大象传媒

Bill Edwards, Eagle Squadron

This story is taken from an interview with Bill Edwards, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview was by Deirdre Donelly, and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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BEFORE THE US ENTERED THE WAR RECRUITS FOR THE RAF WERE TAKEN FROM THE USA - THE EAGLE SQUADRON BASED AT EGLINTON WAS MADE UP OF AMERICANS BUT WAS PART OF THE RAF SQUADRON WHO ESCORTED THE SHIPS OUT INTO THE ATLANTIC.

To begin with I was a student in college at the time. Back in 39 and 40. Of course I was only in school to become, I wanted to become a pilot then. The Army Air Corps. But I was not able to meet the standard because I flunked the physical. I had a couple of teeth out, so I didn鈥檛 qualify. I had heard about the recruiting for pilots in the RAF 鈥� that was under the table, of course. So I went down to the recruiting office, and enquired about it, and found out that they were needing pilots, and I basically qualified for what the requirements were.
November 1940, I signed up with what they called the Clayton Eye Committee, which was doing the recruiting. So they said 鈥淥k, you take a flight check鈥�, which I did. I passed that, and they notified me 鈥渙k, stand by, we鈥檙e going to send you to a refresher course that had been arranged, and then we鈥檙e going to ship you over to England鈥�. Which I went through the refresher course at Spartan School of Aeronautics at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and upon graduation from there Bill Wallace, Charlie Cook and myself were, along with 3 other lads were shipped out to Canada for sort of an interview there. And we were there 4-5 days, and then they sent us to Halifax, and where we boarded a ship. 26 days later we arrived in Glasgow, where we were met by someone from the Air Ministry. He put us on a train immediately and sent us to London, and we met the people at Air Ministry and they signed us up and sent us off to OTU. Up at Sutton Bridge, up by the Wash. And that鈥檚 where we started our operational training, in Hurricanes.

[how was it as an American in the RAF?]
It was really an indoctrination into something very strange and new. But it was actually very wonderful. Because each one of us was, I can speak for most of the lads I knew, they really learned an awful lot from being with the lads in the RAF. We admired every single one of the pilots that were instrumental in helping us learn to fly and teach us the tactics and so forth.
Upon completion of our training there in Sutton Bridge, we found that we had our assignment orders, and that sent us to 133 sqdn. Which had been formed up at Caldershaw, and being we were junior pilots on that, the unit was being transferred to North Ireland there, to Eglinton, to run operational training there as a unit. And to do convoy escort out on the Atlantic coastal ways. We, the 3 junior pilots, were sent by ground 鈥� train to Liverpool, ferry to Belfast and then over to Eglinton. In the meantime of course we found that the 4 lads, Mamethoff, Flt Lt of the B Flight and Stout and McCall and so forth, had flown into the hills of the Isle of Man and wiped out the B Flight. And all of a sudden we got there and we realised that our Flight no longer existed. Well, we were lucky in being able to take a ride across from Belfast to Eglinton there with a lad who was actually in civilian clothes. He was a US Navy officer that was helping build the facilities there. It was an opportunity of driving slowly through the countryside and seeing what it was going to be like. Of course, the weather in that time of year in October was changing. A lot of cloudy skies. We revelled at the greenery that we drove through. Beautiful.

[Were the facilities crude?]
Because it was so new the roads, there was no walkway to speak of. And you know, big construction site, there鈥檚 always muddy conditions and so forth. But the huts that we had for quarters and so forth were all new. They of course needed finishing and so forth which hadn鈥檛 been done at the time, and the area was split from the cantonment area to the flightline area, of course. Housing was off in one area, the mess-hall was in another area. We had to take the lorry from the mess-hall, the mess facility, the Officers鈥� mess, down to the flightline area. And it was rather crude because it had not been completed. And during the short stay in Northern Ireland from October, in January of course we were returned to Curt and Lindsay, to an old, established AFB. So we were going from a new-built facility which was still in the rough stages, we realised that was what the facility was for, and that鈥檚 what we used.

[was there moss in your room?]
It was sort of a joke affair with Bill Wallace 鈥� he was quite a character to begin with. And he, every morning he would mention the growth in the corner above his bed. The moss was growing, because there was no insulation so to speak of. And the weather was duff. A lot of moisture, 100% at DuPont at the time. Just like you say, we had tarps over our bed, take our clothes off, pull the tarp back, lay our uniform over the covers, pull the tarp over so our uniforms wouldn鈥檛 be wet when we got into them the next morning.

[What about your friends?]
The friends we met? I wish I could remember the names of some of the people we met in town there.
At this stage of the game, it鈥檚 long gone.
But everywhere we went there were people who were very very sociable towards us, and responded to us very highly. And realising we were in British uniform, though we were Americans, we were well-accepted everywhere we went. I remember that.

[did you go to the Dance-halls?]
I think, there was a big hall and I don鈥檛 remember if it was the guild-hall or what it was, butt it seemed like it was. It was down the town, inside the wall, big place there. And I remember, I think it was the High Street where all the shops were and there was the movie theatre along there. We frequented it as many as the odd times we did get into town. Of course, in that short stint of 4 months we didn鈥檛 get into it too often.

