A Wireless Operator's Tale Part 4

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Jack Morley and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Morley fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The stories were transcribed from audio recordings made and supplied by Jack. When some of the foreign place names that are mentioned could not be found very easily in an atlas, they have been typed as they sounded, as have some of the technical and coded terms with which I was not familiar, therefore, they will probably be misspelled.
..... Bill Ross, BBC People’s War Story Editor.

===================================================

Other parts to this story can be found at:
Part 1: A5041397

Part 2: A5041531

Part 3: A6023701

Part 5: A6081257

Part 6: A6081301

Part 7: A6126077

Part 8: A6126167

Part 9: A6138010

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was I, a fully fledged sergeant, wireless operator and air gunner and I shouted, “Come on out, all of yer.” I’d got me arms round me mum, she was crying. I said, “Here y’are, this is that lad who couldn’t possibly be a flyer because he hadn’t been to a secondary school. Here I am, Sergeant Wireless op/gunner.” Oh, she loved that, me mother, she’d tears running down her face. “Thank you Jack,” she said, “everybody had been telling me you couldn’t be flying.” I said, “Well, I am.” “Oh,” she said, “I’m glad yer’ve telled ‘em all.” I said, “I’ve not finished yet, when I go up Brunswick Road and Granville Street, they’re all going to get to know as well.” But anyway, I got a telegram; I was to report back to Wymeswold. There were full instructions as tio how to get there. I was to go to Norton Aerodrome and collect a travel warrant. I had to go to Loughborough, and then find my way to Wymeswold. If no-one was waiting.
At Loughborough Station, there was quite a few of us, all different; not all Wireless Operators, all sorts of aircrew. We were put on busses to take us to Wymeswold. It seemed as if half the air force was there. At Wymeswold, they gave us billets and we went on parade. We were told we’d all be visiting classes — all the classes — every other crew member’s classes. This went on for about a fortnight.
Eventually, they said, “Right, now you’ve seen each other’s classes, you can form yourselves up into crews, find out the people you’ve got used to, see if yer compatible and form yer own crews.” Well, I found a little cockney fella, and when they told us we could form our own crews, he came to me and sez, “Now then mate, you’re a wireless operator and gunner, I’m Don Dale and this fella at the side o’ me is Ginger Congeton.” He was a tall ginger haired fella. He sez, ”We’re the two best gunners in the RAF.” He said, “We’re the top of our course.” I said, “Well I was the top of my course.” “Would yer like to fly with us?” I said, “Yes.” I got to know ‘em, we chatted. He said, “Well, I’ve been talking to two Welsh officers and they’d like to join us, so come on, we’ll go and meet them.” There I met John Arthur and Di Jones

Now, Don was 34 years old, about the oldest gunner in the RAF at the time, and Di Jones was about 28, Ginger was about 26, so I felt like a little lad at side o’ them. We went wandering around, we didn’t see many pilots about. One came up to us and said, “Are you looking for a pilot?” We said, “Well, yes we are.” He said, “I’m a very good pilot, my name’s John Ross Miring.” We seemed very compatible. As a crew, we each went to every section for a day or two until we’d learnt all about aircraft recognition. Then one morning, they said, “Well, so many crews have been posted to Castle Donningtom, which ois a satellite of Wymeswold, but before yer go there, we’re going to Loughborough College for practising turning over a dinghy. Don’t take anything except your clothes with yer.”

