Chapter 6
‘There’s a battle going on, on the starboard beam.’
We couldn’t see the aircraft but we could see the jets of red tracer being exchanged. Suddenly there was a burst of yellow flame and Jock remarked, ‘That’s a fighter going down – note the position.’
The whole thing was interesting but remote. Dave the navigator who was sitting back with his maps charts and compasses said, ‘The attack ought to begin in exactly two minutes.’
We were still over the clouds. But suddenly those dirty grey clouds turned white. We were over the outer searchlight defences – the clouds below us were white and we were black. D-Dog seemed like a black bug on a white sheet. The flak began coming up but none of it close. We were still a long way from Berlin. I didn’t realize just how far.
Edward R. Murrow head of CBS European Bureau in London.
In the USA on 3 December 1943 radio listeners tuned in to hear their favourite foreign correspondent, Edward R. Murrow, head of CBS European Bureau in London, begin his broadcast: ‘This Is London’. Murrow had become well known in America for his broadcasts during the Blitz when the USA was still neutral;
‘Yesterday afternoon the waiting was over. The weather was right; the target was to be the big city. The crew captains walked into the briefing room, looked at the maps and charts and sat down with their big celluloid pads on their knees. The atmosphere was that of a school and a church. The weatherman gave us the weather. The pilots were reminded that Berlin is Germany’s greatest centre of war production. The intelligence officer told us how many heavy and light ack-ack guns, how many searchlights we might expect to encounter. Then Jock the wing commander, explained the system of markings, the kind of flare that would be used by the Pathfinders. He said that concentration was the secret of success in these raids, that as long as the aircraft stayed well bunched, they would protect each other. The captains of aircraft walked out.’
Murrow boarded a Lancaster of 619 Squadron RAAF at Woodhall Spa airfield, one and a half miles from the Victorian spa town. His pilot was Acting Wing Commander William ‘Jock’ Abercromby DFC* and his crew1 of D-Dog one of 458 aircraft taking part in the raid on the Big City, the fifth heavy attack on Berlin within a fortnight:
‘I noticed that the big Canadian with the slow, easy grin had printed “Berlin” at the top of his pad and then embellished it with a scroll. The red headed English boy with the two weeks’ old moustache was the last to leave the room. Late in the afternoon we went to the locker-room to draw parachutes, Mae West’s and all the rest. As we dressed a couple of the Australians were whistling. Walking out to the bus that was to take us to the aircraft I heard the station loud speakers announcing that that evening all personnel would be able to see a film: Star Spangled Rhythm, free!
‘We went out and stood around a big, black, four-motored Lancaster, D-Dog. A small station wagon delivered a vacuum flask of coffee, chewing gum, an orange and a bit of chocolate for each man. Up in that part of England the air hums and throbs with the sound of aircraft motors all day. But for half an hour before take-off the skies are dead silent and expectant. A lone hawk hovered over the airfield, absolutely still as he faced into the wind. Jack, the tail gunner, said, “It would be nice if we could fly like that”.
‘D-Dog eased around the perimeter track to the end of the runway. We sat there for a moment, the green light flashed and we were rolling ten seconds ahead of schedule. The take-off was smooth as silk. The wheels came up and D-Dog started the long climb. As we came up through the clouds I looked right and left and counted 14 black Lancasters climbing for the place where men must burn oxygen to live. The sun was going down and its red glow made rivers and lakes of fire on top of the clouds. Down to the southward the clouds piled up to form castles, battlements and whole cities, all tinged with red.
‘Soon we were out over the North Sea. Dave, the navigator, asked Jock if he couldn’t make a little more speed – we were nearly two minutes late. By this time we were all using oxygen. The talk on the intercom was brief and crisp. Everyone sounded relaxed. For a while the eight of us in our little world in exile moved over the sea. There was a quarter moon on the starboard beam. Jock’s quiet voice came through the intercom: “That’ll be flak ahead.” We were approaching the enemy coast. The flak looked like a cigarette lighter in a dark room – one that won’t light. Sparks but no flame. The sparks crackling just about level with the cloud tops. We flew steady and straight, and soon the flak was directly below us.
‘D-Dog rocked a little from right to left but that wasn’t caused by the flak. We were in the slipstream of other Lancasters ahead: and we were over the enemy coast.
‘And then a strange thing happened. The aircraft seemed to grow smaller. Jack in the rear turret, Wally, the mid-upper gunner and Titch, the wireless operator all seemed somehow to draw closer to Jock in the cockpit. It was as though each man’s shoulder was against the others. The understanding was complete. The intercom came to life and Jock said: “Two aircraft on the port beam.”
‘Jack in the tail said, “Okay sir; they’re Lancs.” The whole crew was a unit and wasn’t wasting words.
‘The cloud below was ten-tenths. The blue green jet of the exhaust licked back along the leading edge and there were other aircraft all around us. The whole great aerial armada was hurtling towards Berlin. We flew so for 20 minutes, when Jock looked up at a vapour trail curling across above us, remarking in a conversational tone that from the look of it he thought there was a fighter up there. Occasionally the angry red of ack-ack burst through the clouds but it was far away and we took only an academic interest. We were flying in the third wave. Jock asked Wally in the mid-upper turret and Jack in the rear turret if they were cold. They said they were all right and thanked him for asking. Even asked how I was and I said, “All right so far”. The cloud was beginning to thin out. Up to the north we could see light and the flak began to liven up ahead of it.
‘Boz, the bomb-aimer crackled through on the intercom: “There’s a battle going on, on the starboard beam.” We couldn’t see the aircraft but we could see the jets of red tracer being exchanged. Suddenly there was a burst of yellow flame and Jock remarked, “That’s a fighter going down – note the position”. The whole thing was interesting but remote. Dave the navigator who was sitting back with his maps charts and compasses said, “The attack ought to begin in exactly two minutes”. We were still over the clouds. But suddenly those dirty grey clouds turned white. We were over the outer searchlight defences – the clouds below us were white and we were black. D-Dog seemed like a black bug on a white sheet. The flak began coming up but none of it close. We were still a long way from Berlin. I didn’t realize just how far.
‘Jock observed: “There’s a kite on fire dead ahead.” It was a great golden, slow-moving meteor slanting towards the earth. By this time we were about 30 miles from our target area in Berlin. That 30 miles was the longest flight I have ever made. “Dead on time”, Boz the bomb-aimer reported, “Target indicators going down”. The same moment the sky ahead was lit up by brilliant yellow flares. Off to starboard another kite went down in flames. The flares were sprouting all over the sky – reds and greens and yellows; and we were flying straight for the centre of the fireworks. D-Dog seemed to be standing still, the four propellers thrashing the air. But we didn’t seem to be closing in. The cloud had cleared and off to starboard a Lanc was caught by at least 14 searchlight beams. We could see him twist and turn and finally break out. But still the whole thing had a quality of unreality about it. No one seemed to be shooting at us but it was getting lighter all the time. Suddenly a tremendous big blob of yellow light appeared dead ahead, another to the right and another to the left. We were flying straight for them.
‘Jack pointed out to me the dummy fires and flares to right and left but we kept going in. Dead ahead there was a whole chain of red flares looking like stoplights. Another Lanc coned on our starboard beam; the lights seemed to be supporting it. Again we could see those little bubbles of coloured lead driving at it from two sides. The German fighters were at him.
‘And then, with no warning at all, D for Dog was filled with an unhealthy white light; I was standing just behind Jock and could see the seams of the wings. His quiet Scots voice beat into my ears. “Steady, lads – we’ve been coned.” His slender body lifted half out of the seat as he jammed the control column forward and to the left. We were going down.
‘Jock was wearing woollen gloves with the fingers cut off. I could see his fingernails turn white as he gripped the wheel. And then I was on my knees, flat on the deck, for he had whipped the Dog back into a climbing turn. The knees should have been strong enough to support me but they weren’t and the stomach seemed in some danger of letting me down, too. I picked myself up and looked out again. It seemed that one big searchlight, instead of being 20,000 feet below, was mounted right on the wingtip.
‘D for Dog was corkscrewing. As we rolled down on the other side I began to see what was happening to Berlin.
‘The clouds were gone and the sticks of incendiaries were yellow and started to flow to the preceding waves making the place look like a badly laid-out city with the street lights on. The small incendiaries were going down like a fistful of white rice thrown on a piece of black velvet. As Jock hauled the Dog up again I was thrown to the other side of the cockpit and there below were more incendiaries glowing white and then turning red. The cookies – the four 1,000lb high explosives – were bursting below, like great sunflowers gone mad. And then as we started down, still held in the lights. I remember that the Dog still had one of those cookies and a whole basket of incendiaries in his belly and the lights still held us. And I was very frightened.