[What about the time the mess burned down]
We had some sort of a party going on, and it got out of hand. Some of the lads were complaining about the conditions there 鈥� the unfinished quarters and so on. I don鈥檛 remember who started the thing, I think George Barry and Moran Morris got into it. They started a fire there in the ante-room, things got worse and worse, and before they could control everybody of course there was a pretty good fire going, and I think it got to the extent where it even reached the ceiling. Finally they evacuated. I don鈥檛 remember how they got it out, exactly, or anything else, but I remember that we were disciplined quite highly by the Group Captain at that time.

[tell us about your friends, like Fred Skuddy and George Sperry]
There was quite a few. Later on, of course, I got to really know Jackson and of course Red McAlpin, who of course passed away last year. He made Major-General in the USAF. He was our Flight Cmdr that took over after Bateman left, and of course Andy Mamethoff went into the Isle of Man and Bateman took over. And Kobi Kane was one of the outstanding old men that had been a wing-walker and had a lot of flying time. He was an old type. The same way with Sgt Harper and Tony Gallow, and of course George Brown. Sqdn-Ldr Brown was my first commander there. I think after the big incident on the Isle of man he could have been replaced, and then we had Thomas came in, and he stayed with us all the time until away into 42.

[what work did you expect, and what missions did you do?]
Our main mission, of course, being sent off on convoy patrol. Convoys coming out of the UK, heading for the US, out of Glasgow, that route probably, we鈥檇 escort them. Because at that time, I think the FW-200 was the big long-range aircraft that would take off from up in Norway, Stravanger in Norway, and fly around the top tip of the Orkneys, and come around Scotland. And they were searching for shipping, and of course they could relay info when they located them, and pass it on to the submarines. And our job was to ward off the FW-200s. Of course, our limited range would only allow us to go out 100 miles or so, and then we鈥檇 have to return because of fuel requirements. That was our prime job.

[What about the Ronald Wolf incident?]
Bud Wolf, I don鈥檛 know how he got separated from the rest of the flight that was out on training mission that morning. But anyway, we went through an exercise of climbing up through the overcast and up on top, and doing different manoeuvres and so fort up there. But anyway, he wandered off and got short on fuel, and I don鈥檛 remember exactly whether he lost radio communications and was unable to be directed back to the base. He baled out and landed in Southern Ireland, and was interned, of course. Southern Ireland was a neutral country at that time. So they interned him. And being an aggressive type, of course, we found out a week or so later that he came back to the base. Well, it was in violation of the Geneva Convention for someone to come back that had been interned in a neutral country, so they sent him back to Ireland. Eventually the American Embassy arranged for him to be shipped back to the US. We never did see him again til after the war.

[what happened to Charlie Cook and Gordon Bretel?]
This was later on, when we had been moved back to England and had begun doing sorties under more adverse conditions. The 11th group. Finally on this 1 mission, finally after being equipped with Spit 9s, the unit was assigned to do an escort mission with B-17s, the USAAF B-17s. And as I understand, that day it happened to be that Red McAlpin and myself were transferring to the USAAF, so we were in London. Bill Slade was also there, but he didn鈥檛 go on the mission. Gordon Betel was the senior Flight Commander at that time, and he led the squadron down to the advanced base down at the south of England, where they took off to escort the bombers down to Brest. They were briefed to have mild winds, but it turned out they had over 100mph tailwinds going down. They never did make contact with the B-17s but then doing their action on that they turned back and the winds had blown them so far south they let down. They thought they were near the Southampton area, and actually they were over the Cherbourg area. Everybody followed Bretel down, except Bob Smith who, when they got down they realised they were under heavy fire and they were still over France. Bob Smith was able to get on back, and I understand he crash-landed on the beach, out of fuel, and the rest of them were shot down. So we lost 12 out of 12 aircraft that day. That was 29th Sept 1942.

[So Charlie Cook ended up in a POW camp?]
Charlie, and Jackson and Sperry and Gordon Bretel. George Middleton was a POW. They all ended up stuck in Stalag III. And while there, of course, the 鈥淕reat Escape鈥� came about.
Gordon Bretel was on that, he was one of the English lads that were allowed to go, there were no Americans on that escape. And of course, Gordon was one of the 50 that were executed after they were captured.

[How did Derry compare to your home in Arizona?]
It was never unsophisticated. It was just marvellous as far as I was concerned. It was ancient. The old history you read about in the history books. The place where the things happened, the huts and the villages and the fields and so forth had been there for years and years and years. It was beautiful. So green. I came from a very barren part of Arizona, in the north there. For me it was just marvellous to see the little hedgerows along the roads and the beautiful green fields and the cattle ands sheep and so forth. The few that were still available at that time, grazing around. And people on their bikes because there was no fuel to speak of, and most people didn鈥檛 have a car back in those days anyway. In the town of Derry itself, which is quaint, beautifully quaint, something that to me was part of history. World history is right there, and I was able to partake in it.
The food, even in the so-called restaurant it was adequate. It wasn鈥檛 anything you could feel that you had a steak and potatoes and all that. Of course you had potatoes. The meat, I don鈥檛 remember exactly what we did have but I never complained about that fact it was not edible.

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