Gravity Hatch

Gravity Hatch

What will they remember about you? 65 years in a plastic bag

This is a picture of my nan, Olive, (left) with her sisters in 1920. I know this because my parents thoughtfully kept this photo, neatly labelled, so that we kids could one day look back and appreciate that this once-young and lively woman had a life before she became the grey-haired lady who served us sponge and custard every Sunday teatime during our childhood.

Now imagine this – 50 or 100 years from now, you will be a face in a faded photograph just like this one (they may even be laughing at what you're wearing too!) …….your great-great-great grandchild may be researching the distant past of their family tree……they may know your name, and that you are the one 3rd from the right……but will they know that you used to cry at movies, or that you were a brilliant artist, or that the milkman came with a horse and cart when you were a child?

My father recently unearthed a plastic bag which had lain unopened for 65 years. In it was the precious correspondence between his oldest brother Joe and their mother (the very same Olive, above) during the war years, when Joe trained in an RAF Lancaster Bomber squadron.

Meet Uncle Joe.  I never did, by the way. He died many, many years before I was born. I recall his photograph sitting on my Nan's sideboard. It was, in all honesty, an ornament to me as a child, another 'thing' which I did not understand the significance or provenance of, but which seemed to carry with it a certain 'taboo', as though it was not to be spoken of.

Some 30+ years on, I now understand the gravity of this image, and I hope to repay Joe for my infantile ignorance by bringing his story to the world. Every family has a hero - Joe is undoubtedly ours.

Joseph was the eldest of 4 children (my dad being the youngest by some 9 years or more) and was doing very grown up things when my father was still, quite literally, in short trousers.

He went off to war as an eager young teenager and spent a year or two in intensive training in the RAF. He qualified as a gunner, and over time was promoted to Flight Sergeant and became a gunnery instructor.

There were many young men like Joe, so why is he so remarkable to me? Well, apart from the obvious fact that we were directly related, what makes Joe's story stand out is the fact that he wrote it all down for us in this series of letters home to his mother and sister. A chance discussion about family history in the run up to the launch of the SaveEveryStep.com website led to their discovery. The letters were sitting in a plastic bag, untouched for 65 years, in my aunt's spare bedroom. My dad did not even know they existed, and since he had never really known Joe in the way brothers should, was understandably nervous about the emotions which might be stirred by reading them.

The letters sit in their original envelopes. They include two-way correspondence both from Joe to home, and his mum's replies. They talk of Joe's chums, training regimes, night flying, the cold of the aircraft (Lancaster Bombers) and of his love for a young teenage girl. They are written as a boy would write, since that's exactly what most of these young men were, and are mostly light-hearted and light. 

On the first active bombing raid mission which Joe and crew took part in, they were caught in a dog fight and were shot down over the sea outside Holland. We have discovered an account of this episode, (miraculous coincidence), written by one of Joe's crew members who recently passed away. This is not fiction, not a movie, but a real incident in which my own uncle was involved. A piece of history which must be treasured and preserved as part of our family's and country's heritage. Here is an extract. 'Mac' is Joe's nickname......

"The crew reported in turn and then all that could be heard on the intercom was the sound of heavy breathing. I lay there with Mac, listening to the sound of our one engine, seeing the fuselage twitch as we rolled and yawed and the skipper corrected. There were no other thoughts except what if I broke a leg or an arm on impact? Would it hurt much? "4000 feet" called Harry. I signalled '4' to Mac and just as I did this the engine coughed and went dead. The nose tilted forward. Just as suddenly the engine roared into life........."3000 feet" said Harry. I signalled '3' to Mac. This time the engine kept roaring. A few seconds after it cut again, only to roar into life when we dipped forward. It seemed to me that somewhere petrol was swilling into the carburetor pipes when we dipped forward........I lay perfectly calm now, listening and waiting for what was now inevitable.

"Can't see a bloody thing yet" called Harry, "we're still in cloud".........."2000 feet". "1000 feet". God, we're going in fast, I thought. Sweat was breaking on my skin. Mac was looking at me with a frown and puzzled look on his face. I signalled '1'. Mac looked at me as though to say 'what happened to 2?!' I looked at him, gently held him closer and shook my head, listening hard. I felt Mac start to tense his body. He too probably knew we were going to hit hard.

"I see it - 400 feet. Stand by for impact!" shouted Harry. I squeezed Mac's shoulder hard and we braced each other. I squeezed harder several times and turned my head quickly to Mac. I tried with my right hand to reach the side of the fuselage and then - WHAM!

