Dan Snow's History Hit - The Unheard Tapes of Bomber Command

Episode Date: September 4, 2021

Over 55,500 men died flying with Bomber Command during World War Two; more than the number who serve in the Royal Air Force today. Flying at night over occupied Europe and battling German night fighters, anti-aircraft fire and mid-air collisions, they showed astonishing courage and resilience in the face of what often seemed to be insurmountable odds. On 25 July 1943, Flight Lieutenant Stevens flew in one of the deadliest bombing raids on Essen. The moment he returned home, he made a recording of himself reliving the events of that night. Here, for the first time, we bring together the voice of the 21-year-old and his present-day 96-year-old self, conversing across the years. With original recordings interwoven with a fascinating interview, Dan presents a vivid insight into the life and bravery of this remarkable man and the extraordinary men he flew with.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. A couple of years ago, a historian got in touch with me, a listener to History, got in touch with me from Norfolk and told me about the remarkable veteran living nearby. On the 23rd of July 1943, Flight Lieutenant Steve Stevens flew on a deadly bombing raid over the German city of Essen. The minute he returned home, he made a recording of himself reliving the events of that night and I was able to go and visit the 96 year old Steve Stevens 75 years after he made that recording and this podcast you'll hear parts of his original recording and also my conversation with him back in 2018. First broadcast at the time, but now bringing it to you, a much larger audience

in 2021. Sadly, Steve Stevens is no longer with us. He passed away shortly after I was lucky enough to interview him. But his son, Adrian Stevens, has got in touch and he has spent lockdown writing and publishing a beautiful book full of pictures telling the story of Steve Stevens' life. So please go and search for Adrian Stevens' book on his father if you'd like to get any more detail. This is one of the more special podcasts I've ever recorded. We also filmed this episode for History Hit TV. It's available on there now. Just go to historyhit.tv. You get 30 days free if you subscribe today. And then once you've subscribed for the price of a cappuccino every single month you get access to the world's best history channel all the podcasts without the ads and hundreds of hours of history

documentaries like this one about steve stevens so we interviewed him 75 years on from that extraordinary recording that he made he was an audio pioneer steve stevens he really is the forerunner to this podcast some of you get in touch to ask me how you can watch History Hit on your TV, your big screen. I managed to set up History Hit on my Android TV the other day. I've got a little projector. I can now watch myself projected onto the wall of my house or sipping a beer in my garden. Pretty weird behavior now that I say it out loud. So anyway, that's the thing.

It's never been easy. Just follow the instructions. You get a kind of QR code. You go to a special website. Bang, bang, bang, little code goes in. Before you know it, historyhit.tv is on your television. Sweet deal. Apple TV, Android, all sorts of places like that. Samsung US, come to Samsung Europe in the next few weeks. It's all there, folks. It's never been easier. In the meantime, though, here's a, I think, well, pretty remarkable conversation with Steve Stevens, a much-missed veteran of bomber command. In July 1943, 21-year-old Flight Lieutenant Steve Stevens had just completed another bombing raid for the RAF over occupied Europe.

The target on that occasion had been Essen, in the industrial heartland of the Ruhr. But after this raid, he did something different. He decided that while the adrenaline was rushing and while the memories were fresh, he would record an audio account of the raid. We believe this tape is unique. Why did you join the RAF? Well long before the war started, some friends and I knew that the war was coming, because they were already ready with children.

And so we went to join the ARP. And at that time, if bombs were dropped, the air raid wardens who were on the spot rang into a report centre, air raid warden to a spot, ran into a report centre and then from the report centre you could send out heavy rescue parties, light rescue parties, ambulance work, police and then unexploded bombs, all that sort of stuff, people had to be informed. So these lads and I, we were only quite young, because we'd learned a lot about this ARP, were put to a report centre and there we carried out our work, which was, in the early days of the war, quite exciting because bombs were not dropped very far from our area and so

you got reports saying there was a bomb at so and so, so many houses blown up and then you would send what aid you could get your hands on. We're all volunteers, so I used to go and work at night there without any pay at all. I was going to work one night, and the lady next door said, Steve, would I have a cup of tea before you go? I said, splendid, because tea was rationed, you see. And so I had a cup of tea with this lady?" I said, Splendid, because tea was rationed, you see. And so I stayed and had a cup of tea with this lady and off I went.

