Chapter 12

All Clap Hands for the Walking Dead

We knew the time on target was between 10 and 10. 30pm and joked that we’d catch the Germans just as they were coming out of the pubs. In hindsight I don’t feel good about that but for the most part, we didn’t think in terms of people being killed but of areas we had to hit. That was how things were in 1945.

Flight Sergeant John Aldridge

Stanley Harrison RAAF pedalled on his bicycle up to 460 Squadron RAAF ‘B’ Flight office at the front of one of the large hangars at Binbrook. It was the morning of 13 February 1945. The Australian pilot was unaware that it was the 13th of the month and would not worry about it. In any case he was not superstitious, at least not about the date. He could not know that he would be part of the BBC news in the early hours of the following day. But as he rode up from the Officers’ Mess he realized that the weather was fine and that meant that they would be operating over Germany that night. Having checked that all his crew were fit for flying at 09.15 he reported this to Squadron Leader Bob Henderson DFC, ‘B’ Flight Commander. All the aircraft captains, or ‘skippers’, were sitting around in the Flight Office talking shop or about any interesting happenings, personal or otherwise, in which Bob Henderson joined every now and then when something concerning the Flight, operations, the performance or operation of the aircraft was being discussed. At 10.00 Henderson went to the daily conference in the Squadron Commander’s office. The three flight commanders, the navigation, bombing, wireless and gunnery leaders, were all present and while they reported their state of readiness, details of the ‘Operations for Tonight’ came through from Bomber Command via group and base headquarters. Harrison explains:

‘At lunch in the mess Bob Henderson told me that we were flying that night in J-Johnny instead of our usual kite T-Tommy and that, as briefing was not until later in the afternoon, we would have time to run-up the engines and check the aircraft. I contacted the crew in the sergeants’ mess and told them to be at the locker room at 2 p.m. to take our gear out to the aircraft, to run it up and check it over. There we collected our Mae Wests. Jack Peacock, the wireless operator, took the kit bag of our leather flying helmets, Peter Squires, the flight engineer, took his bag of tools and on the way out to the aircraft we collected the eight .303 Browning machine guns for the turrets.

‘After the crew bus had taken us to our aircraft dispersal area on the perimeter of the airfield, Peter and I gave it a thorough check over externally and internally, including starting up the four engines with a complete test in all phases of operation for each. When the starboard outer engine was run up, ‘Curly’, officially Flight Sergeant Tony Walker, tested his mid-upper gun turret for smooth, efficient rotation, elevation and depression of the guns. He counted into his intercom microphone as he did so, to test that the intercom was OK in all positions of the turret. Maurice Bellis, the bomb-aimer, tested the H₂S radar transmitter, as Max Spence, our navigator, was still at Navigation Section waiting for any “gen” that may have come through concerning times for navigators’ briefing, etc. When the port outer engine was being run up, Jock Gilhooly, the rear-gunner, tested his turret in the same way as the mid-upper, while Jack tested the Gee radar receiver.

‘After a thorough check of the cockpit controls and instruments, compasses, transmitters and intercom at all points, we left the bomb doors open ready for loading from the bomb trolleys and switched off the motors. Leaving our gear in the aircraft we returned to the Flight Office to learn that briefing was at 18.00 with a meal at 17.00 but the navigators’ briefing was at 16.45. This was unusual as the navigators were normally briefed after the meal, before the main briefing, so I thought that maybe it was a very long trip, or a very involved route. The fuel load was 2,154 gallons – maximum load.

‘While sitting in the ante room of the mess after our meal, a few whispers were going around about our target for tonight. The Russians were pushing westwards in the southern sector of the Eastern Front, so we looked at the map in the newspapers and my tip was Dresden. I mentioned this to one of the navigators and he blurted out, “Who told you?” The cat was out of the bag now but naturally I kept it quiet, sitting there thinking of the route we might fly and the heavily defended areas along the way.

‘At about 17.40 I went over to the briefing room and drew the Aids Boxes, for use if we were shot down, and our flying rations. There was the usual moan when we had “Empire” chocolate, as it was the worst grade of chocolate available but it was remarkable how good it would taste after we left the target and settled down to the long tiring trip back. Then we would be trying to stay alert, when a natural winding down from the tension of the bombing run and general fatigue set in. We each received two small three-penny bars of chocolate, half a box of barley sugar sweets, or about six sweets each and two packets of chewing gum. Our Aids Boxes contained concentrated foods, a compass, rubber water bottle, some water purifying tablets and some Benzedrine tablets, which bucked you up if you needed a little extra to make a break for it, etc.

‘We emptied our pockets and then put back only handkerchiefs, about £1 in money, an identity card and an Aids Box. The rest of the contents of our pockets – keys, letters, bus tickets and anything else – were placed in the bag that had contained our Aids Boxes with a label for each crewmember. Then all individual bags went into the big crew bag and the intelligence clerks locked this in a safe. This ensured that if we were shot down, there was nothing to tell the Germans where we came from, so they would be unable to identify our Squadron and its location. At least this was the theory. But some of our Squadron who were shot down and interrogated and later escaped back to England, said that the first thing the German interrogator said to them, after hearing that the crashed aircraft had our Squadron letters “AK” on it was, “How is your commanding officer, Hewgie Edwards VC?” (The Germans never could get their tongues around “Hughie”!)

‘Maurie had his target map and we looked at the route on the big map at the front of the Briefing Room and the photos of the target area, its defences and known searchlight areas, as well as the heavily defended areas on or near our route. Times for sunrise, moonrise and moonset, as well as the phases of the moon, were all on the board. So were “phase of attack” times, “H” hour (the actual time of the start of the attack when the first phase commenced dropping their bombs), take-off time, total distance, bomb loads and ETA back at base. On another board was all the signals gen: the master bomber’s call sign, together with those of the deputy master bomber, radio link and the VHF radio channel on which to receive them. Shortly before briefing was due to start, Max came in with his navigator’s bag crammed full with maps, charts and instruments. In reply to my query of, “What do you think of it Max?” he made the dry wisecrack, “I wish Joe Stalin would get an air force of his own or come and fight on the Western Front if he wants our help like this!”

‘The corniest crack of all was overheard from behind. “I guess there won’t be many Jerries left in Dresden after tonight!” Similar wisecracks were being passed and general back-chat was being indulged in around the room while the crews all waited. Max told me that we were in the second phase, “H+2” to “H+4” and that we were on the lowest bombing height again. (There were four bombing heights, each 500 feet above the next, starting from our height and going up.) Then everyone was on their feet as the Squadron Commanding Officer entered, followed by the station CO and the base commander. We waited until they were all seated then we all sat down again but there was no talking now and the room was suddenly quiet as the Squadron CO, Squadron Leader “Mick” Cowan, walked to the front and started the briefing proper:

“Your target tonight is Dresden.¹ The attack is divided into three phases.² Here are your aircraft letters, phase times and bombing heights. First phase on target from “H” to “H+2 minutes”. “B-Beer”, Flight Lieutenant Marks.”

‘Flight Lieutenant Marks stood up. “All correct sir!” (Indicating that all his crew were present and ready to fly.)

“18,000 feet.”

‘This checking of the crews and allocation of the heights was repeated until all the aircraft in the first phase had been detailed.

‘Second Phase on target from “H+2” to “H+4”.

“O-Oboe, Flying Officer Whitmarsh.”

“All correct sir!”

“19,000 feet.”

“J-Johnny, Flying Officer Harrison.”

‘I was on my feet. “All correct sir!”

“18,000 feet.”

‘As I sat down there was a whispered comment from my friend Doug Creeper, who was sitting behind me: “Can’t that kite of yours get any higher than that, Stan?”

‘I did not bother to reply. Our aircraft, J-Johnny, was certainly not new, had completed more than 30 raids on Germany and was not the fastest in the Squadron but as I had pointed out to my crew, Johnny had developed a very good habit of coming back at the end of each trip.

‘After all the crews had been allocated their bombing heights, the CO called for the various specialist leaders to give their briefing.

‘The Flying Control Officer produced his blackboard. “The runway for take-off is “22” (i.e., the compass bearing was 220 degrees). “A” and “B” Flight aircraft will taxi round the perimeter track behind the control tower to this side of the runway, whilst “C” Flight aircraft will turn left from their dispersal areas and taxi to the other side of the runway. On a “green”, taxi on to the runway and take off on the second “green”. Watch the corner of the runway. It’s soft on the grass there, so taxi slowly and keep on the asphalt!”

‘We had heard most of this at every briefing since we joined the Squadron but there were some new crews and repetition did no harm considering the speed at which some clots taxied. A fully loaded Lanc had a maximum overall take-off weight of 84,000lb, so it took some distance to stop. This could lead to trouble when 23 aircraft had to taxi to the end of the runway and even with “C” Flight coming round from the other side, there would still be 15 of us following one another along that side.

‘Foggo, as the Control Officer was affectionately known, then had his little joke. “The runway for return will be the long one (2,000 yards) but I cannot tell you at this stage from which end we will be landing you!” This raised a small laugh and we were thankful that the forecast was not for strong winds.

“The beacon will be flashing the usual “BK”. Join the circuit at 2,000 feet and do not call up (for permission to land) until you are over the airfield! All three emergency airfields are fully serviceable.”

‘This was a very comforting thought in case we lost engines; brakes or the undercarriage would not lock down.

“When coming back over the East Coast, you must be at 6,000 feet, as the Dover belt of ack-ack guns are still in operation to guard against flying bombs. Do not exceed 250 mph.” (This caused general laughter as the Lanc cruised at 180 mph.)

“Burn only your navigation lights and not your downward recognition light! Any questions?”

‘As there were none, the CO called the “Met bloke” who had charts drawn showing where the weather fronts were located and another giving cloud amounts, heights of bases and tops for the whole of the route to the target and home again. He gave us the gen on the weather to be expected during the whole flight. Cloud was expected from the French coast in to the target, hopefully with some breaks near the target, to give a clear view on the bombing run.

“Weather here mainly clearing, with no cloud over England on return.” (I hoped he was right this time, for we did not want another cloud base of 150 feet after a long trip like this one, with everyone tired and 23 aircraft having to find their way down through it to our airfield. One of these recently was enough for a very long time to come.)

“Icing level 3,000 feet, with Icing Index ‘Moderate’ to ‘High’ in cloud. Any questions?”

“How about contrails?”

“Only above 20,000 feet, so they won’t worry you! Anything else?”

‘The CO called on the Bombing Leader: “All aircraft are carrying the same load, one 2,000lb and eleven containers of incendiaries.”³

“Bomb-aimers select and fuse bombs when the bomb line is crossed. After bombing, check immediately that all bombs have gone and if unable to get rid of any hang-ups there, do not jettison them on the track out of the target but keep them until you cross the jettison area in The Wash on your return.” (Not long back some clot jettisoned a canister of incendiaries in the first leg of the route out of the target and gave every night fighter within 50 miles a clear signal of the route being flown from the target.)

“Set target pressure (estimated atmospheric pressure) as you enter the aircraft and use the Broadcast Bombing Wind, multiplied by 1.1.”⁴

“The Signals Officer will give the time of this broadcast. All aircraft are carrying flashes. Captains, keep your aircraft straight and level while the red light is on and let us have some really good photos tonight.”

‘That sounded easy in the Briefing Room but with other aircraft, slipstream turbulence, not to mention searchlights and ack-ack, it was not quite as simple as that over the target and our camera had fogged up with condensation on our last three trips.

“Bomb-aimers obtain your pro-formas and bomb-stations for your aircraft from the Bombing Section after the briefing. Any questions?”

‘The CO then called the Gunnery Leader: “Just a word to all gunners! Enemy night fighters are particularly active in this area, so keep an even sharper watch in your search pattern than usual.” (Comforting news, I don’t think but then he was not likely to tell them that there were no fighters about and that they could go to sleep, was he?)

“You all know your search plans. Cover all the sky, all the time. Load your guns while you are still in your dispersal area and do not unload or leave your turret until you are back in your dispersal area. Jerry may try an intruder raid with night fighters again and it could be tonight, so stay alert even when approaching base.”

‘The CO now called the Signals Leader: “R/T call signs of the master bomber, deputy master bomber and R/T link are ‘Snodgrass 1, 2 and 3’. The main force bomber stream is ‘Press On’. Channel ‘C’ on VHF and ‘1196’. Wireless operators listen out on your Marconi set on the wavelength shown on your ‘flimsies’, which are available at the back of the briefing room. Remember, skippers, if you cannot get the master bomber on VHF, tell your WOP to select ‘1196’ and press button ‘C’. Broadcast wind velocities will be broadcast at 00.15, 15 minutes before ‘H’ hour and will be the usual five-figure group preceded by ‘X’. Aircraft on ‘Darkie’ watch on the return trip will be G-George, Flying Officer Dowling; J-Johnny, Flying Officer Harrison; and ‘K2’, Flying Officer Creeper. Do these captains know what you have to do?”

“Yes sir,” we replied.

“On the return journey listen out on Channel D for any aircraft in trouble or lost. Very well, that’s all. Any questions?”

‘Now it was the turn of the Intelligence Officer, Squadron Leader Leatherdale and a First World War pilot, who was always worth hearing: “Your target tonight is the Old World city of Dresden. The attack is divided into two parts. 5 Group are opening the attack at 22.30, two hours before your ‘H’ hour, with a slightly different aiming point. You should see their fires still burning when you get there. Jerry is shifting all his government offices with staffs and records for the Eastern Front to Leipzig – raided by 4 Group last night – Dresden and Chemnitz. These three cities are roughly in a triangle. Dresden has not been attacked before as there were no targets there but now, with the ‘Big City’ being evacuated partly to Dresden and with large concentrations of troops and equipment passing through to the Russian Front, the city is crammed full and needs disorganizing. As you can see from the target map, the city is fairly easy to identify and, on your bombing run from approximately north to south, you have several good pin-points to help you check your run.⁵

“Now for the route. Base to Reading, to Beachy Head, to the Rhine, keeping clear of Mainz to starboard. Then on until you pass just slightly starboard of Frankfurt. Frankfurt has a large searchlight area and some ack-ack guns, so keep clear and stay on track. Turn slightly north and then run up as though heading for Leipzig, or when you pass to port of that, as though the ‘Big City’ is your target. Just north of Leipzig, you head east and across through this searchlight belt and you may have quite a few lights put up there but there should be little or no flak. North of Dresden you have a turn of nearly 90 degrees, so watch out for other aircraft and so avoid collisions. You have a reasonably long run-up and, after bombing, you hold the same course until you have completed this short leg, then turn south-west towards Stuttgart and Nuremberg. Keep on track and pass south of these two places or you may have trouble. Then you head west, cross the Rhine on the south-east corner of France and keep clear of this area, where they are still active and getting too many of our aircraft. Cross the coast at Orford Ness at 6,000 feet at least and then lose height across The Wash to base.

