Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Army experience
We entered the army at Cowra, and we went into the reception depot and they took our clothes away from us and gave us summer clothing. And it was mid-winter. I mean, we froze in Cowra. So, it was basically an engineer training unit, and it was quite interesting.
And then they picked out all those people who had clerical experience and sent them to Bathurst to be in the ordinance stores depot. That was just processing stores and I was pretty disgusted because they were red tape and red tape specialists.
I was there when they got a missive down from Darwin for urgent Bren gun carrier parts. But it wasn't signed by the three people instead of the two. And they sent it back. And that sort of thing, I just couldn't stand the army. And I'm in the general army, by the army attitude of that particular.
I got to be fair, when the AIF came back from overseas and came down as instructors, they were dedicated. And they knew their part, and there was not nonsense about red tape with them. But, I don't rate highly the officers we had in that unit. Any other army officers, yes, they were tops. So, air force was a welcome relief, except for those fellows. The DIs, the Screaming Skulls. They weren't exactly lovely fellows.
Right, so that was what happened. We went to Bathurst and then a messenger comes up. Just before I went in the army, they transferred us from Bathurst to Haberfield to an ordinance store depot where we were virtually servants to the officers, mess orderlies and that sort of thing, in the cookhouse. And a number of slit trenches behind the drill hall, where we put, the officers' air raid trenches. They're an ideal place to put your rubbish. So we used to throw our rubbish in there, and that was when Sydney had an air raid alert in the harbour. And everyone cleared out to the air raid trenches and the officers were up to about chest high in the kitchen slops. Served them right. But, I left about a week later. So that was my army experience.
A mixed bunch
What did happen, my call up into the army was by being, I was a university student. So virtually, I went in as part of the university regiment. And the other half of our hut, one of the half, was all we educated blokes who were doing university. And the other half came from Woolloomooloo. And they were a wonderful group. I mean, you could leave anything. You could leave a wallet out there, nothing.
And it was an ideal mixture of the, what shall I say? Of the two groups, I'll state. Ones that went to the university. Ones that didn't want to do it, probably be plumbers and labourers, and I'm not being snobbish. It was just they were different, I learned a lot of new words, too. And they weren't in the dictionary. So that was the army.
Joining the Air Force
I went into the army and I went originally into an engineer training department in Carrara. And that was quite good. I would have stayed with the Army. That was something that was really good. And then they picked everyone who had clerical experience and sent them down to put in an ordinance store unit. Well, that didn't appeal to me. I wasn't going to sit out the war shuffling papers.
But I had previously gone on to the reserve. I was on the reserve, about to go onto the reserve. I had to have a medical, but I had registered for the Air Force. And what happened was I was away in Cowra at the, Cowra? Yes, Cowra. At the time that the papers came through for me to go for a medical. And the Army said, "You can't go for a medical. We won't release you."
But what happened was the Army clerk, what's named was Russ Pearson, no relation, and he was one that wanted to go on the Air Force Reserve, and he was the only real clerk. He said, "If you cover for me for a day, I'll go and have my Air Force medical, then I'll cover for your day. You can sign anything R. Pearson, because you're." And so that's what we did.
I came down for a medical and kissed the army goodbye. There were two reasons for going into the Air Force. One was that I'd be near Dorothy because I did my initial training in Sydney, and we were about to be engaged. So I came home to Bradfield Park and I was at Bradfield Park a week, and they sent me to Somers, Victoria. And I didn't come back to New South Wales for months. So I trained at Somers, Victoria. And God, it was cold there.
Becoming a wireless operator/gunner master
I did my initial training at Somers in Victoria. That was where they sorted out what you'd go up for, interview for selection to go off to the various units. And what happened, I was on 33 course, and they wanted to send a group to Canada in a hurry.
So anyone who had the leaving certificate, they pulled them back and put them on 32 course. And then you came up for category selection and they said to me, "What do you want to be?" And I said, of course, "I want to be a pilot." And they said, "Well, you can't be a pilot. You can't do Morse. You didn't attend any of our pre-," to go into the Air Force you had lectures before you went in. And they said, "You didn't do those." I said, "I couldn't do them. I was in the Army." Silly question.
