Level: Category
Sound Archive
Level: Fonds
TED HALEY RECORDINGS
Scope and Content:
Title: Robert Ramsey; Wartime RAF and POW Memories
Speaker(s): Ramsey, Robert; Haley, Edward
Date of recording: 19/2/82
Length of tape: 80 mins
Depositor Haley, Edward
Restrictions: Copyright E. Haley
Synopsis of tape: Interview with Robert Ramsey, born 1921; Ford's office trainee after leaving school until joined RAF in 1942; detailed description of lengthy training period to be a navigator, including a period in South Africa; description of navigation by sextant and dead reckoning and estimation of drift; return of England via New York on ship with Italian POWs; details of further training in UK and discussion of planes flown; first op. March 1944, details of disastrous raid on Berlin; advances in navigation - Pathfinders; shot down by a nightfighter over Louvain on the night of 10th-11th May; details of experiences, including being hidden by farmer and family, helped by Resistance and hidden in grocer's shop in Brussels; feelings at various stages of these events. (Side two) Details of being picked up and interrogated by Gestapo, transferred to POW camp; forced march further into Germany as Russians advanced; eventual liberation by the British and return home; feelings then and now about Germans and Allied bombing. (Recording quality is poor and part of side two is untelligible)
Dates of Creation:
1982
Custodial History:
Deposited 26/8/1993

Key terms

TypeKey termsDescription
Subjects Second World War Robert Ramsey; Wartime RAF and POW Memories, 1982
Document Types Sound recording Robert Ramsey; Wartime RAF and POW Memories, 1982