenant then. Flight Lieutenant Martin. Yeah. ‘Course we used to say he was dog biscuits, Martin Dog Biscuits, and we used to collar, collar the blokes when the NAAFI van used to come round. The officers were there and the aircrew used to collar them to pay for their tea. [Chuckle].
CB: How did you divide your time between the two aircraft?
AC: Well when we — if the aircraft had gone off you stayed in the the dispersal hut. You played cards. Gambled.
CB: No, but I mean that you had A and B aircraft, so how did you divide the work between them?
AC: Well you got to which either one it was. You went on, no matter which one. Flight Sergeant told you which aircraft you gotta do and you went on it. There was no difference. All, all I could say was B was a dirty aircraft . Oil leaks. You couldn’t stop the oil leaks. She used to leak oil all over the under cart. Yeah.
CB: So that was one of the inner engines?
AC: Engines yeah. Yeah. You naturally changed it.
CB: Right
AC: Yeah took the engine out. ‘Course the engines always went back to Rolls Royce at Derby.
CB: Oh did they?
AC: All the all the engines used to go back for maintenance. If you took one out that went to Rolls Royce. Yes.
CB: So one that you put in would always be new?
AC: Yes. Yes.
CB: And how long did it take to change an engine?
AC: About — I couldn’t truthfully say. Would I should imagine about four hours. Five hours.
CB: Taking one out and putting one in.
AC: Taking one out and putting all the connections in. Pipes and that. Yes.
CB: And was the engine raised by a lift? Or by a crane or how did it —
AC: We lifted them up by crane. We used to get, you know the, the coals —
CB: Coal cranes.
AC: We used to get him to come along and hook it up and hook it up and that’s how we did it. Just there’s only four bolts holding the engine in.
CB: Oh.
AC: That’s all that holds it in. So that the cradle, the engine’s on a cradle actually and they just pushed it in and put the four bolts in. Then you collected all the wires and hosepipes up, the pipes up. Yeah. Yes.
CB: Now in your quieter times and relaxation what did you do?
AC: Well, let’s say that I used to do a little bit of courting.
CB: Just one girl or more?
AC: Well, one or two but I ended up with one.
CB: Right.
AC: I married her.
CB: Fantastic.
AC: Yes. She a good girl to me. We was married for 52 years.
CB: Were you really?
AC: Yes. Yes she was good. She was the only child.
CB: And how many children did you have?
AC: One.
CB: Just David.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: I told them I’d lost the recipe. [Chuckle] [Shared laughter] Yeah. No, we only had the one.
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Pardon?
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Yeah. [Unclear]
CB: What would you say was the most memorable thing about your service in the Royal Air Force?
AC: Well comradeship was one of the best things, wasn’t it? There was something about during the war where you you was in a group of men and there was all youngsters like you. You know most of them was like all about 25 the oldest. That was a mess life, but it was a good life.
CB: And your accommodation at Locking was a pre—war shed, what did you get at Witchford.
AC: Nissan huts. Nissan huts.
CB: How many people in a Nissan hut?
AC: Twelve.
CB: And how was that heated?
AC: Heating was one of those combustion pot stoves in the middle. You know those cast iron things. You got nothing but fumes. I slept by the window at the end and I used to open the window but the lads didn’t like it, but if they come down and shut it, I used to get up and stop them.
CB: So, everybody suffered from the fumes.
AC: Oh yes, the stink of coke on the fire and the fumes was terrible.
CB: And even though you were all technicians you couldn’t stop the fumes?
AC: No, because they were all combustion stoves, you can’t stop it, can ya?
CB: What —
AC: Stinky things.
CB: What, what was it burning? Coke or coal.
AC: Coke. Yes. ‘Cause we’d run out of coke at one period and we managed to get some coke from the aerodrome from outside Bury St Edmunds. And I was in a gang of boys that went to shovel this coke onto the back of the truck to bring it back. Yeah. What a job.
CB: Did they did they notice that you’d nicked it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Did they notice that you had nicked it?
AC: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Well we did nick it.
CB: How about the food? How did you feel about that?
AC: Well it just depends what camp you are on. Newmarket was a good, excellent. You couldn’t you couldn’t find fault in Newmarket, but Witchford was cruel. And I think the worse one — the worse one I think was Lockheed. It was — wasn’t anything special. They called themselves cooks but they weren’t anything special. No. Skegness. Oh yes, I forget Skegness. Now that was the worse. Skeggie was the worse food. We was at the Imperial Hotel that was our place and the food there was terrible. Absolutely terrible.
CB: And who were the people doing the cooking there?
AC: They had the people doing it.
CB: Civilians or RAF?
AC: RAF. It was all RAF. Yeah WAAFs cooking it. They’d have a couple of blokes probably and in charge was a Warrant Officer, and yeah that was terrible grub. And when we went to Witchford, we — I ordered — they supplied us, give us kippers for breakfast and they was off. They weren’t right. Everybody was throwing them away, and when the caterer – bloke came round, the officer came round and asked if there were any complaints. We said, ‘These kippers are rotten.’ He said he said, ‘They were in the mess. We complained about them in the officer’s mess.’ [Chuckle]. Oh, they were rotten things. I think the grub at Witchford was the worse one in the Air Force what I had. Yeah, definitely.
CB: So what was it that was so bad about it?
AC: It was the way it was cooked and presented. It was terrible. But the best place at Ouston, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne I was stationed up there. Now that was good. It was a trainer station that’s it and that was that was good there.
CB: So in today’s terms nutrition is very varied. There’s a huge choice. What did you actually have as a staple diet in the war as a ground tradesman?
AC: Well well, there was a potato, cabbage and you didn’t get peas that was a funny thing. See frozen peas came in after the war, didn’t they? So you didn’t get peas. We got cabbage, cauliflower, yes there was parsnips, carrots. I don’t eat parsnips. I think there are horrible things but —
CB: What about meat? What sort of meat did you get?
AC: Meat? I had beef. I reckon while I was in the Middle East we had camel. [Laughter] Yes. That’s what that was. That was stringy like. So, I reckon it was camel. Yeah. I brought back a lot of memories.
CB: Hm. That’s good.
AC: Pardon?
