Henry Hoystead DFC As Interviewed By AVM Peter Scully (Rtd)

AN   ACCOUNT   BY  MR   HENRY  HOYSTEAD,  DFC

as  told  to  AVM  Peter Scully (rtd)

on 29th April 1996

            (Talking about the Arnhem campaign and the white ident stripes painted on our aircraft )  There were a couple of bad night trips when we were doing the supply dropping and at night if you got caught in their searchlights and the stripes were showing up you couldn't lose them.  I kicked up a hell of a fuss and our boss did too.  They listened to us and they painted out all the underneath ones and just before Arnhem  they wacked them on again.  Not that they were a  big help at Arnhem because the day that Fighter Command was supposed to protect us, they got held up with fog and arrived an hour and a half late.   The Germans were fierce, they were shooting down the Dakotas - they were coming down like Autumn leaves - I think they lost about 40 out of 43.   A lot of them were Yanks but a lot were 70 sqn  - there was a chap named Lord, he got a VC at Arnhem.   A mate of ours who joined up with us - Tom Hayford was on that sqn.  Remember the commedian Jimmy Edwards - he got a DFC at Arnhem, flying a Dakota.  He was shot up and  landed  just inside the German lines.  He went back into the plane and dragged out a couple of dispatchers and I think it was his wireless operator.  He got very badly burnt and that's why he had to wear a moustache - of course later on it was a trade mark and he encouraged it.  But when you first saw him you didn't realise that this commedian was right in the war and not just pussy footing.  That night, the underground forces got him across to the British lines.

            It was really a hell of a rough time.   There were 42  German planes there at the time we were dropping  and they caused havoc.   A lot of our fellows got back across the Rhine and  landed in Brussells and here, there and everywhere.   One of chaps that was here the other day - Wally Tee - he was only on his second trip and they had to bail out.  He was taken prisoner.   Col Payne - a chap I trained with - he was his pilot - they were on 299 sqn.. Georgie Olliver was another one.  Some of them got back but they lost 7 out of 10 from 196 sqn on that day.   Charlie King got back to England;  just made it back to England.  Jim McCarthy's crew, they got to near Brussells and they just started to burn, they'd been badly hit and they crashed but none of them was seriously hurt.   Of course we thought we knew everything, young pilots, but we soon found out we knew nothing.  

            In July 1943, I went to AFU at Andover, on Oxfords,   and then onto Pilots' Advanced Flying School  at Ramsbury,  another one at Watchfield, then back to Ramsbury, and then on to Babdown Farm.   It wasn't because we'd failed in anything it was just that each one was advanced on the other.  I then went to the OTU at Tilstock  and Sleap and then back to Tilstock again which had been made into a Heavy Conversion Unit - on Whitleys.   We were there for 17 days and couldn't fly, we were fogged out.  Then to 196 Squadron at Keivel, which later moved to Weathersfield  to get us closer to the continent.   Riversfield was still being used until a few years ago - remember the F111s on that trip to Tripoli - they used it.  I think now its a police training area.   Finally, the squadron moved to  Shepperds Grove, up near Bury St Edmonds.

            The training was amazing.   Most of those we had anything to do with were pilots who had been in action - screened as they called them - and then our gunnery and navigator instructors were the same - their attitude to us as Australians was really amazing.    I thought that as we volunteered for airforce well, you went anywhere, but they thought, or seemed to give the impression, that we specially wanted to go to England to help them.   We were all Sgts or FSgts - there were very few officers with us at that time - and these Poms, it didn't matter whether they were FLTLTs or SQNLDRs or what, but their attitude to us was terrific - so long as they thought that you wanted to learn.

            We were very fortunate when we were sent to an English sqn - 196 which they say in one of Herrington's books  had the most Australian pilots outside the all-Australian units - the 460s.   299 was our sister squadron, and although we didn't mingle much with them,  I got to know their gunnery officer a FLTLT Trevor Roper.   Now he'd been on the dam busters raid, as a gunner- I think he got a DFC.   One of my friends - a Pat Carrol - from South Australia; he eventually got killed, - his wireless op was chap named Corny Graham, a WOFF - he'd been on that raid as well.    Trevor Roper remustered as a pilot and came back to the same squadron in Feb 1945 and got killed on his first trip to Norway.  He came back to the same sqn in Feb 1945 . He was a terrific chap and of course  had the respect of everyone.   It was a very experienced unit and our CO had been badly hurt on Blenheims. 

