NEXT STORY
Finally getting commissioned
RELATED STORIES
Video URL
Trying to avoid being hit by our own explosions
Ken Adam
Artist
|
Views | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11. 'Little did we know how dangerous these bloody rockets were!' | 261 | 01:55 | |
| 12. Trying to avoid being hit by our own explosions | 218 | 02:00 | |
| 13. Finally getting commissioned | 184 | 01:33 | |
| 14. Defence mechanism against getting too emotional | 200 | 02:40 | |
| 15. 'I knew everybody was shooting at me' | 208 | 02:12 | |
| 16. Friendly fire | 186 | 04:43 | |
| 17. Losing fellow pilots on take off | 209 | 02:09 | |
| 18. The 'cab rank' | 178 | 03:10 | |
| 19. 'Order me a late tea' | 1 | 200 | 02:54 |
| 20. Norman Merrett | 1 | 170 | 03:44 |
-
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- ...
- 15
-
Comments
(0)
Please sign in or
register to add comments
When we were… we became Tactical... the Second Tactical Air Force attached to the army... to the Canadian and British Army… and we also had... a lot of losses... The danger was that you built up too much speed coming down [to attack] and then you had to really slow away, because if you did too fast, the Typhoon had a nasty habit of stalling, a high-speed stall and went straight into the deck.
Why we wanted to get out as quickly as possible – a) the Germans had incredible flak but also that we weren't hit by our own explosions. So our losses, certainly from May, April '44, to, I think it was October '44, were pretty high, and... though there were lots of pilots at Lasham, I think, waiting to fly on operations, but they didn't volunteer for the Typhoons! So they finally decided to give us, every four weeks, 48 hours off. We flew our own planes to Gatwick or Northolt and had a two weeks' [sic - should be two days'] holiday here.
Sir Kenneth Adam (1921-2016), OBE, born Klaus Hugo Adam, was a production designer famous for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s. Initially, he trained as an architect in London, but in October 1943, he became one of only two German-born fighter pilots to fly with the RAF in wartime. He joined 609 Squadron where he flew the Hawker Typhoon fighter bomber. After the war, he entered the film industry, initially as a draughtsman on This Was a Woman. His portfolio of work includes Barry Lyndon and The Madness of King George; he won an Oscar for both films. Having a close relationship with Stanley Kubrick, he also designed the set for the iconic war room in Dr Strangelove. Sir Ken Adam was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.
Title: Trying to avoid being hit by our own explosions
Listeners: Christopher Sykes
Christopher Sykes is an independent documentary producer who has made a number of films about science and scientists for BBC TV, Channel Four, and PBS.
Tags: RAF, Royal Air Force, Second Tactical Air Force, British Army, Canadian Army, 1944, Lasham Airfield, Lasham, Gatwick, Northolt
Duration: 2 minutes
Date story recorded: December 2010 and January 2011
Date story went live: 15 August 2011
