大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Linda Kaye from GMR Action Desk on behalf of Mr Derek Jackson and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands website's terms and conditions.

When I was 18 1/2 I joined the squad as a air gunner. For lad of that age it was really quite something. The Squad was a very mixed, international group: it had S. Africans, Canadians etc. So it was a great experience - (knew not people from overseas before).
My crew consisted of 7 man- officers: navigator and bomb aimer, wireless ap. engineer; 2 gunner sergeants and me.
We flew from November 1944 to May 1945 and did bombing operations. This crew were close, all relied on everyone else. My pilot was a squadron leader but we all flew together, drunk together, a real "band of brothers" bomber crew. We did 25 operations. The plan was to do 30...we were ready to fly out to Japan Okinawa to do the last 5, but the atom bomb was dropped which finished the war. For me this was the best. Even though it was a terrible thing, if the war would have progressed there would have been millions more casualties on either side.

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