‘While Jock was flinging him about in the air he suddenly flung over the intercom, “Two aircraft on the port beam”. I looked astern and saw Wally, the mid-upper gunner, whip his turret round to port and then looked up to see a single-engined fighter slide below us. The other aircraft was one of ours. Finally we were out of the cone, flying level. I looked down and the white fires had turned red; they were beginning to merge and spread. Just like butter does on a hot plate. Jock and Boz, the bomb-aimer, began to discuss the target. The smoke was getting thick down below. Boz said he liked the two green flares on the ground almost dead ahead. He began calling his directions and just then a new bunch of big flares went down on the far side of the sea of flame and flare that seemed to be directly below us. He thought that would be a better aiming point. Jock agreed and we flew on. The bomb doors were open. Boz called his directions: “Five left . . . five left.” Then there was a gentle, confident upward thrust under my feet and Boz said, “Cookie gone”. A few seconds later the incendiaries went and D-Dog seemed lighter and easier to handle.
‘I thought I could make out the outline of streets below, this time all those patches of white on black had turned, caught us, but didn’t hold us. Then through the intercom, “We’re still carrying it.” And Jock replied, “Is it a big one or ;a little one? I’m not sure – I’ll check.” More of those yellow flares came down and hung about us. I hadn’t seen so much light since the day war began. Finally, the intercom announced that it was only a small container of incendiaries left and Jock remarked, “Well, its hardly worth going back and doing another run-up for that”. If there had been a good fat bundle left he would have gone back through that stuff and done it all again.
‘I began to breathe and to reflect again – that all men would be brave if only they could leave their stomachs at home, when there was a tremendous whoomp, an unintelligible shout from the tail-gunner . . . D-Dog shivered and lost altitude. I looked out the port side and there was a Lancaster that seemed close enough to touch; he had whipped straight under us – missed us by 25 – 50 feet. No one knew how much.
‘The navigator sang out the new course and we were heading for home. Jock was doing what I had heard him tell his pilots to do so often – flying dead on course. He flew straight into a huge green searchlight and as he rammed the throttles home remarked, “We’ll have a little trouble getting away from this one”. And again D-Dog dived, climbed and twisted and was finally free. We flew level then and I looked on the port beam at the target area. There was a red, sullen, obscene glare – the fires seemed to have found each other . . . and we were heading home.
‘For a little while it was smooth sailing – we saw more battles and then another plane in flames but no one could tell whether it was ours or theirs. We were still near the target. Dave, the navigator, said “Hold her steady skipper. I want to get an astral sight.” And Jock held her steady. And the flak began coming up at us. It seemed to be very close. It was winking off both wings. But the Dog was steady. Finally, Dave said, “Okay, skipper, thank you very much” and a great orange blob of flak smacked up straight in front of us. Jock said, “I think they’re shooting at us”. (I had thought so for some time) and he began to throw D for Dog up, around and about again. When we were clear of the barrage I asked him how close the bursts were and he said, “Not very close. When they are really near you can smell ’em.” That proved nothing; for I had been holding my breath.
‘Jack sang out from the rear turret, said his oxygen was getting low, thought maybe the lead was frozen. Titch, the radio-operator, went scrambling back with a new mask and a bottle of oxygen. Dave, the navigator, said, “We’re crossing the coast”. My mind went back to the time I had crossed that coast in 1938 in a plane that had taken off from Prague. Just ahead of me sat two refugees from Vienna – an old man and his wife. The co-pilot came back and told them that we were outside German territory. The old man reached out and grasped his wife’s hand. The work that was done last night was a massive blow of retribution for all those who have fled from the sound of shots and blows on that stricken continent.
‘We began to lose height over the North Sea. We were over England’s shore. The land was dark beneath us. Somewhere down there below American boys were probably bombing up Fortresses and Liberators getting ready for the day’s work.
‘We were over the home field; we called the control tower; and the calm, clear voice of an English girl replied, “Greetings D-Dog, you are diverted to Mulebag”. We swung round, contacted Mulebag, came in on the flare path, touched down very gently, ran along to the end of the runway and turned left and Jock, the finest pilot in Bomber Command, said to the control tower, “D-Dog clear of runway”.
‘When we went in for interrogation, I looked on the board and saw that the big slow smiling Canadian and the red headed English boy with the two week-old-moustache hadn’t made it.2 They were missing. There were four reporters on this operation. Two of them didn’t come back – two friends of mine, Norman Stockton, of Australian Associated Newspapers and Lowell Bennett, an American representing International News Service. There is something of a tradition amongst reporters that those who are prevented by circumstances from filing their stories will be covered by their colleagues. This has been my effort to do so. In the aircraft in which I flew, the men who flew and fought it poured into my ears their comments on fighters, flak and flares – in the same tones they would have used in reporting a host of daffodils. I have no doubt that Bennett and Stockton would have given you a better report of last night’s activities.3
‘Berlin was a kind of orchestrated hell – a terrible symphony of light and flame. It isn’t a pleasant kind of warfare. The men doing it speak of it as a job. Yesterday afternoon, when the tapes were stretched out on the big map all the way to Berlin and back again, a young pilot with old eyes said to me, “I see we’re working again tonight”. That’s the frame of mind in which the job is being done. The job isn’t pleasant – it’s terribly tiring – men die in the sky while others are roasted alive in their cellars. Berlin last night wasn’t a pretty sight. In about 35 minutes it was hit with about three times the amount of stuff that ever came down on London in a nightlong blitz. This is a calculated, remorseless campaign of destruction. Right now the mechanics are probably working on D-Dog, getting him ready to fly again.’4
On the night of 16/17 December 483 Lancasters and 10 Mosquitoes made yet another night attack on Berlin and five more Mosquitoes dropped decoy fighter flares south of the ‘Big City’. Large scale jamming of German radio and radar was carried out by using quotations from Hitler’s speeches and very sudden jamming of the Soldatenrundfunksender (Forces Broadcasting Station) Anne Marie by continuous sound from a strong British jamming station. However, the bombers, who flew directly to the capital across Holland and Northern Germany, were plotted with great accuracy, Mosquito spoof attacks on Kassel and Hanover were clearly recognized as such and night fighters were sent to intercept the Lancaster force. Widespread mist and fog at 150 – 300 feet in the North German plains reduced the overall effectiveness of the fighter defence and 23 aircraft, mostly Bf 110s, had to abandon their sorties prematurely. Even so, German night fighters shot down 20 bombers and Wilde Sau fighters and flak destroyed five more.5Berlin was cloud-covered but the Pathfinder sky-marking was fairly accurate and most of the bombing was in the city area. On the way home the force returned over Denmark but many of the aircraft encountered very low cloud over England and 29 Lancasters either crashed or were abandoned when their crews baled out. Seven of these were Lancasters of 97 Squadron, which had dispatched 21 aircraft from Bourn and had lost one Lancaster and its crew to enemy action on the raid. Only eight of the squadron’s Lancasters landed back safely at Bourn. One bomber crashed a mile to the north-east of Graveley killing all the crew. Another Lancaster piloted by Squadron Leader Ernie Deverill DFC AFC DFM who had flown the infamous Augsburg daylight raid, crashed near Graveley with the loss of the pilot and six of his crew. Two more crashed at Bourn and eight crew men were killed and five were injured. Another Lancaster crashed south of Gransden, while another was abandoned in the vicinity of Wyton and crashed in the sea. A seventh was abandoned near Ely, the Lancaster finally crashing four miles north-west of Orford Ness near Sudbourne in Suffolk. One Lancaster that was hit by incendiaries from another aircraft over Berlin limped back with two engines out of action. A signal was received that the crew were ditching off the coast of Denmark but after a short interval the message was cancelled and the Lancaster crossed the North Sea to land on two engines at Downham Market.
