The George Adams Interview — Part Four

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of George Adams, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Adams fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Other parts to this story can be found at:
INDEX: A7544630

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This is a transcript taken from audio footage made by the Department of Sound Recordings at the
Imperial War Museum,
Lambeth Road,
LONDON SE1 6H7.

It has been copied almost exactly as recorded, therefore the terminology and grammar are as spoken and have not been manipulated in any way. Where place names that could not be found in an atlas, and/or unfamiliar terminology are mentioned, phonetic spellings are used and are subject to alteration.

On some occasions, sentences were not completed; the following symbol is used to denote that: ……………………
Only repetition has been suppressed.

Bill Ross — BBC People’s War Story Editor.
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Int: But you were still doing everything, er, within the airframe. That was still your job

GA: Yes. We got quite a good section there, they were a good crowd of lads. We’d got quite a good C.O. In fact, I’ve read one or two books on pathfinders, and he’d done one tour of operation, or two tours, and he finished up as one of the top men on Pathfinders.

Int: Do you remember his name?

GA: I don’t know if it was Silby or Savie, I can’t exact…it was something like that — I think it was Savie, but I’m not sure. I remember, it’s not so long ago that I read the book. They said if they ever wanted anyone in a tight job, he was the man they’d get.

Int: And he was alright as a commander.

GA: Oh, he was a great lad.

Int: What did you think of the pilots? I mean, I know they were only trainees most of them there, but…………….

GA: Very good, we always used to meet down on the free nights that they had. We used to go down to the White Bear and meet.

Int: You socialised with them.

GA: Oh yeah, with the sergeant pilots, and N.C.O. pilots.

Int: But not with the officer pilots.

GA: Not there we didn’t.

Int: Was there a big divide then?

GA: Yes, there was really.

Int: Was there a divide between the sergeant pilots and the officer pilots? ‘Cos they were doing the same job.

GA: A fairish divide but I think yer’d find it closer on fighter squadrons. It wasn’t as big a divide on fighter squadrons. You always had officers who would keep themselves to themselves, but you’d always have a crowd of officers who’d come in during the beginning of the war and trained as pilots. They’d usually mix pretty well with the sergeants and everyone else.

You also got your old, quite a few of your regular officers who were very good, who would mix. We had some good C.O.’s abroad who would always mix with us.

Int: So how long were you at Finningley? You’d got there about May………

GA: And I was posted abroad at the end of June.

Int: So you were only there a month or so.

GA: I was there about two months, yeah.

Int: So where did yer go in June?

GA: Down to West Kirby to wait for the boat — after a medical.

Int: Still A1?

GA: Yes, still A1.

Int: And did you know where you were going and which unit you were to go to?

GA: No, you knew nothing.

Int: You just knew overseas.

GA: That’s right.

Int: So what happened then? Did you get embarkation leave?

GA: Yeah, I got ten days embarkation leave, and when I went back on the Sunday night, we moved down to West Kirby a few days after, got everything straight, got our clearance certificates signed and everything and we were transferred down to West Kirby.

Int: What happened there? Were you waiting long?

GA: Just over a week I think, a week to ten days. It wasn’t a very good camp actually. Terrible food there. I think they did that so you’d got fed up; you were glad to go. It was horrible. We nearly had a mutiny there.

Int: What happened?

GA: Well, as I said, the food was that bad that everybody was getting fed up, you’d nothing to lose, so one tea time, we’d one small herring, one slice of bread, tea. So we all decided we’d do something about it, so the orderly officer, we couldn’t see where he was so we all started shouting for him, banging the plates. The flight sergeant from the cookhouse came out, and he disappeared quick ‘cos he saw what mood everyone was in, and finally, the orderly officer came in and he was only very young; he hadn’t been in very long, and he…… The first thing that happened as he walked through the door was a plate hit the wall at the side of him.

Int: Were you throwing plates?

GA: I was banging. I didn’t throw any, but I was banging like the rest of ‘em, but I didn’t throw. I was shouting and banging for the orderly officer.

Int: So what did he do?

GA: He got us quietened down.

Int: How did he do that, how did he get you quietened down?

