This is a Consolidated Liberator,
that Peter Taylor's incredible story
Peter was 100 when he spoke to us.
But as he recounts his harrowing story,
of your seat.
And when you reach that
Peter was here in the bomb
with the bomb doors open and 1,000
What happens
the sweat ran cold down his back
the policy was that
if you had a bomb that didn't drop
when all the bombs were released,
it was called a hang up.
Now, these hang ups, could that happen
But in The Liberator,
it was possible to walk down
with the bomb racks on either side of you.
And if you ever had a hang up
it was my job
to walk along the gangway
and release the bomb by hand,
which was like a bracket
and you released the bomb.
This particular night,
it was, I think it was Insbrook
and we were flying at about 16,000ft,
and we dropped the bombs.
But when after the bombs and dropped,
it was my job to inspect the bomb bay.
Make sure it was empty.
You always knew when the bombs had gone
Because the aircraft lifted.
This particular night.
I looked down the bomb bay
and I had a torch strapped to my wrist.
Shone it down the bomb racks
are there at the far
There was a 1,000 pound bomb
hadn’t gone with the rest.
So that had got to be got rid of.
Now the drill was
that during the bomb run
My job was to be
holding a remote control
handle back to stop the bomb doors,
which were at the side of the aircraft
dropping down because if they dropped,
release.
So once I detected the bomb hang
I then had to tell the skipper
and that was the signal for the bomb aimer
and for me to walk into the bomb bay.
So once I’d detected this bomb.
I start walking into the bomb bay.
Now, you've got to remember,
I'm wearing full uniform,
flying jacket, leather design, trousers,
boots leather boots.
I've no helmet because we didn't
wear helmets in Liberators.
And I've got intercom.
But I can't use the intercom
because there's no point to plug in.
So I have to walk in there.
And remember I've got my way Mae West,
and then my, parachute harness
So I’m really, like the michelin man.
Well, I walk in
that support the bomb racks
on this walkway.
So I negotiated the first two struts.
Get between them. It's
You have to turn sideways and twist.
And I get right down to the far end
the back of the bomb by the end.
And I'm just getting through the last
strut to get to the bomb.
when the little bottle of CO2
which is attached to your Mae West,
which you flick to fill the Mae West
when my handle on the bottle catches
in the metal fabric of the struts.
It was a terrific, antiaircraft explosion
right under us that threw me.
And I had to grab to hang on
to stay on the platform.
And in doing this,
I twisted
and it inflated, my Mae West.
Now that inflated my jacket,
which blew the whole jacket up
and it trapped me between spars.
And I just was stuck.
I couldn't move,
I got a release valve
at the back of the Mae West,
I couldn't get my arms there.
I couldn't move,
In the meantime,
the bomb aimer has got
He's now opening the bomb doors,
wondering what I'm doing.
Closes the bomb doors puts the torch
on, sees I've got stuck,
shuts the bomb doors.
There's a terrific explosion again
and the aircraft
And I'm hanging on and I'm stuck.
I'm not going anywhere.
The bomb aimer gets thrown
back across the lower flying deck,
so he's out of the way for a minute.
So eventually it settles down again.
But I still can’t move.
I'm trying desperately to get my arm
to open the release valve I can't reach.
I just can't get there.
And it was so flippin cold.
I remember it was freezing,
absolutely freezing.
But even though it was freezing,
I got water running down my back.
Fear pure, unadulterated.
And I didn't know what I was going to do.
And then, quite out of the blue,
there's another series of explosions
caught in
an automated system of ack-ack fire,
and it's targeting us.
Personally.
And we got another terrific burst,
and we're flung all over the sky
and this time,
I don't know, I suddenly realize
that I could move.
And when I looked down,
there was a big split in my Mae West,
it had been torn open, it had let air out.
Which enabled me to move my arm.
I was able to move an arm around my back
and undo the release valve,
now I could move.
So having let all the air out.
I now turn round and release the bomb
and it goes.
Thank goodness.
I eventually made my way back.
I love the gang
Climb up on to the up top flight deck.
My skippers there out of a seat.
I'm shaking like a leaf
and he just grabs
and tells me to lie there and not move.
And I lay on the floor,
I don't know, ten, 15 minutes,
Before I was in a fit state
to get up and resume my duties,
Shaking like a leaf.
Really really truly.
I was in a state
as we flew back when we got about
I resume my normal duties and
I was able to do everything, We landed.
The shaking had stopped.
I stepped out of the aircraft
I was violently sick.
Violently.
I was okay to go back to debrief,
but when the Commander.
Squadron commander saw the state of. They
he sent me out, told me to go to bed.
And I remember staggering
and falling into my
mosquito net.
And I slept.
I slept.
I don't know how long for
the next thing I know.
Is I’m walking on the path
it's black.
Apparently I been screaming my head off
and they pulled me
net mosquito net.
Pushed me outside the tent.
And I walked up and down
till the shaking all stopped again.
And I went back to bed.
The next day
I had no shakes
and I was able to be debriefed.
I didn't get the shakes again.
Lucky for me.
But what I did get
for about the next three weeks,
the three other lads in the tent with me
had to put up with me
in the middle of the night.
And having nightmares.
And they did.
The procedure
and shoved me out into the night air
And after a few minutes, I’d come back in.
It took the best part of three weeks
before I stopped having these nightmares.
But I was lucky.
Many people never got over them,
and our navigator was one
And I felt very sorry for him.
But I was lucky they went.
Fortunate.
But you saw all around you,
people who were suffering like that,
you saw pilots
who should never, ever have been flying
You saw navigators who were
totally incompetent in the state
who would take a bottle of whiskey
I was lucky.
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