When I arrived at work, I hadn't been sat down more than ten minutes or so, when a message came through that my own house had been bombed with my parents in it. And so I couldn't go rushing back, because obviously there was nobody else to take my place.

So I had to wait there until someone came to replace me about eight hours later. And when I came home, it's awfully noisy, cycling over the rubble, the smell of sewage, bits and pieces of glass, brickwork, and all that sort of stuff lying about all over the place and of course in the dark because you showed as little light as possible and when I arrived at my road sure enough there was a darn great gap where the house I'd left earlier that night had been and my parents who we lived in Devon had brought with them a very big farmhouse table which Johnny and I filled the living room. You could put leaves in it and wind a handle at the end to make it bigger.

A really stout old job. And of course we had a piano there as well which was also useful. Lots of people had pianos in those days. And as the house fell in, so my parents had dived under a table there and been sheltered from the wreckage all except an uncle of mine he was with them and he'd left a bit of a leg outside that got broken and not only that but when I arrived I looked at the next door the old lady who'd actually bought me tea just a few hours before was was smashed into the side of the door, rather like some hideous graffiti.

You've seen all these films where somebody goes splat. It's exactly it, except it was bloody and smelly. And that was the first thing I saw before I went to my own house. I expect to see my own parents in the same state. And so I stood outside and looked at the aircraft still buzzing about saying, you bastards, I'll get my own back on you one of these days. And that's exactly why I went into Bomber Command. I felt I was very lucky there because the

selection, everybody wanted to be a Spitfire pilot, of course, we just had the Battle of Britain. I didn't mind being a Spitfire pilot but I wanted to draw bloody great bombs on the bastards, get my own back for them. That was my feeling and that's why I went in. And so that was how I went into former command. And you made, tell me how you made this remarkable recording of one of your missions. Well, when I was a Sergeant partisan, Captain of Lancaster, let's go forward a little way now, in 1943, and when I went to the sergeant's mess at Scampton, there were several veterans there from the First World War. And so there was a big age spread from the relative youngsters who were quite young sergeants really and they were people who were grandparents some of them and they were

very very useful to us, they were always very kind. This intercommunication between relatively young sergeants or aircrew and the older people who were passing wisdom of ages on. And one of these chaps was interested in radio, in fact he was the expert really, although we did have an officer doing it, he had the chat with all the knowledge, this was not unusual. And we were speaking one day, and he said, look, Steve, will you come back one night when you're so way away? He said, we'll just call up the piece.

I just checked to see how far this particular alteration I've made to this radio, the TR9 it was called, would go because at that time our air-to-air radio, except in fighter command when it goes through some procedure, you could be almost on top of the aircraft and you couldn't talk to it. If you called up a particular code, and the code was Darkie, if you were lost and you couldn't, weren't sure where you were and you said, hello Darkie, hello Darkie. If you were lost and you weren't sure where you were and you said, Hello Darkie, hello Darkie, hello Darkie,

then someone there sitting in the flying control below would say, Hello Darkie, this is Scapton, this is Wigsley, this is Grentham. They gave you the name of the station. Now because you could hear the name of the station, you knew you were in three miles of it and then you could start a search looking for it when you were lost. So the disadvantage of a low range on these TR9s would turn into an advantage if you were lost, and quite frequently

we were. We all got lost in bat breeding at odd times, Because we didn't have any of this stuff we got in the other days, we didn't know precisely what to ground position is. We really didn't. And in the early days, of course, bomber command was a disaster from that point of view. They kept sending aircraft out, and the navigators would do their best, but on ETA, estimated time of arrival,

they'd say to the pilot, well, can you say anything below? And they'd drop the bombs, and large numbers of bombs fell just all over the place. They didn't do any damage at all, really, except some people, the air crew. And the pilots came back with stories which literally weren't true, but they deluded themselves because they hadn't seen anything like it before. So how did you come to put your voice on the tape?