CB: And in your time off on the camp what did you do?
AC: On the camp? Time off?
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well well when you got your time off you didn’t stop off at the camp. You went out. You went out. I mean at Weston-Super-Mare at Lockheed there you’re supposed to book in at. Well we was bad lads you see. We came in late so we came through the hedge. [Chuckle]. Like real lads.
CB: But at Skegness because it was your initial training then you were more disciplined were you?
AC: Oh yes. Oh yes we had to off the street at 9 o’clock at night. Yes. I had the misfortune, I was eating fish and chips in the shop down there at Skeggie and these here two Military RAF police come by, saw me and it’d just gone 9 o’clock. He walked in, he said, ‘You’re not supposed to be out.’ They picked up my fish and chips, they took ‘em and told me to get back to the billet quick. [Chuckle] Rotten devils. I daren’t say nothing, dare I?
CB: It was a pity to waste them wasn’t it?
AC: Yeah, I daren’t say a dickie bird. Well, you see I was a raw recruit at Skeggie.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes.
CB: So they kept you quite busy there?
AC: Oh yes, definitely. Oh yes. Yes. Marching up and down like a lot of hooligans and they took you on what they called an ‘Air Commando Course’. I could tell you, you had to go across these here three logs. Run across these three logs. Like — well like telegraph posts and they had barbed wire in the bottom of the water. So if you fell in it wouldn’t be very comfortable, would it? And you was with full pack and your rifle. I tell you what I didn’t like that. I run — when I got there I run over that. What they used to do, used to say, ‘Who’s the oldest in the mob?’ And I always remember there was a chap of 32. They sent him round, they said, ‘Right. Run round the [unclear] course.’ And they timed him and he told us we got to do it in that time. We — there was no slacking. If you if you didn’t do it in that time you’re sent round again. Yeah. So it wasn’t a holiday camp. Skegness wasn’t. No.
CB: Back onto the flight lines, so you’re working as an air mechanic, how did you link in with other people with skills like parachute packing, air traffic. Did you link in with people like that?
AC: We never come across the parachute packing and that. We never come across that. We we was more or less on the dispersal. I was just the crew there. You didn’t mix with any others. No. Well, you had —you was occupied. You was fully occupied. Then, of course, when the aircraft took off, you went out went out and got something to eat especially if it was night but you had a chitty and you walked into the messing hall, presented your chit and you got something. It was mostly egg and bacon. So we didn’t do too bad. It wasn’t too bad when it was night duty. It was quite good. Yeah.
CB: And when you did your initial training you had to do a lot of PT, how much exercise did they make you have on the airfields when you were serving there in the front line?
AC: We did get none. The only exercise you got your bike — your pushbike. You were given a pushbike and that was your exercise. Backward and forwards on the bike.
CB: So you got to dispersal on bikes.
AC: Yes. I had a Raleigh. My bike was. Yeah.
CB: How about NAAFI? How much did you use the NAAFI and what was it used for?
AC: The NAAFI? It was canteen, as I said I was a canteen cowboy. [Chuckle]
CB: Sometimes there was more attraction than others.
AC: Yeah, well I married her.
CB: Yeah
AC: I married the girl.
CB: Yeah, good move. So when did you marry?
AC: December the 1st 1945. Yes.
CB: And on that topic, before that you were de-mobbed, so what date were you de-mobbed?
AC: Well me de-mob leave went up to July, so I couldn’t tell ya exactly when I left the Air Force, but my de-mob leave ended in July.
CB: 45? [Loud background noise]
AC: Yes. And I got so fed with being at home I went to the local garage for a job and they set me on straight away. So I I was alright. Quite happy. Yeah.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you very much.
AC: Okay, thank you.
JS: What’s that? [Background noise]
CB: Your wife was in the NAAFI but what about the other WAAFs? How much did airmen link with the WAAFs?
JS: Lots [Chuckle]
AC: Oh terrific. Terrific.
CB: Were there dances on the airfield?
AC: Yes yes. Well those at Newmarket there was a WAAF there ‘cause I hadn’t met the wife yet, and there was a WAAF there and she was a CO’s driver and she was, oh dear, she was a — and after I thought I’m gonna click here. So I so I got to know her well, but she was engaged. [Chuckle] She was engaged to a soldier. Yes.
CB: Soldier? Crikey.
AC: So I thought I was going to make hay but I didn’t. She was she was a nice girl. She came from Ilford.
CB: Oh
AC: That where she come from. Yes.
CB: So, these hangers were quite big and so you could get quite a good liaison behind the hanger in the evening could you?
AC: You could get three Lancs in there.
CB: Right [Laughing]
AC: If you if you — the bloke that drove the tractor knew how to manoeuvre them, you can get three Lancs in. That was quite good weren’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: To work on them.
CB: And then in time off, the you’d be behind the hanger.
AC: Yes. No, no I wasn’t one of them. I used to go down, I used to go down to Ely to go down the town. I used to go down with a lad named Maurice and we’d have a look around town and see if there were any girls there that we hadn’t met before. We was hunters. [Chuckle] It was a good laugh, wasn’t it?
CB: Yes, and so clearly, you had some good friendships there. To what extent did you keep in touch with old comrades after the war.
AC: Not, not so much. [Background noise] I had one chap, he came from Northampton I think he was one of the closest but at Ely I had — there there was a chap who’d been in the Air Force at Palestine. He lived at, he lived at Newmarket but he’d come to Ely. Yeah, come to look me up. Yeah, Freddie Claydon. Yes.
CB: So, what were the old times you were thinking about then? Being in Palestine? We haven’t talked about that, so —
AC: Palestine?
CB: What what was the routine there?
AC: Well, I was on the aircrafts. Would it? No. I was in the MT, didn’t I?
CB: Yes.
AC: I was in the MT and we had this here Warrant Officer Smudge Smith. He was — had a mobile office. And it was a metal thing and used to get terrifically hot inside. And Smudge, we used to call him. Warrant Officer. [Chuckle] I’ll tell ya, the Air Force had a good going with the, everybody else. We had an army boy. He he he was a batman to the army liaison officer with the squadron. He couldn’t understand how we got away with so much. He said: ‘I can’t get away like you do with the officers in the army.’ He said, ‘You RAF blokes, you’re not in the forces. You’re having the time of your life.’ We did. After I left square—bashing, I tell you what I never looked back. I didn’t write home to mother and say I wanted to come home. No.
