大象传媒

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to John Keane of Liverpool Central Library.

All air crew training was stopped in 1945, so I had to remuster in the air force as a radar operator. Morris Dillon came from Windburne Road in Aigburth and was at school with me, a bomber in the Air Force. He was on the thirtieth flight of his tour. The RAF flew Lancaster Bombers at night time, and during the daytime the Americans flew because they could fly much higher than the RAF planes and so they were higher than the anti-aircraft attacks of the Germans. On this last flight, for the first time he went out in the daytime. While the raid was taking place, he lay down in his position in the bomber to reach the control panel. He heard an enormous explosion, the skipper shouted to bail out and all he remembered was putting his hand out to open the safety hatch and the next thing he was floating down through the sky and he thought he鈥檇 gone blind. His head had caught the escape hatch and it had ripped open his skull and torn his flying helmet off and the blood was pouring out. He landed on what he thought was a field, when in fact it was a German air field. The next minute he saw four German soldiers coming up with guns and the raid was still on, they sat him on the trunk of a tree, and he thought that was it, but they didn鈥檛 kill him. They just escorted him to an underground shelter and it was full of German civilians that were working on the air field, and they were so incensed, he thought they were going to lynch him. They were spitting at him, and calling him names, but the guards took him to the back and put bandages on his wound. And when the raid was over they took him into Bremen, to a cottage type hospital, which was fortunately run by an order of French nuns, the matron was a German. When they took him upstairs, he was surprised to see the pilot from his plane in a bed. Hey were the only two out of the crew that were saved. Six weeks later the allied troops entered Bremen and he was sent home.
Back in England, the hospital stated that the Germans had done a wonderful job. He never liked to speak much about it. After that he was demobilised and trained to be a teacher and he taught in various schools in Liverpool and Huyton and eventually he ended up as Headmaster of St. Patricks. In 1980 he died of a brain tumour, probably a result of the injuries he sustained back in the war.

By John Begley

'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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