“The defences of Dresden are not considerable but they may have brought back mobile flak guns from the Eastern Front, so the flak may be moderate but I doubt if you will find it heavy. Oboe Mosquitoes are marking the target at ‘H-2’ with a single red TI. Then the flares will go down and Pathfinders will drop their TIs. Red and green TIs cascading together will be used only if they can positively identify the Aiming Point. If there is cloud over the target, ‘blind-marker’ crews will use sky-markers, which will be green flares dripping red stars. Your order of preference for bombing will be: 1. master bomber’s instructions. 2. Red and green TIs. 3. Sky-markers on the exact heading of 175 degrees True at 165 mph indicated airspeed. 4. H₂S run.

“Any questions?”

‘The CO now walked out to the map, summarized the briefing and told us the heights at which to fly on each leg of the route:

“Phase times for return: First Phase, 10 minutes before ETA. Second Phase, on ETA. Third Phase, 10 minutes after ETA. Use Aldis lamps for taxiing out and taxi slowly, even on return, when you will have some daylight! Position yourselves on the circuit on your return and we will get you down much more quickly. Any questions? Have you anything to say sir?” (This was addressed to the Station CO.)

“Yes. I just want to impress on you chaps the necessity to be very careful to keep a very keen lookout at all turning points and so avoid any risk of collisions!” (Didn’t he think we knew that? About 200 aircraft all heading for the same point within 6 minutes at the most, with no lights on, was enough to make anyone keep a very keen lookout! We could not guess that within two weeks he would be the one who would have a mid-air collision over France when the Met blokes “boobed” and we would have to climb through 15,000 feet of cloud. After the other aircraft crossed on top of him, wiping out all four of his propellers and his canopy, he dropped back down into the cloud and was the only survivor, losing the crew he had borrowed for the trip!)

“All right chaps, that is all. Have a good trip and hit it really hard.”

‘We all filed out to the locker room to change into our flying clothes. Jack and Maurie collected their pro-formas and flimsies on the way. Jock and Curly started their long job of getting dressed in electrically heated flying suits, socks and gloves, while Peter and I changed too. Max had gone back to the Navigation Section. It was a cold night on the ground and the Met bloke said that the temperature at 20,000 feet would be – 25 degrees, which would not be as bad as the – 45 degrees we had had once or twice. But it would still be quite cool so I put on my long wool and rayon underpants and long-sleeved singlet. As J-Johnny was not a cold kite, I did not put on my big hip-length socks but put on my usual pair of woollen socks and a pair of woollen knee-warmers before getting back into my trousers, then my flying boots. My shirt collar was left undone and tie loosened but left on, in case of diversion to another airfield on return. It would be awkward to go around without a collar and tie. I left the front collar stud in place, as there was a small compass built into the back of it, for use if I had to try to get back from Germany on the ground. I put on my once white silk scarf to keep the wool of the roll-neck pullover away from my neck, as it got very irritating after a few hours rubbing on the stubble of whiskers, and then a sleeveless pullover and the big rolled-neck one that came down over my hips, eliminating any draught between trouser top and battledress when seated. Then, with my torch and small-scale map, with the whole route on it, stuck into the top of my right boot and my flying rations down the left one, I was ready. I put “George”, my fur dog mascot, into my battle-jacket and then went to see how the rest of the crew were getting on. I carried my three pairs of gloves (silk, chamois leather and outer leather zippered gauntlets) and found Peter ready and waiting for me, similarly attired, except for all the gloves. John needed practically nothing extra, as he sat on top of the heater unit. Maurie had a few extras similar to Peter and also a big scarf, as it got draughty with his head down in the open-ended Perspex bubble while he was keeping a lookout for night fighters homing on to us from below.

‘Curly and Jock were in their electrically heated suits and socks and now Curly pulled on the waterproof outer flying suit I had loaned him, as his issue buoyancy suit was too bulky to get him, and it, into his turret together. (No doubt it was Curly who was too bulky but this arrangement suited him very well.) Jock put on his big roll-neck sweater, a sheepskin vest (by courtesy of the Australian Comforts Fund through the hands of his skipper in the cause of another warm and happy gunner) and then his battledress jacket. Long knee-hip socks and heated flying boots completed their outfits, with their heated gloves.

‘Max had not come in yet but would follow later so we went to get the crew bus out to the aircraft in the dispersal area. Many crews had the same idea and after finding the right bus in the darkness and telling the WAAF driver our aircraft letter, we piled into the back and waited until the thing was full to overflowing with other crews. We visited several other “B” Flight dispersals and wished the other skippers well.

“Have a good trip. Doug!”

“Same to you Stan; I bet I beat you home tonight!”

“So you ought to. You have a start on me. I’m in the second phase!”

‘We arrived at our dispersal and again Peter and I went right around the aircraft, thoroughly checking for leaks, looking at the tyres for pressure and seeing that the aileron and rudder chocks had been removed. After checking inside again, we were ready to run-up and when everything was in order we switched off and climbed out for a final smoke, spit, swear, yarn and a “leak” before take-off. We had about half an hour to go and the boys on the ground crew took the wheel chocks away, as I would not be running up again, while I went over to the ground crew hut to sign the aircraft maintenance Form 700. I just took a quick look to see that it had been signed up by the various maintenance types and then signed it as taking the aircraft in satisfactory condition. The main thing was that the Flight Sergeant in charge of the aircraft said it was OK. If he said it was OK, then you could bet your boots or your life that it was!

‘Max arrived, got in and sorted all his gear out, with his charts, etc., in their right places. The Doc came round with his “wakey-wakey” tablets and Peter took charge of them, except for two each for Jock and Curly. We very rarely used them but it was handy to have them in case anyone felt really tired! They had an effect for about 4 hours and I wanted to know who took them and how often. Everyone now had their Mae Wests on and the rest of the crew had on their parachute harnesses, as their parachutes were stored separately near where they were stationed, while I sat on mine and strapped the harness on when I got into my seat at the controls. It was about 10 minutes before we were due to take-off so we all climbed aboard, with a final “See you in the morning about 6 o’clock” to the ground crew and their reply, “Right – have a good trip, Skip!”

‘We sorted ourselves out in our various positions and started up the engines. We confirmed with Max that the Distant Reading compass was correct and then tested and left the oxygen turned on. With a thumbs up to the ground staff by torchlight, we were signalled out on to the perimeter track, having the radio on in case of a change of runway, etc. Maurie shone his Aldis signalling lamp on the edge of the asphalt about 50 yards ahead and, with engines just idling, we taxied slowly along. Peter kept a lookout on his side (starboard) and called the distance between the starboard wheel and the edge of the track and kept an eye on the brake pressure gauge. Jock kept the lookout behind to ensure that no one taxied into us from the rear. The Lanc was heavy to taxi with a full load but answered to the brakes and motors, although you could feel the weight on the corners. At the controls you felt that the air was its natural element and it “suffered” this crawling along the ground, only because it was necessary so that it could become airborne again.

‘This taxiing took so long that we seemed to be taking an age to get to the take-off point but then everything took so long on these operations. We were about three-quarters of the way to the start of the runway and about half-way down a slight slope beside the bomb dump when I noticed a truck coming round on the track from the airfield controller’s caravan and its lights suddenly disappeared behind something in front of us. I had Maurie shine his lamp directly ahead and there seemed to be a dark shape out there, probably an aircraft but no lights were visible. Then suddenly torches and lights shone from everywhere out in front, with frantic signals for me to stop. As if I needed to be signalled to stop! I had a fully loaded aircraft, some unidentified obstacle was blocking the perimeter track in front, and there was grass, probably soft, to port and a drop down to the entry to the bomb dump to starboard – where did they think I was counting on going?

‘I turned on the landing light (which we never used for taxiing in case it got into the eyes of a pilot taking-off and we did not use it for landing either) and it revealed two aircraft ahead in an unfriendly embrace! Just what we did not want at this stage, a taxiing accident! Peter was already worrying me about the engines overheating, as we had been taxiing downwind most of the time since leaving the dispersal. I warned the crew that there had been a taxiing accident and we might be late taking-off. Max was not amused as he would have to watch all his timing calculations very carefully now to see that we set course on time or, at the worst, try to make time on the way, which was not easy with a fully loaded aircraft. Jock was now shining his torch out the back to warn any aircraft behind us not to taxi into us – I knew that there were three following us.

‘After a few minutes, which seemed a very long time, we were signalled to turn off the perimeter track on to the grass in order to pass the obstruction. How I would have liked to break radio silence to warn the others of the obstruction and to get confirmation that the grass was firm enough to take our weight without getting us bogged. But we really had no alternative. I could not go forward, I could not turn to starboard and the track behind was blocked by other aircraft waiting for me to show them that it was safe to turn to port, then swing wide to starboard round the trouble ahead.

‘I became reconciled to having to risk getting bogged and I was convinced that the airfield control types out there, signalling to me to move, did not really know if I would get bogged or not but they also had no alternative to offer. Peter reminded me again that the motors were getting “bloody hot, Skip!” I bit his head off by telling him didn’t I already know that and what did he want me to do about it? I couldn’t turn into wind here and we had other problems at the moment!

“Tell me when the gauges get well into the ‘red’ just before they blow off!”

“They are into the ‘red’, Skip and I thought you should know that we haven’t got very long before we have real trouble with them!”

‘I realized that I was getting edgy and as I started to turn off the track I said, “Sorry, Pete but I don’t like this going on to the grass caper after old Foggo’s warning about the soft grass up at the corner of the runway.”

“I don’t like it either,” he replied, “but it seems all right so far, Stan.”

‘We made our way slowly around the two aircraft to a clear section of perimeter track. I got an enthusiastic thumbs up signal in the light of a torch from a very relieved airfield control chap, who had solved one of his problems and, in a few minutes, would have only the taxiing accident to sort out. We had a clear run to the ACP’s caravan and now the pre-take-off drill was done, with each item repeated aloud, so that Peter could check them all. Maurice came up out of his position in the nose for the take-off and sat beside Max. I flicked my lights to the ACP to indicate that I was ready and immediately he gave me the “green” from his signalling lamp, as all the aircraft from the other side of the perimeter track had taken off while we were sorting out our problem.

‘We taxied out slowly, keeping as near to the end of the runway as possible in order to use every yard of it that we could for take-off. We rolled forward a short distance to straighten the tail wheel, then stopped again. The friction nut on the throttles was tightened firmly so that they would not work shut if my hands came off them for any reason. Gyro was set on “zero” and “unengaged”, i.e. it was free to spin and to indicate any change in direction in the darkness up beyond the end of the two rows of runway lights.

‘I opened the throttles to the gate (normal maximum power position) for the two inboard engines as Peter reported, “Fuel pumps on. All set for take-off!”

‘The motors were not the only thing revved up, as the adrenaline was flowing and I always got a feeling of goose pimples with the sound of the Merlins at full throttle. The ACP flashed another “green” indicating that the runway was clear. I told the crew, “Righto, here we go!”

‘With the throttles for the outboard engines nearly half opened and Peter holding the inboard throttles open, I released the brakes and pushed the control column as far forward as I could to get the tail up as quickly as possible. The aircraft had been vibrating with all this power on and the wheels locked with the brakes. Now it surged forward in spite of the full load. I corrected any tendency of the aircraft to swing with the thrust of the engines by using the starboard throttles. When we had the tail up and were heading straight along the runway, I took the outboard throttles to the “gate” also and called to Peter, “Full power through the gate!” He pushed all four throttles past the gate to the “emergency” position and locked the friction as tight as he could get it so that the throttles could not creep back when he took his hands off them.

“Full power locked on!” he reported.

‘I felt the extra power as a thrust in my back. A quick glance at the gauges for revs and boost confirmed that all the engines were OK and, with both hands now on the control column, I concentrated on those two rows of lights between which we now raced. I held the aircraft down so that we were not bumped prematurely into the air as we went over a slight rise about three-quarters of the way down the runway. This would have us in the air in a poor flying attitude and one in which it took longer to build up speed. As we came to the end of the runway I eased back on the control column and we climbed away.

“Undercart up!”

‘Peter repeated the order and selected “up”. The red warning lights came on, then went out as the undercarriage became fully retracted. We had reached 135 mph, which was the minimum flying speed at which you could stay in the air with three engines and a full load. I always relaxed a little and breathed more easily once we had 135 on the clock. (Fourteen trips later I was very busy for a while at this stage, as I had to shut down the port outer engine due to a coolant leak at a height of 400 feet!) Now I asked Peter for 2,850 revs and +9 boost, which brought the throttles back to the normal “full power” position, at a height of 400 feet.

“Flaps up in easy stages.”

‘Peter repeated and complied, raising them five degrees at a time, while I re-trimmed the aircraft to accommodate these changes. A mistake made with this operation, with the flaps raised too quickly, would cause the aircraft to lose lift, then a stall and a crash could occur. With training and growing confidence between the two of us, I did not hesitate to call on Peter to operate the flaps on both take-off and landing. Although he had had no training as a pilot, he now had a good understanding of changes in conditions, which required slightly different operation of the flaps. A crew that understood what each had to do and cooperated so that it was done most efficiently was on its way to being a good crew and good crews had the best chance of surviving.

‘With the flaps up and a climbing speed of 145 – 150 mph, I asked for “2,650 rpm and +7 boost”. Peter repeated the details and brought the throttles back to our “climbing power” setting. We climbed on a heading of 270 degrees and shortly Max told me to turn back to base, then, when back over base, we set course on our first leg to Reading and we were on our way at last! Large bombing raids certainly took a long time to get under way and were not a case of “sit in the dispersal hut and scramble when the siren sounded” as in the Battle of Britain days for fighter boys. Otto and Kari, our two legendary German night fighter boys, who patrolled the northern and southern sectors of Germany, were probably sitting around waiting to hear where we were heading tonight.

‘At 10,000 feet we lowered the engine revs to save both fuel and the engines and completed a check of the oxygen flowing to all of the crew, also checking the emergency intercom. On this run to Reading we kept a very sharp lookout for other aircraft as they climbed from the various airfields to join the main bomber stream, all heading for this first turning point. I tested the autopilot and after an initial “kick-up” “George” engaged, which I anticipated, settled down and functioned quite well. I then disengaged it and we continued our climb. At Reading we had the benefit of all the other aircraft still having their navigation lights on but I still had to dive a little to avoid one clot who turned without checking that we were there.

‘We set course for Beachy Head and that bacon and eggs for tea seemed well down now and I nibbled some chocolate, interrupting Peter’s log keeping to give him some. He answered with a thumbs up “thank you” before going back to his log and “gallons per hour used”, etc. I called to each of the crew in turn to ask how things were in each position and to see if the gunners’ heated gear was working OK. All replied “OK, no problems” and Maurie merely rolled over and went back to snoozing. His time for looking for fighters and later guiding us to the target had not yet arrived.

‘After altering course slightly at Beachy Head we were out over the Channel. Here I got to thinking that the tension, although under control, was too high. I thought of offering a prayer for a safe return and wondered whether or not I might be a good leader and set an example to my crew. I was having trouble maintaining our required rate of climb, so I asked Peter for a slight increase of 50 rpm, which meant that he had to re-synchronize the four engines. If this was not done correctly, the sound of the engines developed a “beat”, which seemed to go right through your head after a few minutes and the best way of doing this was to look along the line of the two propellers on each side. The “shadows” of the props appeared to move when they were out of sync and remained practically still when the engines were synchronized to the same rpm. A small thing really and I suppose I should not have let it get to me but in my book it was just tidy flying and one less thing to get on the nerves of skipper and crew.

