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Schoolboy wartime memories of Chalton, Bedfordshire Part Two 鈥� Air activity in the vicinity. Mr. How joined the Army Cadets and later the ATC when he moved to Bedford. Dances held at Cardington RAF base.

Part two of an oral history interview conducted with Mr. Gerald How by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淚 suppose during our time at school we used to, during the breaks go and cycle round the countryside especially when we used to hear of these aeroplanes crashing during the war. Several of them happened. There was one on the Great Barford Road, I would say I would be about 13 I suppose, yes 13 years old. And there again we鈥檇 get on our bicycles and tear along. It was taking off from Tempsford and it crashed near Cuckoo Brook on the Goldington to Great Barford Road, I clearly remember that. The pilot was killed I think, the others were injured. The engine caught fire on take off.

Then another one was at Sandy where there was a four engined Stirling taking off from Tempsford and an American fighter. Being crazy Americans this American fighter was doing an unauthorised pass, a fly by, and he cut right through the fuselage of the aircraft. The main part of the bomber crashed in the field near the Sandy TV mast and the rear turret with the rear gunner in it, landed adjacent to the Sandy/Potton road and I clearly remember that, when we cycled up to see. I was in the local pub some years later and one of the local farmers was saying, he said, 鈥業 remember that. I was coming down the road and I found this arm鈥� he said from this rear gunner that was in the turret, the arm was lying by the side of the road and he said, 鈥業 buried it in a field behind the hedge under a tree.鈥� He said, 鈥業 could take you to that spot today!鈥� Whether there鈥檚 any truth in that I don鈥檛 know but that is what he told us. It鈥檚 quite possible because in those days what would you do if you found part of a body? Probably bury it during the war. Of course the American fighter landed next to the railway line at Sandy, in the centre of Sandy. It crashed. The pilot was killed. It was eight lives lost for the sake of some stupid American fighter pilot doing something he shouldn鈥檛 have done. There were several crashes around during the war and us young boys were keen to go out and see.

Well, we were allowed to a certain extent, as close as possible. I mean there was another one at Moggerhanger. I remember we didn鈥檛 use to go to bed very early at nights because of the air raid sirens and sitting up one night with my elder sister, it was just after midnight and she heard this noise going overhead. And apparently the next morning, the dairy maid, the girl who used to deliver the milk in urns in the village, she called round and she said, 鈥極h, there鈥檚 been a plane crashed at the other side of the village last night.鈥� Of course this is what we heard, was the noise going over. And of course that was another one, on my bicycle and up there we tore to see. That was a Hudson aircraft and that was from Tempsford as well and that had crashed between Moggerhanger and Northill. The story goes that the local people in council houses on the Sandy Road had heard and seen this crash and dashed across the fields to it and there was nothing they could do. They just saw these bodies sitting in the aircraft being burnt to death. You can imagine the horrible stench the next morning when we went up there. We went to see if we could find souvenirs and things. It was whatever parts and metal you could pick up. I remember - I don鈥檛 know what happened to it but I wished I had it to this day - it was like a brake lever but actually it was a gun loading stick, it had got gun loading on it, that I had collected from this particular crash but what happened to it I don鈥檛 know. It would be quite a souvenir if I had it now. Of course those poor young men, they were young in those days, 19 or 20, they are buried in Cardington Church yard. There are five of them, there are four remains buried.

I joined the Great Barford Army Cadets Force which was up the road. We used to cycle miles those days. We鈥檇 probably have a parade twice a week and then on Sunday mornings and we sometimes had manoeuvers with the Home Guards. It was quite exciting. Yes, we鈥檇 think nothing of cycling about eight or nine miles. We had rifle practice. There again the Commanding Officer was one of the main farmers in the village. Big farmers in the village I suppose because they were the wealthiest who could afford to support these sort of organisations.

I moved from Moggerhanger in about 1944 or 1945 time. I moved into Bedford with my sister. She got married and moved into Bedford. I left school at 14 then we moved into Bedford and I joined the Air Training Corp. It was when I was in the Army Cadets at Great Barford that we were collected by the American Air Force from Thurleigh and taken one Sunday morning up to visit the planes at Thurleigh, the Flying Fortresses. I have a vague idea that it was at the time when Glenn Miller went missing because it vaguely sticks in my mind 鈥� it was a very misty day and an Officer coming across to speak to this other Officer and saying that somebody special was missing. I鈥檝e still got this vague idea that it could have been the weekend that Glenn Miller went missing. It was exciting, oh, boy going inside one of these B17 Fortresses, looking over it.