Well, we were talking about this wire recording that this tap had been working on, this Sargent, and the CO said to me, he said, well, Stephen, it might be a good idea if you made a recording of what you've been doing, because it'd be useful for playing to new people who are trying to recruit, like university students, ATC people, they'd find that interesting. So that was how I made the first recording,

and that was very similar to the one that I first sort of repeated now for you. And so that was made on wire, I think think first of all, then some of it was transferred to tape, how they did that I don't know, and then we had tapes, quite thin things, I've got a copy of one somewhere upstairs, and then it became thicker, sort of standardised tape which we used later on to do that then of course transferring to a disc with our generation and so that's how the whole thing happened really i made a recording on tape and this then was an education recording really to interest that's why it's told in the form of a

story this is the story of one lancaster bomber taking part in one raid on the 25th of July, 1943. Scampton airfield is just north of Lincoln, and on this particular day aircraft of A, B and C flights of No. 57 Squadron were dispersed over the airfield. During the day, they have been thoroughly tested. Guns, ammunition, bomb sites, compasses, engines, wirelesses, oxygen supplies, petrol and oil have all been carefully inspected. You think it might be unique?

Well, it was, yes, that's right. I don't think anybody else did that. I fairly certainly didn't. Certainly they weren't as close to the operation as I was, but that primarily was designed just as a, well, perhaps a propaganda, perhaps a train of interest. That's why it's told in the form of a story. Well, tell me the story about, do you remember to this day, do you remember that particular mission? Yes I do, it was because later on I put the heading I sell this tape sometime later and I do, it was

the particular raid we did on Essen, now Essen of course was one of the places where Crooks had their huge manufacturing processes going on. So I'd probably say, well, tonight we're going to Broadmoor Cooks, Crooks was at Essendon.

That was what we were trying to do. At that time, of course, you weren't doing this on ETA and so on because we've got mosquitoes coming over the top as sky markers and they were fixed either by radio beams or almost automatically. So some of them had their bombs, I was told, and I don't know this, dropped automatically.

So the sky markers, or the markers that came down, we had two types. The ones that hit the ground and showed us various colours, that was the position we were aiming at to drop our bombs when we went out to the target.

And when you were told right, you're going to Essen, did your heart fall? Were there some places that were more dangerous than others? That's absolutely right. But more dangerous the bigger the cheer from the aircrew concerned because we all put on this act and we all sort of wanted to go.

Wanted to press on regardless as we called it. It was good for Moran, it was also good for ours because we thought, oh the other people are sort of making this fuss so we'll do the same. So we said, oh yes, and Johnny Good, that's why they make these guns and so on, whacko, we'll go, go, go. Suddenly that wasn't really what we wanted of course. It was going to be a difficult target and Essen was on the Ruhr Valley and we called it Happy Valley. Not much happiness going on there at the time. But you knew, you'd been there before, you knew the dangers.

How did you feel when you got ready for that mission? Well, at the first one I think you felt very tense but after a while you took it for granted. When you heard you were going to Essen, you piled onto the aircraft. What do you have to do around the aircraft before you take off? Well, you had to have everything prepared. I mean, first of all, you must remember all this was being done in the darkness of evening. It wasn't quite pitch dark. Sometimes it was, of course, pitch dark and raining.

dark, sometimes it was of course pitch dark and raining, so every member of the crew had to check his own particular speciality and myself as the pilot I usually wore the fairly light flying suit overall I'd got really, but I also took a heavier one with me because if you were to hold the aircraft, it was damn cold outside and the pilot's position was generally pretty well warm. and hopefully cleaned his perspex in a very short while. It became clouded, partly because of some of the slavery coming back from the engines ourselves. It was swept round the back and onto the turret and so it upset the clarity of the perspex. And so a large panel had been taken out of the rear gunner's position and, of course, he could see more clearly, but it was bitterly cold.