On the night of 20/21 December, 650 bombers including 390 Lancasters raided Frankfurt with the loss of 27 Halifaxes and 14 Lancasters, many falling victim to fighter attacks en route to the target. Flight Sergeant Richard ‘Dick’ Starkey and his crew in 106 Squadron at Metheringham, were flying their third operation this night. They had joined the squadron in October 1943, flying their first op to Leipzig on the 20th. Their second had been to Berlin at the start of the Battle of Berlin in November. Starkey recalls:
‘We took off for Frankfurt in aircraft JB534. My mid-upper gunner had been granted compassionate leave and his replacement was a sergeant whose crew had already completed their first tour and he had to complete his by flying with other crews. We had no trouble on the outward journey and flew at 21,000 feet. The target was covered by a lot of cloud so the ground markers were hidden and I also remember that the Germans had lit a decoy fire south of the city. About ten miles north of the target on our return journey we were fired upon by cannon and machine gun from what we presumed was a night-fighter. The rear-gunner immediately instructed me to corkscrew, as enemy tracer came from the port quarter. I did so and after one complete corkscrew, resumed normal course. I could tell that he had been hit around the port main plane and hoped there would be no flames. However, a further attack followed immediately and the aircraft was hit again. I corkscrewed again but neither gunner saw a fighter so we resumed course. The fighter was never seen and although the rear-gunner attempted to open fire on three occasions, his guns failed to function. When we resumed course it was evident that the aircraft had been extensively damaged, because it started to shudder violently and I had great difficulty controlling it. The vibration transferred to my body as I fought to maintain control. The rear-gunner reported that the port fin tail-plane rudder was extensively damaged and a large part had disappeared. As for the main plane we could not see any damage but we knew there was some.
‘Soon after the attack the navigator instructed me to change course, but on applying rudder and aileron, the aircraft began to bank steeply and put her back on an even keel by using automatic pilot – manual controls were ineffective. The shuddering continued and I decided that this was due to damage to the port tail plane. I asked the navigator what the remaining headings would be according to his flight plan and log. He informed me that there would be slight turnings to starboard, which meant that I would not have to apply port rudder. At this particular point we did not know that the aileron was just a skeleton, the covering having disappeared during the attack. I also decided that if we were to get back to base safely, it would necessitate a right-hand circuit.
‘We were lucky that the engines were intact, but the shudderings continued and after approximately two and three-quarter hours we approached base. The wireless operator informed the control tower the condition of the aircraft and that it was essential to make a right hand circuit and also that we must land immediately. Permission was given to circuit to the right at 800 feet and other aircraft were ordered to maintain their height. On our approach down the funnel we began to drift to starboard and I dared not counteract this. I switched the landing light on and touched down on the grass, 50 yards to the right of the flare path.
‘When the aircraft was examined next morning and the full extent of the damage was revealed, there was severe damage to the port fin and rudder, more than 50 per cent was missing. The port side of the fuselage had been riddled with bullets, which stopped just before the wireless operator’s position. Material covering the port aileron had been ripped off and a cannon shell had exploded on the underside of the port main plane creating a jagged hole approximately one foot in diameter. If the shell had exploded further forward it would have hit the fuel tanks and the aircraft would have “gone up”. Repairs had to be carried out on the airfield by workmen from Avro and took approximately six weeks to complete. JB534 was transferred to ‘A’ Flight after the repairs were completed only to crash near the village of Martin when returning from its first operation [on 16 February 1944], killing all the crew except one.’
On the night of 29/30 December Berlin was again the target for RAF Bomber Command and 712 aircraft, including 457 Lancasters, were dispatched. At the 1 Group aerodrome at Elsham Wolds, Sergeant Ben Frazier, Yank Staff Correspondent boarded V- Victor of 576 Squadron for the operation to the ‘Big City’ with Flying Officer Gomer S. ‘Taff’ Morgan and his crew.6 Frazier wrote:
‘England. A small village lay tucked away in the fold of a valley just below the high, windswept, bleak plateau where a Lancaster bomber station was situated. Housewives were busy in the kitchen preparing food, and the men had left their ploughing to come in for the noon-day meal. In the lichen covered Gothic Church, the minister’s wife was arranging decorations, and placing on the altar freshly cut chrysanthemums that had managed to escape the north winds and were still blooming in December. The placidness of the village life was in sharp contrast to the bustling activity at the airfield. It seemed as remote from war as any hamlet could possibly be, although the provident farmers, living so close to an obvious military target had wisely provided themselves with shelter trenches at the edge of each ploughed field. Nevertheless, the name of this quiet, lovely village had spread far. By borrowing it, the bomber station had made it one to strike terror into the heart of the Nazi High Command.
‘At the airfield, V for Victor’s crew lounged around B Flight’s Office waiting to see if operations were on. They kept looking up into the sky as if trying to guess what the weather was going to be like. Some of the men chuckled. “Papa Harris is so set on writing off the Big City that he hardly even notices the weather,” one of them said. “The last time, there were kites stooging around all over the place. The met boobed that one.”
‘It was a strange new language. What the airmen were saying was that the last time out the meteorological men had given a wrong steer on the weather, and the planes had been flying all over looking for the field on the return trip. “Papa” Harris was Air Chief Marshal Harris, chief of Bomber Command.
‘V for Victor’s captain came back from the operations room with the news that there would be ops. That settled the discussion. You seemed to be aware, without noticing anything in particular, of a kind of tension that gripped the men; like they were pulling in their belts a notch or two to get set for the job ahead.
‘And with the news, everybody got busy – the aircrews, the ground crews, the mechanics, the WAAFs, the cooks. The ships already had a basic bomb and fuel load on board, and the additional loads were sent out in ammunition trailers and fuel trucks. The perimeter track lost its usually deserted appearance and looked like a well-travelled highway, with trucks and trailers, buses and bicycles hurrying out to the dispersal points. It was just like the preparation at any bomber base before taking off for enemy territory – but going over the Big City was something different. These men had been there before. They knew what to expect.
‘In the equipment room, June, the pint-size WAAF in battledress, was an incongruous note. Over a counter as high as her chin, she flung parachutes, harnesses and Mae Wests. The crew grabbed them and lugged them out to the ships. You kept thinking they ought to be able to get somebody a little bigger for the job she was handling.
‘In the briefing room, the met officer gave the weather report and the forecast over enemy territory. There would be considerable cloud over the target. The men grinned. An operations officer gave a talk on the trip. The route was outlined on a large map of Germany on the front wall. It looked ominously long on the large-scale map. He pointed out where the ground defences were supposed to be strong and where fighter opposition might be expected. He gave the time when the various phases should be over the target. He explained where the “spoof” attacks were to be made and the time. He told the men what kinds of flares and other markers the Pathfinders would drop. There was the usual business of routine instructions, statistics and tactics to be used. The Group Captain gave a pep talk on the progress of the Battle of Berlin. And all the while, that tape marking the route stared you in the face and seemed to grow longer and longer.
‘Outside it was hazy and growing more so. But this was nothing new. The men were convinced that the weather was always at its most variable and its dampest and its haziest over their field. What could you expect? Ops would probably be scrubbed after all. Hell of a note.
‘In the fading light the planes were silhouetted against the sky. They looked, on the ground, slightly hunched and menacing like hawks. Seeing them there, in the half-light you would never guess how easy and graceful they are in flight. Nor would you realize when you see them soaring off the runway, what an immense load they take up with them. It is only when you see the open bomb bay on the ground, that you get some idea of a Lancaster’s destructive power. The open bomb bay seems like a small hangar. The 4,000lb block buster in place looks like a kitten curled up in a large bed. It is a sobering sight.
‘In the evening some of the men tried to catch a few winks; most of them just sat around talking. The operational meal followed. It was only a snack, but it was the last solid food any one would get until the fresh egg and bacon breakfast, which has become a ritual for the proper ending of a successful mission.
‘As there was still some time to wait before take-off, V for Victor’s crew sat around the ground crews’ hut near the dispersal point, warming themselves by the stove or chewing the rag with the ground crew. The Wingco came around to make a last minute check-up. The medical officer looked everyone over. The engineer officer checked the engines.
‘The minutes crept by until at last the time came to get into the planes. The deep stillness of the night was awakened by the motors revving up; one after another until each one was lost in the general roar. The crews scrambled into the planes and took their places. The great ships were guided out of their dispersal areas by the ground crews who gave a final wave as the Lancs moved off slowly down the perimeter track. They appeared more menacing than ever creeping along in the dark with their motors roaring. One by one they turned onto the runway and noisily vanished into the night.
‘From now on, until they would return, the members of V for Victor’s crew were a little world in themselves, alone and yet not alone. For all around them were other similar little worlds, hundreds of them with a population of seven, hurtling through space, lightlessly – huge animated ammunition dumps. For its safety, each little world depended utterly and completely on its members – and a large dash of luck.
