Chapter 9

Night Fighter Nights

As I lay there I saw a stream of sparks pass a few feet above the cockpit, from back to front and going up at a slight angle. This caused me some confusion. If the sparks were from a burning engine they were going the wrong way. It was some little time before I realized that the sparks were in fact tracer shells from a fighter that I did not know was attacking us. The illusion that the tracer shells were going upwards was no doubt caused by the fact that our Lancaster was going into an uncontrolled, screaming dive, but because of the slow-motion effect that I was experiencing, I did not appreciate this fact. This whole episode had taken 2 or 3 seconds at most, then the slow-motion effect began to wear off, and I became aware of the screams of the bomb-aimer. Lying in the bomb-aimer’s position in the nose of the aircraft, he had caught the full force of the explosion, although this was not immediately apparent.

Sergeant C. H. ‘Chick’ Chandler, flight engineer

‘Achtung, Achtung! ’

‘Lisa-Marie 7 ’-‘ Rolf ’ -Marie 6.

‘Rolf ’-Lisa-Marie 5’-‘Marie 4 ’-Rolf-(more).

‘Rolf-‘Stop’-Marie 2’

‘A little Lisa-(same height)-Lisa-Marie 1,

‘5-Rolf-Marie 1’

‘A little Siegfried (climb)-Rolf-Marie 1

‘Lisa-Lisa-Stop-Marie 0,8-a little Rolf’.

Hauptmann Helmut Bergmann listened impatiently but attentively to the long litany of instructions from his Bordfunker crouched in the cockpit of their Bf 110G-4 night fighter as they continued their Helle Nachtjagd (night chase) across the French countryside. Thirty minutes earlier the 23 year old Staffelkapitän had lifted the Messerschmitt with its deadly electronic wizardry and heavy firepower off from the 8./NJG 4 base at Juvincourt and he had then climbed at maximum rate to an operational height of 5,300 metres. Their route was to take them to one of the Himmelbett Räume (four poster bed boxes) each one of them a theoretical spot in the sky, in which one to three fighters orbited a radio beacon waiting for bombers to appear. Each box, about 20 miles square, which had names like Hamster, Eisbär (Polar Bear) and Tiger (around Terschelling Island), was a killing-zone in the path of hundreds of incoming prey. All approaches to occupied Europe and Germany were divided into circular and partly overlapping areas, which took full advantage of Bomber Command’s tactic in sending bombers singly and on a broad front and not in concentrated streams. The Himmelbett Räume and the Nachtjäger were orchestrated by Jägerleitoffiziers (JLOs or GCI-CONTROLLERS) in Battle Opera Houses. Though the JLOs were far removed from the actual battles, high tiered rows of Leuchtspukers or ‘Light Spitter girls’ projected information onto a huge screen for them and operators moved the plots on the Seeburg plotting tables.

The Jägerleitoffizier announced monotonously at regular intervals, ‘No Kuriere in sight’ and Bergmann had to continue orbiting. Bergmann, who had sixteen confirmed night Abschüsse (victories) was impatient to add to his score and he probably did not concern himself with the bombers’ destinations. The Nuremberg raid had brought, for a brief period, the virtual cessation of heavy attacks and Bomber Command seemed to mainly be focusing on transportation targets and Luftwaffe airfields in France and Belgium. Tonight, 10/11 April, 908 aircraft were to attack five marshalling yards, four in France and one in Belgium. Although the Nachtjagdgeschwader did not know the actual numbers involved, the night predators were unconcerned, satisfied in the knowledge that there would be scores of ubiquitous black ‘Fat Cars’ for them to aim for.

Bergmann was one of many who eagerly awaited the code word from the Jägerleitoffizier that would send him scurrying into action in Krebs his allotted box. Suddenly, as if by magic, ‘Have Kurier for you, Kirchturm 10 (1,000 metres), course 300°, Kurier flying from two to 11’¹ sounded in the earphones of his Bordfunker.

Startled but composed, the three-man crew reacted with excitement and enthusiasm. According to the information from the Jägerleitoffizier they were only a few kilometres behind a British bomber! The enemy aircraft had been picked up on Würzburg ground radar, fixed on the plotting table and transmitted to the Hauptmann and his crew stalking the bomber. As soon as the Bordfunker picked up contact on his Lichtenstein radar set, he transmitted ‘Emil-Emil’ to alert his JLO. But there was no indication yet on the Lichtenstein. It was 02.20 hours. They hoped to reach the ‘Fat Car’ before it left the range of the Würzburg ground radar.

‘1,000 metres, 800 metres, 500, 400, 300 metres!’ Power off and minimum speed in order not to overtake him, Bergmann had to attack from behind and that at the dangerous rear turret of the Viermot!

‘There he is!’

Their eyes looked out and focused on a black shape of the Britisher. Small, bluish exhaust flames made it easier to keep the target in sight. Four engines, twin tail, were recorded almost subconsciously. No sudden movement, that might attract their attention. Calm now! Guns armed? Night sight switched on? Everything OK! Now Bergmann could see that it was an Avro Lancaster. He applied a little more power and approached him cautiously. He was exactly behind him at about 100 metres’ range. The rear turret was clearly recognizable. His Bordfunker kept silent.

‘Pauke! Pauke!’ (‘Kettledrums! Kettledrums!’)

Bergmann had obtained visual contact of his target. It was a Lancaster, crossing gently from starboard to port. Bergmann’s Bordfunker immediately transmitted ‘Ich beruhe’. Then they closed in rapidly for the kill. The equipment was checked and the four machine guns and two MG-FF 2cm cannon were loaded and cocked. At the Bordfunker’s feet were ammunition drums with 75 rounds each for the pair of deadly cannon. Now the Lichtenstein screen was aglow with the green time base and the ground blips, which also showed their altitude.

‘250, 200, 150 metres.’ A slipstream shook the Messerschmitt. They were close!

At 100 metres Bergmann pressed the gun button on the stick and was startled at the rattle of the cannon. He stayed behind the great night bird firing and observing the projectiles striking the rear turret and the fuselage. Strikes peppered the fuselage and danced along the wing root. An equally short burst of brightly coloured tracer disappeared into the Lancaster’s wing and fuselage. He must have been hit! The Lanc burst into flames. Doomed, it fell away to port in a flaming death dive, impacting in a French field near Vieux Mesnil.

‘Horrido!’ (‘Tallyho’) exclaimed Bergmann over R/T to ground control to announce his first success of the night.

Bergmann twisted and turned the 110, looking for more ‘Fat Cars’. Ten minutes later the crew found what they were looking for. It was another Lancaster. Another burst and it went down a few kilometres north of Salarnes. ‘Horrido!’ South-east of Sailly five minutes later they downed yet another Lancaster. Cries of ‘Horrido!’ filled the airwaves once again. Bergmann’s fourth victim went down to his guns north-north-west of Achiet-le-Petit. It had been only 23 minutes since the first encounter. Just seven minutes later a fifth Lancaster was destroyed in about as many seconds and fuel from its ruptured tanks ignited and lit up the night sky with a reddish hue. The stricken Lanc impacted at Beauquesne. Four minutes later Bergmann made it six. The downed Lancaster’s engines buried themselves deep into the French earth near Vignacourt. North of Guignemicourt their seventh and final victim, all of them Lancasters en route to the marshalling yards at Aulnoye, went down in a screaming death dive. It was now 03.06.