Q.        When did you start to crew up - did you train as a group of Australians ?

            We didn't crew up until we went to the OTU.  We went through a couple of days of lectures in Whitleys and then the navigator came in and then a couple of days later the wireless op and then the gunners - it took about a week or 10 days, and then we did the OTU.  Then, when we got to the Heavy Conversion Unit, at Tilstock and they had these Stirling there.  I remember saying to myself  "How in the bloody hell am I going to fly this thing ?"  They then issued us with an engineer.  Our's had been an evacuated school child at the beginning of the war - I think they had to sign up for something at 16 - and he chose Air Force - he was RAF.   Most of us on these courses were Australians - probably 4 or 5 English out of a total of 15 or so - they really got stuck into us.  But the instructors were terrific. 

           

            We were very lucky in hindsight that we were on English squadrons because we got to know our crew's families and their family friends..  when you were on leave.  Where the chaps who were on the all-Australian squadrons, the only  Englishman would be the engineer.   They'd be two Australian squadrons on the one station and they'd flood the local district and so they were always all together.  But when we went on leave we could spend a bit of time with this family or another and you got to know the family and his friends.   I've been back there twice now to see the families. 

            Getting back to supply dropping - our training on that really was terrific.   We'd do a 4 or 5 hour  cross country at night, dodging the big cities and go out to the Irish Sea and somewhere near your aerodrome they'd mark out a football field or some field like that and they'd say. "Well OK you're to be back there at five past one and 30 seconds.   A light will be flashed to you and you're to flash a letter and when you get back then you're to tell us what letter we flashed at you."  Now if you didn't get the time right - I think you were allowed 15 seconds either side or something like that ........ because, they said, "now  these fellows over there aren't going to stand around with flares alight,  sending up signals, because the Germans aren't that stupid - they'd soon pick it up. "  So you had to be on the exact time and coming from a certain direction.   If you didn't get it right then you did it again the next night.    You did this at 500 feet so your map reader had to be spot on.  

            When you crossed the coast, going into France or elsewhere, you were supposed to be at 6,000 feet.  Well, that was asking for trouble.   I found you'd go in as low as you could - keeping yourself at about 500 feet.   Most of the time you only only went as a 'singly', although there could have been 10 or 12 squadrons on this sort of thing - even the couple from our squadron would go to a different locations and you never knew until you got back:- "where did you go Doug ?" "Oh, I went into Holland", and so on.   If you were taking any men, saboteurs or whoever, they would appear on your Station on say a Tuesday and if it was your turn to go somewhere, then you might have lunch with them, but they would only be known as 'Bill' or 'Frank'  and you didn't ask them their other names or anything else.   Then they might say "Oh, its scrubbed for the night" -   because the people over there hadn't sent the right messages back, or the Germans might have moved into the area.  So while the moon was right for dropping the paratroopers, or just supplies, for about 2 or 3 days,  you couldn't leave the station once you'd been briefed.   After those 2 or 3 days they might then say "scrubbed altogether"  or or perhaps you'd go.   It was very tight security.   

            I took a couple of blokes over one night - I didn't even know I was going to take them.. It was pretty well down the south of France.   All of a sudden they called me up and these fellows were loaded on.   As we got nearer to their dropping point, one of the boys came up and told me "You should see the load these blokes have got on - its enormous".   The were absolutely loaded down -   kit bags tied to their thighs, on 15 foot ropes and when they pulled them, they'd drop away and when the kit bags hit the ground, they'd know it was time to start praying.   They were so loaded up that they had to be dragged down to the hole in the plane.  We had  a great big hole - about 6 foot by 3 foot - with two doors, one for the inner and one for the outer skin.  The wireless op would have to go and stand behind and pull both doors up, so that his back was almost against the rear turret.   My fellow, the Welshman, used to confess that he was the most frightened man in the Air Force.  Because he had to come back and help them, he would leave his parachute on the forward side of the hole and then go back to open the door, and then come back forward along the side of the hole, hanging onto side rails - there was only about eight or ten inches on each side of the hole - and put his parachute on and then help these fellows out.   They'd be sitting with their feet out the hole, and they'd just get pushed out.   You nearly always took an army dispatcher to help to push them out and to throw these big panniers out after them.   That's why at Arnhem, you see a lot of navy fellows at Oosterbeek cemetry - they got knocked off at Arnhem.   It seems funny to see sailors there, but they were acting as dispatchers and were killed with the aircrew.