CB: When you remustered what happened to your rank?
AC: Well, well, when I remustered, I was LAC. No, I stayed as a LAC ‘cause I couldn’t get any further until I took another course and I didn’t, that was me mistake. I should have taken took up [unclear] course. That was my mistake. That was the biggest mistake I made.
CB: In the desert in Palestine, were you in the desert or were you in a fairly well cultivated area?
AC: At a RAF station. At an aerodrome.
CB: Yes. Which was that?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Which one?
AC: I was at Ramat David, Ein Shemer, and Kalowinski [?] wasn’t it? Kalowinski. Yeah Ramat David, I rather like that. Ramat David. Yes.
CB: Was that because — why was that? What was special about that?
AC: Well we was on a bit of a hill and the Jews had got a nice vineyard and we used to raid it. We used to go get the grapes [chuckle] at night.
UNKNOWN FEMALE : Hello. Sorry.
CB: Hello. We’ll stop a mo.[Restart] So they’d got all these nice grapes but but the trees —
AC: The bushes.
CB: — the bushes, I mean to say.
AC: Yeah, well you just stand there and pull them off.
CB: So what did they do about that?
AC: Well, they didn’t do nothing ‘cause they couldn’t catch us, could they? We, we took them when they weren’t around. [Chuckle].
CB: What was the airfield, the bases was a well—established airfield, was it?
AC: Ramat David?
CB: Yes.
AC: That was, that was a, that was off the living quarters we weren’t on the living quarters were separate from the airfields. Well they had to be because the Jews used to go down and break glass bottles on the runways at night.
CB: Oh did they? Right.
AC: Right you see, you did your duties, I always got searchlight duty, and I had to maintain this searchlight and you’d whaff the searchlight round and you’d catch them. There they were breaking glass on the runways, yeah.
CB: So what, what —
AC: And we weren’t allowed to shoot them. We had to let them do it and in the morning we had to go and sweep it up. Yeah.
CB: And what was flying from that airfield?
AC: Spitfires and, err what was the American aircraft?
CB: Mustang?
AC: Mustang?
CB: Was it?
AC: Yeah Mustang. Yeah 208 208 Squadron had the Mustangs and 32 Squadron had the Spitfires. Yeah.
CB: So you were dealing with transport, what, what sort of schedule did you operate in a day because it was pretty hot in the middle of the day. So did you start in the —
AC: Yes the middle of the day. 12 o’clock you packed up. You packed up. Then you went back at 6 o’clock at night.
CB: So what time did you start in the morning?
AC: In the morning? 7 o’clock.
CB: And back at six till when?
AC: Yours — 7 o’clock till 12 o’clock but you had about — a break for a meal and then you went back at 6 o’clock at night till 8 o’clock. ‘Cause you didn’t do much — there weren’t much flying at night.
CB: So where — what could you do in you off duty times? Was it quite remote in this place?
AC: In Palestine the off duty time was very very sparse. We used to go down to Jerusalem and Nazareth. Yeah. Nazareth wasn’t too bad. Jerusalem was — Jerusalem was a holiday camp. The Jews used to pop you off when you went up the mountainside. Yeah.
CB: Just shoot you?
AC: Yeah pop at ya. Shoot ya. Shoot at ya. They had they had a crafty idea to go up to Jerusalem, on the bend of the road going up the hill mountain there, they built a pyramid of stones, so you go along the road and you’ve all a sudden you got this pyramid of stones in front of you. Then they they let go at ya. So it — Palestine wasn’t a comfortable place. No.
CB: How many people got hit?
AC: I couldn’t say. But I do — what was it? Was it six? Six airmen got shot at in Nazareth walking walking along the street by the alleyway a burst of gunfire, they got shot at. They got injured. Yeah.
CB: Did any get killed?
AC: No no.
CB: What about the —
AC: I was — pardon?
CB: Go on.
AC: I was there when the Jews blew up the front out of — the what was it called?
CB: The King David Hotel.
AC: King David Hotel. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
AC: I was there then.
CB: Right.
AC: When they blew the front out.
CB: And what about the Arabs? Were they around or not it that area?
AC: Arabs? A funny thing was we got on well with them. We got well with the Arabs. I mean it was only later on that the Arabs turned because they didn’t get what they wanted. Well I couldn’t blame them. You see when the British forces moved out of Palestine like it was at our camp, Ramat David. The Jews was at the main gate when we was coming — gonna come out. They were waiting to go in and at the other side of the aerodrome there was the Arabs waiting to go on. So they had a fight. Well you know won, don’t ya?
CB: Hm.
AC: The Jews won.
CB: Yeah.
AC: The Arabs hadn’t got hadn’t got the ammunition and the guns like the Jews had. Yeah.
CB: So were you happy to leave or would you like to have stayed on in Palestine?
AC: I was really happy to leave. I was happy to leave. I didn’t think much of the place I can tell ya. No.
CB: Did you go on trips to other places in the area or did you stay in the camp?
AC: Oh yes.Yes, I was in the MT then, and we used to drive out to different places I was in I was near Damascus once, just on the outskirts of Damascus and we went all over the place, over the desert. One day we was off duty and the despatch rider said to be Geordie. He came from Newcastle, he said, ‘Arthur, I get— if I give you another motorbike,’ he said: ‘Shall we go out on the motorbike? In the afternoon, you see.’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So he got me an Indian motorbike? American Indian. Have you seen them?
CB: No.
AC: They’re like a Harley Davidson and he had the Harley Davidson, and we went in the desert and we had our revolvers and we were shooting at wild dogs until these wild dogs started to chase us. So we opened up and got out of the way. [Chuckle] It’s an exciting life in the Air Force.
CB: Clearly it was.
AC: I did enjoy it. I wouldn’t have missed it at all. I wouldn’t have missed it.
CB: Just going back to the wartime service at Witchford and Newmarket.
AC: Yes.
CB: Although you weren’t flying, officially, how many hours did you do in total?
AC: What flying?
CB: Hmm.
