Groundcrews--

Stories from Ground Crews. Just click on the next line of text.

A day in the life of a member of 97 Squadron Groundcrew - Des Evans

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Aircrews.

We invite stories from ex Aircrews or Relatives of Aircrews who have a unique story to relate. This first one is from Robert Dinning, His father is listed in the crew below.

The story of Lancaster. R5502. OF--M

28 - 29 August 1942 Nürnberg
97 Squadron T/o 2102 Woodhall Spa
Pilot Sgt John Hector Dinning RAAF+ 404992 23y
F/E Sgt William E Spooner + 1479837 21y
Nav. Sgt Ellis V Cope + 1006396 33y
B/A Sgt Victor A Hamon + 1173236 21y
W/op Sgt Charles H Brummitt + 1051139 28y
Gnr. Sgt Harold J Endley + 1153736
Gnr. Sgt Brian Quinn + 646803 20y
The Lancaster was returning and was attacked by Oberleutnant Adolf Brandstätter I./NJG4. The aircraft crashed in a field at 0248 hrs in between the rue des Vauls en de terril de Marie José at Maurage. The bodies were taken to a house at rue de la Haute Montée and the next day, 30th August, Oberleutnant Brandstätter came to pay his last respects to the crew. The Gendarmerie of Havre made a report in which it was stated that a witness from Etterbeek had held on to some four or five identity numbers, three wrist watches, one ring, and one medallion with a photograph of a woman. All being the effects of this crew which were handed over to the RAF police after the war in 1946. John Hector Dinning was born in 1919 at London. His mother was English and his father Australian. The family returned to Australia in the early 20’s and lived at Stanthorpe / Toowoomba for several years. John was educated at Brisbane Boys College and later in 1938 he went to the University of Queensland at the Faculty of Veterinary Science. In 1940 he volunteered for the Air Force and was called up in January 1941. He therefore had only completed three years out of a course of five years at the faculty. He wanted to continue later. In July 1942 he was trained at the 1654 conversion unit at Wigsley. Here he was to meet Charles Brummitt. His sister remembers: “Prior to volunteering for service for the RAF in 1939 my brother Charles was employed by William Hastie, Gents Outfitters of Doncaster, where he had worked from being 14 years old. His hobbies were many, mainly tennis, cycling, ballroom dancing and amateur dramatics. He married in 1937 (with Winnie Lloyd) and had one daughter, Wendy, who was 4 years old when he was reported missing in 1942.” Charles Brummitt qualified as a wireless operator in March 1941 and later in October 1941 he joined the 25 Operational Training Unit as a qualified gunner and spent only two weeks there after which he was posted to No 97 Squadron at Coningsby. He did at least nine operations before been sent to the conversion unit at Wigsley. Victor Hamon also joined the crew. Victor was educated at Victoria College, an excellent swimmer and canoeist, a lad of infinite courage with many friends. When war broke out and the occupation of the Channel Islands was expected Victor left for England and joined the R.A.F. The newspaper reported: “At the time of his death he was 21 years old, his parents receiving the tragic message on Saturday, the day after what would have been his 22nd birthday.” Victor had a girlfriend who was pregnant and they planned to get married but this raid made an end to this. A son was born, Tony, but shortly after his mother sadly died also. Tony was taken into a foster home as it was not possible to send him to his family in Jersey which was occupied by the Germans. Contact was lost and eventually in 1993, after a trip to Jersey, Tony finally managed to get in contact again and was shown a photograph of his father: Victor Hamon. Stan Harrison, a friend of the flight engineer, William ‘Bill’ Spooner remembers: “ Bill was a good friend and work-mate of mine, we both worked in his father’s engineering works, The Spooner Dryer and Engineering Company. Situated at Kirk Lane, Yeadon, we actually helped to manufacture parts of the Lancaster aircraft which was made by A.V. Roe in Manchester and Yeadon. This factory was entirely situated underground with cattle grazing above, we at Spooners had an extra long electric folding machine which was needed to make the ailerons of the Lancaster. Bill was keen on collecting old Motor Cycles. In 1941, Bill and I and another good friend decided to join the R.A.F, and we went to Leeds to volunteer .” As a point of interest, the grandfather of Bill Spooner, Dr. William A. Spooner, was immortalised as the originator of Spoonerisms, which can be found in the Universal Dictionary. The burial of the crew took place at 31st August 1942, and they are still buried there at Gosselies Communal Cemetery.
Sgt John Dinning (P Dinning)
Sgt Charles Brummitt (Mrs S Jones)
Sgt Victor Harmon.