Q.        With such a difficult navigation task, did you always find the DZ ?

            Yes.   We had about two or three unsucessful trips when the fellows - the reception party didn't front - they'd gone away.   But the Germans may have appeared on the scene so they didn't signal  back.  But we found our DZ every time.   One of times we didn't have any success was the night I ran out of petrol way down near Lyon.  I think there were 35 of us on that night,  not all from our Station; probably only two or three from our sqn.   I was one of the last ones on and of course by the time I got to the place, every German within a hundred miles was there, popping away at anything he saw or heard.   Naturally, the underground forces had gone for their lives.   The ones that got there early,  they dropped,  but I got caught over this lake and I was going round and round and used up a heck of a lot of petrol before I got out.    I was lucky that at Caens, they'd just established a fighter drome and as I had no hope of getting back across the channel  I called up and they said that I could land there.   They only had the wire surface for the fighters and boy, you've no idea how quickly you can pull a big plane up when you need to.   On the way in, we were shot at and I thought it was the RAF Regiment, which went with all the  aeroplanes to protect the aerodrome, so I asked to chap to call off the RAF Regiment and they said,"That's not the RAF Regiment, that's the Germans shooting at you."   Then of course we took most of their petrol and we had to put it in with 4 gallon jerry cans.   When Johnny Johnson was out here to talk at the RAAF Europe (dinner) he said "were you the bastard who took all our petrol ?"  

Q         What sort of assistance from the ground did you get ?

            When we appeared over the DZ - and we were supposed to be there right on time and at 500 feet - they'd hear you anyway, so they'd light these flares - at a good one, about 6 or 8 flares.   There's one I did in Holland - the navigator and I were briefed and I think the bombaimer was told something, but not what we were carrying.   We had all this money for the black market.   We got there and dropped it and it was a bad night and we had a bad time afterwards getting out.   But apparently the Dutch people had at least three types of underground - the communists, this one and that one.  (That was one of the things that upset Arnhen I think, British intelligence didn't know who to believe.)    Beforehand, the SOE had been dropping their spies there and unbeknown to them, they'd been captured and tortured and they talked.  You can't blame them, they did some terrible things to them when they were tortured.   Anyhow,  we got the correct signal at the right time and everything looked OK and so we dropped  - we found out after that the Germans had seen the signal and they'd  just been waiting.

             (getting back  was rough )......we were really down low, and it was quite a long way, and especially when you're frightened it seems never ending.  Its probably only 80 or 100 miles, something like that.  It was a bad night and then to think the 12 million pounds or something just went.    On the way in I said to the nav," have you worked out a course to Switzerland or Sweden ?"  "Oh, I think Switzerland might be the best."   Poor old Taffy,   "Why ?  What's wrong? What have you done ?"   He thought we'd knocked off this money. Poor Taff, he got very upset.  

            When we were in the plane on an Op I did exactly what we had been told in training, because I felt that a lot of these experienced chaps had risked their lives and they'd learnt and come back and told us what to do.   So it was best that we did what they though was best.  I hated any unnecessary talk in the air.   When we were on the ground and when we were down, I could play up as much as anyone, but not in the air.   When I got my commission, I kept my FLTSGT's uniform so I could stay with my own crew down in the village  and all that.  The boss didn't mind - he knew that they were my crew and that I wanted to be with them.  Mixed crews, where they had an officer pilot or an officer navigator and a sergeant pilot, often didn't gell: there was something wrong.   That's not just my opinion, you can talk to lots of chaps on the squadron.   I just didn't seem to go - it wasn't a good thing really, they seemed to lose touch with one another.  

Q         What was the composition of your crew ?

            The first ones were English with a Canadian rear gunner.... went of his rocker on the third or fourth day and had a break down.   I was calling him up and there was no answer, so  I sent Taffy down to see if he'd disconnected his intercom.  And Taffy said, "I think he's dead, he's slumped over the gun."  So I said "Get him out of the turret".   As soon as they did, he came to and started fighting everyone.  A dispatcher went to help  and the Canadian bit a piece out of his arm.  They're all down the back of the plane fighting and he was grabbing the control wires.   "What's going on ?" I said.  "He's trying to get out", they said.   "Well let him, let the bastard jump" I said.  "But he hasn't got his parachute on ".   I think a young madman is a pretty strong bloke because Taffy and John, who were pretty big fellows, couldn't hold him.  We finally had to hit him with a gun.   He came back onto the squadron about 6 weeks later and in the meantime I got an English gunner - Jack Hooker, and he stayed with us.   But the young fella came back and wanted to fly with us again.   We'd done 6 or 8 other ops  without him.   My CO said to me, "It's your decision ".   I said " oh....".    "Well, go up and see the Groupie", said the CO.   The Group Captain said, "Well 'Chook', its your decision, but you've got to think of  the other fellows on the crew, will they be confident "..  I said, "Well, he's done 19 trips, it would be terrible if he got marked LMF.  Couldn't he go back to Canada as an instructor or something? "   "Well, I can't guarantee, but I'll put in every recommendation that he's not to be marked LMF.   But I don't think that we should risk him or ourselves - your getting on allright with Jack Hooker. "  So I had a word with the Canadian and he thought I was the worst in the world - it was just one of those things. 

