Tail Gunner E-Book

R. C. Rivaz

• Herausgeber: R. C. Rivaz
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

First published in 1943, this is the gripping story of one man's involvement in the RAF Bomber Command's fledgling offensive between August 1940 and December 1941. Dick Rivaz was tail gunner to Leonard Cheshire, one of the most famous RAF pilots of the Second World War, flying in Whitleys with No. 102 Squadron and latterly in Halifaxes with No. 35 Squadron. Tail Gunner is unique among wartime memoirs, as it was written within months of the events Rivaz describes, and with all the immediacy of one who was in the very thick of the action. He gives graphic descriptions of his experiences on night bombing attacks against heavily defended enemy targets likes Duisberg, Dusseldorf and Essen, and relates a dramatic shoot-out with German fighters over La Rochelle in broad daylight during July 1941. He survived these events to write this book, but was sadly killed in October 1943, aged just thirty-seven.

Leseprobe

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE

COPYRIGHT

TAIL GUNNER

DEDICATION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

NOTES

R. C. Rivaz

TAIL GUNNER

SQUADRON LEADER R. C. RIVAZ D.F.C.

Arcadia Ebooks 2016

[email protected]

www.arcadiaebooks.altervista.org

R. C. Rivaz

Tail Gunner

(1945)

TAIL GUNNER

DEDICATIONTO ALL TAIL GUNNERS WHO SIT…

CHAPTER I

I WILL start by introducing Leonard Cheshire. I introduce him at the beginning as he was my first operational pilot, the first pilot who flew me over Germany. I will leave the details of my training and begin when I went to my first squadron straight from the Operational Training Unit.

I arrived at 102 Squadron, Topcliffe, one evening in August 1940, feeling very new and shy, and rather wondering what sort of people I should meet and how they would treat a new boy like myself. The only operational crews I had seen was when an odd crew had landed at Abingdon on their way home after a raid. These people had always been dressed in flying boots and were wearing no collars or ties, but had silk scarves knotted round their necks, and they were usually unshaven and with unbrushed hair. I had looked on them as some sort of gods and wondered whether one day I, too, should be privileged to walk about and look as they did. These were the people I should be meeting now and with whom I should have to live. Somehow they did not seem to me to be ordinary normal people, but people either with charmed lives or else lives that would soon not be theirs…and I thought this would surely be visible in either their appearance or behaviour.

I was quite surprised to find that the Officers’ Mess was very similar to the one I had just left. I arrived after supper, and found my way to the ante-room, where the wireless was on, apparently unnoticed by anyone in the room. There were some people lolling in deep black leather arm-chairs, reading; one or two were asleep. There was a group standing round the empty fireplace with pint beer-tankards in their hands. Some were writing letters, and four were playing cards at a table in the middle of the room. Everyone there looked perfectly normal; in fact, the whole scene, as I surveyed it, was just the same as could be seen in the ante-room of the Mess I had just left, or, indeed, in any other Mess. One or two people I noticed were wearing the ribbon of the D.F.C. These people I stared at, probably too long, as one stares at celebrities or personalities of importance, hoping to read the signs of some of their experiences written in their faces. But they, too, looked perfectly ordinary and completely unconscious and oblivious of their distinction. Those talking to them did not seem to be treating them with any particular respect or showing them any deference, but were conversing with them as they might with any ordinary being.

I wandered out of the Mess feeling that perhaps life would not be so different, after all.

I went in search of the duty batman, and was told that the Mess was very full at the moment and that I would have to share a room. I was taken to my room—or, rather, part share of the room—and found the other occupant already in bed and asleep. This other occupant, whom I was later to know as Leonard, was lying absolutely still and silent and fast asleep. I have very rarely known Leonard to go to bed at the average person’s time, but either very early or excessively late. At whichever time he went he would sleep until he was awakened, and then get up perfectly fresh.

He had scattered his clothes all over the place: some were on my bed, some were on his bed, and some were on the floor. Also on my bed there was an open suit-case, two tennis racquets, a squash racquet, and his towel. I removed the articles from my bed to the floor, making as little noise as I could, although I need not have been so cautious as nothing other than a vigorous shaking will awaken Leonard once he is asleep. I looked at his tunic, thrown carelessly over the back of a chair, to see if I could gain some clue as to the identity of this unknown person. I saw he was a pilot-officer, like myself; also that he was a pilot. I also-noticed that he had no gong up, and thought therefore that he, too, might be a newcomer. I could not see much of the sleeper, as only the top of his head, showing brown untidy hair, was visible above the bedclothes.

I went to bed wondering what my new companion and this new life would be like.

***

I was awakened next morning by the buzzing sound of an electric razor, and saw a slight figure in brightly coloured pyjamas walking up and down the room trailing a length of electric flex behind him and running the razor in a care-free manner up and down his face. After a few moments I said “Good morning”…and was favoured with some sort of grunt in reply. Undismayed, I started asking questions about the new station and my new squadron, but to all my questions the only replies I got were grunts. Eventually I gave up my questioning as a bad job and started to get up.

I saw this uncommunicative and, as I thought, strange person several times during-the day, but never once did he show that he recognized me. I noticed that he seemed to know everybody, and that most people called him Cheese.

That night I changed my room.