Allan David Stephen Barr was born on the 11^th September 1930 in Glasgow. His father, also Professor Allan Barr, was a highly respected theologian and a moderator of The United Free Church of Scotland. His grandfather was Rev James Barr MP, a pacifist, a great advocate of home rule for Scotland, the Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and a moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland.

Allan was nearly 9 years old, and living with his family in Edinburgh, when World War 2 started. The first bombs of the war were in fact dropped on Edinburgh by the Luftwaffe as they tried to destroy the Forth Rail Bridge. Their bombs fell well wide of their target, hitting Edinburgh Zoo, which is on Corstorphine Hill, less than half a mile from the family home. The only casualties were a number of monkeys killed as their enclosure was hit. Allan was to comment years later that it was clearly a cynical attempt by Hitler to wipe out the Edinburgh intellectual elite. Shortly after this raid, children were evacuated from Edinburgh. Allan went to stay with friends of the family in their country house in Alloa, in central Scotland. He enjoyed it, living and playing in the countryside. A few months later however the evacuees returned to Edinburgh as it became clear the city was no longer being targeted.

Allan was always a bit concerned that he had stepped away from the then family line of professions which generally were those relating to the church, to medicine or to the arts. He went initially to Bristol and undertook a Student Apprenticeship at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, successfully completing this along with an ONC (Ordinary National Certificate) in Engineering. This gave him the practical foundation he desired and was a factor in him thriving in his engineering degree course at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1952 with 1st Class Honours. Allan’s excellence in academia and his thirst for understanding led him to becoming a Carnegie Research Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, completing his PhD in 1956, and subsequently lectured at the university.

Allan learned to fly as a member of the University Air Squadron at Edinburgh. He flew Chipmunks, Prentice and Tiger Moth aircraft. His passion for aircraft and flying came largely from the Second World War where his older brother, Jim, flew Swordfish aircraft. Allan did manage to “crash” a plane: the front wheels dug into soft grass so that when he applied power the tail lifted high into the air and the nose and propeller dug into the grass, largely destroying the aircraft, so much so that he had to write a letter of apology to the King. We are not sure if he got a reply, but he did continue to love aircraft and flying! For Allan’s eightieth birthday his family got him a flight in a Tiger Moth at RAF Duxford. He took the controls for a while, and he loved it.

In 1964, along with his family, Allan went on a sabbatical as a Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor to Cornell University, in New York state. On his return, he was appointed a Senior lecturer, then a Reader, and in the early 1970s acting Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. In 1972, Allan took up post as Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Dundee, a position he added to from 1983 to 85, becoming Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. In 1985, Allan and his wife Eileen moved to Aberdeen where he took up the Jackson Chair of Engineering, at the University of Aberdeen, becoming the Head of the Department of Engineering, and ultimately Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical & Physical Sciences. He was made Emeritus Professor of Engineering in 1996.

Allan was bright, quick witted, intelligent, funny, and with such a broad range of interests that he pursued to a high level. He retained a desire to understand how things worked, particularly things mechanical. He had a real passion for motorcycles as well as cars, although at times he seemed to spend more time under them than in them. That practical side to his engineering knowledge and capability made him an even more complete professional engineer. Allan was a self-taught and accomplished pianist, able to read music. He enjoyed playing jazz the most.

Before Allan retired, he and his wife Eileen moved to their house at Auchattie, near Banchory, in Scotland. Their shared passion for gardening led them to develop a creative and beautiful garden. Allan’s interests and passions flowed naturally in his retirement; working lovingly on his old cars, from Land Rovers to Alfa Romeos; salmon fishing with friends on the River Dee; walking up Scolty Hill and in the stunningly beautiful Deeside; reading from his wide range and vast number of books; still doing academic work, with A3 sheets spread across his study desk covered in detailed calculations; feeding the birds and red squirrels by hand (although the grey ones got shot); more applications for his practical engineering skills too, with the sceptic tank being a big feature; he became a local church elder (as he had done wherever he lived); he enjoyed visits from family and friends, including in particular from his sister Margaret.

Allan was never one to boast or to blow his own trumpet about anything, not least his excellence in his profession as an engineer, an academic and a teacher: But let us do a bit here on his behalf:

Professor Allan D. S. Barr was a great Scottish academic, and leading researcher, with over 50 publications on his principal research area, that of dynamics and non-linear vibration. He also related his academic knowledge to practical applications. He secured numerous research grants and externally funded programmes (many of which are still classified) including work for the US Department of Defence (relating to military aircraft structures), and work for the UK Ministry of Defence (relating to submarine survivability to underwater shock), and work for Rolls Royce plc (relating to the optimisation of gas turbine blade design).

Allan was highly supportive of all of his students, including mentoring dozens of successful PhD students. He was a great, respected and dedicated lecturer and teacher, able to simplify challenging concepts, relate them to practical applications and experiences. He was an external examiner to a number of other UK Universities’ Engineering Departments, including the University of Newcastle, the University of Southampton and the University of Belfast.

Allan was a strong supporter of his profession and he did receive significant recognition from his peers. Over the years he has been:

• The Chairman of the Scottish Branch and a Member of the Council of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
• A Member of both the Technology and Scottish committees of the University Grants Committee.
• A Member of the Scottish Committee of the University Funding Council.
• A Member of the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
• A Member of the Executive Group Committee of the Engineering Council.

He was a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Allan David Stephen Barr; beloved husband to Eileen for over 63 years, father to David, Richard and to Christina. Grandfather (Grandpa) to Laura, Andrew, James, Tom, Emily, Lewis, Euan, Heather and Eilidh.

Allan is in many ways a very hard, nay impossible act to follow. A very complete life, a very complete man. Here there is no honorary degree, nothing we can physically award to Allan. Our tribute must lie in our hearts, in our memories and in our prayers of thanksgiving. It is left to sum up his life and his family’s love for him and his memory in the words applied to top graduates – summa cum laude – with first class honours.

David, Richard & Christina

October 2022

The post Professor Allan D S Barr appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

He joined the Canadian army so that he could fight for his country during WW1.

During the Depression he had no job and his wife’s teaching certificates were not valid in Canada so she couldn’t find work either.

With 3 children to support, Joan’s grandparents (Gardener and Cook at the Manor House) and aunt managed to scrape enough money together for her mother and the 3 children to return to England by boat in 1935. After returning to her family home in Collingham she secured a teaching post and continued to teach until retirement. Her husband remained in Canada although they were never divorced. She received his Canadian Army pension so ended life quite well off.

A neighbour on Goulding Street in Winnipeg, affectionately known as Auntie Sumner was originally from Liverpool. She had been widowed with 7 children during WW1 and had taken in English airmen while they were training in Canada.

After the war, in around 1948, she came to England with her daughter and granddaughter to visit those airmen and their families. However, the families didn’t know her and were reluctant or unable to accommodate them and their multiple suitcases and with rationing, couldn’t feed them, so they kept returning to Joan’s grandparents’ house in Collingham.

She brought gifts as a thank you, including the Christmas swags.

Joan followed in her mother’s footsteps and trained as a teacher, taking up her first post in Mansfield in 1948, earning £39pa.

In the early 1950s there were few baubles available in the shops but when she could afford to, she bought a few.

Joan’s sister met and married an American GI and lived in a park home in Florida. Joan made an annual trip to visit her sister until her late 80s.

Joan has kindly donated these delicate items to the IBCC.

The post A Heritage Christmas Gift appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

Nimrod was the RAF Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft (LRMPA) which served on No 42 Sqn based at RAF St Mawgan, No 120 Sqn, No 201 Sqn and No 206 Sqn, all based at RAF Kinloss, and finally No 203 Sqn based at RAF Luqa in Malta. The role of the aircraft was primarily surveillance of the Russian Navy and their Submarine Force, but it carried out many tasks including Long Range Search and Rescue, and Fishery Protection duties around the United Kingdom. In more recent conflicts the Nimrod Mk2 took on more surveillance roles flying over the battlefield.

Three Nimrods were built for the special task of Electronic Reconnaissance and were designated Nimrod R, they served on 51 Sqn based at our local airfield of RAF Waddington. 51 Sqn was a Bomber Command Unit during World War 2 and served in No 4 Group flying out of RAF Snaith in Yorkshire.

XV256

On the 17^th November 1980 XV256 was taking off from RAF Kinloss with a crew of twenty on board from 206 Sqn. The crew were converting from the Nimrod Mk1 to the upgraded Nimrod Mk2, and had instructing staff flying, hence the large crew onboard. Immediately after take-off the aircraft had multiple birdstrikes with Canadian Geese which were transiting between their overnight roost and their daily feeding grounds. The birdstrike caused damaged to three engines, the pilots were unable to maintain height and the Nimrod crashed into Roseisle Forest approximately 1300 yards from the end of the runway, and was engulfed in flames. The two pilots were killed, but the rest of the crew managed to escape from the aircraft, although some were seriously injured.