‘There was not much conversation over the intercom. When you’re flying without running lights on a definite course, and surrounded by several hundred other bombers, you have not time for any pleasantries. The navigator was busy checking the air speed and any possible drift. Almost everyone else kept a look out for other aircraft, both friend and foe. A friendly aircraft is almost as dangerous as an enemy plane, for if two blockbusters meet in mid-air, the pieces that are left are very small indeed.
‘Occasionally the ship jolted from the slipstream of some unseen aircraft ahead, and frequently others overhauled V for Victor, passing by to port and starboard, above and below. V for Victor gained altitude very easily for maximum ceiling. She was a veteran of over 50 ops and had the DFC painted on her port bow to celebrate the fiftieth, but she had the vitality of a youngster. Blondy [Sergeant J. R. O’Hanlon], the wireless-operator, broke the silence. “Taff, the W/T has gone u/s.”
‘The wireless is not used except in an emergency such as ditching, but it is nice to know it’s there. We went on. Occasionally Taff, the pilot, would call into the intercom, “Bob, [Sergeant C. E. ‘Bob’ Shilling] are you OK?” There would be a silence for a moment while the rear-gunner fumbled to turn on his intercom, until you wondered if he had frozen back there. Then he’d sing out, “OK, Taff.” He and the mid-upper gunner [Sergeant A. Newman] were the only two outside the heated cabin. Inside the cabin it was warm and snug. You didn’t even need gloves. Jock [Sergeant J. R. “Jock” Mearns], the navigator, wore no flying gear, just the Air Force battledress.
‘Up ahead the Pathfinder boys dropped the first route markers, flak shot up into the air and the men knew that V for Victor was approaching the Dutch coast. An enormous burst of flame lit up the night off to port. “Scarecrow to starboard,” the mid-upper reported on the intercom. Jerry intended the “scarecrow” to look like a burning plane but it did not take long to see that it was not.7
‘Jock’s Scots accent came over the intercom: “Taff, we’re eleven minutes late.” “OK, we’ll increase speed.” The engineer pushed up the throttles. Everything was black again below. Occasionally there was a small burst of flak here and there.
“Plane to starboard below!”
“OK, it’s a Lanc.”
‘As V for Victor passed it you could seen the bluish flame from the exhausts lighting the aircraft below in a weird ghostly manner. It was unpleasant to realize that our own exhausts made V for Victor just as obvious as the other plane.
‘Away off the port bow, a glow became visible. It looked like the moon but it was the first big German searchlight belt, encompassing many cities. The beams were imprisoned under cloud.8
“That will be Happy Valley,” Jock said. Another route marker appeared ahead.
“Tell me when we’re over it,” the navigator replied. Shortly the bomb-aimer [Flight Sergeant N. A. “Digger” Lambrell RAAF] said, “We’re bang over it now.”
“OK, Digger.”
“Taff, we’re nine minutes late.”
‘The navigator took a couple of astro sights to get a fix. From this he could determine the wind and the drift of the plane.
‘Another searchlight belt showed up to starboard. It was enormous, running for miles and miles. It was all imprisoned under the cloud but it was an evil looking sight just the same.9 The top of the clouds shone with millions of moving spots, like so many restless glow worms, but the impression was much more sinister – like some kind of luminous octopus. The tentacle-like beams groped about seeking some hole in the cloud, some way of clutching at you as you passed by protected by the darkness. The continuous motion of the searchlights caused a ripple effect on the clouds, giving them an agitated, angry, frustrated appearance. Once in a while one found a rift and shot its light high into the sky. Flak came up sparkling and twinkling through this luminous blanket. V for Victor jolted violently from close bursts, but was untouched. It passed another Lanc, which was clearly silhouetted against the floodlit clouds.
‘Another leg of the trip was completed. The navigator gave the new course over the intercom and added, “Seven minutes late.”
“OK, Jock. Mac, [Pilot Officer E. M. Graham, flight engineer] make it 165.”
‘V for Victor passed plane after plane and occasionally jolted in the slipstream of others. A third searchlight belt showed up and this one was free of cloud. It was a huge wall of light and looked far more impenetrable than a mountain. It seemed inconceivable than any plane could pass through and reach the opposite side. You thanked your lucky stars that this was not the target. To fly out of the protecting darkness into the blaze of light would be a test of courage you would rather not have to face.
‘Nevertheless, there were some facing it right now. The flak opened up and the searchlights waved madly about. It was a diversionary attack, the “spoof”. You watched in a detached, remote sort of way. It seemed very far away and did not seem to concern you at all. Until suddenly, one beam which had been vertical, slanted down and started to pursue V for Victor, and you realized that it did concern you very intimately. The seconds ticked by as the beam overtook the plane. But it passed harmlessly overhead and groped impotently in the darkness beyond.
“Four minutes late,” Jock called over the intercom.
‘The target itself, the Big City, came into view like a luminous patch dead ahead. It was largely hidden by cloud and showed few searchlights. It seemed so much less formidable than the mountain of light just behind, that it came as a sort of anticlimax. Surely, you felt, this cannot be the Big City, the nerve-centre of Europe’s evil genius.
‘It was quiet. There was no flak as yet, no flares, and just the handful of searchlights. You tried to imagine what it was like on the ground there. The sirens would be about to sound; the ack-ack batteries would be standing ready, the searchlights already manned. You wondered if the people were in shelters.
‘But it was too much of an effort. It was too remote. Your problems were flak, fighters, searchlights and whether you were on the course and on time. What happened below was an entirely different problem, which had nothing to do with you. What happened below might just as well be happening on Mars. V for Victor’s own little world simply hovering off this planet and leading a life of its own.
‘Ever so slowly V for Victor crept up on the target. The two worlds were coming inevitably together. But it still had the quality of unreality. It was like a dream where you were hurrying somewhere and yet cannot move at all. Nevertheless, Victor was passing plane after plane and jolted in somebody’s slipstream now and again. The other Lancs looked ominous bearing down on the target, breathing out blue flame as they approached.
‘The minute of the attack and still the target was quiet. One more minute ticked by – still quiet. The engineer opened up the throttles to maximum speed and increased the oxygen supply. Still quiet. The whole attack was a minute or two late. Winds, probably. Suddenly the whole city opened up. The flak poured up through the clouds. It came in a myriad of little lights. It poured up in a stream of red, as if shaken from a hose. It would be impossible to miss such a brilliantly marked objective. Bright flashes started going off under the clouds. That would be the cookies from the planes ahead. V for Victor started the bombing run. The bomb-aimer called the course now.
“Left, left . . . Steady now . . . Right a bit . . . Steady . . . steady . . . Cookie gone!” V for Victor shot upward slightly. “Steady . . . Incendiaries gone . . .” V for Victor surged again ever so slightly.
“Stand-by, Taff,” it was the voice of Bob, the tail-gunner. “Fighter.”
‘Instantly the pilot sent V for Victor over to starboard and rushed headlong downward. A stream of red tracer whipped out of the dark, past the rear turret, and on past the wing-tip, missing by what seemed inches. A second later the fighter itself shot past after the tracer, a vague dark blur against the night sky.
“Me 109,” Bob said calmly.
‘V for Victor squirmed and corkscrewed over the sky of Berlin. You wondered how it could be possible to avoid all the other planes that were over the city. But the fighter was shaken off and V for Victor came back to a normal course again.
‘Down below through rifts in the cloud, you could see that Berlin was burning. The bright, white flame of the incendiaries showed up as a carpet of light, always growing. And flash after flash went off as the blockbusters fell. The dark, black shapes of many Lancasters could be seen all over the sky, against the brilliant clouds below. They were like small insects crawling over a great glass window. It did not seem possible that these tiny black dots could be the cause of the destruction, which was going on below. The insects crawled to the edge of the light and disappeared into the darkness beyond. They had passed safely through the target, V for Victor close behind.
‘Shortly the course was set for the return and Berlin was visible for many miles on the port quarter. The attack was over now. It took only fifteen minutes. The ack-ack was silent. There was no flak flashing over the city, but the city was brighter than ever. The clouds were getting a reddish tinge, which showed that the fires had caught hold below.
‘And so the capital of Nazism dropped astern, obscuring the rising moon by its flames. The Government which came into power by deliberately setting fire to its chamber of representatives, the Government which first used wholesale bombing, and boasted of it, was now perishing in fires far more devastating than any it ever devised. It was perishing to a fire music never dreamed of by Wagner.
