In Don McNaughton’s book about his father’s wartime experiences when he was the mid-upper gunner on a Lancaster bomber during World War 2, retold in “Lucky Pommie Bastard”, he talks about the night, some time after his father had passed away, that he and his mother watched a programme on TV about the British bombing campaign against Germany in World War 2.

His mother told him she found it helpful to understand more about her late husband, but she said she was still confused about something, something that had obviously troubled her husband from his war years, and that never left his subconscious.

So after the programme had finished she said to Don:

“I have some understanding of why your father could be short tempered but what was behind the many nightmares he suffered for years when he woke up in a sweat shouting ‘corkscrew, corkscrew’.”

Don wrote: “Mum had never asked Dad (or he didn't tell her) what his nightmares were about and it was the TV programme that at last informed her that the term was used when sighting a night fighter to get the pilot to take evasive action. This episode also gave me some further insight into how my mother dealt with her war experiences and with Dad, or rather how she could box those memories and experiences up, store them away and ignore them for so many years. Geez Mum if you had asked any of your sons (even me at 12 years old) they could have told you what "corkscrew" was all about and maybe made life a tad easier!”

Let me tell you about what his father meant by corkscrew and why that was a word that he would start screaming out during the night until his dying day.

Tag words: Don McNaughton; Lucky Pommie Bastard; Vic Trimble; Lancaster bomber; Corkscrew; Len Deighton; Bomber; Roy McNaughton; Major Heinz Wolfgang Schnauffer; Halifax bomber; Schräge Musik;