XV239

The aircraft from 120 Sqn RAF Kinloss, was performing an Air Display at the Canadian International Airshow in Toronto on the 2^nd September 1995. The display was performed above Lake Ontario and during one of the manoeuvres the aircraft appeared to stall and crashed into the lake. All seven crew members on board were killed.

XV230

Exactly eleven years to the day, since the tragic events at Toronto, another 120 Sqn aircraft crashed in Afghanistan killing all the crew and two specialist operators from the Royal Marines and the Parachute Regiment. The aircraft XV230, which incidentally was the first of thirty-eight Nimrods to enter operational service, was on a surveillance mission on the 2^nd September 2006, supporting coalition forces engaging the Taliban. Shortly after refuelling from a RAF Tristar a catastrophic fire broke out, the aircraft tried to make an emergency landing at Kandahar airfield, but exploded in mid-air killing everybody on board. This event culminated in the single biggest loss of life of Service Personnel, since the Falklands War in 1982.

Roll of Honour

17^th November 1980 XV256 No 206 Sqn, RAF Kinloss

• Flight Lieutenant Noel Anthony (Royal Australian Air Force)
• Flying Officer Stephen Belcher

2nd September 1995 XV239 No120 Sqn, Toronto, Canada

• Flt Lt Dom Gilbert
• Flt Lt Glenn Hooper
• Flt Lt Nick Brookes
• Flt Lt Bernie Worthington
• Sergeant Gary Moxham
• Sergeant Richie Williams
• Sergeant Craig Barnett

2^nd September 2006 XV230 No 120 Sqn, Afghanistan

• Flight Lieutenant Steven Johnson
• Flight Lieutenant Leigh Anthony Mitchelmore
• Flight Lieutenant Gareth Rodney Nicholas
• Flight Lieutenant Allan James Squires
• Flight Lieutenant Steven Swarbrick
• Flight Sergeant Gary Wayne Andrews
• Flight Sergeant Stephen Beattie
• Flight Sergeant Gerard Martin Bell
• Flight Sergeant Adrian Davies
• Sergeant Benjamin James Knight
• Sergeant John Joseph Langton
• Sergeant Gary Paul Quilliam
• Corporal Oliver Simon Dicketts (Parachute Regiment)
• Marine Joseph David Windal (Royal Marines)

To order a stone to honour your relative, friend or associate please click here

The post Nimrod Stone appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

Kindly donated by Mike Baxter

It may be of interest to hear something of the details and routines of Lancaster flying which lie behind the entries in my log book. Some of these facts and figures were part of my role as the flight engineer, but the pilot was also inescapably involved in many things as, being the captain of the aircraft, his word was law.

I will start on the ground under the general heading of accidents. During my time at Wickenby very few aircraft actually crashed on the airfield, although there were several landing incidents. The reason for this was in part due to the availability of so many other airfields in the vicinity, so that if an aircraft was short of fuel, a landing could be made elsewhere if necessary. The same situation also applied to aircraft which had been damaged, and in this respect several airfields with long runways were set aside for emergency use (the most notable of these being Marston in Kent). In spite of these facilities though, numerous crews did try to get their aircraft home, only to crash in the circuit whilst attempting to land. Wickenby was no exception to this and at least two accidents occurred for this reason. I saw one of these aircraft afterwards and it was completely burnt out. Of the landing accidents, the worst one I remember happened to a Halifax which broke up on touch-down, fortunately with no loss of life. A few aircraft force-landed with their wheels up which often meant ruined engines when the propellers hit the ground. In addition to these unavoidable “prangs”, there were others that could only be put down to pilot error, such as swerving off the runway (which often meant the collapse of the under-carriage) or, amazingly enough, the retraction of the under-carriage whilst standing in dispersal!

Taxiing accidents were few, but a heinous crime was to swerve off the perimeter track and get bogged down. This resulted in forced labour for the ground crew, and the pilot was always “fined” a minimum of ten shillings to compensate them! I cannot remember a take-off accident whilst I was at Wickenby, apart from one occasion where a pilot swerved but was able to pull up before any harm was done. Another occurrence which merited a fine was to pick up a parachute from the ground by the ripcord instead of the carrying handle if one was not paying attention, and this had the embarrassing result of one having to collect the parachute together and take it to be repacked at a cost of at least 2/6d!

I will now move on to deal with the fuel and oil. The fuel used was always 100 octane petrol which was coloured green for identification purposes, and also to prevent theft. The aircraft had six tanks, all in the wings, which contained a total of 2,154 gallons. A cross-feed pipe was fitted which allowed the transfer of fuel from one side to the other if a tank had been damaged. On later aircraft from about 1944, nitrogen was supplied to the tanks as the petrol was used up, minimising the risk of explosion. All the tanks were self-sealing. 150 gallons of lubricating oil were carried, 37½ gallons to each engine. The oil consumption was one to two gallons per hour per engine, depending on its condition. An engine exceeding a usage of more than two gallons per hour needed changing.

Now to the actual flying procedure. Having done all the external and internal checks we were ready for take-off. The flaps would be set at 25 degrees if the aircraft were laden, or 15 degrees if light. The engines would be progressively opened up by pushing the throttle levers forward whilst the pilot held the aircraft against the brakes. At about zero boost, the brakes would be released and the throttles opened fully, with the port side slightly ahead to counteract a tendency for the aircraft to swing. The pilot opened up the throttles, and in case his hand should slip, I had to follow up behind him. The tail would be raised as we charged down the runway with the engines straining away at the maximum power of 3,000 rpm and +12lbs boost, and making a fearful noise. (Engine development allowed an increase to +14lbs boost during 1943, and later +18lbs in 1945.) Some indication of the power the engines produced can be imagined from the fact that 40 gallons of petrol were used up on take-off alone! Take-off speed was 95-105 m.p.h. and on the runway at Wickenby (other than the short north-east one), the aircraft would lift off without effort. As soon as we were airborne I was instructed to retract the undercarriage, and then to raise the flaps when at about 800ft. At 1,000ft the power was reduced to 2,850 rpm +9, and shortly after that to 2,650 +4, staying at that while we were climbing. At 10,000ft it was necessary to put on our oxygen masks. During the climb I would be monitoring the gauges and filling in my log sheet. The rate of climb depended on the air conditions and the engine power, which in turn depended on the engine coolant temperatures, so a certain amount of juggling would take place with the controls. The normal speed in a climb was between 145 and 175 m.p.h.. No doubt the word “boost” is a mystery to most people, but it is quite a simple term which indicates the pressure in the inlet manifold in pounds per square inch above the normal atmospheric pressure. An automatic boost control would advance the throttle levers as we climbed up, but there would come a time at about 13,000ft when the supercharger ratio would have to be changed to a higher one (known as ‘S‘ gear) to maintain the power.

If we were flying on operations we would probably be crossing the English coast by now, and the pilot would normally call out this piece of news, followed by an instruction to the gunners to take the safety catches off their guns. At this point one of them might ask permission to make a test firing of their weapon. Soon after this would come the time-honoured phrase “Enemy coast ahead”, and we now had to keep a very sharp look-out as trouble could be expected at any time. Having reached our operations height of 20,000ft plus, the engine revs would be reduced to 2,550 rpm and the throttles adjusted to give +3lbs boost, this being the normal cruising power necessary to maintain altitude. The speed would be about 150 m.p.h., but might require some alteration on request from the navigator if his timings were out of step. We were constantly reminded that we flew in the best aircraft of its type in the world, and to reinforce this view we would usually see the other types down below us struggling along! To clarify the word “see”, this would only apply in moonlight, but on dark nights we could see the pattern of exhaust flames and identify the aircraft by this method. The poor old Stirlings were usually the lowest, but I must admit that we did pass them occasionally at our own height. They had radial engines, and one could see their exhaust rings glowing in the darkness; often was the time that we could see four red rings flying along and knew that we were actually looking at a Stirling. If we could see them, so could the Jerries, and I wondered why more of them were not shot down.

On arrival at our target I was often amazed to see the ferocity of the anti-aircraft fire. Searchlights were everywhere as well, and the scene was compounded by the fires already on the ground and the various coloured flares hanging in the sky. The flak appeared as a sheet wall of bursting shells with no way through, and it was here that we benefited from the experience and calm manner of the pilot. The bomb doors were opened and our bomb aimer would be in position to sight the marker flares and guide us in the right direction. By now we were in the thick of it and the noise was deafening – a veritable vision of Hell! We heard the aimer giving corrections, and shortly afterwards it was “bombs gone”. It was hardly necessary for him to shout this as the aircraft leapt upwards when they were released and I was nearly knocked off balance. Far from the danger now being over, the next few moments were potentially the worst of the raid, for there now came a photographic session! Simultaneously with the bomb release, a flare was dropped which lit up the ground sufficiently to show on a photograph taken by a special camera so that the target area could be confirmed. The film was exposed for several seconds as the bursting of the flare, planned to occur when the bombs were half-way down their descent, could not be predicted to a second. The object was to obtain a record of where the bombs were likely to have fallen, not necessarily the explosion itself. So in order to allow for this variation in the operating time of the flare, it was crucial for the pilot to hold the aircraft straight and level for a period of eleven seconds. As can be imagined, they were almost unbearable as there was an irresistible temptation to spin away and get out of it.