‘But it was impossible to connect V for Victor with the death struggles of Berlin. There was no time for contemplation.
“Stand-by, Ju 88 starboard – corkscrew,” came Bob’s voice. Again with lightning speed, the pilot put V for Victor over and dived out of the way. The Ju 88’s tracers missed us and shot down another Lanc, which had not been so fortunate.
‘After that the route home was uneventful. Crossing the North Sea, V for Victor went into a gentle incline towards home base, as if by a sort of homing instinct. The searchlights of England sent out a greeting of welcome. For miles alone the coast they stood almost evenly spaced, vertical sentries guarding the island. Then they started waving downwards in the direction of the nearest airfield. No doubt they were helping home a damaged bomber. How different they were from the menacing tentacles over the German cities. V for Victor arrived over the home field. The wireless-operator called base over his repaired equipment. He said simply. “V for Victor”.
‘The clear voice of a girl came pleasantly over the intercom, “V for Victor, prepare to pancake”. The short business-like message in service slang was a wonderful welcome home. V for Victor circled the field, losing altitude.
“V-Victor in funnels.”
“V-Victor, pancake,” the girl’s voice said. V for Victor touched down, ran down the flare path, and turned off on the perimeter track.
“V-Victor clear of flare path.” The ground crew met V for Victor and acted as a guide back into the dispersal area.
“How was it?”
“Piece of cake,” someone said. The crew got out, collected their gear, the parachutes, Mae Wests, the navigator’s bag, the guns, etc, and then, as one man, lit up cigarettes. The pilot walked around the plane looking for any damage. There was one small hole through the aileron but it was too dark to see it then. The bus arrived and the crew clambered in with all the gear and were taken back to the locker room. June was there, and gathered all the stuff over the counter and staggered away, lost from sight under a mound of yellow suits and Mae Wests. Then back to the briefing room where a cup of hot tea with rum in it was waiting. Each captain signed his name on the board as he came in. Crew by crew, the men went into the Intelligence room, carrying their spiked tea with them. There were packages of cigarettes on the table and everyone chain-smoked, lighting up from the butt of the previous one. The Intelligence Officer asked brief questions and the replies were brief such as “The heavy flak was light and the light flak heavy”. It was over in a very few minutes and you went back to the briefing room and bantered over the trip with the other crews. No trouble, any of them, but there were gaps in the list of captains chalked on the board.
“It’s like that,” the Wingco remarked. “In night flying, you usually get back intact, or you don’t get back at all. If you get coned, or a fighter sees you before you see it, then very often you’ve had it, but if somebody else gets coned then it’s that much easier for you.”
‘You thought of the other Lancaster the Ju 88 got with the same burst that missed V for Victor. And you lit another cigarette. The first signs of dawn were coming over the field now and off in the distance, on the bleak, windswept, little knoll, V for Victor stood guard over the empty dispersal points from which other men and ships had gone out a short while before. “. . . If somebody else gets coned then it’s that much easier for you.”10
On New Year’s Day 1944 one of the crews on the Order of Battle when Bomber Command went to Berlin with a force of 421 Lancasters was Flying Officer James ‘Gil’ Bryson’s in 550 Squadron. They had joined the squadron on its formation at Waltham, Grimsby, on 25 November 1943, having transferred from 12 Squadron at Wickenby where they had begun operations on 3 September. The crew’s last two trips had been to the ‘Big City’ before they had received two days of rest. On 1 January 27 year old Major Wittgenstein’s score stood at 68 victories and he became Kommodore of NJG 2. He was soon airborne in his Ju 88C-6 equipped with SN-2 radar and Schräge Musik and looking for his 69th victory. Sergeant Jim Donnan, Bryson’s W/Op, recalls the events that followed:
‘We were engaged in routine pre-operational checks and testing of our equipment prior to the main briefing, which commenced in a tense atmosphere. When the curtain was drawn aside exposing the operational map, the target was Berlin for the third consecutive time, only this time our route to the ‘Big City’ was almost directly from the Dutch coast across an area, which was becoming increasingly dangerous because of night fighter activity. Deteriorating weather conditions delayed our take-off for several hours. It was therefore difficult to relax during this period. As New Year’s Day was drawing to a close we were preparing for take-off and at 14 minutes past midnight we were airborne and on our way at last. The sky was dark and overcast as we flew through layers of broken cloud, climbing to our operational height, heading east over the North Sea. As we approached the Dutch coast we could see that the anti-aircraft defences were very active and we became alert to the dangers ahead. Flying over Germany, occasional bursts of flak and flashes lit up the thick, unbroken cloud along the route. While searching the night-fighter waveband I was aware of considerable activity by the German control. We found it necessary to keep a sharp look out even though our trip had been uneventful so far. Our navigator Sergeant Thomas “Rocky” Roxby called for a slight change in course for the final leg to Berlin as we reached a position between Hanover and Bremen.
‘It was almost immediately afterwards that a series of thuds vibrated through the floor and the aircraft seemed to bank away to starboard. I leapt up from my seat to the astrodome where I could see the starboard engines were on fire. As I switched over from radio to intercom, I saw that a fire had started under the navigator’s table on the floor just behind the pilot. It was soon burning fiercely. The pilot gave the order to abandon the aircraft. I clipped on my parachute and as I moved forward it was found that the front escape hatch would not open. The engineer joined the bomb-aimer in trying to release it. As I stood behind the navigator waiting to exit, the rear-gunner said that he was having trouble with the rear turret. I then signalled that I would go to the rear exit. The navigator was standing beside the pilot ready to exit as I scrambled over the main spar and along the fuselage to the rear door, losing my shoes on the way. When I got there, the mid-upper gunner was ready to leave and the rear-gunner was out of his turret and preparing to come forward. I then jettisoned the rear door as the flames from the starboard wing streamed past, licking the tail plane. Grasping the release handle on my parachute I prepared to jump but I must have lost consciousness, as I have no recollection of what happened next or how I left the plane. When I regained consciousness, my parachute was already open and I was floating in pitch darkness, very cold and my feet were freezing. I seemed to be a long time coming down but as I descended through the clouds, dark shadows appeared and I landed on soft ground in an open space. Gathering up my parachute, I dashed over to a clump of trees, where I sat on the ground shivering and wondering how I could avoid capture.’11
One Australian pilot who had a ‘ringside’ view for ten weeks of the terrifying attacks on Berlin, was Flight Lieutenant Roland King DFC a pilot on 83 Squadron. He took off from Wyton at 16.11 hours on the night of 20/21 January when 769 aircraft, 495 of them Lancasters, raided the ‘Big City’ again.12 King had bombed Berlin 10 times, as well as many other important targets, before his 11th and last air visit to the Reich capital. That night his Lancaster arrived over the target without incident, but after bombing something went wrong. The control stick suddenly went dead in his hand and the rudders failed. He found, too, that he had lost his helmet and intercommunication gear and that the aircraft was full of smoke. During the next few seconds King tried to check on his crew’s condition, but he could see only two of them. One seemed to be curled up on the inside of the roof, apparently held there by the forces acting on the falling bomber. King released his harness and immediately he, too, was shot upwards. He hit the root then fell back into his seat again. He seized the stick once more and tried to pull the bomber out, but it was useless. This all took place within a few seconds. King believes he lost consciousness; the next thing he remembers is falling through the air, his parachute unopened. He pulled the ripcord, and it spread out above him. He was descending immediately above the target, and the attack was at the height of its fury. Bombs were raining down all around him, and the sky was alight with massed searchlights and bursting flak. The noise then was terrific. He pulled the shroud of his parachute in an attempt to drift outside the city and believes that he did actually drift some little way to the south-west of Berlin, for he came down in a ploughed field. Soon after he landed he heard the Berlin ‘all clear’. He freed himself of his parachute, and then, by the light of incendiary bombs burning in a hole nearby, searched for his cigarette case, but could not get at the lighter. His right arm seemed fixed across his body and quite useless. His left hand was smashed, and he was wounded in the head.
