Quick index: [ Robert "Bob" Foster's lecture | Campaigns in France and Norway | RAF before the war, Foster comes into the picture | First flight on Hurricane | The Battle of Britain | Experiences after Battle of Britain | Hurricanes did an awful lot of work | Career in the Pacific Theatre, Spitfires at Darwin | Robert W. Foster's interview | Credits]

Recording: Jukka O. Kauppinen (Grendel)
Transcription, part 1: Paul Rix
Transcription, part 2: Jason "Replicant"
Final editing and photos: Jukka O. Kauppinen

Many thanks to Paul and Jason for doing the transcription. The result is surely must better now, when native English speakers listened closely what was spoken and wrote it down.

Wing Commander Foster was born in year 1920. He saw the clouds of war rising over the Europe, and decided to join the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve in January 1939. Mr. Foster described, that he didn't want to go to the trenches, but while the death in the sky was still possible, it was at least a more glorious way to go.

He flew a Hurricane fighter in the Battle of Britain and was a pilot trainer after that, processing some 100 pilots. He was then transferred to the 54th Squadron, who flew the Spitfire fighter, and in 1942 was sent as reinforcements to Australia. Located at Darwin mr. Foster fought against the Japanese. FInishing his 2nd tour mr. Foster then joined the Normandy invasion in ground duties.

In the war mr. Foster was credited with 9 aerial victories and he retired from RAF in 1947, returning to his pre-war workplace Shell. He retired from Shell in 1975.

Please first read the shorter preliminary report from www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/photoreports/bobfoster2004 before progressing to read this whole lecture transscript.

Many thanks to the chaps of Aviation Museum Society, Finland for arranging this visit.

"This is the nearest I've been to a 109" - Wing Commander Robert "Bob" Foster

- Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to introduce Royal Air Force pilot, Wing Commander Robert Foster. Welcome to Finland.

Thank you very much. I didn't understand a word of that, except the end bit, but I hope that it was alright anyway. (laughter)

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you again for inviting me to Finland. This is my first visit but I certainly hope, not the last. It is a lovely country you have. Beautifully clean. Nice people and good food and wine too (which is most important).

Anyway, last night I was talking to a chap in the British Embassy, and he reminded me that this weekend there is a commemoration service to do with the Crimean War, which I think goes back to 1856 or something like that. And it reminded me, the year I was born 1920, my father might have listened to some chap who had been in that war 64 years ago. In other words, it is a long, long time since 1940. And I think I am at least on my own here that no one else will remember very much about it.

Anyway, 60 years ago today, or tomorrow as we all know, a great event occurred in that the Allies landed in Normandy. A great event, known by the world. Another event happened on exactly the same day, 64 years ago, when I, Robert Foster, first flew a Hurricane. That event went unnoticed by the world generally. A great day for me!

I don't know how much you know about the Hurricane. As you know, you had one here at one time and it is now in the other museum. But, it was the brainchild of a man called Sidney Camm, who, together with Mitchell who invented the Spitfire, and Messerschmitt with the 109, were the three great designers of the 1930's. Sidney Camm had a great reputation. He started with before the Harts and the Hinds and so on, through the Fury's , then the Hurricane, and the Typhoon and Tempest and eventually of course, the Harrier. So he had a really great and distinguished career as a designer.

The prototype was built in 1935 when the air forces of the world were talking about single wing mono-planes. Before then there had been Bi-planes but the airforces were realizing that they were being outdated and the RAF, the Air Ministry asked for a design for a single wing mono-plane. And Camm and Mitchell in turn came up with the Hurricane and the Spitfire. The prototype Hurricane first flew in 1935. It was pretty basic, it had a two blade propeller, a single speed propeller. It had an undercarriage that you had to wind up and it had a speed of about 250mph. That was the prototype. But, it went on from there and the Air Ministry was quite impressed with the design so they ordered 600 of these aeroplanes. Quite a big order in 1936! And Hawkers went ahead building this thing, with developments coming along all the time. The first Hurricane to be delivered to the RAF was in 1937, when it went to 111 Squadron at Northolt. They were the first squadron in the RAF to have this single wing monoplane. It made history, and it affected me in a way because I was 17 at the time, that it flew from Edinburgh to London at an average speed of 408 miles an hour, which was quite extraordinary for a fighter plane in those days. And it did impress everybody. It impressed the British people anyway.