We will now assume that we have closed the bomb doors and are “getting the hell out of it”! The navigator would have been on the ball and would now be giving us the course to fly on the homeward leg. As I have mentioned before, this was usually flown on a gradual descent accompanied by much twisting and turning. Our speed would have increased to between 180 and 220 m.p.h. and the engines set to 2,400 rpm +4. I would have to be alert to change the superchargers back to normal ratio at the appropriate time, but there would be no problem in remembering to take our oxygen masks off at 10,000ft. This would be to the accompaniment of three cheers from all and sundry! Throughout the homeward journey I would be keeping my log and changing the fuel tanks at intervals, and of course not neglecting my other duty as spare look-out. Apart from the unwelcome sight of an occasional night fighter, there was always something of interest to see in the night sky. If there was a touch of moonlight or the glow of the setting sun, there would be scenes of great beauty to behold with the clouds lit up in fantastic patterns; on several occasions I saw the Northern Lights at play. A starlit night was very pleasant to contemplate, and sometimes useful to the navigator too if he required to take an astro shot. There were other, more sinister things to be seen, an example of which were sudden flashes of fire on the ground which more often than not signalled shot-down aircraft crashing. Sometimes flares would light up the sky, and as these usually heralded fighter activity, we had to redouble our vigilance to guard against sudden attacks. At times like this I was reminded of the huge notice in the crew room “Eternal vigilance is the price of safety” – we couldn‘t help reading it often enough, and there were a multitude of opportunities to practice it. On some raids marker flares were dropped by our pathfinders to indicate a turning point, but these were usually used on the outward leg only.

Having braved all that the enemy could throw at us (and having faced our own defences more than once!), we would proceed to our bases in a more relaxed frame of mind, helped on our way at intervals over England by radio beacons transmitting a call sign in Morse which we could identify. Shortly before reaching home we would don our oxygen masks again, this being the second most dangerous part of the trip as collisions could easily occur, and we had to be completely alert. On landing we were whisked away to be debriefed, via the locker room where our flying kit would be deposited. The aircraft captain did most of the talking on these occasions, but the rest of us had our say if there was anything of note to report. Later on when Flight Engineer Leaders were in existence, the engineer would also report to him briefly and hand his log in. The F/E Leader would subsequently work out his air miles per gallon ratio, and if it was unsatisfactory a later meeting with the captain would be held to try and improve matters in the future. Normally a figure of one air mile per gallon was acceptable and this rested on the engineer‘s powers of persuasion over the pilot if it was to be achieved. The crews‘ lives often depended on it; hundreds of aircraft crashed unnecessarily when a bit more attention might have been paid to fuel conservation.

The post Life with a Lancaster appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

It is a true story with a few embellishments in this chapter only. There are no accurate records of this period in Billy`s life.

“Gunner B” A Fifer

The year is 1929, Billy is 14 years old.

It`s 5 o clock in the morning.  It’s dark, it’s freezing and it’s December. Billy snuggles deeper into the old wooden cot that his Uncle Jim made for him. An old oak outhouse door and wooden props nicked from the pit. Nail it all together and there you have it, a bed.

The mattress is a starched, linen sheet that his Ma stitched together to make, what looks like a huge pillowcase. It’s stuffed with old wool. Wool that was blown across the fields during the shearing season, a few summers ago. His Ma and his sisters would all go searching the fields around Fife during the summer, hunting for that precious wool to turn into pillows, cushions and mattresses. They’d share some of it with their friends and neighbours, or barter it for herring, tatties and coal. On a good day. they might even get a rabbit or a hare. Food was scarce.

As usual, his Pop is already up and Billy can hear him throwing some more coal on the fire in the kitchen, getting it ready for his wife, Annie, to come through and make the porridge and tea for the men of the house, before they faced another 12 hour day of toil at the bridge. Coal that Billy had riddled out of the dross that came up from the Milton Mine on his only day off, which was a Sunday.  Sunday was a “lie in” day and Billy would snuggle under a wool blanket and a big pile of coats that belonged to his sisters. Thank Christ his parents didn’t attend the Kirk. A day of rest? Aye sure.

It’s the start of another week and if Billy doesn’t shift his backside and get up quickly, his Pop will come through and roar at him from the bedroom door. Maybe chuck a lump of coal at him. He was like that, or so I was told.

Having left the school just a few weeks ago, at the start of the summer, Billy, like most other lads in the village was immediately pressed into employment. He joined Pop and his crew and went off to build bridges and sea walls. Most of his pals and classmates were either sent down the coal pits or were working on local farms for a shilling a day. 12-hour days. A penny an hour. Billy didn`t fancy either for a full-time job and that’s why he persuaded his Pop to let him work in the family firm. There wasn’t going to be any pits or farms for Billy. Wages amounted to the same, a shilling a day and free digs. Billy had to learn to pay his way.

His Pop was a well-known construction engineer and bridge builder who travelled all over Fife, building small, stone, iron and wooden bridges over streams and burns, mostly in the countryside.

Billy had already worked with his Pop and the crew ever since he was allowed to wear long trousers. At 12 years old, weekends and school holidays meant Billy would be up at the same time as Pop, 5 am. It felt like it was the middle of the night, but he loved working outdoors, especially in the countryside. It was a welcome change from school and the crew continuously wound him up, kidding him on every chance they got.

Pop was a hard boss. He was mostly a blustery old beggar and ranted at the men for the smallest infringements. Billy was regularly cuffed around the earhole or had his backside kicked for not paying enough attention.

His Pop had always drummed it into him that he must “stick in and pay attention” at his lessons at school or he could end up like the others,  “doon the pit”, or worse.

Even at 14 years old, Billy was into everything that the crew were doing, and they would let him take part in building the stonework on the bridges or digging foundations. He was a strong wee lad and full of confidence. One of his first jobs was to look after the two Clydesdale Horses that pulled the firm’s wagon. They were housed in an old shed at the back of the house in the Milton. Billy and his sisters would take turns to feed, brush and groom them. Pop would come out and make sure the horses were being looked after properly. God help anyone who veered from his strict instructions.

Without the horses, there would be no work.

Billy was a fast learner and even though he was a nuisance sometimes, the crew relished having him around. He had a “face full of cheek”, as they would say in Fife. But he was a comical distraction at times, especially at “piece time”, when the men would tuck into cheese bannocks that were toasted over the fire, each man had an old tin full of scalding tea which young Billy had brewed over a fire in a charcoal black kettle earlier. Sometimes the men would send Billy into the surrounding fields to pinch a few big potatoes that went into the fire an hour or so before piece time.

Billy would regale them with stories of what he got up to at school with his pals. He always had a big smile when he told his tales, and they were received with some scepticism and wry smiles.

Aye, Billy was a grand wee lad.

In the years that followed, the firm found steady work and were building sea walls as well as bridges.  Where there was water, there was work.

Billy grew into a strong, clever and extremely driven young man. He was a team player and judging by the photographs that accompany this chapter, it`s fairly obvious that he was accepted as one of the crew, even though he was the boss’s son.

It is rumoured that the relationship between Billy and his Pop became quite fractious as time went on. Billy may have come up with better ways to engineer the bridges. He had a natural capacity for engineering.

At some point in Billy`s teenage years, his Pop forced a job on him that meant, Billy getting into an old Atmospheric diving suit and being submerged into deep water at a work-site, maybe a sea wall.

One can only imagine what a terrifying experience that may have been for a young lad.  No training, no health and safety and probably very little knowledge on diving.

This story was passed on through the family for many years after and it may have been a turning point in the waning relationship that Billy had with his Pop.

At school, Billy had excelled in arithmetic, maths and English and kept up with his studies long after leaving school. He couldn’t see himself as working in his father’s shadow for long and, furthermore, he wanted to work with mechanical engineering and possibly engines. Billy had dreams. He wanted to be a proper engineer. He wanted to fly, literally.

Whilst still in his teenage years, we don’t know exactly when, Billy disappeared. He left his job, family and home in the Milton.

To be continued in part 2

The post Billy’s Story Part 1 appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

OVERVIEW

This website is operated by Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial. Throughout the site, the terms “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial. Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial offers this website, including all information, tools and services available from this site to you, the user, conditioned upon your acceptance of all terms, conditions, policies and notices stated here.

By visiting our site and/ or purchasing something from us, you engage in our “Service” and agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions (“Terms of Service”, “Terms”), including those additional terms and conditions and policies referenced herein and/or available by hyperlink. These Terms of Service apply to all users of the site, including without limitation users who are browsers, vendors, customers, merchants, and/ or contributors of content.

Please read these Terms of Service carefully before accessing or using our website. By accessing or using any part of the site, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to all the terms and conditions of this agreement, then you may not access the website or use any services. If these Terms of Service are considered an offer, acceptance is expressly limited to these Terms of Service.

