大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Northumberland on behalf of Mrs. Enid Mackay (nee Lundrem). Mrs. Mackay fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions, and the story has been added to the site with his permission. It is written in the first person.

I met my husband, Johnny (John) Mackay, before the Munich Crisis in September 1938 when he was serving with the regular Royal Air force (RAF) and found himself storm-bound at Amble, Northumberland. At the time, he flew Flying Boats, often Sunderland Flying Boats. After a two-year engagement we were married in 1941.

My Father, John Gunner Lundrem, was a mariner of Swedish origin who held strong ideas on the role women should play during the War. I had wanted to join the Women鈥檚 Royal Naval Service, commonly known as the Wrens, but he would have none of it: 鈥淚f girls have to do war work, then join the Land Army鈥�. However, being married and with Johnny, as aircrew, having leave every five weeks, most of my war was spent as a housewife and mother although I was a Fire Warden for a time while living at Pershore, in Worcestershire. It was not what could be called an exciting contribution to the war effort, making sure that the stirrup pumps were functioning properly and making lots of pots of tea! However, it was while we were at Pershore that our daughter, Ingrid, was born, in 1942.

Life in His Majesty's services during wartime was helped on many occasions when a good sense of humour saved the day. Another interesting snippet, I remember quite clearly that anything of importance during the War always seemed to be announced and broadcast to the nation on a Sunday morning, presumably so that people could not immediately do anything about it!

Throughout the War, Johnny was the Radio Officer of whichever aircraft he was assigned to. He switched regularly between Coastal Command and Bomber Command. At the end of May 1941 he was with the former and took part in the hunt for the German battleship Bismark, which ended with her sinking on 27 May. In the following year, he had switched to Bomber Command for a tour of operations flying Wellington bombers, which caused us to move to the West Country.

In retaliation for German air raids on our cities, Winston Churchill had said that we would bomb every major city in the Rhur area of Germany. I remember well the first thousand bomber raid on Germany, which took place on the night of 31 May 1942 when the target was Cologne. With the sheer number of aircraft involved, the planes made a terrific noise as they took off and rendezvoused in the sky into their squadrons. We wives waited in the Officers鈥� Mess for their safe return. Johnny returned all right but on the very next night another large raid took place. The target for that one was Hamburg but conditions were such that the raid concentrated instead on Essen.

Nothing exciting happened in 1943 when Johnny was with Coastal Command, but when he returned to Bomber Command his plane was badly shot up during a raid over the Continent. It was really the plane's navigator who got it back to England. Johnny鈥檚 flying helmet was grazed with a bullet but, more significant, his hearing was affected, which was something that remained with him throughout the rest of his life.

At the end of the war in Europe, Johnny was based at Binbroke in Lincolnshire. I remember great rejoicing at the time but the war in the Far East was still going on and Johnny was earmarked to go to Burma with a unit called Tiger Force. However, before it could leave the War was brought to a speedy conclusion when the Americans dropped two atomic bombs, the first on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and the other on Nagasaki three days later.

After the War ended, Johnny flew in Shackleton bombers for Coastal Command on reconnaissance and search missions but when he failed a medical, largely because of his defective hearing, he moved into the Secretarial Branch of the RAF. He reached the rank of Squadron Leader before his career ended. Unfortunately for me, a heart attack in 1963 brought our happy marriage to a premature end.

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