Rotheram, Ronald Cooper (Oral history)

Irish officer served with 107 Sqdn, No 2 Group, Bomber Command, RAF in GB, 1938-1940; served with 105 and 110 Sqdns, No 2 Group, RAF in GB, 1940-1941; served as instructor with No 70 Operational Training Unit, RAF at Nanyuki, Kenya, 1941-1942; commanded 244 Sqdn, Air Headquarters Iraq, RAF at RAF Shaibah, Iraq, 1943-1944

REEL 1 Background in Ireland and GB, 1917-1936: family; education. Recollections of operations as pilot with 107 Sqdn, No 2 Group, Bomber Command, RAF in GB, 7/1938-6/1940: joining squadron after training at Royal Air Force College, Cranwell; joining squadron, 7/1938; contrast between flying Hawker Hind and Bristol Blenheim Mk.I; waiting for squadron to return from raid on German fleet at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, 4/3/1939; operating against Germans in Stavanger, Norway from RAF Lossiemouth; method of evading German fighters; contrast between Bristol Blenheim Mk.I and Mk.IV; raid on bridges at Maastricht, Netherlands in which he crashed landed, 12/5/1940; character of commanding officer Wing Commander Basil Embry; operations flown against advancing Germans, 5/1940; under fire from British and German anti-aircraft fire over Dunkirk, France. REEL 2 Continues: use of The Swan Hotel in Lavenham; question of flying 'under the influence'; fate of inexperienced pilots; posting to 101 Sqdn, RAF for training purposes, 6/1940-12/1940. Aspects of operations as pilot with 105 Sqdn, No 2 Group, Bomber Command, RAF in GB, 1941: joining squadron, 1/1941; night and intruder operations; coping with cold in cockpit of Bristol Blenheim; character of night bombing raids over Germany; attitude to leaving squadron. Aspects of operations as pilot with 110 Sqdn, No 2 Group, Bomber Command, RAF in GB, 1941: responsibilities as flight commander; low-level shipping attacks off coast of Netherlands. Aspects of period as instructor with No 70 Operational Training Unit, RAF at Nanyuki, Kenya, 1941-1942: posting to unit; reasons for high casualties. Aspects of period commanding 244 Sqdn, Air Headquarters Iraq, RAF at RAF Shaibah, Iraq, 1943-1944: opinion of Bristol Blenheim Mk.V; sinking of submarine U-533 by Sergeant Lewis Chapman in Gulf of Oman, 16/10/1943; conversion to Vickers Wellington Mk XIII, 2/1944. Discussion of photograph taken of sinking ship in English Channel, 1940.