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Description
Mr. James recalls the affect the losses in Bomber Command had on the #75 New Zealand Squadron, describing the state of a survivor of a 'milk run' that claimed 7 of 8 planes.
Transcription
Interviewer: During the time that you were with the New Zealand Squadron and 3 Group, were you aware of the losses that were being taken?
Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: What affect would that have on the morale of the station?
It didn't seem to affect it. I remember one night, we sent eight aircraft on a mining mission. And mining missions were usually considered, like, a milk run and usually there was very little problem when they took a mining mission. And we lost seven aircraft out of the eight. It just happened. I, I never did understand. I never did know what happened. I presume they ran into a flock of German fighters. But the next morning, I was sitting in the sergeant's mess, having breakfast and there was a New Zealand... I think he was a navigator. He was a Maori. Is that how you pronounce it? He was sitting there eating his breakfast. You wouldn't think that he'd been on a bus ride, let alone he'd been on the mission last night. And he was in the only crew that survived. No, I didn't sense any loss of morale. They knew by the empty seats in the mess who was gone. They just seemed to take it as part of the game.