We all had to jump into Lindholme Lake and the dinghy was thrown in beside us, but we’d been told that the easiest way to turn a dinghy over is to get hold of the bottle side. It turned over easily. We climbed in and peddled back towards the edge of the lake, and got out, then we had to go back to the billets and get our clothes dried. A couple of days later, we were of on a bus to Castle Donnington. We were allowed to roam round on bicycles, to get used to the place, then we were called into a meeting room to be told what the course was to be, the Wireless Operator’s course.
The main thing was that we were to be working on Wellington 1C bombers that were almost clapped out. The pilot was the one who had to learn to fly twin engine aircraft and we had to each do our own jobs. We used to do circuits, landings, high level bombings, cross country trips that involved all the lot of us doing our own jobs. I found out the best time for getting bearings was on approach to landing. As we went round the circuit and turned towards landing, I could get lots of bearings quickly because in these aircraft was the transmitter/receiver 1082/3, instead of the old ones we’d been used to before. These were a very modern wireless set. I quickly learnt it and I learnt to get bearings quickly. When we were out on cross country, I used to practise with a direction finder, pass the results to the navigator who would say yes or no whether they would be right or not. I used to call stations up to get fixes for the navigator, to help him. If it was night time, we would take star shots with his sextant. He taught me how to use it and he would show me how to operate ‘G’, which was a new navigational aid.
We were doing fine, and towards Christmas time, 1943, there were heavy falls of snow and Castle Donnington was completely out of action. Bill Harvey was here with Flight Sergeant Robinson. I don’t know who Freddy Jackson was with. When we weren’t flyiongg at night, I used to go with Bill Harvey to his parents’ which wasn’t far away. They called me Sheff, on account of my coming from Sheffield. There was a taxi driver, Tom, who would say, “If you need me, get on the phone and I’ll come and fetch yer.”
Come this Christmas when there were no snow ploughs and cleaning the runways by shovel was too much, and the roads through Castle Donnington were clear, we rang Tom up and I said to Don, “I’m goina try and get home for Christmas while this snow’s here, so I’ll ring up each dinner time and see how we’re going on, and if you say they’ve started clearing snow, I’ll make my way back. It’s only an hour to Sheffield.” So, this I did; I rang Don one day and he said, “They’ve produced some bulldozers, so get back here as quickly as yer can,” which I did. When I go back, they were waiting for me, they said, “Come on, we’re flying tonight.” So we were doing circuits and landings that night. But, I had been home for Christmas once more. From then on, we were doing very well and I think we were one of the top crews.
One night, the 24th of February, we’d been on a cross country, I was doing the usual thing, getting bearings and it looked as if the wireless set was going to fall on me and I was falling sideways, so I grabbed the watch and shoved it in my pocket. I was trying to get my quick release, but I couldn’t. The escape hatch was down by the side of me and I grabbed that. A chap threw my belt and I fell onto the floor and blacked out just as the wireless set fell onto my seat. I awoke and I was very pleased that I’d not been afraid, but I thought I was dead. My navigator started to pull my leg; he said, “Come on Jack, it’s burning.” He helped me out. The Wellington had a geodetic construction; my head had just managed to get between the aluminium framework, through the campus and I was laid on my back when I blacked out. I followed John put, stumbled up through the escape hatch and losy my boots in the process then slid down the wing tip as ordered. Then I thought, “I didn’t see Dai Jones or John Ross Miring when I came down, so I turned back round and John Arthur said, “Where yer going?” I sez, “I’m just going up to see if them two’s alright and help ‘em out if they’re not. “You’re a blood fool,” he sez. But anyway, he waited for me and they’d gopt out, their escape hatch was already gone. He sez, “That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, but yer still a bloody fool.” But, we went round the front. I was in my stocking feet now. This engine without a propeller was screaming. We retraced our steps, followed the rough, we thought it was a ditch, but it was a furrow that we’d made as we’d come between the trees along the hillside. We feared the worst for Don because he was in the rear turret.
Half a mile from the plane, we came upon Dai Jones who had literally pulled a metal bottom from the turret and Don was sat there with his arms around his head, and he rolled forward and out. He’d just got a little bump on his head, he hadn’t got a headache or anything. The crash tender was down below us on the hillside. Thet said, “We can’t get up there because of the trees, can you get down to us?” So we made our way down to them, and when we got there, we were right outside the Nag’s Head which was at the top of Castle Donnington village and the entrance to the camp was nearby. The medical officer there ushered us into the Nag’s Head, not for a drink, but to give us a medical. When he’d finished, he said, “I’ll get you a pair of shoes to wear.” He got me a pair from the landlord, I think. Then the wireless op leader came in and said, “Oh, have you got yer codebooks and things?” I sez, “Would you have yer bloody codebooks and things if yer aeroplane’s burning round yet?” He said, “Well, no.” So that was the end of that. He said, “Have you lost anything?” I said, “Yeh, I lost me flying boots coming out of the escape hatch, and I’ve lost me watch.” He said, “How did yer lose yer watch?” I said, “Because I used to always hang it on the wireless.” “Oh, right.” So, when we got back onto the camp, before we went to sleep, I was issued with another watch and a pair of flying boots.
