Description
Object description
British officer served as navigator with 540 Sqdn, No 106 (PR) Wing, RAF in GB, 1943-1944; prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III, Sagan and Stalag III-A, Luckenwalde, Germany, 6/1944-4/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in East Dulwich and Morden, GB, 1913-1940: family; education; employment; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; memories of explosion at Woolwich Arsenal; German Air Force attacks on London, 1940; running sweepstake on number of German aircraft shot down. Aspects of enlistment and training with Royal Air Force in GB, 1940-1943: reasons for applying for aircrew; enlistment, 8/1940; flying training and reasons for failing course; reselection as navigator and reasons why he did not want to be a wireless operator/air gunner; sight of captured Junkers Ju 88 at RAF Dyce; reaction to posting to De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito training unit. Recollections of operations as navigator with 540 Sqdn, No 106 (PR) Wing, RAF in GB, 1943-1944: posting to RAF Benson; skill of his pilot Flying Officer Peter Farlow; first operation to Toulouse, France.
REEL 2 Continues: degree of threat to photographic reconnaissance De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito Mk PR IX; how photographs were taken from aircraft; use of Supermarine Spitfire for photographic reconnaissance; attitude to operating De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito Mk PR IX; use of long range tanks; photographic reconnaissance flight over Silesia and Wiener Neustadt, Austria and having to land in Sicily, Italy, 8/1943; return flight via Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain, 8/1943; range of photographic reconnaissance flights; lack of public knowledge of photographic reconnaissance squadron's work; senior officers in unit; photographs he was presented with of his operations; question of personal morale on operations; photographic reconnaissance operation to photograph airfields in southern France when his aircraft was attacked by German fighters, 15/5/1944; crash landing of De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito PR Mk IX (LR 408), 15/5/1944.
REEL 3 Continues: destruction of aircraft on ground using Very Pistol, 15/5/1944. Aspects of period as prisoner of war in France and German, 5/1944: how he and his pilot handed over to Germans at Chateauroux, France, 15/5/1944; journey to Frankfurt am Main, Germany; interrogation by German officer at Dulag Luft Interrogation Centre, Oberursel, Germany; hostility of German civilians in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany, 6/1944-1/1945: inmates of camp; reasons for escape activity; wounding of prisoner of war by German guard; solo escape attempt by Canadian via cesspit; Red Cross parcels and use of empty food tins for air ducts in tunnels; conditions, winter 1944-1945; Christmas festivities, 25/12/1944; air activity over camp. Aspects of period as prisoner of war in Stalag III-A, Luckenwalde, Germany, 2/1945-4/1945: trek to camp, 1/1945-2/1945; overcrowding in camp, 2/1945; liberation by Soviet Army, 4/1945; attempt of German burgomeister of Luckenwalde to surrender to former prisoners of war.
REEL 4 Continues: construction of radios; attitude of prisoners of war to not being immediately released by Soviets; prisoners of war attempt to trek westwards and rounding up by Soviets, 5/5/1945; exchange of former British prisoners of war for Soviet prisoners of war River Elbe, 5/1945; return flight to GB and processing of former prisoners of war at RAF Cosford; later duties dealing with effects of missing RAF personnel at RAF Colnbrook and RAF Hornchurch, 1946-1947; memories of General Election, 7/1945; question of national unity during Second World War.