Naxos and Flensburg equipment homing onto H₂S equipment and the Monica tail-warning device might have identified some, if not all, of Bergmann’s victims. Bomber crews were warned about this possibility and they were instructed not to leave sets on too long but the one sided encounter with the night fighter had lasted a devastating 46 minutes, with five victims being dispatched in the first 30 minutes. It may be that the Hauptmann had downed some of them, if not all, or if out of ammunition, he may well have given his Bordschütze free range with his two MG-FF 2cm cannon. Changing ammunition drums in a twisting and turning night fighter would have made his task almost impossible but not if the pilot pulled alongside to allow the Bordschütze to blaze away. In any event all seven Viermots took his score to 23 and counted towards the Staffelkapitän’s coveted Ritterkreuz.²

Altogther the raids on the night of 10/11 April cost Bomber Command 19 aircraft. Greater destruction however, occurred at their targets. At Aulnoye 340 houses were destroyed or damaged in the attack on the marshalling yards and 14 French civilians were killed. At Ghent, where the Merelbeke-Melle railway yards on the main line to Brussels were hit, losses to Belgian civilians was even greater, when bombs flattened over 580 buildings including seven schools, a convent and an orphanage and over 1,000 other buildings were damaged, causing 428 deaths and 309 injured. There was destruction too at Kirmington, where 22 Lancasters of 166 Squadron took off for the raid on Aulnoye. As the fifth Lancaster roared along the runway a few minutes after 23.00 a wing dipped. Careering to one side it lurched from the runway. Strained by the momentum of the heavy bomb load, the undercarriage collapsed and the fuselage ploughed along the ground for a few yards before coming to rest. Pilot Officer D. C. Gibbons’ crew, uninjured, jumped out only just in time as it burst into flames. With all four tanks blazing the fire crew, who had raced up in their tender, realized that it was hopeless. Since the crew was safe, they withdrew to await the explosion, which so damaged the runway that it was unserviceable and the remaining 17 of the squadron’s aircraft could not take-off.³

At East Kirkby Ron Walker’s crew, who had just returned from leave, were one of 14 crews in 57 Squadron who bombed the St Pierre-des-Corps railway marshalling yards at Tours in bright moonlight. They had to make two bombing runs over the target before they were certain that they could aim their 13,000lb bomb loads without killing and injuring French civilians in the vicinity. The yards were seriously damaged and there were no reports of any French casualties. Walker’s crew were not troubled the following day when they were on the battle order with 10 other crews to fly a night raid on Aachen in Q-Queenie, loaded up with 13,200lbs of high explosive. It proved a successful trip in spite of the German defences, who shot down nine Lancasters.⁴

At Coningsby since the beginning of 1944, 617 Squadron, now commanded by Wing Commander Geoffrey Leonard Cheshire DSO** DFC had successfully employed the tactic of marking and destroying small industrial targets at night, using flares dropped by a Lancaster in a shallow dive at low level. Cheshire, who was on his fourth tour, was born in 1917 at Chester and was educated at Stowe and Merton College, Oxford where he was a member of the University Air Squadron between 1937 and the outbreak of war. At 25 he had been the youngest group captain in the RAF and he had dropped back to wing commander so that he could resume bomber operations.⁵ Five years earlier he had gained an honours degree in law at Oxford and, at 24, on leave in New York, he had met and married 41 year old Constance Binney, who had been an American movie star. In England Cheshire liked a suite at the Ritz when on leave, and to bask in The Mayfair cocktail bar.⁶ On the night of 8/9 February Cheshire had led a dozen of his Lancasters to bomb the Gnome et Rhône aero-engine factory at Limoges, 200 miles south-west of Paris. The factory was undefended except for two machine guns and Cheshire made three low-level runs in bright moonlight to warn the 300 French girls working the night shift to escape. On the fourth run he dropped a load of 30lb incendiaries from between 50 and 100 feet. Each of the other 11 Lancasters then dropped a 12,000lb bomb with great accuracy. Ten of the bombs hit the factory and an eleventh fell in the river alongside. The AOC, Air Marshal the Hon Ralph Cochrane, was quick to appreciate that if a single aircraft could mark a target accurately for a squadron then it should be possible for a squadron of properly trained crews to mark targets with similar accuracy for the whole Group. The Lancaster was vulnerable to light flak at low level and a more manoeuvrable aircraft was required for the operations Cochrane had in mind. Cheshire was aware of the limitations of the Lancaster and he had already decided the best aircraft for low level marking. He briefed the AOC on his ideas and Cochrane allocated 617 Squadron a Mosquito.

The Dam Busters’ first Mosquito sortie was on 5/6 April when the seemingly fearless Cheshire and his chunky little navigator, Flying Officer Pat Kelly, marked an aircraft factory at Toulouse, on his third pass, with two red spot flares from a height of 800 – 1,000 feet.⁷ This led to the meeting at Bomber Command HQ, which resulted in 5 Group – the Independent Air Force, as it was known in Bomber Command – receiving its own PFF force with 8 Group no longer enjoying its hitherto unchallenged monopoly over pathfinder tactics. Nos. 83 and 97 Lancaster Squadrons moved, from their respective Pathfinder bases at Wyton and Bourn, to Coningsby to rejoin 5 Group, as backers-up and 617 Squadron and 627 Mosquito Squadrons were redeployed from Coningsby and Oakington respectively to Woodhall Spa. The two PFF Lancaster squadrons did not like the idea of marking being undertaken by the Mosquitoes. They saw themselves being reduced to ‘flare carrying’ forces. Mosquito crews stunned into silence by the news that the new task would be ‘dangerous’ and ‘possibly, not altogether effective’ were struck by a feeling of ‘grim foreboding’ that settled on the squadron ‘like a patch of low stratus’. It soon became apparent that they were very much the poor relations at Woodhall. While the famous Dambusters ‘lorded it’ in Petwood House, 627 were relegated to a batch of Nissen huts on the far side of the airfield. Their only amenity, apart from their own Messes, was ‘a tiny one-roomed ale house down the road, run by a little old lady – the beloved “Bluebell Inn”. The Mosquito crews even had to go to Coningsby for briefing and debriefing. Ground crews were dismayed to find that the mobile canteen now seemed to go round 617 Squadron’s dispersal first, which was the rule rather than the exception and that few NAAFI wads were left when their turn came.’⁸

In the station cinema at Coningsby, Cochrane and Cheshire addressed the assembled Lancaster crews of 83 and 97 PFF Squadrons, and Mosquito men of 627 Squadron, as to their new role. Cochrane opened the meeting by saying that 617 Squadron had made a number of successful attacks on important pinpoint targets and it was now intended to repeat these on a wider scale. The Lancaster pathfinder squadrons were to identify the target areas on H₂S and were to lay a carpet of flares over a given target, under which 627 Squadron would locate and mark the precise aiming point. 5 Group Lancaster bombers would then destroy the target. Cheshire, a tall, thin and imposing figure, took the stand in front of the assembled crews who all knew of his legendary reputation in the RAF, and he explained carefully how the low-level marking business was done. What the Lancasters had to do was lay a concentrated carpet of hooded flares, the light from which would be directed downwards onto the target, making it as bright as day. The small force of Mosquitoes would orbit, find the aiming point and then mark it in a shallow dive with 500lb spot-fires. The marker leader would assess the position of the spot-fires in relation to the aiming point and would pass this information to a ‘master of ceremonies’ in one of the pathfinder Lancasters. The MC would then take over and direct the main force Lancasters in their attack on the target.

A number of the raids that were now taking place were in preparation for the invasion of France by the Allied forces. The invasion required destruction of the French railway system leading to the landing area. The best method of doing this was by employing heavy bombers, but grave doubts existed at the highest level as to the accuracy with which this could be done. Winston Churchill was adamant that French lives must not be lost needlessly and eventually it was agreed that 5 Group should undertake a mass attack on a marshalling yard in the Paris area, to prove the case one way or the other. Juvisy was selected as the target. The marshalling yard was attacked on the night of 18/19 April by 202 Lancasters led by Leonard Cheshire, after the target was marked at each end with red spot-fires by four Mosquitoes of 627 Squadron.⁹

Ron Walker’s crew at East Kirkby flew a Lancaster that sometimes was called Battling Oboe and, by others Olive Oyle. It was now allocated to the crew for their regular use. ‘Just about every other crew on the squadron’ recalls Ginger Hammersley, ‘was to fly this operation; eighteen in all. We were away at 20.55 hours and all went well until we made our attack on the target. The bomb load was thirteen 1,000 pounders, which we dropped from 5,000 feet. (The height from which we bombed varied according to the type of target. The attack on Tours took place from 6,600 feet and on Aachen from 17,200 feet). Then the hydraulics failed and one of the 1,000lb bombs refused to release. So instead of returning to East Kirkby, we set course for RAF Woodbridge, an airfield that had an extra long runway. This we required, as our brakes might not work. The bomb bay was open with the 1,000lb bomb still inside and likely to drop out on landing. So using my radio, I advised base of our predicament and Woodbridge of our pending arrival. The whole crew was involved in a discussion over the intercom, regarding our serious plight. Should we parachute out? Would it be fair to leave Ron and possibly Essie to try a landing? As a crew we all agreed to sit it out and pray the bomb stayed locked in place, for we knew that if it released when the wheels touched down, we would all perish. Ron eased the Lancaster down to effect a gentle landing and the bomb held fast. Our hearts pounded, as we all admitted later. We were instructed to park the aircraft at a point as far away as possible from buildings. We were collected by lorry and taken to the control tower to learn that the whole area had been cleared of personnel just in case there was an almighty explosion if the bomb dropped out of the bomb bay. We heaved a sigh of relief along with the staff on duty. After being debriefed we were given rum, coffee and sandwiches and taken to accommodation, which had been set aside for us for the night. It was 18.05 hours before we were cleared to leave and make the fifty minute trip home to our base. The fortunes of the squadron crews on the Juvisy raid were varied. Of the 18 that took off, two made an early return and brought their bombs home, one crashed near Peterborough, my own crew landed at Woodbridge; this left fourteen to make the journey back to base.’

