蜜芽传媒

These personal memories are for the benefit of my children, Lesley, Neil and Nicolas (died 9 May 2005), and grandchildren, Samuel, Michael and Dominic.

My sister Joan and I were brought up at 35 Endsleigh Gardens, Ilford, Essex. I was born on 6th August 1922. Joan on the 24th November 1924. Our parents were Leonard Albert and Edith Ellen (Forsdike). We were educated firstly at Highlands Primary School. At the age of 12, passing the entrance exam, I went to Leyton Technical College, later transferring to the new South West Essex Technical College at Walthamstow.

WWII broke out on 3 September 1939. On that Sunday morning, having listened to Neville Chamberlain making the announcement that we were now at war with Germany, a school friend and I discussed what the future might hold in store. I remember saying that it would probably be like WW1. How wrong could I be?

The air raid sirens sounded a few minutes later but this proved to be a practice. Until the spring of 1940 things were very quiet until Hitler attacked the Low Countries and the evacuation at Dunkirk followed by the Battle of Britain during the summer of 1940.

One day, I cycled with a friend - David Robbie (killed in RN 1940) 鈥� via the Woolwich free ferry to his aunt鈥檚 house at Chislehurst near Biggin Hill the famous fighter airfield. No sooner had we arrived at lunchtime when the air raid sirens went and we watched the circling RAF fighters and German bombers and fighters at altitude of 20-30,000 feet producing vapour trails. I recall my friend鈥檚 aunt frantically calling us into the air raid shelter. A little later we saw a fighter coming down with smoke from its engine. We leapt on our bikes and headed off in the direction of the plane. It crashed into a cornfield not far away. By the time we arrived a number of people arrived. A soldier was guarding the wreckage. We thought this madly exciting.

My sister Joan had a friend Peggy Norton whose sister had met some of the Battle of Britain fighter pilots from Hornchurch. At her birthday party were several of these pilots - British and Polish. They were enjoying themselves drinking and singing RAF songs and generally relaxing. I wonder if any of them survived. At that time I was just 17, approaching 18.

When finishing my schooling I joined Ilford Ltd, then known as SELO, as a laboratory assistant testing new types of photographic emulsions for military purposes. My wages were 15 shillings a week. My immediate superior, a doctor with a family, received something like 拢5 a week.

For a year I worked in their research laboratory, my immediate boss being Dr Cyril Dodds with the head of research being Dr Glaf Block. We were experimenting on fast and infrared films for the War Office for the three Services. Most of the work was in dark rooms with miniscule lighting dependant on the sensitivity of the emulsion. As the main basis was ammonia I found the conditions very unpleasant and unhealthy.

I was also a member of the firm鈥檚 Local defence Volunteers (LDV) later to become the 蜜芽传媒 Guard. Our task was the protection of the factory buildings during the bombing of London, which started after the Germans discontinued their attacks on our fighter airfields in order to bomb our cities.

One night on guard duty from about 8p.m and after doing my usual daily stint in the labs, the air raid sirens sounded. Very soon our area was being splattered with high explosives and thousands of incendiary bombs. Half our factory buildings were on fire and with my 蜜芽传媒 Guard colleagues we attempted to fight the fires until the Auxiliary Fire Services arrived. But we were not successful and lost a lot of the factory buildings.

After the raid was over I cycled home about midnight, my clothes were soaking wet and slightly burnt in places. I had a bath before going to bed - somewhat exhausted - leaving my damaged clothing on the bathroom floor. What a shock for my mother when she saw this the following morning but was very relieved when finding me fast asleep and uninjured apart from a few singes on my hands and arms.

In another air raid mother and sister Joan were in our Andersen air raid shelter in the garden, father was away on ministry food business, I took a bath before going to bed. Like father I usually decided against going down into the shelter. Whilst in the bath I heard screaming coming from the garden. Peering through the blackout curtains the garden was ablaze with light as I saw an incendiary on the top of the shelter. Mother and Joan obviously thought they might be blown to pieces. I shouted out that it was only an incendiary. Putting on a coat I dashed out and with a spade removed the bomb and covered it with earth.

Later we had one through the roof, which I managed to remove, before it did much damage and also helped our neighbours to put one out. Before going to bed I climbed over the back fence and had a look around the house at the back, which I knew my neighbours had evacuated for the country. Unfortunately they had left the curtains over the window and as all seemed o.k. I retired to bed until about 2 hours later a tremendous crash woke us up as the roof of the house caved in due to an incendiary.

Finally on bomb incidents, one evening walking with my Alsatian dog Prince, during another air raid and only a few hundred yards from our house, I saw what appeared to be a parachute draped over a garden wall. It was a parachute bomb, which had not exploded, the Germans used delayed times on some of their bombs. After alerting the neighbours the bomb dispersal team arrived and disposed of it.