I don't think it impressed the Germans very much, because their Messerscmitt could not fly as fast as that. And they did realize, I am sure, as people did later, that this chap Göring who was in Edinburgh, sat there for about a month until he found a following wind of about 80mph - (laughter). So he got there at 400 miles per hour but actually it was about just over 300. Anyway, it was a good propaganda story and the Hurricane became the great hope for the RAF. In 1939, September, when the Germans declared war, the RAF had 18 Hurricane squadrons and one or two Spitfire squadrons coming through. Four of those squadrons were sent to France, which stayed there throughout what was called the 'Phoney War' of 1939 until April 1940. In April 1940, I am sure you know most of this history, but I will repeat it, Hitler launched his attack, first into Norway and then, of course, into the Low Countries.

And in May, the 12th, he invaded Belgium, Holland and into France. And immediately we sent another twelve squadrons to France, to back up the four that were already there.

So, we had about 16 Hurricane squadrons in France. As you well know from your history, it was a complete disaster. The Germans broke through the British Army. The French Army collapsed on our right, the Belgians collapsed on the left. The British Army was forced back to Dunkirk, where, at the beginning of June, they were evacuated. And at the same time of course, the Hurricane squadrons went back with them, lost a lot of aircraft, a lot of men. They extracted the British Army, but the cost of that was some 477 fighters by the time Dunkirk was over. That was mostly Hurricanes, some Spitfires and some Blenheims. And some 300 pilots which we could ill afford to lose. I mean, we were still building up our strength then. But that was the cost to the RAF between May and June of 1940. At the same time, the Norwegian campaign was on. And the RAF sent Gladiators initially to Norway and then in May of 1940 they sent a squadron of Hurricanes which landed somewhere in the north in Narvik area. They were not very used to the conditions, obviously.

And the story goes, I don't know if it is true or not, that they were having a lot of trouble finding an airfield or establishing an airfield when some Laplanders came by driving thousands of Reindeer's heading North. So they stopped the Laplanders and said would they let the reindeer's march up and down. (Laughs) Sounds unlikely, but it is in the official history, so there must be a basis of truth. And the Laplanders said well no, they couldn't do it unless they had some alcohol. So the doctor who was there said "well I have some medical stuff, would that do you, 100% alcohol", so they said, "oh yes, that would be great". So the story goes that they gave and kept feeding these Lap chaps with the alcohol and they kept driving these reindeer's up and down and they had a nice airfield. How true I don't know, but it is a good story.

Anyway, at the end of the Norwegian campaign we had to withdraw again, and the Hurricanes were left there. The Squadron Commander was told to leave his Hurricanes and go back on board the aircraft carrier Glorious. Actually they had been flown off the Glorious into Norway and this chap, a man called Cross said "No way, you have an aircraft carrier there, we will land them back on." . Well, it had never been done before, they had no arrestor hooks, they had nothing at all but Cross said "We will have a go". He and 14 pilots landed 14 Hurricanes on the Glorious for the first time ever without arrestor hooks. It was a tremendous feat of airmanship.

The sad thing was, that on the way back from Norway to England, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau came across the Glorious and she was sunk with all the pilots except Cross, and all the aircraft. It was really a very sad ending to a very gallant effort. At the end of June, the Germans had already lost 1250 aircraft, which was surprising to a lot of people who thought the whole thing was one sided. In fact it wasn't. The Germans needed transport aircraft, all sorts of aircraft, in all their campaigns. So the 1250 aircraft, even the German Air Force couldn't manage to cope with that loss. So both sides held their breath in June.

We were back in the UK. Lord Dowding, who was the chief of Fighter Command, refused adamantly to allow any more Spitfires or Hurricanes to go to France. He said he needed 53 Squadrons to maintain the defence of the United Kingdom. By the end of July we had more or less got that number back into action. So in June, I come into the picture. I didn't make a lot of difference, but I came into the picture.

I think it is interesting to talk about the formation and format of the Royal Air Force before the war. We had a fairly small regular Air Force .. Fighters, bombers and so on. They were supplemented in 1926 by what we call Auxiliary Squadrons. These chaps were squadrons in reserve. Mostly what one might call a "Gentleman's Club". In other words they were a 'Millionaires' kind of club. They enjoyed their flying at the weekends. The Hawker Hinds or something like that. Not front line aircraft, but similar. By the start of the war there were 26 of these Aux Squadrons in existance, 14 of which were in fighters. Two of which had already been equipped with Hurricanes. In 1937 the Air Ministry decided that they also needed a further backup. They formed what was called the Volunteer Reserve. The Volunteer Reserve was a crowd of young men interested in flying. You were recuited more or less into the Airforce but you were not given uniform. You flew at private flying clubs at the weekend for free. In other words it was a way to learn how to fly on the strength of His Majesty's Government, which was a great thing.

