大象传媒

At the beginning of the war I lived with my aunt and uncle in Llanelli. One night I was escorting my cousin, Pauline when a German plane flew over. I said 鈥淒ive!鈥� and we both hit the ground. (Pauline was a nurse at the local hospital and her husband was serving in the army in the Middle East. My uncle served in the army in the First World War and was involved in the liberation of Palestine) That was my first taste of the war.

In 1941 I was a locomotive fireman on the Great Western Railway in Bristol. This was at the time when Bristol was being heavily bombed by the German Air Force. However, as a young man I would almost look forward to the raids because living opposite were the three attractive daughters of an engine driver from my engine sheds and during the raids I鈥檇 go across and have long chats with them. We didn鈥檛 think of taking shelter because that part of Bristol, although it was high up, was rarely bombed at that time.

I also worked on the railway in Bath while it was heavily bombed and it upsets me when people make comments about our bombing of Dresden. It is a pity they show so little sympathy for the British cities that were bombed and all the people who lost their lives fighting for their country. After the war I met a German who had lost his wife in one of the raids on Dresden. He said that everyone in Dresden was engaged in making small arms for the German army and no china was produced in the city once the war started.

In 1942 I joined the Royal Air Force. I was in a reserved occupation on the railways and the only service I could join was the aircrew, for which I volunteered. When I joined up the aircrew wore white flashes in their forage caps to distinguish them from other RAF units, and I was very proud to wear them.

Later I was in Bath again, this time on a weekend pass with two Australian members of my crew. We were having a night out with three young ladies when the city was heavily bombed and were all late getting back to camp and were called in front of the CO. One of the Australians made the excuse that we got lost and tried to ask the way, but no one could understand their Australian accents. The CO said 鈥淛ohns is not an Australian鈥� and he received the reply that 鈥淛ohns鈥� Welsh accent is even worse!鈥� It didn鈥檛 work and we were confined to the barracks for six days, reporting to the guardroom hourly from 7-10 pm. On the last day we were having a drink in the Sergeants鈥� Mess when the CO walked in. He said 鈥淚 thought I would catch you here - now, what are you going to have to drink?鈥�

When I joined the RAF we did basic training in Bridlington, Yorkshire. On completion I had two weeks leave and I was asked where I wanted to be posted. There was an air-gunnery school in Penbury in south Wales just outside Llanelli and Stormydown and not very far from where I come from. But when my posting came through it was to Caithness in the north of Scotland. I couldn鈥檛 have been much further away from home. The course should have lasted twelve weeks, but they were short of gunners at the time and it was cut to six weeks. It was, however, the most satisfying time in my RAF career.

Before arriving at the Scottish base the instructors spoke to everyone. All they seemed to talk about was the risks and the loss of rear gunners who were 鈥榟osed out of the turret鈥�. This was obviously done to separate the 鈥榳heat from the shaft鈥� and quite a few left and joined the army. I met a mate at the end of the war who had done this and ended up as a machine gunner in the army. He said, 鈥淚 might just as well have stayed in the air force.鈥�

At the end of the course the white flashes were taken away, but to take their place I had three stripes on my arm 鈥� I was now a sergeant. In fact, everyone who passed was made a sergeant; you were chucked out if you didn鈥檛 make the grade.

After that we went to Sighford in Shropshire. I was with a close friend, another gunner who was Scottish, in a public house drinking when a fight started between the Australians and us. An English bomb aimer came up to me and said, 鈥淗ave you been crewed up yet?鈥� I replied, 鈥淣o鈥�. He said, 鈥淕ood, you are in my team now!鈥� He often used to say, 鈥淥nly the good die young鈥�. I found out years later that he spent time in prison after the war for murdering his wife.

At Sighford our training really started with nighttime and daytime cross-country flights. We would be 鈥榓ttacked鈥� by RAF Spitfires and films made of these attacks showed that we scored more hits that the Spitfires. On one of the trips during this training period was a leaflet drop over Ch芒teaudun, France. On the way back we were attacked by a German nightfighter and I was credited with shooting it down. On the return one of our engines was hit and gave out. It was full of bullet holes and we were forced to land in Tarrant Rushdon, Dorset. The group gunnery officer came to interrogate us and he said 鈥淲ell done, Johns, this means another bar to my DFC2鈥� - but I didn鈥檛 get anything! Before they would credit you with a 鈥榮hot down鈥� another member of the crew had to witness it and George saw it going down in flames, and another crewmember confirmed the shoot down. It was a JU 88.

