大象传媒

An edited oral history interview with members of 582 No.8 (PFF Group), Little Staughton (officially formed on 1st April 1944) and Mr. Harry Hughes, Navigator of 692 Squadron, Graveley which was part of the Light Night Striking Force.

Interviewees - Mr. Edward 鈥楾ed鈥� Stocker, DSO, Air Commodore Gerry Bennington, Mr. Reg Cann, Mr. Harry Hughes, Mr. George Hall, Mr. Roy Pengilley, and Mr. Howard Lee conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum. The interview took place at the Moat House Hotel, Bedford on 18th June 2005. This was on the occasion of the final re-union of RAF personnel and their families of the No.8 PFF Group.

鈥淚 am Ted Stocker, a Flight Engineer from 582 Squadron. I ended up on 582 having been previously on 7 and 35 Squadron - Pathfinders and before that with 102 and 35 Squadrons in No.4 Group. I鈥檇 been around quite a bit.

I stayed alive when other people were dropping dead all around me. It鈥檚 amazing, I went through a hundred odd raids and the worst damage I had they鈥檇 made some holes in my jacket with flak. But, remember I was the lucky one. But for everyone that was lucky there was an awful number that were unlucky. I started out in Evanton in Scotland on an Air Gunners Course because when I started there were no training courses for Flight Engineers you had to have an engine fitter鈥檚 qualification first. Then you learnt to be an Air Gunner, God knows why but we did. There were twelve of us on the course, 10 are dead, one鈥檚 blind and there鈥檚 me. So as I say, it鈥檚 survival that was the name of the game. You stayed alive you got the gongs!

On the Lancaster the Engineers had two roles actually because within PFF it was different to the rest of Bomber Command. Don Bennett said 鈥楢ny idiot can aim a bomb and drop it so the Engineers can do it!鈥� In PFF we had two Navigators instead of a Navigator and a Bomb Aimer. And the two Navigators were sat up there side by side to improve the quality of the job and make it easier - to ensure that we arrived over the target at the right point and to drop the markers at the right time and when we did, 鈥楨ngineer get down the nose and aim the bombs鈥� - as simple as that.

The Oboe (a radio bombing) system, that was diabolical! From my point of view, from the Engineers point of view! But we did have Oboe on Lancasters. I did the first one with Group Captain Grant* and the unfortunate thing is our 582 pilot gets out of the seat and swops over with the 109 Squadron pilot, which is what happened with Palmer. On the first one I was on it was just Group Captain Grant who was C.O. of 109 who got in the left hand seat and sat there and then we went over the target and there is no intercom, there is no nothing, just a deathly hush. I don鈥檛 know how long, I believe it must be about four minutes but it seemed like a half an hour or more. You are sat there, people firing guns at you but that is not unusual but you are flying straight and level and timing becomes - hope nothing hits you until the bombs go. And then thank god we are back on intercom and the Gunner can at least say that there is something happening out there. No, Oboe in a Lancaster was not good fun! I think the boys in the Mosquitos had a better deal, there were a lot higher up! That was the big thing. No, I didn鈥檛 like Oboe in Lancs.
*Wing Commander George F. Grant, DSO, DFC

We dropped the markers, yes. One of the most fascinating was when I was flying with (Master Bomber) Group Captain P. H. Cribb, DSO, DFC, who was 582 Squadron Commander at that time. This was a daylight raid. We bombed the Island of Walcheren (3rd October 1944) on the Scheldt Estuary. The idea was to make the island uninhabitable for the Germans by knocking a hole in the sea wall. It wasn鈥檛 a big raid as far as aircraft was concerned. We stayed over the target for a couple of hours and they were sending in 50 main force aircraft every 20 minutes and we put the markers down on the sea front and gradually knocked a hole in the sea wall and eventually the water came in. There was a little rivalry between 5 Group which incorporates 617 (Dambusters) Squadron and the Pathfinder Force. The last group of bombers that were coming in to knock a hole in the wall was to be 617 Squadron with some of their Tallboys, they are a very big bomb, we didn鈥檛 need them, we sent them home again! One up for Pathfinders! But OK that was interesting because there was only one ack ack battery at Westkapelle, right on the tip of the island and earlier - between I think the first and second wave we had some smaller bombs which we aimed vaguely at the ack ack battery. And then had the pleasure of seeing the brave Hun get on their bicycles and cycling down the main road straight through the middle of Walcheren Island to the mainland 鈥� very satisfying, that!