The bombing was concentrated, the yards were put out of action, few French lives were lost and all but one Lancaster returned safely to base. The railway yards were so badly damaged that they were not brought back into service until 1947.

Ginger Hammersley recalls: ‘There was no let up in the flying. The battle order for the 20th showed Ron Walker’s crew at East Kirkby listed and they would be using O-Oboe with the same weight and type of bombs as dropped at Juvisy. The target, just north of Paris, was the marshalling yards at La Chapelle. At the briefing all crews were instructed not to bomb unless there was a certainty of hitting the target. It was policy not to hit the areas surrounding the marshalling yards as these generally contained buildings occupied by French citizens. I was well fed, well briefed and wide-awake when at 21.45 hours we took off for the second visit to Paris in as many days. There was considerable opposition from enemy anti-aircraft guns as we once again dropped our bombs from low level. This time we made it back to base without any problems. Two of the crews from the squadron were missing. Now those I first met on 24 March were getting thin on the ground.’ ¹⁰

The real test of the new tactics had still to be made – against targets in Germany. 5 Group was therefore unleashed against three of these targets in quick succession – Brunswick on 22/23 April;¹¹ Munich two nights later¹² and Schweinfurt on 26/27 April.¹³

‘After a night off, main force operations were resumed on 22/23 April when Düsseldorf, Brunswick and Laon were the targets. With operations on, my name was again on the battle order along with the rest of the crew. O-Oboe was loaded with a 2,000lb MC bomb, plus 6,700lbs of incendiaries including a new type, codenamed the ‘J’ Type Cluster. It was a late take-off so after ensuring that the equipment in the aircraft was in satisfactory order, I retired to my bed for a rest and a well-earned sleep. The target was Brunswick. At the briefing we were given details of the ‘J’ Type Clusters.¹⁴ The take-off at 23.45 hours was smooth and the flight went without any mishap. Losses from the force that night were light, with just four aircraft failing to return. 57 Squadron was not affected. We made our attack from 20,200 feet. As we headed away, the fires from the target could be seen from a considerable distance; the attack had served its purpose. Two crews from the squadron had made early returns, turning back for base with technical problems. The rest of us, fourteen crews, all bombed the target and then made a safe return home. That I might survive the full tour of 30 operations was becoming a real possibility, my confidence was high. The flight to and from Brunswick took six hours.’¹⁵

The night’s three operations cost 42 aircraft, including 21 Lancasters, 13 of them failing to return from the attack on Düsseldorf. At one of the 15 Squadron dispersals at Mildenhall, ground crew anxiously awaited the return of Pilot Officer Oliver Brooks’ Lancaster III, whose crew were on their 17th op. Their trip to Düsseldorf was to prove quite a flight, as Sergeant C. H. ‘Chick’ Chandler, the flight engineer, recalls:

‘It was 01.10 hours on the morning of 23 April when we were hit simultaneously by heavy flak and cannon fire from an Me 109 at the precise moment that our bombs were released on Düsseldorf. I was standing on the right-hand side of the cockpit, as was usual during our bombing run, with my head in the blister to watch for any fighter attack that might occur from the starboard side. The bombs were actually dropping from the aircraft when there was a tremendous explosion. For a brief period of time everything seemed to happen in ultra-slow motion. The explosion knocked me on my back; I was aware of falling on to the floor of the aircraft, but it seemed an age before I actually made contact. I distinctly remember ‘bouncing’. Probably lots of flying clothing and Mae West’s broke my fall, but under normal circumstances one would not have been aware of “bouncing”. As I fell, I “saw” in my mind’s eye, very clearly indeed, a telegram boy cycling to my mother’s back door. He was whistling very cheerfully and handed her the telegram that informed her of my death. She was very calm and thanked the boy for delivering the message.

‘As I lay there I saw a stream of sparks pass a few feet above the cockpit, from back to front and going up at a slight angle. This caused me some confusion. If the sparks were from a burning engine they were going the wrong way. It was some little time before I realized that the sparks were in fact tracer shells from a fighter that I did not know was attacking us. The illusion that the tracer shells were going upwards was no doubt caused by the fact that our Lancaster was going into an uncontrolled, screaming dive, but because of the slow-motion effect that I was experiencing, I did not appreciate this fact. This whole episode had taken 2 or 3 seconds at most, then the slow-motion effect began to wear off, and I became aware of the screams of the bomb-aimer. Lying in the bomb-aimer’s position in the nose of the aircraft, he had caught the full force of the explosion, although this was not immediately apparent.

‘As the speed of things returned to normal, for some reason I was unable to get to my feet. My assessment of the situation, which was completely wrong, was that a bomb had exploded on leaving the aircraft and that the rear end of the aircraft had been blown off. Therefore, I decided, I should not waste time going to the escape hatch in the nose, but should make my way aft and step out into space, thus saving time fiddling with escape hatches. My frustration was immense, knowing that my very life depended on some quick positive action, but I was unable to get to my feet, let alone clip on my parachute and move quickly to the rear of the aircraft. (It was many years before I realized that, because of the unfortunate position I was in, plus the effect of “G” when a Lancaster goes into an uncontrolled dive from 22,000 feet, I had very effectively been pinned to the floor of the aircraft.)

‘Pilot Officer Oliver Brooks regained control at about 14,000 feet, and then I was able to get to my feet and clip on my parachute. Here I had another quite ludicrous experience. Always when flying, my parachute harness was tight, even to the extent of being uncomfortable, and my buckles were all done up (some crew members left the bottom buckles undone for comfort and ease of movement). Having clipped on my parachute the harness felt very loose and generally slack. Knowing that mine was always tight, I put this slackness down to imagination and convinced myself that it was all a nervous reaction. There is no doubt that given the order to “bale out” I would have jumped. What I didn’t know, and it wasn’t discovered until later, was that a lump of shrapnel, or possibly a cannon shell, had passed through the back of my harness, cutting the straps and leaving them hanging by a few threads. Had I jumped, my ‘chute and I would have parted company!

‘A few seconds later the aircraft went into another uncontrolled dive and was recovered at about 7,000 feet. Only a very short period of time covered these incidents. The pilot really had his work cut out trying to control a very heavily damaged aircraft and had feathered the port inner engine, which had caught fire. He gave the order to prepare to bale out.

‘By now the crew were beginning to sort themselves out. When the aircraft recovered from its first dive, Ron Wilson, the mid-upper gunner, vacated his turret to find that his flying boots and the H₂S were on fire. Unfortunately, the three parachutes had been stowed on this piece of equipment and were destroyed. In order to extinguish the fire it was necessary for him to disconnect himself from the intercom, so he was unable to relay this information to the rest of the crew. Baling out was not now an option, and after hasty consultation it was decided to set course for the emergency landing strip at Woodbridge. If we could at least make the coast we might be able to “ditch”.

‘My task now was to check the aircraft for damage and casualties. My checks started at the front of the aircraft, in the bomb-aimer’s compartment. I am afraid to say that my sheltered life had not prepared me for the terrible sight that met my eyes. It was obvious that this area had caught the full blast of the flak, and Alan Gerrard had suffered the most appalling injuries. At least he would have died almost instantaneously. Suffice to say that I was sick. At this stage I risked using my torch to shine along the bomb bay to make sure that all our bombs were gone. My report simply was that the bomb-aimer had been killed and that all bombs had left the aircraft.

‘Next stop was the cockpit. The pilot had really worked wonders in controlling the aircraft and successfully feathering the engine that had been on fire. Then on to the navigator’s department; on peering round the blackout screen I saw that Ken Pincott was busy working over his charts, but that Flight Lieutenant John Fabian DFC, the H₂S operator (the Squadron navigation leader) appeared to be in shock. However, once I established that there appeared to be no serious damage, I moved on. The wireless operator’s position was empty because his task during the bombing run was to go to the rear of the aircraft and ensure that the photo flash left at the same time as the bombs. Next, down to the mid-upper turret, where Ron Wilson had re-occupied his position, albeit only temporarily. (Unknown to me, he had suffered a wound to his ear that, although not too serious, would keep him off flying for a few weeks.) On reaching the next checkpoint I was again totally unprepared for the dreadful sight that confronted me. Our wireless operator, Flight Sergeant L. Barnes, had sustained, in my opinion, fatal chest injuries and had mercifully lost consciousness. It was found later that he had further very serious injuries to his lower body and legs. He died of his wounds before we reached England. From the rear turret I got a “thumbs up” sign from “Whacker” Marr, so I rightly concluded that he was OK.