It was at Sighford that I met George Aylmore from Perth in Western Australia (see also George鈥檚 account of the time he spent on Bomber Command). This friendship has lasted to this day. George and his wife have stayed with my family and I have also stayed in Australia with George and his wife. George was a farmer鈥檚 son and he owns a Gipsy Moth plane. In 1991 I accompanied George on a trip across Australia from Perth to Sidney in the Gipsy Moth to attend the RAAF 70th anniversary air show. This trip took us twelve days and there were many incidents on this flight, but that is another story. George was a wireless operator. His father flew a plane over their 900-acre estate and George learnt to fly before joining the RAAF. For some reason the selection board ignored this skill and he was made a wireless operator.

The pilot was a New Zealander, John (Lofty) Groves who was six foot three inches. He was a first class pilot who flew some 3000 miles before he came to us. He was awarded the DFC for pressing home his attacks. The navigator also received the same award; he was called Douglas Buchanan, a Scots lad. Two months after the war I met up with him at the same camp and the first thing he said to me was, 鈥淲hy aren鈥檛 you wearing your gong?鈥� I said, 鈥淲hat gong?鈥� He said he had been told I had been awarded the DFC and should look into it. I tried to find out, but was told there was no record of it.

After the Nickle (leaflet) raid, (where they threw out foil to interfere with German radar) we carried out 35 bombing missions over Germany, mostly over the Ruhr Valley. The last raid was over Dresden. The raids over the Rhine took about eight to nine hours, and the raid to Dresden took longer; most of the raids were on Berlin.

The other gunner in the crew at the onset was a Scot, Jock Giholy, who was a miner in peacetime. On one mission our target area was a mining area around Bochum. Jock refused to take part in this operation because he did not feel he could do anything that would risk entombing a single miner, whatever the miner鈥檚 nationality. This action took tremendous courage. It also says a lot for Jock鈥檚 CO that he respected Jock鈥檚 viewpoint and stood him down for that exercise and no charges were made.

On one occasion the Wellington Jock was flying in crash landed in flames but managed to stop in the dispersal area where I was waiting for Jock to return. I saw several crew members escape through the astro-hatch. I went to the rear turret where the gunner was struggling to get out and, with the assistance of a groundcrew member, managed to help pull him out. Someone shouted 鈥楻un!' and in spite of the fact he was wearing flying boots the gunner was already 10 yards ahead of us! Jock was badly burned in this incident and unable to fly for several months and I didn鈥檛 fly with him again鈥�

Unfortunately Jock died a few years ago. Shortly before he died George and I visited Jock and his family when he described how he鈥檇 been in a mining accident after the war and had been buried for three days before being rescued. At least he had never inflicted this suffering on a fellow miner.

It is reckoned that we lost one Wellington and its crew on each twelve-week course. I trained in Wellingtons and then went on a conversion course and our crew was lucky to find itself on Lancaster鈥檚 in Sighford. I was transferred to Hemswell, Lincolnshire, in 1943, from where we carried out the 35 missions over Germany. We spent our spare time drinking and going out with girls.

I spent the missions in the turret, which rotated all the time and was completely open to the elements. On longer trips the rear gunner wore a heated suit and heated gloves, but it was still very cold on your back. The German planes were better armoured than our planes, and often the bullets bounced off them. Our rear turrets had four 0.303 guns which were no match for the German night fighters; you could actually see the trace of bullets bouncing off them. Towards the end of the war Rolls Royce built a turret, which was really the 鈥楻olls Royce鈥� of turrets. This was fitted with two 500 metre guns and we actually had armoured plating protecting our legs and important parts 鈥� if only it could have gone into production two years earlier, we would have shot down more German plans and many more gunners would have survived the war.

I had to stay in the rear turret for the whole of the trip. There were no toilets in the turret, so we just had to hold on. The parachute was hanging to the door behind me. I only put it on once and I was half out of when the plane rectified itself; another few second and I would have jumped. I felt safe over the sea as I was a good swimmer and felt I would have stood a good chance. Luckily my faith in my abilities was never tested. We carried sandwiches, a flask and chocolate rations. We were even given pamphlets, in French, showing the French underground!

