It’s a team

Heroes Remember

It’s a team

Transcript

You’re a team. To begin with it’s a team and you have confidence in everybody’s ability, and why you have confidence in them I’m really not sure because we are all rank amateurs, you know, we hadn’t had much experience so here are these pilots in the modern day getting thousands of hours of flying training, you know, we had four or five hundred hours maybe. Pilots would have four or five hundred hours and take a grade 4-engine bomber out and, you know, my navigation training, I think, was probably very rudimentary. But you know what, we had confidence in each other and we’d go out drinking together, you know, parties together, and just got tremendous confidence in each other, I think.

Description

Mr. Bower-Binns describes how his air crew bonded, and their confidence in one another despite their limited exxperience.

John Bower-Binns

John Bower-Binns was born in Ottawa, Ontario. One of two children, he was born on March 7, 1921. He had two uncles in the Royal Air Force, inspiring him to build model aeroplanes. There being a six month waiting list for naval enlistment, Mr. Bower-Binns opted for the Air Force. After being screened out of the pilot queue, he became a navigator. After crewing up in England, he flew many bombing missions, including one to Berlin. Mr. Bower-Binns was fortunate to fly with the same crew during his entire tour of duty. A recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, he achieved the rank of Flight-Lieutenant during his Second World War service.

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