‘I switched off the external lighting master switch and the boys checked that the lights were all out. (Some chaps went over Germany with their lights on and a few of them even returned!) We were climbing again and Jock now had on his “village inn”, the automatic gun-laying turret. After he had adjusted the settings it worked well, giving warning beeps on the intercom when another aircraft came within range of its radar-scanning beam. The beeps got louder and more frequent as the other aircraft came closer, building up the tension until Jock identified it through the small infra-red telescope mounted near his gun-sight. All our aircraft were fitted with two infra-red flashing lights in the nose and these were visible in the rear-gunner’s telescope. The rate of exchange in the frequency of the beeps is what I listened for and when there was little or no change it usually meant that another Lanc had drifted across our track and Jock would come through with “It’s OK, Skip, it’s one of ours”.

‘Maurie was now lying on his stomach with his head down in the Perspex bubble, keeping a lookout down below. Max gave me an ETA for the next turning point and then muttered some suitable comments about the Germans and the radar jamming in particular, as his Gee set had just become unusable because of the jamming signals obscuring everything else on the screen.

‘I asked him about the H₂S airborne radar: “How is your Y-set?”

“OK so far,” he replied and on we flew.

‘Five minutes later Max was back on the intercom and very annoyed. The Y-set had packed up now and this was serious. We were over cloud, unable to see anything on the ground and had no means of establishing our exact position, with a long way to go to the target and back again, as well as keeping clear of those heavily defended areas mentioned at briefing.

‘Jack had just received the first Broadcast Wind which he gave to Max, who commented, “I hope they’re accurate tonight because we haven’t got anything else.”

‘He was not the only one who had that hope. I quietly thought to myself what a big place Germany was to be flying over with no navigational gear, except a compass, a watch and a Broadcast Wind. It would be bad enough after the target, as I always said that we could get home by flying “west with a bit of north in it”. But the route going in was going to be tricky if those Broadcast Winds were not accurate or if we missed them when they were broadcast.

“Jack,” I said, “you will be careful not to miss those Broadcast Winds won’t you?”

“That’s for sure, Skip, you can count on it!”

‘I quietly thought to myself, “Yes, I knew I could” and it was that feeling of complete confidence in each other, which had grown up through our training together that was so important now. As I thought about it I realized that I had the same confidence in the other crews in the Squadron and in the other squadrons, who would be sending back their calculated details of the wind, as we had done on other trips. So of course the Broadcast Winds would be accurate. That is what made Bomber Command the force that it was.

“How’s the heat tonight, Stan?” Jack was doing his usual thorough check of all his responsibilities, as well as making sure of receiving the Broadcast Winds and, I suspected at the time, was just making sure the Skipper was not brooding on the loss of the Y-set.

“OK, thanks, Jack!”

“All right with you, Max?” he asked, but Max was not really paying attention to the heating or anything else, except his navigational problems after the failure of his equipment.

“It’s fine but if you have any spare heat you could try to unfreeze that scanner,” he replied.

“No hope of that, I’m afraid,” said Jack.

“Aye, what about the poor bloody frozen gunners?” Jock had joined in the talk. “It’s all right for you lot with all your mod cons. Curly and I have got minus 23 degrees back here!”

“Isn’t your electrical heating working, Jock?”

“Aye, it is, Skipper but it’s still bloody cold!”

“Don’t let your turret freeze up will you?” (I realized that it was quite a while since I had felt the slight swing of the nose of the aircraft caused by the rear turret being turned from one side to the other and then back again to check free movement.) Curly joined in. “No chance of that, Stan!”

“Good, Curly,” I replied, smiling to myself at the immediate banding together of the two gunners against any implied criticism. A minute or two later I felt the nose swing slightly one way then the other as Jock checked his turret and I had another quiet smile to myself.

‘We were lucky as we approached ETA Frankfurt as there was a break in the cloud ahead to port and we could see the searchlights. Max was pleased, as this put us bang on track, so we turned on ETA alongside Frankfurt. So far, so good and all was well.

‘Maurie said, “I think we’re going into those lights!”

‘They always looked closer than they really were, particularly from his position out front. I did not know if he thought that I would fly straight into a group of searchlights, which were not defending our target, or if he was just getting a little on edge. We were right on track with not too much further to go and this was the turning-point that I was worried about when we lost the Y-set, as being only slightly off course would have put us right over the defences of Frankfurt.

“Nice work, Max! We hit that turning point right on the nose!”

“Good, Stan. Those winds must be spot on, thank heavens!”

“Blast the idiot!” Some clot had jettisoned his load of incendiaries. They were strung out, burning on the ground, marking our new course for every night fighter this side of Stuttgart to see! Thank heavens the clouds were moving across again so that they were being screened. Occasionally, another aircraft was seen near us and identified as friendly, either visually or by Jock through his infra-red telescope.

‘Max now wanted a slight increase in our speed to make our next turning point on time, so Peter had to re-synchronize the engines, while still keeping a lookout on the starboard side. Occasionally we hit the slipstream of another aircraft and this threw us around but it was a good sign as it meant that someone else was flying our course and we hoped that his navigation equipment was functioning correctly so he was right on track. It also meant that we were not the only aircraft on this area for the German radar-predicted flak guns to concentrate on, if there was a unit near here.

‘Even when experienced many times, the effect of hitting the slipstream of a four-engined aircraft still caused the old heart to thump a bit. It was as though some giant hand had taken hold of the aircraft and twisted it one way and up or down at the same time. There was nothing you could do about it, except to push the control column forward and apply full opposite bank to avoid a possible stall and to level the wings. After a matter of a few seconds that felt like hours, the aircraft would dive through the area of affected air and return to normal feel and control again.

‘As we sat there flying steadily on towards the target, I did not realize that the tension was gradually mounting until something very simple annoyed me, then I had a quiet talk to myself. “Relax, you silly goat. Things are under control!” The clip for the oxygen tube to my facemask had slipped off the strap of my parachute harness, so that the whole length of the tube was dangling from the facemask and was dragging it whenever I turned my head, which was nearly constantly at this stage of the trip. I had got annoyed at the fool of a way of securing it, as it would not stay in place but at the next try it remained fixed and all thoughts of animosity towards it and its inventor died without trace.

‘I checked through the crew again with some casual remark to each of them and judged by their replies whether their oxygen supply was OK and for any signs that they were tensing up.

“Any icicles out the back, Jock?”

“No, not yet, Stan but it’s none too warm, ye know!”

‘He was all right and wide awake. “How are things on top Curly? Can you see anything?”

“No. Everything is quiet up here, Stan. Where are we now?” (Evidently my turn for a test!)

“Just running north of Leipzig, Curl.”

“Leipzig. OK.”

“Anything down there Maurie?”

“Yes. A heck of a lot of cloud but nothing else!”

“What petrol are we using at this rate, Peter?”

“About 185 miles per hour, Stan. I’ll check on my tables if you like.”

“No, that’s OK, thanks. Is that a chink of light through the curtain there?”

“Whereabouts, Stan?”

‘Instantly, Peter was searching the blackout curtain between the navigator’s area and us for any sign of light. “It’s all right, Pete, it’s only a reflection from the Perspex in your bubble.” (This bubble in the side window on the starboard side allowed Peter to look down and it had caught some stray light from outside and reflected it into our area.)

“What is our ETA at this last turning-point, Max?”

‘After a while Max replied, “Well, it’s hard to say as I’m only running on DR (Dead Reckoning) based on Broadcast Winds. I hope they’re somewhere near accurate!”

“How do you think they are?”

“Not too bad so far, I think, Stan. Our ETA is 23.57.”

“How does that make us for time?”

“About a minute late, so step it up a little, if you can.”

“OK, Max, I’ll try 170 but this kite is getting old now.”

“Righto, Stan but we need a bit more speed.”

“2,350 revs, thanks, Peter.”

“2,350. Right, Stan.”

‘The revs were increased and I kept checking the airspeed to see if I could coax that extra 5 mph. In a newer aircraft I would have just put the nose down for 200 to 300 feet, then level out when we had 170 and slowly pick up the height again. Johnny was reluctant to go much over 17,000 feet and it would be a hard job to pick up the height that we had lost. After a while, with no increase in speed visible, I asked Peter for 2,400 revs and eased the nose forward slightly to gain that extra speed. As the speed increased I carefully kept it and coaxed Johnny back up again to approximately 17,500 feet. (The Lanc was very hard to accelerate by use of engines alone. Anything up to 300 revs increase had to be used to get the extra speed. But then only 50 revs over the original was needed to hold it, so the easiest way to increase revs by the amount necessary to the hold speed and actually gain that speed was by losing height gently followed by slowly regaining the lost altitude.) “You can put the bomb sight on now, Maurie!”

“OK, Stan. Is ‘George’ right out?”

“Yes and has been for over an hour!” (Bombsight gyros needed time to settle and it was best to give them about half an hour.)

‘Up ahead we could now see the bright patch on the clouds caused by a searchlight belt and we were thankful that the cloud was shielding us. There was nothing to do but search the sky for fighters and fly on and continue to search.

“What’s that over there on the port bow?”

“Yes, there was something black there!”

‘I searched for it by looking lightly away from where I thought it was, then I saw that it was another aircraft, which looked like a Lanc. “Curly, can you see that aircraft on the port bow, slightly up?”

‘After a short wait, “Yes, it’s another Lanc I think, Stan.”

‘The aircraft did not close in or move away and gradually I could make out the twin fins and rudders and the four Merlins. He was close enough but he was above us and headed our way. On we flew and I started to look for the time to turn at the last turning point before the target.

“There are some fighters about, Stan, I think,” said Jock. “I’ve just seen two of their flares out here behind us.” (small flares were used by the night fighters to indicate our route). “Try looking right back past the port rudder fin. I can just see the two tiny orbs of red light dropping slowly.”

“Yes, you’re right, Jock. Keep your eyes open for them now, the pair of you.”

“Aye, I will!” Jock replied in his broad Scots accent.

“Yes, right,” said Curly and our nervous system got another notch tighter.

“How’s our ETA, Max?”

“Two minutes to run but we’re still a bit late, so we have to turn early and ‘cut the corner’, OK?”

“Yes, OK, Max. What is the next course?”

“179, Stan – I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“179! Right, Max.”

‘I resumed searching from side to side and back again and repeated this again and again and again, as there were likely to be other aircraft making good this turning-point after some slight variation from their proper track. Others might be going to cut the corner earlier than we were and could be coming across us.

“All right, start turning now, Stan.”

“Turning on to 179! Thanks!” Making sure it was clear; we came round to 179. “Steering 179 now, Max.”

“OK, Stan. I think we should just about be right on time at this speed! Twenty-one minutes to run to the target.”

“Twenty-one! OK.”

‘As I looked ahead I saw a glow in the distance and realized that it was the glow of the fires started by the earlier attack by 5 Group. After all this flying we were at last getting near the target.⁶

“OK Max, I can see it ahead and there is a break in the clouds so should get a good run.”

‘Rather agitated, Max asked, “How far is it ahead?”

“Oh, quite some distance yet – about 15 – 20 minutes I would guess.”

“Oh, righto. I thought you meant we were nearly there and that I had boobed and got us here too early!”

“Not likely with you worrying over our times all the way, Max!”

“This course will put us bang on target too! Turn on the VHF will you, Jack?”

“She’s on, Skipper.”

“OK, thanks.” I selected channel C and after a few seconds the background noise told us that the set had warmed up and I left it turned on waiting for the master bomber to start broadcasting. A few more fighter flares were seen, so they knew where we were and everyone was now very wide awake and searching the sky intently. Jack received the Bombing Wind and, after Max converted it, passed it to Maurie.

“3-1-5, 25. Right, thanks, Max.”

‘Maurie set it into his bombsight. We were tracking nicely towards the target and suddenly a voice came on the headphones: “Snodgrass 1 to Snodgrass 2. Here is a time check. In twenty seconds it will be 00.15. 10 ... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now! Over.”

“Snodgrass 2 to Snodgrass 1. Loud and clear. Out!”

‘It was all so very British! Here we were running into the target in the heart of Germany after 4½ hours flying with no navigational aids and wondering how we were going to make it. Now, when we were at last in sight of the target, we were being greeted by a couple of typically English chaps with very English call signs, quietly checking that they had got the time right, down to the last second! Our reception was all right, so we did not have to worry about the other sets. The illuminating flares were going down now and they hung in the sky in rows like gigantic yellow lanterns. More and more of them dropped and the whole sky in that area was lit up.

“Just hold it steady about there Skip and we should be right on it.”

“OK, Maurie!”

“Curly and Jack, keep that search going. They’re dropping more fighter flares. Are you in the astrodome Jack?”

“In the astrodome, Skipper!”

“Aye, I’ve got my eyes wide open, Skip.”

“She’s right, mate,” replied Curly.

‘The TIs were being dropped now and Maurie was satisfied with our track towards the target. “Yes, there go the TIs, Skipper. We’re right on track!”

“How are we for time, Max?”

“Three and a half minutes to run.”

“Fair enough!”

‘The target was now obscured from my view, as it had passed under the line of the nose of the aircraft. Peter was busy pushing “Window” down the chute to confuse the German radar operators.

‘Again a voice came loudly out of nowhere:

“Snodgrass 1 to Press On. Bomb on the red and green TIs. Bomb on the red and green TIs. Out.”

‘This was repeated by the R/T link.

“The red and greens. OK, Skip,” said Maurie. “Left! Left! Steady!” he chanted and I repeated and executed these instructions as he alone now guided the aircraft to the bomb release point.

“Steady!”

‘I replied “Steady” as I tried to keep the aircraft straight and level while still watching out for other aircraft near us on our level, directly above and slightly ahead. The greatest danger over the target was not from searchlights, flak or fighters (who usually stayed clear of the area immediately over the target to give the flak gunners an “open go”) but collisions or being bombed by an aircraft above us. I was watching another Lanc on my side that was slowly crossing our course slightly above us, when Peter pointed out one on his side also. I watched these two as we continued our run-in.

“Left! Left! Steady!” These were repeated and executed and Maurie’s chant became, “Steady! Steady! Steady!” The aircraft on the starboard side had crossed OK and was now just clear of us but the one on the port side was going to be a nuisance. There were not many searchlights and little flak, thank goodness. A very bright searchlight came very close but at the last moment before catching us it swung away. There was no more noise than usual while the sounds of bombs exploding, as heard in Hollywood movies, proved that the producer had never been here! Exploding flak was usually seen but was only heard when it was very close and if you could smell the cordite as well it was time for a “damage report”!

“Steady! Steady! Left! Left! Steady!” chanted Maurie and I complied. “That aircraft is getting closer!”

“We might just make it, as the release point must be close.”

“Steady! Bomb bay doors open!” I repeated and executed.

“Snodgrass 1 to Press On! Bomb the centre of the red and green TIs. Bomb the centre of the red and green TIs. Out.”

“Did you get that, Maurie?” I switched off the VHF to cut out the R/T link’s voice, which might have interfered with Maurie’s instructions.

