Remembrance Sunday: In Search of My Father
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2020
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John Watts never knew his father. He was conceived days before his father, Wing Commander Joseph Watts, was killed on a bombing mission over occupied Europe. He never knew that a bomber from his father's squadron was recovered and is being restored by the RAF museum in Cosford. Dan accompanied John to the museum for the emotional visit which he hoped would bring closure after 80 years of pain.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Dance Knows History Everyone, welcome to a very very special episode of this podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | About six months ago I was contacted by a man called John Watts. He told me that his father, Joseph |
| 0:11.1 | Watts, had been killed on the 13th of June 1940 in a Hamden bomber returning for mission |
| 0:16.8 | over occupied Europe. In the aircraft alongside him, with three other crew members, all four men |
| 0:23.4 | were killed. John Watts, at the time, was a two or three week old embryo inside his mother, Nora. |
| 0:32.2 | John obviously, therefore, never knew his father. He never knew that there was a Hamden bomber |
| 0:37.6 | from his father's squadron, surviving in a museum. They are of museum in Cosford. As soon as he |
| 0:44.4 | found out, he was desperate to see this aircraft, the kind of plane that his father had been killed |
| 0:48.4 | and he'd never seen that or any other Hamden bomber. He got in touch with me and as soon as |
| 0:53.0 | locked down, was lifted. We went up to Arya, Cosford together, toured the museum, and eventually |
| 0:58.4 | we were shown into the workshop where they're restoring this very special Hamden bomber. |
| 1:04.4 | This is both a history podcast. It's also a history hit TV documentary. If you wish to watch an |
| 1:09.2 | extended version of what John and I got up to that day and learn a bit more about the Hamden |
| 1:13.3 | bomber and John's father, Joseph and his mother, Nora, please go over to History Hit TV. You can |
| 1:18.8 | go watch the very moving documentary there. If you use the code pod1pod1, you get a month for free |
| 1:24.0 | and your second month for just one pound euro or dollar. So please do go and check that out. In the |
| 1:30.1 | meantime, please enjoy listening to the very remarkable John Watts talking about his father. |
| 1:43.9 | John and I met in the Second World War hangar at the Arya museum in Cosford. Around us were |
| 1:51.7 | planes that had seen service during World War II. Asked him where his father started out in the war. |
| 1:58.7 | Well, day one of the war I wouldn't quite know exactly, but I think he went fairly soon to |
| 2:06.4 | Woddington and my mother and father lived in Lincoln on the outskirts of Lincoln. |
| 2:14.1 | And first of all, he was at Woddington, but I think at the beginning of the war he went up to |
... |
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