WWII: Man who guarded Monty's plane

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A Lancaster bomber practising for the Dambusters' raid

Field Marshall Montgomery

Dennis Spencer's Lancaster bomber crew during the war. They all survived except George Clark (back, far right). Dennis, of Allestree, is front, far right

DURING the war I was a radio officer with 625 Squadron at Kelstern in Lincolnshire, flying Lancaster bombers. We were based on the highest part of the Lincolnshire Wolds and the winter of 1944-45 was so bad that we were marooned and had to dig our way out to get rations.

We did very little flying because of the conditions, so it was decided to move us down to Scampton where we joined 617 the Dambusters Squadron.

We had already done 31 tours in the Lancasters but, rather than be split up, foolishly volunteered for another tour.

The photograph is my Lancaster F Fox crew from 625 Squadron. We flew together throughout the war and all survived, apart from George Clark (back, far right). He went out with another crew one night and never came back.

We were in front of him one night near Nuremburg and saw his plane blow up. I picked the German aircraft up on my radar screen and we shot him down.

Towards the end of the war, we were moved to 78 Squadron, based at Breighton near Selby in Yorkshire. They flew Halifax bombers during the war, but later converted to Dakotas under Transport Command.

We kept flying the Halifaxes until the Dakotas arrived, dumping bombs in the North Sea and flying rations out to the Dutch at the end of the war.

When the Dakotas arrived, the squadron flew them from Breighton to Almaza, Cairo, in 1945. It took three days to get there.

Not long after we got there, I broke my wrist. I was playing football for the squadron and was tackled on a ground baked rock hard by temperatures of 125 degrees.

As I couldn’t use my right hand, I was useless as a wireless operator, so I was grounded and made guard commander in charge of the security of aircraft.

That was how I managed to get so close to Field Marshal Montgomery’s Dakota when it landed at Cairo in 1945 and took the photograph. I didn’t see the man himself but the plane was very plush – highly polished with three emblems on the side, one of them Montgomery’s own.

A normal wartime Dakota had no heating and was very spartan. The seating was just a bench, with room for 15-20 personnel, on either side. There were holes in the perspex windows, stopped with rubber bungs which could be taken out so that machine guns could be used to try and defend themselves if they were attacked.

Montgomery’s plane was sound padded and fitted out with all mod cons, as you would expect.

I was told that he had won the aircraft in a wager with an American officer. I don’t know if it is true but a lot of equipment was won and lost in wagers during the war.

After the war, I took a job at Rolls-Royce, drawing Merlin engines. Then I became a PE teacher – 16 years in schools and 23 years at college in Derby.

The article about Sarah Clark, of Cedar Street, who worked at the Midland Drapery in the 1880s (May 1, No dice, marriage or drinking!) also caught Dennis’ eye.

“She is the spitting image of my mother and my grandmother,” he writes. “My mother’s maiden name was Dorothy Clark, so I think she must be a relative on my mother’s side, perhaps her sister.

“I also remember being taken by my mother to a house in Cedar Street as a boy.”