‘As well as having to report the death of our bomb-aimer, and the fatal injuries to the wireless operator, I had to report the complete failure of the hydraulic system. The pilot was already aware of the fact that we had lost our port inner engine through fire, and that our starboard outer was giving only partial power. The bomb doors were stuck in the open position, and the gun turrets had been rendered inoperative because of the hydraulic failure.

‘Next I carried out a check on our fuel. From the gauges it looked as though we had not sustained any major damage to any of our main tanks, but I thought it prudent to carry out a visual check on the outside. Any fluid coming from the mainplane would almost certainly have indicated that at least one tank was holed. It was then that I discovered that where our dinghy should have been, there was a gaping hole in the main-plane. The dinghy had been shot away. Our alternative possible escape route through ditching was now also out of the question.

‘I sat down to work out how much fuel we had left, and at what rate it was being used. This was not easy given the fact that we had two engines at full bore, one feathered, and one not giving much power but still churning round a propeller that was stuck in coarse pitch. These figures would give me the length of time that we could keep the aircraft flying. When I arrived at the figure and was in the process of double-checking, the navigator asked me what my figures were. I stalled for time, saying that I had not quite finished. I asked him how much time we required. He gave me his figure and I felt a flood of relief as my figures gave us 20 minutes in hand. After a few seconds I told him that we had at least ten minutes and possibly a little more.

‘We now had, in effect, two spare crewmen. Only one of our two navigators was needed since the H₂S was destroyed, and the gunners’ positions could not be operated because of the hydraulic failure. The many tasks, such as tending the wounded and throwing overboard as much equipment as possible, were left to them. (Fabian took over the navigation while Ken Pincott took the dead wireless operator’s position and radioed SOS messages repeatedly to England, but to no avail because the aircraft was too low for the calls to be received.) The rear-gunner remained in his turret. I was able to concentrate on our critical fuel condition. Gradually I became more confident as each check and crosscheck bore out my original figure of 20 minutes to spare.

‘It was at this stage, sitting on my toolbox in front of the engineer’s panel that I became very aware of the red warning lights indicating the loss of our port inner engine. They appeared to be glowing like beacons (quite wrongly I am sure, but I thought that they could be seen from miles away by any fighter that happened to pass overhead – my remedy was to chew some chewing gum and stick it over the lights). Many thoughts now struck me. We were struggling along on two engines with a third giving only partial power. We had no gun turrets working. We had started our journey at about 7,000 feet and because of the damaged state of the aircraft we could not maintain height. Should we be attacked, any sort of evasive action was out of the question. In our very badly crippled state any violent manoeuvre would have resulted in complete loss of control and certain disaster. We were well within range of even the lightest ack-ack, and our predicament obliged us to make a direct route from Düsseldorf to Woodbridge; there was no question of avoiding heavily defended areas. There was also a distinct possibility that through miscalculation or mismanagement we could run out of fuel.

‘In spite of all this I can remember very little of the actual trip. Certainly enemy searchlights at between 3,000 and 4,000 feet heavily coned us, but for some unaccountable reason we were not engaged. Again, quite without reasonable explanation, I cannot recall being unduly alarmed, possibly because I had by now resigned myself to my fate, or because I was so aware of our critical fuel situation that I had pushed all other problems to one side. There was one “silver lining” to the problems. We had steadily lost height from the moment we had headed towards Woodbridge, in spite of the fact that we had jettisoned all possible equipment, including guns and ammunition. Because our bomb doors were stuck open and there was a gaping great hole in our starboard wing, with other smaller holes all over the aircraft, our engines were using fuel at an alarming rate trying to pull our very unstable aircraft through the air. Just when it seemed that all was lost, the fact that we had used so much fuel and consequently weight, meant that the pilot was able to coax the aircraft from just above the sea to 500 feet on crossing the coast.

‘Almost as we reached Woodbridge I was faced with another problem. I had no means of testing the emergency system that should enable the undercarriage to be lowered pneumatically. We would have to wait until the aircraft was actually over the runway on our final approach. There was no way that we could go round again – it would either work or it wouldn’t. Since I was the flight engineer, it was my task to attempt to lower the wheels so that instead of sitting in my crash position, I was standing next to the pilot as we came over the end of the runway. The other crew members sat with their backs to the main spar, feet braced against a part of the aircraft in front of them, hands clasped behind their heads. Ron Wilson, instead of taking up the recommended crash position, had opted to stay at the rear of the aircraft and cradle the wireless operator, who, unbeknown to him, had already died.

‘As we passed over the threshold lights (the Emergency Landing Strip at Woodbridge was 250 yards wide and 2½ miles long, or about twice as long as a normal runway) I yanked on the toggle that should have lowered the undercarriage. To my horror, there was no response. At this stage the dreadful “slow-motion” effect returned. We were crabbing very slowly from left to right. I saw very clearly every runway light as we passed it. The ground appeared to come very slowly towards me. I thought, “How stupid to have survived the many problems of the past couple of hours only to be catapulted through the windscreen on arriving!” I made a very conscious effort to hang on to the pilot’s seat and waited for the crash.

‘As we hit the runway I saw very clearly and distinctly the Perspex blister on the starboard side break away and “float” towards the rear of the aircraft. To my utter amazement I found myself still standing as we careered down the runway. By now the slow-motion effect had left me again and I was fully aware that we were careering down the runway at 120 mph on our belly. When the aircraft eventually came to rest I was still standing and clinging to the pilot’s seat. Our crash-landing must have been perfect, and my theory is that because the bomb doors were stuck in the open position, they gave a slight cushioning effect and softened the initial impact. Almost before the aircraft had ground to a halt I was through the top escape hatch situated immediately above the flight engineer’s position.

‘Since I had experienced the “slow-motion” effect on a few occasions, I was in a state of near terror, probably due to an excess of adrenaline, something that most of us were not aware of in those days. I really did feel so relieved that I got to my knees and kissed the ground. Almost immediately someone thrust an incident report into my hand asking details of damage and fuel states, etc. In my intense anger, I am afraid that my remarks were very blunt and would not have been appreciated in the least!’

After these attacks 5 Group turned exclusively to support of the bombing campaign against interdiction targets for Operation Overlord. So far as Brunswick and Munich were concerned, considerable damage was done. In the case of Munich, 90 per cent of the bombs fell in the right place, doing more damage in one night than had been achieved by Bomber Command and the 8th Air Force in the preceding four years.

On 23/24 April RAF bombers carried out minelaying in the Baltic. Four Halifaxes and a Stirling failed to return. When, on the night of 24/25 April, 637 aircraft bombed Karlsruhe and 234 Lancasters and 16 Mosquitoes raided Munich, the raid on Munich cost nine Lancasters. Eleven Lancasters and eight Halifaxes from the Karlsruhe raid were lost while two OTU Wellingtons went missing on a diversionary sweep over the North Sea by 165 aircraft.¹⁶

‘We were briefed to fly operations to Munich on 24 April’, recalls Sergeant Ginger Hammersley in 57 Squadron, ‘along with 15 other crews. The bomb bay was filled with one hundred and thirty-six 36lb incendiaries and six 500lb “J” type clusters. Taking off at 20.50 hours we headed south, crossing the Sussex coast near Selsey Bill. The Dutch coast was identified on the radar (H₂S) and then we headed deep into southern Germany before turning in a north-easterly direction towards Munich. There was a long wait as the target was identified and the markers, bright coloured flares, were dropped. Those carrying out this work were Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire, Squadron Leader Dave Shannon and Flight Lieutenant R. S. Kearns, all from 617 Squadron and flying the Mosquito twin-engined aircraft. Looking down at them from our higher altitude, I wondered at the time, who on earth I was watching fly so close to the ground as just about every gun available to the defence force was firing at them? At 20,000 feet we too were getting our share of intense gunfire, so we decided to fly away from the area on a five minute “dog leg” before joining in the mass of aircraft awaiting the order to “Bomb”. When the order came, we made our bombing run and dropped them successfully from 19,700 feet, only to find that there was a hydraulic failure and we were again in trouble. Leaving Munich in a south westerly direction towards Austria and the Swiss border, then crossing the Rhine and heading first south of, then north and then west of Paris, towards the English Channel and the comparative safety of England. (Two German Night Intruder Fighters, shot down a Lancaster returning from a separate raid over the East Coast.) Later I read the official report on the Munich raid. It read. “NJG 6 was operating in the Munich area. The RAF force attacking Munich met very little trouble except from fighters and flak at Munich and in the withdrawal south of Augsburg, in which neighbourhood extension of defences was suggested. It is probable that three aircraft fell through flak over Munich, one to flak when coned in searchlights on the southwest outskirts and three to fighters near Munich, Ulm and Strasbourg, a total of four to flak, three to fighters and two to unknown sources.”