“Yes. Centre of red and greens,” Maurie replied quickly.

“Steady! Steady! Steady!”

‘I felt a slight bump, like someone kicking the wooden seat of a chair you are sitting in.

“Cookie gone! Incendiaries going,” reported Maurie.

‘The red camera light started to blink in front of me but I was more concerned with the aircraft that was coming from the port side and was now nearly above us. As his bomb bay doors were open, I turned away to starboard.

“Sorry Maurie!” I said. “Another photo gone west but he nearly bombed us!”

“OK, Skip, take it away.”

‘We had bombed at 18,000 feet, having lost our extra 500 feet running in from the last turning point. As we straightened up again I brought the rev levers up until we had 2,500 and, with nose down, we headed out of the target with 220 on the clock.

“179 is the course, Skip,” Max came through, as though we were just leaving a practice bombing range.

“OK, Max. Are things quiet up there with you, Curly?”

“Yes, OK, Skip but I think there are fighters about as there’s a lane in these searchlights.”

“OK. Keep that search going well.”

“Corkscrew port, go!”

‘I heard the turret machine guns open up as Jock’s call came through. With a warning of “Down port!” I threw everything into the corner, full port bank, full port rudder and control column forward. We heeled over and dived to port and as the speed built up we came out of it as I dragged back on the control column, calling to the gunners “Changing – up port!” With the build-up in speed we went up like a lift. Before we lost all this speed I called “Changing – up starboard!” Then, as we lost speed, “Changing – down starboard!” As we started to dive again, Jock called, “Resume course, go! It’s OK, Skip, he passed us by but he’s disappeared up in the starboard beam so keep your eyes open for him, Curly.”

“Starboard beam up. OK, Jock.”

‘We settled down again on our course, with everyone alert and searching intently.

“Next course is 2-1-5, Stan.”

“OK, turning on to 2-1-5.”

“All clear starboard, Stan,” reported Peter. Aircraft that were visible in the glare over the target could not be seen now but we did see one or two that turned close to us. We settled on to the new course and, after a few minutes, I looked back to starboard and saw Dresden burning. While I watched, I saw a fire start in the air and there, against the target, appeared the perfect miniature outline of a Lanc. The port wing burned furiously and, after flying level for a few seconds, the aircraft heeled over and dived down as the wing fell off. We were too far away to see if any ‘chutes came out. “One of our aircraft is missing.” Max logged the time, height and position.

“Are you busy Max?”

“No, not for the moment.”

“Well, you wanted to see a target.”

“Righto, Stan.”

‘Max came out from behind his curtain and asked, “Where?”

‘I pointed to the rear over my left shoulder where the yellow of the flares, the white of the incendiaries burning on the ground, the searchlights and the pin-point of light in the sky (from the flak at the stragglers from “last phase”) could clearly be seen. Clouds of smoke rose thousands of feet into the air. With the last of the red and green TIs, it completed a Technicolor nightmare of Hell.

“Aagh! I never want to see that again,” said Max. “I’ll go back to my charts. You can keep that.”

‘But he stayed a bit longer to look hard at the scene, before disappearing back behind his curtain. I suppose it was an awful shock to suddenly be confronted with such a sight. I realized that the rest of us had become used to this type of scene, while Max had spent his time on each trip at his charts without knowing what was actually happening outside the aircraft and what it looked like. I never did find out what his thoughts about it really were but I suspected that he actually was a very sensitive type, who disliked being suddenly confronted with such a scene of destruction. I never knew anyone who really liked the job but I suppose there were some who did.

“It looks like we’ve done our job,” remarked Peter. “Yes,” I replied. “I don’t think we’ll have to come back again ... All right, now, let’s see that none of those fighters jump us on the way home. Are you going down in your bubble, Maurie?!”

“Yes Stan. I’ll give you a call when I want a rest from flying upside down.”

(When he did I rolled the aircraft over until Curly could see down under us and called, “All clear, starboard”, then I rolled it over on to the other wingtip and waited for his call, “All clear, port”.)

“We’re on the job too, Stan, you can count on it,” said Jock.

“That’s right, Stan,” joined in Curly.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it. How long to our next turning-point, Max?”

“Not for quite a while yet, Stan. This is a long leg and I’ll let you know in good time.”

“Right, Max.”

‘I noted that, as usually happened, the crew tended to be informal in speaking to me, except during take-off and landing and when we were near the target area, when it became “skipper” or “Skip”. I assumed this was an unconscious recognition of their reliance on me but that reliance was really on each other, so perhaps it was only a matter of naturally looking for a leader in times of stress and danger.

“Can I have the ‘1196’ in for our ‘Darkie’ watch please, Jack.!”

“Yes. It’s on now, Stan.”

“Thanks.”

‘I thought back on the attack and the roles of the various participants. From the master bomber who often marked the Aiming Point from only 3,000 feet, to the marker crews from the Pathfinder Force, to the Flare Force aircraft and to the main force; a very complex machine of destruction. The Marker crews and Flare Force aircraft dropped their TIs and flares over the target, then turned away, flying around and rejoining the stream of main force aircraft coming into the target, then dropping their bombs on their second run through the target. Once through the target was enough for me but before not too many more trips we were selected as a Flare Force crew, finally joining the Pathfinders for the rest of the war.

‘We flew on and on, making the next turning point and turning more westerly, now that we were past Nuremberg. Presently I saw a patch of light in the sky to port and wondered what searchlights they were, until it dawned on me that they were the lights on the shores of Lake Constance, Switzerland! I wondered what they thought of the war, apart from the money they were making. Being neutral certainly paid off, when you could be the world’s clearing-house! I told Max and he was quite satisfied. We were slightly off track to the south but we were clear of Stuttgart so we waited until we were very close to the light before altering course to nearly due west, along the Swiss border towards France.

‘I was tired and hungry, which was no wonder, as we had now been in the air over 9 hours. My last piece of chocolate tasted very good, poor quality or not and a cup of sergeants’ mess tea from Peter’s thermos tasted wonderful and helped get the eyes open again. I had “George” doing the work now but had my hand on the lever to disengage the autopilot the moment anything happened, so there was only a partial relaxation. Across the Rhine now, we altered course for England, losing height as we went so that our airspeed built up to 200 on the clock. If the Jerry fighters wanted us they would have to find us and catch us. My thoughts wandered. Dresden had certainly copped it but hang this supporting Joe Stalin and his boys – it was just too damn far. Helping Monty and his merry men was much more “the shot” that appealed now.⁷

Peter broke into my wandering thoughts to ask if I had changed the supercharger control down to “medium” as we had descended into that range. He was happy to know that I had and it was good to know that he was still right on the job, although like all of us he was now very tired.

‘Halfway across France Max told me that his Gee set was working again. “We are only 15 miles off track, Stan but you had better alter 30 degrees to starboard to avoid that possible trouble spot they mentioned at briefing.”

“Righto, Max. Altering 30 degrees to port. Now.” (Trouble spot? Briefing? That all seemed days ago. I seemed to have been sitting in this seat for a week.) Only 15 miles off after more than 4 hours’ navigating back from the target by dead reckoning and the Broadcast Winds, was a terrific effort and I congratulated Max, who merely uttered that “George”, our dog mascot, must have really been looking after us.

‘The French coast was crossed, then the Channel, through the fence of lights at Orford Ness, navigation lights “on” and nose down for base. As we approached I listened out and heard the various boys calling up as they reached home and I checked out who had arrived back safely. Our beacon flashing “BK” was a very welcome sight. There was no story book or Yankee film welcome, just, “Johnny, 1,500 feet” from the control tower. I knew that my call for permission to land had been heard in the debriefing room, where we would be posted up on the “Returned” board.

‘It all happened very quickly now and after more than 9½ hours in the air I shook myself wide awake to make sure that nothing could go wrong in the last few minutes. We had permission to join the circuit. Maurie was out of the nose. I called “Downwind” and immediately Doug called me: “Keep in close, Stan, I’m right behind you.”

“Right, Doug,” I replied in strictly non-RAF R/T procedure.

‘I flew a tight circuit on the ring of lights surrounding the circuit area, cut in close at the funnel, leading to the start of the runway, and wasted no time. Doug Creeper would have swung a little wider and turned into the funnel a little later than usual to give me time to get clear of the landing area so that he would not have to go around again. After nearly 10 hours in the air, having to waste time by flying round the circuit again was something no one wanted, particularly when we landed 23 aircraft in less than 33 minutes.

“Johnny. Funnels!”

“Johnny. Pancake!”’

“Johnny. Pancaking. Out. Full flaps. 2,850 revs.”

‘Peter complied. I managed to grease it on and Jock gave his greatest praise – complete silence! As soon as I touched down, Control called, “Keep rolling, Johnny”.

“Johnny rolling,” I replied, with a quiet smile to myself. I was not likely to stop in front of my mate and have him land on me, when we had just worked things so that we could both get down quickly. I suppose our talking between ourselves was not heard officially but they “officially” warned the aircraft that had just landed that another was landing immediately behind. At that time of the morning it was all a bit much for me.

‘We arrived back at our dispersal and were greeted by the ground crew who were pleased to hear that we had no trouble with the aircraft and that there was no damage to it that we knew of. In the crew bus going back to the crew room we greeted other crews, talking tiredly about the trip and any trouble they may have had. Jack dumped his gear quickly and hurried to the debriefing room to put our name on the board and so reserve our place in the queue of crews waiting to be debriefed. The rest of us arrived shortly afterwards. By way of an informal report, the Squadron Commander asked me, “How was it, Stan? Much flak, any damage, good run to the target?”

“A pretty quiet trip, thanks, sir,” I replied. “Only light flak and a few fighters about but I don’t think we have any damage.”

“Good – it was a long one and you will be looking for bed. Tell your crew to turn in straight away too.”

“Right. Thanks, sir, I will.”

‘As I turned away I thought that there was something odd about that last remark but then one of the other skippers spoke to me and the thought went out of my head. As I headed for a cup of tea, the Doc was quietly running his eye over each of us without any fuss.

“How was it?” he asked.

“Not bad, Doc but it was a long one. Nine hours 45 in the air.”

“Yes, a good night’s sleep is what you need. Do you want anything?”

“No thanks Doc I have no trouble. I’m off to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I just have to stay awake while ‘Bags of Flak’ rambles on over there.” I indicated a table at which one of the crews was being interrogated by the WAAF Intelligence Officer, known to all as “Bags of Flak” due to her habit during the interview with returning crews of asking, “How was the target area? Bags of flak?”

‘The Doc smiled, as he was in on all the jokes and sayings round the Squadron and knew what ops were like, having closed the rear door of the Flight Commander’s aircraft five times, from the inside. “That’s good. If there is anything when you wake up, just drop over and see me.”

‘The tea and biscuits tasted wonderful and Jock and Curly were arguing as usual over whose turn it was to have the tot of rum that I didn’t drink, as well as the tot each had already had. Jock knew very well that it was Curly’s turn but this was a harmless way to unwind a bit after the trip and the rest of us joined in with suitable comments, while silently cursing “Bags of Flak” for taking so long with each crew. At last it was our turn.

“What time did you bomb? What did you have in your bombsight?” she asked. (I would never forget her look of dismay and then disbelief when later, after a daylight raid on Cologne, with an Aiming Point near the cathedral, Maurie, who was bored stiff with this same question time after time, decided to liven things up by replying, “Two nuns and a priest!”)

“Was there much flak?” (Someone must have told of her of her nickname.) “What did you think of the raid?”

“We had a quiet trip,” I replied. “A very concentrated attack. One aircraft seen shot down shortly after we left the target.”

“Anything else?”

“No, I think that’s the lot, thanks.” I signed the report and at last was on my way to breakfast. While eating my bacon and eggs I vaguely heard the CO say that he thought we might be on again that night but I was too tired to care or connect. I was only interested in a good long sleep. I said “Cheerio, see you later” to the others in the mess. No one was missing from the trip so we were all happy. I fell into bed at 07.45 but little did I know that I would be woken at 12.45 to be told that we were on the Battle Order for that night! After a late lunch, the whole routine, just complete, would be repeated. After another trip, of 9 hours 20 minutes in the air to Chemnitz,⁸ I would fall into bed tomorrow morning, exhausted and with only one assurance that there was some limit to how often we were expected to be able to continue these operations. The Doc would tell me to get “a good, long sleep”. When I replied, “Just like yesterday Doc?” he would quietly say, “No – if they try to put any of you who have flown these last two trips on a Battle Order for tonight, I will declare you medically unfit.”

‘Thank God for the Doc!⁹

For most of the participating aircrew the Dresden raid of 13/14 February was another well executed and very efficient area bombing attack. Flight Sergeant Ray Base of 115 Squadron at Witchford, flight engineer on a Lancaster captained by Major Martin DFC SAAF was on his 20th operation.

‘We took off at 21.45, taking Group Captain Reynolds as an observer. Bomb load consisted of one 4,000lb cookie and seven incendiary clusters, making a total of 7,820lb, plus 2,114 gallons of fuel to make the deep penetration raid and back. It was a very clear night with good visibility apart from the odd small cloud. We flew right down France, along by Stuttgart, up to within 50 miles of Berlin and then on to Dresden. The attack was on the old part of the city which was covered in snow. We arrived over the city about three-quarters through the raid, so things were well alight by then. The marking TIs were mostly red and green and showed up clearly among the fires. It was a very good attack, with the whole city burning, the streets being outlined in fire. Of the fires themselves, the burning buildings were very bright and around the outskirts were large dull red glows from the region of the railway station, gasworks and other industrial buildings. We experienced moderate flak over the target. As we left the target and turned on course for home we saw a Lancaster about 1,000 feet below silhouetted by the glow of the fires. I could see the Lanc’s exhausts. Our mid-upper gunner then spotted a Ju 88 following the Lanc and then we saw a Ju 188 (clearly identified by its pointed wings) to the left and behind the Ju 88. There was a small cloud below and the three aircraft went into it and the cloud lit up with a large explosion, typical of a bomber blowing up. There were lots of searchlights over the Ruhr on our way back and very strong headwinds restricted our ground speed to 80 mph. We went down to 5,000 feet over France to get more favourable winds. We got back with five minutes’ fuel left – we drained all our tanks while in the circuit and all four fuel warning lights came on as we landed at 06.50 hours. Flight time was 9.05 hours.’ ¹⁰

As tons of explosives plummeted from the sky, an 800 degree C firestorm, similar to that created in Hamburg on 27/28 July 1943, tore through the heart of the Saxon capital, burning an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 Dresdeners alive. A prisoner on the Kleine Festung in Theresienstadt seventy kilometres away saw, from his cell window, the glowing red reflection above the burning city and heard the hollow thud of the bombs like hundredweight sacks being thrown into a cellar quite close to him. In the Altmarkt 6,865 corpses were burned on pyres by an SS detachment which had gained experience at Treblinka concentration camp.