Interestingly enough after the war I worked in Holland and we went down to have a look at Walcheren. Where we knocked a hole in the dyke, there is still a hole in the dyke and there is a little inlet with a lagoon inside with a nice little beach and a nice restaurant there. Oh, well we did some good we gave somebody some employment. You get the rough and the smooth. The awkward ones when you get shot up over Berlin and the compass doesn鈥檛 work and one engine has gone out - you wonder where the hell you are and you find out when everyone is shooting at you - you must be over somewhere like 鈥楬appy Valley鈥�, the Rhur Valley, they had plenty of guns.

I had a co-pilot stuck in that hatch once! The hatch in the Halifax, is right under the Nav鈥檚 table. We were told to bale out and we had a co-pilot who was actually a skipper from the Whitley Squadron, 58 Squadron. We used to carry the Whitley skippers as co-pilots before they did the conversion course. This fellow was used to Whitleys and he had therefore put on the appropriate gear which was a full Irving suit - the big Irving top, the big Irving trousers - he was a big lad. Now that hatch is reasonable and this fellow sat with his legs out and then tried to pull his head out and there he was with his bottom stuck up in the air. We had run out of fuel and we were about to crash obviously because there was nothing to keep us up! Len Thorpe was our wireless operator, because I was standing up on the top of the steps waiting to come down and Len was supposed to go next. Well Len, instead of going came back up the steps- where the co-pilots position is and jumped straight on this fellow鈥檚 backside and the pair of them went out like a cork out of a bottle! By which time we were too low to bale out. Well we might have been able to except that the Flight Engineer had to go down under the step by the radio man鈥檚 position to get the skippers pack - unfortunately he hadn鈥檛 put the elastic across it so when the Navigator left way before Len had jumped we assumed the parachute pack went too. So I went back on the top to the skipper and said, 鈥楽orry, your parachute has gone!鈥� It was too late then anyway we were going to crash and we just went down in an untidy heap in a field.

Another mission - anyhow it was quite an uneventful trip to Pilsen. We went over the target, we dropped our bombs and nobody fired back or did any damage or anything. So the Engineer puts his head down, goes to the instruments, fills in the log sheet. We were clear of the target then - have a look through one of the Astrodomes, have a look at the exhaust, see that they are all the right colour. And I had my look out and then I said quietly over the intercom, 鈥楴avigator, if we are going home why is the Pole star on the port side?鈥� There was a little hush that lasted a good 10 seconds before all hell broke loose. The Pole star on the port side means that we are going East and my reckoning from Czechoslovakia going East is not the best way home!

VE DAY
The last Operation we did was Operation Manna dropping the food for the Dutch in Rotterdam. We did some of those from Little Staughton. And then we started bringing home the Prisoners of War. I鈥檇 done, I think one to France bringing home Prisoners of War just before the 6th of May 1945. The 5th I don鈥檛 remember doing anything but on the 8th which was the day actually when they were calling it VE Day - 582 provided one of our Master Bomber aircraft because our Master Bomber aircraft had better radio equipment than the others. I had a Service motorbike and I put that in the back of a Lanc and we went to L眉beck on the 8th of May and sat on the end of the runway acting as air traffic control all through the day while Bomber Command was sending planes picking up POWs and flying them back. We were the first in, in the morning and when the last Lancaster left in the evening we stopped acting as Air Traffic Control, picked up our quota of POWs and we flew back. Not to Little Staughton, we had to take them somewhere else so we took them there and by the time we鈥檇 done that it was dark. We then had the privilege of flying back over England on the evening of VE Day when all the bonfires were lit and all over the country there were all these bonfires, it was a magnificent sight! I didn鈥檛 actually get a drink because my log book says that we didn鈥檛 land until the morning of the 9th which was probably sometime after midnight. I was doing Squadron Ops Officer at the time and I went down to the Ops Room to find out what was on the next day and what we were required to provide, I鈥檝e forgotten how many, some crews to do the same sort of thing the next day. Where was everybody? Cambridge! London! No Squadron Commander, no Station Commander! I think there were a couple of Flight Commanders of ours. Early on the morning of the 9th I tried to rustle up a few crews to go over the next day to bring some more POWs back. But I did get a drink sometime early on the morning of the 9th as the girls in the telephone exchange found a bottle of gin that had something left in the bottom. I had a very tiny tot of gin on the morning of the 9th. That was my VE Day!鈥�

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