Q.        Were there many cases of LMF ?

            Yes, or breakdowns - what happened to them I don't know.  We used to hear of them, but I never wanted to know.   A particular friend of mine told me that he thought they were going to run into trouble with a member of their crew.   This chap always used to do yoga.  You'd come home at night after being down the mess or the local pub and trip on this guy sitting on this stone cold cement floor, naked, doing all this yoga.  There were going somewhere one night, the same as us and we'd been put back an hour, waiting for the signal from where we were going, when all of a sudden....... you've never heard screams like it.  They were just getting into the aircraft and he said, "I'm not going".  To hear a man scream like that.........    He was taken off and we never, ever heard what happened to him.    But there were cases like that.  Everywhere you went, they'd say,  "there's this chap...."   I suppose you heard of one in every 10, but there were quite a few.

            We'd have to flight test a crew when they joined the squadron and we'd lost our flight commander and this chap arrived from Training Command - a flight lieutenant.   There was no hope on these English squadrons of an Australian being a flight commander, no matter how experienced you were.  They couldn't put an Australian in charge of all those English and mixed up crews - you had to be English. This chap came and I was to give him his test.  He and his crew must have hated one another, I sensed that on the way around.   It was pathetic; how on earth they'd got that far I don't know.  I did give him another chance, which I shouldn't have done.  When we were a couple of hundred feet from landing, I said, "I'm taking over;  you'll kill us ".  Of course he storms off to our Squadron commander who said, "Well, if he says you're not good enough..." and so he demands to see the Station commander.  So up we go and I wait outside the boss's office.   I could hear this fellow going on about this uncouth Australian and swearing.   He went on and on for about a quarter of an hour, running me down.   So I walked in, saluted GPCAPT  Tripp and he asked me, "Can the bastard fly chook ?" and I said, "No"  and that was that.

            I went to a mate's place - Gordon Campbell who trained with us and then went on to  463 or 467, I forget which, they were both on the same station.  We were both going on leave at the same time.  I called into the station and somebody said "Oh, he's up doing a flight test, he won't be long" .    I waited in the control tower and I heard him say, " Oh for Christ's sake, you're going to kill us" and in they went and killed them all.   So I was was very careful about those flights.  There were a heck of a lot killed on training.

Q.        Your said  you took over. Were they dual controls

            Yes

Q         But you never flew with two pilots ?

            No.   But you needed a chap when you took off - to pull the wheels up and flaps and that was the main thing.  You were too busy juggling the controls - they were very much inclined to turn off to the starboard.  And when you were landing, you needed someone to call your speed and give you more flap.  You really did need a chap there then.   The bombaimer, after they did that for take off would then go down to the front and map read.   I tried to get all my crew to do a little bit of flying. 

            There were some funny things that happened.   I remember just after the invasion, that stupid day when the British Army had left their barrage balloons up and they'd swung round our track over this village.   I'd seen a German  up in a tower as we passed and he was shooting away - it appeared on one of those John Wayne movies later on - but there was a lot of stuff coming up at us from underneath.   Taffy said,  "Oh, there's a German behind shooting at us" when a voice pops up, "Bugger him, don't you think we've got enough trouble up front without having to worry about what's goning on behind."   Taffy was very put out.     Straight afterwards, an old British warship, the Warsprite,  was going along the coast and shelling inland.  Another Stirling was just going along leaving a trail of smoke - he must have been hit - and he must have strayed too close to the coast and the Warsprite blew him right out of the sky. 

            I remember the first day they released a buzz bomb against England.   We'd been supply dropping and we were coming out and Taffy said in his silly Welsh voice, "What's the f... that?"   I said "Well, what's the f.... what, you silly Welsh ..... ?"   He said, "Look, up there" and here's this brown/blackish smoke and a flame going away from us and it was leaving our Spitfire escort for dead.  We got back and the usual "anything to report ?" at the debriefing.   Well, every one of us on our squadron said that we saw this 'thing'.  "Well, what did you see ?"  and they got us to draw.. Well you've never seen  some 10 or 12 stupid damn drawings.   When you're asked to draw something that no one has ever seen in their life, leaving you planes and escorts for dead....and we'd just caught the first glimpse out of our eye.      July or June 12th  1944 .   It could have easily hit one of our blokes and no one would ever have known what had happened because they exploded on impact.   They were terrible things.   Right across London, they'd go from one side to the other.   They'd wake thousands of homes up at night.   At work the next day,  "Oh, we had a buzz bomb right near us"  and it could have been 20 miles away.   Four or five of those a night and they would upset the population, because everything in the house would shake.   Of course as soon as they went overhead you could breath a sigh of relief.  