AC: I never took any recording — any record of it. If they were going up on air test, you say, ‘Can I come?’ and they said, ‘Jump in’ and you just jumped in. You didn’t get no parachute. So —
CB: Oh right.
AC: So you just jumped in. That was it.
CB: So where did you sit on take—off and landing?
AC: I I had the privilege of getting to the front of cockpit ‘cause I wanted to be a Flight Engineer. And I was always to the front with the pilot and the flight engineer all sat at the front there, on a canvas belt what the flight engineer sat on. Yeah.
CB: A number of people became aircrew because they had seen notices on boards in the army quarters and air force stations looking for — requesting people to apply for aircrew, did you never see one of those? What stopped you —
AC: Oh yes, I, I went originally for aircrew. I went originally for it and I passed me medical and I waited but never got called up for it.
CB: Oh. Oh right.
AC: They had too many didn’t they?
CB: They did [pause] ‘cause the losses didn’t continue as high as they thought they would.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The losses — aircrew losses.
AC: Yes.
CB: Diminished. So they didn’t have the demand quite that they had expected.
AC: There was no flying from Lockheed. No, Lockheed was a training camp.
CB: Yes, sure. Right, thank you very much indeed, Arthur.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with William Arthur Coulton
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-20
Format
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01:14:51 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACoultonWA161020
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Pending review
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.
Description
An account of the resource
William Coulton was born in Derbyshire and worked as an errand boy for the Co-Op until he joined the Royal Air Force in 1943, aged 18. He trained as a flight mechanic and was posted to 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford where he worked on Lancasters. He was later posted to Palestine with 32 Squadron where he worked on Spitfires. He was demobbed in July 1945 and married his girlfriend Hilda Elsie who he had met serving in the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute. After the war he moved to North Luffenham and worked as a motor mechanic.
Contributor
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Gemma Clapton
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Israel
Middle East--Palestine
Israel--ʻEn Shemer
Israel--Ramat Daṿid
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Rutland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
115 Squadron
208 Squadron
32 Squadron
dispersal
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Newmarket
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Witchford
service vehicle
Spitfire
tractor
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/479/8441/PClydeSmithD16020014.1.jpg
69f08cdf6d90942ca59e4d7aa46f8173
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
Clyde-Smith, Denis. Photograph album
Description
An account of the resource
33 pages of photographs of Denis Clyde Smith's family, friends, pets, and holidays as well as aircraft and service personnel.
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
2016-09-19
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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Clyde-Smith, D
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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Beach scenes, Royal Air Force scenes and DH.82B Queen Bee aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
Top left, a man in shirt and shorts sitting on the left on a beach alongside to the right a woman in dress.
Top centre, an man in shirt sleeves sitting on a beach.
Top right, five pilots standing in a row in front of a lorry. All are wearing tunics and four have side caps. In the background wooden buildings.
Middle left, a man wearing civilian jacket and tie standing on a path in front of a wooden building. There is a large bin to his right.
Middle centre, three men, one a pilot in flying suit and Mae West, the others wearing tunic and side caps. They are standing on an airfield with the wingtip of an aircraft visible on the left. In the background left side, part of a hangar and a lorry.
Middle right, Two airmen in tunic and side hat conferring in front of and between two lorries. In the background, buildings.
Bottom left, a compound surrounded by a tall wire fence. In the background, buildings, hangars and a tall tower.
Bottom centre, a DH.82B Queen Bee floating on sea alongside a ship. There is a man standing in the cockpit with a rope attached to a grappling line. Three men standing by the ships rail, two watching and one releasing the grappling line.
Bottom right a brick built officers mess with several cars parked in front.
Format
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Nine b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PClydeSmithD16020014
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
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Pending identification. Places
hangar
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
service vehicle
Tiger Moth
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/515/8747/AGreenKS150713.1.mp3
c8ff4633227b104e9027ea6a3b4661cb
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Green, Kenneth Shelton
K S Green
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Green, KS
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Kenneth Green.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MC: This interview is being conducted for, on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Mike Connock, the interviewee is Kenneth Shelton Green and the interview is taking place at Skellingthorpe Community Centre on the 13th of July 2015.
KG: As I say -
MC: OK, Kenneth, what we’ll do is, I’ll just ask you to tell me a bit about when and where you were born.
KG: Yes
MC: and err, your early days, school and the, the area you lived in
KG: Yes, right. I was born at Pleasley near Mansfield, on the 17th of January 1922, I lived variously, as a small person with my parents and partially with my grandparents, at a place called Pleasley, and it doesn’t matter what the name of the street is, it was Burghley House, B-U-R-G-H-L-E-Y House, Pleasley, near Mansfield, that’s where my parents lived and my [pause] lived with my mother’s parents when they were first married and where I was born. That’s [unclear], then moved to a small agricultural setup, called Dales Torth D-A-L-E-S T-O-R-T-H, two separate words, Danish background origin, and then we moved to a place called Skegby, S-K-E-G-B-Y, where I started school as a five year old, [pause] err, [pause]. We later moved to Nottingham where my father took up a post with the Nottinghamshire County Council in 1920, [pause] something, six, eight, thereabouts
MC: When were, when were you born?
KG: Oh, I was born 17th January 1922
MC: ‘22
KG: Err, I ‘ve gotten down out as 17, [unclear] move into Nottingham, where we had a house whilst a new house was built for my parents where we occup, which we entered into occupation in 1930 I think, at Mapperley, Gedling, Nottingham, Westdale Lane, that’s it, err, [pause]. I was then transferred to a school at Mapperley, Nottingham and was there until I, from there obtained a scholarship at Nottingham High school where I went in 1933, I think, yeh, [pause]. I had a scholarship for the same year also to Henry Mellish modern school, which I didn’t take up because I went to the high school, err, we lived at Nottingham, well Gedling it was called the address, until I was err, err, I went into business and then into the RAF, and then the Navy, and then came out.
MC: How old were you when you left school?
KG: I left school at the age of 18, 17, 17.
MC: So, did you have any employment from then?
KG: Yes, I worked for a, an insurance company at the office in Nottingham until, I went in the Air Force and I came out of the Navy, er, out of the Air Force
MC: Before you joined the Air Force, did you do anything else?
