208463 Wilf Matthews Royal Air Force 51 Squadron Our crew was stationed with 51 squadron on three separate occasions, as we had three different skippers & two different bomb-aimers, which meant going back to con-unit for the necessary training with these chaps. We did our christening on the Nuremberg trip of 30 March '44, and made a forced landing at Wing (Otu) near Leighton Buzzard, Beds. After which our skipper, F/lt Joe Pawell, who was an American, flying in the RCAF, went to hospital in London with an ulcer, and after that first visit we didn't see him again. Back on the squadron, we did 'spare bod' trips, during which we lost our bomb aimer, Bob Burgum, on a raid near Aachen.
we went back to 'con unit', where we crewed up with new Skipper, F/o Danny King, RAAF. and bomb-aimer 'Grem' Emlyn-Jones. Danny had been with 77 Sdn, where we understand, he pranged on take-off with a bomb-load and was awarded an M.I.D. that he never talked of, but he did wear the emblem. Later on, we met one of his previous gunners, a F/sgt 'Herby' Holroyd. "Grem' came to us from a crew who had pranged at Garrowby Hill, where he has since erected a memorial to them. I remembered one of his gunners from my training days, a nice guy named Sid Booker. Grem and I are in fairly regular contact. We only did five trips with Danny, and on the last one he had a break-down, 17/7/44, was taken off flying 'heavies', and the last we knew, was on single -engined planes.
Back to con-unit where we teamed up with F/O Bob Gray, and at the end of his training we returned to Snaith to do a 'Bull's- eye' to Overflakee on 17/9/44, after which we carried on the usual squadron life up to the end of the war. The only change being that the squadron moved from Snaith to Leconfield, to do the 'final trip' to Wangerooge on 25/4/45. I am fortunate to still have my log-book and a stack of memories. I'm also grateful to my daughter, who is always ready for my stories, and who found this web-site.
|