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I am a pupil from Prudhoe Community High School, Northumberland, entering Donald Stanley Cave鈥檚 story onto the website, and they fully understand the website terms and conditions of use.

In 1942 Donald Stanley Cave heard of the outbreak of war he decided to volunteer to join the RAF and fight for his country to help the allies win the war.

I went to Leicester to volunteer from my home in Market Bosworth, which is a small village in Leicestershire, when I was 17 陆. This was at the end of 1942. By the time I was 18 I was in the RAF. I went on my own to volunteer, not with friends.

I was in the RAF (Royal Air force) as aircrew flying in Wellington bombers. I was a Flight Sergeant and my job was radio navigator.

First I was sent to Birmingham for 3 days for medical examinations and aptitude tests. We had all kinds of tests, maths, general knowledge etc, but the one I remember most was sitting in a blackened room being shown types of aircraft that you had to identify. Depending on how you did in all these tests the RAF would either accept or reject you.

I was accepted and so the next place I went was on the train from Nuneaton to London to join up at Lords Cricket Ground. This was the aircrew reception centre. You signed on as a PNB (Pilot, Navigator or Bomber) but you couldn鈥檛 choose, they just chose on the basis of who was needed.

After that I went home and was called up about 6 months later, in March 1943. I had to go down to London where I was issued with my kit and uniform. We had to wear a white flash in our forage cap to show we were aircrew. I still remember my aircrew number to this day, it is 1819592! We had more tests to take, including practical things like swimming. We also had lots of injections at a building in Abbey Road, which later became the studio where the Beatles recorded their records.

We then started 6 weeks of initial training with the ITW ( Initial Training Wing) and I was sent to Bridlington.

After ITW I was sent to Yatesbury in Wiltshire to be trained for flying. I was with a friend called Johnny Cottell who I鈥檇 met at Lords Cricket Ground. The pilot who was leader of the Dambusters squadron, Guy Gibson, trained at Yatesbury too just before me. He was about 21 at the time and I was 18 or 19.

Next I was sent to Air gunnery school in Walney Island in the Lake District. Everyone had to train on the guns in case the gunner on your plane was killed, you would have to take over. This was my first time on Wellington bombers and I was the radio navigator. We flew over the lakes and hills for training.

There are 5 or 6 crew in a Wellington. The pilot and co-pilot are at the front. The radio navigator (that鈥檚 me) sits behind, then the navigator, then two gunners are in the front and back gun turrets. It鈥檚 very cramped, especially in the gun turrets where you have to be locked in, and very narrow. Towards the tail it is only about 3 feet high and don鈥檛 forget you have to crouch to get through because you鈥檙e wearing a parachute as well. It鈥檚 a very safe plane as it鈥檚 built using a 鈥榞eodetic construction鈥�, that means the frame is made of diamond shapes joined together so it鈥檚 very strong. It was designed by Barnes Wallace the same person who developed the bouncing bomb used by the Dambusters. There are ropes inside the plane to hold onto as you walk because it wasn鈥檛 as stable as modern planes are, and half way down there鈥檚 an escape hatch with a lever at the side. If you sprung the lever you could use the escape hatch to get out. This was vital of course, but it was so cramped inside the plane that if you slipped and knocked the lever accidentally you could fall out. Sadly this happened to one of our crew in training and he fell out over the sea. We never saw him again.

It was really hard work at air gunnery school. We did night firing and night flying and there were no weekends off. We also had guard duty to do as well, even when we were training. At night we were trained to fire tracer from Browning machine guns, you fire one tracer shell in every ten. We also practiced throwing grenades and had bayonet practice.

鈥淭hey were the enemy. If you didn鈥檛 kill him he鈥檇 kill you.鈥�

We flew all over the country; the Welsh mountains were particularly good for navigating and flying exercises.

You had to keep your uniform smart and pressed. The best way to keep the trousers pressed was to put them under the mattress. The mattress was in 3 sections called 鈥榖iscuits鈥� and you put your trousers under the biscuits every night to keep them smart. You had two jackets, a best dress one and a battle dress one and the buttons had to be polished.

Before my posting I went to the operational training unit in the Lake District then I had several postings to Melton Mowbray, Catterick and Bath. When you are posted, you have finished your training and are waiting to be sent out on missions, either on bombing raids, dropping leaflets, to dishearten the enemy, or 鈥榙ropping window鈥�. 鈥楧ropping window鈥� is dropping bunches of square foil from the plane which will be picked up by the enemy radar and confuse the enemy. A group of 5 or 6 planes, called the diverse force, would act as a decoy for a group of bombers so the bombers hopefully wouldn鈥檛 be detected until it was too late!

My last posting was to Digby in Lincolnshire but by this time the war was virtually over. As the war ended, you were given a choice, you could keep flying and sign on for another 5 years in the RAF or you could pick a course to prepare you for life outside and leave: be 鈥榙emobbed.鈥� I wanted to leave, so I chose an accountancy course. I did some training in Blackpool and was sent to Digby to work in the accounts office. It was on the way to Digby that I met your Grandma. She had been posted to the Education section.

I was demobbed in 1947. It took about 5 days to be finally demobbed. They gave you a suit, a hat, shoes, a shirt, a tie, pants and socks, just one set. You handed your kit in, were given a pass and were signed off. I got the train home.

One of the most frightening moments I experienced was during our flying training. We were asked to train some members of the French fleet air arm to use the guns in the Wellington bomber. We flew over to Ireland, flying at about 50 feet above the sea, so the guns could be fired into it. The guns sometimes jammed and I had taught the French airman how to remove a few bullets from the belt and then feed the belt back through the gun again. I was sitting in the co-pilots seat and I asked the trainee to fire, but nothing happened, this went on for some time and I realised the gun must have jammed. I told the airman to clear the blockage, then the next minute the plane made a chugging, stuttering sound and I looked out of my window to see that the propeller had shattered. The French airman had unjammed his gun by removing some bullets, opened his window and flung them out of the plane. They had been sucked into the powerful propeller and had shattered it. Luckily we managed to fly home on one engine, but we could all have been killed. All the way home I felt cold, and when I got out of the plane I saw why, there was one hole about 6 inches above where my head had been where a piece of the propeller had gone straight through the fuselage and an exit hole on the other side of the plane. The French airman was disciplined for his careless behaviour.

My luckiest escape though was when I was called back as I walked across the tarmac to one plane then changed to another instead. You didn鈥檛 ask for explanations, you just did as you were told. The Polish pilot of that first plane, he had the Polish equivalent of the Victoria Cross, had been sent back from the action for a rest, and he was used to flying Spitfires which respond very quickly. Wellingtons are heavier planes and are slow to respond. That plane I should have been on crashed into the sea just as it came in to land after the mission, and everyone on board was killed. They only found two bodies, the others were found much later miles down the coast. It was a very sad moment when the parents came afterwards, their sons were only young lads like me.

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