So what did they do? They made me a wireless operator while training to go to the wireless school. Quite frankly, I sulked for the first fortnight. I didn't want to be a, I didn't swear in those days. They taught me how to. I didn't want to be, I mean, doing Morse. I've got no ability and I said that I've got no ability for anything mechanical. I'd break it. And so the first fortnight I sulked.
And then I was coming home on leave and there were some Air Force chaps there, coming down on leave from up north. They said, "What are you going to be?" I said, "I'm going to be a gunner." They said, "They're wanting middle of the turrets up north." So, overnight, I changed out to I was going to be a wireless operator gunner. And I think I came out with about 32 words a minute out of the operating. And I wasn't altogether good on the technical side, but you learn if your life's at risk. You learn very quickly. Chiefly, my greatest contribution mechanically was to give the set a good kick. So, that's what happened when I originally went to Parkes.
Training
Training at Parkes was directed at being a radio operator. But you did do flying, and you learned to operate in the air. And the pilots used to take off with you, and when you finished your transmitting exercise, let's say, well in the training area, and one of the ones I was in was a smart aleck.
Oh God. One of them was a smart aleck. He came down and flew across the field where the farmer was ploughing, bounced it down one side of the farmer, and over the top of his wagon. So I decided that wasn't for me. So whenever I finished my transmission, the pilot would say, "What's behind in your trailing aerial?" I never was over the line in my trailing, always got caught. I wasn't going to get caught in all that sort of aerobatics.
An Olympic jumper
And then in our hearts, at Parkes, Pat Ambrose was one of the trainees, and he could have qualified as an Olympic jumper. His bed was in the middle of the hut, and the beds were wire mattresses with bolts in them. They put the bolts in the wire mattress. And Pat used to come in, and he'd come to the door of the hut, and he'd jump across the top of all the sleeping people to his bed.
And that was alright. But if he'd had a few beers, you were a bit worried. So we decided we'd fix him. So we took the bolts out and put matches in. And so Pat comes back in stoned and he comes, he goes straight, he cleared the whole of the beds in front of him. And he didn't do it anymore for some reason or another.
Screaming Skull
We had a little fellow, Screaming Skull, the ... drill instructor. He wasn't a bad bloke, but drill instructors, they're just never good, they didn't have a good parental line. They really were. But he was quite alright.
But we couldn't stand the nonsense that was going on about the drill. So what we did, and he used to sleep at the end of the hut. We took his bed to pieces and my devious mates got it up into the ceiling of the hut, then reassembled it. So he comes back 10:00 at night and it's up there. And then he moved out. He couldn't stand us.
Ming the Merciless
We went off having qualified with Morse, we went off to Port Pirie to do the gunnery course. That was the home of Ming the Merciless. He was the squadron commander. His word was law, and on church parade and he'd come out on church parade and he'd say, "Well, the Roman Catholic padre is a good scout. From here to the front, off to Mass." "But we're Jews!" I said, "Go."
And of course, at the end of the course, we could qualify for commission. So off we go, mixed batch, Protestants, would be half Roman Catholics, half Jewish, half agnostics. But they'd go. It didn't pay them not go to church parade because you'd get kitchen duty. So whatever your religious beliefs, you tolerated going.
But it was a good course that went up in the Fairey Battles, you should take a prayer before you went up in them, because they were clapped out old planes and then you would fire at a drogue behind. I think I did alright there. One of the gunners shot part of the tail of the plane. Not when I was in it. And so, that was Port Pirie, and you came back from Port Pirie to Sydney for final leave.
Seasickness
We got a very short period in Sydney. We got engaged then. And I came home to Dorothy, and I said, "Right, we've been issued with tropical clothing. We'll be in Australia and I'll be able to come home and see you." So we went off to Port Pirie and we gave in our tropical clothing and got blue clothing.
Got on the ship at Port Adelaide. It was so small. It was a coastal vessel. If looked down at the wharf, it'd be down there. And we had a first-class accommodation in the hold. Two hundred fifty of us in the hold. You'd put your hammocks up at the night and they'd sway with the ... Oh, I was seasick from the time I left Port Adelaide to the time I hit Bristol.