KG: I was in, oh yes, I was in the, air, auxiliary fire service, the local Carlton AFS where I was part of the team, and ultimately was an engineer with the fire engines and so forth, that’s where I first drove a Rolls Royce, which had a fire pump trailer behind it. That would be 1930, correction, 1941, two.
MC: So, what age were you when you joined the Air Force?
KG: I went into the Air Force, er, in 1942, at the age of - [pause]
MC: Yes, you would be about 19, 20 if you were born in ’22.
KG: I wouldn’t, yes, I get, I’m sorry about this.
MC: That’s ok
KG: I’m so, er, [pause] 1939 was the beginning of the war, 1940, ‘41, ah ‘42 [emphasis], I joined the Air Force, that’s it.
MC: What made you choose the Air Force?
KG: Because I wanted to fly, er, I became an engineer in the Air Force
MC: So, what was the reaction when you asked to fly, what was the action, reaction, from the Air Force when you asked to fly, said you wanted to fly?
KG: Well, I wanted to fly but unknown to me, I had astigmatism, an eye condition which prevented me being accepted for aircrew, yes,
MC: So -
KG: So, I joined the Air Force and then went to my first technical school in South Wales.
MC: Did you do any basic training?
KG: Oh, oh yes, I did my paddy, Padgate, Blackpool, square bashing, then I went into the technical college, technical, er, section of the Air Force in South Wales, erm, name. St Athan
MC: RAF St Athans
KG: Yes, I went and did my first technical course there, and became I, I, merged head of course as a flight mechanic and joined, 61 Squadron RAF, Bomber Command, 5 Group, Lancasters, as an erk, SAC, as LAC, give or take, yes LAC, 1942, yes that’s it, ’42. I stayed with squadron, until, moved to, oh, oh, wait a minute, I didn’t, I went off on a conversion course to, number 1 school of technical training, Halton, RAF, in 1943.
MC: That was conversion too?
KG: I was, I was, then became a fitter to E, engines, LAC, I joined the servicing flight of 61 Squadron, which was a new type of arrangement for dealing with [pause] periodic inspections, a separate team
MC: [unclear]
KG: A separate team, a separate team, we were an upstage from the, from the squadron, but we were still on the squadron, but we were the servicing flight, er
MC: Where was that, that was at?
KG: That was at RAF Syerston, first of all, 61 Squadron,
MC: Not far from here
KG: The squadron then moved to Skellingthorpe
MC: So, what was the -
KG: And then from Skellingthorpe to [pause] bom, bom, bom, [pause] er, Coningsby, then back to Skellingthorpe, where they have been doing some runway work in the meantime, still on 61 Squadron, er, I was then posted to a new par unit, production unit, at RAF Bottesford
MC: Can I go back to Syerston, when you -
KG: Yes
MC: First went back to Syerston, what, err, you worked, what mark of Lancaster did you work on?
KG: I worked on both Mk 2’s and Mk 1’s and Mk 3’s, the Mk 2’s then left the squadron, down to, went down to Cambridge where they shifted the whole lot, but we were the, we were a rare beast there were very few Mk 2’s made, they were, [pause] Bristol Hercules engines in a Lancaster, so I am one of the relatively small number of people who worked on those.
MC: That was all part of your training?
KG: Well no, it was part of service, I was at the squadron with them
MC: Yes, but I mean you, your training on the engines
KG: Oh well, you did, you did all engines
MC: Oh, you did?
KG: And expected, I, I took a, a works course at Rolls Royce, Derby on Rolls Royce engines in 1943 [pause], yes
MC: So, then you went on to Skellingthorpe from Syerston?
KG: But, but well I, no, whilst I was at Skellingthorpe, I went off to Derby and did a course then came back, then, I left Skellingthorpe to this, to Bottesford
MC: Can I ask you what’s, what were your reactions to the accommodation and stuff at Skellingthorpe, what was it like?
KG: At Skellingthorpe you were, you were, a Nissan hut in a field [pause] oh, over the hedge and so forth, away from the main er, sites at er, Skellingthorpe. We had a proper civilised brick establishment at er, Syerston of course, [laugh] it was not, it was not highly regarded the basic sort of Nissan huts that we ended up with at Skellingthorpe [laugh] but anyway, I use, I used not to go preferably to, well the guard room was too far away, I lived over fields so it was nearer to go over the next field over across the farm and down to erm, the station at Hykeham, where it was very convenient to catch a train to Nottingham where I lived and I er, it saved time and other things. Not to go as far as Nottingham but to get off at Carlton, which is the station before Nottingham so you didn’t meet people like SP’s who wanted to know how, why, when and where.
MC: I’d like to cover some of the experiences at Skellingthorpe if I can, erm, you know
KG: Yeah
MC: Mishaps or whatever
KG: Well, life was what it was, one worked hard, I was proud to be there, we, we went off to do all sorts of things occasionally. I went down to, I went down to [unclear] erm, Silverstone [emphasis] I went down to Peterborough, servicing was to pick up a Lancaster, it had landed down there after ops and it wasn’t working properly but in actual fact, it was that the pilot was friendly with a WAAF in the stores there [laughs]. When he was doing his OTU training [laughs], however, Chiefy and I went down by Hillman Minx sort of garry, and, er, sorted the aeroplane out which was not in dire straits, there were a few sparks out of the exhaust pipe that was it, that was the argument, err, yes
MC: So, you, you say you went down to Peterborough and it was er, -
KG: Well, yeah, I went to Peterborough to swap an engine on Mickey the Moocher as it was at er, later, 61 Squadron’s M, Mike, and the flight mechanic who was on the flights with it, he painted the first Mickey the Moocher and the Mickey, and then the trolley and the bomb and all the rest of it er, yeah and I spoke to him after the war, he lived in South Wales then er, [pause]
MC: So, you got quite friendly with the crew of Mickey the Moocher then?
KG: Oh, oh we went down to her because the third crew on Mickey the Moocher, yes, I think they were the third crew, they’d had an engine blow, starboard outer, blew up on an op and they landed at Peterborough, so, er, a colleague of mine from the squadron went down with an engine and swapped it and managed to get it all put together and back again the next day
MC: How long would it take you to change an engine?
