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Interview
With Aneurin Owen

When the war began, did you join up to the Air Force immediately?
‘N´Ç.’
Did you choose to join up or did you have to?
‘No, I didn’t have to join up, and the Air Crew is volunteers only. So, I volunteered to go in January 1942. I tried to volunteer earlier than this, but I was too young and had to wait. I went on the ATC course first, though.’
What is the ATC course?
‘Air Training Course. That was at Lutterworth.’
What planes did you fly in throughout the war?
‘I started off in a Tiger Moth, and then went onto a Dominie, then a Proctors, then into Avro Ansons, then Wellingtons, then Lancasters.’
Which was you favourite?
‘Obviously the Lancasters! But the Tiger Moth was a very nice plane; also, the Dominie was as well, a biplane.’
Which did you spend the most time in?
‘L²¹²Ô³¦²¹²õ³Ù±ð°ù.’
What squadron were you in?
‘I was in two squadrons. The 153 and the 12 squadron.’
How many bombing raids did you do?
‘S±ð±¹±ð²Ô’
Why did you choose the Air Force?
‘I was already in reserved occupation, and there were only two things that I could go in, either the Air Force and flying, or in a submarine! I didn’t like the submarine very much, so the choice was obvious! I also chose the Air Force, because I became interested in flying in the 1930’s, when I used to go flying locally. It was very interesting then.’
How long were you in the Air Force for?
‘About 3 to 3 ½ years’
How long did the training last for?
‘Nearly two years training, altogether.’
Where did you train? In Lutterworth?
‘No, I only did the ATC course there. I also did the ATC course at Desford for the Tiger Moths. Other training was at various airbases across the country.’
How many people did you fly with on each aircraft?
‘On the Tiger Moth, you had two, then up to the Lancaster which had seven. Then the Dominie used to take five pupils an instructor, a pilot and others; about seven in total, and the Avro Anson was about 5 or 6 people.’
In the Lancaster, what position were you?
‘Wireless Operator’
How often did you come home when you were in the Air Force?
‘In the Air Force, about every three months, on leave, and we used to have a weekend break about every six weeks.’
How often did you go on bombing trips?
‘It depended on many things, really. Some people were unlucky and had to go for every night for several nights running before you had a break, but I used to get a day or two between missions.’
How much notice were you given before you went on a bombing trip?
‘Every day, in the morning, you would have a list of battle orders, which was a list of names who would go if there was a bombing trip that day. Sometimes there would be nobody. But you would usually know if you were going by about the middle of the afternoon of that night. It was only a few hours before. If there was a raid and you were on the battle orders for that day, then you would know that you would have to go on that evening.’
In England, where did you eat, sleep and live whilst you weren’t flying?
‘We lived on the airbase, and normally, on most bases, there would be houses for accommodation nearby, on the airbase, near the edge of the base area. If, however, the airbase was built during the war, we would have huts which would sleep about 20 people per hut. In the squadron, if you were on a pre-war airdrome, had houses which we would use. There would be about one house for each crew. That was the normal procedure. And if that wasn’t available, you would have a large dormitory, where again, 16-20 people would be able to sleep.’
So it was fairly cramped?
‘Yes. Fairly cramped, but not too bad. You had baths and showers and other things in the block, you see.’
How long did bombing trips last for?
‘It could be anything up to 9 hours. It varied between 6 and 9 hours, but normally about 7-8 hours.’
Were there any decoy air bases nearby, that you knew of in England?
‘Not around us, but there were huge amounts of real air bases around, just within a few miles. The next one nearest to us was sometimes as close as 2 miles away! That was what it was like in the early part of the war, but they had many air crashes and accidents, and had to close some down. There were no actual decoy airbases or things like that near here, anyway.’
Did the enemy have decoys?
‘Yes, a lot of decoys around to try and track the bombers off their main targets.’
When was your first mission?
‘It was about the end of March in 1945.’
Where did you bomb?
‘Many places. Dock yards, some in Kiel, and we used to bomb the Rhine area quite a bit.’
Did you drop anything apart from bombs, like food?
‘Yes, food in Holland. We did five trips of that, the last one on VE day morning, at the end of the war.’
Did you know how well your missions went?
‘Yes, sometimes. They would ask you questions on how well the bombing raid actually went, and what problems you had, like being attacked by fighters or caught in search lights. You would also take a photo of the area to see where your bombs had dropped.’
Do you know anything about the radar, and how it helped the war effort?
‘Yes. Radar was used to help you find your way about, but couldn’t actually be used in bombing raids because the Germans used to have homing devices so that they could home in on you, and attack you by homing in to your radar. So, you couldn’t always use it. You had to rely on signals from the UK to get you there sometimes.’
Did the Nazis have radar?
‘Yes, they did. They had radar controlled search lights and ack-ack guns as well. Also, some of their fighters had radar to help them pick up enemy bombers.’
Did you go on bombing raid with other types of aircraft?
‘No; We always went with other Lancasters if we were on a Lancaster, and were with the same crew.’
How many other aircraft would go with your plane on a bombing raid?
‘A very large number. Almost 600 or 700 all went at once. Anything from 500 up to 1000 at the same time. You can imagine all of those planes close together in the air. You would get mid-air crashes occasionally, because there were so many other aircraft with us at the same time. We went with so many, because it was safer, and the mission could also do more damage to the enemy. All the aircraft would fly at different heights at different times. So, if you concentrate 600 aircraft over a target in about 20 mins, it’s a very short period of time. So. If you have them at different levels, and at different times, they can avoid each other’s bombs when they drop them, in theory. However, it was quite dangerous, especially near the end of the war, because aircraft could often drop bombs on each other. Unfortunately, this sometimes happened, but usually the aircraft and crew survived. It was one of my jobs, as Wireless Operator to look out for anyone about to drop bombs on top of your aircraft. Unfortunately, Bombs could explode very easily, and when they collided with your aircraft and exploded, they could cause extreme damage, even destruction.

The Germans had radar, particularly in the night fighters, and then they could pick up a bomber and follow it. They used to have guns pointed up and forwards, so that they could get into a blind spot behind your aircraft, and try to shoot you down. Also, some searchlights were radar controlled. They were a bluish colour and were far more powerful than normal searchlights, and once they found you, they would lock onto your aircraft with radar. The rear gunner also had to look out to make sure that we weren’t getting ack-ack fired. (Ack-ack fire was radar controlled anti aircraft fire). And, the rear gunner used to be able to watch it from behind; the exploding shell would be in the track in which you aircraft had just flown. Then you would know that you were being tracked by radar, so you would have to change course quickly, and hope that the radar didn’t catch up with you. You would change your course, then count up to 20, then change again and start the process again. We had to do this, because it would only take 30 seconds from when you were first picked up by the ack-ack radar, to when you were hit by a shell. This would mean that they would not be able to shoot you using this method, because they would not be able to pick you up quickly enough.’

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