It was dark and raining. King wandered round trying to discover where he was. He kept falling into bomb craters, and after half an hour or so he could hear dogs barking. Thinking they might be searching for him, he climbed several fences, then came to a road and set out along it, fighting the urge to sleep, and looking for a haystack to hide and rest in. But a dense plantation of small fir trees blocked his path, and finally he fell exhausted against the trees and tried to sleep. He was in great pain and soon, realizing it was a bad place in which to stay, he moved on again and reached a wide autobahn. It seemed to run to the south-west of Berlin and King followed it. After three and half-hours’ walking he heard a motor engine approaching and knew that because of his injuries he would have to give himself up. He kept walking, and soon the vehicle stopped behind him with its light shining on him. It was a motor cycle and sidecar carrying two Wehrmacht men. They jumped down, put King in the sidecar, and set out for the burning city, which he could see glowing ahead. The journey was an unforgettable ordeal for the injured man. He was taken first to an army barracks and closely questioned about the type of aircraft he had been flying, but refused to answer. Then he lost consciousness for a time. When he came to he was sent off with two more soldiers on a motor cycle, who were to take him to hospital. The cycle took King through many areas of the burning city while the German soldiers tried to get him into one hospital after another. Three hospitals refused him admittance, for air raid casualties were coming in simultaneously.
The road along which they drove first into the city was walled along the left side by solid flame. The streets were full of people in night attire and every few yards hose pipes crossed the road with wooden ramps protecting them from traffic, most of which seemed to be going in the opposite direction. At one point, they were stopped by a car containing German officers, who got out and asked some questions but let the cycle pass on. King was at last admitted to the Hermann Goering Luftwaffe hospital. He was taken into a room, where he found two RAF men. He remembers sitting on the bed while the Germans cut off his clothes, then no more. He woke up on the operating table. He was two and a half months in the Hermann Goering hospital. His elbow had been severely injured, and he had five operations on it. He had two blood transfusions, both given by one of the RAF men. RAF air attacks occurred almost every night. The patients were hurried down to the air raid shelters in the cellars and there they would listen to the 10 or 15 minute broadcasts of the approach of the bombers. Every time there was an attack the hospital windows were blown out. When the heavies were not over the capital the Mosquitoes ‘stoked the fires’ in the capital.13
On 21/22 January RAF Bomber Command suffered its first major defeat since the big raids on Berlin the previous summer, when 648 aircraft, 421 of them Lancasters, attacked Magdeburg in Prussia, near Berlin and night fighter defences destroyed no less than 57 bombers. In less than 40 minutes Major Wittgenstein, Kommodore of NJG 2 flying a Ju 88C-6 on a Zahme Sau sortie shot down three Lancasters and two Halifaxes in the vicinity of Magdeburg. It all began when Feldwebel Ostheimer, his radar operator, picked up a ‘blip’ on his SN-2 screen. It was a Lancaster. He opened fire and flames came from the port wing of the bomber, which spun down and was seen to crash. Bombers were so thick in the stream that Ostheimer picked up no fewer than six ‘blips’ at once. They made contact with a second Lancaster, which received a short burst of cannon fire before diving away vertically on fire. Ostheimer felt heavy detonations – probably its bomb-load as the Lancaster crashed. Ten minutes later Wittgenstein fired a long burst of fire into yet a third Lancaster, probably the one flown by Flight Lieutenant Leo B. Patkin RAAF of 467 Squadron, which Wittgenstein set on fire with a single burst. The bomber flew on for a few moments before plunging down and crashing in flames at Altmerdingsen, near Burgdorf. The aircraft exploded so violently on impact that roofs and windows of nearby houses were shattered and the crater caused was approximately 25 yards in diameter. Immediately afterwards Ostheimer picked out another bomber, probably a Halifax, and this too went down after only one firing pass. After starting a small fire in another Lancaster, which the crew managed to extinguish, Wittgenstein moved in for the kill. He was about to press the trigger to fire a second burst into the Lancaster when the fuselage and port wing of the Ju 88 was riddled with enemy fire, probably from below. The Junkers went into a dive, whereupon Wittgenstein jettisoned the cabin roof and ordered his crew to bale out immediately, which they did successfully. Early next morning the body of Prinz Wittgenstein was discovered close to the crash site at Lübars. On baling out, his head had probably struck the tail plane, rendering him unconscious and unable to pull the ripcord.14
The next main force raid after Magdeburg was Berlin on 27/28 January when 515 Lancasters and 15 Mosquitoes set out from England. Enemy night fighters were committed to action earlier than usual, some being sent out 75 miles over the North Sea from the Dutch coast. Even though about half the night fighters were lured away from the main thrust by feints and diversions, they still managed to shoot down 33 Lancasters. Twenty-two year old Flying Officer Leonard ‘Dusty’ Miller of 15 Squadron piloted one of the Lancasters on the raid. Len had been born in East Ham in London’s East End. He was an engineer apprentice in the London docks where ‘they were bombed to pieces’. He considered himself a ‘born survivor’. One day in East Ham he and his friend were standing on a street corner when a 2,000lb parachute bomb came down and blew them right across the road. It also blew about four houses down. They went straight away to help dig the people out. Above the trees was another bomb that was swinging on its cords above their heads. Miller remembered going out on a lifeboat to go across to Dunkirk. He got as afar as Gravesend and the Navy stopped them, as they were too young to go! The Company that he worked for wanted them all back to get on with the work! Miller had always wanted to fly. Following a period at 1651 Conversion Unit at Waterbeach, where the crew converted to Stirlings, Sergeant Miller and his crew had been posted to 15 Squadron at Mildenhall on 19 October 1943. They flew three operations on Stirlings before the squadron converted to Avro Lancasters during December. When he first saw the Lancaster Miller ‘drooled’. ‘It was the machine, four engines and it was terrific in handling with all the weight it could carry. It was beautiful to fly. As much as Spitfires are admired, so is the Lancaster. It was a perfect design. The power that surged through the machine was terrific. Such an easy aircraft to fly; it was wonderful.’
On 14 December Len was commissioned pilot officer and life was good at Mildenhall. A 1934 MG he had purchased in 1939 was kept topped up with regular ‘donations’ of petrol that he ‘pinched’ from fuel bowsers that were used to refuel the aircraft. There was a drain cock on the tanker and he would crawl underneath with a Jerry can and fill it up. Being quite fit he had no trouble carrying it and no one ever asked. Whenever the opportunity presented itself he and some of his crew would pile into the MG and go to London. If they had nowhere to sleep they would go to his house in East Ham. He made them all swear not to say that they were on operations because his mother used to worry ‘like hell!’ Miller and his crew furnished their shared quarters with furniture stolen from the squadron leader’s offices and they supplemented their rationed coal by raids on the coal dump. Miller led his crew with camouflage nets over their heads to the coal dump with kit bags. Had they been caught they would probably have been looking at seven days in the guard house or a severe reprimand, but as Miller said, ‘When you stuck your necks out as far as we did, who gave a damn?’
They certainly stuck their necks out over Berlin, which was cloud covered, and sky marking had to be used. On the bomb run a shell came through into the cockpit of Miller’s Lanc and hit his flight engineer, Sergeant Alf Pybus, in the head. The crew only assumed that he might have been wounded, so they wrapped him in Irvin jackets and blankets, the only warm clothing that they had, rolled him up and put the portable oxygen cylinder on him to help him breathe. It was a very stressful time and the crew did not know if Pybus was mortally wounded or just badly wounded. Miller reasoned therefore that the best thing was to get back home with him as quickly as possible. ‘He died beside me on the floor’ says Miller. ‘He had been a very close friend and we had plans to do things together after the war.’15
On the night of 28/29 January, 677 aircraft, 432 of them Lancasters, were dispatched to Berlin for the second night running. Part of the German night fighter force was fooled into taking off too soon by the diversion and spoof forces16 and they headed in the wrong direction, away from the bomber stream, which approached the Big City from over Northern Denmark. This route proved too distant for some of the other German night fighters. Flight Sergeant Les Bartlett, bomb-aimer in Pilot Officer Michael Beetham’s crew in 50 Squadron, at Skellingthorpe, recalls:17
‘The first opposition we met was crossing the enemy coast not far from Flensburg. Searchlights were more active than usual, showing us through a few very large breaks in the clouds, but the Pathfinders were on top form and put down our route markers very accurately, which enabled us to keep out of the most hazardous areas.’
Bartlett’s pilot has been described as a ‘compact, precise man who would later earn a fierce reputation as a young squadron commander’.18 In the summer of 1940 Michael Beetham had spent the school holidays at Hillsea Barracks on the hills overlooking Portsmouth with his father, a veteran of the First World War but too old to fight in the Second. Beetham expected to join the army but watching the Battle of Britain dog fights overhead made him realize that he did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps. He wanted to be a fighter pilot in the RAF instead. Beetham joined the RAF in 1941 but by then the service needed bomber pilots and in the winter of 1943 he had been posted to 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe to fly Lancasters.