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This incident, in which two brave aircrew lost their lives, is quoted from Warrant Officer Dawkins, whose short memoir is held in the RAF Museum at Hendon (Dept of Research).

The B Flight Commander, Squadron Leader Garlicks,aircraft was attacked by a night fighter, and Garlick ordered his crew to bale out, which five of them did before the Lancaster crashed in the vicinity of Kiel. Garlick and Flight Sergeant Edwards, the rear gunner, lost their lives, but the other five of the crew became prisoners of war. The wireless operator, Warrant Officer Dawkins DFC, recalls „It happened quite suddenly. I saw some bright yellow streaks flying past the astrodome. At first I took little notice; I had seen flak before and was not unduly disturbed, until I awoke to the fact that the flashes were not travelling upwards but were progressing in the same direction as we were going. Then I realised that we were being attacked by a fighter As the Lancaster sustained a series of hits from the attacking fighter, Squadron Leader Garlick called Dawkins over the intercom, and asked for a report from him about the damage on the port side of the aircraft. Dawkins remembers,

" Below the nacelle, under the wing, was a long streamer of orange flame streaking back into the night. It was not until much later that I got to know the situation was the same on the starboard side. We were in a bad spot and no mistak . After receiving the damage report from Dawkins, Garlick asked the navigator for a course to take the stricken Lancaster out of the main bomber stream, and for a heading towards England. At this point, Dawkins was confident that they would make it back home; he came off the intercom in order to set up the radio on the base frequency, and he describes the events that followed, „After making sure that I was on the correct frequency, I looked around the corner of my compartment to see how the rest of the crew were faring. Much to my dismay, I saw the navigators compartment empty; the navigator and bomb aimer had gone. Without delay, I went back on the intercom for further instructions. All I heard was the skipper calling, Bale ou; though this was being repeated several times, I did not wait to hear any more."

Dawkins grabbed his parachute and stumbled towards the nose of the Lancaster where he encountered the navigator. „I was given to understand later,‰ recalls Dawkins, „that he was about to leave the plane when it crossed his mind that I was not on the intercom when the skipper started to give instructions to leave the aircraft. He was on the point of coming back for me; a very gallant gesture, as time was all important. The last thing I remember was the skipper straining at the controls in an endeavour to hold the aircraft in the air to give us all a chance of escaping. With my hand grasping the ripcord, I felt the rush of air sucking me out into the smoky, swirling clouds below.

Recalling Squadron Leader Garlick, Dawkins said, "It was with deep regret I learnt that the skipper was still in the aircraft when it crashed. He was a very good friend of mine, in so much that we had graduated from the early Wellington days, and he really was one of the nicest fellows I had met. Its strange that all the best seem to be taken first."

A little humour in adversity.

The flying career of Flying Officer Bill Pearson DFC RCAF ended near Koenigsberg towards the end of 1944 when he was shot down and taken prisoner. This is his account.

"Hit by Flak knocking out our two port engines. We had been flying low at about 3,500 feet. Our aircraft was going down fast. I was first out of the escape hatch followed by our W/OP L.Daniels and then the Pilot S/Ldr Sparks. I landed heavily on a cobbled road and rolled into a potato garden behind a house, and was immediately surrounded and became a POW. When I was picked up I was marched to a barn where a dozen or so civilians came to look me over. A short time later I was taken by two guards to an open staff car where S/Ldr Sparks was already seated. The two Luftwaffe officers treated us in accordance with the Geneva Convention. We were taken to a Luftwaffe station nearby and searched. Our possessions were removed (wristwatch etc) and were placed in a manilla envelope and sealed. Believe it or not, I got those things back at the end of the war! Sparks and I were seperated and I, as I had a badly sprained leg was given a short ride later in the morning to the outskirts of Koenigsberg and had two guards with little regard for my safety marched me through the civilians who were less than hospitable { sticks and stones and spitting etc } that led to having a group try to lynch me. Fortunately a Lutwaffe Officer came to my rescue--berated the crowd of civilians and got additional guards to escort me to a lockup in local jail. I could have kissed that Lutwaffe Officer, he saved my life. The jail was 10 feet by 5 feet and was crowded with 6 Russians. Two were Airman. On the march to the jail escorted by the four guards who kept prodding me , I was limping because of my swollen leg, we passed a small group of a working party of POWs. In a lovely Cockney voice one of them shouted " Cheer up Canada--don’t let the B-----ds grind you down."--I knew then that was my salvation and I knew I would make it through to the end of the war. I often think of that Cockney--I do hope he made it through to the end."