This is where I come in to it. I was one of these chaps who thought like Biggles or Ristoff (??) or something like that, with the war coming I want to be a fighter pilot and I wanted to shoot down all these things. I also didn't want to be a soldier in the trenches, although why being shot down in flames is any better than being stabbed with a bayonet I really don't know, but it sounded more glorious (laughter). So, I enlisted in the Volunteer reserve in the beginning of 1939 at the age of 18. There were, at the outbreak of war, some 5000 of us on this reserve. And of course, we were all called up on the 3rd of September when war broke out. I, like all the others, reported to my base or recruiting center to be told "Go home, we haven't a clue what to do with you, we have no training facilities, so go home and we will let you know when we want you."

That went on until November. I had done 50 hours of flying before the war in an what was called an Avro Cadet . I was called up in January 1940 and I went on to my flying training which consisted of flying (Hawker) Harts and (Hawker) Audax's. At the end of May, into June I was sent to another place where I flew a Harvard for about 5 hours because the transition from Harts to Hurricanes was quite a big jump. As you all know, the Hart was nothing, no undercarriage, no flaps etc. So we had 5 hours on Harvards, and then I was sent to an operational training unit to fly Hurricanes. And this is where the 6th of June, 64 years ago tomorrow , comes into it.

Listen here Listen Bob Foster telling this story MP3-file.

A lot of things happened to me in the next two or three months in the Battle of Britain.  It was all a long time ago, and I don't remember everything. The next day, the 7th , we took off and a chap called Jack Flemming, a New Zealander who was an old friend of mine was flying at the rear. You probably know about this, and I know that the Finnish Air Force knows about this, because we were still flying in this antiquated Vic formation which the Finns, I believe, had decided was 'not on' many years previously. But the RAF in many squadrons were still flying this. So we flew in three vics. You were flying in a beautiful type of formation but it was useless in a battle zone because no one was looking around. So we had two chaps at the back called 'Weavers' and Jack Flemming, a New Zealander, had spent three years in the Air Force getting ready for this moment. We took off at 11 o'clock in the morning, and by 12 o'clock poor old Jack had had his Battle of Britain. It was over. He was weaving around, but he didn't see the 109 that came down on him. The whole thing was in flames. He managed to get out and woke up, as he said wryly later, in the Maternity ward of he nearest hospital. He suffered major burns, he survived and died two or three years ago. A great friend of mine was Jack. He was one of the original 'Guinea Pigs' who you have possible heard of. Pioneered by a New Zealand Surgeon called McKinder. He did a lot for burns of British Army, Navy, Air Force, Allied airmen. A wonderful new technique for (treating) burns. Because he was experimenting on these chaps they (with a sense of humour) called themselves the Guinea Pigs. The Guinea Pig Squad is still going. There aren't many left now, one or two. Poor old Jack passed on not long ago, but he (McKinder) did remarkable work and you would not have known when you saw Jack unless you saw him stripped off, because his whole body was red, but his face was quite OK. Anyway, he was our first casualty. The next day we launched and lost George Forrester who went straight into a Heinkel 111. And life went on like that. Sometimes we flew two or three times a day, sometimes we didn't fly at all.

Listen here Listen Bob Foster telling this story MP3-file.

Anyway, that was briefly my Battle of Britain experience.We then went up to Martlesham Heath, which is on the east coast, in February.  And again I talk about luck and I'm sure luck does come into this.  One day in February/March '41 this airfield was bombed, we were on waiting list at dawn and we're sitting at dispersals, which was on the other side of the airfield, and suddenly a whole lot of 110s came over, dropped their bombs onto the airport buildings.  Fortunately they didn't kill many people.  So we were scrambled about, as a, well, not a cat in hells chance of catching them because they were around and away, but we were still scrambled and we went haring out to sea as fast as we could, up through the clouds.  

And I must have been about 30 miles out to the North Sea thinking "Oh well, there we are, lovely day above the clouds, time for breakfast" and not thinking about anything.  And suddenly, God knows why, I sense to this 'they know why', I looked around and there, sitting about 'there' was a Heinkel 111 below me, it had come up through the cloud. You act before you think and God, and I pulled over, and as I pulled over, a string of stuff went straight right past me and I thought to myself "you stupid so and so!"  Just relaxing for those few seconds and if it had been another half a second I wouldn't have been here today!  So what guided me, God knows, to turn round just at that very second to see these chaps sitting there.  Anyway, up and around, he dived into the cloud and I hit him, I don't know if anything happened or not.  But there we are, luck again, luck comes into it.

