Interview with a Spitfire pilot

Sam, what do you remember of your school days?
My background was very international. Living in the area where I did [Charlotte Street had a big international community] meant that there were Norwegian, Argentinean, French and even Swiss children in my class.

Did you like school?
I loved it actually. We had a great headmaster, Mr. Smythe. He took over after a Mr. Campbell whom I hated! Smythe was great. He used to teach us about the great artists and play lots of records for us...

What was it like being a teenager in the 1930s?
When I was a kid I think you appreciated things far more. Children today just don’t know what it was like to go to a dairy or a butcher’s shop or a baker’s. They are used to supermarkets and large department stores...

And there were no credit cards in those days?
No, no credit cards! The only thing I remember was that my parents used to send me to the local grocer’s to go shopping, and of course it was ‘on the slate’... my mother would come and pay the bill at the end of the week.

Who were your childhood heroes?
Don Bradman, the cricketer ... I was never a football fan, even as a child ... in fact ... I still dislike football! One of my heroes was the son of one of my dad’s friends. He was a film cameraman. He actually went to the States and became very well known ... Then there was a guy called Cusey Reginsky ... he was a wrestler!

Were there any favourite books?
Yes, I used to read ‘Captain Marryat’ that was a great favourite of mine ... they were adventure stories ... and there was one book that I remember to this day, it was written by an Indian called ‘Grey Owl’.

That was the name of the book?
No, that was the man’s name. He was an Indian and his name was ‘Grey Owl’. He actually came to London and gave a lecture ... a talk ... I remember him very clearly. He wrote beautiful books about animals.

What particular memories stand out?
Oh, so much was happening ... I remember Malcolm Campbell – the first man to drive over 100 miles an hour in a car ...

That was a great achievement in those days?
It sure was. Amy Johnson, I remember ... she was one of the first women flyers to fly across the Atlantic. I also remember seeing the airship R101 over London before it crashed.

If you went to the cinema, who did you want to see?
Well, there were all the usual ones ... I remember seeing Charlie Chaplin. We went to see Chaplin in the film The Gold Rush at a cinema called the New Gallery in Regent’s Street. In the middle of the film I started crying and said I wanted to go. My parents couldn’t understand this and when we got outside they said, ‘Why didn’t you want to see the rest of the film?’, and I said, ‘I didn’t want to die!’ ‘What do you mean?’ they said. I told them that I had heard someone say ‘I nearly died laughing!’...

You must have been rather young at that time ...
I was perhaps five or six ... I didn’t want to die! Another interesting thing about Charlotte Street was that number 107 was known as the Music and Arts Club. It was a place where they taught music, dancing, acting ... all sorts of things for young people ... among the teachers there was Charles Laughton, who went on to become a very famous actor. The other interesting thing about 107 is ¾ my dad told me this and it’s a true story ¾ that during the First World War Trotsky and some of the others who were planning the Russian Revolution used to meet in the back room!

Moving on to the 1930s, your teenage years, did you have any sense of the gathering storm in Europe?
Yes, very much so. When I was about thirteen or fourteen we knew many people who had escaped ... refugees from Germany ... from Hitler’s Germany.

Did you become active in any way? Did you protest?
From around about the age of fourteen or fifteen I was very much aware and joined in student demonstrations against Mostly -- the leader of the British fascist party. They used to have big marches through the East End of London … through the Jewish communities ... but we were the ones who used to get beaten by the police, not the fascists!

In the 1930s people hoped that it would be peace and not war. Did you feel that war was on the way, no matter what happened?
Well I didn’t trust Chamberlain [British prime minister Neville Chamberlain]. I thought he was an idiot! You know, Chamberlain came back in 1938 after he had had this meeting with Hitler and had given so much away. He had this piece of paper and was saying that he had secured ‘peace in our time’ ... well that was the biggest load of nonsense ...

What could have been done differently?
They could have stopped Hitler before he became powerful. When he started the Nazi party everything was so wrong in Germany that people were going to hold on to anything. When they saw what he was doing they could have stopped him there and then. But the truth is they didn’t want to stop him. They were hoping he would turn on Russia and the communists.

When did you leave school?
I left school when I was seventeen, in 1937.