Q.        You mentioned earlier that the Army messed things up at Arnhem and got you to drop in the wrong place. 

            The main places we dropped was at a little place called  Ede and around  Wolfheze   For two days we dropped - the paratroopers were dropped a little NW of where we were - we had gliders.   My glider pilot  had a jeep and trailer with explosives and six soldiers.  A couple of planes - Stirlings - had paratroops but they dropped  mainly from the Dakotas.  We dropped our gliders within inches of where they were supposed to go and they were supposed to come down  along the river and then join with paratroopers and go along the river to get the bridge at Arnhem.   Unbeknowns to them at the time, a whole German armoured division was heading back to Germany for rest and regrouping and were resting in the woods.   The didn't or wouldn't believe this.   The first day was lovely.  On the Northern route, Bomber Command had breached the dykes and there was flooding everywhere and we hardly saw a German.  The Germans that were there couldn't shoot back because they were sitting up on top of farms and houses.  We came back on the second day with our second glider and when we dropped our supplies  instead of being British there, there were Germans.   The Germans must have put up the right signals.  We told them when we got back.   But we weren't believed.    When we dropped the second day, they were shooting at us - "but they weren't Germans" we were told.   We were all experienced pilots and we told them they were.  From 500 feet and 150 mph, you could tell.   "They're Germans" we said.   "How do you know ?"  "Well they're unfriendly because they're shooting at us." 

           

            During the de-briefing, from the time it started, the Army took over - it was called  "Market Garden", we were the market part of it - but the Army had complete control of where we were to drop.  We told our chief - GPCAPT Trigg, - and he duly said "Oh well, if we go tomorrow, we'll drop it to our blokes ".   But the Army got word of this  and  so the GPCAPT could only say that we had to drop where the Army said , otherwise  "Look,  these fellows will court marshal you".   Of course, the Army was going crook - the poor soldiers on the ground -  going crook about the airforce dropping to the wrong blokes, and we were still being ordered to drop to the Germans.   They just said we were imagining things...   The day before they were all issued with these wireless sets but they wouldn't allow them to be tested - the chief intelligence major - later sent to a rest centre - because the Germans would twig that something was on.   Well, the wireless batteries were all flat, all of them.  They couldn't communicate at all.  Right at the end of the week, they tried to work out something from the aircraft, but they couldn't;  their sets were different.   It was a real mess up.  It was a terrible place.  It was one of those things where the Army... its hard to pin point it, but they seemed to think they were above the Air Force ... and of course, the Navy, they were above everything.  

            The poor old Air Force  - Bomber Harris got the blame for everything.  He said, "Now we've got to blow up the roads and bridges, to stop the Germans using them and then we have to drop men into them so they can patch them so that their useless tanks and that can get across."   Of course that didn't make him any more popular.

Q.        How did the Oslo episode start off ?

            We were sent over to Norway on 17 May 1945, just a few days after the war came to an end  (with occupation troops, about 200 aircraft altogether) and we got a recall because the weather was bad.   A couple of blokes went in and got killed - a Halifax went across me, about 20 feet above.   Next day we were going again and the weather was pretty bad still   I lost a motor just as we were getting there and the front ones had been told to get in if they could but the rest were recalled.   I knew I had no hope of getting back across the North Sea and I got in safely with a couple of others - a couple went in too and were killed.    Here I was with 16 young troops with a young Lieutenant, just out of officers' training school  in charge of them and most of the rest of the force had turned around and gone home - perhaps 10 planes landed altogether instead of the 200 there were supposed to be.

            There were a lot of Germans still there, but they weren't  shooting at us.    So went over and tried to make the Germans understand - not to worry about us, but they should get across the border to Sweden if they had any brains,  knowing that we were trying to take over the aerodrome.   We got hold of a German truck and said "Oh well, we might as well go and have a look at Oslo".  So we piled these army blokes into the truck and I drove down to Oslo - about 30 miles.   Once I'd started, I wasn't very happy, because there were all these ravines....  We got there safely and people there were good, but they were frightened, because I  had this black uniform on which was very much like the Gestapo.   The other boys were doing alright with their grey ones, but even they were  a bit like the German uniforms as well.   These people in Oslo weren't terribly happy.  We went into Gestapo headquarters - like a big hotel  - all the rotten food, drawers with half-empty cans of sardines ..   I drove them back to camp at the airfield and that night we looked up and found that  we were surrounded by the Free Norwagians, or whatever they called them.   We'd pulled the plane into a dispersal right near the forest and we had to explain to all these fellows what was going on.  They finally realised that we were friendly.

            We had to spend four or five days there - the others had come by then - while we arranged for a mechanic to fix our aircraft,  so  we got an army jeep and went down to Oslo.   We hopped on a tram in the hope that we might find some food further out of town  in the country.   The tram ended up at  a POW camp and here am I with my crew, with the navigator saying, "What now, smart bastard ? " We got out of there very quickly.  