I didn’t quite get the Chop. by Des Evans.

The Lancaster engines are about 12 feet up from ground level. We flight Mechanics used tall Trestles to climb up and service the engines. My fellow Flight Mech Den Mooney, also my best mate, were pretty well inseperable. He serviced the Starboard side engines as a rule and I usually did the Port side.--This particu;lar Day I had been working on the Starboard outer . Den had been off somewhere and came back to the dispersal. A Instrument walla needed the Port Outer engine to be run up. Den went to the Cockpit and I started to scramble up the trestle and had just got my hands round the metal tubing which supported the wooded planking at the top of the tresle, when all of a sudden there was the mightiest crack as the propellor on the engine I was about to work on, crashed into the planking right in front of my head, it missed me by about three inches. I hung on to the trestle , almost frightened to let go, then I looked up to the Cockpit { F/Engineers side } and saw this white face looking at me petrified. It took I guess onlty seconds to realise what had happened, Den had inadvertantly pressed the wrong starter button. I think it took him longer to recover than it did me--but it earned me many free Pints afterwards.

My Fire experience by Eric Brown

my 'Fire' incident it was on Dec 6th 44 when we had bombed Geissen with B C main force and just as we leaving the target area and still in the light of the flares a shell burst above us and a piece of shrapnel tore a hole in the starboard wing over No 2 furel tank. 0ur midupper gunner,(on his second tour with us) shouted that the wing was on fire. Looking out I saw flames emerging from the wing and as I watched in alarm they seemed to be getting longer.

As per the drill the skipper ordered us to prepare to bale out and with some trepidation I attached my chute to my harness and whilst doing this Jock, our midupper said to the skip, "what about me skip" and to my surprise he replied,

" You stay there Jock". Perhaps I should explain that with Jock being on his second tour we had come to rely upon his experience if anything unexplained occurred and I suppose in the heat of the moment our skip thought he might have the answer to our plight. This being so, just as I was preparing to go into the nose and having a final look at the flames I saw them suddenly go smaller and then become extinguished. No evasive action had been undertaken by our pilot and in retrospect it is possible that had we tried the fire might have got worse, something we would never know.

A little extra by Eric

As a matter of interest Des I mentioned our crash on 10th May at Brusells airport and having 24 ex p o w 's on board in addition to the crew, the opportunity to leave the aircraft was somewhat limited. I decided to leave by the window on the starboard side of the cockpit, consequently I opened the sliding window and started to climb out, by this time were coming over the cockpit top and almost licking my helmet. I was still wearing my helmet which was plugged in to the socket of the aircraft and to release it I gave a hard pull and later discovered that I had pulled the cord from the plug which was obviously still locked to the female socket. I then braced myself and although the engines were still running I slid down the side of the aircraft avoiding the prop, falling quite a few feet onto my heels. Luckily no serious damage was caused to my feet or legs. We had hoped to join the celebrations in Brusells after this but another aircraft was sent from Base to fly us home to the U K..

------------------------------------This is the story of " The end of S for Sugar."

