Preference for Night Time Raids

In the latter part of ’44 they were mostly night raids and then as we got into ’45 there were more daylight raids. I preferred the night time flights because you didn’t see as much. The lights, the explosions and the gunfire were brighter at night but you didn’t see the other aircraft that were in around you. In daylight, of course, when an aircraft got shot down you could see it all happen, you know, and you find yourself hoping that there is going to be some parachutes whereas at night you didn’t see any of that. I think the weather was, we often said the weather was worse than the Germans actually when we were flying. You would come back to England and your aerodrome would be socked in and you’d have to go to another strange aerodrome to land and that meant not only your own squadron but other squadrons were all trying to get into one aerodrome at a time. One night there must have been almost a hundred aircraft landed at the Southampton transport drome because it was the only drome open.