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"This story was submitted to the site by the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Peoples War Team in the East Midlands with Joe Westmoorlands permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

In June 1940 I was called up and joined the RAF. I ended up working with Wellington bombers, working at RAf and various other airfield. I ended up at Hythe when the flying bombs were coming over. There were all the guns along the coast there and we were set behind with spitfires - the planes would have to go up in the guns didn’t catch any, it was a direct path to London. I was there for while before I was dispatched abroad — we landed in Belgium and then went up into Denmark and then on into Germany where I ended up on an airfield near Cologne. I was relieved from there in 1946. as our bomber were coming back they’d get back in the early morning — often the Germans would follow them — as we put the flare paths up for ours to land they’d then come in and bomb the airfield. Very often our lads had to circle the airfield until it was getting light so that the Germans cleared off before they could land.

While on a German airfield we were due to go on into Berlin — but after an outbreak of typhoid in the city they turned us back. There were 40 of our RAF lorries so we ended up on the German airfield — As we were near Cologne we had a trip down the Rein — all the bridge were blown up by the Germans to slow the allied advance. All the houses were lying in ruins — there were cracks down the steeple of the cathedral. I still have a wine glass at home — it was lay in the middle of a destroyed hour, completely in ruins — the glass was in perfect condition so I saved it as a souvenir. Back on the base we weren’t allowed to speak to any German soldiers even if they were prisoners of war.

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