I often walked Prince whilst air raids were on sometimes wearing father鈥檚 WW1 steel helmet. Fortunately I was never hit by any bits of shrapnel from our ack-ack shell bursts.

October 1940 being fed up with my job I decided to volunteer for the services. Always having a love of the sea I thought I would volunteer for the Royal Navy. So instead of going to work on that Saturday morning I had a diplomatic cold and cycled to the nearest recruitment centre at Romford, some 7 鈥� 8 miles away in a commandeered school. Whilst with others in the waiting room hall a R.A.F. corporal came out from an office and asked if 鈥渁ny of you young gentlemen were interested in aircrew?鈥� I asked him what that was about 鈥� at that time I had no knowledge of aviation but enlisted for the R.A.F.

PART II: MY AIRCREW EXPERIENCES IN THE R.A.F. FROM NOVEMBER 1940 UNTIL APRIL 1946.

At the Romford recruiting centre, having decided to volunteer for aircrew instead of the Royal navy, I was given a preliminary medical and filled in some forms, and was told I would be hearing from the R.A.F. in due course which I took to be perhaps weeks or even months. So on the Monday back at work I didn鈥檛 mention that I had volunteered for the R.A.F. But only two days later I was notified to report to the R.A.F. aircrew selection board at Uxbridge. Then of course I had to tell my boss at Ilford Ltd. who said that as I was in what was called a "reserved occupation" I would have to stay on. I pointed out that this policy didn鈥檛 apply to volunteers.

I duly reported to Uxbridge for the aircrew selection and attestation. After a complete medical examination and suitability tests, I was selected for training as a wireless operator and air gunner immediately, or to be deferred for about three months before pilot training. Being very impatient I opted for the first, being told that I could possibly re-muster as a pilot although at that time, due to losses, there was a greater demand for air gunners.

At the end of the three days at Uxbridge we were told to collect railway warrants and proceed to Blackpool. I had to point out that I had to give my employer at least seven days notice. This wasn鈥檛 taken too kindly and that I was now in the Air Force should do as I was told. However they relented and gave me the seven days. My bosses at Ilford Ltd. were not too happy about it all and in retrospect neither did mother when I told her I had volunteered for the R.A.F., which later I could fully understand. I think father had a different view and seemed quite proud of what I had done. I am sure he was disappointed at being too old for military service but he spent the war as an instructor in the 蜜芽传媒 Guard.

Before reporting to Blackpool I visited various friends and relatives including my Uncle Maurice 鈥� a great favourite of Joan and I. He asked whether I had heard that day鈥檚 good news 鈥� Mussolini had joined forces with Hitler? I said no but queried whether it was good news? He replied that as the Italians were now our enemies we were bound to win the war. He was remembering his WW1 experiences in the trenches when the Italians were our allies. The Germans attacked, the Italians went into full retreat, leaving the British units almost surrounded.

My uncle was severely wounded by a shell burst and whilst being stretchered back his stretcher bearers were both killed by another burst which caused more injuries to uncle. At the first aid post the army surgeon was about to amputate his leg when the medical orderly noticed his toes moving so it was decided not to amputate. Uncle Maurice lived to 92 in reasonable health although with a limp and a degree of awkwardness with the damage to an elbow.

In the first week of my R.A.F. career at Blackpool we were kitted out and received so many inoculations and vaccinations against cholera typhus typhoid etc. we thought the medics viewed us as pincushions. A section of us were posted to Morecombe for what was known as square bashing and rifle drill.

On that Christmas Day 1940 it was bitterly cold with snow showers. We were doing physical training (PT) on the sands, being watched by a number of civilians huddled up on the promenade. I saw one waving to us and recognised father who was now in the area on Ministry of Food business. We had a brief chat before I had to rejoin my squad for drilling, then on to our Christmas dinner.

Whilst at Morecombe I went to the local theatre one evening where Richard Tauber 鈥� the world-renowned tenor 鈥� was performing.

After almost four weeks of drilling and rifle practice - which I actually quite enjoyed - I went to my next posting, Desford near Leicester, for ground defence duties. I was bitterly disappointed, as I was looking forward to starting my aircrew training. This proved to be the first of three or four delays in my training caused through shortages of training aircraft and bad weather. At Desford I and other aircrew cadets spent about three months doing guard duties around the airfield parameter. The unit was No.7 EFTS to train pilots initially on Tiger Moths. I recall watching one aircraft under-shooting, hitting a couple of trees with its wing tips which collapsed and the fuselage falling to the ground with the uninjured pilot still in his cockpit.