Bartlett continues:.
‘We were in the fifth wave and as we approached Berlin I could see that the attack was in full swing. With the target in my sight I could see numerous large fires and one particularly vivid explosion, which seemed to light up the whole of Berlin with a vivid orange flash for about ten seconds. At the critical moment I called for bomb doors open and then released our bombs bang on target. Just as I was taking my usual checks to ensure that no bombs had hung up we saw a night fighter attacking a Lancaster ahead of us. I jumped straight into the front turret and started blazing away. It did a slow turn to port and then spiralled down to earth. From then on we saw absolutely nothing but occasional short bursts of flak, but no searchlights and no fighters at all.’
Even so, the Jägerleitoffizier was still able to concentrate his fighters over the target area where most of the 26 Halifaxes and 20 Lancasters that failed to return were shot down. The cloud over Berlin was broken and some ground marking was possible but bombing was scattered. The western and southern districts were attacked and about 180,000 people were bombed out but 77 other places outside the capital were also hit.
On 30/31 January Berlin was heavily attacked for the third time in four nights, this time by a force of 534 aircraft, which included 440 Lancasters. There were no preliminary diversions and the German night fighters were able to follow the bomber stream until well into the return flight. All bar one of the 33 bombers that failed to return were Lancasters and twin-engined Zahme Sau downed all of these. The raid itself took place in complete cloud cover and bombing was scattered once more. Heavy damage was caused to the Big City but 79 towns and villages outside the capital reported falling bombs, most of these exploding in open countryside.
It was clear that new British tactics and new countermeasures would be necessary before a resumption of raids deep into Germany.19
For two weeks the moon and weather conditions prevented further main force attacks on Berlin and defensive Nachtjagd operations over the Reich during February began relatively quietly, no First Jagdkorps claims being submitted before the night of the 15/16th when 561 Lancaster crews were deployed as part of a raid by 891 aircraft on Berlin. It was the first time that more than 500 Lancasters had been dispatched thus far in the war and the total quantity of bombs dropped, 2,642 tons, was also a record. Berlin was covered by cloud for most of the raid and heavy bombing fell on the centre and south-western districts but many parts of the surrounding countryside again reported bombs falling. Forty-three bombers – 26 of them Lancasters – were lost.20 A Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, one of the last made to an Australian for an attack on Berlin, was awarded to Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Charles Chapman Smith, an air gunner on 7 (PFF) Squadron at Oakington. That night Smith, who was born at Marrickville, Sydney on 3 February 1919, flew as rear-gunner in the Lancaster flown by Sergeant Ken Doyle, a Londoner, which took off about 17.00 hours. While with 625 Squadron in late 1943 Smith had shot down a Ju 88 on his first operation over Berlin on 2 December. Now, 30 miles from the ‘Big City’ trouble began. Smith was searching the port beam when, from the corner of his eye, he saw three white lights. He swung his guns, saw a green light, and realized that it was an enemy fighter with its identification lamps on. Smith gave the warning and Doyle dived the Lancaster to port as four lines of tracer streamed from the wings of the fighter, now close enough to identify as a Bf 110. Smith poured 150 rounds into the fighter, there was a mighty flash and it blew up. Four more lines of tracer appeared; a Fw 190 was coming in from behind. The Lancaster dived and lost the enemy, but a cannon shell had hit Smith’s right ankle and exploded. He was in great pain, his turret was unserviceable and his parachute bag was on fire. Other shells had plastered the Lancaster from its tail along its fuselage up to the mid-upper turret. Doyle called his crew to check for casualties. There was no answer from Sergeant Clarke, the mid-upper turret gunner and the pilot sent the wireless operator back to see what had happened. Clarke was on the floor without his oxygen mask, almost unconscious. His turret had been hit. Though wounded and his left leg fractured by a cannon shell, he had tried to beat out the flames of burning oil from a burst pipe, using his helmet before lack of oxygen had overcome him. Sergeant Don Green the wireless operator jammed an oxygen tube in the mid-upper gunner’s mouth just in time to save him and then he climbed into the mid-upper turret to watch for fighters. Doyle called Smith on the intercom and told him he was sending help. But the Australian refused to be moved and he continued to work the guns by hand. Sergeant Window, the navigator who was from County Durham, dealt with the burning parachute.
They were still heading for Berlin but when only 15 miles from the target they found that they could not open the bomb doors and they reluctantly decided to turn back. Crossing a flak belt the Lancaster was hit again. A lump of shrapnel hit the throttle box by Doyle’s feet and severed the controls to the port engines. In the meantime Sergeant Syd Richardson, the flight engineer, managed to reach the forward hydraulic jacks on the bomb doors via the bomb bay inspection hatch. He dismantled the connections on the hydraulic system in order to release the pressure to allow the doors to open when they jettisoned the bombs on top of them. Over the sea they tried it and all the bombs except one of the 500-pounders fell through and away. Smith’s oxygen mask had frozen and he had taken it off and was breathing the dangerous rarefied air. Over the sea the crew chopped the bombs away, then came aft to free Smith. His turret door had frozen in and this, too, had to be chopped away by Sergeant Alf Astle. Still conscious, Smith tried to pull himself out, but could not free his right leg, which was shattered and twisted around the ammunition belt and controls. The turret was drenched in blood. It took an hour to free him. They gave him morphine and laid him on the floor of the fuselage. Doyle prepared for a belly-landing, in case the tyres had been shot up, but he found the bomb doors would not close and decided to alight on the damaged undercarriage. The bomb-aimer and wireless operator lay on each side of Smith to protect him in case of a crash, but Doyle made a good landing at Woodbridge and there the fuselage was hacked away and Smith and the wounded mid-upper gunner were carried out. Smith’s leg was amputated above the knee next morning at the RAF Hospital, Ely.
‘If it hadn’t been for the skipper, we’d never have got back at all,” he said later.21
This raid on the Big City was really the culmination of the Battle of Berlin. Only one more heavy raid took place on the German capital in this period and that was not for more than a month, although Berliners would be bombed many times by small forces of Mosquitoes. With the planned Allied invasion of Normandy looming on the horizon, Harris knew that his forces would soon be diverted for other duties. The Battle of Berlin was supposed to produce ‘a state of devastation in which surrender is inevitable’ and since the end of November 1943 Harris had dispatched 34 major assaults on Germany, 16 of them against the ‘Big City’, yet still no German surrender was in sight.
Berlin must have seemed a ‘busted flush’.
Notes
1
Abercromby, who was born in Inverness-shire, had been promoted to squadron leader on 19 November.
2
Flying Officer J. F. Bowyer RCAF, and two of his crew of Lancaster III JA847 PG-C, were killed, the aircraft crashed into the Tegel, a heavily wooded area near Berlin. Four of the crew survived and were taken prisoner. Pilot Officer J. F. Ward and five of his crew were killed after Lancaster III EE170 PG-N was hit by flak north of Magdeburg and burst into flames. As the crew prepared to bale out, the Lancaster exploded. Sergeant G. W. Cross regained consciousness at 5,000 feet and landed safely, albeit with several broken ribs.
3
Murrow’s account of the 2/3 December raid, which cost 40 bombers, 37 of them Lancasters, appeared in the morning edition of the Daily Express under the banner headline, ‘Berlin – Orchestrated Hell of Light and Flame’. Fifty-three aircraft were damaged by flak. The Bomber Command ORS Report (No. 481) said: ‘Unexpected winds en route blew many aircraft off track and nullified the Pathfinders’ efforts to make DR runs from Rathenow. Consequently there were gaps in the cloud covering the city; most of the bombing was scattered over a wide area of open country to the south. At the beginning of the attack, heavy flak was fired in a loose barrage up to 22,000 feet around the marker flares, and was predicted at seen targets through gaps in the cloud. Searchlights were active in great numbers and took every opportunity the weather offered for illuminating the bombers. After the raid had been in progress half an hour and soon after the appearance of fighter flares the ceiling of the barrage was lowered and the flak decreased, although individual aircraft were heavily engaged when coned. The running commentary began plotting the bombers from the neighbourhood of the Zuider Zee and announced that Berlin was the main objective at 19.47 hours, 19 minutes before zero hour. Many illuminated targets were provided for the fighters over the capital.’ Zahme Sau crews claimed 40 kills, 7 pilots of 2 Wilde Sau Gruppen (I. and II./JG 302) claiming another eight Viermots shot down over Berlin. At least 32 bombers went down in the main air battle that was concentrated in the target area. It was a one-sided battle; only three Nachtjäger were lost in return fire. 460 Squadron RAAF at Binbrook lost five of its 25 Lancasters on this raid, including two carrying press correspondents. Captain J. M. B. Greig of the Free Norwegian Army, representing the Daily Mail, who flew with Flying Officer A. R. Mitchell RAAF and crew of Lancaster III LM316 AR-H2, died, as did all the crew. The Lancaster crashed at Döberitz. A night fighter attacked Lancaster I W4881 AR-K, which exploded killing Pilot Officer J. H. J. English RAAF, a native of New South Wales, and three crew, and 40 year old Australian, Norman Stockton of the Sydney Sun. Three crew survived to be taken prisoner. Stockton is buried in the Berlin War Cemetery. Flight Lieutenant I. D. Bolton of 50 Squadron from Skellingthorpe, flying Lancaster I DV325 VN-B, was shot down by a night fighter and crashed in the target area. Two crew died. Lowell L. Bennett, a 24 year old war correspondent employed by the Daily Express, and Bolton and four of his crew survived and were made POW. Bennett escaped from captivity and managed to file his story at one point but he was later recaptured and held prisoner until the end of the war. Walter King, an Australian war correspondent, returned safely.
