大象传媒

I enlisted at 17 1/2 years of age into the Transport Section of the Royal Air Force and after Induction Training was sent to Morecambe for Transport Training. At Morecambe we lived in private houses on the seafront. Houses which, in peace time, were lodgings for holidaymakers. The landladies were still living there and looked after us really well. A sort of home from home with excellent meals served up from our rations. Our Transport Training took place all around the beautiful Lake District. Convoys of learner drivers were to be seen by day, and night, practicing hillstops and starts and reversing round corners in our 30cwt Fordson lorries. Coffee breaks mostly took place in Church Halls served by motherly volunteer workers. I was eventually posted to the Royal Canadian Air Force 410 Mosquito Fighter Squadron, 11 Fighter Group, at RAF Colby Grange in Lincolnshire, where the WAAF were billeted, very grandly, in "The Hall" the Colby Grange Manor House. We were a very happy bunch and enjoyed working with the Canadians. Contact with the Air Crews was negligible as the duty crews would wait their orders to "scramble" in the duty hut on the airfield. Other transport jobs such as Ambulance, Rations and general ferrying of personnel and/or equipment fell to us WAAF drivers on round the clock duties.
When the Allied Forces secured bases in France 410 Squadron moved to Flisy near Amiens. The WAAF personnel were left behind and I was posted , as an M T Driver, to another Canadian Squadron, namely RCAF 433 Halifax IIIs Bomber Squadron, 6 Group, at Skipton on Swale in Yorkshire. The next year they converted to Lancaster Bombers and I was to be there until the end of the war and experienced the triumphs and traumas of our air crews as they reacted to the bombing raids that took place over Germany. We got to know the Aircrews very well as we ferried them out to their planes after ops briefing before take-off, and then collected them again if and when they returned later in the night. They were always very quiet before take-off but their mood changed completely when they returned and landed, the relief of touching down on home ground released all their pent up feelings and expressive language which lasted all the way to the de-briefing hut.
We had our sad days when an aircraft didn鈥檛 return and this was particularly upsetting if the 鈥渂oys鈥� were known to us personally.
The living quarters at Skipton on Swale were of a temporary nature and consisted mostly of Nissan huts which were very cold in winter and extremely hot in the summer. At Christmas time we would decorate our huts with silver garlands made from the 鈥渨indow鈥� strips, cleverly folded aluminium foil strips, which the Lancaster bombers used for dropping over the target area as an Anti- Radar device. The main road to Thirsk ran through the middle of the Station and separated the living quarters from the Airfield. I remember we ate very well despite rationing as the Canadian cooks served up some very exciting new tastes, such as we English girls had not experienced before. Breakfast pancakes with maple syrup and bacon, also we often had ice-cream. Parcels from home received by the men and shared with us contained chocolate, gum, Sweet Caporal cigarettes and the really lovely scented Camay toilet soap.
When the war ended and the Canadians returned home I was posted to Transport Command, St. Mawgan, in Cornwall where I met my husband who I married in Kenya after a sea trip as a civilian passenger on the troopship 鈥淓mpire Ken鈥�, meeting Father Neptune and experiencing the Crossing the Line Ceremony. Then after nearly 40 years on a Coffee Farm we have returned home.

Mrs Norma Claudet
Photo of RCAF 433 Squadron to follow

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