Description
Object description
British driver served with 95 Sqdn, Coastal Command, RAF in Sierre Leone and Gambia, ca 1941-1944; served as driver on various posting with RAF, 1944-1945 and 1953-1969
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Birmingham, GB, 1920-1940: family background and social circumstances; education; Lifebuoy activities; training and duties as jockey/stable boy, 1935-1939; outbreak of war, 3/9/1939; background to recruitment as aircraftman into RAF, 5/1940, including rejection for air crew due to poor eyesight and parents reaction;. Kitting out at RAF Reception Centre, Cardington, GB 5/1940. Period on basic training at Morecambe, 1940: drill; physical training; rifle training.
REEL 2 Continues billets; relationship with recruits and NCOs. Period as aircraftman 2nd class at Tane Ranges, GB, 1940: guard duties; informal story of informal driving experience and remustering as driver; collecting drogues on ranges. Period at Blackpool, 1940: learning to drive with British School of Motoring; lorry driving course. Period of driving at RAF Digby, GB, 1941: clearing snow; driving duties, Period as driver with 95 Sqdn, Coastal Command, Freetown, Sierra Leone and Bathurst, Gambia, 1941-1944: voyage out aboard Highland Brigade; billets; story of fatal road accident; driving ambulance; road conditions; story of driving coffin containing suicide case; climate; detachment to wireless station, Bathurst; road conditions upcountry; hospitalisation with malaria; recounts joke concerning billeting of troops, 1940.
REEL 3 Continues: driving duties; return to Freetown; passing test to qualify as aircraftman 1st class; return to GB, 1944. Various posting in GB, 1944-1945: driving fire tender and ambulance; hospitalisation and convalescence after broken wrist; VE Day, 8/5/1945. Voyage with airfield construction unit aboard Empress of Australia to Hong Kong, 1945: route; VJ Day, 15/8/1945. Period at Kowloon, Hong Kong, 1945-1946: collecting and guarding Japanese POWs; driving duties; unit role building airstrip; acting as driving instructor to civilians; promotion to leading aircraftsman; voyage back to GB. Demobilisation, 1946. Period working as stable hand, 1946-1953. Various aspects of period as driver with RAF in GB, Singpore and on Christmas Island, 1953-1965: background to reenlistment and promotion to corporal; moving aircraft; story of dispute over method of changing aircraft bomb load.
REEL 4 Continues: story of recovering ditched vehicle with Scammel; role as instructor training civilians; posting to Changi airfield, Singapore including story of drunken corporal, married quarters, RAF careers of sons, pet dog and driving problems; various driving courses and qualifications; background to leaving RAF, 1969. Post-service career: work as tanker driver; living at RAF Association sheltered accommodation at Wexford House, Melton Mowbray.