Do you have 21st birthdays here or 18th?  I don't know?  We have 21st birthdays, which is a special birthday, and I remember my 21st birthday very well because we were then up at a place called Turnhill near Liverpool.  And it was, well, May 1941, and we'd drawn night flying duty.  We were using Hurricane's at night to try, we had no night-fighters as such, so they used some of the experienced Hurricane pilots to go up at night, over Liverpool to hopefully intercept some of these bombers coming in.  And it was our turn, it happened to be my birthday and the weather was cankering so we went down to the dispersals and took a crate of beer with us and thought "well, they're bound to stand us down and then we can have a few beers" and that would be it.  

Anyway, they didn't! (laughs)  At 11 o'clock there's a raid coming up over Liverpool, off we go.  And what we used to do was they used to fire the guns up to 15.000 feet and then we would start, what we called, fighter-nights at 17.000 ft only, or 16.000ft, only a 1.000ft above where the guns were supposed to go off.  Well, knowing gunners it could have gone off anywhere so we used to draw as to who would go at 16, 17,18, 19 and 20 and being my birthday I got the short straw and was at 16.000!  So, anyway, we went off and the night clamped nothing, I went up there, we all up there, and in the end we were recalled and being the last one off 'cos I was the lowest; I was the last one back.  So I got in, it was really not very nice getting in, in a Hurricane at night with glim lamps on the airfield, you know, no big lighting or anything like that.  And I got in and I thought "well, that's right, the chaps will be here and we can have our beer now", and blow me, what they'd done is they'd drunk all the beer and gone to bed!  My friends and colleagues the idle bums, rotten lot!  Anyway, that was my 21st birthday.

The rest of my Hurricane career was as an instructor at an Operational Training Unit (OTU) where we were getting chaps from Canada and Australia and so on.  And it was quite interesting teaching all these chaps to fly Hurricane's, and in March '42 I was sent, posted to a Spitfire squadron and I spent the rest of the war flying Spitfire's in various parts of the world.  But we're talking about Hurricane's today, so we won't go into that.

Hurricane's did an awful lot of work during the war, that they were really everywhere.  They were, when we wanted aeroplanes you had the Hurricane.  And the poor old Hurricane was always the first in, in any of these theatres of war.  Malta, there were four there originally, in the end they flew another twelve in.  Sixteen against the 109s coming over from Sicily.  In my old squadron, 605, all their pilots there, they flew off a carrier in the Med and flew 600 miles across the sea and then, to get there, they got there safely, a lot of people didn't later on.

Hurricane's were in Greece, in Iraq… Greece they had a rough time, again against the 109s.  Iraq, Syria, you mention it, the Hurricane was there.  Middle East, there were hundreds of Hurricane's there, only a few to start with.  In the end I think there was about twenty-five Hurricane squadrons operating in the Middle East.

Hurricane marks, I don't know if you know about that?  The Hurricane 1 was an eight gun fighter; Hurricane 2, the Hurricane 2B had twelve machine guns; the 2C had four 20mm cannons; the Hurricane 2D had two 40mm cannons.  

They were turned from fighters into ground attack type of bombers, ground attack aircraft throughout the war.  Interesting point that Hurricane 2, when Middle East war started in '41 or '40/'41, it took about five weeks to get these Hurricane's from England, round the Cape up to Egypt in five or six weeks.  Fortunately somebody said there's an easier way than this, so what they did, Imperial Airways had already blazed a route across North Africa, if your geography is okay. What they did, they enlarged the airfields and they landed these Hurricane's at a place called Takoradi to Egypt which did more to help save the Middle East than anything else probably.  

The Hurricane of course arrived in Singapore at about the same time as the Japanese were about to land.  Fifty one Hurricane's were sent there in crates, they landed, they assembled them and took over from the much, what shall I say, not renowned, that's the wrong word, Brewster Buffalo's that were there at the time, and although they did better they were overwhelmed.  The other half of 605 Squadron, who keep coming into this, were flown off Illustrious, HMS Illustrious, and landed in Sumatra where they fought the Japs back through Sumatra into Java.  They lost all their Hurricane's in the end and the whole squadron finished up in the bag in Japan, which wasn't very nice.

Also, the Hurricane was used to great extent at sea, as I say they, it was proved they could land even without an arrester gear on a carrier so they thought they would be very good.  Before some ingenious chap said "why don't we use the Hurricane on merchant ships, put it at the end of a huge catapult and catapult this thing off?"  And they were called Hurri-cats.  And what they did, they had this huge contraption in front of a merchant ship thing and they'd strap the Hurricane in and, (laughs), you revved up your engine full, I wasn't on this thing, thank God, and someone pulls the elastic sort of thing and you went screaming off into the air!  