Flight Sergeant John Aldridge of 49 Squadron who flew 33 operations as a Lancaster bomb-aimer between September 1944 and April 1945, and who took part in the 5 Group bombing of Dresden, recalls:

‘The very next night Chemnitz was to be the target of a similar attack, 330 aircraft to make the first and 390 the second attack three hours later. In this case Harris at Bomber Command (probably under pressure from Bennett of the Pathfinder Group) decided that 8 Group’s Pathfinders would carry out the marking for both attacks and we, in 5 Group, would carry out a separate attack on an oil plant at Rositz near Leipzig. However, with cloud cover and with 5 Group low level marking, 8 Group had to rely on sky marking and no concentration of bombing was achieved. I saw personal evidence of this as our (5 Group) withdrawal route linked up with the force returning from Chemnitz and I well remember the fires were scattered over 20 miles. Would Chemnitz have been a second Dresden if the same procedure as in that attack had been carried out?’

On the night of 20/21 February 514 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitoes set out for Dortmund, another 173 bombers raided Düsseldorf, 128 aircraft attacked Monheim and 154 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes attacked the Mittelland Canal. Including diversionary and minor operations aircraft, 1,283 sorties were flown. Twenty-two aircraft failed to return. Worst hit was the Dortmund force, which lost 14 Lancasters. These raids were followed on the night of 21/22 February by 1,110 sorties against Duisburg, Worms and the Mittelland Canal and another 27 aircraft were lost plus seven Lancasters crashed in France and Holland. The two consecutive nights, 20/21 and 21/22 February proved a profitable 24 hours for several German pilots¹¹ including Hauptmann Johannes Hager, Staffelkapitän, 6./NJG 1 who claimed two Viermots. Bordfunker Unteroffizier Walter Schneider who contributed to the last 13 of Hager’s victories recalls:

‘On 21 February we took off at 00.24 hours. I soon spotted a Viermot, which our pilot shot down after a short chase at 01.12 hours. On the outbound flight from Düsseldorf I managed to get hold of another one on my radar and this one was made to crash at 01.23 hours.¹² Later the same day, at 22.48 hours we again received orders to take-off. This time we had to fly in the direction of Duisburg. Soon we encountered the formation of bombers and we succeeded in shooting down six Viermots between 23.09 and 23.21 hours. By skilful use of the oblique cannon, my pilot was able to set the bombers on fire with short bursts into the engines. The crews thus had more time to safely bale out. After this exploit I was commissioned.’¹³

After shooting down the two Lancasters over Dortmund and returning to Gütersloh, Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer and his crew had a rest period until a Werkstattflug (air-test) was called at 18.15 hours for Bf 110 G9+EF. The flight lasted 21 minutes and the Messerschmitt was declared ‘serviceable.’ Leutnant Fritz Rumpelhardt, Schnaufer’s radar operator, recalls:

‘The late night sortie on 21 February 1945 was to become Schnaufer’s most outstanding achievement in two-and-a-half years’ service as a night fighter pilot. It was always a point of honour with him to be the first in the air after the order to scramble so that he could assess the situation and brief his squadron. Chance played quite an important part in the second operational sortie on 21 February. I was alone in the squadron mess having my supper, having missed the order “Heightened Preparedness”, so when the order to scramble came the Major was ready but I was not. He did not mince his words about my apparent dilatoriness. In spite of the ensuing mad rush, the rest of the squadron was already airborne, on its way to Düsseldorf. By the time “EF” lifted off from the aerodrome it was 20.08 hours. Events now turned in our favour. Following the instructions received from Ground Control we believed that the others had reached the engagement area but we were somewhat puzzled when we could see neither bombers, nor night fighters nor, in fact, any anti-aircraft fire ahead of us. Schnaufer was debating whether to follow our present track when we suddenly noticed over to the North, probably in the Münster area, a lot of light anti-aircraft fire. Again this puzzled us. Guns of that calibre were effective up to 2,000 metres only, yet the British bombers usually flew between 3,500 and 6,000 metres over the Fatherland. Without further thought Schnaufer altered heading to the north-west to cut off the bombers returning home.

‘At 2,500 metres we flew through a thin layer of cloud and our radar showed us several targets. Suddenly we were in a condition of “shroud,” above us a thin layer of stratus through which the moon shone, giving us an opaque screen above which we could see clearly the black silhouettes of the bombers from quite a distance. Schnaufer closed upon a Lancaster flying along unsuspectingly slightly to our starboard at altitude 1,700 metres. We had been airborne just over half-an-hour. The Major closed with the target, left to right, from below and delivered the first attack with the two vertically mounted 20mm cannons, just behind him, in the cabin. He aimed between the two engines on the right-hand side. The fuel tanks were located there and this method brings the quickest results. The time was 20.44 hours. The right wing of the bomber was badly damaged; a huge flame illuminated the sky. The Lancaster held steady for a while, long enough to allow the crew to escape by parachute before it fell to earth and crashed.

‘There followed attack after attack, the sky seemed to be full of bombers! Now the British crews knew we were there and began their violent manoeuvres, twisting and turning in an effort to escape us. Schnaufer had to follow all their corkscrew movements, to remain in a position under the bombers’ wings where the return fire could not be brought to bear upon us yet ready, himself, to use the Schräge Musik. In one case we practically stood upon our wing tip whilst firing. Things became more difficult for us when we crossed the front line and the American anti-aircraft batteries opened up. Within a period of 19 hectic minutes we managed to shoot down seven bombers – without so much as a scratch – testimony to the Major’s great skill and ability to get in quickly, line up his target and dive away quickly. Normally during this wild fighting I would hardly have had time to note the details thoroughly but because of the “shroud effect” the pilot did not need my assistance at the radar to guide him on to each target and I had more time than usual to observe the effects. Oberfeldwebel Wilhelm Gänsler¹⁴, our gunner, gave great support as usual but even he could not help when we attacked our eighth Lancaster bomber. At the crucial moment we exhausted the ammunition to the upward-trained guns and as a result had the greatest difficulty in getting away from the concentrated fire from the bomber crew.

‘We still had our four horizontally mounted cannons in the nose of our fighter but these too refused to function during our ninth attack and we had to stop chasing the bombers. On the way back to base we had to fly again over the American batteries and by now the Major was thoroughly weary, almost spent. I called, therefore, upon Dortmund to give us all possible assistance to clear us back to Gütersloh with all expediency and with this help Schnaufer greased our faithful G9+EF on to the ground. The night’s work was done, we were back at base and it was just short of 22.00 hours. Once we had taxied in and shut down the engines, we sat in silence for a couple of minutes, thankful to have got through it and thought about the men who had gone down that night and hoped that they had managed to parachute to safety. Many years later I received a letter from an Englishman, Stanley Bridgeman. He had been a crewmember of Lancaster JO-Z of 463 Squadron shot down that night at 21.02 hours above Holland. All his crew had managed to escape by parachute. My prayers had been answered in part.’¹⁵

The second in a series of terrifying area-bombing raids on German cities, which had thus far escaped the bombing, went ahead on 23/24 February. Over 360 Lancasters and 13 Mosquitoes carried out the first and only area-bombing raid on Pforzheim, a city of 80,000 people, from only 8,000 feet and 1,825 tons of bombs were dropped in just over 20 minutes. More than 17,000 people were killed and 83 per cent of the town’s built up area was destroyed in “a hurricane of fire and explosions”. Ten Lancasters failed to return.¹⁶

Among the oil targets attacked in daylight during late February was the Alma Pluto benzol plant at Gelsenkirchen, which was bombed on two successive days on the 22nd (when Osterfeld was also bombed) and the 23rd, and a few days later, on 27 February. One Lancaster failed to return from the first of these raids and no Lancasters were lost on the second raid although a Halifax crashed in Holland where a Lancaster of 186 Squadron also put down in trouble. The crew dropped their load and made their usual quick exit from the heavily defended target area, the sky around them being filled with bursting shells. Some seconds later the Flight Engineer reported a loss of hydraulic power, which was serious as without hydraulics they would not be able to lower flaps or undercarriage. The pilot decided to lower both while hydraulics were still available and then try and land at an Allied base, as with flaps and undercarriage down they would never make it back to Stradishall. Lying in the nose the bomb-aimer was the first to spot the emergency landing area. It was not ideal for a Lancaster as it was only a narrow and short stretch of metal planking but the pilot was considered one of the best and decided that he could get the aircraft down. They landed without mishap and taxied to the end of the strip. The Germans held the field and the pilot ordered the crew to man the guns. He wanted to fight it out rather than give up an intact Lancaster. Fortunately, the troops that came to meet them proved to be Royal Engineers.

The 27 February was a wintry day when, at around 15.00, Flight Lieutenant N. C. Cowley’s crew in 186 Squadron made their approach to Gelsenkirchen. Cowley was an experienced pilot having flown at least 27 sorties. The target area was obvious from a long way off with the HE and incendiary bombs exploding on the ground and defending ack-ack shells bursting in the air all round the bombers. The air bomber recalled:

‘It was our turn to go in. As Air Bomber it was my job to direct the pilot so that the target was lined up in the Sperry Bombsight. My bomb load consisted of a 4,000lb bomb and the remainder a mix of 1,000lb HE and incendiaries. The bombs were programmed to release in a set order – the streamlined bombs going first, followed by the clusters and, lastly, the cookie, the theory being that all the bombs would arrive on the ground at the same area. To my horror the cookie dropped almost immediately the release button was pressed. It soon caught up with the lighter bombs, scattering them all over the sky until one, and then, it seemed, all the rest, simply blew up. The aircraft was caught in the blast and disintegrated. Aircrew members are trained to react to emergencies, I am thankful for the drills, which, though boring at the time, proved their worth on this day. My first duty was to listen for instructions from the Captain but there was no response from the intercom to my request. My next duty was to jettison the escape hatch in the nose, absolutely vital if the cockpit crew were to escape. This was accomplished without difficulty but I was aware of the ground getting closer – we were diving almost vertically and on fire! At this point I fitted my parachute and dropped away from the aircraft. I came to on the ground, in great pain and very cold, and surrounded by German soldiers. My boots had gone – either in the descent or acquired by one of the Germans whilst I was still out cold. They patched my arm wound and took me to HQ where, to my great surprise, I met our Wireless Operator.’ Cowley and four of the crew were killed, Flight Sergeants J. M. Young and H. G. Kimber being the only survivors.

Meanwhile, Nachtjagd had been planning a final large-scale offensive effort codenamed Unternehmen [Operation] Gisela an intruder operation over England. However only 142 Ju 88Gs could be committed to Gisela, which went ahead on 3/4 March, the 2,000th night of the war, when 234 bombers raided the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic oil plant at Kamen (the fourth raid on this target in eight days) and 222 aircraft attacked an aqueduct on the Dortmund-Ems Canal at Ladbergen. From these two raids, seven Lancasters were lost. Over England on the bombers’ return the German intruders shot down 24 aircraft¹⁷ but the German losses were higher.¹⁸

In March Bomber Command flew a record 53 day and night operations and as losses were still being felt at squadron level, some of these raids saw over 1,000 bombers taking part. On 11 March 1,079 aircraft, including 750 Lancasters, the largest number of aircraft sent to a target so far in the war, headed for the railway supply yards and railway lines at Essen in daylight to try to prevent the transfers of munitions and materials to the front. (Essen became the second largest bombing raid of the war when, the following day, 1,108 aircraft, including 748 Lancasters, set out to bomb Dortmund). The Essen raid was the last to this city which, despite being completely cloud covered, received 4,661 tons of bombs dropped accurately on Oboe-directed sky-markers.

Flight Lieutenant John Fern, a 25 year old pilot from Saskatchewan in 434 Squadron had lifted Y-Yorker off from Croft on their fifth operation. Except for Pilot Officer William Jones, the 37 year old flight engineer, who was from Liverpool, the crew were all RCAF commissioned officers and all were on their second tour. Approaching the target at 17,300 feet Fern and the 25 year old bomb-aimer, Tom Copeland from Ontario, guided their Lancaster into the Essen strike zones over the Oboe-directed sky markers. Copeland released the bomb load and about 33 seconds later they struck the railway yards. Copeland requested Fern to keep a straight course, as he wanted to “take a good picture”. Immediately the Lancaster was hit by 88mm anti-aircraft shell. Everyone on board except for the rear-gunner, 25 year old Flying Officer Ben Marceau from Quebec, who was on his 47th op, were killed instantly. The shell that hit Y-Yorker also blew out the cockpit windows of the trailing Lancaster following about 100 feet behind and 50 feet above. Y-Yorker plunged on fire into the target area to crash near Margaretenhohe where the wreckage of the doomed Lancaster was spread over a two-mile area.

The force of the explosion had blown Ben Marceau right out of his Frazer Nash rear turret. Severely wounded and unconscious, he fell from 17,300 feet to 2,000 feet amid heavy clouds before he came to and was able to open his parachute. Marceau landed very heavily in a field. Two Russian POWs forced to work in the field saw the Canadian land and they rushed over to him. Marceau was badly injured in the legs, shoulders, eye and face and they helped him by using his first aid kit to dress his wounds. Marceau gave them his two survival kits that he was carrying because he knew that capture was soon at hand as he could see three German soldiers running towards them. They searched him three times over for weapons or documents. The sergeant then took both survival kits away from the Russians and the other two German soldiers, who were about 15 years old, picked Marceau up and walked him about a kilometre back to their flak post, the sergeant kicking him in the legs from behind all the way. Fortunately, his heavy flying boots protected him. Marceau was exhausted and in severe pain and, as he sat himself down against a fence, the young German soldiers stayed at a distance as if frightened. Perhaps they sensed that the day of reckoning for Germany was near. Later, he was taken away in a truck and he vaguely recalled one of the soldiers trying to remove his wedding ring but before falling unconsciousness again he clinched his left hand so his ring could not be taken from him. Later that day he awoke only very briefly on an operating table in a hospital. Marceau was unconscious for five days and was then interrogated by a German officer who asked him what were the names of his crew were and where the other four crewmembers were. Marceau spent the next seven weeks in German and Belgian hospitals before being liberated in the Ruhr by American forces just five days before VE Day.¹⁹

On the night of 14/15 March when 244 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes attacked the Wintershall synthetic oil refinery at Lützkendorf near Leipzig, 18 Lancasters were lost. Also, 100 Group lost two Mosquitoes and two Fortress IIIs of 214 Squadron during Jostle radio countermeasure duties in support of the main force.²⁰ On 15/16 March, 267 bombers made an area attack on Hagen and another 257 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes raided the Deurag oil refinery at Misburg. Six Lancasters and four Halifaxes failed to return from Hagen and four Lancasters were lost on the Misburg raid while a RCM B-17 was also lost. The following night 277 Lancasters and 16 Mosquitoes attacked Nuremberg and 225 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes bombed the old cathedral city of Würzburg which contained little industry but was famous for its historic buildings. They dropped 1,127 tons of bombs with great accuracy in 17 minutes, destroying 89 per cent of the built up area and killing an estimated 4,000 – 5,000 people. During the night’s operations 30 aircraft were lost, 24 of them Lancasters on the Nuremberg raid, mainly to German night fighters, which found the two bomber streams on the way to the target.²¹ Bomber Command’s tactics of deception and radio countermeasures had, by now, reached a fine perfection.²²

On 20/21 March no less than three feint attacks took place in support of the main force attack on the synthetic oil refinery at Böhlen, just south of Leipzig, by 235 Lancasters and Mosquitoes. No amount of jamming could conceal the roar of 800 aircraft engines but the spoofs, diversionary attacks and countermeasures helped keep losses down to nine Lancasters.²³ On 21 March Bomber Command flew 497 sorties in raids on Rheine, Münster and Bremen for the loss of only five Lancasters and that same evening the heavies attacked refineries at Hamburg and Bochum.²⁴

Next day raids on rail yards continued with daylight attacks on Hildesheim, Dülmen, Bremen and Nienburg. A Lancaster of 434 ‘Bluenose’ RCAF, blew up shortly after take-off at 10.55 from Croft. Flying Officer H. Payne RCAF took off for Hildesheim but the Lancaster was caught by a sudden blast of wind, which took the bomber onto the grass. Payne tried to bring the aircraft back onto the runway but he over corrected and he then closed the throttles but he was unable to avoid racing across the airfield. A tyre burst and a collision occurred involving a Lancaster of 431 ‘Iroquois’ Squadron RCAF, before the Lancaster came to a halt near East Vince Moor Farm. A fire started in the port engine and this spread rapidly. The crew managed to get clear and a general evacuation order was broadcast. Half an hour later the bomb load exploded and the force of the blast removed the roof of the farmhouse and set fire to hay and nearby buildings. Incredibly, no one was injured but it was late afternoon before the airfield was declared fit for use.²⁵

Another area attack, which was carried out by Lancasters of 3 Group, was made on Bocholt. Minutes after the strike, crews looked back to see a pall of smoke ‘black and ominous’ rising to about 15,000 feet where once was a town. They also noticed a tremendous smoke screen stretching from Arnhem to Duisburg along the west bank of the Rhine, which was to cover troop movements, as a large-scale attack was pending.