You worked for Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) the film company?
Yes ... I started as the tea-boy and then went into studio publicity – doing reviews of new films. On my very first day I was told to collect the tea-tray for Mr Sam Eckman. He was the only man in London who drove a Cadillac! I was to collect this silver tea-tray which had been presented to him by the Prince of Wales. Anyway, I was carrying this really heavy tray up the stairs but did not want to put it down to open the office door. At that point someone came up behind me and I said, ‘Here, mate, help me open the door. I’ve got the old man’s tea here!’ He opened the door and said, ‘Put it here son ...’ It was Sam Eckman! I was sure I was going to get fired. But I didn’t and stayed at MGM for many years.

The 1st of September 1939, the war begins ...
Yes, and on the 3rd of September the declaration of war ... I remember that very clearly ...

What was your reaction?
There were two things. When Chamberlain [Britain’s Prime Minister] had finished his speech on the radio, they played ‘God Save the King’. I remember to this day saying, ‘Well, God, while your watching over the King would you mind watching over me and my family.’ ... Then there was a silence and one of the first things that came into my head was panic! I realised that if I was in the services [‘the services’ is another name for the Army, Navy and Air Force] and something happened to my parents, I wouldn't know where they were.

Were you expecting to be called up to serve in the services?
I actually wondered just how long it would be before I was called up.

Were you called up?
Well, I was a volunteer. I was in the RAF [Royal Air Force].

When did you join the RAF?
I started in January 1940.

Since you were a volunteer why did you choose the RAF and not the Army or the Navy?
Well I wanted a job sitting down so I was told, ‘Good, you can be a pilot!’

Was that the reaction you got?
No, that’s just the story I tell. Most of my friends were in the RAF. We all joined together.

How long did it take you to learn to fly?
We were training for just over a year. It didn’t take long before you flew solo, you know, on your own, but there was a lot of training. I started flying in 1941.

Which aircraft did you fly?
Spitfires, only Spitfires.

What memories do have from that time?
There are no pleasant memories from that time. I am very lucky to be here today ... very, very lucky ... but some of us managed to get through.

Were you ever shot down?
No. I came home with a few bullet holes, but never anything serious ... I did lose a lot of friends. A lot of people say that we were heroes, my own feeling is that the civilians [‘civilians’ are people who are not members of the armed services] were the heroes. My parents who slept in the Underground for four years and did their jobs, they were the heroes ... They didn’t have any food but we had food. We were doing something, but when you’re on the ground as a civilian and a flying bomb comes over ... you’re helpless!

Where were you when it all ended in 1945?
I was in a place called Celle in the north of Germany ... close to Belsen. That’s what can make me mad today when people say that all that business about concentration camps was untrue ...

Did you see anything with your own eyes?
Yes, I saw Belsen ... I'll never forget it. In fact, I saw a number of concentration camps in Germany.

I understand that you were among the first British forces to liberate Denmark?
Yes, we were in Celle on May 4, and arrived in Copenhagen on May 8. We were the first squadron [a ‘squadron’ is the name given to a group of aircraft in the RAF] of aircraft to land in Copenhagen.

What sort of reception did you get?
Fantastic! I remember the first day very clearly ... but I don't remember the next three weeks!

There were a lot of celebrations?
Oh yes, quite a lot ... it was very positive ...

Did you have any duties during those three weeks?
We didn't do much flying. My biggest job was on the first of June to organise a great big party at Kastrup.

A party for whom?
For everybody, we had a big ‘open day’ and we invited everybody to the airfield ... in the evening there was a dance in the aircraft hangers. We also organised a fly-past of RAF aircraft. I was responsible for organising that ... we got through 10,000 bottles of beer!

CELLE, GERMANY:

‘THIS is a charming town,’ wrote our War Correspondent, Colin Wills ... He was at Celle, in Hanover. But, Wills went on to say, Celle had one plague spot: a Nazi concentration camp.

‘Here men were found: living, dying and dead ¾ in circumstances so loathsome that our soldiers could with difficulty restrain themselves. The British authorities acted promptly. They rounded up the townsfolk of Celle and compelled them to bathe and tend their wretched victims, to supply them with decent clothing, and to clean up the camp.

This was well done. Here, in little measure, was an object lesson to the Herrenvolk: a reminder that their Fuehrer has lost his war and that the time is coming when Germans must make restitution.

This was one of the first newspaper reports to come from Germany in the spring of 1945. Sam Lomberg, the subject of this month’s interview, kept this newspaper cutting. The reason Sam did this was because he had seen these horrors with his own eyes. Sam believes very strongly that the crimes of the Nazis must never be forgotten. He is especially disturbed by those in the new Germany who deny the Holocaust.