And the idea was that convoys were being harassed by Condors and so on, halfway across the Atlantic and no one could get to them, so the idea was to launch this Hurricane off this merchant ship who could then attack the Condor, or whatever it was.  The pilot would then have to say "well, okay, I can't get back to land, so I'll either land on the sea and hope for these Navy will pick me up or I'll bail out and see what happens".  And so they, in the end, I think they had about ten merchant ships equipped with these Hurri-cats and it was supposed to be the chaps were volunteers but I think what happened, I know it did with one chap who was in 605 Squadron and his Squadron Commander couldn't stand this chap, he was a naughty boy; always in trouble.  So poor old Kennedy was 'volunteered' by his CO to join this unit.  And he was lucky, he did three trips across the Atlantic and didn't have to launch once and he said "it was the most boring thing just sitting there, wondering whether he was going to be sunk anytime and not even getting off".  

In the end I think they did about 137 trips with these Hurri-cats and they did launch on eight occasions, or nine occasions. I believe I'm right in saying once on one of the Murmansk convoys which was really; this chap was launched and he got out into the sea but unfortunately they lost him.  I mean he didn't stand much chance, not as you know in those sort of waters.  

Talking of Murmansk of course, I had forgotten the Russian's who in the end received 3.000 Hurricane's, what happened to them God only knows, you know where some of them went because they came over here of course.  But the Russian's, we sent 3.000 Hurricane's to Russia, which was quite extraordinary and we, Churchill once said "We'll get no thanks for this" and of course he was right!  The Russian's never even acknowledged that they had the damn things and that was typical of Mister Stalin wasn't it?

Listen here Listen Bob Foster telling this story MP3-file.

Bob:  Any Questions?
Finn:  Sir.
Bob:  Yes.
Finn:  I'm quite sure that all of us would like to hear a bit more of your experiences in the Pacific.
Bob:  Well, here we go, I'm not boring you are we?  I hope?

Yes, well, I went to 54 Squadron, which is a very well known RAF squadron.  There's a little, long story about this, if you don't mind?  And this was in 1942.  As you know the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December 1941 and by March '42, Singapore had fallen, Sumatra and so on, and they got down almost to the border of Australia.  And the Australian Government panicked; the American's were gradually coming in but they weren't there yet.  And they sent over their Foreign Minister, a chap called Dr. Everett to see Churchill, and said "Can you send us a division of troops to defend Australia", and this was in June '42.  

And Churchill, I think quite rightly, said "At the moment, Rommel is hammering at the gates of Cairo; we're losing convoys all over the world; Singapore's fallen; we're back-peddling as fast as we can in Burma, the answer to that is no we can't."  So he said "Well, how about some battleships or warships?" and Churchill again said "Well, if you remember, they sank the Prince of Wales and so on, you know, we haven't got many to spare", so Everett said "Well, how about a wing of Spitfire's to save Australia?"  Which Churchill said "Great!"  So he said "Yes, I'll do that."  He then got in touch with the Chief of Air Staff, Portal, who said "Sir, in all due respect, Malta is almost about to fall, we can't get enough Spitfire's there, we can't get any more through the Middle East and that we really need every Spitfire we can possibly have.  Send the pilots but let them fly Buffalo's or Kittyhawk's or something."

 So Churchill, thank God, said "No", he said, "I promised Dr. Everett that I will send Spitfire's and as you know there's some one thousand Australian airmen in Britain, we must do something in return, so you will send Spitfire's."  

So reluctantly said "Alright" and they looked around and they, and Churchill said "It must be a well known famous RAF squadron together with the two Australian squadrons who were already in England; 452, 457."  

So they said "Well alright, 54 Squadron is on, up in the north of Scotland resting, because they'd been in the south with the Battle of Britain and so on.  We'll send them, it's a very well known squadron", so that was how we got involved.  So they sent us off from Liverpool on 'Stirling Castle', which was the big liner which had been converted.  And all our Spitfire's were on another ship and we sailed down part through West Africa and this was in June 1942, just when things were boiling up in the Middle East.  And so, in the end Portal (the Chief of Air Staff) came back to Churchill and said "Sir, we must have those Spitfire's in the Middle East."  So, reluctantly we got in touch with the Australian's who again were reluctant to say "Well alright."  So, to cut a long story short, we, a whole wing of air-force trained pilots arrived in Australia and our aeroplanes were all in the Middle East, which was quite nice as it meant we had about two months sitting around in Sydney with nothing to do before our aircraft arrived!  