GA: Well I think he brought one of the probo sergeants in with him and he shouted and yelled till we quietened down. He said, “What’s yer problem?” “Here’s a problem sir, one small herring and half a slice of bread, and this is what we’ve been getting every teatime. Lunch is not much better, we’ve had enough.” And it quietened down. “I can’t do anything immediately lads,” he said, “but I’ll see what I can do.” That’s where it ended then. It didn’t improve a lot after that. It did a little bit, we got a little bit more, but it didn’t improve a lot.

New Brighton was out of bounds, so everybody went down to New Brighton.

Int: Why was it out of bounds?

GA: Because they were getting a lot of bombing on the Liverpool side and across the Mersey, so everyone went down to New Brighton and we had fun there, it was alright. We didn’t go much on the camp but we were alright. We had a look round the area, we went down into Chester and places like that when we got time off.

Int: How many of you were on the draft?

GA: I think there were about six of us from Finningley, six or seven, something like that. We were all technical people.

Int: Which boat did you pick up?

GA: We moved down to Liverpool after we’d been kitted out.

Int: Was that with tropical kit?

GA: Yes.

Int: What was your tropical kit?

GA: Longish shorts , the ordinary khaki shirts, and the huge Wolsley helmet that’s the very tall one, a good supply of everything with those, and I think that was about it, y’know. You got a full tropical kit there and it must have been a lot, but you’d also got your ordinary kit, you kept that, so you’d got two kitbags and me being small, I disappeared under it all, I’d got one kitbag across here on top of me pack and one kitbag under me arm. Going up Lime Street Station there, yer couldn’t see me for kitbags and packs. And then we went down to the docks and it was the Stirling Castle we got on and we were lucky really. She’d just come back from America, she was loaded up with food. Some of the lads got cabins. We weren’t so fortunate, we got in what used to be the children’s play area and they’d got bunk beds in there. We came out of the dock. We had one night on her, then we moved out into the Mersey. We stayed out there for a full night or two nights. And then we moved out on our own up to the Clyde, and into the Clyde and we formed a convoy there on the big bend by Dunure, just opposite Dunure. We were there two or three nights I think and we sailed one evening at about 8 o’clock.

Int: Was this into July yet or was it still……….?

GA: Yes, that was into late-ish July, about the middle of July, something like that. Then, all convoys were going north west, coming up towards Iceland and over, down through the Grand Banks, where we hit the fog. They were depth charging; most nights they were depth charging. Through the Grand Banks, we had a collision there, what was it? The Warwick Castle and er, the Warwick and Windsor I think, the next morning they’d had a collision. One of them they sent into Halifax, Nova Scotia. We continued down through the Azores, they nearly got a German submarine on the surface there, somebody said, “Look at that.”

We didn’t see it, but everything went hooting like mad and some of the lads at the bow, they saw it and it dived. They didn’t get it, they depth charged all round, but they didn’t get it. Through the Azores, of course, we were in tropical kit then, it was nice and warm. Into Freetown for water, and the food had been excellent up to then. They’d victualled in America and they were still loaded with it, so we got excellent food when we went out. Some of the lads who came out later, it was terrible, but we did very well. Then we had a couple of days in Freetown, you never got off the boat; down to Cape Town we called. Some went to Durban, we stayed in Cape Town for a few days. We went ashore for three afternoons in Cape Town. We were well entertained there by the local white people, the British people, but strangely enough, we were warned, whatever we did, “……..do not get involved with the Afrikaners……..” the Dutch, the Boers, y’know.

Int: Was any reason given?

GA: Yeah, they don’t like us. The commanding officer told us, he said, “They don’t like the………the true Afrikaner does not like the British and they’ll cause trouble if you get involved with them.” Which we didn’t, we were alright. The British people that were out there treated us very well, took us up to their homes. Some of ‘em had terrific places on the edge of the Table Mountain there. We went up there and they arranged for a dance in the evening, a meal and everything like that and it was quite a nice time there, yeah.

Int: Then you were back on the Stirling Castle.

GA: Back on the Stirling Castle, and escorted up through the Mozambique Channel. The Canaervon Castle I think was with us then, as an armed merchant man. Just before then, they’d had one or two nasty mishaps; there was a raider out and they’d knocked one or two of the boats off.

And then, across the Indian Ocean to Bombay.

Int: Did you go ashore there?

