大象传媒

I was called up in 1941 when I was 18. I wanted to be in the RAF as a pilot but once they knew I was a lorry driver they explained that the RAF was very short of lorry drivers and so I ended up in the MT- the Motor Transport- Section of the RAF.
I trained for 6 weeks at Blackpool- we had to be on the beach at 7am for exercises- back for breakfast and then muster on the prom for marching and rifle drill. The marching got longer each day until at the end of 6 weeks we were doing a full 30 miles. The final day we did a Passing Out Parade with the RAF Band. I enjoyed it and we were extremely fit by the end of it.

I then had 7 days leave and then back to Blackpool to a place called Weeton for an MT course where we were expected to learn to drive every form of vehicle the RAF had- cars, lorries, cranes, tractors including 60 foot 'Queen Mary's' which were long low-loaders.

After 16 weeks I was posted to 102 Bomber Squadron of No.4 Bomber Group at Pocklington in East Yorkshire. My night duty involved me taking crews out to their bombers on a 30cwt Fordson van which was a canvas covered truck. On one particular evening I had taken the crew out to 'Ell for Leather'- the plane was nicknamed that because its alpahabetical designation was was the letter L, preceeding DY which was the 102 squadron motif. I dropped them off and on my way to collect the next crew from the briefing room I looked across the airfield and saw 'Ell for Leather' was on fire with the crew on board. My first thought was to return to the bomber to rescue them but on reaching the 'kite' (ie the bomber) the whole plane was in flames. What had happened was it had been overfilled with petrol and it was sitting in a pool of this 100 octane fuel. By now the crew had got out and had taken refuge in the nearest air raid shelter but I wasn't to know this. So I got out of my truck and shouted over to the blazing plane- 'Where are you?' The crew in the shelter heard me calling and shouted back- 'Get away from it- it's bombed up!' I was only 20 odd paces away from the plane and it wasn't until now that I realised the danger I was in. I jumped back into my truck- I was only on the step when the plane exploded with the full force of two one thousand pound bombs on board, one hell of a lot of incendiaries, and tons of fuel. There was a huge explosion and I felt a terrific heat hit my body- it almost felt like I was being crushed. I got into my truck and to my surprise it was still intact including the windscreen- and more to the point so was I! Strangely it had all gone quiet- deathly quiet- so instead of driving away I got back out to see what had happened. The plane had gone completely. I walked to where it had stood and looked into what was now a 20 foot deep crater- it was steaming. There was no part of the aircraft to be seen. nor of the concrete it had been standing on. I was told later that the reason I survived was because the concrete deflected the full force of the blast upwards over my head. The explosion demolished an empty cottage which was 2 miles away on the edge of the airfield. God I was lucky- for whatever reason, my name wasn't on it.
I then drove back to the briefing room - I was probably in shock- because I forgot all about the crew who were still out there in the shelter. They had to walk back- and did they curse me!
The next day I overheard two officers talking about the incident and one was saying to the other- 'That lorry driver was lucky- he was standing right by that plane- how on earth did he get away with it?' And for some reason I didn't say a word- I didnt mention it was me. Perhaps I was worried about there being some sort of inquest involving me- and I couldn't be bothered with any of that!

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