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Bill Cross grew up in Bishop Auckland and joined the RAF in June 1941, aged 18 years. Following a medical at Durham he reported to Lords cricket Ground for basic training. Then to Stratford upon Avon for navigation, signalling, and arms drill plus lots of marching. At the end of the course Bill became a leading aircraftsman and was told they were being sent to the USA.

He was shipped from Liverpool to St Johns, Newfoundland they travelled on to Toronto where food was plentiful and good! Then by train through America to Montgomery, Alabama. All were looked after very well during training. At camp in Alabama they repeated their basic training as it was an American basic training camp. They weren’t allowed off base for six weeks, but when they were finally let out they were allowed to wear civilian clothes as the USA was not then in the war. Later, Bill was sent to Arcadia, Florida where there was a swimming pool and only four to a room. Here they trained to fly under instruction for about 60-65 hours. Then he went on to Georgia where Bill flew a more advanced type of aircraft and from there back to Alabama. During periods of leave Bill hitch hiked to Atlanta. At Alabama Bill flew Harvards, with lot of formation flying and night flying. When he finished his training and got his ‘wings’ he was asked by a US Officer to stay in States as an instructor, but Bill returned to UK by ship.

Now a Sergeant, Bill was posted to Dorset and a RAF station in Midlands before going to Scotland on Operational Training Unit to fly Hurricanes. He was then posted to a squadron at Gatwick and did operations with the army, flying ‘Typhoon’ planes which had been built in Canada. He then went to Chichester, Sussex, where he carried out convoy escorts in the English Cannel and raids over France, especially bombing the flying bomb sites in Northern France.

He had to fly low over the sea (20 — 30 ft) to be under enemy radar and then rise to dive at sites and drop two 500lb bombs. Crew wore oxygen masks at all times, because of the exhaust gases creeping into the cockpit. They also attacked barges in Holland but some aircrew would also fire at cars, which Bill refused to do. He also did ‘Rhubarbs’ which is flying low and then ascending into the clouds, and attacked a freight train which had a gun on the guards van.

Bill’s plane was hit and he limped back to Sussex with holes in his plane. On landing an officer remarked to him: “I see the natives were hostile this morning!’ Bill said whilst flying he hadn’t the time to feel frightened.

On a mission to France his squadron attacked an aerodrome close to Paris Bill saw a German Junkers 88 plane about to land and shot the plane down. As Bill flew over the aerodrome he was shot at and hit on the starboard wing. He struggled to control the plane as smoke filled the cockpit. He decided he would have to crash land in a field where a farmer was ploughing. Bill got out of the crashed plane and felt blood on his face. The farmer helped Bill to his farmhouse, which was close to Fontainebleau. Bill thinks he fainted and the next thing he knew he awoke on a bed in the farmhouse. A doctor arrived and a gendarme. The gendarme said he would help Bill escape dressed as a gendarme but a French girl in the house betrayed Bill to the German authorities (after the war she received a 7 year sentence in gaol for this).

On 16th March 1944 Bill was arrested at the farmhouse and the farmer was interred. Bill was taken to a local German base and put into the guard room. Most of the Germans treated him well, although one did kick him hard after he had lain down. The following day he was taken to an aerodrome to be interrogated and from there to Paris to be escorted to a POW camp. Bill tried to escape but was handcuffed and put on a train to Frankfurt. On arrival at the POW camp he was put in a cell for 2 or 3 days awaiting further interrogation. He refused to give anything other than his name, rank and number and was detained for another week in solitary confinement. During this time night and day air raids took place which he described as ‘very frightening’.

Eventually he and other allied prisoners were put on a train of cattle trucks, with one Red Cross parcel between two men. After 2 days they arrived at Stalag Luft 1 on the Baltic coast. About 12,000 men were held here, many of them Americans — all aircrew. Bill was held there for 15 months and says they were well fed most of the time. In Bill’s hut they pooled their Red Cross parcels and shared everything with each other. There was 24 men in each hut and they arranged a rota for the daily tasks of cleaning and cooking. There was a Camp notice board where progress of the war was charted, and items for sale were displayed (in exchange for cigarettes). Some POWs blackmailed German guards into bringing goods into them form outside. During the winter of 1944-5 things got hard and onto basic rations and few Red Cross parcels. 1945 Jan — Feb was coldest winter for 30 years, and the POWs lived on potatoes and bread. Eventually they could hear the Russians advancing towards the camp and their German guards told the POW’s they would have to march west. They refused to do so and not long afterwards the POW’s awoke to find the guards had disappeared. About 1 week later the Russian’s arrived.

Many Russian soldiers were drunk and looking for women. Eventually some Flying Fortresses arrived to take the POW’s home. Whilst waiting Bill saw a young girl (about 15 years old) who had been raped and has never forgotten the distress she was in. On his flight home they flew over Hamburg which had been destroyed by allied aircraft. Bill arrived home at Ford RAF Station in Sussex and six months later came home to Bishop Auckland.

When he was shot down he was just 21 years of age.

This reminiscence was told to Ken Otter and entered onto this website by Catherine Dawson of Woodhouse Close Library.

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