‘Using the radio I sent a signal to base advising them of our hydraulic problem and that we would be landing at Hartford Bridge not far from Basingstoke. I was becoming quite an expert at signalling base to report our problems! By now the crew was listed as a “Wind-finder”, that is, the navigator and crew up front would prepare a weather report. Then it would be my job to code it and transmit it to base, a task we continued to carry out until the end of the tour of operations.’

The following night, the main force was stood down. On 26 April, 21 year old Sergeant Pilot Roy Bradley and his crew were ‘fresh into the world’ of 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham in 5 Group. ‘With the sublime ignorance and enthusiasm of our kind, we entered into a world of young but established tradition, with the almost routine air of nonchalance and without any preconceived notions of tomorrow. Forenoon of the 26th and Squadron Leader A. O. Murdoch, RNZAF, the Flight Commander, told me that I was to be his co-pilot that night. He suggested that the afternoon might be well spent “in the pit”. Come evening and the very air was charged, as only it can be when “there is one ON”. Then the corny jokes and the nervous giggles, the haze and the maze of the briefing. So it’s Schweinfurt.¹⁷ I’d never heard of it before. Funny that. Couldn’t even work up a feeling about the name. It hadn’t the ring of Essen and Frankfurt. It wasn’t far from Frankfurt though, a couple of loops of the River Main to the eastward. And there are two Frankfurt’s. Not that it mattered very much. Next, the studied confusion of getting the gear, the truck to the kite, the gathering dusk and JB601 V-Victor in semi-silhouette showing all the majesty of her breed, the centrepiece in this moment of unspoken reverence and devoted activity. I took another look at the outsize rabbit painted on the nose, hindquarter thumping and ears bristling in the defiant “V”. I wondered who painted it? It’s very well done but in what seemed no time at all, which happily cut down the time for wondering what the hell I was doing here, the engines were humming their harassed hymn of harnessed energy, the wheels were rolling and we were joining the line. We turned onto the runway and, with their given freedom, the engines sped us towards a shadowy horizon. I looked back and down. Could so much have really happened in the past few hours, down there within the scattered confines of what spelt RAF Metheringham? Lying in the wispy band that rests between a darkening earth and a paling sky was the form of Lincoln and its cathedral identity. They said it was a sight permanently etched in the mind of so many of 5 Group.

‘We were still climbing. We were heading south. There was a lessening definition of view. The sky was filling up. By the time we were all en route, this was going to be some mighty aerial brick, of metal and men. But it was comforting to know that you were in company.¹⁸ V- Victor seemed a nice kite. I wished I had a greater sentiment for it. Maybe if it were my own it would be different. These chaps had had it for some time. (Did somebody really say it was their 13th?) Judging by the bombs painted on her nose V-Victor could tell a lot of people’s stories.

‘It was quite black now. The others were still out there. We were still in company, but it didn’t give quite the same feeling of comfort now that I couldn’t see them. Quiet enough. It was not far now from the south-east turn point near Paris. There was a long, long leg coming up then! We were on the long leg. Fair old amount of flak. Funny how it gave the feeling of a lot of little men down there flicking away at outsize cigarette lighters that won’t light. No flak now. Uncomfortably close glimpses of exhausts. Hell, there were a few being knocked down. I wondered how many, if any, got out.

‘Now us! Now us! No. 4 was on fire. Then 3! Was this it? Then it came: “Jump, jump, jump, jump.”¹⁹

‘Chute on ... and blank ... a sightless blank ... is this what it was like to be dead or was it all happening to somebody else? I opened my eyes. The blackness had gone. If I had died, I didn’t know about it. But this was the earth I was lying on. And that was a tree above me. The sky beyond was a pale blue. Then the blackness again . . . Hell, it was cold! My left leg looked a mess. I felt so stiff and sore all over. I couldn’t stand! My flying boots had gone. Not surprising – those suede jobs were a pretty stupid design. Funny thing, it was the first time I’d worn them since early Flying School! This was real earth and that was a real tree all right. Did I come through that? The chute was there, strung out around me. I tore a length for a bandage. Somehow or other I hadn’t “bought it”. Were any of the others around I wondered? I called out. There was no response. The rising damp air carried my breath into the surrounding solitude. I buried my chute and crawled away, slowly, painfully and cursing the rough foliage, which defied my progress. And then, a grassy corridor; this was easier. It sloped away before me and down to a main road ringing to the crunch of marching feet materializing into a squad of German soldiers, which didn’t exactly surprise me. Then they were out of sight. With alternating grunts and yelps I landed at the roadside, crossed on all fours and rolled thankfully into the comfort of a ditch. It was getting a struggle holding off the blackness ... More footsteps ... a man and a girl. No time for ceremony or second thoughts; I raised myself up and asked them to help me get to England and to bring a doctor. Then into the blackness again . . .’

The Schweinfurt raid was a failure. The low-level marking was inaccurate and unexpectedly strong head winds delayed the Lancaster marker aircraft and the main force. As a consequence, much of the bombing fell outside the city. German night fighters carried out fierce attacks throughout the period of the raid, which resulted in the loss of 21 Lancasters. ²⁰

Sergeant John B. Johnson, a mid-upper turret gunner in Pilot Officer G. J. L. Smith’s crew in 57 Squadron at East Kirkby, who flew his first op this night with Flying Officer Walker and crew to Schweinfurt, recalls:

‘Pilot Officer Smith was flying with Squadron Leader M. I. Boyle DFC, the “B” Flight Commander’s crew, as the “second dickey” for operational experience before taking his own crew on an operation. I did not have time to unpack my kit before meeting my crew and start the preparations for that night. After briefing we went out to the aircraft and went through a routine pre-operation check of equipment. After shutting the engines down we got out of the aircraft and the crew went one way and I made my way towards the next aircraft. It was strange but the other crew did the same thing; they walked one way but the one member walked towards me. As we approached each other I realized that it was my pilot, he took his helmet off and he had a very large red band across his forehead from the helmet that was far too tight for him. I can still see him standing there because within a few hours he was dead. Two aircraft crashed into each other over the target. One man baled out. I am sure that it was my pilot in one of those two aircraft I saw go down.’²¹

At around midnight, 44 year old M. Galais, a factory worker living in simple lodgings in Gourzon, Haute-Marne, which also served as headquarters for his resistance group, had received reports that the German night fighter aerodrome near St Dizier seemed active. Galais, a professional soldier for 25 years, and four years in the underground, pondered the implications of the message from Dr Rény in St Dizier that any wounded Allied airmen must first be brought to him. Overhead was the heavy steady drone of RAF bombers. Galais looked up and his heart went out to the crews. He could feel for them and with them. And one was in trouble! Galais stood rooted, eyes piercing the darkness and ears cocked. In the village of Laneuville-à-Bayard and the surrounding farmhouses many French people held their breath and many hearts were pounding, as the whine of disaster grew closer. There was an explosion, which seemed to break about the listening ears and in the swift eternity, which followed, there came the sickening crunch of metal onto earth from the direction of the canal. Gathering helpers, Galais hurried along the Route Nationale, to the church on the corner and over the bridge. He had already briefed people in the surrounding villages if ever an aircraft was heard to be in difficulty or crashed. They must immediately take to the fields and lanes in search of survivors before local German forces came on the scene and then, if questioned later, they must ‘know nothing’. In Flornoy its few dozen inhabitants included two sisters and one brother in the Geoffrin family. Mariette, the eldest, would proudly send pigeons winging their way to England with laboriously scrawled messages clipped to their legs. Marcelle, the youngest, thrilled to the exciting fear of the moment with all the simplified objectiveness of a teenager, but saddened to tears for torment of the living. Pierre, the gamekeeper, reflected solemnly that there was no time to be lost. If there were survivors, then Pierre would find them. Marcelle demanded that she keep him company. They set out into the night. It was getting light.