One of our Officers was John Crawley, he was one of the instructors at the time in the ATC.
134 Squadron, Bedford, I鈥檓 probably one of the last members still remaining. There is still a 134 Squadron today which is at Cardington. When we were in the Air Training Corp in Bedford he used to, his father having a motor car business in Bedford, John used to come and teach us all about the workings of the engines and aircraft recognition. He was in the Royal Observer Corp at that time.

Of course when you go back to Tempsford when my brother was working down there building it, the German aircraft came over once and flew down the railway line one afternoon and attempted to bomb the Little Barford power station which wasn鈥檛 far from Tempsford aerodrome. I remember my brother saying that they were at the railway station loading up with stuff for the airfield and one the chaps was giving a running commentary on the bombing of this here power station. It was a solitary German aircraft and it did hit one of the water towers apparently but it was shot down as it got to the coast. The story goes that one of the chappies on one of the buses had got a gun and he tried to shoot this aircraft with his rifle. I remember my brother coming home one day with a load of propaganda leaflets they鈥檇 collected, found in a ditch on the airfield of propaganda leaflets that the RAF used to drop over Germany. They鈥檇 got pictures of Churchill and it was all in German of course but there again I wish I鈥檇 kept one copy!

We used to listen to Lord Haw Haw broadcast on the radio and he was pretty well clued up, they were the Germans as to what was going on because one thing in particular was that as you go from Bedford to Cardington, towards Shorts Town there used to be a bridge that you鈥檇 cross and at that time they were doing some road works on it, rebuilding it - and do you know, Lord Haw Haw announced that on the radio! On his propaganda broadcasts from Germany, that they were building this bridge, rebuilding this bridge near Cardington. It鈥檚 incredible, almost unbelievable but that is true! I remember hearing that. It just shows you that there were spies in this country feeding information back to Germany. And of course they tried to bomb Cardington, they did drop a few bombs but not to any great extent. They camouflaged the hangars at Cardington with houses like terraced houses and they were right out of proportion in size, it was ridiculous, they must have been three times the size of an ordinary house! Of course during the wartime they took the airship mooring masts down, I remember that coming down because of the metal required for munitions, making munitions.

Of course Cardington was a very big station for recruiting airmen for the Air Force and for the air crew. They used to have a very good dance hall there at Cardington, people from Bedford used to go there and from all around. In fact airmen from Tempsford and all these chaps that were on these RAF stations, or most of them, had bicycles issued to them. They used to cycle miles and airmen from Tempsford would cycle up to Cardington to the dances and the Americans as well would cycle miles around to go to the village hall. Every village had a dance once a week in the Village Hall how ever small the village was and this would encourage all these airmen and Americans to come to the villages to meet up with the girls or to find the girls. Us young boys, we would be there at the Village Hall and I remember the Americans coming once on their bicycles and they ate chewing gum. But we used to let their tyres down and say, 鈥榣ook, you鈥檝e got a puncture鈥� and they would say, 鈥榠f you鈥檒l repair it I鈥檒l give you some gum!鈥� And that鈥檚 one of the tricks we used to get up to!

There鈥檇 be say 30 or more barrage balloons flying in the sky at once at Cardington. The barrage balloons, they鈥檇 be about twice the size of a double decker bus. Probably three times. They鈥檇 be all moored yes, on motor trucks, winches on the ground attached by cable of course. They鈥檇 still fly them, even in a thunder storm and you鈥檇 see probably two or three balloons coming down in flames been struck by lightening because they were testing them to be used in all weathers.

In London, we used to go up to London during the war. My brother, he had a little Ford car and he met up with a girl that had been evacuated down with the family to a local farmer that my brother was working for at the time and some weekends we would go up to Streatham, believe it or not! Not very often, occasionally, and that was during the war! This was quite a frightening experience as you can imagine. I remember sleeping in this Morrison table shelter and when they used to go bed at nights they weren鈥檛 very keen on drawing the curtains, there were no lights on of course. She鈥檇 look out the window and say, 鈥楢h, there鈥檚 going to be a raid tonight鈥� because they could always tell if there was going to be an air raid because the balloons would go up high. If they were expecting an air raid they would put the balloons up high naturally. So that was quite frightening and we鈥檇 go and sleep down in the Morrison shelter then. The wire mesh sides. Probably in the morning you鈥檇 get up and go into the town and find places had been bombed and damaged. You heard the raids sometimes. There used to be an underground train at Streatham that used to go - you could hear it underneath the house because the tunnel was below the houses where we where staying. And at each end it would have an anti-aircraft gun and when there was a raid this gun would be going backwards and forwards and firing from different positions. That was something unusual. You could hear this train running underneath the house believe it or not and it was incredible with the guns going off.

Because whilst it went on, regardless of the war, you still had dances. Used to go to Streatham Meccano and that dancing on a Saturday night. Naturally if there was a raid going on you wouldn鈥檛 be going there.鈥�

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