Any new features or tools which are added to the current store shall also be subject to the Terms of Service. You can review the most current version of the Terms of Service at any time on this page. We reserve the right to update, change or replace any part of these Terms of Service by posting updates and/or changes to our website. It is your responsibility to check this page periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to the website following the posting of any changes constitutes acceptance of those changes.

Our store is hosted on Shopify Inc. They provide us with the online e-commerce platform that allows us to sell our products and services to you.

SECTION 1 – ONLINE STORE TERMS

By agreeing to these Terms of Service, you represent that you are at least the age of majority in your state or province of residence, or that you are the age of majority in your state or province of residence and you have given us your consent to allow any of your minor dependents to use this site.

You may not use our products for any illegal or unauthorized purpose nor may you, in the use of the Service, violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright laws).

You must not transmit any worms or viruses or any code of a destructive nature.

A breach or violation of any of the Terms will result in an immediate termination of your Services.

External Website disclaimer

International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC)

The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. Any information is provided by external suppliers and while they endeavour to keep the information up to date and correct, IBCC make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

In no event will IBCC be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this website.

Every effort is made to keep the website up and running smoothly. However, International Bomber Command Centre  takes no responsibility for, and will not be liable for, the website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond our control.

SECTION 2 – GENERAL CONDITIONS

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

You understand that your content (not including credit card information), may be transferred unencrypted and involve (a) transmissions over various networks; and (b) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks or devices. Credit card information is always encrypted during transfer over networks.

You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service or any contact on the website through which the service is provided, without express written permission by us.

The headings used in this agreement are included for convenience only and will not limit or otherwise affect these Terms.

SECTION 3 – ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS AND TIMELINESS OF INFORMATION

We are not responsible if information made available on this site is not accurate, complete or current. The material on this site is provided for general information only and should not be relied upon or used as the sole basis for making decisions without consulting primary, more accurate, more complete or more timely sources of information. Any reliance on the material on this site is at your own risk.

This site may contain certain historical information. Historical information, necessarily, is not current and is provided for your reference only. We reserve the right to modify the contents of this site at any time, but we have no obligation to update any information on our site. You agree that it is your responsibility to monitor changes to our site.

SECTION 4 – MODIFICATIONS TO THE SERVICE AND PRICES

Prices for our products are subject to change without notice.

We reserve the right at any time to modify or discontinue the Service (or any part or content thereof) without notice at any time.

We shall not be liable to you or to any third-party for any modification, price change, suspension or discontinuance of the Service.

SECTION 5 – PRODUCTS OR SERVICES (if applicable)

Certain products or services may be available exclusively online through the website. These products or services may have limited quantities and are subject to return or exchange only according to our Return Policy.

We have made every effort to display as accurately as possible the colors and images of our products that appear at the store. We cannot guarantee that your computer monitor’s display of any color will be accurate.

We reserve the right, but are not obligated, to limit the sales of our products or Services to any person, geographic region or jurisdiction. We may exercise this right on a case-by-case basis. We reserve the right to limit the quantities of any products or services that we offer. All descriptions of products or product pricing are subject to change at anytime without notice, at the sole discretion of us. We reserve the right to discontinue any product at any time. Any offer for any product or service made on this site is void where prohibited.

We do not warrant that the quality of any products, services, information, or other material purchased or obtained by you will meet your expectations, or that any errors in the Service will be corrected.

SECTION 6 – ACCURACY OF BILLING AND ACCOUNT INFORMATION

We reserve the right to refuse any order you place with us. We may, in our sole discretion, limit or cancel quantities purchased per person, per household or per order. These restrictions may include orders placed by or under the same customer account, the same credit card, and/or orders that use the same billing and/or shipping address. In the event that we make a change to or cancel an order, we may attempt to notify you by contacting the e-mail and/or billing address/phone number provided at the time the order was made. We reserve the right to limit or prohibit orders that, in our sole judgment, appear to be placed by dealers, resellers or distributors.

You agree to provide current, complete and accurate purchase and account information for all purchases made at our store. You agree to promptly update your account and other information, including your email address and credit card numbers and expiration dates, so that we can complete your transactions and contact you as needed.

For more detail, please review our Returns Policy.

SECTION 7 – OPTIONAL TOOLS

We may provide you with access to third-party tools over which we neither monitor nor have any control nor input.

You acknowledge and agree that we provide access to such tools ”as is” and “as available” without any warranties, representations or conditions of any kind and without any endorsement. We shall have no liability whatsoever arising from or relating to your use of optional third-party tools.

Any use by you of optional tools offered through the site is entirely at your own risk and discretion and you should ensure that you are familiar with and approve of the terms on which tools are provided by the relevant third-party provider(s).

We may also, in the future, offer new services and/or features through the website (including, the release of new tools and resources). Such new features and/or services shall also be subject to these Terms of Service.

SECTION 8 – THIRD-PARTY LINKS

Certain content, products and services available via our Service may include materials from third-parties.

Third-party links on this site may direct you to third-party websites that are not affiliated with us. We are not responsible for examining or evaluating the content or accuracy and we do not warrant and will not have any liability or responsibility for any third-party materials or websites, or for any other materials, products, or services of third-parties.

We are not liable for any harm or damages related to the purchase or use of goods, services, resources, content, or any other transactions made in connection with any third-party websites. Please review carefully the third-party’s policies and practices and make sure you understand them before you engage in any transaction. Complaints, claims, concerns, or questions regarding third-party products should be directed to the third-party.

SECTION 9 – USER COMMENTS, FEEDBACK AND OTHER SUBMISSIONS

If, at our request, you send certain specific submissions (for example contest entries) or without a request from us you send creative ideas, suggestions, proposals, plans, or other materials, whether online, by email, by postal mail, or otherwise (collectively, ‘comments’), you agree that we may, at any time, without restriction, edit, copy, publish, distribute, translate and otherwise use in any medium any comments that you forward to us. We are and shall be under no obligation (1) to maintain any comments in confidence; (2) to pay compensation for any comments; or (3) to respond to any comments.

We may, but have no obligation to, monitor, edit or remove content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service.

You agree that your comments will not violate any right of any third-party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, personality or other personal or proprietary right. You further agree that your comments will not contain libelous or otherwise unlawful, abusive or obscene material, or contain any computer virus or other malware that could in any way affect the operation of the Service or any related website. You may not use a false e-mail address, pretend to be someone other than yourself, or otherwise mislead us or third-parties as to the origin of any comments. You are solely responsible for any comments you make and their accuracy. We take no responsibility and assume no liability for any comments posted by you or any third-party.

SECTION 10 – PERSONAL INFORMATION

Your submission of personal information through the store is governed by our Privacy Policy. Click here to view our Privacy Policy.

SECTION 11 – ERRORS, INACCURACIES AND OMISSIONS

Occasionally there may be information on our site or in the Service that contains typographical errors, inaccuracies or omissions that may relate to product descriptions, pricing, promotions, offers, product shipping charges, transit times and availability. We reserve the right to correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions, and to change or update information or cancel orders if any information in the Service or on any related website is inaccurate at any time without prior notice (including after you have submitted your order).

We undertake no obligation to update, amend or clarify information in the Service or on any related website, including without limitation, pricing information, except as required by law. No specified update or refresh date applied in the Service or on any related website, should be taken to indicate that all information in the Service or on any related website has been modified or updated.

SECTION 12 – PROHIBITED USES

In addition to other prohibitions as set forth in the Terms of Service, you are prohibited from using the site or its content: (a) for any unlawful purpose; (b) to solicit others to perform or participate in any unlawful acts; (c) to violate any international, federal, provincial or state regulations, rules, laws, or local ordinances; (d) to infringe upon or violate our intellectual property rights or the intellectual property rights of others; (e) to harass, abuse, insult, harm, defame, slander, disparage, intimidate, or discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, age, national origin, or disability; (f) to submit false or misleading information; (g) to upload or transmit viruses or any other type of malicious code that will or may be used in any way that will affect the functionality or operation of the Service or of any related website, other websites, or the Internet; (h) to collect or track the personal information of others; (i) to spam, phish, pharm, pretext, spider, crawl, or scrape; (j) for any obscene or immoral purpose; or (k) to interfere with or circumvent the security features of the Service or any related website, other websites, or the Internet. We reserve the right to terminate your use of the Service or any related website for violating any of the prohibited uses.

SECTION 13 – DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

We do not guarantee, represent or warrant that your use of our service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free.

We do not warrant that the results that may be obtained from the use of the service will be accurate or reliable.

You agree that from time to time we may remove the service for indefinite periods of time or cancel the service at any time, without notice to you.

You expressly agree that your use of, or inability to use, the service is at your sole risk. The service and all products and services delivered to you through the service are (except as expressly stated by us) provided ‘as is’ and ‘as available’ for your use, without any representation, warranties or conditions of any kind, either express or implied, including all implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, merchantable quality, fitness for a particular purpose, durability, title, and non-infringement.