            The freedom forces let us know that the Crown Prince was coming back to Oslo on the Sunday so we went back down to Oslo again.   They were all forming up outside a building more like our (Melbourne) Parliament House than Buckingham Palace.   There were people everywhere, at every window, all waving towels and things.   We were with a group of freedom fighters and someone tried to call them to attention.  It was funny, they were turning every which way with rifles clanking - you've never seen such a rag-tag group.   Unbeknown to us, GPCAPT Trigg was the Crown Prince's escort officer.   We could see the cars coming up the main street with people cheering.   They came up the steps just near us and  the Groupie saw me - we had not had a shave or  a proper wash - and he yelled out, "Hey, what the bloody hell are you doing here Hoysted, you should be with your plane."    "Look sir", I said, "If we could get a bit of food and some cigarettes, we could hang out here for weeks."  "Get back, there'll be a mechanic here tomorrow". and off he went with the Crown Prince. 

            So we went back to the camp - actually, we went back every night, we didn't stay overnight in Oslo.  The next day the mechanic arrived and got us going and away we went.    It was a funny experience.    There was this little girl there who picked up one of our cigarette butts and as she did, a little kid, with a batton hidden up his sleve just knocked her to the ground and took the butt.   We gave her some cigarettes then, but somebody observed that we'd just be getting her into more trouble.  We actually saw a girl running screaming because some others had taken half her hair off because she had been collaborating.   They were cruel people in many ways.

            It was a cruel place to fly to during the war as well.   You had to go over at under 200 feet,  and of course the mountains rise up so quickly from the sea.   You look down and everything's white with snow and it's terribly hard to pick up anything.   That's why, I believe, the German night fighters were having a ball, because the reflections were coming up from the snow and we had to go in on a moonlight night and the Germans were coming in underneath us.   I had one trip when we took some troops up to the top of Scotland - I think there were about 12 of them - to get as close as possible to Norway.    Then another plane came which had all these security people on - we were up there about 4 days, waiting for the word from Norway about going.   They'd given us a new plane which had extra fuel tanks put in  it and I was air testing it.   The wheels wouldn't come down  so I had to fly round and round to get rid of the petrol.    I told them I was coming on to do a belly landing.   I put all the boys in the proper crash positions and as I was coming in - on the side of the strip, to land on the grass- I could see all these bloody fire engines and ambulances, you know, to build up your confidence !   Anyway, the Wingco came up after the landing - I had to top hatch open and he just said "That was a bloody beautiful landing"  and it was too, a bloody beauty.    They gave me another plane to test, again with these extra fuel tanks.   Anyway, they finally called the trip off and then let us go into this little town, together with all these security fellows.  I don't know what they were worrying about because the Scots people up there wouldn't talk to you anyway;  they wouldn't even talk to their own families.   

Q.        With all this low level flying around Europe at night, presumably some of them came to grief on way, running into hills.

            Yes, that was the problem..  It was the same old story in Bomber Command, you had to get over your first six or seven (trips) .   They weren't easy, but you had a better chance then - there was a lot of learning to be done.   We were going to Holland one night and we were briefed to go in really low.    So I asked a bloke by the name of Trevor-Roper if he had any advice  - he'd been on the dam busters raid so I though that he'd have a pretty good idea of flyng low at night - althought he'd been a gunner.   He said that he could see wakes from the propellors causing  flourescence in the sea.   It was very deceptive over the sea at night, there's just no variation in colour.   Things were dicey, but then again, things were dicey for the blokes we were dropping to.   If they were caught, they would  be shot as spies and any of the crews dropping parachutes were to be counted as spies too.   But we did lose a lot of planes.      

Q.        How many trips to make a tour in your squadron ?

            Thirty - but not all trips counted.   We were on the squadron for over a year, but there were lots of hold ups.   Once you were briefed you couldn't go onto something else and there was lots of waiting - the moon and clearances from the other side.   But we were well trained, particularly the navigators and wireless operators - you wouldn't just pick up any crew to go to these places.   The job had to be done properly.              

             It was amazing what the English people put up with and how good they were to us.   That even continues to the present day - during the couple of trips I've had there.    As soon as we went into any place people would say, "Well, what part of Australia do you come from ?"   And you didn't think it was that obvious.  "I was here during the war in the Air Force".  "Oh, were you".  They were terrific.    

             Aircrew got leave every 6 weeks and we'd go to London.  When we at Weathersfield, that was near Braintree , it was only about an hour on the train.  We'd go down to the pictures and the boss wouldn't worry.  As long as you were there to fly and kept yourself right for flying.   We got to know London so well, we even managed to show London people around London.   We'd often go out to the crew's places.   They would do anything for you and they were severely rationed.   We used to keep our Comforts Fund parcels - packed up by places like Myers - and share them with the families.  They appreciated it.   To see all these people crowded down the tube stations at night after the buzz bombs had started.   They'd all have their set place.  You'd get off the train and you'd be lucky to have three feet of space between the edge of the platform to where these people were sleeping with their heads up against the wall.  Youngsters and women mainly as most of the men were away.  We had terrific respect for them  

Q.        When you finished your training in Australia, how did your group feel about being sent to England when there was a threat from the Japanese at that stage ?  Was there any concern at all ?