KG: Well, it, [laughs] not long because we wanted to catch the train from Nottingham [laughs], at five thirty [laughs] from Hykeham, so we flew back by Lancaster [laughs] yeah, up to the Nissan hut in the field and then out of the back door to the Hykeham station [laughs]
MC: I gather you experienced quite a bit of an explosion at Skellingthorpe?
KG: Oh, Skellingthorpe, yes in the course of ordinary work, we did our periodic, periodic inspections which were a stage up from what, what the squadron could do and I, I was stuck on a B flight aircraft, I can’t remember which one it was now, erm, with err, another chap. I’d finished my port outer, I’d done no snags and engine ready, and it was four o’clock thereabouts and my colleague John, was in the record for the getting killed, he was doing the port inner
MC: Who with?
KG: He said, ‘look, I’ll do the run up with Chiefy, you, you scarper,’ he knew where I was going, so off I went with my bike, he stayed and shortly after I left, before I got, be, beyond sort of two hundred yards from the back over the fence on my bike going down to the station, there was a hell of a bang, and err, something had gone up. I didn’t know what it was, but of course couldn’t do anything about it, preceded on my way, get back at midnight at Hykeham and people said, ‘Oh we’ve been sweeping the deck looking for your fingernails,’ and so forth and it was er, my friend who’d kindly stayed to do the run up and this whole tractor and trailer, train of thousand pound, yellows, yankee, DA, delayed actions for daylight were tur, turning round to bomb up and servicing aircraft when you are doing bombing up was not [emphasis] a good thing to do. Anyway, my friend was blown, blown apart because the back spring on the trailer, row of trailers which was being driven by a chap, I think he was an electrician, anyway he’d broken his collar bone and he was fed up with doing nothing and he accepted the job as driving the tractor for armourers with a whole string of bombs and he was with his arm in, in plaster, he was driving one handed and the, the back spring on the back trailer which you can, you know was far off and you couldn’t see it and it broke and the back bomb [three loud taps] kept hitting the ground and it pulled the safety pin out and so forth, and, er, as he got to the aircraft where my friend was still doing his port inner engine, it went bang and the lot went from here to there and back again, so he’s, he was killed and is in the er, killed list that would be I think, October, September, October ’40, ’44.
MC: Squadron [unclear]
KG: Hmm
MC: Any other, any other -
KG: It was, it was a B Flight aircraft
MC: Any other issues like that?
KG: Well, no, I mean, whilst going, whilst, for, for a time we were going all the way down at Bottesford, a mate and I we used to go by train, from erm, from Carlton to Newark, in the mornings, and cycle, down the A1 to Bottesford, over the, over the hedge and so forth, because we had got a permanent living out chit, both of us, and both of us came from Nottingham, and we cycled, used to cycle down. I can remember this Sunday morning, winter, it would be ‘44, seeing these, these, contrails going vertically up from the ground down to the south east, and they were the German V2’s being fired from Holland into England, we didn’t know at the time but er, that’s exactly what it was, that was an interesting, you know when, when you it was sort of 5am, 6am, that sort of thing but in the early light of dawn, to see these things going up and not knowing what they were
MC: So, when did you leave 61 Squadron?
KG: Came then, on, and er, I left 61 to go down to Bottesford, for doing, doing these, we used to make, make up brand new engines for
MC: Oh, engine assembly
KG: Into power plants, we were, we were instead of a factory somewhere doing it, we were RAF people doing it, we could do it alright, we knew what we were about, we were all qualified people and, er, yes, it, it was interesting
MC: Had you got any promotions from then?
KG: No, no, it was no such thing then, out of the blue, we were slung in the, slung in the Navy
MC: So, there’s no [unclear]
KG: Which was not, [emphasis] not to our liking
MC: So, you finished up in the [unclear]
KG: So, I went off back to Padgate, Warrington, to go into the Navy, from the Air Force and there we were issued with all our naval gear. I was dressed as a taxi driver, because I was a fitter, other people were dressed as sailors, of course that suited them with the young ladies around, that suited them very much for a time, but they soon got fed up with it, all the year, and, err, we were not best pleased, we were definitely dis-chuffed, and the excuse, and they put us under armed guard, with the old barbed wire, and so forth, and that, that, really did knock people who were, you know, we didn’t like that and the politicians from London running around like scared rabbits, didn’t know what, what they were doing and they didn’t [laughs] but then they claimed they, they were propaganda game was who. The Army guard were pleased because we had got cheap cigarettes [laughs] anyways, it, it was a, talk about a hairs breath from really blowing up out there and really, we were dis-chuffed, we were very fed up indeed, [laughs]
KG: Yes, that was a, a not a very unhappy experience, then in the Navy. I was sent off to a squadron in Northern Ireland, with a, oh, [laughs] a, a low grade of training aircraft and we, one didn’t have, and I had very little regard for them and then
MC: [unclear] Can you remember what aircraft it was?
KG: Err, [pause] I could have done when I walked in [laughs], what was it
MC: [unclear]
KG: It was a single engined, target towing aircraft, and they used to tow a glider, tin, little tin gliders, fifteen-foot span, for, to be shot at by, RAF fighters in training, or Navy fighters in training. Then we left, they were building a ship at Belfast, which was, instead, they said you are going to be on our ship, for going out to Russia or Timbukthree, oh yes, before, by then, we had got Tiger force, who were going to have Lancasters to Siberia, would bomb, outbound, bomb Japan, land in the islands, re bomb and back into Russia. We were, we were quite, we could put up with that, we were, we thought that was quite interesting, and that’s where we were going to go you see, in the RAF, and then they bunged us in the Navy [laughs], all part of the story.
MC: What about flying yourself when you was, when you was
KG: I, I,
MC: When you was doing the servicing
KG: Right
MC: Did you do any test flights?
KG: In flying, I once went to the trouble, first time, a new boy, to get a parachute from stores, to go on a test flight, after doing an ordinary inspection, that’s an L plate, number one, new boy. By the time I got back, they were nearly fed up with waiting for me ‘cos I’d taken so long, to cycle across the airfield, find the stores, argue the toss with the store masters. Anyway, got back, and that’s the only time I ever got a parachute [laughs] and flew, from that time onwards, if I, if I mended it, I’ll fly it, I don’t want to know about parachutes [laughs], never again did I wear a parachute, [laughs] flying in the Air Force, that’s, that’s true [laughs]
MC: So, what was your role on the test flight, what did you do?
