Sound Recordings, West Yorkshire

Description

[Collector announcement]; Jack Sacksfield, recorded at home in the Alwoodley area of Leeds on the 3 February 1981; gives biographical details; talks about his first job; joining the Royal Air Force - called up as a Flight Mechanic Rigger; explains his role as a Wireless Operator Air Gunner; other crew members; training - wireless course in Blackpool and in-flight training at Yatesbury in Wiltshire; with the Special Police in Ireland; air gunnery school in South Wales - describes the camp and training (17 days); passing out as a sergeant; operational training at Harwell in Oxfordshire; posted to the Middle East in 1941; describes a forced landing in an electric storm in Italy; the air gunner's turret; setting fire to the plane; interrogation by the Italians; further interrogation by the Germans in Palermo; transfer to Rome; British prisoner of war camp in central Italy - describes the camp, a typical day, food rations, recreation, monthly allowance, Italian baiting; escape into the mountains, contact with Partisans; walking to the Italian coast and escape on a tank landing craft; hospitalisation in Naples (pneumonia); contact with colleagues after the war; the Air Gunners' Association; talk of Halifax, Lancaster, Wellington and Stirling planes; training in a ?Whitley plane; describes flying/layout/interior of a Wellington bomber; wireless training; Branch visits of the Air Gunners' Association to Holland; remembrance. [Tr. 2] [Collector announcement]; Ben Pearce recorded [in Leeds] on the 16 February 1981; gives biographical details; talks about being an apprentice to the textile trade; joined the British Navy in 1940 as an Ordinary Seaman; volunteered as an air gunner; training in Portsmouth and ? ; learning morse code, signals, flags, fire fighting, wireless code training (explains the codes used); flight training; air sickness; gunnery course in Cornwall; toilet rolls as decoys, ?drog towing, sea markers; joining 824 squadron, HMS Eagle (aircraft carrier on the river Clyde); describes the landing of a plane on the carrier; stationed in Gibraltar, escorting convoys (the Malta Run); describes attacks on the ship and the make up of the convoy (including the carrier HMS Argus); invasion of North Africa and BP moved to Algiers; patrols and attacks on ships; the agility of Swordfish fighter planes; luck, fate, beliefs - never volunteer to fly; crews; BP abroad January 1941 to May 1943; HMS Inskipp, near Blackpool - training Canadian crews; psychological training - evasion tactics; dive bombing off Fleetwood - BP as instructor; HMS Indefatigable, 820 squadron - BP joins after twelve months as an instructor; describes flying a [?Grumman] Avenger plane; operations in Ceylon. [Tr. 1]. Concludes on tape LAVC/SRE/A602. 3 of 6. Preliminary Interview. Further sound recordings on tapes LAVC/SRE/A600 -A603.

Metadata

Identifier zk8fbtnh
IRN 414652
Class Mark LAVC/SRE/A601
Level Item
Type of Record Archives - ISAD(G)
Peristent Link http://prototype1.library.leeds.ac.uk/zk8fbtnh
Collection(s) Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
Category Archive
Parent Record Audiotape Sound Recordings
Date February 1981
Size and Medium 1 audiocassette., Duration: 116' 29".

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