On reaching my eighteenth birthday I had to register for National Service and as my father had served in the Navy during World War One and my younger brother, Danny, was already at sea in the Merchant Navy, I looked forward to serving in the Navy also. However, I was very dismayed to find I had been placed on the Reserved Occupation Register and was destined to work on munitions for the duration of the war. Later I heard that if I volunteered for aircrew duty in the Royal Air Force I could get away to war if I passed the examinations and so with some other apprentices we volunteered and I'm glad to say I passed for pilot training. However, the selection board suggested that, as I was engineering trained, there was a new aircrew trade which took half as long as pilot training so I opted for that.
At that time there was an outbreak of typhoid in Scotland so I was put on deferred service. I then left the Home Guard and joined the Air Training Corp whilst waiting to be called up. Meanwhile, I attended the ATC in the building that was later Bellevue Secondary School where I got some Navigation, Morse training etc.
In the interim period I was sent to the old Waverley Market and employed in modifying the famous jeeps, working ten hour shift on constant nights when after six weeks I was told to report to Padgate Induction Centre and from Padgate to Blackpool South Shore for basic training which included drill, sports, square bashing, rifle range then to the school at Squires Gate training school for the Flight Mechanics course which lasted approximately three months before being posted back to Squires Gate again for the Fitters to Engines course, again for approximately three months with periods of Sentry Duty etc then from there onto RAF St. Athan, Glamorgan in Wales whilst waiting to join the Flight Air School. I was then aged twenty.
Whilst waiting we were drilled for one week in order to attend the Military Funeral of two Canadian Airmen who had crashed on the Welsh mountains and were laid to rest in St Athan.
Once we completed our training at St Athan we were lined up and told that if anyone didn't want to go on to train for the Flight Engineers course, which meant, of course, that you would be in the front line conflict, you could choose instead to stay on and train as an Engine Fitter which meant that you would be working as Ground Crew.
Along with most others I decided to go ahead with the Flight Engineers Course since I was really keen to fly. We had been made aware of the potential danger of flying but most of the men stayed in line like myself. It was then that my Mother realized what a dangerous job it was and made me a wee kiltie doll as a lucky charm which I kept in the pocket of my uniform every time that we flew. However, some one stole it.
I went sick with impetigo so lost the crew I'd had been training with. When I recovered I was posted to a conversion unit at Marsden Moor where there were airmen who were already trained and that is where I met Andrew Currie from Glencorse in Midlothian.
We had to find our own air crew to fly with and when Andrew & I were at the Mess waiting for dinner to be served we spotted two Australian crew so asked them if they looking for Flight Engineers which they were and that is how I became part of 466 Squadron (RAAF) together with Fred Pope (Pilot), John Downs (Navigator), Charlie Wilson (Bomb Aimer), Tom Roe (Wireless Operator), Nick Hewitt (Rear Gunner), Ed Dalton (Mid Upper Gunner) an all Australian Air Crew and myself!
And so began my Tour of Service which in the October and November of 1943 began with dual circuits, three engine flying and two engine flying practice, Solo Fighter Affiliation etc and by early December we were Bombing and Firing quickly followed by a bomb load to X country.
By early January 1944 we were involved in Air to Sea firing and by mid February Ops to Berlin.
By the end of March we had flown to Stuttgart, Fighter Affiliation 2 Spitfires, Keil Harbour Mining, Berlin Bombing, Essen Bombing, Nuremburg Bombing.
By this time my friend, Andrew Currie, together with all his crew, had been shot down and killed. They had only been flying for about three weeks or so.
April 1944
- Ottignes Bombing 11,000lb H.E. three motor landing
- Dusseldorf Bombing holed by flak
- Villeneuve St Georges Bombing
- Aulnoye, France Bombing
- Acheres Bombing.
May 1944:
- Marlenes, Belgium Bombing
- Mantes, Gassicourt Bombing
- Mosalines, France Bombing
- Mosalines, France Bombed Coastal Defence Installations.
- Hasselt, Belgium Bombed Marshall Yards. Fighter Attacks
- Boulogne Marshall Yards.
- Practice Bombing: DCO
And so it continued..
- Colline Baumont Gun Battery
- Ops. Bourg Leopold Army Barracks.
June 1944
- OAmiens Railway Junction
- Evercy Troop Concentration
- Sterkrade ( Ruhr ) Bombed on 3 engines
- St.Martin L'Hortier Siracourt heavy flak
- Oismont/Neuville-Au-Bois, France
- Le Grand, Rossignol, France
- D.N.C.O Port Inner feathered
.
July 1944
- Oismont - Neuville Bois (P. Plane Base)
- Marquise Mimoyecques
- Les Landes Vielles St Neuves:
- Sannerville ( Second Front)
- Ardouval France.
August 1944
- The Chapelle Notre Dame but unable to bomb, landed at Marsden. Marsden Moor to Base:
- L'Isle Adam near Paris and Foret De Nieppe, near Lille.
By then we had completed the expected length of a Tour and survived, unlike many of our Compatriots.
We were then asked to continue on and fly as a Transport Plane. In this capacity and for the next fourteen months until my discharge on the 1st October 1946 I flew to
- Algiers,
- the Azores,
- Morroco,
- USA (New York, Washington, Dallas, Nashville, San Diego),
- Canada (Nova Scotia, Montreal), Newfoundland (Gander),
- Egypt (Cairo & Rabat),
- Labrador (Goose Bay),
- Iceland (Reykjavick),
- Mid Pacific (Canton),
- Fiji Island,
- Australia (Sydney),
- New Zealand (Auckland)
- Scotland (Prestwick).
I saw the world which I would not otherwise have seen. From there back to Civvie Street to complete my Engineering Apprenticeship with the New Welding and Engineering Company based in Annandale Street, Edinburgh where I remained all my working life rising through the ranks, first to Foreman then to Works Manager until I retired in March 1988 aged 65 years of age. I am writing this now aged 91. Joseph Barclay.
