‘I don’t think you are an airman at all,’ he said, ‘I think you are an agent, dropped for espionage purposes.’ He sat and savoured the effect of this bombshell for several more minutes, before reminding me that I was not wearing RAF identity discs. I tried to defend myself against this charge by pointing out that I was wearing RAF uniform. He dismissed this by saying, ‘I can go to Paris and buy any amount of those on the black market,’ meaning that my uniform stood for nothing.
He then said, ‘You do not appear to belong to an aircrew either.’ His accusations were terrifying, but at the same time, I thought, ‘He knows about David.’
I was returned to my cell, no doubt to be given time to dwell on my predicament.
Eventually the door was flung open once more and I was led back to my tormentor. As I entered his room he was again studying some papers, and again kept me waiting in terror while he chose the moment to order me to sit.
His acting was as good as his command of the English language, because even before he said a word, I felt doomed.
‘I am still convinced you have been dropped for espionage purposes,’ he alleged when he was ready. Then he left me again in misery while he slowly gathered up the papers he had been studying, making me think that that was his final decision. I sat there in increasing terror thinking he was about to summon the guards to take me away to face the firing squad.
But next came some relief when he suddenly said, ‘Right, if you are who you claim to be, tell me the places where you were trained?’
I refused to answer, as I knew I must not, even to save my own skin. Feigning irritation expertly, he then tossed a thick book in my direction, saying, ‘You will not be giving any secrets away, look in there.’ The book appeared to be a complete list of RAF establishments in Great Britain, listed in alphabetical order, along with whatever unit or squadron was stationed there. He had urged me to look at it, obviously thinking it to be a trump card, but at that moment his telephone rang and he had to take his eyes off me while he answered it. Flicking quickly through the pages of the book, I was able to test its accuracy by looking for two airfields that I knew to be new. They were not listed, which gave me a little bit of satisfaction, thinking, ‘He does not know everything then’, but this did little to allay my fears.
The telephone call must have been more important than grilling me, for while he continued with it the guards entered and took me back to my cell, feeling that I was living on borrowed time and certainly not in the clear.
It was almost two days before I was marched off down the corridors again. I had had plenty of opportunity to wake up to the fact that even if my captors knew that I was in the same aircraft as David, it was no proof that I was a genuine crew member. As a result, I was so terrified of what I was about to encounter that I did not notice that I was being taken off in a different direction this time. It came as a surprise then, when I was ushered into a different room to face a different interrogator.
This officer presented a friendly attitude and although we had been warned many times by the RAF Intelligence to be on guard against this approach, it was a great relief when he straight away said, ‘Now, we are both wireless people, technicians, so we understand each other.’
He did not question my identity at all and did not ask any questions for some time, but then, quite unexpectedly, still maintaining his friendly manner, he fired a question that stunned me. ‘Were you carrying Fishpond?’ he asked.
About three weeks previously, while still on the squadron, when there was to be no operations that night, all aircrew wireless operators were told to report to the Operations Room immediately. We all wondered what all this was about, as, on arrival, we could see that Service Police were there in force, guarding not only the doors, but all approaches.
It turned out we were to be introduced to, and given a demonstration of, a new piece of equipment that would not only detect and warn of the approach of another aircraft, as the current Aural Monica did, but would also show the direction it was coming from. It was to be under the control of the wireless operator who could then warn the gunners over the intercom. The new equipment was given the codename Fishpond and secrecy, we were told repeatedly, was paramount.
I was too shocked to answer immediately, but an answer was not necessary because almost in the same breath he said, ‘Come with me,’ and led me off to another room where Fishpond was set up and working. There he gave me my second demonstration of its qualities. Nothing else was asked or said before I was returned to my cell.
The difference in this man’s attitude made me feel even more uncertain. To start with I had been accused of being an agent and now I was being asked a question that only an RAF operational wireless operator would know about.
Any hope I might have built up was lost when, nearly two days later, I was marched off to face my first interrogator once more. Neither his attitude nor his accusations had changed, and when I again refused to answer his questions, he said, ‘Well, you offer me no alternative, I must hand you over to the Gestapo.’
Back home we had heard a lot about the Gestapo and its brutal methods, so his threat was indeed chilling. He would be aware of this, so added, ‘And we all know what they will do to you, don’t we?’
Deep down I still thought he was bluffing, but when I reminded myself that this man had the power to do what he liked with me, justified or not, and that there was absolutely no one to even talk to about my predicament, let alone to get help from, it was of little comfort.
Before dismissing me, he again asked about my aircrew, but accepted my refusal to answer without much pressure, which only made me think that he was not concerned if I did not want to help myself. Back in my cell I was left to stew for many more lonely hours.
Next, the wireless man sent for me again. His approach and attitude again differed greatly from his colleague and, in what appeared to be a friendly manner, he tried to get me talking about technical details. He was not very persistent, which made me suspect that he too knew I was going to the Gestapo and thought there was no point in wasting his time with me.
I was soon escorted back to the solitude of my cell.
In the afternoon of that day a different fear came from an unexpected source. With the sound of aircraft overhead, there came a terrible feeling that the cell was vibrating and I was about to be crushed. This was followed by the fear that all the air was being drawn out of the cell. I concluded that, although some distance away, this was a knock-on effect of hundreds of bombs being dropped at the same time, on the same place, by the Americans using their method of carpet bombing. It was terrifying.
Adding to my worries, I recalled that during the lectures which were given about this place, we were told that we would usually be kept for ten days. ‘If they keep you for longer’, we were told, ‘be aware because you are probably telling them something or they think that you might do.’ Calculating that this was my ninth day, how could I be sure that they were not getting something out of me? The complete isolation exaggerated all my problems; there had been no warning given about this in the lectures.
The next day saw another dreaded session with the espionage man, as I came to label him. His approach this time was surprisingly one of ‘Let’s see if we can get you off the hook’. His manner seemed to be a lot softer, when he went on to say, ‘In a mortuary in Berlin, there are the bodies of six British airmen. All I ask you to do is to name them, so that graves can be marked in the proper manner.’
I knew, and I am sure he knew, that they could not all be from my aircrew. Looking back, of course this was his ploy to get me talking, but I could not see that at the time, so I was mystified, suspicious and baffled. Failing to draw me on this subject, his stern and aggressive manner returned, and he delivered what I sensed to be my final, grim warning.