In no case shall Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial, our directors, officers, employees, affiliates, agents, contractors, interns, suppliers, service providers or licensors be liable for any injury, loss, claim, or any direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, special, or consequential damages of any kind, including, without limitation lost profits, lost revenue, lost savings, loss of data, replacement costs, or any similar damages, whether based in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability or otherwise, arising from your use of any of the service or any products procured using the service, or for any other claim related in any way to your use of the service or any product, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of the service or any content (or product) posted, transmitted, or otherwise made available via the service, even if advised of their possibility. Because some states or jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or the limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, in such states or jurisdictions, our liability shall be limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

SECTION 14 – INDEMNIFICATION

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial and our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, officers, directors, agents, contractors, licensors, service providers, subcontractors, suppliers, interns and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, made by any third-party due to or arising out of your breach of these Terms of Service or the documents they incorporate by reference, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third-party.

SECTION 15 – SEVERABILITY

In the event that any provision of these Terms of Service is determined to be unlawful, void or unenforceable, such provision shall nonetheless be enforceable to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, and the unenforceable portion shall be deemed to be severed from these Terms of Service, such determination shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any other remaining provisions.

SECTION 16 – TERMINATION

The obligations and liabilities of the parties incurred prior to the termination date shall survive the termination of this agreement for all purposes.

These Terms of Service are effective unless and until terminated by either you or us. You may terminate these Terms of Service at any time by notifying us that you no longer wish to use our Services, or when you cease using our site.

If in our sole judgement you fail, or we suspect that you have failed, to comply with any term or provision of these Terms of Service, we also may terminate this agreement at any time without notice and you will remain liable for all amounts due up to and including the date of termination; and/or accordingly may deny you access to our Services (or any part thereof).

SECTION 17 – ENTIRE AGREEMENT

The failure of us to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms of Service shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

These Terms of Service and any policies or operating rules posted by us on this site or in respect to The Service constitutes the entire agreement and understanding between you and us and govern your use of the Service, superseding any prior or contemporaneous agreements, communications and proposals, whether oral or written, between you and us (including, but not limited to, any prior versions of the Terms of Service).

Any ambiguities in the interpretation of these Terms of Service shall not be construed against the drafting party.

SECTION 18 – GOVERNING LAW

These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of IBCC, Canwick Avenue, Lincoln, LN4 2HQ, United Kingdom.

SECTION 19 – CHANGES TO TERMS OF SERVICE

You can review the most current version of the Terms of Service at any time at this page.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to update, change or replace any part of these Terms of Service by posting updates and changes to our website. It is your responsibility to check our website periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to our website or the Service following the posting of any changes to these Terms of Service constitutes acceptance of those changes.

SECTION 20 – CONTACT INFORMATION

Questions about the Terms of Service should be sent to us at nicky@internationalbcc.co.uk

The post Terms & Conditions appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

Frederick William James Perkins

Leading AirCraftman (LAC) 1143173

Main Service: Fitter Armourer General, Liberator Bombers, Middle East Theatre.

Joined Full Time Service 23 May 1941

Began Overseas Service 13 August 1943

Ended Service 26 May 1946

Joining and Basic Training

I volunteered to join the Royal Air Force in February 1941. I went to Worcester to volunteer and I wanted to be an aircrewman. I was enrolled and sent up to Padgate, in Lancashire, to be tested for an aircrew roll. Straight off, I could see what I was up against for a place in aircrew training. Everyone else was from a university at a time when being a student meant you were the cream at the top, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance.

They accepted me into the RAF but put me on deferred service for aircrew. I got sent back into civi-street and I had a card that said I was in deferred service so I couldn’t be put into another branch of the military, but could get called up at any time to the RAF. Eventually I was called up and sent to a different airbase for training as an engineer, instead.

First Posting

I had my first proper posting down in RAF Christchurch, by Bournemouth (the airfield no longer exists). It was a radar research place, then, and they were experimenting on improving the radar system that had just been invented. I was assigned as general ground crew to part of the Telecommunications Flying Unit (Later the Radar Flying Unit).

It was civilian billets at that point, a couple of us in each house: one airman and one technician. They were quite big houses and they looked out over the sea. Being on the south coast, the beach and the bottom of the gardens were strung with thick barbed-wire in case of invasion by boat. On a Friday, I went to the Paymaster General, to collect the rent, twenty-four and sixpence for the week, bed and breakfast.

Often, in the morning, we would have to go out and round up the New Forest ponies that would wander onto the airstrip in the night. We had to get the tractor and move them off before the planes could take off.

One day, I was walking past the Flight Officer’s office, an old cricket pavilion, and he said to me “You wanted to be aircrew, didn’t you?” I said I did. He said “I’ve got just the job for you. Go down to the flight office and pick up a parachute, then go up to the end of the runway”. When I got to the end of the runway, not much more than a grass strip, there was an aircraft called a FaireyBattle. It was a lovely aircraft with a Rolls-Royce engine, and it was all metal. They were supposed to be a fighter-bomber but weren’t very good, so they were being used for training radar. It was perfect for radar testing as the metal body was great for screwing all these little di-pole reflectors into.

So I got in this thing, in the back as an observer and lookout, and off it took, the wing-tips wobbling as it went over the grass. We went out over the Channel and I was to look out for German fighters. In those days, the Germans were there, only twenty nine miles away in France. We flew out over the Channel, then came back in and they would test the radar detection zones with the aircraft to determine the distance and direction that the early warning system would work. We would go out into the Channel, come back in, then down towards the west coast and over Torquay, then come back to Christchurch.

As we came back in, the pilot said “How do you feel, you look a bit green?” I told him “I feel a bit green!” He told me to come back the next day, and sure enough we went up again, almost in the same area, then off towards Southampton to test that coverage. Southampton was an important area with all the docks. I felt a bit ill, then, with all the ducking and diving there, what with having to avoid all the barrage air balloons and the like.

I went up a number of times, as a look-out. When I wasn’t in the back of the FaireyBattle, I would work on the petrol bowsers. They carried a thousand gallons of high-octane petrol, with a fifty gallon oil tank dragged behind. I would fill up the aircraft fuel and make sure the engines and controls were well oiled.

I had a few days leave, then. When I came back, I asked if there was any chance of going up again in the ‘Battle. The Flight Officer said “You’ll be lucky, the aircraft was shot down over the Channel!” No-one knew what had happened, it had disappeared over the Channel, and that was it. They carried on the effort with several other planes, but I didn’t get to go up again.

We weren’t at Christchurch for that long. We built some dome huts to live in, moving out of civilian billets, and I remember one night playing cards in one of these huts. The Germans came along and dropped some bombs right down the back of us and I thought they’d hit us directly. The explosions blew out the candles and plunged us into darkness and I thought for a moment that I was dead. We had a lot of aircraft there: Beaufighters, Mosquitoes, FaireyBattles, others, all fitted up with radar and camouflaged with trees and nets. Parts of the airfield were hit, but the bombs missed all the planes, they didn’t touch any of them.

I nearly got hit several times. One night I went to the cinema and there was a raid. The Lyon’s Cafe, on the corner, got hit and when we came out of the shelter, the cafe wasn’t there anymore. Another time, I was cycling from Christchurch to the nearby airfield of Hurn. I heard the sirens go off, so I was peddling like mad, and all of a sudden I heard a swissssh. A line of bombs was dropped in front of me, in between Christchurch and Bournemouth.

Of course, now the Germans knew where we were. They knew we were developing radar in such a way, and that it was such an important technology. They knew where we were, and seeing as we were just the other side of the Channel to them, it was too dangerous to stay. We had to move.

We spent three days getting everything into the back of lorries, three dozen of them, and we moved up to Salisbury Plains. From there, we used the cover of darkness to go north. The lads in the back had no idea where we were going. We just piled into the back of some jeeps and followed the lead truck. Eventually, we arrived at Defford, in Worcestershire, just east of Malven. It was just fields of tall grass and broad beans, when we got there, and the sweet smell hit us as we got out of the jeeps. We had to get the farmer out to plough the fields before we could use them. After the planes had arrived, we built a better runway and we stayed there for some time. RAF Defford was born and we carried on with radar work. You can still see some of the radar dishes there, today.

One day, I was helping the top engineer with one of the fighters. He was having problems getting the oil pressure up in the engine and was revving the engine very high. The plane was jumping up and down with the vibrations until it jumped right over the chocks holding it in place. It started off down the runway with the engineer inside. It took him to the bottom of the runway to put the breaks on and get it stopped. We had to tow it back up the field with a truck, eventually, when everybody had finished laughing!

Full Time Fitter Training

After that, I was called up to Kirkham, in Lancashire (what is now HM Prison Kirkham) for a training course for fitters and armourers. The course would normally have run for several years, but was condensed down into about fourteen months for us. (Between 1939 and 1945 RAF Kirkham trained 72,000 British and allied service men and women. In November 1941 Kirkham became the main armament training centre for the RAF, with 21 different trades and 86 different courses on equipment and weapons varying from 22 riffles to 75mm guns.)

