Hello and welcome to this special episode of We Have Ways of Making You Talk. As you

may know we get a fair bit of correspondence, most of it interesting, some of it very

special indeed. What I'm about to read to you falls into the very special category and

I can honestly say that it's a privilege to be able to bring this to you today. One

of our listeners Oliver Owen got in touch to tell us this. My father Charles Owen was

a Pathfinder 97 Squadron and Master bomber in 1943 to 1944. He flew 55 operations

and stayed on in the RAF after the war, eventually commanding the first operational victor squadron.

During the war he kept an operational handwritten diary which has been used by many historians

looking at bomber command. His logbook, medals and pathfinder certificate were on display

at the Pathfinder Museum at RAF Whiten. Kandregards, Oliver Owen. Very generously Oliver has

shared the transcripts of his father's diary with us and I'd like to read you extracts

from it now. 17th of November 1943, target Ludwig's

Harvann. No moon, no cloud, thick haze, H2S blind bombing, bomb bursts seen after bombing,

three fire scene, one blue explosion among fires. Trip a second pilot with Squadron leader

Garlick. Rout was fairly quiet but saw my first fighter flares. This was an entirely

PFF show so no markers were dropped. The target was very clear with considerable heavy

flak and many searchlights. 18th November 1943, target Berlin. Primary target Berlin

bomb from 19,500 feet. Another trip a second pilot, this time with pilot office of Montgomery.

Many fighter flares on Rout in and we saw several aircraft shot down. There was little cloud

over the big city, but hundreds of searchlights and very heavy flak. We overshot the target

on our initial run so turned back and bombed against the stream. I did not like it at

all and made up my mind never to do it again if I could help it. Rout was very quiet

...