V-Victor had crashed between the Marne Canal and Laneuville-à-Bayard. Galais gazed with mixed emotions at the wreckage. The scene was photographed, items of possible interest to the Germans removed, the bodies of seven crew taken to nearby shelter. First arrangements for a fitting burial were already in hand.²²

Pierre and Marcelle did not feel the cold and their tiredness. As they passed the great Forêt du Val, a German patrol from the direction of St Dizier went by them. As the Geoffrins rounded the bend in the road they heard a voice calling to them from the ditch. It was Roy Bradley.²³

On 27/28 April the target for 322 Lancasters was Friedrichshafen, deep in southern Germany, on a bright moonlight night in order to achieve better accuracy. The disastrous raid on Nuremberg four weeks earlier, which had been flown in not disimilar conditions, was uppermost in the minds of the crews when they were briefed. At Mildenhall Flight Lieutenant Len ‘Dusty’ Miller, DSO of 15 Squadron, pilot of Lancaster LL801 was flying his 32nd operation. He could have stopped at 30 ops but Miller had wanted to finish when the rest of his crew finished. The route to the target was carefully planned, the use of diversion and spoof raids confused the German night fighter controllers and the Lancasters arrived over Friedrichshafen without being intercepted. However over the target it was a different story. Thirty-one Bf 110s and three Luftbeobachter (air situation observer) Ju 88s were successfully guided into the stream via radio beacon Christa and they wreaked havoc. No less than 18 Lancasters were shot down.

About 50 miles short of the target a twin-engined night fighter attacked the Lancaster flown by Warrant Officer R. G. Peter RAAF of 35 Squadron, then at 17,000 feet. The Australian pilot saw the fighter first as it approached rapidly in front, directly ahead and nearly level with the Lancaster. The mid-upper gunner saw it also but he had no opportunity to open fire and Peter ‘corkscrewed’ immediately. Although no bullets were heard striking the aircraft, hits were evidently sustained in the starboard outer engine, as no power could be obtained from it and flames came from the exhaust. After stopping the engine and feathering the propeller the flames died down at once without the use of the extinguisher. Then the Lancaster proceeded on three engines, bombed the target from 16,000 feet and set course on the homeward route. A few minutes later Peter’s Lancaster was attacked again. This time there was no warning. The night was dark and there were no searchlights, flak bursts or other signs of enemy activity. The wireless operator, who was standing in the astrodome, saw tracer coming from astern and then a fire broke out in the fuselage. No one saw the fighter, which may have been below the gunners’ range of vision. The fire spread and soon the fuselage between the mid-upper and rear turrets was well alight. Smoke poured into the pilot’s compartment, so that Peter was unable to see his instruments and the Lancaster, still flying with three engines only, went into an uncontrollable spin. Peter ordered the crew to bale out. Sergeant A. S. Brereton, navigator, and Flight Sergeant G. G. Foulkes RAAF, flight engineer, baled out, acting on the captain’s instructions. (Brereton was subsequently captured but Foulkes was killed.) Then the air bomber reported that the fire had destroyed both gunners’ parachutes and that his own parachute had opened prematurely. The opening of the front escape hatch had, by this time, cleared the smoke from the pilot’s compartment and it was now possible to see the flying instruments. But Peter could not push the stick forward and the bomber continued to lose height as it went round in a flat spin. Eventually, when indicated height was 3,000 feet and speed only 100 knots, the stick responded. With the port engines throttled back and full power on the remaining starboard engine, the Lancaster came out of the spin. Lake Constance and the fires at the target were within sight and Peter turned back, resolved to ditch the burning Lancaster on the lake, despite the fact that the front hatch had been jettisoned. A crash landing in such a mountainous region could not be risked and he ordered the crew to their ditching stations. Although there was no moonlight to help him and one engine was unserviceable, Peter made a perfect ditching with very little impact. Water rushed in over him and the rear-gunner had to be assisted out of the aircraft as both he and the mid-upper gunner had sustained injuries from the fire. However, all five crew were in the dinghy within one minute of ditching. After about an hour they reached the Swiss shore of the lake and landed safely on neutral territory. Peter evaded and the other four were interned.²⁴

‘Dusty’ Miller’s crew meanwhile, were coming up for their bomb run²⁵ when they were hit hard by a ‘whole hailstorm of cannon fire and bullets from beneath’ from the guns of a Bf 110 night fighter flown by Oberleutnant Martin ‘Tino’ Becker of 2./NJG 6 who later claimed a Halifax near beacon Christa. ‘It set our petrol tanks on fire’, Miller recalled. ‘I gave the order to bale out. The flight engineer [Flight Sergeant G. Mead] clipped my chest chute on and the bomb-aimer [Sergeant A. Beazley-Long] put his chute on but he couldn’t get the hatch open at first. He said it was stuck but I realized that because we were going down in a heavy dive, the suction was holding it. So I pulled the nose up and he got it free and out he went. The flight engineer sat on the edge of the hatch and was waiting to go. I could see him sitting there so I came up behind him, put my boot on his back and pushed him. Then I thought the other crew hadn’t moved, so I went back to the cockpit to see what was happening but they were slumped over in their positions. I assumed very quickly that the cannon fire had hit them because all the intercom and electrics had gone out and they couldn’t hear me on the intercom. At that point my earphone controls got whipped up round the control stick and I couldn’t get away from it so I ripped it off, breaking the cord, and made my own way down to the hatch and pushed myself out. All the while we were still taking fire from night fighters and the port fuel tanks were on fire. We were at 22,500 feet at the time and my chute must have caught the top of the hatch because when I came round it was flapping on its retaining swaps and I had to pull it down to pull the rip cord. It didn’t work, so I was falling, head first and pulling my chute out of its pack, hoping it would open. I remember the moon above revolving as I fell.’

Len Miller must have been blown out of the aircraft when it exploded, killing four of his crew.²⁶ As he descended he felt for his parachute. It was about three or four feet above his head, having come off the clips on his chest harness, just hanging on the strap harness above his head. He pulled the chute pack down to his chest by the straps and pulled the rip cord. The parachute did not open so he had to rip it open by hand. It must have opened no higher than 1,500 feet because almost as soon as it had, the RAF pilot was on the ground, or more precisely, hanging upside down in a tree with one leg stuck in the harness of his parachute:

‘I remember laughing because I was holding the tree so hard not wanting to release the chute or harness in case I fell and broke my neck. So I slid down the tree slowly hanging onto the trunk; it’s as black as the ace of spades out in the forest, and I was only about two feet off the ground. When I stood up I did see the other two members of my crew come down, so that was good.’ He never saw his two crew again until after the war, as they were taken prisoner. Miller recalls: ‘I found a stream nearby and walked down that in case there were dogs about. Then I had a drink and found a big holly bush. I used to play cowboys and Indians as a youngster and we’d chase each other through the bushes. Holly bushes are hollow in the middle and when the leaves fall and dry they are very hard and make a lot of noise. Very useful thing, holly bushes, if you know about them.’ Miller was wearing grubby overalls over his flight gear so no one took any notice of the disheveled pilot. His mother had sewn pockets inside the overalls where he kept chocolate, and pepper to use against dogs, and other items. And the overalls also allowed him to blend into the local population more readily than an RAF flight suit because they made him look like a plumber or an electrician. After a short nap in the holly bush and a meal of chocolate and energizing malt tablets, Miller made his way south toward Switzerland. Upon approaching a town, he noticed a German soldier on a bicycle and he waited while the soldier went into a building and put his roguish ways to good use. Miller stole the bicycle and sped off hoping he could find an aerodrome and steal an aircraft and get home. He did not find an aerodrome but he made it all the way to Mulhouse on the Rhine in occupied France, and almost on the Swiss border. He was stopped by a German officer who wanted to know where Grossman’s Platz was. Miller did not understand German but he understood Platz and he pointed across the road and said, ‘Ja, Ja’. The German officer went and Miller cycled off like mad. Finally, he reached the Swiss border. He recalls:

‘It was a terrific barbed wire fence about 9 feet high and about 13 feet wide with sloping banks and patrolling guards. Lucky for me a young tree had grown up through the wire so while a guard went by I lay in the shadow of the tree with my face covered with dirt. As soon as he’d gone, I climbed the tree and stood on one of the posts and dived into the other side and Switzerland.’