It wasn't until January '43 that we eventually got up to Darwin, in the north of Australia, which the Japanese were raiding.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, whichever way you look at it, the tide had turned in the Pacific by then and the Japanese were heading backwards. They hadn't gone far, and they were still raiding Darwin but the threat to Australia had gone.  And we were up there, and the first aeroplane to be shot down was by me, with a bit of luck.  It was a high level reconnaissance plane, called a Dinah, who didn't realise, I think, that Spitfire's were there because it was a pretty fast reconnaissance aircraft, twin engine thing. But it wasn't as fast as a Spitfire, so they thought they could run from the Kittyhawk's, which they could, but not from the Spitfire.  So I got that, it wasn't anything great.  

And they came over, probably, no more that eight or nine times while we were up there.  They'd usually send 27 bombers, Betty's, accompanied by some twenty or thirty  Zero's and normally the 452 Squadron would go into the Zero's and we would go into the bombers while we were there.  

But the thing to mention really about that one is the Zero.  People don't know much about, well, know about them.  The Zero was a remarkable aeroplane, then Japanese Zero, or Zeke, however you want to call it.  Very light weight, tremendously long range, I mean they'll have come in from Timor, as you will know, and coming over to Darwin, engaging in action and then getting back to Timor, and that's a long fight in a single engine aeroplane, but they could do it.  

But Japanese mentality, particularly before, they were only offensive, they weren't interested very much in whether their pilots came back or not, because they had no armour plating and no self-sealing tanks, and no defence whatsoever.  So if you hit a Zero it just went, there was no second chance.  On the other hand, if you tried to mix it with a Zero, it would out turn you within about two turns.  So you didn't. You got above the Zero's, you went in and you came back up again; you could out climb it and out dive it but you couldn't out turn the Zero.  So luckily, or unluckily, it got boring up there in the end.  I mean, we sat on our backsides in Darwin, which was not the nicest place to be in those days, waiting for the Japanese that never came.  I was lucky, I had finished my second and a half tour by then, so I came home and I got home just about now, just before D-Day and went out to France, but not on a flying job, I was on a ground job in Normandy which is another, another story.  

Our time in Australia could have been far more interesting, could have been better, more action and so on but we did what we had to do, in other words, the Japanese stopped raiding Darwin.  Anyway, the Spits, I think we got about sixty off aircraft between us in the end.  It all contributed towards the war effort but unfortunately MacArthur didn't like it.  He didn't like the Brits and we suffered from that, I mean, we got no help, no thanks, no nothing at all, we were just one poor little RAF squadron stuck out on its own.  

One day we got clobbered by, well, we didn't, we lost about eleven Spitfire's but seven of these went down in the sea because they, because they ran out of fuel.  We knew very little about high winds in those days, it's quite extraordinary.  I was on leave, the name 'Lucker', luck again you see, I was in the fleshpots of Sydney when all this was happening.  We chased these planes out to sea and then coming back they must have hit this very strong wind, and they lost seven or eight Spits but not to enemy action.  But as the news got through, MacArthur and the American's would have a whale of a time, they really pulled our chains.  We were getting all the kudos, the Spitfire's, and the poor bloody American's were slogging it out in New Guinea and not getting any thanks at all.  So they took an opportunity to swipe back at us.  Apart from that it was grand.

Bob:  Yes.  Anything else?
Finn:  Sir, I visited Duxford in the year of 2000, 6th September. I saw one day, we loved it, the 'Duxford Wing'?  And they were flying twenty-three Spitfire's.
Bob:  That's right, and Hurricane's.
Finn:  How come, there are more flying Spitfire's than Hurricane's?  Perhaps due to the fact that they were more wood, I thought?
Bob:  Well, actually, yes.  I think some of the Spitfire's were probably weren't all destroyed and also a lot of these are rebuilds you know, re-makes, they're not necessary old, I think they're almost building Spitfire's now, providing you can sort of get the basics and I know someone in America too. That's the reason that there were some Spitfire's left lying around more so than Hurricane's but also they are virtually building Spits.
Bob:  Good show wasn't it?
Finn:  Yes, very good show.
Bob:  I know, I hadn't seen as many Spitfire's as that either, not even during the Battle of Britain!
(everyone laughs)

Bob Foster and the author at Finnish Air Force Museum.

- How strong those war memories are still on your mind?
After the war I did not talk about them for years. Only in the last 20-30 years, when the others have started talking and thinking about the war I started thinking about them. And the more you think about them, the more the memories come back. I always remembered them, but there seems to be much more interest on them now.

- Was it difficult to talk about them at first?
No, not at all. I always talked about them but the pressure is on more. Time goes on and not so many of us are left anymore, people want to get know before it is too late.