KG: Well I, sat on the, I looked around, sat in, lay on the rash bed or [laughs] what have you, err, you just hung around, just another, just another jolly [laughs]. I remember, from, Skellingthorpe, a young chap was a pilot, we’d done all the inspections and I, I as usual, I would always grab a flight if I could, after we’d done the inspection, and we, I can remember, I was standing in the astrodome, which was near the mid upper, and we were doing fighter affiliation as a, argy bargy with a Spitfire or Hurricane, or something and I remember looking up in the astrodome, and there was Newark [laughs] church spire looking up at me [laughs], I thought how come that, I’m upside down in a Lancaster [laughs] looking down [laughs] at the church tower [laughs]. Interesting experience
MC: How did that happen?
KG: Well, it was, we were [laughs] doing aerobatics in a Lancaster to avoid the fighter, and, and they went on ops that night, this would be late afternoon, they went on ops, that night and got the chop, never came back [laughs] probably the wings fell off [laughs] overstrained or something. Oh dear.
MC: What about socialising within the Air Force when you was off duty and -
KG: Well, we, we never had much socialising, curiously enough, as least I, I would nip off home if I could, you see, it was, that was the easiest way, and I could er, use my time personally, privately, rather better than, and RAF events, we had all the usual, booze up sort of parties and so on, but I, I didn’t drink then, [laughs] when you are younger you don’t, anyway, I used to go off home when I could, and, err, that was a case of bike, Skellingthorpe, took it in and away, err
MC: So, you had experience of the Packard Merlin?
KG: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, I -
MC: Was there much difference?
KG: Packard, oh, very different, but Stromberg carburettors, are, a, a, it’s a whole chapter on its own, SU’s, yes, I know, I know about SU’s, but Stromberg’s, they were a challenge, they were a very involved pieces of machinery, but jolly good, first class, Merlin 24’s, they were fitted to, yeh, anyway, I went into the Navy, after all, all that
MC: So, what aircraft did you work on in the Navy?
KG: Oh, these useless single engine, target towing things, and, er, and that [unclear] in Northern Ireland, oh dear, Northern Ireland, far side, you were there -
Other: Dublin?
KG: No, far side
Other: Far side of Ireland?
KG: Northern Ireland
Other: Northern Ireland? Why you come to er-
MC: Ballykelly
Other: Strabane
KG: No, no, bigger city
Other: A city?
KG: Yes, ah, [emphasis] the capital of Northern Ireland
Other: Belfast?
KG: No, opposite side, opposite side, far, far side
Other: Well, the capital is at this side
KG: Yes, yes, I know
Other: Belfast
KG: It’s the next, er, no, it’s, er, big city, beyond side of Ireland
Other: Well, there’s Limavady
KG: Northern Ireland, no, next to Limavady, and it’s quite a small place, next door to Limavady, further over, the big city, where all the, the, erm -
Other: Cork?
KG: No, no, north
Other: Yeah
MC: So, you were at Derry
KG: Yeah
MC: With the Navy?
KG: Yes, yeah
MC: So, what, where did you go from there?
KG: Then we were moved to, Cornwall, which was er, [laughs] not the brightest idea, especially as they got off the train somewhere at Crewe, then the train went, and then we found that we shouldn’t have got off, that was a genius [emphasis] naval officer, [laughs]
MC: Oh, was that still with the Navy to Cornwall?
KG: Yes, [laughs] and then I was at there, down there at Cornwall, Padstow was the end of the line, the buffers, and you couldn’t go any further, and that was then, you got off there, and you got on a garry and went to the airfield, an RAF airfield, modern built, big runways, and they served us in the Fleet Air Arm, not just in the Navy, but what was it called, north shore of Cornwall [pause] oh, dear oh dear, big airfield
MC: St Mawgan
KG: No, it’s next to there,
Other: You’ve got Wellington down there haven’t you
KG: No but, we had, in fact, they, 61 Squadron put some Lancasters to fly down to Spain from there, we lost them, Mk 2’s, from 61 Squadron, you know where I mean, I, I, it just goes blank on me, you haven’t got an atlas with you? No, [pause]
MC: So, this was a holiday estate on the north shore of Cornwall, was it?
KG: Yeh, and that was where, where, near Padstow, and then you go inland and there was the airfield, but, and on the coast, going the opposite way, there was this er, holiday resort
MC: So, were you there until you finished in the Air, in the Navy, or finished it during the end of the war
KG: No, no, they, they explained that I wouldn’t usually get out, and I would say when, when do I get my ticket, oh no you can’t, with the Navy you have to wait until your replacements come, it’ll take two or three years, and so I said words to the effect of stuff that, and so I had a word with higher up, I didn’t tell my theoretical seniors, I went over their head and said there’s a way of me getting a broken educational continuity course, civilianisation, and so forth, where, where, do I get the course for that, and suddenly out of the blue, I was posted to this naval college, which was, oh yeah, Salisbury part of the world, I mean, it’s just gone blank on me
MC: When was that?
KG:’45, I, I went then and my lot who were saying you can’t go, they couldn’t do anything about it, I said, ‘you can’t argue with head office, I’ve gone,’ so off I went, and I spent, er, er, five or six weeks becoming a civilian, we were all ranks, commissioned and non-commissioned, it was very, [laughs] and we went round visiting companies to see how companies run in civvy street, and so forth, [laughs] it was a good five or six weeks, and then when I got back, they’d, they’d found a replacement for me, and I, very shortly, I went down to Plymouth, and, and got my civilian establishment, papers, and so forth, and left them.
MC: So, post war what was your reaction to the job you did and the work you did?