As a result he was fitted up with an electrically heated suit and even electric heated socks I think, but they were still jolly cold anyway. And it's quite awful, I remember on one occasion when we got out of the aircraft that the actual gunner was having difficulty getting his His helmet off because his helmet was that he froze the sweat on his forehead So it was a could be a pretty cold job Did you did you think when you were doing these checks? Did you think about the fact that you might die in the next few hours? Yes

Hi, I always matter of fact. Have you got that little Bible over there yes might interest you this is a Bible I took with me God grant that I may never fail my crew and they may ever fulfill the confidence they place in me that was my little prayer my duty to my crew. At the point where we turn onto the runway, we stop. The green light flashes from the caravan, showing that I am the next to take off. We do not use the wireless to talk to the controller, or the Germans would hear us. Well, I suppose the Germans wouldn't literally hear us,

but a number of transmissions would give them a warning that something was happening on our side of the channel. And we want to take the Germans by surprise if we possibly can. If you listen to Dan Snow's history, I'm talking to Steve Stevens, a man who made a recording of a bombing raid in World War II. I talked to him 75 years later. More after this. I talked to him 75 years later. More after this. we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories,

listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week. Did the fear not get in the way of you doing your job? Well, if you were the captain of the aircraft, you were too damn busy. There was so much to check, so many things to do. And so it was not an easy thing. You always had to, well, first of all, you had to remember approximately what courses you were taking, the heights, the speeds, and also you had to think about the comfort of your crew.

you were taking, the heights, the speeds, and also you had to think about the comfort of your crew, because if they didn't settle in comfortably, they could be uncomfortable for a whole journey, and that might stop their concentration. So it sounds to me like you're too busy with technical things, flying the aircraft, to start thinking, oh, this is the last time I might be in my home country.

You don't have those sort of thoughts? No, I don't. At that time, but one night, I remember, we were taking off, and it was still fairly light and some people were playing cricket as we flew out somewhere near Lincoln. And I thought, well, I suppose that's what we're fighting for, really, to let these people play cricket again. But I thought, lucky devils,

they're playing cricket while I'm playing a totally different game. But, yes, that's what we were fighting for really, I suppose. And what did you fear most, flak from the ground or enemy fighters? It seemed sometimes when you're going in towards a target, and Essen was particular, that the whole place was absolutely alive with gunfire. You could see bursting shells. In fact, you couldn't really see them, you could feel them, that sometimes the aircraft would drop to 300 feet.

Usually we take little action about flak, unless we can hear it crack or smell it, we have to get to a target on time, and we don't want to dart about all over the sky unless there is real danger. A single searchlight picks up an aircraft on our starboard side. Within a second or two, a huge number of searchlights illuminate this aircraft and gunfire flashes around it as it twists and turns in an effort to escape. We know that every gun in the area is directed at this aircraft. At first it seems it may escape,

but suddenly there is a brilliant flash, a red glow and a ball of smoke, and we know that at least seven of our men have been blown to pieces. It must have been such a relief finally getting the bombs away. Well, when you got the bombs away, I did say the aircraft leapt forward. You could feel the difference. As the target appears, he gives me instructions.

Left, left, steady, steady, steady, bomb doors. I move a lever and say, bomb doors open. And I concentrate on holding the aircraft level and exactly on course. This is a most trying time. If a fighter comes in, we cannot take avoiding action now. An explosion rocks us. An aircraft nearby is blown up. Right, right, right. Steady, steady, steady, says the bomb aimer. And I put every mental and physical effort into carrying out his orders. Suddenly, I feel the aircraft lift and know our bombs are dropping. Then comes the voice of the bomb aimer. Bombs gone. Did you think about what the bombs were

doing on the ground? Oh yes, I'd had experience of that from the other end, don't forget. Had my own house bombed and I know the first time I dropped bombs on Germany I thought, right, that's the beginning. I've got my own back for that lot. That was my contribution to the war. Now I'll get Mr Hitler's contribution. But that's how I felt. I felt a certain feeling of, right, I've spent all this time trading and I've done it at last. I get this feeling of relief. I thought, right, they've got my own back, now we start taking some revenge. That was really the feeling I had. But looking back after these years, you've got no regrets about dropping... Dropping... None at all. None at all, no. And the thing that really niggled me was that

