大象传媒

The following is an account of one of the first operations undertaken by my father V.G.Robson (George) He was a navigator on De Havilland Mosquito aircraft.

Before our next operation my pilot, George Parry (Later W/Cdr D.A.George Parry MBE,DSO,DFC) and I were involved in a very secret trip. It all started on a squadron stand down in 1942 from August 3rd midday to August 4th midnight, at RAF Horsham St.Faith. Most of our fellow aircrew had been on the phone booking rooms in the Royal Palace hotel in London and generally rushing around getting their passes signed and looking for rail passes. After lunch I wandered into the mess lounge, it was like a deserted village, just George and me and a few other station staff, no other aircrew. Suddenly the 'Tanoy' sprang to life: "Will F/LT Parry go to the operations room immediately". Normally on a squadron stand down we were guaranteed no ops flights. George looked across at me and I at him but he didn't say anything. Sure enough another message: "Will F/O Robson report to the ops room" came over about five minutes later. George met me outside the ops room, "it's all right Robby we are going to Sweden". "What, in a Mosquito?" I asked. Yes, the roundels would have to be painted out and we would go as a civilian plane in civilian clothes. We had to go to London that night by train, I think we stopped at George's uncle's house. Next morning at the Air Ministry we got our passports and details of what we had to do. If we came down in Sweden we had to burn the plane, as the Mosquito was still on the secret list. Our instructions were to collect a lot of intelligence information from the Russian front and return with this in the bomb bay. We had to be very careful of what we talked about with the Air Attache's staff there, as a lot of German spies were living in Stockholm. We were back at Horsham St. Faith by lunchtime. Our aircraft was ready, newly painted, so we changed into civilian clothes (I had to borrow some) and flew to Leuchars airport near Dundee. We should have taken off from Leuchars at seven o'clock but George registered the aircraft as unserviceable, the generator was not working. The Air Ministry phoned up later asking why we had not taken off but George said there was a bit of a snag with the aircraft and we would go at the same time tomorrow, which we did.

We flew nearly directly over Gothenburg and then on to Broma airport in Stockholm. On arrival we were given food vouchers which I still have. We were put into a hotel and collected a bit later for a meal in a lovely restaurant. There was a band playing and as soon as we arrived they struck up 'Annie Laurie'. We had a good evening with meal and schnapps to drink. Our hosts were hungry for a good talk but after they pointed out the German spies to us George gave me a kick under the table and I shut up giving our secrets away. After breakfast next morning we were introduced to Sqdn. Ldr. Paddon an escaped P.O.W. I believe he got to the northern part of Lubock and escaped in a coal vessel. He was talking about coming back with us strapped in the bomb bay. Unfortunately we were already full there, but he gave George a telephone number and George rang them up the day after we returned only to hear he was already back in Scotland. What a 'type', he was already talking to us about getting back on ops. All I hope is that he finished the war O.K. We arrived back on the 6th from Lauchars to Marham. There was great curiosity on the squadron of course but we did not say much.

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