- You have never lectured about your experiences and now you was suddenly contacted by these people.
Their secretary contacted me and asked if I'd like to come, and I said why not.
This is the first time I have travelled to be a speaker. I'm not a professional speaker.

- Quick visit to Finland to you…
We have a lovely runup today, yes. Not to Lappland, though.

- How many of you are still left?
Battle of Britain pilots? 200 - out of 3000. 500 were killed during the battle and 700 before the end of the war. So 1200 were killed during the war.

- You talked a lot about luck. What is your most frightening war experience or was it one of those you already told to us?
Everything is always over so quickly. It is not like Bomber Command, where you sat there for hours. Air fighting is over and done with literally in seconds. I mean, you are immediately frightened as I said, when we were jumped from the sun by 109s. The instant reaction is fright but in five seconds or less it is gone. I suppose the worst accident was when I was shot down. That took five or ten minutes before I got the airplane down. Not knowing what might happen - the airplane could have burst into flames or anything could have happened, really. But that's looking back on it. I don't know what I felt at the time - I was more interested on getting the thing down on the ground.
- I've spoken with many Finnish pilots and some of them have said, that they had somebody or something watching over them.
I nearly said that with this incident out in the North Sea. I still don't know up to this day. It was clear daylight, like today. We scrambled, climbed above the cloud, thinking about getting home by breakfast time. There was nothing to worry about, here, let's go home. I don't know up to this day what made me turn. So I agree with these chaps, there may be somebody up there. I don't know, could well be. So was when they shot down the chap next to me, that could have been me, there was the grace of God in it.
I didn't go on, there was so much to talk about. We lost a chap in similar circumstances, and he was gliding down similar to me. I didn't see it, others told me later in the ground, about 1000 feet up in same situation as me. And suddenly the whole thing bursted into flame. And he was killed. It was too late to bail out you see. He thought he would get down.

- You talked a lot about Hurricane and almost skipped Spitfire in your speech. It looks like the Hurricane has very strong meaning to you?
Yes. I learned to fly and fight with the Hurricane. And I did 40-50 hours in the Hurricanes through the worst of the war. So I have more affection to the Hurricane. The Spitfire was later on, it was a better airplane but I learned how to fight a war with the Hurricane. They were both wonderful airplanes in a different way.

- If you could choose one, which it would be?
It is a difficult question. They were used in different roles. The Spitfire was certainly a more efficient airplane in the fighting role. But it wasn't used as a ground attack aircraft, while the Hurricane was the more adaptable aircraft. They used them for example as tank busters later in the war. Spitfire got better and better, flew faster and higher and so on, but it was never used in the same role as the Hurricane was.

- You was in Normandy in 1944. What did you do there?
I was on a ground job. I was taking a lot of war correspondents around the airfields. Up to now all the press in England had concentrated on the army. All the war correspondents had been attached to the army. But RAF also had their say on the invasion. So RAF had all the national papers, the BBC had people attached to the Royal Air Force. And we had 2-3 experienced people taking them around, introduce them to people, make sure they had people talking to them. Pilots would talk to them if there was another pilot around, that was the attitude. So I would introduce them and be around. It was interesting, too. They quite a lot of good stories and got in to the airstrips, they were all airstrips in Normandy by then. And I knew one of the commanders and so on. Introduced them and they got their stories, I think it worked quite well.

- How many flight hours and types you have?
Not a lot. Just over a thousand. And not real many types. About 10. Lysander was 7th type, Spitfire 9th, say ten.

I didn't know much about the Finnish part in the war, but I knew the Russian thing, as I was in the same base as the two squadrons that were eventually shipped and flown to Murmansk.

- Did you fly ever after the war?
Only privately, I was no more in the Air Force. Only occasionally, Twin Comanche.

- What career you had after the army?
I came back to the company I worked for, Shell. I worked at Shell until I retired, 1975, 29 years ago. I had already done 38 years for them.
In war time England military service, if you worked for a company before the war and you were called up, the company had to take you back after the war if you wanted to go. And also your wartime service counted towards service.
A lot of people stayed on the Air Force. There wasn't much choice you know. I decided to go and I've never regretted it. You never know about life. Some chaps were flight lieutenants or captains when they left, and others finished as marshalls. You never know.

