大象传媒

This contribution was submitted by Owen Cleaver to Edgar Lloyd and is added to the site with his permission.

I volunteered in March 1943 for the Royal Air Force...went up to London, to Euston House , where you stood in a line, took the oath and had a medical and so forth. I was 17 and a half鈥everal of us went from school together from the ATC. Then later on during that summer went up to London again for an interview, because we were given the opportunity of going on a six month university short course - at various universities around the country at which you did two days a week with the university air squadron and three days in my case on engineering lectures. I was lucky enough to go to Cambridge. The idea was that when you joined the RAF later you didn鈥檛 have to do ITW the initial training - we did things like RAF law, aircraft recognition, meteorology, navigation, and morse. I seem to remember we had to end up at 12 words a minute morse - it seemed a bit fast to me. Square bashing was separate..we did a bit at Cambridge. I was there until April 1944 at Magdalen College. I was then sent to ACRC鈥� Air Crew Receiving Centre which had just been moved to Scarborough鈥ntil then it had been in St. Johns Wood in London. But we were about the first group to go to Scarborough to the hotels there鈥 was sent up there - I was in the prince of Wales hotel on the front. It was six weeks training, principally square bashing, and aptitude tests, and more medicals and jabs. They issued you with kit and you weren鈥檛 allowed out until you had all your kit marked up. The difficult part of it was you had to have your irons all stamped with a metal stamp with your number on. And since there were about 250 of us and one set of stamps it took several days, because you had to track down the numbers you wanted鈥ind out who鈥檇 got them and then go and queue up to borrow it and stamp your sixes - or whatever it was - on your knife, fork and spoon. So you weren鈥檛 allowed out to start with. Then I was unlucky鈥ecause after a week there we had pork pies. The food there was normally extremely good because they were hotel kitchens and the RAF cooks by and large were good I think. But I got dysentery鈥e and several others - about six to eight of us. First we went into the sick quarters which was another smaller hotel opposite the Italian gardens on top of the cliffs in Scarborough. All the others were discharged after a week鈥�.but I was there six weeks. All the signs of dysentery had gone but I was still producing positive test results. It was the spring of 1945 and I was turfed out for two hours a day鈥nd got to know the Italian gardens pretty well. After six weeks they still hadn鈥檛 cured me so they sent me to the RAF hospital at North Allerton for two weeks, did nothing, and said I was clear. D-day happened while I was there. I can remember General Dwight D. Eisenhower announcing it鈥�.so I was hopeful they鈥檇 give me convalescent leave鈥ut they didn鈥檛 they sent me to a Convalescent home in Yorkshire. A big country house鈥t was quite nice, there was Army, RAF and I had a good time really 鈥�.there must have been about five people in the room I was in. They took me to the pub most nights鈥 was the baby - about 18 and a half - there were sergeants and god knows what. What they were suffering from I had no idea. But they looked after me well. While I was there the first of the D-day wounded came in 鈥�.with big boots on because they鈥檇 been treading on mines. D-day had been about two weeks before鈥�.so they were interesting to talk to. After a fortnight there鈥ack to Scarborough, back to square one鈥ack to six weeks training. There was a completely new bunch of people, all my friends had gone. The main thing at Scarborough were the aptitude tests over three days鈥ome were written, some were like engineering, there were boards with square holes and square pegs鈥ll sorts of tests. That was really to find out whether you鈥檇 be pilot, navigator, bomber, air gunner or whatever, and you waited after you鈥檇 finished. You waited with trepidation, because you鈥檇 put down what you wanted to be鈥ot everyone wanted to be a pilot but most did. My grade came back P/NB - which was pilot - navigator bomber. Which meant if I didn鈥檛 go as a pilot I could go as navigator bomber鈥n some aircraft the navigator did the bombing. So that was six weeks at Scarborough. One thing I remember mainly about Scarborough was the size of the cinema鈥hat was one of the sights. That and Oliver鈥檚 Mount鈥 quite conical hill, it was used before the war as hill climb trials, but it was like a red rag to a bull to our PTIs we were always running up and down Oliver鈥檚 Mount. Another thing I remember about Scarborough one of the PTIs, can鈥檛 remember his christian name, Hardwick played for Middlesborough, he was international for England around 1939, and he was one of the PTIs so we all looked at him in awe. Anyway, we got through Scarborough alright I had a big payout actually when I came out of hospital because for about three months I鈥檇, had no money, and you usually got paid once a fortnight 拢4.10s. 7/3 a day the UT aircrew used to have, somehow it worked out with income tax at 拢4.10s a fortnight. My first pay packet was 拢26.00 so I was a millionaire really. I had started smoking then, you used to get free cigarettes in sick quarters, 鈥淢artins鈥� I never heard of them anywhere else so I don鈥檛 know who made them鈥nd of course with the NAAFI rations you had 20 good ones and 20 poor ones, that was when I learned to hate Park Drive. After Scarborough, because my first choice was pilot, I went to grading school which was four weeks at RAF Braunston in Leicester, which had Tiger Moths. You had four weeks and you flew something like sixteen hours in that time and you expected to do your first solo, some were between eight and twelve hours鈥ther than that there was nothing much memorable from Braunston. From there I went to ACDC, Heaton Park, Manchester. All the drafts that were going over to Canada, to South Africa or America for training鈥ou all went from Heaton Park鈥atch a boat at Liverpool and so forth. So from Braunston I went to Manchester in October 1944. We expected to get on a boat soon and off we鈥榙 go鈥ut it wasn鈥榯 like that. Some people had been waiting a year for a boat and so you were sent on detachment. So after a week they sent me and some others on detachment to RAF Wheaton on a seven week MT course, which really was very useful - driving.

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