KG: Well, I went back into the office and then, picked up where I’d been
MC: I’m thinking about your thoughts, on, you know, on the war itself
KG: Well
MC: And what you did and -
KG: I just worked in an office, that’s all I could -
MC: As a flight engineer
KG: No, as a clerk
MC: No, I meant during the war, what did you think of the work you’d done during the war
KG: Well, I thought I was not doing a bad job, I’d, I’d done technically, I’d learnt everything I could, I was interested, [emphasis] I learnt everything I could about Rolls Royce, I considered myself a cut, er, you know, I knew what I was doing, the other lot, not necessarily, and when we were building up power plants, you felt that you were part of the, it is, it’s a strange thing because to find yourself in effect being rather like Rolls Royce works and building their power plants which is what we were doing and we were turning out a lot of power plants, and er, they were going out on ops and being broken [laughs] etc. and we were turning out
MC: So, obviously post war then, you said you went in an office
KG: I went back into the office, and er, ultimately, I became an outside rep, and then I came up to Scunthorpe and opened a new office, the first, first North Lincolnshire office, I was running the whole caboodle
MC: I gather you ultimately achieved your ambition to fly
KG: Well, no, that went on, I then left the insurance company and went as, I joined the chairman of my commercial group, as his PA, and, and, ultimately, became the director of all the companies at Scunthorpe, and we, and anyway, there was a lot of business things I was running new lines in business in Cornwall, and Chester etc. etc., we were, we were, tied up with the sewer works, I went to, I did a tour of America and so forth, with the, with the, tying up with business people as, as I say I became a director of eight or nine companies and in the meantime -
MC: So, where did the flying come in?
KG: Oh, oh, then, but I started, I stayed in [unclear] in motor sport, car rallying, and so forth, navigating and so forth, I was in things like, all the Daily Express rallies. I was driving and co-driving and navigating on those etc. it was a pretty busy sort of existence er, I forget, one forgets about and then I, heard about flying and I thought oh I’ll try this, and started with the local Lincoln flying club, and went on and on and on ultimately flying, involved with more exotic sort of flying, and through twin engines, and night flying and airways and all sorts of things, and, er, in business I was using it of course as well because it was convenient sometimes to fly here, there and everywhere and I was a qualified, qualified pilot in night airways etc. and radio etc. etc. etc., oh well, and so it went on
MC: Er, do you, do you keep in touch with many of your colleagues from the RAF days?
KG: Er, I’m afraid there aren’t many of us left [laughs]. I’ve gone to the squadron association, and that’s, I’ve regarded that as my main link and people who I used to know have passed away or gone on, I, don’t know, these links decay and fall but Skellingthorpes the only one really that is, is my active one
MC: Well, thank you very much Kenneth
KG: Not very natural, but, er, I’m sorry, I’m, iffing and butting, but
MC: No
KG: Er, one forgets and time goes on you see, and then I retired in my sixties, but, er, I, I, then, I was the founder, and Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, new Chamber of Commerce, North Lincolnshire and so forth, North Lindsey as we call it, erm, etc., it, it just happens, and suddenly you realise, you’re eighty not sixty, [laughs]
MC: And how old are you now?
KG: Ninety-three
MC: But, it’s been lovely talking to you Kenneth
KG: Anyway, I’m sorry I’m, I’ve, been -
MC: No, it’s
KG: Wandering and I can’t remember, and anyway, you’ve helped to remind me of -
MC: Thank you
KG: And names and -
MC: Tell me about this trip up to er, Yorkshire then, what, what -
KG: What was the name of the airfield inland from -
Other: From where?
KG: From Bridlington
Other: From Bridlington, it would be Driffield
KG: Driffield
MC: Yes, so you finished
KG: I had this aircraft, 61 Squadron aircraft, and landed at Driffield, been shot up, MU crowd had rebuilt it there, we went up to spent 2 or 3 days sorting it out, weather went clampers, so we were stuck with no gear, no nothing [laughs] I know we went down to, Bridlington, and, and, shall I say extracted some free money out of the penny in the slot machines, by devious means [laughs] oh dear, anyway, then the weather improved, and that’s when we separated, everybody went off but I was left with the aircraft and the incoming CO from 61 Squadron, and the signals leader, so it was a three man crew for a Lancaster [laughs]
MC: You flew as flight engineer, did you?
KG: I flew as flight engineer, I was, I was the crew [emphasis] flight engineer, everything [laughs] you don’t argue with a CO, I mean, I had probably been in as many Lancasters as him, running up and one thing and another, but it was all part of fun and games, that would be ‘44, can’t remember when, it was before, oh, before I went to Bottesford, so it would be ‘44, summer, yeah, [laughs] you forget these things, I do.
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 Kenneth Shelton Green
Creator
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Mike Connock
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-13
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGreenKS150713
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Format
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00:41:21 audio recording
Description
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Kenneth Green was born on the 17th January 1922 at Pleasley, near Mansfield and worked with the Carlton Auxillary Fire Service before joining the Royal Air Force at the age of 20.
He trained as an engineer after he was unable to fly due to eye problems, and worked on a variety of engines, including the Bristol Hercules, Packard Merlin and the Rolls Royce Merlin engines.
He tells of his time on base, the explosion that took the life of his friend, and the work he completed on the Avro Lancasters and worked on the Mark 1, 2 and 3’s.
Kenneth joined 61 Squadron, and served at Skellingthorpe and Bottesford, before working with the Royal Navy where he worked on single engine aircraft.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Vivienne Tincombe
61 Squadron
bombing up
fitter engine
ground crew
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 2
Lancaster Mk 3
military living conditions
Nissen hut
RAF Bottesford
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
service vehicle
tractor
V-2
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/537/8773/Vera Willis.1.jpg
8d1fedc2c1660f17d81c02f7d9ea19c7
Dublin Core
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Title
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Willis, Vera
V Willis
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Willis, V
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Vera Willis (2136822 Women's Auxiliary Air Force).
Date
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2015-08-15
2015-08-28
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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 Vera Willis
Creator
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Heather Hughes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-28
Format
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00:35:41 video recording
Type
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Moving image
Identifier
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AWillisV150828
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH transcription
Description
An account of the resource
<span>Vera Willis volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force because she wanted to be a driver. Her driving career in the RAF involved driving driving aircrew to dispersal. <br /><br /></span>This content is available as embedded video:<br />
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8eb8qnsPpPM?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
Language
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eng
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
207 Squadron
dispersal
ground personnel
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Spilsby
service vehicle
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force