The George Adams Interview — Part Thirteen

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: Did you suffer from boredom, yourself?

GA: I don’t really think so; only during the period on the drome. You hadn’t got a lot to do, but we were close to Colombo. There wasn’t a lot in Colombo, but you could go down one or two service clubs, you could go down there, and it was a very pleasant existence, taking it all round, apart from the boredom on the drome and everything, and the feeling that the squadron wasn’t getting anywhere, and we had somebody in command whom not many people liked. I got rather disconsolate there. One or two of us did and we were waiting to see if any postings came up for India, or off the island. We could pass our time on pretty well. We’d a cricket team and a good football team. I played in the cricket side, and we were very active like that. It continued, even after Squadron Leader Constantine had left us. We’d one or two ex-professional players who’d been playing in England as professionals. Everyone seemed to be a bit fed up with this, we seemed to be a squadron in the doldrums.

Int: So what happened next, what came along…………..?

GA: They replaced our Hurricanes with Spitfire Eights. They brought these in and we had to get accustomed to servicing these and everything.

Int: How did they compare, in your view, with the Hurricane?

GA: Well, the Hurricane was a marvellous machine, but it hadn’t got the speed of the Spitfire. A lot of people seemed to think that the Spitfire won the Battle Of Britain, but when you look at the figures and everything, the Hurricanes were well in front on kills in the Battle Of Britain, but they were much slower than the Spitfire of course. They could take some punishment, the Hurricane would; the Spitfire would, but the Spitfires were much faster. These Mark Eights were very very fast. They’d canons too.

Int: When did you get them, roughly? Was that 44 then?

GA: Yeah, 1944, it would be February time, I believe, something like that, round about February. I can’t remember who the C.O. was then, but I think it was this Flight Lieutenant who was acting squadron leader. He got made up to squadron leader, but he was still ill, I believe. We still seemed to be drifting, sort of. We’d got one or two of our N.C.O.’s who had finished their time, they’d gone and we were sorry to see them go, because they were a really good crowd. They used to join in with the lads, y’know. If they could have a drink with us in our mess, they’d come and we were all in together.

Int: It had been a long time now that you’d been on this island.

GA: Yes, and that spirit seemed to drop away as we lost a lot of the old hands who’d been with us two years, who’d been through Singapore, the middle east, and had quite a lot of action out there. We seemed to be drifting and were still looking for any postings up to India. Looking back now, I know it’s easy to say this, but I ought to have realised, and the lads who were looking to move, that once we were getting Spitfires, they wouldn’t keep us on the island long, we should be off, but I got very disconsolate with things, after being — a lot of the old hands had gone, they’d served their time, and things seemed to be drifting. Then these postings came up for fitter airframes, fitter engines — I think about six volunteers wanted, so, the ones who wanted to get away, we went across to the order room and said, “Look, where is it to?” They said, “Sorry, can’t tell you.”

Well, normally, on the island, they’d tell yer straight away. Previous to this, we could — “Where is it to, is it on the island?” “Yeah, it’s down to so and so.”

“We’re not allowed to tell you this time.” So, naturally we thought, “Oh, it’s off the island.” So we said, “Right, we’ll take them.” So we did. It was a new unit. The reason they wouldn’t tell us was because it was a new unit and our repair and salvage unit, down on the south coast, at Kogla (??), the flying boat base. That was a great disappointment, but I couldn’t do anything about it, it was no use saying……….

Int: Were you attached to the squadron? What was the squadron? Was there a squadron number?

GA: 122 R.S.U. Down there, there was the 205 R.A.F. Squadron, and 413 Canadian Squadron, both with Catalinas. We got our travel warrants. When we saw those, we were flat, but we went down there, and before we formed this new unit totally, we were split up. There were other people joining from other units and so many went with 205 Squadron and people from our squadron went with the Canadian Squadron on the Catalinas, to get the know how before they form the unit completely.

Int: And did your old unit go off to India?

GA: In April, a month after I left, they got their orders to move up to India, then up to Burma. I stayed down there for twelve months, on this flying boat base.

Int: You must have been fed up, I mean, from what you’d wanted.

GA: I was, I was very disappointed.

Int: Which flying boats were they?

GA: The Catalinas, all Catalinas.

Int: What were they like to maintain?

GA: Not bad, they were very reliable, they were a good workhorse, the Catalina. After we’d had the period with the squadrons, we came back into our own hangars and everything, and formed this dispersals and maintenance unit and this repair and salvage unit, we were doing big repairs from off the squadrons, damages, and things like that, and also, we were taking in planes that had finished their life, dismantling, and things like that…………….

Int: That was planes from all over the island was it?

GA: No, that was planes from the squadron and sometimes they’d get them from elsewhere. There was a…………………..

Int: It was just Catalinas though.

GA: It was just Catalinas at the time. They’d brought a section down a month or two after, of Sunderlands, but they came onto the — they came off the water and were put in storage.