On Saturday 23 March, 128 Lancasters attacked bridges at Bremen and Bad Oeynhausen and hit both of them, losing two of the Lancasters. At 15.30, 80 Lancasters bombed the little town of Wesel, which was an important troop centre behind the Rhine front in the area about to be attacked by the 21st Army Group massing for the Rhine crossings at dawn. It was an important point in the defensive system on the east bank of the Rhine and the Germans had not only turned it into a massively fortified position, with strong points, machine-gun nests and tank obstacles, but had concentrated troops and armour there for the expected British crossing. Once a town of 25,000 people, Wesel was already, because of its tactical importance, one of the most devastated places in Germany. In ten minutes, the roads, which had been cleared from the previous attacks were blocked and pitted with fresh craters. More than 400 tons of bombs were dropped on the troops and many strong points were destroyed. Five hours later, at 22.30 hours, only a short time before Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery’s zero hour, as the 1 Commando Brigade followed by the 51st Highland Division closed in, over 190 Lancasters followed it up with another attack, to complete the work of the afternoon. In exactly nine minutes, well over 1,000 tons of bombs went down on those troops who had crept back into the ruins to await the British commandos’ attack. In all, more than 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped in the two attacks – a weight of bombs, which had already almost completely wiped out cities eight times the size of Wesel.²⁶

Flying Officer John Rogers, a Queenslander and a cameraman attached to a RAF Film Production Unit, had a close-up view of the attack on Wesel. With their cameras peeping through the shuttered windows of a house facing Wesel across the Rhine, Rogers and other members of the Film Unit saw and filmed the Lancasters pounding the town into rubble. Besides being among the first cameramen to make a close-up ground record of an Allied air blitz against a German city, Rogers was the first RAAF man to cross the Rhine at ground level with the Allied armies. He and his colleagues had crossed a pontoon bridge a few hours after the bridgehead had been established and had come under machine-gun fire almost at once from a pocket of resisting Germans between the Film Unit vehicle and the Rhine. Wesel was taken with only 36 army casualties. In a message to Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, Field Marshal Montgomery said, ‘The bombing of Wesel last night was a masterpiece and a decisive factor in making possible our entry into that town before midnight.’ The commandos who made the capture also sent a message congratulating the crews. The capture of Wesel, they said, cost them only a handful of men.

On 25 March Bomber Command flew 606 sorties against the main reinforcement routes into the Rhine battle area and Hanover, Münster and Osnabrück were heavily hit. Four bombers were lost (three to flak and one due to being struck by a bomb over the target). At Downham Market PB913, in 635 (PFF) Squadron, had been prepared as master marker aircraft for a raid on Osnabrück and the airfield controller scheduled it to take off first. However, the flight engineer, checking the aircraft, was not satisfied as the fuel gauges showed nil. The pilot, Squadron Leader George A. Thorne, who had crash-landed his ailing Lancaster near Woodbridge the previous October, anxious to go, checked the Form 700 with the ground crew and, noting that the aircraft was documented as fully serviceable, suggested that the fuel gauges had merely stuck. Just as the pilot was about to taxi out, the flight engineer, who had tapped the gauges in vain, reported that he would not be satisfied until the fuel had been checked. The engines were cut and the ground crew ordered to dipstick the tanks as a fuel check. They were found to be almost empty! Thorne, ordering the crew to follow, raced for the spare aircraft and hurriedly checked it over, but it was not fitted with VHF for the master bomber to instruct crews. Racing back to their original Lancaster, they taxied round to a bowser and ordered that the 2,154 gallons be put in immediately. It took 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile, the rest of the squadron had taken off, leaving the master bomber behind. Rarely did aircraft fly direct to their target, but, as in this case, went south first to complete the first leg of the journey in safety behind the Allied lines, to shorten the actual time over enemy territory. Thorne asked the navigator the chances of getting there on time if they cut across the heart of Germany. They were 50/50. At maximum speed they sped in a direct line to Osnabrück without opposition except for intensive flak as they crossed the Dortmund-Ems canal which, now such a regular target, was heavily defended. As Osnabrück approached below, so the main force hove into sight. No sooner had they marked than bombs were dropping. Thorne was awarded the DSO for marking the target.

In April Nachtjagd achieved 33 victories to take the arm’s total claims for 1945 to 528 kills but the writing was on the wall. On Sunday 8 April, just over 230 Lancaster crews were briefed just after lunch for a raid on the oil refinery at Lützkendorf and 440 aircraft were to bomb the shipyards at Hamburg. At Fulbeck a 49 Squadron crew were told by the CO that they were ‘tour expired’ since the signal he had received during briefing had reduced the number of operations required from 36 to 33. They were scrubbed from the operation and the reserve crew in N-Nan took their place. The rear-gunner, Roy Wilkins had completed about three trips less than the rest of the crew because of illness and, since the rear-gunner in the reserve crew had contracted ear trouble, Wilkins volunteered to take his place. The tour expired crew and Pollington went to see the crews off. Sitting on the grass waiting for N-Nan to swing onto the main runway they idly picked clover. Pollington picked three four-leafed clovers in succession! Laughingly, everyone said, ‘You lucky bastard . . . it looks like your crew will get the chop tonight’. Roy Wilkins gave them a thumbs up from his rear turret as N-Nan roared down the runway on what was a pleasant early spring evening. Later the tour expired crew went to the Hare and Hounds in Fulbeck village for a drink before rolling back into their hut. Although they had not had the pleasure of knowingly flying their last op, the feeling of having finished was nevertheless fantastic. Next morning Wilkins’ bed was empty. They thought he might have landed elsewhere but nothing more was ever heard of him or the crew with which he was flying. The refinery was rendered inactive at a cost of six Lancasters and their crews.

Next day 40 Lancasters carried out the last raid on Hamburg when they raided oil-storage tanks, and 17 aircraft of 617 Squadron blasted the U-boat shelters in the already devastated city with 22,000lb Grand Slam and 12,000lb Tallboy bombs. Known as cookies by RAF crews, the 4,000lb, 8,000lb and 12,000lb blast bombs were dubbed ‘Block Busters’ by Fleet Street. Grand Slam bombs could reach a velocity of 1,000 feet per second (680 mph) when dropped from 20,000 feet.²⁷ Two Lancasters failed to return from the raid on Hamburg. That night 591 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes visited Kiel and bombed the Deutsche Werke U-boat yards. Reconnaissance pilots had detected the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, a sister ship of the Graf Spee, moored in the inner dockyard basin at Kiel two days earlier. Like the Tirpitz, the Admiral Scheer had been driven to Kiel when Gdynia was first threatened by the Russian Army and had previously played an important part in the defence and evacuation of German pockets of resistance on the Baltic coast. As the equivalent of an armoured cruiser with exceptionally powerful armament, the Scheer was still of great importance to the enemy, if only because Allied warships had to be kept in readiness to attack her if she left harbour. The attack was made in clear weather. Marking and bombing was extremely well concentrated around the aiming points and many crews reported a violent explosion. Sergeant F. Jenkins RAAF, an air bomber, saw an explosion fling debris many hundreds of feet into the air as his Lancaster arrived and, in the glow of the fires, he saw six ships around the Scheer amid dense clouds of smoke, through which came heavy AA fire. When the bombers left, the Scheer lay almost completely upside down in much the same position as Bomber Command had left the Tirpitz. The Admiral Hipper and the Emden were badly damaged. Three Lancasters were lost.²⁸ Germany now had only one pocket battleship left, the 12,000-ton Lützow, which shared the fate of the Admiral Scheer on the afternoon of 16 April when Lancasters arrived over Swinemünde with more 12,000lb bombs to leave the ship’s stern resting on the bottom in shallow waters.

Further raids were made on the Engelsdorf and Mockau rail yards at Leipzig and rail yards in the northern part of Plauen. Seven Lancasters were lost on Leipzig where the eastern half of the yards were destroyed. On the night of 14/15 April, 500 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes took part in an operation against Potsdam just outside Berlin. Although Mosquito bombers of the Light Night Strike Force had attacked the Big City almost continually, this was the first time the Reich capital had been attacked by heavies since March 1944. One Lancaster was lost to an unidentified night fighter over the target. Maurice Bishop, pilot of Winsome Winnie of 218 ‘Gold Coast’ Squadron at Chedburgh, recalls:

‘This flight, which took 8 hours 55 minutes, was our most remembered. About an hour from the target my mid-upper gunner suddenly shouted, “Down skip!” I pushed the stick forward hard and saw another Lanc sliding over the top of us on a slightly different heading, same height. My gunner saw the exhaust flame just in time as it was closing in on us. The searchlight activity over Berlin was intense and we were just sliding past one that was fixed when it suddenly locked straight on to us and I was completely blinded. I started to change height, speed and direction, as taught, and went into a diving corkscrew, pulling out the bottom dive quite hard and throwing the old Lanc around by feel as I was still blinded by the searchlight. Then suddenly we were clear before the night fighters spotted us and we dropped our load on the target and came home OK.

‘The next day down at dispersal the ground engineer said, “What were you up to last night?”

‘I said, “Why?”

‘He said, “Look at this” and he took me up the steps and showed me the upper wing between the fuselage and the starboard inner. The skin had a wrinkle in it. We must have pulled out of the dive with our full bomb load on board and the old Lanc had taken it under protest.’

An attack on Pilsen, on 16/17 April 1945, involved 222 Lancasters, one of which, MD733 of 463 Squadron flown by Flying Officer J. A Hagley RAAF of 463 Squadron, failed to return to England.

‘Aircraft was on track on outward route and climbing at 03.10 hours, 7,200 feet, when suddenly in the light of a half moon an aircraft of unknown origin attacked the aircraft. The attack came from slightly to port in front, approximately 200 yards above, at 400 – 600 yards range. The aircraft received strikes on starboard inner, starboard mainplane, engineer’s panel, starboard side of pilot’s cockpit, oil supply to starboard outer, No. 1 tank on starboard – which was losing fuel, main fuselage above W/Op and navigator’s compartment, plus the hydraulic and electrical systems. The aircraft was flooded with hydraulic oil. The strike on the starboard inner set it on fire, but this was feathered and the Graviner was applied successfully.

‘Immediately prior to 463 being attacked, a Lancaster was seen flying on the port side above at 600 yards. A second or two after the sighting, the rear-gunner and air bomber heard machine gunning and almost simultaneously 463 was attacked. No tracer was seen. The aircraft, with its starboard inner on fire, dived to port to avoid revealing position of the bomber stream. After corkscrewing it was found that the starboard outer was losing oil rapidly, and it was then decided to set course for the English Channel via Juvincourt, the English Channel being the nearest jettison area for bombs. However, these good intentions were foiled, because height could not be maintained and thirteen 500 MC bombs were jettisoned safely at 03.25 hours. After jettison action had been taken, the aircraft was able to climb to 4,800 feet, at which height course was set for Juvincourt by aid of stars, as navigator’s equipment was unserviceable.

‘The flight engineer nursed the starboard outer, although for an hour this engine was not registering an oil pressure. Juvincourt eventually appeared 20 miles on the port side at 05.00 hours, when the starboard outer seized, imparting considerable vibration to the aircraft. The crew were then told by the captain to “put on parachutes and stand by”. The rudder was then lashed with rope by the air bomber and flight engineer to assist the pilot. The 4,000lb HC was then jettisoned. Aircraft was flown over Juvincourt at 2,500 feet, with starboard outer on fire and unable to feather it owing to lack of voltage, due to failure in electrical circuit. The aircraft was in danger of immediate explosion owing to the petrol still flowing to the nacelle by the windmilling action of the starboard outer. The order, “emergency, jump, jump, jump” was given and all the crew escaped.’

At 17.45 on 17 April, as Lancasters of 57 and 630 Squadrons were being bombed up at East Kirkby for the night raid on railways at Cham near the Czech border, two 1,000lb MC bombs for one of the Lancasters went up, causing sympathetic explosions. The airfield appeared to be a shambles and ambulances had to be called from other stations. Four airmen were killed and 14 injured and there were two civilian casualties, one of which was fatal. Next morning, after a survey in daylight of wrecked and toppled Lancasters, the station engineer officer reported five completely written off and 14 with varying degrees of damage. The No. 3 hangar, which was being used for storing incendiaries, was also severely damaged, as was Hagnaby Grange Farm.

The end came on 25 April with a raid by 482 aircraft on coastal batteries on the Friesian Island of Wangerooge and, in a fitting climax to bomber operations, on Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden in the south-east corner of Germany. The Obersalzberg, a beautiful mountainous region, close to the Austrian border, was one that had long appealed to Hitler. Following the Munich Putsch and his imprisonment, Hitler had stayed in the Obersalzberg, writing part of Mein Kampf there. Royalties from the book’s sale had enabled the German dictator to buy a house called the ‘Berghof’. After coming to power the building had been rebuilt on a lavish scale, the best-known addition was the dramatically named ‘Eagle’s Nest’, a tea-house that had been built on Kehlstein Mountain apparently as an isolated conference building. Hitler’s home, referred to, as the ‘Chalet’ by the RAF, was the target for 359 Lancaster heavy bombers and fourteen Oboe Mosquito and 24 Lancaster marker aircraft. Included in the mighty force were 33 Lancasters, of 9 Squadron and 617 the ‘Dam Busters’, each carrying a potentially devastating 12,000lb Tallboy bomb in their long, rakish bomb bay. For once, the BBC was permitted to announce the raid while it was in progress. At least 126 P-51 Mustangs of 11 Group RAF, and 98 P-51s from two American fighter groups, provided escort relays along the route, a round trip of 1,400 miles.²⁹

In the summer of 1940 11 Group’s few squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes had held Hermann Goering’s legions at bay, a defeat that had put in motion the gradual fall from grace for the rotund Reichsmarschall. By 1945 his beloved Luftwaffe existed in name only and he no longer had the ear of his Führer, who was safely tucked up in his bunker in Berlin while Goering now had to find shelter in one of the air-raid tunnels under the remote mountain fortress.

