Discusses his experiences while stationed with his unit in Europe

Right. Now, on January the first, 1945. Hitler and his men thought they would have a haydo and they sent about 700 planes to go and attack all the allied airfields in north west Europe and they went very very low at treetops so they could sneak underneath the radar. Now when the radar is on it is in a beam that. And if you start off very low you can be up to the station and never get detected, all right. Now I was going on leave that day and I had to go to headquarters befo..then they sent you on the next stage and there was a roar of a plane and when we looked up when I looked up just above the trees was this German and it was a Messerschmitt, and as I looked up at the plane he looked down at me like that and he wasn't a young lad a would say he was about thirtyish, that is a bit short of men you see and short of brains as well and there mission was to go and attack all the allied airfields in north west Europe, all right. So many many years later, I wrote to Tom Watson, that before I wrote him I read a book by a German pilot and he had been told this is where your going, you don't go anywhere else and you go straight to bed tonight and you don't go out drinking, and he'd have to avoid it and don't go anywhere except where your told. So I wrote to Tom Watson and I read this out to ye and this is the reply I got back. And this regards 15054 on January the first, remember I wasn't there ah was somewhere else. Do you remember the Luftwaffe raid on New Years day 1945, I was working days at Muwen, well Muwen and Wauberg is the same place but some people call it Muwen and some people call Wauberg, every night in bed. I has just taken over the HR tube on the type 15 when lots of anti-aircraft fire erupted. Stan Parker brought out the Bren gun, we had a machine gun bing bing, I mounted it, not until 5 German fighters came over the copse to the east of the ditch site the leader was so low that he had to pull up to clear the type 15 aerial. Now if I go into, a type 15 aerial is - a type 15 aerial is a cabin with extensions on, so as when your looking at it end on its like that, and it turns round like that. So if an aircraft is coming like that, oh boy I can go down here you see, the when he turns round, well then he's got to swerve to get outa the way, you understand. Right. So he says He is so low he had to pull up to clear the Type 15 aerial, about 2 miles to the west as I watched through binoculars a Me 109 detached from the flight and turned back towards us, remember they were told not to attack anything else, but then they had sent for Reg Hilifer he was an ex wireless operator turned air gunner to assist me so I got him to command the Bren as the number 1 whilst he did the spotting when the 109 Messerschmitt was about over the domestic site say about 600 yards I said Fire and Reg fired a burst of eighteen rounds. In 1995 this is now this is in Ontario, Canada where he was living I rang him up and he reckoned he hit it, in fact just as he fired at it, it turned a little bit to its port side nose down behind a copse and I heard it firing its guns, later I learned it had shot up 3 Auster AORP artillery spotter planes, those small planes used fly low and spot you see. Remember this is a another letter now, remember on the first of January 1945 as I said Reg Hilifer wireless operator fired a Bren gun at the Me 109, ironically the WT wagon was about 150 yards away and Jim Anderson, a fellow wireless operator was standing up in the back on the truck watching the action, when he said a burst of bullets passed just over the top of the truck, actually he was about 6 to 8 feet but Jim was not best pleased. Flight Lieutenant Parker the duty controller had witnessed our efforts and said he would report hits on the tail plane, I did not agree as I said Reggie Hilifer claimed he hit it. When I spoke to him in 1995, it was interesting to hear of the orders given to the German pilots to attack only aircraft, the US airfield was about 2 miles away in the same direction as our type 15 was headed and there was loads of anti aircraft fire, I noticed a P47 Thunderbolt, that's an American plane and you can easily tell them because instead of being streamlined at the front their squat because they have a radial engine, their pistons go like that, you see. Just when I expected to see the P47 hit it turned sharply to the Aak Aak fire and still loosing height the F - Fokker Wolfe 190 did not follow but zoomed up to where there was another couple of kites flying around, that was on Boden Plat Day - that's Base Plate Day so my German friend tells me.
There we are.

Right now. Luneberg Heath. Have you heard of that. It was in, Luneberg Heath was where General Montgomery and the German counterpart met to sign that the war was over. All right. And eh we were just on the outskirts of Luneberg Heath. We were at site 14. Site 14 there, and the Germans were streaming up the road and we had been asleep at night as there wasn't much aircraft at the day ends and Harry Greenhan was on guard and he came in top the tent and he says Right Wakey Wakey Were surrounded by Germans and everybody says Get lost. He said, Its right. Sees their going up the road. So as I got dressed and went up and they were all collapsing the German Vermacht had just collapsed. And everybody wins you see. On, that was about the 4th of May and on the 6th of May, we were sent up to Travemunde - up on the Baltic near Lubeck that's Travemunde there, that's place and this same place as stick out one of those, as the first place we was at Wauberg er Maelesbroek Brussels and that one there cos at those places we stayed longer than any where else and that's where we were er there was some boys keen on boating and so they commandeered a boat - that one there. All right. That. Right. That was Travemunde there. Down at this bottom end here was the Russian zone and the Russians were an unknown quantity, you never knew what they were going to do, and they said don't go down there you might never come back. So nobody ever went down there. All right. Now at Travemunde was a German naval and seaplane base and on [bell rings] and on May 8th which is VE Day, 3 planes came down from Norway, can you see them. That on of them on the end, one there and one in the distance there and they had been on the shore. Now in the in this water bit here, in the river, see theres a sort of a back wash there was a ship half sunk and we went out on one of these boats and I went in under the ship and I came back.

There was that flag - a swastika flag - taken off that ship, I don't know the name of the ship, and I had that flag for long enough, till my wife who were had been in the forces well she said she didn't like it in the house so I had to get rid of it. All right. That was at the Headquarters of Travemunde and we used to have to do a patrol and that's me going out on a patrol round the camp there along wi Jimmy Chapman, who came from London and he could sell snow to the Eskimos, you understand that. Right and this is the squad that the watches that I was on there and that's me the second one along, there. No er that's me there. Not a very good one there. All right. At Travemunde the CO and the officers said we would have a sports day, now bearing in mind that we never had any training not like you do now, we had a mile a mile run - guess who won.