大象传媒

Date 25 June 2004

Wartime memories as told in 鈥淯 X B - Unsung Exploits of RAF Bomb Disposal Veterans鈥� ISBN 1-873203-36-5
And in 鈥淯 X B - Vol. II Further Exploits of RAF Bomb Disposal Experts鈥�
ISBN 1-873203-76-4

[See 鈥楢 MEETING WITH A MOVIE STAR鈥� for the full text 鈥� Extract REPEATED HERE WITH PERMISSION]

When war was declared I was 17陆 years of age, wondering if it would all be over by the time I was required to join the colours. In the meantime, I still had to finish a 3-year course in Horticulture, which I started on leaving High School at 15. As soon as this was achieved, I made enquiries about joining the Royal Air Force, and was promptly accepted after declaring that I was not engaged in food production.
On finishing an armourer鈥檚 course at Stormy Down in South Wales, I was posted to RAF Cotishall where I was attached to 257 (Burma) Squadron. Working on Hurricane IIB鈥檚 armed with 12 Browning 303 machine guns, bombs did not come into the equation for me then. There always seemed to be an aura of excitement about this fighter squadron even after the illustrious CO Robert Stanford Tuck was promoted to Wing Commander and left for pastures new. In 1941, fighter sweeps over France and the Low Countries were all the rage. In retrospect, these sorties did not make a big impact in a military sense, but possibly were a morale booster for the people of Britain after being on the receiving end in the Battle of Britain.
Before the year was out, 257 Squadron were about to leave Cotishall for High Ercall in Shropshire, to be re-equipped with Typhoons, and I remember the Prime Minister of Burma came to be their guest of honour. Within a couple of months this same guy turned out to be a fifth columnist when the Japanese walked into his country after Pearl Harbour.
I remained at Cotishall for another year working on numerous visiting aircraft, including many shot-up machines of Bomber Command, which did not make it back to their own bases. Just when it seemed that I was to be stuck at Cotishall for the duration of the war, I was sent on a short course to Hereford.
Although I might have been returned to Norfolk at the request of the armament office, I opted for a change of scenery. When I heard that I had been posted to Scotland, my hopes ran high with the expectation that I was on my way to Leuchars or Montrose, near my home. However, this expectation was not to be, and I was more than a little disappointed to learn that my destination would be Wick in the far north. There, I was to join 612 (Aberdeen) Squadron on Coastal Command.
Within months, we stated taking delivery of the very latest anti-submarine weapon, in the shape of Wellingtons fitted with searchlights and powered by Bristol Hercules engines. Subsequently, the squadron moved lock, stock and barrel to Cornwall and then Devon. Promotion came my way and at that time I was the youngest NCO on the flights ground crew. (Auxiliary NCO鈥檚 were old timers)
The summer days of 1943 came and went at Chivenor, near Barnstaple, and the Aberdeen lads felt justified in claiming that they were making a substantial contribution to the defeat of the U-boats. Night patrols over the Bay of Biscay and beyond were routine operations, with bombing raids on U-boat bases in Brittany in between. Then it was Christmas 1943, and I was off on my travels once more.
This time it was goodbye to working on gun-turrets, searchlights, bombing etc., as I packed up my kit and made my way to 6219 Bomb Disposal Flight at RAF Feltwell in West Norfolk.Courses at Doncaster soon followed on German, Italian, Japanese and American bombs, with German mines and booby-traps thrown in for good measure. Then it was down to digging for victory. By this time, East Anglia had become the base for USAAF bomber squadrons, with airfields every few miles in Norfolk and Suffolk, so naturally, 6219 was called upon to dig up plenty of American bombs, sometimes by the planeload. However, one of the first incidents I took part in concerned a crashed Stirling of Bomber Command. The bomb load contained quite a lot of 30lb incendiaries, some of which WERE DAMAGED. Sensibly we decided to load them on a Studebaker truck, which had a steel platform, and after throwing some earth on them as an added precaution; we set off for Rushford range near Thetford, to dump them for the night. On the way there, the driver suddenly became aware of what he thought was a vehicle coming on behind, but blackout regulations did not allow for headlights in wartime! It was panic stations when we realised that our load was on fire! Choking and spluttering, we managed to get spades from the back of the truck and smothered the flames by shovelling earth on them from the roadside bank. That lorry had a smell of phosphorous for weeks.
At Feltwell, 6219 was kept very busy at times with a fair share of 鈥榙icey鈥� jobs. While admitting to the fact that we were often working in dreadful conditions, (chasing after bombs in shifting sands on the Wash at North Wooton, or digging in waders in the fen country) I tend to remember more pleasant occasions when something unexpected happened.
One day when I was sent out to dig up 3 American 500 pounders at Attleborough. On arrival we could see two of them near an American cookhouse were fairly deep in the clay interspersed with flint stone. The third one was in an adjacent field and was estimated to be about six feet down, so we decided to deal with this one first. Digging away there, I was getting near the object when 2 officers arrived on the scene on foot. Not being an expert on American Army ranks, I guessed that the tall fellow was maybe a colonel, and so it turned out to be. He was none other than James Stewart, the CO of the squadron, which had lost the bombs. This was no publicity seeking Hollywood actor, but a real airman who had done his flying training prior to becoming a film star. In the course of a friendly chat, he informed us that faulty bomb gear on a Liberator had been the cause of the bombs leaving the aircraft on this occasion.

