大象传媒

Part four of an edited oral history interview with Mr. John Crawley conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

Royal Observer Corp, H.Q. Biddenham.
鈥淚 joined I suppose in 1943 and I was there until we were stood down at the end of the war. I knew Lawrence Tebbs who was the Commandant of the Royal Observer Corp Group at Biddenham and one day when we were talking he asked me whether I would be interested in joining, which I did. Although of course, like all things, the silly thing to this was of course with my knowledge of aircraft recognition I didn鈥檛 go on a Post where you spotted aircraft, I worked at Head Quarters at Biddenham, sat round a table plotting aircraft. I know I was on duty the very first night when the doodle bugs came over. In the Royal Observer Corp we had a flat, horizontal table where we plotted aircraft movements. Our area went out as far as the other side of Cambridge and the other side of Oxford, a large area. Every individual aeroplane movement was plotted - its height and if there were more than one and its direction. Then we had a very large vertical board that covered the eastern part of England which was called the 鈥榣ong range board鈥� and that would show aircraft coming in from the coast. I was on duty when the first doodle bug came over and the code name for this was DIVER. I always remember that the person working on the board suddenly shouted out, 鈥楧iver, Diver, Diver!鈥� which was the code name for this doodle bug. Of course we knew all about them but they hadn鈥檛 been used before. This was the first occasion so I experienced the excitement of it. But they did not get as far as our board. We did on one occasion have a doodle bug that was heading straight for Bedford. To come this far it must have been a what they call 鈥榓n air launch鈥�. The normal doodle bug was shot off by a steam driven catapult from the occupied countries. But the air launched ones - they had a special version of the Heinkel 111K were they fixed the doodle bug underneath it and they came over fairly close into the English shore before they released it and the engine automatically started up when it was released and that gave it a bit further range. I remember I was on duty that night and we were watching this one being plotted from the south heading towards Bedford and it passed south of Bedford and in the end it detonated somewhere south of Coventry and that鈥檚 about the furthest they penetrated.

Of course one of the common mistakes, the Germans at first didn鈥檛 realise how far advanced our radar was and so they thought that our anti-aircraft guns worked on sound detectors. So they used to de-synchronise their engines. Instead of having a steady whoooooo 鈥� they de-synchronised them so they got a whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, and that gave rise to the belief that they鈥檇 all got diesel engines which of course they hadn鈥檛! But by de-synchronising them they thought this would upset the sound detectors of the ack ack batteries. So, the Gerry鈥檚 were always known for this 鈥� whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo. There was only one aeroplane that the Luftwaffe used that was a diesel and that was the Junkers 86K and they used those for high altitude photography. That used to come over at 39 to 40,000 feet and take pictures, that was a pressurised aeroplane. But the times you鈥檇 read in the papers and that that the German aircraft were diesel powered and all that, they never were. They mostly had Daimler Benz or BMW engines in those days.

RAF Twinwood Farm
Twinwoods or Twinwood Farm to give its full designation was a satellite airfield for Cranfield. In other words if Cranfield was bombed out of existence or badly beaten up anything could be accommodated at Twinwoods Farm. They had a Squadron of Beaufighters there and a Squadron of Blenheims, Mark Is and Mark IVs and then they had a Mosquito. I had a ride in a Mosquito with the very well know Ace, Wing Commander Hoare, he was a night fighter Ace and he flew with a pet Alsatian which had its own oxygen mask that used to fly with him! On this occasion I took the place of the Alsatian and he was going for some reason to Cranfield so he took me with him he left his beloved Alsatian with somebody in Flying Control. He was our top scoring night fighter Ace. He was a typical RAF chap, frightfully, frightfully and he had a moustache that stuck out each side of his nose, twiddled at the ends.

Because I was in uniform I got to know them at Twinwoods. In fact when I first started going there, the very first ride in an aeroplane I went with the ATC and I got to know the Squadron Commander of the Squadron over on the far side and that was a Squadron Leader Emmett. I got talking to him and in the end he used to take me out in his car. He used to have a RAF car with a driver come to pick him up. He had a flat in Park Avenue so I used to cycle to Park Avenue from my home in Goldington Road and leave my bicycle at his flat. Perhaps have a cup of coffee with him and his wife while we were waiting for his RAF car to arrive if it wasn鈥檛 already waiting for him and then he鈥檇 take me out to the Base. Of course most cases the barrier would go up, there鈥檇 be a salute and we鈥檇 just sail through but it wasn鈥檛 quite as easy as that if I was on my bicycle. If I was in uniform and I鈥檇 got the right identification there was no problem. The aim was to get the hours in my log book. I鈥檝e got all the names of the aircraft, the serial number, the pilot signed it, roughly what it was. I know on one occasion we went out, it was in a Blenheim IV which had machine guns mounted under the front, we went out machining gunning on a range out in Bradwell Bay, just north of Southend, the water up there. There was a sunken ship on a sandbank with part of its masts sticking up out of the water and this would be used for machine gunning practice. On one occasion I was in the nose and these guns were banging away just underneath me and the smell of the cordite was, phew very strong! All very interesting!

In Bedford you saw more and more of the Army. We lived in Goldington Road and I remember on one day there was a convoy. It started near the rugger ground and it parked at the side of the road and it was nearly three miles long, it parked up for about six hours. I know mother was busy providing them with tea. The particular troops that came into our house were Canadians. It was all part of the preliminaries of 鈥楧鈥� Day.

鈥榁E鈥� Day
I had dinner down at The Swan with my parents, because my father had a table down there as he went in three or four nights a week and everybody was out along The Embankment celebrating. And of course the Americans were most amazed. I think the Americans were absolutely flabbergasted at the English. Because they always regarded the English as being oh, frightfully laid back, not very sociable, perhaps difficult to get to talk to, very reserved. The Yanks were absolutely flabbergasted! Because one of the top tunes at that time was 鈥楻oll me over, lay me down and do it again鈥� and this was being broadcast day and night. There were the English - these staid English in the streets, all arm in arm, singing 鈥楻oll me over, lay me down and do it again鈥� at the top of their voices and the Americans were quite out of their depth. They thought they could celebrate but they admitted that they had never seen anything like it! They had a completely different view of the English the minute the war finished.

Whilst we were dining at The Swan, lo and behold sitting nearby there were a number of Americans from Thurleigh that I flew with. One of them said, 鈥楬i, John!鈥� and he said 鈥榓re you coming flying tonight?鈥� I said, 鈥榃hy?鈥� he said, 鈥榳ell, I鈥檓 going down to Steeple Morden in a couple of hours time, do you want to come along?鈥� So I did that. Yes, I flew down there and got back about, oh two o鈥檆lock in the morning. We took off from Thurleigh and we did a very low fly past up the river and fired off some Verey lights. After they鈥檇 fired them off I was a bit worried because they were still burning when they hit the ground we were so low! Oh, there were crowds all down The Embankment all the lights were on. We were only what, a couple of hundred feet, if that. We were down on the deck. Went down to Steeple Morden I forget what he went down for and then we came back and that was it. Yes, that鈥檚 what I did on 鈥榁E鈥� night.鈥�

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