What made you join the RAF?

Well I was in the air training core. The air training core was very active in Inverness and I don’t think without the air training core contribution educationally.

I would qualify for air core. It was very difficult to be selected to fly with the RAF and I had to go to Edinburgh for three days for an interview with high ranking officers and take an exanimation; Mathematics, English and Geography, before the selection board. There were psychiatrists and intellectual people, and they asked you questions. Probably about 50% or 60% of the candidates were rejected so I was quite proud when I came home and I told my commanding officer at the air training core that I was selected as a pilot to be trained as a pilot in the Royal Air Force.

As war time progressed we required fewer pilots because the planes became much bigger. Eventually I was a radar operator and a wireless operator, and that was the duties I carried out. But it made no difference to your career in the RAF because we were paid the same the amount. Eventually there were something like two thousand Lancasters in the RAF and each Lancaster had a crew of seven; a pilot, navigator, bombardier, engineer, radio officer and two gunners. We were different from the Americans because they had ten in their planes and they flew at a much higher height as we flew about 22,000 feet, the Americans flew over 30,000 feet and they flew in daylight and we flew at night.

Why did they fly in daylight instead of night?

Well, the strategy of the Americans air force was involved well before the war and they decided that they would build bombers big enough and well defended so they could fly in daylight over Germany. Right away, at the beginning of the war, two or three days of the war started, the bomber command decided that there would be no daylight flights over Germany because 70% or 80% of the planes were lost. We found to our cost that it was not possible to fly and fight against fighters. The fighters always got the advantage and we lost a lot of planes early in the war and we decided that right from 1940 that we would change our strategy and fly at night and it was much more successful, with fewer loses, and of course the war developed radar and aircraft became more formidable.

It was a tremendous battle, alongside to counteract new equipment which the enemy evolved, and fortunately the British and Americans scientists were one step ahead of the Germans, although we never under estimated the power of the Germans. Very formidable. When you look at the whole of Europe and realise that we using the whole of Europe, and the tremendous population, well it was a very daunting task.

In 1940 many of the people in this country said that we were going to lose the war. Fortunately the Germany Army were victorious all over Europe but couldn’t get across the channel and fortunately, very fortunately we won the Battle of Britain. When the R.A.F. planes defeated the Germans, despite the fact that they had at least four times as many aircrafts as we had, but our quality of the R.A.F pilots was very, very good. During the war I met quite a few of these pilots that fought at the Battle of Britain, and they told me never at any time had they any doubt that we would beat the Germans, fully confident to take them on and one reason was this : they were fighting for survival. The Germans were fighting for glory and unless we won the Battle of Britain, we would be completely and utterly destroyed. Germany would have done the same to us because of their countries in Europe, Poland for instance were devastated and 2 and a half million people were killed. So the fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain were very, very dedicated, mind you it would of course have been different if they hadn’t been so good, if they hadn’t been so brave, if the ground staff didn’t work 24 hours a day, day and night serving these planes we wouldn’t have won.