We were trained by Rolls Royce civilian trainers. There were about five hundred of us in a big hangar, twenty five in a row, each section with an instructor. The training was great, there was no better training than the RAF. I used to enjoy it, I was quite keen on the job.

We were trained in a number of different trades including blacksmithing, tinsmithing, coppersmithing, hydraulics, the lot. They took you from scratch. We had weeks of filing and grinding six-inch blocks of steel. You would file it flat, by hand, or make dove-joints, splits, rivets. Then you would start over on a new piece. The raw material would come on a tip-up truck and would be dumped in a pile for you to grab a piece when you needed it. It was easy to take a bit more of the metal off, but if you made a mistake and took too much off, you couldn’t put it back on, you’d have to start again!

We had the best tools, too. We had some lovely sets of tools, especially later when I was working on the Liberators. I had a big leather wallet with about twenty files in it: flat, smooth, round, square. We had to work with very fine tolerances, when we made or filed the work, because these things would end up as crucial parts of an airplane and if they failed, or didn’t fit properly, the plane could crash and the crew could die.

Right from the start, the trainer came over and said “That’s not the first time holding a hammer, is it? You seem to know what you’re doing.” I told him that I had come straight from making ceramic and steel fireplaces, on civi-street, so this was something I had been taught before.

We had lots of planes to train on, too. There were six big hangars at Kirkham. Six big hangars with full sized bombers, spitfires, hurricanes, and a night-fighter called a Boulton-Paul Defiant with a turret at the back and painted black.

About half-way through, the Adjutant called me into his office and said “You volunteered for aircrew when you joined.” I said “Yes, but they didn’t seem to be too eager at the time, there was no place for me on the aircrew course so they sent me to another squadron to be ground-crew.” The adjutant said “Well, there’s a place for you now.” I told him I wasn’t very interested now, I was training to be a fitter and was halfway through the course. He said “It’s not what you want, Perkins, it’s what the air force wants!” This was fair enough. They were keen, at that time, to get people onto the aircrew section because by that point, the Germans were shooting people out of the sky faster than we could train new men. However, because I had spent so long training to be an armourer, already, they had me finish my course.

By the end of the fourteen weeks training, I was a Special Armourer, as opposed to the basic Armourer I was to begin with, which meant that I could work on just about anything and put me into the top group. As soon as I was finished, I was put on the list to be called up for posting overseas.

Leaving Liverpool for the Middle East

As soon as my training was finished, I was to report to Liverpool, which was close to where I already was. On Sunday afternoon, we set off for Liverpool. When we got there the docks were full of all these big ships. We were headed for the Empress of Australia, a former cruise liner converted to a troop carrier. There were lots of men getting on her, very few were air force, most were army, marines and commandos. There were, I think, four thousand of us.

We set off at around 8pm in the evening, three or four tugs pulling us into the Mersey. By 9pm, the Navy dropped two depth charges because they thought there was a German submarine in the vicinity. We didn’t know what was happening. They dropped these depth charges and I thought we’d been hit by a torpedo! I thought “Oh well, we won’t be going any further.” But instead, the Captain throttled up to full power and we shot out of the area as quick as the ship could go.

Everyone was vaccinated, before we got onto the ship, and a few days later my elbow and arm swelled right up with vaccine fever. It took two days for the doctors to get to me, there were only a few on board and if you missed them on their round you had to wait until the next day. When they found me, they put me straight into the hospital quarters where I was waited on for a couple of days, which was lovely. Of course, when there were so many of us on the ship, finding a space for a hammock was very difficult. They were strung up everywhere with no space in between. If you weren’t there to keep a claim on your slot, like if you spend several days in the hospital, you lost your place.

We left British waters and went out into the Atlantic, where we sailed around for about a month. We had some ships on the left of us, some on the right, but we were waiting to make up a big convoy. I think we joined a Canadian convoy to make up the numbers. We eventually went down towards Gibraltar. There were, I think, two aircraft carriers, three destroyers, us, some others. About forty odd ships in the convoy as we went through the mouth into the Mediterranean. I think we were the first allied convoy to go through the Mediterranean. Before that, to get to Egypt, the ships had to go all the way round Africa.

We could see Gibraltar in the mist, with the Germans on the left, and we knew they had fast boats with torpedoes on them. We went through the strait on the North African side, down passed Benghazi. We spent about a week sailing along there because it was quite a way. I constantly thought we were going to get hammered as soon as the Germans realised we were there but we never saw more than a few German planes in the distance. It was a miracle, really. I heard the ships behind us, in later convoys, got hit, and I remember seeing a tanker in flames, on the horizon.

The thing that I remember the most, about going though the Med, was the heat and smell when we hit North Africa. From spending a month in the cold Atlantic, the heat that hit us, coming of Morocco, was like an oven. The smell was strong, too, like spices. Every country I have been in has its own smell. We were so close to the coast, following it all the way around, that you could see people walking on the beach.

Palestine and Egypt

We pulled into Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, on Sunday morning. We had to use pontoons to disembark and walk across to the land because the ship was so big it couldn’t get close enough to let us off. We all had two kit-bags and a Sten gun each. Of course, when we went across the pontoons it was a bit wobbly as there were so many troops getting off.

Most of the troops got off first and went along the Suez Canal. Thousands and thousands of them, marching twenty miles down the side of the Suez. We didn’t go that way, there were maybe fifty or sixty of us from the RAF and we went straight to Cairo. It was a Sunday afternoon, but for the people over there it was like a weekday. We drove up to Cairo airport and there was a transit camp for RAF personnel. We were posted, from there, all over the Middle East. It was just tents on sand and we were posted off individually as needed. I was there for two or three weeks.

I got to see the Pyramids, at that point. I went right inside with just a little wick candle to light the way. If you blew out the flame it was pitch black. Right inside, as far as you could go, I got. Right into the King’s Chamber. I also saw the small hole that went up to the sky and lined up with a certain star at a particular time of the year. I was able to go back, as well, in 1943.

About twenty of us were eventually sent off, by train, through the Sinai to Palestine. I was stationed at RAF Lydda (now Ben Gurion International Airport) in Tel Aviv. We stopped there in a small camp, just a tent village. It was a small airstrip to begin with, only small aircraft could use it, so the RAF built it up. We stripped out all of the orange trees, levelled the land and built a proper runway for the bombers. It was probably one of the first parts of the Middle East Bomber Command. We were attached to the Special Airborne division for a couple of months. At that point, we were sending off the bombers on bombing runs to attack the Germans.

I broke my leg in Palestine. It had been raining and the ground was very slippery, but we were playing football. I played a lot of football in the RAF, and a lot before too. We had some big games when I was overseas: it was something to entertain the men so it was very popular. I always played Inside Right for the RAF teams and on that day we were playing the Army. They were all tough as hell and just as rough. I got the ball and played it down the wing. I went to kick the ball across the pitch and these two army guys both tackled me and fell across my leg. I broke both the leg and the ligament. They just moved me to the side line and didn’t take me off anywhere else until the match had finished!

There weren’t any ambulances over there, so I was put in the back of a pick-up wagon. It felt like part of my leg was going in one direction, and the rest in another. They drove me to Nazareth to the make-shift hospital. It was a convent, converted for military use for injured servicemen in the Mediterranean. They fixed me up and plastered my leg. The next day, I thought my leg was itching. The hospital was riddled with bugs and they had gotten into my cast. I had to push them out with sticks and flush them out with water because they were eating my leg. A day later, they took us all out of the hospital, because of the infestation, and put us on a first-aid train. It was like a cattle-wagon full of stretchers. It was open-sided and I thought it would be chilly but as it was Palestine it was nice and warm. They brought us all cups of tea, bread, cheese and a pickle. The train took us to a huge hospital in the middle of Palestine, a huge place, full of all the wounded troops from all over the Middle East.

I had my leg in plaster for quite some time, so I was in a wheelchair for a bit. There was this one guy who said they had a cinema, so he took me off to see it. We had to go down a steep hill to get to the cinema. He was pushing me in the wheelchair and fell over as we were going down the hill. Off I went, bouncing down the hill and there was a ditch at the bottom of the hill. I hit the ditch, the chair went over and the wheel was spinning in the air – I can still see it now. All the others did was stand there, laughing their heads off!

After that, I joined the 5th Bomber Conversion Unit, working on Liberators. This eventually changed to the 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit and moved back down to RAF Abu Sueir, in Egypt, near to the Suez Canal. I was there for two and a half years. From that airfield, you could see ships going through the main canal. Most of the time it was the tops of the ships in the distance. We couldn’t see the water, just the dunes between us and them, so it looked like the ships were going through the sand.

I went swimming in the Suez, on more than one occasion. The last time I did was when I nearly drowned. My mate and I watched a big ship go by and waited for about five minutes before we went in, but it wasn’t long enough. I went in and the undercurrent from the ship’s wake dragged me under and pushed me down. I fought it but didn’t get anywhere and I didn’t think I would ever come back up. Luckily, I eventually got out of the current and made it back to the surface, but my lungs were burning like mad.

