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[interview 3 = Kenneth Furness]
This story is taken from an interview with Kenneth Furness, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview was by RBL Waterside Branch, and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I was 19 when I joined the RAF. I was 82 in June

I joined at Padgate in Lancashire. Actually it took place at Euston House in London. That was purely signing forms.
It must have been at least 8-9 months before I got called up. When I went in the RAF was 1942, the August Bank Holiday.

I had an interest in aircraft. I joined the ATC at an early age, and didn鈥檛 think of anything but flying. I trained as a Flight Engineer. The people originally as flight engineers were ground crew, but they started to run out of them and got new people from civvy street. You had Flight Mechanic鈥檚 training, for the aircraft and engine, separately. Exams were taken.
You then go to heavy conversion, where you pick up a crew who had only flown twin-engine planes and train on 4-engine planes.

If anything goes wrong you advise the pilot if anything can be done. You control the fuel tanks, to make sure you balance everything out so when you return to base the weight of petrol is in centre, not the wingtips of the plane.

I was in the Halifax.
It was ahead of the Lancaster in time, and also ahead of the Wellington. The Wellington was being taken out of service when I went in.
I never flew in a Wellington 鈥� they may be more stable, but they couldn鈥檛 carry the load of a 4-engine plane.

7 crew. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, rear gunner, mid upper gunner, flight engineer.

In the air I had to keep a job of fuel tank changes.

When we were on the learning curve the job was purely flying. Then we were posted as a crew to RAF Tempsford in Devonshire for special duties. Supplying the Maquis and others across France and Occupied Europe. By parachute.
Various trips we did. French trips were generally routine. Other trips were more difficult
2 trips to Poland. The reason we did it was, the weather was very bad and the Polish crews got behind so they had to get us to do it.
The losses were very bad. It occurred at time, the Russians had approached the Polish border. They sat back and let the Germans do what they wanted, blow the place up. Apparently the boss asked the Russians for permission for us to land on their side. They refused, so we had to do it our way. There and back 13 hour trip, right on the edge of our range. The engines nearly cut as we landed.
The first trip to Poland, 2 polish crews a few minutes ahead of us. We knew where they would be as we approached the Danish coast. We were loaded with extra petrol over the bomb bays. Inside the engine.
The Flak came up ahead of us. The planes 3-4 miles ahead of us just blew away! We knew what to expect. They got a searchlight on us as we crossed the coast. The pilot pushed the nose down to evade it. The bomb aimer saw trees and shouted out to pull up.
A lot of the Polish crews were running into the ground, trying to evade the searchlights.
We came down in a power glide, doing 180.

I did 32 trips altogether. Probably maybe 10-11 under fire. Others were slight, nothing to worry about.
There鈥檚 a story there, early days. We crossed the French coast. Flak started coming up. I thought, best follow procedure.
鈥淔light Engineer 鈥� flak to starboard鈥�
The pilot told me later, had I shouted he might have reacted the wrong way. I stuck to routine.

The training gets you through, and the comaraderie with the crew. The 3 main officers 鈥� pilot, navigator and bomb aimer. The bomb aimer was also a pilot, so if the pilot was hit he could take over.

A group photo was taken at RAF Tempsford, not long after we arrived at the Sqdn. I was with the Ground-crew engineers at the back. The rest of the crew at the front. I was 19 陆.

In 1943 there were 2 sqdns at our station. Mine was sqdn 138, the other was sqdn 161. The base commander was Group Capt Fielden. He was the King鈥檚 pilot.

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