Butch... that, you know, Butch Harris of course had a hell of a job to do as the commander of Barber Command because we were pulled into this, our casualty rates were very high and we had to put up with very heavy losses and you were trying to ask me how I felt about it. I think most people felt right, the job I've got to do, I'll press on and do it. But the chances of her coming back really were quite small. Some of these raids, like Ayrton, I suppose, it looks all right on one raid, but you multiply that by, we're expected to do 30, and then on one occasion it was cut back to 29. And there were Stirlings, which were not quite such good, they weren't such good aircraft, and they were

cut back to 20-something for a turret at some time, I think. Not quite sure about that, but some of them were. And I think advisedly so, because we got no survivors otherwise. Tell me about Essen on the way back. What happened to you on the way back from Essen on that particular raid? Oh well on the way back I actually got attacked by an enemy fighter and that was first of all I had a head-on attack as they as we got over the top and I could actually see the underside of the aircraft over the top. Suddenly we're galvanized again. A microphone clicks. Tail to skipper. Fighter, fighter. Port quarter down. Range 600. Port quarter go. I push on the rudder, turn the ailerons, put the nose down, open the throttle and transmit to the gunner

diving port. And when you hear there's a fighter, what's that do to you? Do you sort of tense up? Well, I suppose it really does. You've got somebody pointing a gun at you and ready to shoot at you. That's a natural reaction. But you have to overcome that. And you can, of course,

with experience. You get used to it. I dive for the dark part of the sky. And as I'm going down port, the gunners aim for the upper starboard side of the fighter. The fighter blasts a frightening burst of cannon and machine gun fire some of which I can feel hitting my aircraft. A stream of red and yellow fire passes me and I seem to be in the middle of it. I felt myself in the middle of this sort of gunfire with bullets, incendiary bullets coming towards

me. The crops of course were first class manufacturers, they had no experience in that sort of thing. In the First World War guns were extremely good and the guns at the machine gunnery was good as well. They may be slightly better or brown, but we were always aware that you could get hit and of course that was almost certain to happen but it didn't though he got small bits and pieces knocked out of the aircraft but nothing except that's what I thought but then after a while one of the engines began to play up a bit, fire, to misfire, and the engine and I had a look and we realized that at that time our starboard outer engine, I think it was, had been, got some damage. The cowling was getting hot so we

had to shut that engine down and feather the buttons. Now when you feather the buttons, the propeller blades turn through so they're facing forward aft rather than facing naturally across the aircraft and so the engine stops and we pump the fire extinguisher and the fire went out and so there's three engines coming back. But the Lancaster was a beautifully designed aircraft from that point of view. Once you got used to controls, it landed fairly easily, all three engines, when I got back.

So that was the attack by the enemy fighter, really. And when you landed from each raid, did you feel an enormous wave of relief? Not really, because you still had things to do. You had to taxi the aircraft, you had to unload it, you had to check the bomb load. On one occasion, I had a bomb which had actually frozen in the bay in which it had been anchored.