            No, I don't think so.   You joined up to volunteer to serve anywhere and that was probably hammered into us a bit in our training.   Probably a bit different from now but everyone in the airforce then was very keen.   Take myself, from Wangaratta.   I'd lived on up there since mum had died, my auntie and uncle brought me up - you'd hardly ever seen an aeroplane and then to get the chance to learn to fly.   It was something, and you weren't fussed if you were going to the south pole....when you got on a little ship to go overseas.   We left here one night and went to Bradfield Park and stayed there a couple of days and then by train to Brisbane.  We didn't see anything of Brisbane, we just pulled up next to this little ship,  the  Klipfontein, about 10,000 tons..   It was sunk at the end of the war.   There were a few repatriate Americans on board.  It had about about 24 cabins, but we were all down in the hold in very cramped quarters.  It was very nerve racking knowing that the water was up above you while we were dodging Japanese U-boats across the Pacific.   The ship arrived in San Francisco about 12 days later and we were very pleased to get off. 

            And then when we went to New York, we went on a special train, a dining car, a baggage car and probably only two carriages.   They were hurrying the big trains through and used to divert us to side tracks.   The first place we were allowed off, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, was Fort Wayne.    Then when we got to Chicago they let us walk round for about an hour.   They had guards at each end of this big ramp besides the train which was about a mile long.   Then they hooked us onto  some sort of a rocket they called it, doing a hundred miles an hour to New York.  I remembered passing the SKF place, the ball bearing factory, in eight minutes, we timed it.   To us it was an amazing building because the biggest building I'd seen until then was the Manchester Unity - 2 or 3 stories.   

            They took us up to camp Miles Standish, outside Boston.    It was enormous.  There were people people marching up and down at 6 o'clock in the morning and not with a couple of trumpeters, but with full bands.   I was lucky there because I had been given a letter  from the Victorian Racing Club.   We were at a little cafe outside the camp and the boys said something about this to somebody who turned out to be a publicity agent  from Churchill Downs.    They drove four of us - George Barnes, Bill Ryan and Brownie, a little airgunner bloke from Tasmania who got knocked off during the war - to attend the 47th Day of a 49 day race meeting.   They drove us up the straight in this open car and we're bowing to the cheers and having a great time...  They showed us the automatic barrier gates.   I wrote home and told Dad about it and he eventually got one made for himself, and that's why he won all those races after the war with 2 year olds.  They had all been used to walking in and out of these new gates.  The gates would open and our 2 year olds would  get about 4 lengths in front while the others were still wondering what had happened to them.   

            We had 4 or 5 days in New York and the Americans were amazingly generous to us.   They couldn't work out where Australia was.   We were invited to a charity lunch at some big hotel in Boston - the knife and fork was a puzzlement and they'd ask, "Can you speak Australian ?" and of course, we'd go on with " woolloomooloo/bullamakanka......."   Bill Ryan and I went up the Empire State building - express lift to the 65th floor and then on to the 87th I think......

           

            Then they put us on the Queen Elizabeth and I think there 16,000 American soldiers on it as well.   It took them two days and nights to load the yanks on board.  We were on board first and used to watch these trains pulling up alongside the ship, loaded with troops.    In the berth next to us was was the Normandy laying on its side, burnt.   That was rather frightening to see the largest passenger liner in the world, lying on its side, still smoldering.

            The lower ranks had to queue up in the gangway and they'd stand up for 12 hours and then they were able to lie down for 12 hours.  We had about 15 in a smallish cabin.  You'd get a meal ticket for say,4am for breakfast, and then you'd get one for say, 3pm for lunch and then you got one for a little bit later the next day and so on.   We - the RAAF - were allowed out on deck for 2 hours a day on an anti-submarine watch.  At least we did get a bit of fresh air.   We had a FLTLT in charge of us - there were 107 of us; it wasn't a big draft.  We arrived at Greenock in Scotland after a crossing that took four days, and there they turned the ship round - it wasn't escorted.  It took another couple of days to get the yanks unloaded.  They told us that if there was an air raid while we were unloading - we were out in the water, with lighters - that they'd just steam out.  " If you're stepping off, you'd better step off onto a lighter pretty quickly, or hop back in."