Int: So you were there for a year.

GA: I was there from April until June 1945, I think.

Int: Did anything happen, of note, while you were there?

GA: Nothing really; the only thing I can think of was, we had one period where we put one long range tank into a Catalina with a little petrol engine pump. We worked a twenty four hour stretch on that to get it ready, it was in a hurry. From what we could gather, they were flying down to Australia with that one, but we never heard anything of what happened; but course, you were never told anything, it was absolute secret, these things. And so, there was nothing really, it was just a regular come day, go day of repair………….

Int: Was there more work to do, more maintenance to do than with the squadron?

GA: Probably so, yes.

Int: Did that make it a bit more bearable?

GA: Yes, there was a bit more work, there were planes coming to you every day, there were planes coming in for dismantling, and you were always fairly well occupied. We’d a good set of N.C.O.’s. They were back to what I thought, same as we were with the old squadron. They used to mix with us, the senior N.C.O.’s did, they were a good crowd, very good crowd. Some of them had been up in Burma; we always found this, that people who’d been through the mill a little bit, seemed to get along easier and better with the other ranks, and it made things much better.

Int: what about, you’d still be there then when news came of the V.E. Day?

GA: Yes, I was there on V.E. Day.

Int: Was there a celebration?

GA: Yes, there was a celebration, we had the day off. It was not so much a celebration, it was just a day off, yer might say. We went into the town that morning. A few weeks before, an old friend of mine who lives close by, he came down with a squadron from India, with a Catalina Squadron, and he’d been talking to someone after he’d been down there a day or two, they asked him where he’d come from. He said Chesterfield, and they said, “Oh, one of our lads on the unit is from Chesterfield. He’s on the other side of the camp though.” “What’s his name?” They told him. He said, “Oh,” he sez, “a friend of mine.” He came over and we had quite a pleasant time together for the last month or so. It was nice to see him; we both went to school together at New Whittington.

Int: What was his name?

GA: Longden, Doug Longdon. Being a village, we knew each others’ families, and it was quite nice to see him. Very nice. He and I went out with one or two of the other lads to Galda in the morning and came back in the afternoon and we had quite a pleasant day there.

Int: So what about, what happened in June, where were you sent then?

GA: I was notified that I was due for the boat, to come home.

Int: Were you pleased by then, or would you have rather gone on to the final thing?

GA: Oh yes, I was getting to the pitch where I was doing anything to keep the monotony and, not so much homesickness, well, I think we were ready for home after four years.

Int: You’d not had any leave home.

GA: Nothing. They’d just started this python scheme; anyone who’d been out for eighteen months was due for a couple of months at home.

Int: Did you get letters from home?

GA: Oh yes, they came through pretty frequently. Yes, that wasn’t too bad. But after four years, it’s a drag.

Int: So what happened then?

GA: We got notification that we should be going down to Colombo on such and such a date, and from there, into transit camp to await embarkation for home. I got a shock there. We were in the naval transit camp, and when the day came for us to move onto the boat — we moved into Colombo first of all, to air headquarters in Colombo. We paraded there and they started to call the names out, and my name wasn’t on, so that was rather a shock. I waited until they called them all out and I went out and saw the sergeant. I sez, “My name’s not been called out.” He said, “Well, are you down for embarkation corporal?” I said, “That’s why I’ve been sent.” I said, “I’ve done four years.” “Just a minute.” They’d missed it. It was there. There was a huge sigh of relief, and that same afternoon, we boarded the Durban Castle and that evening, we set sail; late afternoon, before dark, we set sail, and we had a comfortable trip — well, I say comfortable, very few people slept down on the decks because you’d been running troops for that long, she was full of bugs. It was terrible really, the amount of bugs on that boat.

We came up though the Indian Ocean and we were into the monsoon, and it was very very rough, in fact, some of the lads — I always remember a Welsh boy, he was going home on this after eighteen months on python leave, and it blew and blew for five days, and there were lots of them sick for five days. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, I thought they were dying, some of them. Oh, they were terrible. He swore that if they said he had to go back by boat, he’d desert. He was in a state. Yer get seasickness — I’ve never had it properly, seasickness, but some people got it, and a couple of days, and they were out of it but some of ‘em never picked up. They were there five days and they were just there. They daredn’t leave the side of the toilets, they were in a right state.

We came straight through. We stopped in the southern end — Port Suez, the southern end of the canal, until we got the word to move through, and then, straight up. We never got off the boat until we got to Southampton. We came straight through the Mediterranean and home.

Int: Were you demobilised quickly?

GA: No, it was 1946, a year after.

Int: What were you doing for the year?

GA: I was fortunate, I got posted up to Lichfield, which was nice and handy for home. I got most weekends at home from there.

Int: And which squadron were you with?

GA: It wasn’t — I can’t remember the number, that was another maintenance unit with maintenance on most aircraft, but a lot of the time, we did work on Liberators.

Pt 14: A7543415

Pr-BR

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