A Swiss guard apprehended Miller and he was eventually interned. He was placed in a big hotel with a Swiss officer in charge. The inmates were allowed to take lessons or other educational pursuits. Miller took piano lessons and when the old lady who taught him gave him the bill every week, he added a couple of extra noughts on the end and the bill was sent to the British Embassy who gave money to pay the bills. Miller pocketed the extra and had some saved up for when he decided to leave the country after the invasion of France. Miller and an Australian named Colin took a train to the French border and hiked through the countryside to avoid border patrols. Colin got terribly blistered feet and he could hardly walk so Miller carried him about 20 miles when they encountered two young boys and he asked them where the French resistance was. They left and later two men with Sten guns arrived and took them to a farmhouse. They looked after them for a couple days and gave them two bicycles which they later used to get to Bourg. During their time with various resistance groups Miller and Colin went on several raids, blowing up railway lines and attacking troops on the tracks. They soon got used to the idea of blowing up trains and found it was ‘quite good fun’. After about six months Miller and his friend had to leave. A 75,000 franc reward had been placed on their heads and finally they were flown out in an aircraft that re-supplied the resistance. When he got back to London Miller was given a month’s leave to see his family, who had since moved in with his cousin’s family because of the bombings in London. He was sent to RAF Warboys where he transitioned onto Mosquitoes and he flew two final operations, both over Berlin and one on Hitler’s birthday. ‘He was doing a big broadcast when we went over and all the sirens went off and we shot down all the radio stations, so he didn’t get his big radio broadcast,’ Miller said, with a note of satisfaction.²⁷

During May-June Bomber Command was, apart from three major raids against German cities towards the end of May, fully committed to destroying the Wehrmacht’s infrastructure in France and bomber losses were relatively light. Operations in support of the D-Day build up continued throughout May. On 1/2 May 120 aircraft, of which 96 were Lancasters, attacked Chambly, the main railway stores and repair depot for the northern French system. About 500 HE bombs fell inside the railway depot area and serious damage was caused to all departments; the depot was completely out of action for 10 days. Over 130 Lancasters attacked the aircraft assembly factory at Blagnac airfield at Toulouse where the Germans were using four large buildings, two pairs at right angles to each other, for the repair and overhaul of tank and aircraft engines, much of the airfield having storage dumps dispersed around it. The aiming point for this raid was at the apex of lines drawn from the sides of the main buildings as they met at right angles. The intelligence briefing was ‘light flak in the area’ but this turned out to be an understatement. Arriving over the target, flares from the Lancaster Pathfinders burst over the four Mosquito markers as arranged, illuminating the area in almost daylight conditions to enable the Mossies to identify and mark the aiming point. It also made it very easy for the defences to pick out 627 Squadron aircraft going around in circles just above them.²⁸ One of the markers was hit but the marking was successful and the Lancasters severely damaged the entire factory. Other targets that night included the railway yards at St Ghislain and Malines, while the Société Berliet motor vehicle works at Lyons was attacked by 75 Lancasters including one piloted by Wing Commander J. S. Bennett DFC with a newly arrived ‘sprog’ crew at North Killingholme for their first ‘op’. Forty-six Lancasters bombed the Usine Lictard engineering works outside Tours, which was being used as aircraft repair workshops. This factory had been bombed a few days earlier by the 8th Air Force’s B-17s, but photographs had shown that nearly all the bombs had fallen in the surrounding fields. PFF Lancasters of 83 and 97 Squadrons dropped a yellow target indicator 10 miles from Tours, from which the four low-level marker Mosquitoes set course accurately for the target area to drop their spot-fires. Having dropped the yellow TI the Lancasters headed directly to the target – identified it on H₂S and discharged hundreds of illuminating flares above it. Approaching Tours, crews saw ‘a great carpet of light’ suddenly spread out in front of them. The target was marked accurately and the marker leader then called and told the controller who broadcast to the main force on W/T and VHF to bomb the clump of red spots. This was done and the target was flattened.

On Wednesday 3 May, 346 Lancaster crews, two Oboe equipped Mosquitoes and four Pathfinder Mosquitoes of 617 Squadron were briefed for that night’s operation. At Elsham Wolds in north Lincolnshire, overlooking the Humber, Jack Spark DFM, wireless operator in Flight Sergeant Fred Browning’s crew in 103 Squadron, bemoaned the cold: ‘There was nothing between us and Russia and that was where the winds came from. It was a good station. There was a happy atmosphere but we all knew we had a job to do and we did it. The spirit of co-operation and comradeship was terrific. We were called to briefing on the afternoon of 3 May and I think we were all relieved when the covers were taken off the maps and we saw that our target was in France. We had had some horrific operations to Germany. France was considered an easy option; so much so that the powers-that-be had decided that raids to France only merited a third of an operation. We had to make three French raids to one over Germany.’

There was the usual anticipation of the string drawing out the route to the target. It was a short string. Everyone gave a sigh of relief as French targets were supposed to be easy. Then the Intelligence Officer introduced the reality, Mailly-le-Camp, a pre-war French Army tank depot near Epernay east of Paris, about 50 miles south of Rheims. Many had never heard of it before. Crews were told that it was a Panzer depot and training centre, reported to house up to 10,000 Wehrmacht troops.²⁹ British Intelligence had received word that the Panzer Division was due to move out the next day so it had to be attacked that night. The penny dropped. It was just another raid but this one really mattered. One rear-gunner on 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds who was flying his first op was scared. He didn’t mind admitting it. He did not know what to expect. There was a feeling of excitement mixed with fear but all other thoughts were pushed to the backs of their minds. Mailly-le-Camp would be Derek Patfield’s fifth op. By now 61 Squadron had returned to Skellingthorpe and Patfield, who had been promoted to flight sergeant, had crewed up with Pilot Officer Ron Auckland’s crew. Patfield recalls that: ‘He was a bit older and he was very good. He was strict as well. I was glad we had a strict pilot, because you had to instil a sense of discipline to work as a team. It was no good just doing what you liked. You had to keep a routine to stick to. We were briefed to “get the target” because there were French people all around it.’

For Pilot Officer G. E. ‘Ted’ Ball’s crew in 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton in Lincolnshire, Mailly represented their 16th operation.³⁰ Sergeant Ronnie H. ‘Squiggle’ Eeles, the rear-gunner recalls:

‘The morning of 3 May was uneventful until we were advised operations were on that evening. I cannot recall whether an NFT was carried out prior to briefing. Briefing details stressed the importance of Mailly-le-Camp and the need to destroy it in company with 1 Group. As a crew, we were apprehensive of the raid arrangements in view of the planned concentration of aircraft over the target in a short space of time, particularly as crews were given bombing heights with only 100 feet variations in altitudes which obviously increased the risk of collision. Our individual bombing height was to be 7,100 feet and the target was to be marked by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire in a Mosquito. Our bomb load was high explosive bombs only. Flying Officer Martin DFM (AG) was to accompany us. I understood his task was to observe anti-aircraft activity.’

No. 5 Group was the first wave of 163 Lancasters and was to attack the south-east part of the camp while 153 bombers of No. 1 Group made up the second wave. Their target was the north-west section of the camp. Thirty aircraft were to concentrate on an area near the workshops.³¹ Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire was the ‘marker leader’ in one of the four PFF Mosquitoes of 617 Squadron, who were the experts in marking confined and difficult targets that could not be accurately located by purely radar aids. Since 617’s Lancasters were not involved in this operation it was not considered necessary to give the Dam Busters’ marker crews the usual full main force briefing. They were just given the elements that applied to the actual target area – time of first flare fall, – timing of the first wave of 5 Group aircraft – lull time for the marking of the area allocated to the second wave of 1 Group aircraft.³² Eight Mosquitoes of 627 Squadron would be at a slightly higher level and were to dive bomb the light flak positions, which were known to be around this depot. The raid was timed to begin at 00.01 hours ‘when all good troops should be in bed’.

Sergeant Ronnie ‘Squiggle’ Eeles continues:

‘Our take off time was 21.57 hours with the usual “wave off” by Station personnel at the end of the runway. I had a sense of foreboding that something was different, as I did not have the usual exhilaration when taking off on full power. I thought that something was going to happen and I would not be coming back. What had also struck me as strange was that when I entered my turret at dispersal, for the first time ever the WOp/ AG (Kernahan) had closed the turret doors behind me, as they were difficult to close oneself with full flying clothing due to the restriction space. I had thanked him – the last I was ever to speak to any member of the crew. The flight to the target area was uneventful. At the lower than usual operational height I found my electrically heated suit was unnecessary and I kept switching it on and off to maintain a reasonable temperature.’