Pete Keillor, a US 78th Fighter Group Thunderbolt pilot at Duxford, had the honour of leading the Group on the escort mission for the Lancasters. He guessed – wrongly – that the ‘British bomber guys’ wanted to fly in daylight ‘once’ so they loaded ‘two bunches with 8,000lb bombs’ and sent them down to Berchtesgaden. ‘Maybe they thought they’d catch Hitler there’ he mused. In fact, ever since D-Day and on many days since, RAF Bomber Command relinquished their nocturnal role and mounted many pulverizing raids in the daylight hours. The Mustangs flew on over the sea and crossed into Belgium at 06.30 hours but they missed the planned rendezvous with the Lancasters over Luxembourg, as Pete Keillor recalls:

‘I reported in over the continent and ground control told me that my bombers were an hour ahead of where they were supposed to be. I put on extra power and finally caught up with them and escorted them to the target. I started counting them and saw that they were the wrong bunch. [They were the 16 Lancasters of 617 Squadron]. If I remember right there were a 110 in the first bunch and 88 in the second and the second was ours. American bombers all had tail markings so you could tell which was which, but the Lancasters were just a bunch of planes, not even in real formation. So, after they’d dropped their bombs [on Hitler’s “Chalet” and the local SS guard barracks] I left them and hurried back to pick up the others. Sure enough we found them and escorted them in and out. That was the prettiest scenery I ever flew over. It was perfectly clear – you could see forever – and we followed the north side of the Alps for hundreds of miles. Steep mountains went down to lakes in the valleys and it sure made you want to see it from the ground.’³⁰

Those who bombed the ‘Chalet’ mostly missed³¹ but the Berghof sustained much blast damage as a result of the bombs and the Tallboys.

Pilot Officer L. Knight on his first operation and his crew in 625 Squadron were about to be reported as missing from this operation when, two hours overdue, he landed safely back at Kelstern with two engines out of action. Only 53 bombers attacked their primary target but at the SS barracks one building and several others were damaged. Six of the 3,500 who had sheltered in the air-raid tunnels were killed. Goering was not one of them but he was captured later and received his judgement at Nuremberg, but a lethal suicide pill prevented his execution for war crimes. Soon after the raid, the US 3rd Infantry Division won the race to occupy Berchtesgaden and share in the spoils of victory. Bomber Command’s last bombing operations were flown that night when 119 Lancasters and Mosquitoes, directed by the master bomber, Wing Commander Maurice A. Smith DFC, attacked oil storage depots at Tonsberg in southern Norway and U-boat fuel storage tanks at Vallo in Oslo Fjord. Operation orders for attacks on Heligoland on the 26th and 27th were each cancelled in turn. Yet, the war was not over for the bomber crews. Four days later Operation Manna began, as the Lancaster squadrons began dropping food and not bombs.³²

With the Germans at the brink of defeat, thousands of people in the western and north-western provinces of the Netherlands, which were still in German hands, were without food. Parts of the country had been under German blockade and 20,000 men, women and children had died of starvation during a very short period and the survivors were in a desperate plight. Dutch railwaymen had gone on strike in protest against German demands and, as a result, there was no distribution of food. Townsfolk went foraging in the country and thousands camped in fields in search of food. Five slung panniers, each capable of carrying 70 sacks containing flour, yeast, powdered egg, dried milk, peas, beans, tins of meat and bacon, tea, sugar, pepper and special vitamin chocolate, were fitted into the Lancaster bomb bays. Orders were issued for each squadron to drop the panniers in their allotted area, which they would find ‘marked’ by PFF Mosquitoes after liaison with the Dutch authorities and the underground movement. ³³ Only the bedridden appeared to be confined to their homes as the Lancasters flew over to drop their loads and there was a sea of hands waving handkerchiefs and flags to greet the RAF bombers while even some German gunners standing by their anti-aircraft guns waved solemnly in acquiescence.

The authorities tried to keep the drop zones clear but there were a few incidents. A Lancaster of 186 Squadron, which was briefed to drop five large panniers each on Waalhaven aerodrome near Rotterdam, dropped three packages, by which time crowds had swarmed across the field and they could not risk dropping the others. Another Lancaster could not get all its packages away because the bomb doors had been damaged by small-arms fire. Back over Stradishall the pilot found that he could not lower the undercarriage. While ‘jinking’ his aircraft to jolt the wheels down, a package fell, strewing tea, sugar and tins over the countryside to the north of Stradishall which caused something of a race between villagers and the RAF recovery party. Finally the pilot flew to Woodbridge and landed safely on the long runway. Next day two bags from an aircraft above hit one of this squadron’s Lancasters, fortunately without causing damage. The drops continued for several days. Crews reported that, on a number of houses, messages had been whitewashed – ‘Thanks RAF’ and ‘Good Luck Tommy’. Many crews gave their own sweet rations and their aircrew issue, wrapped up and tied by string to handkerchiefs or pieces of linen to make a parachute. They flung them from the open windows of their Lancasters with notes saying, Ver Het Kinde – ‘For The Children’. The sweets became a free for all! Stones marked out ‘TABAC’ and a whip round of the cigarette ration was organized and it was dropped at the location the next day. A target indicator in the Rotterdam area fell by a house and set it on fire. One pannier dropped in a lake, but later crews reported rowing boats going out to salvage the contents. During the operation one Lancaster, after dropping 284 sacks, got into trouble over the North Sea on the return journey. A short in a microphone heater caused a fire in the rear turret and exploded rounds of ammunition. The pilot was able to land at Oulton without injury to any of the crew. During Operation Manna from 29 April to 7 May a total of 6,684 tons of food were dropped in 3,156 sorties by Lancasters and 145 flown in Mosquitoes.

Maurice Bishop, pilot of Winsome Winnie of 218 ‘Gold Coast’ Squadron, recalls: ‘On 30 April we did our first food drop on Operation Manna to Rotterdam and 2 May to The Hague, both marvellous low flying, 250 feet. The “Thanks” messages on the roofs with towels and sheets I will always remember.’

The last operational order of the war for offensive action by Lancasters was issued on the morning of 3 May when 427 (Lion) Squadron at Leeming was instructed to detail nine aircraft to lay mines in the Kattegat that night. At 22.30 the Lancasters started out and eight had taken off when a general order suspending all operations was received. They were contacted by radio, recalled and they landed with their mines. At Skipton-on-Swale 424 (Tiger) Squadron already had eight aircraft airborne when the recall was received, with instructions to fly locally for four hours to lessen their fuel and so reduce their load for landing.

EXODUS Operation Order No. 1 was issued on 2 May. Two days later Lancasters were landing at Brussels and Juvincourt to repatriate prisoners-of-war from Germany. Westcott was the main reception base and there were many touching scenes as soldiers, sailors and airmen jumped out of the Lancasters on to British soil for the first time for several years in some cases. Every effort was made to provide a welcome and military bands played the Lancasters in. At one reception station the response was measured in the rate of rations consumed in one day – 15,000 cups of tea and half a ton of cakes. EXODUS continued during VE Day, celebrated on 8 May, and was followed by Operation Dodge, the repatriation of Eighth Army soldiers from Bari in Italy. Most Lancaster units, not on repatriation duty, were stood down on VE Day. At Middleton St George, a Canadian Lancaster station, a pipe-band marched round followed ‘by the station personnel in various stages of intoxication’. Anyone rash enough to be properly dressed had his tie clipped off while others had the ‘wingtips’ of their luxuriant moustaches trimmed too. Tragically, one Lancaster loaded with 25 passengers and a crew of six got into trouble soon after take-off from Juvincourt and it appears that the passengers were told to take up station at the rear of the aircraft. This upset the flying trim and the pilot lost control. The Lancaster dived into the ground near Roye-Ami and all the occupants were killed. Apart from that tragedy, 74,000 ex-POWs were brought safely home in Lancasters up to 28 May when the final evacuation was carried out.

Maurice Butt, a pilot in 149 Squadron recalls: ‘VE Day, 8 May, found many hundreds of RAF and other recently liberated prisoners of war on the tarmac at Brussels Airport, awaiting transport back to England. The boys of Bomber Command gave up their celebration leave to come and get us out and we piled into the Lancs, the most excited “bombloads” ever carried. I was lucky, being the first on our plane and scrambled forward to the bomb-aimer’s station; spotting everything approaching, after about half an hour, there were the white cliffs of Dover. At that moment, the front gunner handed me his helmet. Incredibly, Winston Churchill was speaking from the House of Commons, announcing the victory news and I could hear it quite clearly on the earphones.’

With one eye on the peace, Churchill tried to distance himself from the bombing of German cities. He declared that, ‘The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing’. This was the same Winston S. Churchill who, on 22 June 1941, had said. ‘We shall bomb Germany by day as well as night in ever-increasing measure, casting upon them month by month a heavier discharge of bombs and making the German people taste and gulp each month a sharper dose of the miseries they have showered upon mankind.’ Many others tried to denigrate the efforts of Bomber Command and its leaders, notably ‘Bomber’ Harris but they have nothing to be ashamed of. The real pioneering achievements in bomb warfare – Guernica, Warsaw, Belgrade, Rotterdam – were the work of the Germans. As early as August 1942, when the vanguard of the German Sixth Army had reached the Volga and not a few were dreaming of settling down after the war on an estate in the cherry orchards beside the quiet Don, the city of Stalingrad, then swollen (like Dresden later) by an influx of refugees, was under assault from 1,200 bombers. And, that during this raid alone, which caused elation among the German troops stationed on the opposite bank, 40,000 people lost their lives.³⁴

Sergeant Frank W. Tasker, a Lancaster mid-upper gunner in 622 Squadron says: ‘The most successful of our nightly operational flights and the ones that I remember so well were those on Dresden and Chemnitz. Since World War II some Germans have complained about those raids having taken place. Have they conveniently forgotten, how for the first TWO YEARS of the war, the Luftwaffe was bombing London (where I lived) and elsewhere in UK day and night! Have they also forgotten the V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets they were still indiscriminately sending to kill innocent women and children in England? Surely they haven’t also forgotten about the gas chambers they used!’

Flight Sergeant John Aldridge recalls: ‘Afterwards, when I read criticism of the bombing, I did wonder what I’d been a part of but at the time it was just a job we had to do.’

‘I never spent much time wondering what was going on down below’ recalled Rod Rodley. ‘I eased my conscience feeling that the Germans must do what we’d been doing, which was to evacuate non-participants. I never pictured what a bomb could do to a human frame. I’d done my duty, which was to take a load of high explosive to an aiming point laid down by those in authority above me, whom I trusted. If I’d been an imaginative character I might have wondered exactly what happened when those bombs hit but I merely hoped that I was hitting a factory or machine tools or something of that ilk. The only way I could have got a picture of the effect of bomb attack on people was to go to the East End of London. I had no great desire to do that. I was not troubled in my conscience because we were fighting a very ruthless enemy. We all knew this. Our families were home behind us and we were rather like a crusader with his sword in front of them. My thoughts at the time were that I have a family and a bigger family – the public – and I was going to do my damnedest to stop the Germans coming across. If you go into war you’ve got to win it, and if you are too weak you suffer the trials and tribulations of being a slave race. Some of our intelligentsia are writing in the peace and warmth of their homes about how wicked the bombing campaign was. They don’t realize that they wouldn’t have had that freedom to do so if we had not had 55,000 aircrew who lost their lives for their sake.’³⁵

My brief sweet life is over,

my eyes no longer see,

No summer walks, no Christmas

trees, no pretty girls for me,

I’ve got the chop, I’ve had it, my

nightly ops are done,

Yet in a hundred years from now,

I’ll still be twenty-one.³⁶

For thousands of Bomber Command aircrew, the war was never over. Their daily hell would follow many of them to their graves.

Leave them their glory.

Notes

1

Dresden was targeted as part of a series of particularly heavy raids on German cities in Operation Thunderclap with a view to causing as much destruction, confusion and mayhem as possible. The other cities were Berlin, Chemnitz and Leipzig which, like Dresden, were vital communications and supply centres for the Eastern Front. Thunderclap had been under consideration for several months and was to be implemented only when the military situation in Germany was critical. The campaign was to have started with an American raid on Dresden on 13 February but bad weather over Europe prevented any US involvement until the 14th. Dresden was to be bombed in two RAF assaults three hours apart, the first by 244 Lancasters and the second by 529 more.

2

1 Group, of which 460 Squadron was one, would be in the second phase. Two hundred and forty-four Lancasters of 5 Group were to commence the attack at 22.15 hours on 13 February, using its own Pathfinder technique to mark the target. This was a combination of two Lancaster Squadrons – 83 and 97 – to illuminate the target and one Mosquito Squadron (627) to visually mark the aiming point with Target Indicators from low level. The aiming point was to be a sports stadium in the centre of the city, situated near the lines of railway and river which would serve as a pointer to the Stadium for the marker force, especially since it was anticipated that visibility might not be too good. A second attack was timed for 01.30 hours on the 14th by another 529 aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. Calculations were that a delay of three hours would allow the fires to get a grip on the sector (provided the first attack was successful) and fire brigades from other cities would concentrate fighting the fires. In this second attack target marking was to be carried out by 8 Pathfinder Group. The bombing technique to be carried out by the main 5 Group Lancaster Force was known as the Sector type, which had been developed by 5 Group in area attacks. This meant that each aircraft headed up to the aiming point on a different heading – in the case of the Dresden attack from about due south to about due east, each with differing delays for bomb release after picking up the aiming point on the bombsight. This meant that the bombing covered a wedge-shaped sector, resulting in a great number of fires being started over the whole sector, since a great proportion of the bomb load consisted of incendiaries. Finally, 450 B-17s of the US 8th Air Force were to attack Dresden shortly after 12.00 on 14 February. To assist the night operations of Bomber Command (a force of 344 Halifaxes was to attack an oil plant at Böhlen near Leipzig at the same time as the first attack) various ‘spoof’ attacks were to be made by Mosquitoes on Dortmund, Magdeburg and Hanover. In addition to the above, routing and feints were to be carried out by the main forces to reduce night fighter reaction to a minimum. In the case of the 5 Group attack the outward route consisted of no less than eight legs with feints towards the Ruhr, Kassel, Magdeburg and Berlin using ‘Window’ at the same time.

3

Each container held 150 41b incendiary bombs.

4

These settings were for the bombsight, with the ‘multiplied by 1.1’ to prevent any German radio interception operator from making any sense of our broadcast and so be unable to substitute a false message.

5

See note 1.

