AS a rear gunner with Bomber Command, Ronnie Holdsworth wasn’t expected to survive more than three air raids during the Second World War.
Seated at the back of bomber aircraft, isolated from the crew and exposed to enemy fighter planes, tail gunners held one of the most dangerous jobs in the military.
Ronnie went on to survive all 32 raids he flew on with 158 Squadron. “It got us there and it got us back,” says the Bradford war veteran, reflecting on the mighty Handley Halifax Bomber. Now105-years-old, Ronnie looks back on his remarkable military service with the humility of that extraordinary generation.
No. 158 Squadron was a prominent heavy bomber squadron during the Second World War. Ronnie completed all 32 ops with his crew. Photos: Angie Burns
Like many airmen, Ronnie took a talisman on every raid. “Our pilot, wouldn’t let us fly without them,” he recalls. “Some guys had a flag or mascot, I had a little bag of lucky charms.”
Next month members of Ronnie’s family will travel to California, where he lives in a retirement home, with video messages from the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Cllr Chris Herd, and International Bomber Command.
“We’re taking Remembrance Sunday to Ronnie,” says his great niece, Angie Burns. “He’s returned to the UK over the years for reunions with 158 Squadron but he can no longer travel. Ronnie’s retirement home in Bakersfield is organising a special event for him and other veterans. International Bomber Command are trying to obtain an RAF uniform for him to wear and they’re producing a replica of his logbook, detailing all his 32 ops. We have also contacted Buckingham Palace requesting a message from the King.
“Ronnie’s war service is incredible. He is one of the world’s last surviving WW2 airmen.”
Ronnie, second from left, top row, with his Bomber Command crew.
One of eight children, Ronnie grew up in Great Horton. He was 18, working in a paper and twine factory, when he volunteered for the RAF in 1940. He was sent on a mechanics course in Dishforth near Ripon, before reporting to Liverpool Docks, where he boarded a troop ship. Since the men were each given a ‘tropical kit’, he knew they were heading somewhere warm.
In an online interview with historian Steve Darlow, who was involved in the RAF Bomber Command Memorial in London, Ronnie recalls sailing along the coast of Africa, and colliding with a ship near Sierra Leone. Boarding another ship, they sailed on to Egypt, where major North Africa battles were taking place, and later Kenya, training as an aircraft mechanic in Nakuru. Ronnie was later sent to Madagascar, to work on Blenheims, and qualified for air crew. This was 1943 and the UK Bomber Offensive was escalating.
It was at RAF Catterick where Ronnie met his crew. “We were all in a big room - gunners, navigators, pilots. We got to know each other,” he recalls. “A Scotsman called Jock, a pilot, came up to me and said ‘I need a rear gunner. How about it?’”
Ronnie was stationed at RAF Lissett with 158 squadron, converting from twin-engined Vickers Wellingtons to the Handley Page Halifax, a four-engined heavy bomber. He recalls nervously filing into the briefing room ahead of his first mission, to be told of the target. Most of the raids were in Germany. Recalling the 1,000-bomber raid on the German city of Duisburg, he says: “I’ve never seen so much fire in all my life. I remember thinking ‘It must be terrible down there’. But we did what we had to do.”
Ronnie reveals what it was like to be in the trail turret: “As a rear gunner, I was the only one who flew backwards. My job was to safeguard the aircraft from rear attacks. I was in that cramped, freezing turret for six or seven hours. Most of the time I’m looking around and fidgeting - I can’t sit still or I’d fall asleep. That happened to quite a few.
“I couldn’t talk to anyone, if you started chirping on the intercom the pilot would tell you to shut up.”
The crew came close to crashing near Duisberg on Christmas Eve, 1944. Says Ronnie: “We were coming up to target. There was a big noise. We hit the target and on the way back the skipper said one of our oxygen tanks had been hit. He didn’t know if the undercarriage would hold up. It shook me up, I thought ‘I’m going to be a guest of Hitler’s for Christmas’.
Ronnie Holdsworth, second left, with his Bomber Command crew and the damage to their aircraft after an emergency landing.
The plane did an emergency landing at RAF Carnaby near Bridlington. “We all piled out and saw the damage - a hole in the side of the plane,” says Ronnie.
His last mission was near Berlin on January 16, 1945. “It felt like a load had been taken off, but one crew we knew well didn’t make it that night,” he says.
Ronnie met his wife Margaret at RAF Kirkham where they were both stationed. The couple, who had two sons, Derek and Mike, emigrated to America in 1958. Ronnie was a milkman initially then built a successful career in sales.
Ronnie and Margaret's wedding day. Ronnie's parents, grandmother, sisters and older brother Stanley, who served in the Army and also survived the war, are pictured (Image: Angie Burns)
Until 2008 he attended 158 Squadron reunions and wrote to his crew navigator, New Zealander Bobby Kennedy, until he died in the 1990s.
In America Ronnie has taken part in many veterans events; aged 90 he was back in a rear turret and on his 100th birthday he took to the skies again, in a 1940s bi-plane. On his 105th birthday he rode in a tank and received a letter from President Trump.
Ronnie in a veterans parade on his 100th birthday
“Growing up, I didn’t know much about his war service because he didn’t talk about it,” says Angie. “Bomber Command strategies were so secret; he wasn’t allowed to talk about anything. When servicemen came home they just got on with their lives.”
Ronnie on his 103rd birthday, interviewed on US TV.
Adds Angie: “He’s very humble and still has a sense of humour. His crew nicknamed him Chico because he was from a musical family and liked to dance. He still does a dance class every day.
“People say ‘there aren’t any war veterans left now’ - well we want the world to know that Ronnie is still here. A Bradford man who flew backwards, in a cramped, isolating, freezing turret, for hours, on dangerous raids, day and night.”
Reflecting on his war, Ronnie says: “I often think how the hell did I sit there all that time? It made you grow up pretty fast.”