Forming a Crew

Before I even got onto the squadron, I was what they called a loose gun. I was just a wireless operator and I would fit in, once I went to training squadrons, I would fit in as a wireless operator if somebody wanted a wireless operator to be part of the team flying over doing their training like pilots and navigators, that they were doing their training and they wanted a wireless operator, they would call on me so until I got to a squadron I never really knew too much about operations. I ended up in a place called, it was called the 427, The Lion Squadron in Leeming, up in Yorkshire. There comes a time when they try to crew you up as a crew and how they did it in my circumstance, they brought all the new people into a big room and the pilot who’s in charge, he was in charge of the plane, he went around and picked out the crew. And he knew I was a wireless operator because on my battle dress jacket, there was a half a wing with the word WAG on it. So he said to me, “Are you crewed up? ” “No.” “Do you want to become a member of my crew? ” “Sure.” So I become his wireless operator and then he went around and picked a pilot and navigator, a bomb aimer, flight engineer, mid upper gunner and a rear gunner so now we were all together and, you know, it was kind of, it was just like a wedding. We were so elated to be together, here we are, we’re a bomb aimer crew, we’re a bomber crew and so there was a funny, different, feeling about the whole episode. Now we’re a bomber crew, now we’re getting prepared to do our job which was flying over Europe and dropping our bombs. But we had to do a lot of basic training. The pilot would land on the Halifax Bomber that we were on, practice landing and taking off with an empty load and with a bomb load, dummy bomb load so he could get the feel of the airplane. The navigator practiced his job and so we took about a month training.