And in 鈥淯 X B - Vol. II Further Exploits of RAF Bomb Disposal Experts鈥�
ISBN 1-873203-76-4

[See Chapter 16 - 鈥楢 Reluctant Expert鈥� for a full version 鈥� EXTRACT REPEATED HERE WITH PERMISSION]

During the Second World War, Rushford bombing range near Thetford, Norfolk was a very busy place. Its control tower was manned by a small detachment from RAF Mildenhall and was used to carry out a lot of new developments and bombing techniques. It also provided a very convenient place for RAF and USAAF aircraft to jettison their bomb loads if unexpected problems arose when setting out on bombing raids over Germany.
I was serving with 6219 BD flight based at RAF Feltwell and I got to know this place exceedingly well. It was part of our duties to go on to the bombing range from time to time to clear up unexploded bombs, and we did a lot of demolition work there, although our first priority was to answer call-outs over a large area of West Norfolk.
In the evenings we would sometimes don our 鈥榖est blue鈥� and go dancing in Thetford or enjoy a pint with the locals. However there was a more serious side to our being at the range and I can only say that I often heaved a sigh of relief when another jettisoned bomb was defused. Readers may think that because they were our 鈥榦wn鈥� and because they were dropped 鈥榮afe鈥�, they were easy meat for Bomb Disposal, but a lot of fuses were severely damaged on impact with the ground and proved to be very tricky. Some of the American tail-fuses had a long arming stem, which had a nasty habit of breaking off, leaving only a ball-bearing to hold back the spring loaded striker. A steady hand was of paramount importance!
My brief encounter with the Station Commander at Feltwell was my first and last. I had never seen him before and never saw him again, which only show s how little contact the BD lads had with the other personnel on the camp. We were a compact unit of our own; occupying the topmost block of peacetime married quarters, our nearest neighbours being the WAAF鈥檚. We sometimes bumped into one or two of the girls in the dead of night at the nearby coal compound. They were on the same mission as ourselves, trying to augment their meagre rations. Now who could have made that hole in the wire fence?
Among my lasting memories of Feltwell days is the time that two B17 Flying Fortresses collided in mid air on take off and rained bombs down on the village of South Lopham. Some of them exploded but eighteen were UXB鈥檚. Talk about coming under 鈥榝riendly fire鈥�! Villagers were advised to go and stay with friends, while we dug up bombs from their gardens and drying greens. One landed in the bank of a stream, which we had to divert before we could sink a shaft. When I looked at a map I was amazed to discover that we had in fact diverted the River Waveney.
Eventually I was posted to 6214 BD squad, based in Belgium. They had progressed there via Normandy and had an adventurous time along the way. Following the gallant attempt to capture the bridges at Arnheim, it was inevitable that no attempt would be made to cross the Rhine until early spring 1945. Consequently, we were employed on the clearance of airfields etc in south Holland which had been the subject of heavy air attacks whilst in German hands.
Most of the UXB stuff was British.
It was during the operations here that the war in Europe came to an end on 8th May 1945 but there was no let up in our tasks even on this joyous occasion!
We were detailed for another clearance job at a large airfield at Delmenhorst, near Bremen. This had been used as a camp for displaced persons, mainly Russian 鈥榝orced labour鈥� under the Nazis. On site there was a huge bomb dump, which was still stacked with munitions and bombs, and the more curious people had taken to wandering around the area, not realising that it contained the infamous 鈥榖utterfly鈥� bombs. We had to clear the area quickly before a tradgedy happened.

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