大象传媒

My dad volunteered for the RAf in early 1942 he served as an RAF armourer and later trained as a Wop/Ag on Lockheed Hudson's of Coastal Command. He said it was so cold and windy up at Wick that you needed to hold onto a rail to walk from the billett to the mess hall incase you were blown into the sea. His flying was cut short when on a training circuit at Gib the aircraft landed badly and he went forward and cut his mouth and eye on the machine gun in the turrett. He thought he would be out of things after that and was sent to a unit near Oxford taking bombs and armourment off of crashed aircraft German, British and American within a 50 mile radius of Oxford. He was issued with a rifle and helmet and told to man a trench in Gibraltar when they feared a German invasion from the Spanish side and I have a photo of him in the trench. However the Germans did not come. I would love to hear from anyone from 48 or 608 squadrons.
He used to say he fought more Yanks than Germans in the pubs especially in the UK. His best mate from Manchester wore glasses but was a boxer and when you would see him take off his specs at a dance then you were ready to get stuck in. He said that he would hit me from the top of stair and end up at the bottom just for fun. Many Americans were flattened by him. The Spanish didnt care for us much either one spat on my mates shoe in Gib and was made to lick it off. We went to an American base for some spares once, there were 3 of us - we got lunch there evrytnig on one plate ham eggs and ice cream many things we had not had for a long time. After we finished this American with lots of medal ribbons started telling us what each one was for , after going through the whole lot of them he asked lofty what his one ribbon was for he said 'for two attacks of dissentary' (It was infact a DFM). We told some near the knuckle jokes then got out quick!
My dad went back to farming after the war and got on with the German POW's he was with most were just like us except for the odd die hard SS nazi who we could not get to work he said. These are some of my memories of talking with my dad, he died sadly in 1985 after 30 years in the Police force.

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