            Dave Beyer was there - a terrific man.   He helped a lot of us.  By this time there quite a few who were getting ... a bit homesick... to a lot of us it was just an adventure really.  ....   They used to line us up behind the hotel in the morning to go marching to different things... church parade and that.  We'd start with about 700 and about 20 would get there.  All the little passage ways behind the Grand Hotel and at every corner  "all off at the back"  - it was a funny turn.

Q.        When you arrived in England, how did the RAAF administration look after you ?

            They were a bit scarce, what was his name..Marsh was the boss.   He didn't interfere with you at all, seriously.   I think that everyone realised that you represented Australia.   We were all volunteers, we were keen, ... OK, fellows played up but...  You weren't  supposed to go the Maxims  so the third night after we arrived we decided to go to dinner at Maxims.  We hadn't been in there four or five minutes when a Canadian soldier came in and started spraying a sten gun around.   There were people screaming....  We went out a window as quickly as we could and never went back again.  

            None of us knew anything....I suppose on the first or second day we saw a plane, so high there was a vapour trail, and the anti-aircraft guns were right along the sea front and "bang" and down it came.   I thought, "God help us".   It was a German, but if they could hit them that easily... it made you really think.

            Air Vice Marshal Wrigley was in charge of the RAAF in England, and also the ones in America and out as far as Burma.   He had a big job to do and - not telling tales out of school - but he told us later about our politicians going over there and instead of  going out to the stations to see where we were, they just wanted to swan around in London... He got into a bit of hot water over that sort of thing.   He was good for us.   He didn't visit us at the squadron but a couple of times we had to go down to Kodak House.   I fronted him on something or other.... he was pretty hard, but he was fair.   Everyone that I know that fronted him - if they'd done any ops - then he leant their way.   He was well respected and it wasn't until later on that he got much (staff) help.   He did do a heck of a lot for us.   Many of the squadrons had only two or three Australians on them and he was trying to get them more.   Our squadron could have been one of his successes - we had 12 pilots and there were about another 24 other categories.   Its not many, when you come to thing that there were about 5000 RAAF over there.  We had 16 planes to a flight and 16 pilots and I think a couple of spares  (about 30 pilots a squadon).    Nearly all the sqns were about the same (numbers).... that's in Bomber Command. 

           

            The chap who was in the bunk under me going over on the Klipfontein was Bill Marritz, a champion bike rider.  He was an air gunner, and I'm not sure whether he went to 461 or 10 sqn - one of the Australian sqns.   On their first trip they were knocked down and they got out and into dinghys and the German who shot them down came back and did a bit of a lairy flourish - one bullet hit the dingy and it killed Bill ... but that's just how it goes.

            A lot of fellows on a bombing squadron if everything went right, would get their 20 or 30 trips up in a couple of months.  With us, there was so much hanging around.  There was a terrific lot of training - they kept us at it all the time.  There were a lot of casualties too.    When they we were down at Salisbury Plains doing a parachute dropping exercise,  one aircraft,  for some reason or another was up 100 feet above the rest, dropped his troops... and of course, those poor buggers coming through.....   It was events like that that were horrific.    One afternoon, we were training over near the Welsh hills with gliders and all of a sudden, the weather came in and of course, a glider can't see.   Right from the start, Taffy used to get his aldis lamp and shine it back - it was pretty dicey.   So I said, "Its no good, I'm going up".  It was no good trying to go down with those bloody Welsh hills there.   So I went up and we got into the clear.  Some of the others didn't take the risk and they went in with the plane and with the gliders .   There were a lot of incidents like those.  

            Another night, over near Bath, we were coming back from a cross country, and we saw.... like a million fireflys.   The yanks were towing gliders and the planes all had their navigation lights on and they also had lights on their gliders.   I looked and there were lights everywhere.  And sure enough, later that night a German intruder got a couple - bang, hopped in and shot them and off they went.   I was coming back one night and Ralph Campbell - a Canadian and a terrific bloke - had landed just down off the Isle of Wright.    He had to ditch and they got out and into a dinghy and it was foggy and they couldn't see a thing, but they heard a noise and  it turned out to be a fishing boat and their motor had boken down.   Anyway, the boys from Ralph's crew got into fishing boat and the engineer got their motor going.   After they got back they had a whip round and gave this big parcel to the fishermen.

               But on his first trip after that - I don't know were he'd been - I was coming in from somewhere and I was suspicious that there was another plane in the area and of course we'd been briefed to be careful... While we were coming in to land - I knew his callsign - he'd just landed. and all of a sudden I saw this (....enemy aircraft fly through and fire at him).   He killed the gunner and set the plane on fire, but they were able to get out of it.  I'd called out, "Lookout Ralph, bandits," or something. But there was nothing he could have done.    But that sort of thing was on all the time.   He went on - in Canada - to be the President (they don't call them vice chancellors over there) of a university in Alberta with over 20,000 students.