Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
The mother country's in trouble
Bill: My father was not in the war he had bad eyes, for starting, all the times that I ever knew him. The earliest I knew him he always wore glasses so that sort of ruled him out.
If you asked me why I joined the services, it's hard to remember back at this point of time, but at that stage the population of Australia was about seven million. Almost every one of us was descended from a Brit, Britain was the mother country, and when it got into trouble Australia and the other dominions just fell in line and helped.
And there was a very intense patriotism running through everyone I think at that stage. They all wanted to get into it, and I think most of the young people felt the same.
So when I was eighteen - I was only 16 when the war started – so when I was eighteen I got permission after a lot of trouble from my parents because at that stage you weren't an adult until you were 25 – sorry 21. So having finally, and reluctantly got their permission I joined the Air Force. That's it.
Well I was always keen on model aircraft. You used to make like most kids model aircraft and fly them with elastic bands and all that sought of stuff.
And I used to read about Biggles in the First World War, flying his Sop with Camels and SE5As and all that sort of stuff. That seemed to be the best choice. I couldn't imagine myself sloshing around on the ground with an Army. So that seemed to be the perfect solution.
Crewing up
Bill: At the end of the induction course, when you had all these people put together to form a crew, they threw pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators, gunners into this hanger and said “Well, all you fellows sort yourselves out,” and you just came out as, just in crews of seven people.
And it sounds a bit odd but there was a lot sort of jockeying before that.
I know that before I got into the hanger there to sought of decide it all, it was virtually decided because I had a bomb aimer and a wireless operator who were very, very friendly together, they were both married men, one was twenty-seven, one was twenty-five.
And they told me after-would that they vetted carefully every pilot that was going into that hanger and came to the conclusion that I was going to bring them back alive, and fortunately it worked out that way.
But then the bomb aimer knew a navigator who he had done a half course with and so he came in, and the navigator knew a rear gunner who came in, and the rear gunner knew a rear gunner, and slowly but surely we had these things all sought of nutted together so it was comparatively easy. I often wondered what happened.
There must have been at the end of all this - one pilot, one navigator, one wireless operator all sitting around all looking at each other thinking to themselves "Why weren't we picked?"
Amazingly versatile force
Bill: Bomber Command doesn't get enough recognition for all the things it did. Everyone reckons it just went around bombing German cities. At least half the operations were on other areas not just bombing German cities. They were an amazingly versatile force and they actually laid 30, 000 tonnes of mines in all the German ports along the Baltic which no one else could get to, and they sank no end of submarines, and they were so successful on the surface boats that the Swedes particularly said that if you want stuff send your boats across here because they were losing too many. That was one little part of Bomber Command that no one even thinks about.
Ron: We also attacked the U-Boat Pens down the coast of France, from Brest, to La Rochelle, a couple of other ports, about three or four ports. That's another thing you'd never heard much about. People talk about blowing German houses up and what have you – but certainly, we put a lot of pressure on the U-Boats so much so they had to come in to the, say the bay of any of those ports under water and come right into the big concrete pens themselves. But again, I'm thinking of one occasion where we dropped the bombs on the Pens and - about ten feet thick of concrete – they made no difference. But next door to it there were all the buildings where many of the U-Boat crews live. So, if you bomb those, there is more action there than on the U-Boat itself. If you kill all your crew – U-Boats don't go out. So there is that side of it you have to be aware of.
Bill: There's another little snippet about Bomber Command which I can talk about endlessly. When the war started the German Navy had 16 capital ships of any size lots of smaller ships for 16 capital ships. By the time the war had finished the Navy had sunk three. The Norwegian sank one, the Russians sank one and Fleet Air Arm sank one and bomber commands sank six and put two out of action for the remainder of the war. So we won the best naval battler of the war apart from any thing else.
1,000 bomber raids
Ron: I've been on a couple of thousand bomber raids and that it takes about a half an hour for the whole lot of them together. They're not just in one group but they're spread over about oh 30 minutes or so but nonetheless that's a lot of aeroplanes and at night time you've got them above, at our level and below there and either side of you and you're getting in the slipstream of one then you move out and then you get in the slipstream outside.
They are round you all the time it's a very touchy area you have to be very conscious of it and you are talking to your gallows can you see anyone close to you or that sort of thing where are they. And so you have to be aware all the time and the other thing that does happen, people can let bomb go above you. They shouldn't of course and the bomb Anakin see there's an aeroplane down there and I had bombs actually coming down between the wing of a trail. It was just closest that the whole string of bombs came down. That was a bit exciting.
Three minutes late
Bill: I almost had a very personal experience. I had a girlfriend at the time who I was going to meet outside the Cumberland Hotel opposite Marble Arch. And I was coming from the city side, she was coming from the Paddington side, and a V2 bomb came down, a V2 came down faster than the speed of sound and the first thing it exploded, then a “schooch” the sound coming down and I'm running three minutes late and suddenly there is this enormous explosion, columns of smoke, so I'm hastening to get up to the corner thinking I had better get a new girlfriend and fortunately she was three minutes late too. So we had a nice reunion and we got together.
D Day 'An endless row of boats'
Bill: It had no real significance for me it was another operation basically, and no one knew that, certainly I didn't know, that that was the big day. But we went across through bad weather, which we never would had flown into normally, but that was why we went out I guess. One of the reasons of the success was that the Germans thought that no one in their right mind would start an invasion when the weather was that bad. But having bombed the gun emplacement on Pointe du Hoc, and turning him around to come home, it was on, you could just see an endless row of boats as far as the eye could see thousands of them. And as I have said before, there were 5000 small boats bringing in the first 130, 000 troops, and they were guarded by 300 ships of 'C Line', including six battleships, and they were proceeded by 300 minesweepers to make sure everything was cleared. So when you can picture those all coming towards you almost at ground level – as I've said so often that I could have put my wheels down and taxied back home.
VE Day
Bill: I was in a little town called Lockley, sorry Broadway in the middle of the Cotswolds. And I had with me a Canadian wireless operator who had been taken prisoner and just released, and a Rhodesian paratrooper who also had been taken prisoner, just released, and we were both staying with this delightful old fellow whose name was George Spencer Churchill, who was a cousin I think of Winston's. He had this nice little shack of about 86 rooms in the middle of the Cotswolds which I was – we became quite friendly. I used to go up there every time I had opportunity to spend a bit of time with him. So we are in this little town of Broadway drinking ourselves to death with the local cider. And I don't remember doing it but I have at home a red ensign which they told me later was on the top of the church, and I saw the church later and how I got up there I do not know. So that was VE Day for me.
Ron: I was in a pub in Hull. Having a day off and it was announced in the pub that "the war's over". So there was lots of people clapping and cheering and "more beer and more beer". [I was] just glad that it was over. Glad to see the end of it.