- Have you been active in the British veteran pilots' organizations?
Not a lot, Battle of Britain memorials of course. We have what we call Royal Air Force Association, for the retired. I'm active in that. And working for the benefit of fund, which is a charitable thing. Yes, I have kept interest in the RAF. And the squadron association of course, 605 Auxiliary squadron was disbanded in 1956. All the reserve squadrons were disbanded in 56, they were no more useful. 54th squadron is still ongoing and they have reunions, where I go.
- It must be interesting to participate in these squadron meetings. What do you think of the pilots today in the squadron?
They are all the same. But a bit older. They are! You are roughly 28 when you get to the squadron now, we finished in the lot by that time. We had 20 year old pilots. But the spirit is the same. And the guys are really nice to the old gentleman, they look after you, they open the door for you and things like that. Yes, they are a good crowd of lads.

- Have you met any of your old opponents?
We talked about that the other day. There is quite a craze now for getting books and paintings and drawings signed by people, so we go to Duxford airshow or other places to meet up with them. They try to get 2-3 RAF pilots and 2-3 German pilots and so on, all signing books and paintings.
I didn't tell this story, but Katie was born in Berlin. We went some years ago to Berlin to see her mother, who lived in East Berlin. Her mother said "my next door neighbour would like to meet you." So we met him and Katie said, that we think he might have been in the Luftwaffe. He said "have a beer" and we had a beer, and he looked at me and said "I think we might have met before". And I said "I doubt it, I have never been at Berlin". He said "I think we might have done." I wondered where that might have been. He said "maybe in England in 1940, because I was a rear gunner in a Heinkel." So that's the spirit and we had another beer. He caught me completely with this "I think I might have seen you before"!

(showing a painting, "Fight over Darwin")
Yes, that's right. What they did, they started a flying collegeship in Australia, called Spitfire Foundation, to raise money to start a bursary in the Sydney university for engineers. They sponsor couple of chaps every year. Signing these things, I signed them and some Australian Spitfire pilots did, to raise money to start the thing. They were selling the paintings for 200 pounds at the time. They made quite a lot of money from them, I signed 500 of them.

- As you were flying against both the Germans and the Japanese there was quite a difference between the two opponents?
Yes, the Zero was outstanding. Ok, the 109 and Spitfire had roughly the same turning circle. The speed was slightly different but it depended more on the pilot than anything else. But with the Zero, until late in the war when the Allied aircraft got faster, they could never outturn the Zero but they could outclimb and outdive it. It is quite  a remarkable airplane. And the bombers were of course the same. I mean, you could hit a German bomber but it was armored and so on. But if you hit a Japanese bomber it would immediately burn, as they had no self sealing tanks, no armour, nothing at all. They were like the kamikaze in a way. In the start of the war the Japanese were not at all worried, they had so many pilots and aircraft. And they were over enemy territory anyway. I mean, they didn't carry parachutes. If you got shot down you'd go to heaven, or wherever the Japanese go.

- Do you think there was any other differences, possibly in the pilot mentality?
I think the Germans were more, what should I say, human than the Japs. I'm sure the Japanese had this talent, you never took them as prisoner of war, did you, very rare later in the war you did. But initially - it was dishonorable to be taken as prisoner. This is why they despised all our prisoners of war. Their mentality.

- What about the world of today compared to the 30s/40s?
I don't know. You can't compare, can you? I mean, can you imagine what it would have been like in 1939-1945 if we had television, instant communication? It is bad enough now! There's a funny little war and it is 24 hours a day, like that? Can you imagine what it would have been like with a real war going on for five years? You just can't compare, you can't imagine what it would have been like! Or take it into reverse - if you didn't have all this the Iraq things would just go on and nobody would know about it. Wars go on now, don't they, you suddenly hear there has been a war going on in Sudan for the last five years and nobody has even heard about it or does care about it. It is all this publicity, the press pushing things and so on.
But I think the people are the same, basically they are. Different standards. I mean drugs - I had never heard of a drug. I drunk a lot of beer but drugs were a non existing thing. And now they are one of the worst things you can happen. And it is very sad. On the other hand people aren't starving, but people are starving around the world, but I mean they aren't in the so called civilized countries.

- About the old plane that is now in Britain. It was found in India?
Yes. As I said we sent a lot of Hurricanes to India, to Burma and so on. This one was obviously sent crated, to be reassembled in India. I don't know where it went but it might have gone in 44 or something, when they were phasing out Hurricanes and bringing Spitfires and other more modern airplanes in. It got to India and got stuck in dock or some storage and then sent to a university to train people on engines. So they took the engine out and kept the airframe in the backyard and there it stayed for 50 years, just like that. Until this chap heard of it or came across it, and it took him about five years until the university would say "yes, you can have it". It was an old wreck but I don't know what it was about, the Indians are funny people. In the end he bought it from the university and brought it home. As far as I know it should fly this autumm, hopefully. I'm looking forward to that.