Around the same time a Lancaster of the 97th (Pathfinder) Squadron crashed near the “Westerslag” on Texel Island (in fact on the slope of the wooded dune) Fonteinsnol).
(The crashing of another Lancaster Pathfinder of Wing Commander N R Mansfield (Captain)).
The crew was formed of F/L Kenneth Munro (Steve) Steven DFC (30), a former bank employee from Ilford Essex, the pilot commander; F/Sgt Samuel B Stevenson DFM, the navigator (22), a quiet and serious young man from Northern Ireland; P/O RR (Rid) Brown the bomb targetter from Hexham, North of England; F/Sgt Albert East, a former printer from London who was the mechanic; F/Sgt William (Bill) Gadsby (27) also from London serving a radio officer; F/Sgt Clifford John (Jack) Skinner (22), mid-body upper gunner from Woodboroughdale, Yorkshire and Sgt Leslie Norman John Laver (20), the tail gunner from Sydenham, London. Sgt Laver was a newcomer – he replaced the regular gunner who was kept on the ground as he was suffering from a skin disease. It was his first or second flight above enemy territory.
Normally they were flying the “P for Peter” which however was damaged in the previous night so they were assigned to fly the “S for Sugar”. A row of bombs painted on the body (25) indicated the number of missions made.
There is not much to tell about the flight itself, no events worth mentioning happened. When reaching the target, they released their “fire crackers” through the clouds, turned and prepared for the trip home. They were quite a bit on their way home and the flight undoubtedly would have been ended well if not Lt Kurt Matzak, flying a ME110 would have traced them. The attack was a professional one – no one of the crew noticed the danger before it was too late. Taking all into account they could be grateful to the German who did not fire at the plane’s body.
F/Sgt Albert East, the mechanic didn’t notice at all that the plane was attacked. As he in a Pathfinder also had the care of the machinegun in the nose of the plane, he had moved himself to the nose compartment and laying on his belly, threw a glance through the Perspex (?) window. He didn’t see a thing. A short time later the skipper called him back to the cockpit by the intercom. One of the outer engines had caught fire and it was the task of the mechanic to put the propeller into idle position. Probably a night fighter has crept in their dead angle and fired a salvo at the engine, or did an AA gun hit them? Because the gunners had not reported any fighter, he supposed an AA grenade caused the fire.
He put the propeller of the hit engine into idle position and had hardly finished his job when the other outer engine caught fire. East handled this engine the same way and went back to the nose compartment. In a Pathfinder it was the task of the mechanic to open the front emergency door and jump as the first man; it seemed no bad idea for him to take the necessary precautions.
It is impossible to trace what damage the night fighter did to the plane but probably no part of the plane body or crew was hit. The fire in the engines spread out and Flt Lt Steven, seeing both wings afire gave the order “parachute, parachute, jump, jump, jump” an order given under critical circumstances.
Albert East had taken off the tube of his oxygen supply because it was not long enough to reach his place beside the pilot. In his excitement he forgot to reconnect the tube to the oxygen supply. As it had happened often that the crew members got strangled by the intercom wires in emergency cases. East, on his way back to the bomb-target compartment and kneeling at the “door” took off his helmet and threw it away to avoid being killed in this unlucky way.
By lack of oxygen and because the ice cold air was streaming inside the “door”, he had a black-out and must have hit his head on the edge of the door opening. Being conscious again he was lying on the ground, what proved to be hard frozen little field with some bushes and stubby grass on the Wadden island Texel in the province of North Holland.
According to eye witnesses on Texel, the plane came flying over afire; the clouds over the plane were reddish coloured by the shine of fire. Then it crashed vertically, probably after an explosion. The pieces came down on the Fonteinsnol (Fountains dune), a high dune between De Koog and Den Hoorr. Except for two, all the crew members lost their lives. Steven as well as Gadsby and Skinner were married. Leslie Laver, as mentioned before, was not a member of the regular crew, but had taken the place of the rear gunner who fell ill.
They were buried in den Burg.
One of the survivors (as it became clear later on, was the mechanic Albert East) knocked at the door of Mr Piet Smit, a sheep farmer living in the hamlet of Noord Haffel, just south of den Burg. The man was bare foot, his boots had slipped off his feet when jumping. Confused of the sudden appearance of a stranger, who he couldn’t understand, Smit took the Englishman to one of his sheep sheds near his house. The Englishman, nervous of the suffering he had gone through, shivering from cold, laid himself down in the layer of hay and tried to find rest and forgetfulness after the frightening adventure.
There was something to think about: his mother celebrated her birthday and he imagined the whole family sitting together in her cosy room around the table. His own position was quite a contrasting one.
Next morning, when Smit made his way to the shed with clean socks and hot tea for his protégée, he met a neighbour who told him that a stranger was sitting in one of his sheds. Soon it became clear that this was the second survivor. It was PO Brown the bomb targetter.
That evening both men were brought together, a doctor was warned as East had his meniscus broken (concussion) – he had hit an obstacle while coming down. The doctor (Vellinga from the Weverstaat) knew English and he spoke with the men for some time.
It was mainly be persuasion of a farmer, who was living nearby, and who was quite terrified about the thought that the Germans in Den Helder had undoubtedly seen the two parachutes in the searchlights that the proposition was made to present the two to the Germans.
The doctor explained the situation in English, in particular that going underground would endanger the two wounded. The flyers agreed that the Germans would be informed. Not long afterwards they found themselves in German imprisonment.
This is not the end of the story, 18 years later in 1962, one of the men, Albert East visited Texel for the 2nd time but this time in a more comfortable way and as a civilian. He visited Mr Smit with whom he still keeps contact through his daughter. It is one of those friendships born in distress.

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