And I always, when I could, tried to open the bomb doors because it was such a darn nuisance for the ground crew who'd already been working. Sometimes you'd be briefed for a target and then for some reason or other intelligence would say, no, we can't try that one tonight, try another one. And the next one was tried and that meant that you had to unload some bombs because it wasn't the same bomb load. You always carried the maximum bomb load,

but the maximum bomb load depended on petrol and how long you'd need to fly and that sort of thing. So you had to keep changing bomb loads as well. And sometimes the ground crew got very, very exhausted by constantly winding bombs up and down. Tell me how you first heard from your wife. I was actually just at that intermediate stage where I was flying a Manchester, and I came to a station called Wigley

and called up the usual call sign to land, and to my surprise, a girl's voice answered. So I thought, that's interesting, I haven't heard a girl on the other end before. So I landed the aircraft, went up to flying control, but flying control itself was so full of people, and I saw this girl in the distance, oh gosh, she looks a cracker, I'd like to be able to make a date with her, but of course I had to go away and that was it. I never thought I'd see her again.

Later on I got posted to Scampton, and when I came back from Skempton after I'd done a few raids from there, I thought, girl's voice, I recognise that voice. And this time I went up to flying control and tried to make a date with her. Didn't work the first time round, but we did eventually and that's how we met. And of course I said, well, if I am alive at the end of the year, we could get married. My wife thought that might be a good idea, but if I am alive at the end of the year, we could get married. My wife thought that might be a good idea, but she didn't agree at the time. We just left in limbo, as it were. And we didn't have much time for courting anyway, because she was off and working all

night and so was I. Because during the day, the bombers don't go to sleep. You've got to check them. You still need everything on the bomber checked to make sure that it will stand up to the stress of the next night. But you were alive at the end of the year? At the end of my tour, I was alive. So we met in a church not very far from Scampton Airfield. And it was a rainy afternoon.

And I said, well, what about it, sort of thing. And she says, right. Of course, I can't die if you're dead, but she said, if you're alive by Christmas, we'll get married right about that time. And that's exactly what we did. We both had a coinciding leave, and we married then. And, of course, we were married for very nearly 74 years, 74 years, left a few hours really when she died. And it was a very, also very interesting, when we got demobbed I think I got something like

150 pounds to keep myself and my wife. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History H, which took a little bit of manipulating. Fortunately, my parents-in-law were very, very good indeed, and they looked after my wife and son when I went to college and then trained to be a schoolteacher. Well, I'd been smashing things down and building things up, I thought, so that was a positive side to my career.

Could you tell me a little bit about the long mission to northern Italy? Yes, that was the long mission. I've still got a newspaper cutting at the time here somewhere about it. It was just over 2,000 trackpiles. That was just about the limit that we could go on our fuel. And so we went up over the Alps, Southern Alps, and then we went round the Bay of Biscay and came back to Cornwall. And of course, by the time we got there, fuel was running very, very short as far as I was concerned. I had

actually flown close to another aircraft and he was flying low also but on three engines and I tried to contact him. First of all I couldn't do it by radio because the radio just wasn't good enough and then I got my wireless operator to use the oldest lamp and send Morse code messages. And we asked him, are you all right? And he replied, yes, just saving fuel. And that was a very humorous reply considering he was in such danger. I never did find out what happened to him,

whether he got back or not. We didn't lose very many aircraft on that raid, only about 12, I think. And so he was one of the unlucky ones. There was another chap who got wanted to be seen on a raid on Augsburg sometime before. I think his name was, was it Middlesex? I don't remember what his name was anyway. But he was also another of the people who didn't come back. And there was a particular friend of mine called Johnny Pickett. He was a New Zealander. We were sergeant pilots together and I said what a wonderful sergeant's mess we had at

Scampton. It really was good. And after briefing we would pop into separate bathrooms there and we'd shout through the old bathroom, one to the other, about various ideas about tactics, how we'd go, what lights we had to look for and stuff like that all the way back. Very nice chap indeed, but he didn't come back from that raid. And I spoke to how close the companionship became between Grand Staff and the pilots who were flying, Sergeant Pilots particularly. flying, and Sergeant pilots particularly. When we came back, his Corporal Grand Crow came up to me and said, Johnny's not back yet. I said, no, I gathered that. And I said,