The inside of the aeroplane then whirred with vibration. I wasn't conscious of it stopping or slewing around, just a sudden surge of water from Lord knows where, and suddenly I was on my feet. Mac was already up. A wave of water poured through the escape hatch..... I glanced back and to my horror saw that the aircraft had broken in two just aft of the bomb bay. The tailplane and my turret were beginning to float away. Must get out quickly now......

At last I was on top of the fuselage. Harry was just pulling clear through the escape hatch which had been above his head.......For a moment he sat on the edge on top of the cockpit canopy with his back to us. He looked round as he pulled his legs clear. He was grinning at us. "Well boys, we made it" he shouted to us......."

 

This account is written over some 17 pages. When I first received it (from a very nice lady at the Gold Coast Squadron Association), I was trembling. I waited all day before I read it, because I wanted to be somewhere quiet and uninterrupted. It is the first time I have cried for someone I never even met. It is the simple humanity embedded in the words which makes it so real, the ordinariness of being Bomber Crew - putting on a tie to potentially fly to your death, having to wear a heated air suit and finding that your sandwiches have toasted in your pocket, sharing the fear of pre-flight nerves. These are the things which are personal to each of us, and rarely get passed on through the generations.

Joseph survived being shot down. He also survived the war. He went on to serve in Singapore, still writing home throughout.

In 1945 at the age of just 22, with the cruelest irony, Joe died tragically from cancer. He never married his teenage love, and the letters ceased.

My dad has read and re-read these letters. He has made foot-notes and placed them in chronological order, to be clear in his mind exactly what Joe did, and when. He has transcribed the letters by hand. This is the work of a dedicated brother, wrought with new, raw emotions which had been long-since buried.

It was only as a result of the fire which the creation of this website (www.saveeverystep.com) lit underneath me, that I know anything more about Joe than I did back then as a child. The letters would remain in their plastic bag. My father would have gone to his grave without knowledge or understanding of his hero brother. We would never have known that the account of Joe's 'ditching' existed. Would that Joe or Olive were still alive to tell us the rest.

Our children never ask us about our lives and so we never tell them. And there lies the greatest tragedy of all. Would that my Nan were here today to pour out the loving stories of Joe which only a mother could tell...I would transcribe every word and save them as tiny little audio heirlooms for our family's future.

I implore you all, don't leave it too late.

You can create the full story of your lifetime on a timeline at www.SaveEveryStep.com, for free. Capture and share your family's memories in chronological order and full multimedia in this digital scrapbook.

My family will have a record of their lives and the lives of their predecessors in words and pictures in our own personal time capsule – will yours?

 

About the Author

Founder of family life-stories website www.SaveEveryStep.com; mum of two and step-mum of two more; passionate about family nostalgia and the preservation of our memories for future generations

Pressure gauge Physics problems--help?

1. Scientists have found evidence that Mars may once have had an ocean 0.500 km deep. The acceleration due to gravity on Mars is 3.71m/s^2.
a.) what would be the gauge pressure at the depth of 0.184 km of such an ocean, assuming it was freshwater? (answer in Pa please)

b.)To what depth would you need to go in the earths ocean to experience the same gauge pressure?(answer in m please)

2.An electrical short cuts off all power to a submersible driving vehicle when it is 33.3m below the surface of the ocean. The crew must push out of a hatch of area 0.75m^2 and weight 320N on the bottom to escape. If the pressure inside is 1atm, what downward force must the crew exert on the hatch to open it? (answer in N please)

1)
a)
Pressure = density * g * h = 1000 * 3.71 * 0.184 = 682.64 Pa
b)
Pressure = density * g * h
For same pressure:

h = Pressure/(density * g)
= 682.64/(9.81*1000) = 0.0696m
2)
Pressure at that depth = density * g * h = 1000 * 9.81 * 33.3 = 326673 Pa
Force on the hatch due to pressure = Pressure * area = 0.75 * 326673 = 245004.75 N

I don't get whether the question is says the hatch is at top and the crew must push it up or it is at the bottom and the crew must push down. If the hatch is at top and crew must push up, the weight will work against them. Hence total force exerted will be (245004.75 + 320 = 245324.75 N). If the hatch is at the bottom, and the crew must push down to escape, the weight will work for them and help them hence the force exerted will be (245004.75 - 320 = 244684.75N).

Minecraft- Hatch Trap using Redstone and Lava