大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a CSV Action Desk Volunteer on behalf of Leslie Hughes, and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was in the ATC air training corp then at the age of 18 yrs in 1941 I went in the RAF as an air gunner.

I flew in Halifax, Lancaster and towed the gliders with the halifax鈥檚. inside we had the paratroopers as well as the glider pilots and full crew. You could get about 40 paratroopers in a Halifax.

There was one story we came into land after one night trip, we had had a bit of trouble as we came into land the plane snapped completely in half the crew was at one end and I was in the other. I was in the tail, which landed upright, and they couldn鈥檛 get me out so seeing as they couldn鈥檛 do anything about it they left me there until the fire engines came to rescue me, off they went for a brew. Eventually they got me out by throwing me a rope up which was tired in side and I got out, about 5 minutes after I got out the tail then fell over, so it was probably my weight that was balancing it.

You could not allow yourself to get pally with your fellow flyers because you knew they could go on a mission and not come back. Some people could not handle that.

I flew on over 30 missions over Germany and France you couldn鈥檛 afford to be scared you knew anything could happen and you learned to live with it, we did know there was a chance to come home after the mission, at least we were not stuck there on the ground. I used to just give a short burst of gunfire not like the films because you only had a certain amount of ammunion and you did not want to waste it. We flew in formation near each other but not too close so we could watch each other backs.

I got the defence medal gallantry medal 1939-45 star medal air crew Europe medal all were left with my mother and I have never seen them since and do not know where they are now, but someone in the family will have them

I went in as air crew as a gunner, then ranked upto sergeant then flight sergeant then warrant officer then flying officer I was in the war for four years.

I was not the only one there were a lot us all doing the same job and getting on with it.

My crew was from all over the world I got two scotch men jimmy and dod and there was a Londoner there was a welsh man (His nickname was Yanto). In the RAF there was Australians attached to us, there was Americans and Canadians who had lots of money. We were all on rations here. My sister married a Canadian and she moved over to Canada and lived near Niagara falls she went in the early 1950鈥檚 four sisters moved over to Canada so their husbands could work in the car industry.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.