The Planes

For most of my overseas time, I worked on Liberators (American B-24s). We had nine Liberators and six fighters: three spitfires and three hurricanes.

Liberators were my favourite. They had a good payload and were easy to get inside when you were ‘bombing up’ with the bomb trolley. They weren’t too far up in the air, so you could almost walk in and you pushed the bomb trolley right into the bay. You would put the swan-hook of the winch through the eye of the bomb and you would roll the winch up until the bomb sat in between the two saddles, one on each side. Then you would tighten the saddles on the bottom to keep the bombs steady when the plane was flying. After that, you would put in the detonators into what we called the pistol, at the back of the bomb. You’d put the arming vane into the pistol, followed by the safety pin. The vanes and pins would be kept in a box, fifty yards away from the plane, in case anything happened, and you‘d put the arming vanes into the bombs, to make them live, before the planes took off.

I remember one time, we had just finished ‘bombing up’ one side of a Liberator. Everything was in place, all ready to go, and a flight technician went into the aircraft to go through the checklist. He accidentally pulled the wrong lever and all the bombs suddenly fell out onto the ground. Of course, we ran in every direction to get away from the bombs. Not only could they have gone off if the safety pins came out, but they were damn heavy chunks of metal that would roll, as well. You could either get crushed or blown up. Or both. We shot off in every direction and didn’t stop until we were hundreds of meters away. Finally, the technician came out with a red face. I’ve never run so fast in my life! We were more angry, though, about having to sort it all out afterwards. It took us hours to check the bombs, make sure they were safe and then re-fit them. There was lots of sweating, swearing and blinding.

We kept the planes and bombs separate, most of the time. The planes were spaced out a long way apart, sometimes it was a fifteen mile round trip to fit all the planes, a mile or so there and back for each separate plane. They needed to be spaced in case there was a bombing raid on the airfield. You didn’t want all the planes and all the ammunition to go up in one lucky hit.

We had a big building, in Abu Sueir, that was just for the armoury. We had guns and ammunition and other such things stored there. A big brick place. I was in charge of the munitions and there were three or four guards posted there at all times. There was thick netting and wire, all the usual things, and the guards were supposed to patrol around the outside. I went there, early one mourning, with an officer to inspect the building. When we got there, there was this big hole in the wall, at the back, where all the guns and ammunition were kept. The guards were there, and I asked what was going on, but they just mumbled.

Someone’d stolen it all! They left about two or three camels and donkeys there. They had loaded all the guns and ammo they could carry on donkeys and stole off into the night. They must have been disturbed because they left a couple of animals. They’d broken through a double brick wall! They probably waited for an aircraft to come and then hammered like wild on the brick wall under cover of the noise of the aircraft engine.

The Liberators were very loud when they took off, they had four engines, and would go on lots of bombing runs over the Mediterranean countries. Sometimes they would drop saboteurs into Italy and Albania. The Liberators would go over in the middle of the night and drop these guys, they were SAS or similar, that type of person. When they did raids in Turkey, we would fit them up to drop leaflets over the enemy territory informing them we would be bombing there in twenty-four hours, giving the civilians time to clear out of the area.

For fun, sometimes we would add old crates of waste from the naafi. The crates would be wooden and would whistle when they were dropped, like bombs, and the enemy wouldn’t know if it was a bomb that hadn’t exploded.

We dropped supplies, too, all kinds of supplies. Medicines, ammunition and supplies for allied troops. We dropped a lot of medicine in all the areas. They had yellow parachutes on then so you could see them. Of course, the people would gather these parachutes and keep them. The local blankets and beds were rough as hell, so people would take the parachutes as they were nice smooth silk.

As a Special Armourer, I also worked on the guns. They were mainly .5’s (0.5 calibre, 12.7mm Browning Gun) which were a good gun. On the Liberator, you’d have probably about 6 stations where you had at least two .5 guns. They did away with the rear-turret’s upper guns because when they fired, the crew would have two guns firing each side of their ears, and they didn’t like that very much.

But, as I said, the Liberators were easy to work on. You had two side gunners, two .5’s in a side slot. The swivel range of these was limited with a cable. If the gunners were new or got a bit panicky, they could swing the gun round hard and break the cable or stretch it. We would have to reset the cable after each run. We’d get a guy with a long rod, stuck in the end of the barrel, to simulate where the bullets would go. The guy outside would walk around and we would clamp up the new cable inside to where we wanted the range of movement to be. You’d have to stop the range about six feet from something you didn’t want to hit because when you fire the guns, you get a cone of fire and had to build in some leeway. You also had to make sure that if the cable stretched again on the next flight, the gunner couldn’t shoot off the plan’s wing or tail if the cable allowed the gun to turn further than it should.

The Spitfire was another one we had to change the guns on. They had .303 guns, there were eight of them. A lot of the British planes had the 303’s, which were no good at all, they had no firepower, they were like pea-shooters. The Americans used all .5s, they were definitely a better firepower. With the fighters, you would put the plane on a trestle, in the flying position, and you had a target about five hundred and fifty feet in front. You had a periscope on the gun and you lined it up to the target so that all the bullets converged in the same place.

On occasion, we fitted a 20mm canon, one on each wing, but you had to have a little bit more of an anchorage if you did that on a Spitfire, because of the extra recoil. The 20mm had a special recoil-spring, a square spring. You had to have a special clamp to squash and compress it, as it was so strong to deal with the extra force of the canon when it fired. You’ve probably seen the canons in the old war films where the 20mm would strafe enemy trains.

There were different types of ammunition, too. You’d have armour piecing shells, but we never liked them because they would wear out the barrel on the canon. You’d have incendiary ones, normal shells, they were both fine. But we used the canons more on the Hurricanes because those planes were more substantial. So we used to like to put them there. The Hurricanes also had a bit more room to move about with. The Spitfires were cramped to mount the guns.

You had to be careful on the Spitfires, more than the Hurricanes, because the Spitfires used to catch fire. There was excess oil, sometimes, in the Spitfire exhaust cylinders, that could be left behind. So the flight mechanics would stand by with fire extinguishers in case the thing caught fire when it was started. The mechanic who was testing the plane would keep the engine going to blow out the flames because it was too late by that point to do anything else.

We had a lot of problems with the Spitfires, out in the desert, because they were so light and flimsy, compared to the Hurricanes. You’d see them land at the end of the runway and not come any further. When you got down to the end of the strip, the thing would be tipped up on its nose! The front end would be dug into the ground. It was too front heavy and easily caught gusts of wind. It caused no end of trouble for us and the pilots.

All sorts of things would happen, or go wrong, when I was out there in the Middle East. One bomber came back late, from a run over Greece. It finally came into view, coming from the Sinai towards us in Abu Sueir, over the Suez Canal. As it was nearing the end of the runway, there was this tremendous bang and the plane just blew up! We never found out what had happened. When we got to the site of the wreckage, it was all just burning fragments, too little to find anything else. It wasn’t like now with forensic teams to check every last millimetre.

On another occasion, a plane came in without the undercarriage down. It scrapped along the ground and everyone was okay, but the plane was a write-off. We had to winch it up, put it on a large lorry and take it off for spares.

We often had to clean out the planes, once they had returned from a bombing run. The aircrew would be trapped in these things for many hours and there was often waste that needed cleaning out. Some of the crew would get airsick and there would be vomit. Sometimes the Germans would attack the planes and shoot at them and if the plane was hit, there may be blood as well. What ever it was, we sluiced it all down with paraffin.

One time, a Liberator came back with fewer crew than it left with. The plane didn’t get into combat, but the rear gunner was missing. The hatch was open and the guy was gone. We thought he must have had enough and jumped out. It happened, sometimes, if someone decided they couldn’t take it anymore. Being an aircrewman could be very stressful and sometimes someone would just snap.

Local Wildlife

The difficulties of living out there were not limited to the aircraft. I went to a lot of places, but they all taught you to get used to varied, tough conditions. In one place there were four of us sleeping on a concrete hangar floor. Out in the desert, it was just sand and dust and tents. You had to check your bed, or hammock or what ever, for snakes before you got in for the night. Every morning, you‘d have to turn your boots upside down and hit them with a stick to get any scorpions out! You’d get bedbugs and things, the way we got rid of those was to thrown paraffin over the bed and blankets, then watch all these things come scurrying out. The paraffin evaporated off quickly in the desert.

I slept in the armoury, quite often. I remember having to turn the light on, at night, because the scorpions would come in under cover of darkness and run across the floor. The light would dazzle them and you could hit them with a stick.

I remember, as well, one night I was lying in a bed and a snake fell onto the mosquito net. I was in Palestine at the time and thought a terrorist had lobbed a grenade into the room. But I thought “If it is going to go off, it goes off, I’m not getting out of bed!” The next morning, the Palestinian guard came round, whilst I went off for breakfast, and he found the snake coiled up in the warmth of my blankets. When I came back, he’d already hit it with the butt of his rifle and laid this four foot snake out on the floor.