but he may just be late like I am. And later on it was confirmed he wasn't coming back. And this Corporal came up to me and said, you know Steve, we've done every possible thing we could in maintaining that aircraft. He was in tears actually because there was that sort of friendship between the crew and the pilots which wasn't quite as deep I think when one was commissioned and the other wasn't. What was it like dealing with so many friends who just wouldn't be there from one day to the next? Well, there wasn't very much you could do about it, really, because you were so busy that before,

the organ of mine was totally distracted. And, of course, that was almost inevitable. It's like a game of Russian roulette. They'd get captains to briefing, and, of course course all captains went together whether they were commissioned or not and you'd look around and think, well I wonder when we'll be here tonight. Now some people you could tell, there were two people, two pilots particularly I knew, a chap called Gobby, another chap and he had rather large waffles I suppose we

call them, coming down from his neck and you could actually literally see him changing colour to a sort of greenish colour over the course of time. Another chap, Hodgkins or some such name, he got so over the top we were on a bus one night waiting for us to start and these two were sitting together and they kept shoving the bell and I said, for God's sake, stop showing off you two,

you know, because I happened to be sitting in front and the driver came back and said, stop buggering about. He said, well, I'll chuck you off the bus

and that stopped them. But that wasn't a normal sort of behaviour but they were both showing signs of stress and both of them were shot down actually before they finished their tour. You could tell looking at some people that stress was telling. Of course I had that situation with a rear gunner. I borrowed another gunter on one occasion. I was a bit up a gutter and this chap said to me, he said,

that rear gutter of yours is no good, you know. He says, he was in the back there firing ammunition. He said, but it wasn't, it was just going straight out, it wasn't going anywhere. And he said, he didn't make any comment to you. I said, no he didn't't he's been a bit nervous lately but he said well I'm going to report him as the guttery leader and he did

and so this broke was out of my crew but of course the thing I was scared of they might say he was lacking in moral fibre in which case he'd gone through a most dreadful period of getting back joining the ranks again but he did he was just wafted away. He didn't actually get badly treated.

He wasn't declared lacking in moral fibre, but that could happen. So you look back and you think the contribution that you all made was definitely worth it? Well, it was, yes. I suppose in a selfish way it said to me, right, I got my own back to start with, and the rest of that was a world I was committing myself to, and so he just pressed on and did it. But I will say that there were several people who used to get hit by these suddenly feeling afraid.

There was one particular chap I remember, I won't tell you his name, he was Jack, and he was really one of our rather nice public school characters, beautifully spoken, and he had that nice sort of fair hair, very light and austere, good looking chap, cricket, that sort of thing, ideal. And when he'd done, I suppose, about the same number of races I had, he was not my squadron, I was walking through Grantham one day, changing stations, and I saw this sort of chap sitting on the doorstep, and I knew that chap, I knew him when I was in America.

So I said, hello, Jack, how are things? And he says, hey, Stevie, old boy, sorry about that, but I don't think I'm going to survive. I said, don't worry about that, we all have periods like that, come and have a drink. So he went and had a drink and he came out and said, I don't feel any better for that. And I said, well don't worry, you'll get through it, one or two more trips and you'll be alright. But he wasn't, he was shot down a trip after that or maybe a couple of trips after that and he didn't come back and that did happen to some people they they just would not admit that they were scared and what they couldn't have

done much about it anyway because they say well go on then, they won't get on when they're scared or not thanks folks for listening to this episode of dance dance history as i tell you all the time i love doing these podcasts they are the best thing i do professionally i feel very lucky to have you listening to them if you fancied giving them a. They are the best thing I do professionally. I feel very lucky to have you listening to them. If you fancied giving them a rating review, obviously the best rating review possible would be ideal. It makes a big difference to us. I know it's a pain, but we'd really, really be grateful. And if you want to listen to the other podcasts in our ever-increasing stable, don't forget we've got Susanna Lipscomb with Not Just the Tudors, that's flying high in the charts. We've got our medieval podcast gone medieval the brilliant matt lewis and cat jarman we've got the ancients with our very own tristan

hughes and we've got warfare as well dealing with all things military please go and check those out wherever you get your pods you