Towards the end of the war we did some daylight raids. We were in the front of the Vic at the front of the squadron: 290 planes took part in the raid. We had an excellent navigator, and were mainly bombing the heavy industrial area of the Ruhr.

On one occasion, I was sitting in my turret, checking everything before take-off, when who should be standing there but my eldest brother, Jack. Jack was a pilot in the airforce auxiliary (he had flown with Amy Johnson). His job was to fly planes to the stations where they were most needed. They used very experienced pilots because, for example, one day they flew a Lancaster and the next a Spitfire. He went to the Officers鈥� Mess while I was on the raid and did not see me again until the next day. He told my Auntie Fan that waiting for my return was the longest eight hours he had ever spent. Jack survived the war, but was killed soon after in a plane accident on what was meant to be his last flight for the RAF.

The last four operation trips were to East Germany including Leipzig and Dresden. The Dresden trip took twelve hours; you did not fly direct but were navigated to bypass heavily fortified towns. On this trip, I could still see the fires 500 miles away from Dresden.

One of the gunners who joined the RAF with me was shot down after six trips. While I was on the Flying Squad in Scotland Yard I had to go to Tunbridge Wells where I was introduced to a local man. During general conversation about the town I told him that during the war I had a friend, Ken Drury who was came from the town but was killed during the war. He came from Tunbridge Wells and had invited me there several times but, sadly, I never got around to it. The man was a cousin of Drury鈥檚. He was glad I hadn鈥檛 turned up a week or two earlier: Ken鈥檚 father had just died and 鈥渆ven after all these years you only had to mention his son鈥檚 name and he still broke down鈥欌��.

I would like to remember and thank all the men I flew with, the relatives and friends of those who did not return and also those who have died more recently.

After the war I served as a detective sergeant on Scotland Yard鈥檚 famous Flying Squad and I met similar men, day in and day out, as I had met serving with Bomber Command and whom I was proud to know.

I would like to thank my family for helping to record this.

Alan Johns
1997 (Extracts from this account appeared in the magazine of the Air Gunners鈥橝ssociation, the Turrett, in 1997)

Alan Johns died on 21 February 1999 after a long illness.

Like many people of his generation the war completely changed his life. At the beginning of the war he worked on the railways, and if it hadn鈥檛 been for the war, he would almost certainly have made a career of this, as his father and 3 brothers had done.

Alan was born on 1 July 1923, the second youngest of five children. He grew up in Llanelli and then moved to Tenby, retaining close links with both towns all his life.

His father was a train driver, a good job in those days, and he enjoyed living in Tenby with all it had to offer. Sadly, his mother died when he was 7 and his father when he was 14. But he was surrounded by a close and supportive immediate and extended family and he reckoned that the hardest time for him was when he was 14 and unable to find work in Tenby. The Labour Exchange found him a job in a factory, far away in St Alban鈥檚. They provided him with a new suit, suitcase, his train-fare and digs and he had to make the best of it. This he did, but he returned to Wales as soon as he was old enough to follow his father and brothers鈥� footsteps and get a job on the railways.

He joined the RAF in 1942. After the war, he took advantage of one of the schemes for ex-servicemen and joined the police force. His retirement as a Detective Sergeant from the police in 1977 attracted much interest. His career included 14 years on the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad (he was then, and possibly still is, the longest serving officer on the Flying Squad) where he was involved in several high profile cases. These included the arrest of Roy James, one of the 鈥楪reat Train Robbers鈥� and the arrest of the then 鈥榤ost wanted鈥� criminal, John McVicar.

Following his retirement from the Police Force, he worked as the European Security Officer for QANTAS until his retirement in 1986. This job not only enabled him to make use of his considerable experience, it also allowed him to fulfil one of his lifelong ambitions and travel to Australia and New Zealand. Another ambition was also fulfilled when he went to watch the Lions Tour of New Zealand in the 1980s. Rugby, perhaps not surprisingly, was a lifelong passion.

He remained active in retirement until illness intervened in his early seventies.

His wife, Madge, died in 1993 and he is survived by five daughters, one son and fourteen grandchildren.

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