We’d get eaten alive by mosquitoes, too, quite often, especially in Abu Sueir. We would work at night, as often as not, refitting the bombers for an early morning raid. We’d work under arclight, the Sweetwater Canal ran right along the side of the aerodrome and the light would draw the mosquitos right to us.

There were bigger animal pests, too. There were a lot of stray dogs there, and they had a lot of diseases. Every Tuesday morning, early, I had to go around with a rifle and shoot any strays. On one particular day, I was doing my rounds and some wild dogs were running across the field. So I got my rifle and shot all three of them. When I got closer, to collect the bodies and burn them, I saw that one of the dogs was an alsatian. It was only then that I realised that only two of the dogs were wild, and they were chasing the alsatian. The alsatian was the pet of the Chief Engineer, and I had shot it, too. The Chief was okay about it, the dog should have been locked up and had gotten loose, but I still felt bad.

What ever the problems you dealt with them because you were all in it together. You had comrades. You didn’t fight amongst yourselves, the comradeship was so unique, you stuck together as a unit, you had a great temperament and it all blends in to those harsh conditions. You put your life in everyone else’s hands, so you trust them, you look after each other. It’s hard to understand when you are in another walk of life.

Iraq

When the European war ended, there was nothing left for us to do in Egypt, so I was allocated to another post and taken into the Navy Fleet Air Arm. I was sent to Basra, in Iraq: RAF Shaibah. There wasn’t much of anything there, before the RAF got there. It was built for the war. They were short on fitter-armourer generals. There were only five of us there. When you were a fitter general it meant that you could do everything. The work ranged right from the cameras that were fitted along side the guns for reconnaissance and records, to the fluid for the hydraulic systems that operated the turrets. You had to bleed and feed that fluid at different times of the day because it would expand and contract with the big temperature ranges you got in the desert.

I taught some of the local Iraqi army how to shoot. They had guns but they didn’t have any proper training on how to shoot correctly. Every Friday afternoon I would take these guys to the range and teach them how to sight up a gun, how to adjust the fore- and back-sights to correct the bias. The foresights would often take a bashing, being on the tip of the barrel, and the men would be rough with the guns and knock the irons. Teaching the Iraqis to keep the gun sights lined up meant the difference between being able to hit their targets and missing by miles.

One day, one of the recruits shot wide at something. The round ricocheted and hit a tractor in the fuel tank. There was a hell of a bang, a lot of shouting in different languages, and a tractor on its side, blown over by the explosion.

The Iraqis were friendly, but the Sudanese were a problem. We had an open-air cinema and we were all sitting round watching a film. There was a lot of banging going on and we thought it was the film. That was until someone shouted “Duck!” It was the Sudanese, driving around in the desert nearby, shooting off their rifles! Everyone was more annoyed with the disruption than with the threat of being shot!

Then the Japanese war ended and there was no more use for us at all.

Coming Home

I was in the RAF until my last posting in Iraq in 1946.

I remember leaving Shaibah in a Dakota transport plane, heading back to towards Egypt. We took off and the plane was overloaded with troops and gear. After a short while into the flight, there was a huge sandstorm right in front of us, thousands of feet high and tens of miles wide. We couldn’t get over the top as we were already overloaded, so the pilot tried to go through. I felt the pressure of the sand hit the plane, then there was a huge gust of wind and the plane went over on its side and scythed through the air, dropping like a stone. We were lucky we didn’t hit the deck and all get killed. I thought I’d been out there for four, five years, survived the whole war and nearly been wiped out on my way home!

Once I got to Egypt, I came back across the Mediterranean on a ship from Alexandria. It took a week to cross the sea to France, Toulon. I remember the harbour was absolutely packed with ships that had been sunk. (The French had scuttled their own fleet to prevent the Germans from getting their hands on them). The locals had very little to eat, at that point, and almost no bread. On our ship we had so much bread that it had gone stale by the time we arrived in Toulon and it was all thrown overboard into the sea. I don’t know why it wasn’t saved, but I remember loads of loaves of bread floating in the sea. When we got into port, you couldn’t buy even a biscuit!

We stayed in what was left of the German’s camp, there, for a week or so before heading to Calais. It was several days across France, by train, mostly at night. I remember it was a moon-lit night as we passed Paris and I could see the Eiffel Tower in the moonlight. I also remember taking a walk out into the fields, when we stopped for an hour at one point, just walking through the crops.

We finally crossed the Channel, back into Dover, at about ten at night. The next morning, I was de-mobbed in Stratford. I got my de-mob suit, a quick medical, my money and was out of the gate. As quick as that I was out of the Air force. Done.

When you come out of the service, you do feel a bit lost. You had a regimented life in the service, and they looked after you. The RAF looked after you really well, but when you leave, it’s all down to you. You have to completely adjust yourself. It’s probably harder to come out than it ever was going in. You had to work all times of the day. In the service, you are paid to work 24 hours a day and you work for 23 hours 59 minutes.

I wasn’t relieved to be out of the air force, to be honest. We travelled so much, spent so long in different countries, that I felt immune to much of the feelings of ‘home’. No matter where you went, you were the same person, you weren’t excited, you weren’t depressed, you just went with it. I never thought “Thank God I survived that” or “I made it through”. You had to be immune to all of that, if you wanted to keep your sanity. So much happens to you, and you are pushed and pulled in all directions that you just had to go with the flow. It was almost like brain-washing, in a good way. “Do as you are told, go where we tell you and you will be taken care of” was the feeling you got in the RAF. They looked after you, as much as they could. You never knew what the enemy was going to do, but you knew those around you had your back. If you didn’t keep that in mind, you would have gone mad.

I had about six weeks of leave stored up, when I was de-mobbed, at the end of which they called me and asked if I wanted to go back into the air force. I would have been sent back to Iraq but I’d already done several months over my time. Twice they asked me back, but by then I’d had enough. We all had.

For more Veterans’ Stories see our Blog Space here

The IBCC Digital Archive carries a wide range of preserved documents and interviews from this period.  To find out more click here

The post LAC FRED PERKINS appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.

I have returned from a successful visit to Poland to commemorate the Long March from Stalag Luft 3, Zagan to Spremberg (80km NE Dresden). The Royal Air Force looked after me with mobile caterers to feed us, medics to look after feet, RAF Police and Regiment to keep us safe and young airmen to keep us amused.

The group of RAF personnel and I flew out to Berlin on Thursday 13 February and before going by coach to Zagan.  We visited the Military Cemetery in Berlin. There, I laid a wreath for the RAF’s ex-Prisoners of War Association on the central memorial. Small poppy crosses were laid by other members of our group on 20 individual graves. One of those was for Sgt Stan Chalklin buried with 5 other members of his crew. Coincidentally, Brian Chalklin (Stan’s great nephew) and his wife Lynne Chalklin visited the centre a couple of weeks before the trip, we found him on the walls and then I offered to visit Stan’s grave and sent them a photo.

Later in the afternoon we left Berlin for the Willa Park Hotel in Zagan for two nights while visiting the Stalag Luft 3 Museum. Part of the events that day were discussion periods where the RAF personnel had previously researched some topics relating to PoWs to introduce the topics.

At lunchtime all 49 personnel were on parade in the centre of Zagan for a commemoration event marking the Long March. The RAF contingent joined Polish army units, a Polish military band and some Polish veterans with UN service who were presented with medals. There were many local people and school children attending, despite the light drizzle. Wg Cdr Suzanne Senior laid a wreath on behalf of the RAF and I laid one on behalf of the Polish Airmen’s Association UK at the memorial wall in the town square.

On Saturday morning we assembled at the Stalag Luft 3 museum for a short Service of Remembrance before starting our 3-day march of 60 miles on the route taken by the PoWs in Jan 1945 from Stalag Luft 3 to Spremberg via Ilowa, Gozdnica, Lipna (night stop in the Barns), Przewoz , Leknica and over the border to Bad Muskau (nightstop in the sporthalle).

The final day marching started in Bad Muskau, on to Gablenz, Schleife, and finished at the railway station in Spremberg where the WW2 PoWs were loaded on to cattle trucks. This was where our march finished. We held a short remembrance service here during which Gp Cspt Mark Smith laid an RAF wreath and I laid one on behalf of the RAFs ex-PoW Association. We then took a coach ride back into Poland to Kliczkow Castle for a formal dinner. This was the first time some of the RAF personnel had experienced a formal occasion, at least three of them had been in the RAF for less than 6 months, and one man celebrated his 19 birthday!

Despite many blisters and aching legs everyone was able to celebrate our achievement, whilst calling to mind those who had suffered so terribly in 1945.

On Tuesday morning we then returned to Berlin for our flight home.

To find out more about Brian Chalklin and his crew, click here

To find out how you can join our volunteer team and make a difference, click here

The post Per Ardua Eagle 2020 Update appeared first on International Bomber Command Centre.