6

When the illuminator force of the Pathfinders arrived over Dresden cloud cover was 9 to 10/10ths up to about 9,500 feet. The marker force of Mosquitoes found the cloud base was at about 2,500 feet. The cloud was not too thick and the flares illuminated the city for the markers who placed their red TIs very accurately on the aiming point. At 22.13 hours, 244 Lancasters, controlled throughout by the master bomber, commenced the attack and it was completed by 22.31 hours. More than 800 tons of bombs were dropped. By the time of the second attack cloud cover had cleared to 3 to 7/10ths but despite this the master bomber could not identify the aiming point, due to the huge conflagrations and smoke and a decision was made to concentrate bombing on areas not affected. An area was marked by the Pathfinders both to the left and to the right to assist in concentrating the bombing and good concentration was achieved. In all, 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs. So great were the conflagrations, caused by the firestorms created in the great heat generated in the first attack, that crews in the second attack reported the glow was visible 200 miles from the target.

7

In all, during the two RAF raids 1,478 tons of HE and 1,182 tons of incendiaries were dropped. In the third attack 316 of the 450 B-17s of the 8th Air Force dispatched, attacked Dresden shortly after 12.00 on 14 February, dropping 771 tons of bombs. (The Americans bombed Dresden again on 15 February and on 2 March). RAF Bomber Command casualties were six Lancasters lost with two more crashed in France and one in England. An 800 degree C firestorm tore through the heart of the Saxon capital, burning thousands of Dresdeners alive. In a firestorm similar to that created in Hamburg on 27/28 July 1943, an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 Germans died in Dresden. (At Böhlen the weather was bad and the bombing scattered).

8

The 14/15 February raid on Chemnitz, again in two phases, cost eight Lancasters and five Halifaxes.

9

460 Squadron RAAF flew more Lancaster sorties (5,700) than any other squadron and, as a consequence, suffered the highest Lancaster losses in 1 Group (140 + 31 in accidents).

10

Flight Sergeant Base had witnessed the demise of the only Lancaster claimed shot down by night fighters. Just six Lancasters were lost from the 796 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitoes dispatched. Major Hans Leickhardt, Kommandeur of II./NJG 5 was probably the only Nachtjäger to make contact with the Dresden force; he shot down two Lancasters.

11

Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, Kommodore, NJG 4 took off from Gütersloh at 01.05 hours in Bf 110C G9+MD. Employing Schräge Musik attacks delivered below the bombers in an Einsatz (sortie) lasting 2 hours 9 minutes, he shot down two Lancasters at about 11,000 feet WSW of Mönchengladbach-SW of Roermond.to take his score to 109. Hauptmann Adolf Breves of IV./NJG 1 took off from Düsseldorf airfield at 02.13 hours on 21 February in his Bf 110 and claimed three aircraft in the Ruhr area to take his score to 16.

12

Fourteen Lancasters were lost on Dortmund. Düsseldorf cost four Halifaxes and one Lancaster. Monheim resulted in the loss of two Halifaxes. Mittelland Canal was w/o loss. In total 22 aircraft failed to return.

13

On 21/22 February German ground control identified the course and height of the bomber stream heading for Worms and, before the heavies reached their target, succeeded in infiltrating 15 Spitzenbesatzungen of NJG 6 into the bomber stream in the area of Mannheim-Worms. No jamming of their SN-2 sets was experienced and neither were any Mosquitoes encountered. Eight Nachtjagd crews claimed 21 bombers destroyed in the target area. Hauptmann Breves claimed two more Viermots in a 50-minute sortie in the Ruhr area as his 17th and 18th and final victories of the war. Oberfeldwebel Günther Bahr of 1./NJG 6, flying Bf 110G 2Z+IH with Feldwebel Rehmer as Bordfunker and Unteroffizier Riediger as Bordschütze shot down seven Lancasters of the Worms force on their bombing run to the target in quick succession. Hauptmann Johannes Hager’s six Viermots were his 40th-45th Abschüsse (all but six of his 45 claims were later confirmed) and he was awarded the Ritterkreuz. Hauptmann Heinz Rökker, Ritterkreuzträgerand Staffelkapitän of 2./NJG 2 also destroyed six (56th-61st kills); five of his Abschüse were of the Mittelland Canal force. Rökker ended the war with 63 Nachtjagd Abschüsse (including 55 Viermots and 1 Mosquito) + 1 day victory in 161 sorties with NJG 2.

14

Gänsler, an experienced Bordschütze who had formidable night-vision, had previously flown with Oberleutnant Ludwig Becker and had shared in 17 kills with him. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz.

15

Lancaster I NG329 JO-Z of 463 Squadron was MIA at Gravenhorst. Schnaufer’s final 15 victories came in 1945, nine of them in one 24-hour period on 21 February, to take his grand total to 121 bombers in 130 sorties (114 of his kills were four-engined Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters) and he was decorated with the Ritterkreuz with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Leutnant Fritz Rumpelhardt took part in 100 of these successful attacks and Oberfeldwebel Gänsler in 98. Rumpelhardt was the most successful Bordfunker in Nachtjagd being credited with 100 Abschussbeteiligungen, or ‘contributions to claims’. Schnaufer died in a motor car accident in France on 31 July 1950.

16

Bomber Command’s last Victoria Cross of the war was awarded for an action this night. The master bomber was Captain Edwin Swales DFC SAAF. A German fighter twice attacked his Lancaster over the target. Swales could not hear the evasion directions given by his gunners because he was broadcasting his own instructions to the main force. Two engines and the rear turret of the Lancaster were put out of action. Swales continued to control bombing until the end of the raid and must take some credit for the accuracy of the attack. He set out on the return flight but encountered turbulent cloud and ordered his crew to bale out. This they all did successfully but Swales had no opportunity to leave the aircraft and he was killed when it crashed. He is buried at the Leopold War Cemetery at Limburg in Belgium.

17

Thirteen Halifaxes, nine Lancasters, one Mosquito and one Fortress III.

18

Altogether, 33 Ju 88G night intruders were lost during Gisela. Five German aircraft crashed on British soil and eight other crews were reported missing. Three more crews perished in crashes on German territory. Six crews baled out due to lack of fuel and 11 crashed on landing.

19

Rick Thomson, The Nanton Lancaster Society. The other crewmembers KIA apart from Fern, Copeland and Jones were Flight Lieutenant George Rowe DFC, navigator (22) from Ontario; Flying Officer Joe Latremouille, WOp/AG (22) also from Ontario and Flying Officer Gibson Scott, MUG, (26) from BC, Canada. Two other Lancasters were shot down on the Essen raid with all crews lost. Two Lancasters failed to return from the raid on Dortmund the next day.

20

Hauptmann Martin ‘Tino’ Becker of Stab IV./NJG 6 and his Funker Unteroffizier Karl-Ludwig Johanssen in a Ju 88G-6 claimed nine bombers, the highest score by a German night fighter crew in any single night. Becker shot down six Lancasters of the Lützkendorf force. After expending his last ammunition on the sixth Lancaster he positioned his Ju 88G to the side of two more Lancasters and finally a Fortress III, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Norman Rix DFC, and Unteroffizier Karl-Ludwig Johanssen manning the twin rear facing machine guns, shot each one down in turn. Johanssen’s three victims counted towards the grand total of his pilot so the B-17 was Becker’s 57th official victory. Johanssen was awarded the Ritterkreuz two days later. Becker’s score at the end of the war was 58 night victories. A second Fortress III flown by Flight Lieutenant Johnny Wynne DFC flew at around 24,000 feet while the Lancs flew towards the target at 20,000 feet. For the homeward trip the Lancs and the Forts were to fly at 3,000 feet above sea level to make it difficult for the German night fighters to locate and attack them. Wynne’s Fortress was within half an hour’s flying time of the Rhine when his aircraft was hit and he flew 80 miles with the No. 2 engine on fire and the fuel tank, which by now was half full, expected to explode at any time. He was 60 miles from the Rhine where the land, south-west of the river, was occupied by the Allied armies. Unfortunately, strong winds had caused the main force to fly further south and east of the planned track and the Fortress had been hit 25 miles east of the position recorded in Flying Officer Dudley Heal DFM, the 1st Navigator’s log. The No. 2 engine gradually disintegrated but Wynne was sure that they had, by now, reached the safety of French territory. Wynne ordered his crew to bale out. All nine men vacated the aircraft in less than five minutes. Wynne managed to keep airborne but by the time he was ready to leave, baling out was no longer an option, he was far too low and the aircraft refused to climb. Incredibly, the flames died down and finally the engine fire went out. Wynne somehow managed to reach England where he crash-landed at Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire. Five of the nine men never returned. The 2nd navigator, who had broken his ankle, was hospitalized. Dudley Heal became a POW. The rest of the crew were rounded up, put in a school basement and later they were hauled into the street by a lynch mob. Four were murdered in cold blood; the fifth was free for a day and, after giving himself up, was beaten by a mob before being murdered by Gert Biedermann, a 15 year old Hitler Youth, who shot him in the head. Biedermann, who had dug the bodies of his mother and five brothers and sisters from the rubble after the bombing of Pforzheim, was later tried, found guilty and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. See Confounding the Reich by Martin W. Bowman (Pen & Sword, 2004).

21

Oberleutnant Erich Jung, Staffelkapitän 5./NJG 2 in Ju 88G-6 4R+AN with his Funker Feldwebel Walter Heidenreich and flight mechanic Oberfeldwebel Hans Reinnagel, destroyed eight Lancasters, some by Jung with his Schräge Musik and some with his forward-firing guns. Heidenreich, who had taken part in 12 kills with Oberleutnant Günter Köberich, who had been killed in an American raid on the airfield at Quakenbrück in April 1944, shot down the 3rd victim, which took Jung’s personal score to 28 kills. Hauptmann Wilhelm ‘Wim’ Johnen, Kommandeur of III./NJG 6 claimed his 32nd and final victory of the war, a Lancaster SE of Würzburg.

22

On the night of 17/18 March when there was no main force activity, a sweep by 66 Lancasters and 29 Halifaxes was made over Northern France to draw German fighters into the air and formations of Mosquito bombers carrying cookies visited targets in Germany. On 18/19 March 324 aircraft carried out an area bombing raid on Witten, the force losing eight aircraft including six Halifaxes. Meanwhile, 277 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes carried out an area raid on Hanau and just one Lancaster was lost. On 19 March 79 Lancasters attacked the Consolidation Benzol plant at Gelsenkirchen without loss. Benzol plants in Germany were attacked on successive days and nights, 17, 17/18 and 18 March.

23

Nachtjäger claimed 11 Lancasters shot down. Three of the missing aircraft this night were shot down SW and W of Kassel by Hauptmann Johannes Hager, Staffelkapitän of 6./NJG 1 flying a Bf 110G-4, his 40th-42nd and final victories of the war. (Hager had a total score of 48 Abschüsse.)

24

One hundred and seventy-eight aircraft carried out an accurate attack on the rail yards at Rheine and the surrounding town area for the loss of one Lancaster. Some 160 Lancasters raided the railway yards at Münster and a railway viaduct nearby for the loss of three bombers. Another 133 Lancasters and six Mosquitoes headed for Bremen and accurately bombed the Deutsche Vacuum oil refinery without loss. Twenty Lancasters of 617 Squadron attacked the Arbergen rail-bridge just outside Bremen and destroyed two piers of the bridge for the loss of one Lancaster. On the Bremen raid Lancaster B.I (Special) PD117 of 617 Squadron was hit by flak from the railway-mounted flak battery 2./902, the aircraft exploding with tremendous force with its full bomb load on hitting the ground at Okel, south of Bremen, leaving a crater 40 metres wide. Only small fragments were found of the aircraft and its five-man crew, who are all commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial for the Missing of the RAF. The B.1 Special Lancaster had a crew of five instead of the usual seven. One hundred and fifty-one Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes raided the Deutsche Erdölwerke refinery at Hamburg and 131 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes a Benzol plant at Bochum. Five Lancasters were lost, four of them from the Hamburg force and a RCM Fortress, which was supporting the Bochum force, also failed to return. Hauptmann Dieter Schmidt, commander of the 7th Staffel NJG 1 achieved his 40th and final kill; a Lancaster near Cologne (probably NG466 AR-Y of 460 Squadron RAAF – five of the crew KIA). Hauptmann Kraft of 12./NJG 1 claimed a Lancaster near Bochum, for his 51st Abschuss.

25

Two hundred and twenty-seven Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes raided Hildesheim for the loss of four Lancasters. One hundred and thirty Halifaxes, Lancasters and Mosquitoes bombed Dülmen in an area attack without loss and 124 Halifaxes, Lancasters and Mosquitoes raided targets at Dorsten, again without loss. Another 102 Lancasters of 5 Group, in two forces, attacked bridges at Bremen and Nienburg without loss and the bridge at Nienburg was destroyed.

26

One hundred and ninety-five Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes carried out the last raid on Wesel without loss.

27

Some 41 Grand Slam bombs were delivered before the end of the war in Europe.

28

They were claimed shot down by Leutnant Arnold Döring and Hauptmann von Tesmar of IV./NJG 3 and Hauptmann Heinz Ferger of III./NJG 2.

29

Barnes Wallis’ Bombs: Tallboy, Dambuster & Grand Slam by Stephen Flower (Tempus, 2004).

30

Wandering Through World War II by Pete Keillor (Privately published, 2003).

31

A mountain peak between the Oboe ground station and the aircraft had blocked out the bomb release signal. Since Oboe signals went line of sight and did not follow the curvature of the earth, the further the target, the higher one needed to be and the Oboe Mosquitoes flew at 36,000 feet because of the Alps. Crews heard the first two dots of the release signal and then nothing more. They were unable to drop and brought the markers back.

32

As early as 24 February, a Lancaster of 115 Squadron had been on detachment at Netheravon for experiments in dropping provisions. In early April tests were made at Witchford for loading containers in the two types of bomb bays with which Lancasters were fitted. By 6 April practice drops were made and next day Major R. P. Martin gave a demonstration drop to officers of Bomber Command Headquarters assembled at nearby Lacey Green.

33

PFF Mosquitoes made 124 sorties to ‘mark’ the dropping zones.

34

On The Natural History of Destruction by W. G. Sebald.

35

By the end of the war no less than 73,741 casualties were sustained by Bomber Command of which 55,500 aircrew had been KIA or flying accidents, or died on the ground or while prisoners of war. It is a casualty rate that compares with the worst slaughters in the First World War trenches. Operational bomber losses were 8,655 aircraft and another 1,600 were lost in accidents and write-offs. Approximately 125,000 aircrew served in the front line OTU and OCUs of the Command and nearly 60 per cent of them became casualties. In addition, almost 9,900 more were shot down and made POWs to spend one, two or more years in squalid, desolate Oflags and Stalags in Axis held territory. Over 8,000 more were wounded aboard aircraft on operational sorties. Bomber Command flew almost 390,000 sorties, the greatest percentage of them by Avro Lancasters, Handley Page Halifaxes and Wellingtons. Theirs of course were the highest casualties.

36

Requiem for a Rear Gunner by Sergeant R. W. Gilbert.