We had a meal and we were told that we could go on survivor’s leave the following day, but when we were all together, I said, “I’ve not seen our pilot, Johnny Ross Miring.” One bloke said, “And if we do see him, I’ll kill him.” They found out why afterwards, because he said that, he said, “I’ll never fly with him again.” So we all said, “If you’re not flying with him, we’re not flying with him.” I heard afterwards that what had happened was that he was landing and he was making a mess of it, and Dai shouted, “Get some power on and overshoot,” which he did, but then, instead of waiting for full power to come, before he’d got full power, he tried to turn and so the engine cut out and the other engine forced us straight into the ground where we burst into flames.
At the survivors’ leave park, he said, “You can go tomorra morning, have a bit o’ breakfast, then yer can get yer leave passes from the guardroom, they’ll all be waiting for yer. So next morning, I was up at six o’clock, had me breakfast and a chap in the guardroom said, “Hang on, we’ve got the little van here, where yer goin’, down to Derby?” I said, “Yeh.” He said, “I’ll run yer down, it’s not far.” So he drove me down to Derby and pulled up outside the station, and he got out first. He said, “Come on Morley, that’s a Sheffield train that’s stood on Number One platform. So he alsed the guard to open it up a minute, whilst I got on, he said, “Good luck,” and there I was , on my way home. It was early in the morning, abnout 8 or 9 o’clock when I got home that morning, the 25th of February which was my sister’s nineteenth birthday. She was at hone because she’d had a day off work for her birthday. She said, “What are you doin’ here?” I said, “We crashed last night.” She said, “Ooh, that’s funny, I’d been reading last night’s Star about an American bomber that crashed at Endcliffe Park and all the men were killed.” She said, “What yer goina do?” I said, “I’m goping to go up to Beattie’s, up to work.” She said, “You’re not going to work, we’re going to go out together.” I said, “Well, I’m going up to see Beattie, do you wanna go up?” She said, “No, I don’t wanna go.” So I went up to fetch Beattie, my girlfriend, then we went up to Endcliffe to see this bomber. We crashed on the 24th and that bomber crashed on the 22nd, and all were killed.
The RAF association, from then on, always laid a wreath on a stone where the aircraft finished up, all over the park. Now they lay a wreath every year on the nearest Sunday to that day. When I formed the aircrew association in 1981, and I was founder chairman, I decided that we too would lay wreaths on the same day, and we do it right to this day, on the nearest Sunday to the crash. If the weather’s too bad, we go into the little local church, but we always have some American airmen there. One year, they didn’t turn up, so I wrote to the American Embassy in London about it. I received a profuse apology and ever after that, the Americans still do come to honour their own airmen.
Anyway, back to Castle Donnington, once we got back off survivors’ leave, we hadn’t got a pilot, so we were taken by bus, back to the other place where we started and we were introduced to a Warrant Officer who said, “I’ve got a pilot here, and we’re going to go round and round here to see if he can fly a Wellington, ‘cos he’s looking for a crew and you’re looking for a pilot.” So we got together and the pilot took the controls — this was George Harris who we were to fly with through our operations. At this instant, we were a bit wary of what was going to happen, and, he set off down the runway, gradually picking up speed, and there was such a bang. He was all arms and legs, all action; the plane slewed sideways onto one wing tip and off the runway, the engines were cut, and the Warrant Officer said, immediately shook his hands and he turned round to us and said, “Nar then fellas, I recommend yer take this pilot because I couldn’t have done any better than that. He just saved your lives by his actions there. I tyre had burst and he slewed us round onto the grass at the side of the runway.
From then on, we went back to Castle Donnington and resumed our training there. But, when we arrived back, Bill Harvey and his crew Sergeant Robinson had already gone to east Kirby in Lincolnshire. We recommenced training, did a couple of circuits, then a cross country, and by now, I was 21 year old; I’d already been on survivors’ leave when I was twenty. I took advantage one night and tried to get home for my 21st birthday. I hitch hiked, and I only got as far as Spondon, where I met Allen Wallace’s father, who said, “Come on, we’ll have a drink.” All the village joined in, then he brought me back with a motor bike and side car back to Castle Donnington.

Part 5:....>

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.