Hereford & Worcester

70 years on from the Battle of Britain, a 90-year-old veteran, Eric Carter, now living in Chaddesley Corbett, talks about the time he served in the RAF during WWII

Sergeant Eric Carter was initially based at RAF Valley

At the time of the battle of Britain I was 20.

I joined in 1939 when I was 19 because the Germans were committing such horrible atrocities.

They sank a ship off Liverpool with 300 little children in it, who were being evacuated to Canada, and that really made me feel that I should do something about it.

So I enlisted straightaway, and I was called up a few months later at the beginning of 1940, and I passed out towards the end of the year.

Defiants and Hurricanes

I was posted to 615 squadron at Valley in north Wales, and I was defending Liverpool and Manchester, and also escorting ships from Liverpool down to south Wales.

Things were so bad in those days - it's hard to imagine now - but I was also operating from 456 Squadron which was a night-fighter squadron on Defiants (aircraft), and sometimes I'd be flying in the daytime with 615, flying Hurricanes, and if they were very badly short, I'd be flying Defiants at night with 456 Squadron, night-fighting over the Manchester and Liverpool area.

Rare treats

Every night there was quite a joke amongst us pilots - we used to get allowed a bar of chocolate and a banana.

Now they were very, very scarce, no civilians would get that, only pilots would get this treat once a month.

When we used to take-off, our colleagues on the ground, laughing, would say "can we have your banana if you don't come back?"

That was the only way to get through that time of our history, you could never ever plan anything ahead.

If you went out with a girl, they used to say they didn't mind going out with pilots because if they didn't like them, they knew they wouldn't last long!

Mayday situations

The Germans used to send big four-engined planes up the Welsh coast to try and sink our shipping.

In the same situation, Eric says he would volunteer again

We'd be scrambled, and we damaged quite a few of these things, but it was quite scary and we were only young lads.

I was flying Defiants some nights and you had a gunner in the back, so with his weight, and the turret, it made the thing very underpowered.

It was all painted black - you had to sit in a dark room for about an hour before you took-off, and it's surprising what you can see on a dark night if you accustom your eyesight to the dark.

There would be a raid over Liverpool and I would do my best to find the intruder and then I'd come back to Valley and say "can I have the landing-lights on, I'm getting short of petrol" and they'd say "sorry there's still a raid on Liverpool, fly around a bit more and come back later".

I'd come back 10 minutes later and they'd say "sorry, there's still a raid on" and I'd come back a few minutes later right out of petrol, shouting mayday, mayday and they'd say "go out into the Irish Sea and bail out".

Bailing out meant turning the plane upside down, releasing all your harnesses and falling out.

Hopefully your parachute would open when you pulled the rip-chord.

Could you imagine going out into the Irish Sea and bailing out in February? You'd freeze to death.

On the occasions that would happen, at the last moment, they'd stick the lights on and there'd be several aircraft coming in from all direction, all short of fuel, the same as I was.

Luckily I managed to get down each time, but it was very close at times.

Churchill visits

Churchill used to come around the squadrons, and the Duke of Gloucester came to see us as well, it was quite an honour.

Eric was awarded medals for his bravery, including some from Russia

We used to put the news on - of course there was no television in those days - and if you were lucky, you could get the news on a little crystal set (radio).

Defending Minsk

I was flying Hurricanes at the time of the Battle of Britain but I wasn't actually in the Battle of Britain, because I was over in Liverpool.

Then, in June or July 1941, I was one of 38 pilots sent to Russia to defend the Minsk, and that was the Battle of Britain time for Russia, so I had two lots of not very pleasant periods.

Dangerous time

It was a very dangerous time and I supposed we were frightened at times until you had actually got the message to scramble, and then you were so busy, you didn't have time to be frightened.

You were trying to think of what you had to do and where you'd got to get to.

I'm glad I went through it, but it was a horrible time - don't let anyone think war is romantic, it's not, although it had some good moments, it was a terrible time.

In the same situation, I would volunteer again and hope that the country would look on ex-soldiers a bit more favourably.

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