Reminisces about his wartime experiences as part of a Radar unit in Europe and receiving Christmas Lunch

That's what it looked like on the radar there. That was em responses back from buildings , hills anything like that and that is an aircraft and that's what it used to show like on there on one type of radar and another one used to revolve round like that and the aerial that did go round and at the same time the trace on the cathode ray tube, you know what a cathode ray tube is - a television set that's got a cathode ray tube inside only instead of having pictures of people we used to have things like that that used to go round and there is shows where an aircraft is there and that trace goes round like that and there's a photograph on in here. This is rather interesting as cos this was taken at the very first station that I was at operationally. There is a typical radar aerial - the happy drone - like that. There are all people who are telling their own stories about the different stations. There's one like that first one there see that one - we had one like that one told you the plan like that and that one we had a 'nodder' which used to go up and down like that and it used to show on there an it used to be chain home, this was back in the UK, chain home highways used to look all over the place an there's another one that used to go low - there // That's at Danby Beacon inside a radar station and that's the one that I was in first operational in 1942, end of 1942. Right. We used to work on a watch, three watch system you went on duty at 1 o'clock till 5 then you came off had your tea and you went on at eleven o'clock at night till eight o'clock the next morning an you come off and sleep till 1 o'clock, you know till eight o'clock in the morning an then you'll go on duty from eight till 1 and then you was off for 24 hours then that a watch system. So there was always someone in there on duty, all right. So now, you've got the story of the man that they couldn't kill.

Thats also the man they couldn't hang there that's Tom Watson who gave me the names or a list of the names. Now this was something that in the airforce, 2nd Tactical Airforce that was on the continent and we was on 15054 FDP GCC C15 82nd Tactical Airforce, and when the war was over that is what we got from the Commander in Chief of the airforce. All right. And we used to drop, well I'm saying we the allies used to drop leaflets and there is one there for a safe conduct pass its in German on the other side and that's safe conduct, and any German came up to you and er showed you that he had to be given treatment ant taken back behind the lines, fed and watered, all right. Now, this one is very interesting because it, when we were on leave, when we were on leave, you had a pass you used to go to Brussels and there was a boy called Fred Sigsworth, no, Fred Sellers and Les Sigsworth were two boilers men and they met up with Madam de'Costa at the Villa del Astrea and they used to go there, well this particular time Les Sigsworth was on duty and couldn't go so Fred Sellers asked me if I would go with him, and we went to Madam de'Costas in Brussels and she was like the Laird of the district and they used to make dynamot - dynamos -electric motors only a small company and her husband Joseph deCosta was in a concentration camp and her two sons were in concentration camps and the one son she never heard from came back this was at that time he came back, but the one she heard from he never came back, but her husband died 3 days, I can't remember were it was before on just after the war, it was that week, and that's what they did for the funeral, and that was a card and that was it translated into English. And this bit here is more or less a thank you to Madam deCosta for treating us like her sons. All right. That's Joseph deCosta. On Christmas Day, for your dinner, the officers always come and serve the men. An that's what we had on Christmas Day. A menu, Xmas Day, 1944, 15054 Unit, in the field, Belgium. An that was the menu.

Its not a bad menu considering the time that it is…

The first shift of the day the officers went on and did the duties.