But I used to run a, what do you call, the sweep. Whether Perko Pearson would keep it down, and nobody won it. Oh, God, I was so sick. And also worried because if you suddenly got to Britain having done part of your training, and then got airsick, you'd be LMF, lack of moral fire hole.
So I made it. My God, it was terrible. But what happened? We used to hang our hammocks up and these four mates of mine would say, they'd hang the hammock up and they'd say, "We're going to put a bottle of water, a packet of biscuits, if we're torpedoed, we'll grab that and have something in the back".
They said to Perko, "Aren't you going to put them in my things?" What they didn't know was that I was secretly praying that the boat would be torpedoed and put me out of my misery. I was so crook, I really was."
WAAF blackouts
Eight or ten of us went to Whitley Bay. Now, Whitley Bay was the commando training school for the RAF regiment. Full of pomp and, not pomp but ceremony. I mean, when we were in the hotel, we'd get up about 9:00 and go out and have a walk around town. There you were up at 6:00 and you saluted the flag as it went up.
Now, that didn't suit us exactly. We'd been there a week, and dawn broke and the flag goes up. The RAF ensign and a pair of WAAF's blackout's, WAAF's pants up on top of it. There was hell to pay, and they knew it must have been the Australians, so they canceled our leave. Weekend leave was gone. First parade on the Monday, the flag pole's cut down. And after that, there was a truce, except at the end.
Mills bomb training
We were taught how to use a rifle and all sorts of nonsense. And one of the things they taught us was how to use a Mills bomb. Little round thing like an apple. They said, and this was going to be very valuable as an airman. I mean, a bomb that size dropped from 15,000 feet would be very effective. So, they said, "It's no use knowing all this theory. Go and do some practice. Okay?
We're going into the butts, and we'll give you a nice Mills bomb, and you'll throw it." So we had a pig of a sergeant, and we went into the butts and he said, "There you are, Flight Sergeant Pearson." I didn't know. "What you do, you pull the pin out, you count to five, and throw it. Because it's live and throw it that way. Do you understand?" Yes. "Here Flight Sergeant." He throw it to me. And I pull the pin out and I said, "What do I do now? What do I do now? Here, you throw it." And they all fell down. I had a spare pin. He could have killed me, but it was the last day, and I stayed out of his reaches.
Morse sabotage
I served on an English squadron and great respect for them. But some of them, or most of them, beat our bum. And we had one who was a particularly arrogant instructor. He said, "You blokes from the colonies? You won't understand what I'm talking about, but I know everything about these sets. Everything did you hear me?" Yeah. We heard him.
So off we go that night. And we went back after dark with a torch. Got the set that he would be practicing on the next morning. Took the top of the Morse key, shaved the top of the points, put some chewing gum on it, painted over the chewing gum, and put the key back on. He nearly went mad. He couldn't find the fault. The next day he lectured to us and he was still there about 8:00 at night trying to find the fault. Oh, God. It was just as well you could laugh at times.
A nickel raid
We went on a nickel. What they call a nickel. We'd have to drop, towards the end of your training, at OTU, Operational Training Unit, you would go out on a nickel. And you'd fly maybe up towards Norway, oh no, that was a bullseye. Nickel you'd fly out towards the French coast. We went close to Avignon on our first nickel. And it didn't count as an op, but you could be shot down on it.
Anyway, what our function was, the wireless operator would throw out down the flare chute a newspaper to the French Resistance. And it was their regular newspaper, and to the German garrison, a horror brochure of what was going to happen to them. I forgot to say about when they were over London a little piece appeared in one of the London newspapers saying the Germans were off track, they'd dropped these things out over London. Okay. That was very good. Very much on the ball.
102 Squadron
There were three crews. And one went out for this, his conversion. It would be probably his last flight on this. Hit the church steeple, killed the crew. So it was another ... you began to realize that it's going to be a risky business. We went then to an English squadron. 102 Squadron. The Ceylon squadron. I think it was originally supplied by the people of Ceylon.
