大象传媒

101 SQUADRON

I had only been at鈥�101 squadron鈥� for an hour when a chap came over and asked me 鈥淲ould I like to join his crew?鈥� I accepted immediately and was then introduced to the other chaps already in the crew. I was asked if I played football, cricket or boxing. I said I played football. Wing Commander Gunnery 鈥擶hite was a football fanatic and asked me to arrange a football match. He asked me to get lunches for the team for 11.30am but the officer in charge of the cook house said it would not be served until 12.00pm to which I told him that I would be advising the Wing Commander and of course we got the lunches at 11.30am. I was also asked to arrange transportation for the team, but when I called to arrange the transport, the transportation officer said there were no vehicles available and again I said we would have to inform the Wing Commander. Suddenly some transportation became available.

DODGE TRIPS

In 101 Squadron, we would fly down to Italy to collect army officers and bring them back to England. These were called dodge trips.
We took off at 7.00am and arrived at 3.00pm at Pomigliano just outside Naples. It was a beautiful, hot day. We stayed in a hotel on the other side of Naples, which was just called 56PDC; we would stay over night. The following day we would transport twenty four army officers back to Peterborough in England. We did this several times. On one occasion the coolants on the Lancaster failed and we had to stay in Naples for two weeks. Staying at the hotel, we would have breakfast and come out onto the main road at about 9.00am. American Jeeps were going passed all the time and we just had to put up a hand and they would stop and ask us where we wanted to go and take us there. One day we went around the ruins of Pompeii and took a horse and cart ride from Pompeii to a holiday resort called Tornenziardo. Another time we went to Sorrento with its black sands and had a beautiful day.
In 1945, the war had come to an end. 12 crews were selected from 101 Squadron and sent to Binbrook; where we amalgamated with 617, 44 Rhodesian, and 9 Squadrons. Whilst we were there our crew were selected to practise bombing missions against the Americans. The missions to bomb targets on the ground were to prove that our bombing was more accurate than the Americans, which we thought it was. We went down to Mildenall and the Americans went to Lakenheath. When we did these tests it was the last time I saw my crew. I was sent to Finningley Bomber Command Instructor School. A chap called Joe Lunt and I did so well we were kept on and became staff. Whenever we took off, the land girls on the farms would stand on the fences and would always wave at us. Around this time, I went to a dance hall called the Ritz in Doncaster where I met a young lady, later to become my wife. Whilst we were flying near Doncaster, we would fly the Lancaster over my new girlfriends鈥� parents鈥� farmhouse as low as possible, dipping the wings and showing off. We married in 1947 and we are still married today.

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