GA: Yes, we got about twelve hours ashore in Bombay. It’s not the most salubrious of places, but it was interesting. Strangely enough, I’d a friend in the same mind as me. I like museums and places like that. We’d been given maps of the city and everything was marked on, various places of interest, so we headed for the……………he’d heard the museum in Bombay was excellent, so we headed for the museum and we had about three hours in the museum. Then we wandered around the city and back onto the boat about midnight.

Int: How were you coping with the climate? I mean, you’d never been out anywhere like that.

GA: No, but, you gradually, with a long sea voyage, I mean, this was……..we left in July, we didn’t get down to Singapore until September, so it was a longish voyage, so you gradually acclimatise, you don’t feel the effects as badly as like they do now. I always say this is how the cricket teams suffer with flying out, whereas you gradually acclimatise, so it wasn’t too bad. It was very hot. The thing I remember was, you could feel the soles of your feet burning on the pavements.

Int: Even in yer boots?

GA: Well, we’d shoes actually, and yes, even in your shoes then, in Bombay in that period. It’d be towards the end of August.

Int: Did you realise where you were going by now?

GA: Yes, because we knew that before. If some of us stayed on the boat, they’d seen some of the packing cases being loaded and they’d got Singapore on them. So if we stayed on the boat and didn’t come off anywhere else, we knew we should be ending up in Singapore.

Int: So what about the rest of the journey?

GA: Uneventful really. Down the Indian coast into the Malacca Straits and into Singapore. I found that very interesting, the entrance to Singapore with all the Chinese and everything. It was very interesting.

Int: What were your first impressions when you got ashore in Singapore?

GA: Smashing place really.

Int: Why was that?

GA: It was reasonably clean, compared to Bombay.

Int: Not compared to Capetown?

GA: Oh no, no, oh no. But reasonably clean — beautiful buildings, and generally, there was plenty to do, there were lots of things to do in Singapore, it was a good posting really.

Int: It was looked on in the R.A.F. as that, was it?

GA: Yeah, I believe so, it was an excellent posting.

Int: Where were you based?

GA: We went up to the transit camp.

Int: Which one?

GA: I can’t tell yer the name because that’s all it was called, there was only one transit camp on Singapore then. It was a camp that had been set up for Chinese evacuees. The billets were built of what they call Cadgun, palm billets on a long house style with a platform about 2’6” off the floor, and then a ladder, then another platform. Another layer, the lads slept on, so you’d two layers. You just slept on a paliasse with a mosquito net, bottom and top. The thatch was full of rats and full of snakes, but we accepted that, nobody bothered.

Int: Were the snakes poisonous?

GA: I dunno, we had one or two, yeah, we had one or two crates knocking about, but mostly they were rat snakes.

Int: So they were after each other.

GA: They were after the rats, so they used to keep the rats down, and you didn’t worry too much about that. You’d bags of ants and they were really alive, you could hear the rats squealing at night.

Int: But it didn’t frighten you.

GA: No, we didn’t seem to bother.

Int: You didn’t?

GA: No, I didn’t bother ‘cos I’d done a lot of camping in this country, and things didn’t upset me like that.

Int: And when you were in the transit camp, you hadn’t actually been sent to your squadron.

GA: We’d been sent to no unit. And we finally found out. The first place we went to in the transit camp, a par section of us went into the joiner’s shop. What we were doing there, we were making dummy guns, sections of dummy aircraft, but they were putting on the drones because we hadn’t enough aircraft to do any damage really. We were there for about a fortnight. The C.O. of this camp was one of the finest men I’ve ever met.

Int: Do you remember his name?

GA: Yeah, Squadron Leader Gregson.

Int: What was so good about him? I mean…………..

GA: He was an ex Irish Guardsman, he’d been in the First World War. I don’t know if he’d been in the Flight Corps or from the Irish Guards, but he transferred to the R.A.F. and he got his wings. He’d be a man; he looked old to us because we were young, we’d only just turned nineteen. He’d be in his fifties and what we found out afterwards, how he managed to get this camp. The Air Vice Marshall Pulford, who took over from Brooke Popham, they were family friends, and he was a strict disciplinarian, on parade. And they’d no aircraft for us. He’d had a dickens of a job persuading the health authorities to let him take this camp over, but Pulford had backed him or someone had backed him.

Pt 5: A7542470

Pr-BR

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