4
Wing Commander Abercromby and his crew of Lancaster III ND354 OL-A of 83 Squadron, 8 [Pathfinder Force] Group was one of 28 aircraft lost from a force of 421 Lancasters sent to bomb Berlin on the night of 1/2 January 1944. Sergeant L. H. Lewis, flight engineer, was the only survivor. Murrow continued to report on the war from Europe and North Africa throughout the Second World War. A heavy smoker, he died on 22 April 1965 aged 57.
5
Oberleutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, Staffelkapitän, 12./ NJG I shot down four Lancasters over Friesland Province to take his total to 40 victories. Lancaster II D5831 QO-N of 432 ‘Leaside’ Squadron RCAF, was intercepted at 19,700 feet by Schnaufer who shot it down for his fourth kill of the night and his 40th Abschuss overall. The Lancaster careered over Leeuwarden trailing a sheet of flames and completely disintegrated on impact at Wytgaard followed by the explosion of the bomb load. Flying Officer W. Charles Fischer, the American skipper, and five of his crew were killed. Only three German aircraft were lost. During the 20/21 December raid I./NJG 6 destroyed 10 Lancasters and Halifaxes. They included triple victories by Feldwebel Günther Bahr and Oberleutnant Martin ‘Tino’ Becker who downed Lancaster DV234 of 50 Squadron at Bodenrode/Bad Nauheim and two Halifaxes in just six minutes. III./NJG 11 claimed four victories on the night of 16/17 December and a Lancaster over Frankfurt by Oberleutnant Hans-Heinz Augenstein on the 23/24th.
6
This famous Lancaster III had originally served on 103 Squadron, as had Morgan (576 was formed from ‘C’ Flight of 103 Squadron on 25 November) and the Berlin op would be ED888’s 58th sortie.
7
It was only after the war that it was discovered that the Germans did not use an explosive device to simulate an exploding bomber. What the men saw, in fact, was a fully loaded bomber exploding, having either been hit by flak or night fighter attack.
8
A spoof raid was in progress.
9
Leipzig, where the bomber stream appeared to be heading before turning north-east for Berlin.
10
In all, 20 aircraft (11 Lancasters and nine Halifaxes) failed to return. A long approach route from the south, passing south of the Ruhr and then within 20 miles of Leipzig, together with Mosquito diversions at Düsseldorf, Leipzig and Magdeburg, caused the German controller great difficulties and there were few fighters over Berlin. Bad weather on the outward route also kept down the number of German fighters finding the bomber stream. One hundred and eighty-two people were killed; more than 600 were injured and over 10,000 were bombed out. Despite atrocious winter weather Nachtjagd claimed 169 victories during the final month of 1943 against 28 lost.
11
Jim Donnan remained at large for the next 24 hours but when he asked some German civilians for some food and drink he was taken into custody. Lancaster DV189 crashed between Holtrup and Schweringen and blew up with its full bomb load, including a cookie, in a deafening explosion. Bryson and Roxby had been trapped in the cockpit and were killed in the crash. They were interred at Hassel and at Hoya, later re-buried in Hanover War Cemetery. Flight Sergeant Paul Evans, the bomb-aimer and Sergeant Don Fadden, flight engineer had a very lucky escape. They were also in the nose section when the aircraft suddenly dived, pinning them down with the centrifugal forces. They were released when an explosion blew off the front of the nose section, enabling them to escape by parachute just before the bomber crashed. The Lancaster’s starboard wing and the incendiary bombs in the front of the bomb bay were set on fire by a surprise Schräge Musik attack. Most probably Bryson’s Lancaster was one of the six shot down in quick succession by Major Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, his 69 – 74th victories. DV189 was probably Wittgenstein’s third kill of the night. Most of the losses were Pathfinders flying at the front of the bomber stream. Twenty-eight bombers failed to return, 21 of which were destroyed by Zahme Sau; two Gruppen of JG 302 that operated over the target claimed another four Viermot kills, two of which were later officially confirmed to the single-engined claimants.
12
On 2/3 January, 383 Lancasters went to Berlin again and 27 bombers were shot down, mainly over the target. On 5/6 January, 358 bombers raided Stettin with the loss of 16 heavies. On 14/15 January when 498 bombers hit Brunswick, 38 bombers failed to return.
13
On 20/21 January, 35 bombers were shot down by the German defences, which operated the Zahme Sautactics to excellent advantage and who seemed to have rendered ‘window’ counterproductive. King sailed from Marseilles on the Letitia under the prisoner exchange scheme on 23 January 1945, a year almost to the day after he had come down over Berlin. The Letitia docked at Liverpool on 2 February, where King was met by RAAF medical and POW officials and taken to the RAF Hospital at Weeton. Next day an Australian Red Cross woman auxiliary drove him to his wife’s home in Liverpool, where he met his son, born while he was a prisoner. Royal Australian Air Force Overseas (Eyre & Spottiswoode London, 1946).
14
Wittgenstein’s 83rd victory (one more than Lent) elevated him to the position of highest scoring night fighter pilot ever. After his death, only Oberst Helmut Lent and Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer were to overtake him with a higher score. Another leading Experten, Hauptmann Manfred Meurer, Kommandeur I/NJG 1 was also killed this night. Eichenlaubträger Meurer and his Funker, Ritterkreuzträger Oberfeldwebel Gerhard Scheibe in a He 219A-0 ‘Owl’ were hit by debris from their 2nd victim – a Lancaster – east of Magdeburg and they crashed to their deaths. In less than two years Meurer had claimed 65 Nachtabschüsse (night victories) in 130 sorties.
15
The following month, Len Miller was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and, on 1 March, he was promoted to flight lieutenant.
16
Five hours before the main force operation, 63 Stirlings and four PFF Halifaxes laid mines in Kiel Bay and six Mosquitoes bombed the German capital four hours before the main attack. Eighteen Mosquitoes bombed three night fighter airfields in Holland. Four Mosquitoes flew a diversionary raid to Hanover and six more Mosquitoes flew Serrate patrols at the same time as the main raid.
17
Diary entry. See The Lancaster Story by Peter Jacobs (Cassell, 2002).
18
See Vulcan 607 by Rowland White (Bantam, 2006. Corgi, 2007).
19
The month ended with the Nachtjagd scoring an all-time monthly record of 308 Bomber Command aircraft shot down. I Jagdkorps claimed at least 223 victories (including 114 during the three Berlin raids 29 January-1 February) but lost 55 aircraft and crews during January 1944. Losses had reduced the front line strength to 179 operational aircraft and crews by 31 January.
20
Nachtjagd claimed 39 victories, mainly over the Reich capital for the loss of 11 night fighters. Oberleutnant Helmuth Schulte, Technical Officer of II./NJG 5, destroyed three Viermots in the greater Berlin area for his 5th-7th confirmed kills. Schulte was awarded the Ritterkreuz for 25 victories on 17 April 1945.
21
Green, who suffered from frostbite having lost his gloves while tending to Geoff Smith, Ken Doyle and Alf Astle were all lost in September 1944 on their last operation over Calais. See Royal Australian Air Force Overseas (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1946) and In Action With the Enemy by Alan W. Cooper (William Kimber, 1986).