Sam Brookes

I didn’t want to join as a pilot, and could wait till next Monday, To become a rear gunner, but I choose to be a wireless operator, By waiting another three months. There were 30 men in array, And we trained at Bridgnorth and Yatesbury to fly on a bomber. I’d joined with Keith, and we were selected to fly on Lancasters, And because we’d done well in the theory exams, we were chosen, For radio jamming the Luftwaffe’s signals on equipment of ours, Called ABC, and we listened into Nazi transmitters, the conversation. We chose our pilots, but the Adjutant made us into Pilot Officers: We wanted more training, because at stake was our life and death, And, indeed, we went through many pilots, and some had blinkers, Especially the Canadians, unaware of Europe’s mountains and breadth. We flew raids on the Ruhr from base to Reading to Beachy Head, To Le Treport, then across France and into Germany the target; Once Keith’s plane did not return, and i wrote to his mum, not dead, Just missing in a POW camp, to Florence that was my true bet. On the 50th anniversary my wife and i travelled to Calais to see, My friend’s grave, which was in Cambrai, found a UK gardner there, Who directed us to the German cemetery where Kieth was to be, One of 40 graves that lay serene and peacefully with no palaver. His body was still in uniform and on the headstone it carefully said, “Proud and treasured memories,” must’ve been Florence’s words, But I was strangely upset because on the stone “Pilot” was read, Why should it say that when he was a wireless operator, i had words?