We didn't know this at the time, but the position was, it had suffered the highest losses in Four Group. It suffered the highest percentages losses in Four Group. And it had the highest losses in any Whitley squadron and third-highest losses in Bomber Command. And at one stage, they had to take Four Group off operation for a short period. And our men, in particular, had to be taken off because they didn't have enough crews to man the planes.
We weren't on it then, but if I'd have known, I'd have resigned, I tell you. Then when we went to Pocklington, 102 Squadron. I must say, that was the top squadron in the Air Force. I mean, the Lancaster blokes, they wouldn't know that, but it was. I had to get that commercial in, and I wouldn't have said that if he wasn't here. So I joined the squadron on the 9th of June.
Pilot error
Our first target was, I'm not very good at French, … on the 12th of July. It was a bomb storage site for V1s. We had to come back because all of our navigation equipment was US. So we came back, and on the way back, I got the plane QDMs. A QDM was a prefix they sent on the message saying like you wanted to fix. We wanted a bearing, not a fix. A bearing. So I was doing this all the way back. And we got in the circuit, or near the circuit, we switch over to the pilot's RT. He had an RT box, and he could call up.
Anyway, he called me up and said, "I'm not getting any joy on my transmitter. I can't get base. I get them. What am I going to do? Come on you useless…" he really didn't use the rude word. Anyway, I got up and went up and I look. And he's cursing and cursing. He was a good pilot and a good man, but on this particular case, he used the whole of the Australian vocabulary of swear words in all honesty. What he didn't realize was all he'd done was press the wrong key and he was transmitting. They took the WAAF operator off the reception because the language was so bad. But he got us back.
A Canadian never forgets
On the 18th of July, to Vers. Now Vers was the rail link around Paris. It was one of the rail stations when in Paris. And we got there early. We got there ahead of the master bomber, which meant we couldn't bomb until he got there, curse him. And we actually spent considerable time just circling around waiting for him, biting our nails. Didn't have many nails left after a while.
On the 7th of August, we went to the battle area, where the Canadian forces were bombing, trying to break out from the area around Cannes. So we were to bomb on their markers that they had put up. And we were in the first wave, and some of the first wave hit a German bomb dump that went up with a hell of a bang, a Panzer unit we found out afterwards. But one of the first wave dropped bombs on the Canadians, and by mistake. I think the flares must have been wrong.
Anyway, subsequently, and I'm just going to digress for a minute, we didn't drop bombs on them. We were just behind the ones that dropped bombs. We were going over to the anniversary of D-Day way back, and of course, I went over on the ferry. I was sitting on the ferry and the chap right alongside of me said, "Hey, you're an Australian, aren't you?"
How he could tell, I must talk funny. Anyway, he said, "I'm from Canada." I said, "Oh, well, I was on the Canadian squadron." He said, "I didn't know Australian squadrons were here." I said, "Yes, I bombed on this particular site." He said, "Did you just?" He said, "You bastards dropped bombs on my troops. I want to talk to you." So I said, "Excuse me. I'll be back. My wife's up there waving to me. She wants a cup of tea." Went up to Dorothy. I said, "Go on down to the lower deck and lock me in the toilet. I don't want to get out until we get home." So that was my experience on Vers. No, that was my experience on the Canadian effort.
Gelsenkirchen
My next one was a place I almost shudder to talk about, September '44, Gelsenkirchen. Oh, it's just this side of hell. We were hit by flak, and a piece came up through the starboard fin into the fuselage. It hit the floor, ricocheted off that, hit the release button on the mid-upper gunner's turret and he fell on the floor, went straight down the rest of the kite, hit the windscreen in front of the pilot and it's red hot this, came across the top of his head, and took all the leather off, a great streak of leather off the top of his helmet, and didn't get through the fur lining. And that was a hell of a target.
I looked out on the way there, and a wireless operator sat underneath the pilot in a Halifax, and you really only could see out a little window. Mind you, I wouldn't have looked. I watched the navigator all the way because he sat on top of the escape hatch, and if he moved, I was going to beat him out of it. So I sat under there, and I looked out, there was flak everywhere. And I said to him, "Derek, look at that. Thank God we're not going in there." He said, "We are. Went down to dog-leg in." What happened on that particular kite, we had bags of flak. We had six holes. One near the mid-upper. Two inside and one near the bomb aimer. And I tell you what, he very expedited the bombing run. He didn't muck about.