Some of the airfield hangars were used by a firm called Reid and Signist whose contract was to repair damaged Bolton Paul Defiants. We sometimes used to go over the pile of wrecked aircraft and break off pieces of cockpit perspex to make signet rings and brooches until the time I saw in the remains of an aircraft the gruesome remains of its pilot.

My next posting 鈥� back to Liverpool - I started my training proper. This involved Morse code the major means of communicating during the war. To qualify, at 18 words per minute 鈥� later 22 鈥� we took our exams above Burton's the tailors. This was the origin of the expression "gone for a Burton" when an individual failed his exams 鈥� the expression used to define the death of an airman.

From Blackpool I was posted to the advanced radio school at Yatesbury in Wiltshire for further training - mainly technical - but as yet no flying. Then more disappointment. Instead of further aircrew training others and I were posted to ground wireless stations linking all areas of the UK. My posting was to Filey on the coast near Scarborough East Yorkshire, where I spent a frustrating 9 months. This included the winter of 1941/42 when the town was virtually cut off for several days.

In addition to our radio duties we were part of the defence of that part of the coast in the event of a German invasion that seemed to be imminent. In an emergency we had to man searchlights and machine gun posts along the "Briggs" a cliff top peninsular. To reach these positions we had to learn to find our way through the defensive minefields along the cliff top.

Then came the night, 2 a.m. in pouring rain and high winds, with explosions and flashes out at sea. It seemed that the invasion had started. My colleagues and I wended our way along the cliff top, through the minefield, to our petrol driven searchlight housed in a small wooden leaking hut. For what seemed ages we struggled to get the one-stroke engine going trying to dry out the spark plugs. Eventually we succeeded. About two hours late we were called down and staggered back to dry out in our billet. The emergency was caused by the escape from Brest of the German battleships Scharnhorts, Grisenower and Prince Eugene up the North Sea. What we saw and heard was our aircraft and navy attacking the German ships that managed to escape to Kiel, Germany.

One day, walking down Filey High Street with one or two airman colleagues we saluted an elderly Group Captain who reprimanded us for walking in an unmilitary manner and asked what the flashes on our forage caps were for. We explained we were aircrew cadets. He was not impressed and told us to smarten up. His medal ribbons indicated he was from WW1. The next thing we knew was that he had arranged for us to be posted to the newly formed RAF regiment school nearby where we had to undertake their assault course. This included long heavy marches through mud wading streams and ditches, followed by the more interesting rifle firing and throwing live hand grenades. At least the Group Captain ensured we were much fitter aircrew after completing this course.

Another activity at Filey - though our unit was only about 20 strong - we fielded a very strong football team and successfully beat most other R.A.F. units in the area. One of my particular chums was Jack Rougham who was later killed whilst bombing Dusseldorf in 1943 on Stirlings. Much later I learned that many other of our group of 20 did not survive the war.

Then came my next posting to the first course set up at South Kensington, London, for more technical wireless training. With a great pal of mine, Reg Graynoth, we often arrived back at our billet 鈥� Queen Consort Mansions, by the Albert Hall - long after hours. We discovered a back way in to avoid the S.P. (military police). Once we were warned for oversleeping and being late on parade. Another occasion we fell asleep in the fuselage of a Hampden bomber that we were working on in the Science Museum. We woke up about 18.00 to find the others and instructors had gone and the museum locked up. After some time one of the duty air-raid wardens let us out.

My next posting, August 1942, was back to Yatesbury Wiltshire for further training and first experience of flying on De Havilland Dominies and Proctors. On one hot Sunday afternoon, after lunching on pork chops we were doing a Directors Finding exercise in a Dominic at about 1,000 ft bouncing around in turbulence. That was the only time in my flying career that I was sick. Even in Burma in the vicious turbulence of the monsoon I did not repeat this. We finished our flying training at Yatesbury on the two seater Proctor. We were severely warned by our instructor of the consequences of failing to wind in the training aerial before landing. There had been several incidents of these failures one resulting in the 200 ft aerial - with lead weights in the end - wrapping itself around the neck of a cow. The R.A.F. of course had to pay compensation.

That was the completion of my wireless training. The next posting, which I had looked forward to for so long, was to No.1 Gunnery School at Pembrey, Llanelli in South Wales. On arrival at the parade ground we were welcomed by the C.O. Group Captain Fear, followed by our two gunnery instructors and by the chief admin NCO Flight Sergeant Flitt who told the 30 of us that due to further bottle necks caused by air shortages and bad weather (November 1942) half of us, including my friend Reg Graynoth, would be starting their air gunnery course that day. The other 15, including myself, would be in pool flight doing menial duties for a week. That was the parting of the ways until the end of the war for Reg and myself.

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