Shoot-ups and Sweeps (Air Tactics and Operations)

Heroes Remember

Shoot-ups and Sweeps (Air Tactics and Operations)

Transcript

Well, a shoot-up is, a shoot-up is when you, intentionally you're sent to do a shoot-up, you come down as direct to non address and go up and then do a roll or a loop. That’s a shoot-up A sweep is different. You go over as a squadron and you fight and if you’re, if you are coming in low, our job was to shoot. The Germans built reduction plants for making gasoline from sugar sugar, what do you call it, sugar beet. We used to try and shoot those things to put a hole in them. A couple of holes in them, it would take them, you know, a couple of days to fix them up, you know, because they were made of copper and they had to put a plunger in, and all that stuff. So that was part of the deal on the, on the sweeps and the other part was, of course to try and knock some of them out of the sky, or if we saw a squadron of guys on the floor that was to go down and give them a nice welcome on the ground and that, it was sort of fun. Detached sweeps they called it. We, we’d stayed at (inaudible) or Digby, you know, wherever we happened to be posted, and we flew to West Malling or some place like that to join the group and then we took off as a group. Sometimes we stayed overnight and sometimes we just flew back after the sweep. Looking for trouble and also if you get a chance to blast these little gasoline makers and or a train or something like that. We flew around twenty five because the, the Messerschmitt had an automatic transmission. It explained it, it shifted pitch and with the gear shift, and it was automatic at twenty four thousand feet and it would kick in and out at that level, you see and you could, and when it did that, they lost power. You see a black puff of smoke come out and so, they were easy to get, or easier to get because they, they’d be, be steep bank and we’d be flying at twenty four, twenty five, twenty five and they’d be puffing in and out, you see. And so, if we ever got in one of those things, we usually ended up getting more of them then they got of us.

Description

Mr. Weir describes the difference between two kinds of air tactics and operations - shoot-ups and sweeps.

John Weir

Mr. Weir was born in Toronto on July 22, 1919. His father was DSO MC in the First World War, a colonel. He was machine gunner in the 19th Battalion, and was gassed at Vimy and suffered from then on with asthma. After seeing the horrific pictures of the trench warfare from his father's service, Mr. Weir decided to join the Air Force rather than serve in the trenches. He joined the service the day after war was declared and began his training in Winnipeg. He started off as a pilot officer-provisional but wanted to be a fighter pilot. During his service, Mr. Weir was shot down in Barth and captured. He was a prisoner in a Gestapo jail, and was involved in "The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III". He was moved to various prison camps and witnessed atrocities of the Holocaust. He eventually escaped on a forced-march from Bremerhaven to Lübbecke by bribing a German guard.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:14
Person Interviewed:: John Weir
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Europe
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 401 Squadron
Rank:: Technical Operations
Occupation:: Pilot

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Shoot-ups and Sweeps (Air Tactics and Operations)

Heroes Remember