Corkscrewing
On the Rhine. After leaving the target, we ran into a fresh barrage and we did get some bomb damage there. And the result was that the pilot dived briefly and kept diving. He kept corkscrewing. And now corkscrewing, from my point of view, was an invention of the devil, because you'd be flying, and you'd turn and you'd drop a thousand feet, twisting and turning.
You'd come up again and do the same thing. That would be my stomach chasing it up and down and oh, God, it was terrible particularly because my pilot was very strict. On the intercom, the wireless operator could not come in on it, because I was listening out in case we got a recall, in case we got a bombing wind. And he said it would interfere with my direct contact with the gunners. "You stay off the intercom." I used to stay off the intercom, and I couldn't really know what was going on.
My stomach used to tell me when we'd dive, but my eyes weren't on the set. They were on the escape hatch which was underneath the navigator. I'd be looking this and sending like this. Not sending, not sending. Anyway, he kept diving, and we had a very good view of the bridge and the cathedral. It was 25 degrees below then. I always jokingly said that our aiming point was the cathedral because it never got hit.
Emergency landing
In Mulheim, on the 24th of December '44. This was a daylight raid, and we had enormous fighter cover. But on take-off, our airspeed indicator became unserviceable, so we had no navigational and bombsight aids. We had to use our intelligence. The pilots had a little of that.
So, what we did, our pilot formatted on the other aircraft and just followed them. And we landed at a place called Carnaby. It was an emergency drome where you came back if you were crippled. Well, we had no airspeed indicator, so the pilot couldn't judge to land. We ran the whole length of the emergency runway. And when we got out of the plane, there're planes there with half turret, big bits out. They only went there if they were in trouble.
Take-off mishaps
This was the sort of thing that could happen to you on take-off. We were lined up and there'd be say, if it was a maximum, there'd be 26 planes going out, one after the other. And at dusk, a Halifax in front of us from B flight had total hydraulic failure on take-off and his bomb doors fell open, the thousand-pound bombs fell out and bounced all over the place.
The flaps were all lowered and the undercarriage collapsed. His aircraft reached the end of the runway and ran through the fence into the field. He's got a full bomb load. He was the luckiest man alive they didn't go off. Now we were waiting for him to go off. A nice way to spend six and a half hours thinking about.
Now the second one, the aircraft in front of us as we taxied down turned on the runway and its brakes were still on, and it took off its brakes and it went into an immediate ground loop. And that's in front of you. And it blew up. So that was again, it wasn't the best introductions to the ...
'You've got to be unlucky'
I was in the crew room and we had done 25 trips at this stage and we were getting into our gear. And there was a little wireless operator standing by me and he was shaking like a leaf. He said, "I've only done four. I'm frightened." I said, "Look, mate. You've got to be unlucky. The dice has got to be unloaded against you. There's nothing to worry about, really. It's not too bad and the chances are you'll be right." And he calmed down and put his parachute on. Never saw him again. He bought it, and I felt terrible for it. If I'd have said, "Don't go," he might still be alive.
SPAM
Well, SPAM was the staple food. SPAM, it's some sort of bastardized ham. Anyway, they reckon they used to have to carry this SPAM. The Admiralty said to the Air Force, "We're going to carry the SPAM as deck cargo because it's insurance. The Germans have been given instructions not to sink boats laden with SPAM because it'll do more harm to the British morale.
Jonah on board?
We inherited two new members of the crew. We inherited a mid-under gunner and another bomb aimer. Our bomb aimer cracked up. And this fellow, we didn't know for a while, but when we found out, we were rather perturbed. He was on his fourth crew. On his first crew, his plane crashed in the sea and he was the only survivor.
On his second crew, the crew had to bale out and only two of them survived and he was one of them. And the third crew something happened to him and then they were going to screen him, and he said, "No. I'd like to go on operations." And what a Jonah he was. What an inheritance. We weren't totally happy. He was a good bloke, but still, in all, he didn't have an imposing record for your safety. They had stood him down because they thought he'd had enough. But he said, "No. I want to go on.