It was a beautiful spring night, soft and starlit. Crews could see the shadows of aircraft above them. The Mosquito force arrived over Mailly, five minutes before zero hour as briefed.³³ Although the target was marked accurately Cheshire passed the order to the main force controller, Wing Commander L. C. Deane of 83 Squadron, to send in the main force, who were orbiting at a holding pattern to the north, and bomb. Deane instructed the wireless operator to give the ‘start bombing’ order but the message was distorted. In some cases the VHF radio frequency was drowned out by an American Armed Forces Network broadcast. Some men thought that the Germans were trying to jam their communications. Only a few Lancaster crews picked up the garbled message and went in and bombed. So too did a handful of other aircraft flown by experienced captains who realized that delaying dropping their bombs and circling the yellow datum point, that had been laid near the village of Germinon, could be disastrous. Deane knew that the delay in starting bombing by the main force was serious and he tried to send the message by Morse but it failed to transmit. (It was found later that his radio was 30 kilocycles off frequency.) Cheshire also tried to get through but he was unable to do so either. He then tried to abort the raid but this failed. The first wave did not receive instructions and began to orbit the target and the German night fighters moved in and began to shoot down the Lancasters.

‘Outside, hell had broken out’ recalls Jimmy Graham, a member of the crew of Q for Queenie of 576 Squadron. ‘German night fighters had arrived in force and were attacking the circling bombers. Lancaster down ... and another . . . and another . . . two fly into each other and explode in the air and others scatter so that they are not hit by the debris. And still there was no attack order. Stan, the mid-upper gunner, and I kept our eyes open but no fighter attacked us. There were plenty of other targets.’

One rear-gunner recalled: ‘We circled and circled for what seemed an eternity without receiving any instructions. During this time the German fighter activity became more intense. There was tracer everywhere and aircraft were going down in flames all around us but still no instructions. One could sense the bombing force getting restless, like a herd ready to stampede. This was emphasized by the remarks made over the air, some of which should have turned the night sky blue. I heard one pilot’s voice, “For Christ’s sake shut up and give my gunners a chance”. When I heard this remark I thought – “God help them if they are being attacked with this lot going on”. But always the same stock phrase, “Don’t bomb. Wait”.’ A RAF pilot wrote: ‘I switched on for the Main Controller’s commentary and was surprised to hear him ordering the main force to wait, as the target had not yet been marked. The air was really blue with a succession of replies from the main force. I had never before heard R/T indiscipline and this was really the measure of the panic and fear that was abroad that night. This was quite enough for me – I had no intention of joining the crowd round those death-trap markers, so we turned east towards the darker sky . . . We heard brief snatches of R/T, on one occasion what sounded like an English voice screaming, “For Christ’s sake! I am on fire!” ’

Jack Spark in Fred Browning’s crew heard the screams. It was a sound he would never forget: ‘It frightened me half to death. Then this cold, commanding voice broke in.’

A rough Australian voice said, ‘If you are going to die, die like a man – quietly.’ Spark found it more shocking than the scream.

Browning said, ‘To hell with this. It’s like moths caught in a candle,’ and he flew on and started circling 30 miles away.

Suddenly R/T was broken by a strong Australian voice who declared, for all to hear: ‘The hell with this; let’s go before we’re picked off.’

And go they did. So too did Q for Queenie. The pilot lined them up for a clear run in and the bombs were dropped right on target before they made a bee line for home without further incident ‘but going like hell’.

One Canadian voice said: ‘If this is a third of an op, I’m half way to LMF.’

Another Canadian who asked to come in and bomb was told, ‘No do not bomb’. After a few anxious minutes the same distinctive Canadian accent was heard asking again: ‘Hello Pathfinder, can we come in and bomb now?’ He got the same reply. ‘Continue circling’. He said, ‘**** the RAF, we’re coming in’.

A wing commander came up on the R/T, identified himself and said, ‘This has got to stop. Cut your R/T and wait for instructions to bomb.’ But the frightened voices continued.

‘Pull your finger out master bomber; we’re dying out here’.

One of the Pathfinders said, ‘I’ve been hit. I’ve got to go down.’ It was said in such a matter of a fact way, as if he was saying that he was going out for a walk.

The deputy controller, Squadron Leader E. N. M. Sparks of 83 Squadron, had been instructed to take over only if the master bomber was shot down or he was given instructions to do so. He was aware that Deane had not been shot down and that his messages somehow were not getting through so Sparks took over and gave the order to bomb. The order was five minutes late but that was an eternity to the waiting crews. ‘When the order to bomb was finally given the rush was like the starting gate at the Derby,’ recalled one pilot. In 20 minutes 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped but by this time nine Lancasters were crashing in flames. Many of the German soldiers on the ground sheltered in the woods when the first bombs dropped and then returned to the camp thinking that the raid was over. They were not ready for the ferocity of the second wave and many were killed in the open. Some dived into the trenches but many were buried alive as the sides of the trenches fell in on them or walls collapsed over them. Then the water tower was hit and the flood of water poured into the trenches, drowning some of the men who were trapped there.

Flight Sergeant ‘Pat’ Patfield in Ron Auckland’s crew in 61 Squadron, all of whose 12 Lancasters made safe returns, says: ‘It was another balls up. We had to orbit for over fifteen minutes over a yellow TI we dropped and wait for the target to be marked. While we were stooging round the Luftwaffe came in and started shooting bombers down, although we flattened Mailly-le-Camp. ³⁴ While we were orbiting they got in the shelters. While we were being shot down, they were taking cover. German night fighters had a whale of a time shooting everyone down.’

Fw 190 Wilde Sau fighters working without radar but by searchlight and moonlight and the bombers’ ‘marker flares’ destroyed six bombers.³⁵

Flight Sergeant Les H. ‘Lizzie’ Lissette RNZAF was pilot of a 207 Squadron Lancaster, which was attacked by a Fw 190. The 26 year old pilot’s girlfriend had been a nurse on a hospital ship bombed off Crete and was believed lost but ‘Lizzie’ a tough, powerfully built New Zealander, who had been a teamster with four horses hauling logs out of the mountains near Napier, never spoke much about it. A third attack soon finished off the bomber. Tracer hit the port wing, blowing off the dinghy hatch. The dinghy then commenced to inflate and then shot back over the tailplane like a big hoopla ring. Lissette could see down through the wing to the ground. The port undercarriage was partially down.

Twenty year old Flight Sergeant Ron ‘Curly’ Emeny the mid-upper gunner, reported a fighter coming in, port quarter down. They were hit again in the bomb bay and a small fire started. Emeny came from Bow and was an apprentice motor cycle engineer in Civvy Street. The crew had become his second family. One thing that he had learned was to get on with all types of people and this was particularly true of the crew on a Lanc. One man had been a gamekeeper and he lived in a tree house he built in the woods at Spilsby between raids, even in the depths of winter. He was a good crew member but he preferred the fresh air.

Sergeant Nick Stockwood the 20 year old flight engineer, an ex boy apprentice, was from Chipping Norton. Sergeant Ron Ellis, the 26 year old rear-gunner from Doncaster, married with a young daughter, had been a boy apprentice engine fitter before the war. Failure of the port outer engine meant that his turret was u/s and the hand rotation was shot away. Before anyone could help him Ellis was hit by another burst of fire: ‘I’ve had it’ he said on the intercom. Lissette ordered the crew to bale out. Emeny turned his turret round, reached for his parachute, put it on and turned the turret round again to jump for it. Only the parachute was not there when he reached for it. All the lights had gone out and he was crawling through thick, black, choking smoke feeling for it. He was lucky. He put his hand right on it. It had broken loose and was rolling about on the floor. Emeny put the parachute on and made for the rear door. Just before he jumped, he picked up the intercom and told Lissette that he was leaving. Lissette said: ‘I thought you’d left already, you curly black headed bastard’ but his words did not come easily. Emeny could hear him gasping as he fought to control the Lancaster and keep it steady, long enough for them all to escape. They were probably the last words he spoke. Lissette stayed at the controls until the Lancaster crashed at Chaintreaux in Seine-et-Marne.³⁶ He was critically injured and he died later in a French hospital. Emeny had to jump through flames. Within seconds of leaving the Lancaster one of the wings broke off and went over his head. Emeny had lost his second family.³⁷

Unteroffizier Erich Handke³⁸ Bordfunker describes how his pilot, Hauptmann Martin Drewes Kommandeur of III./NJG 1 flying a Bf 110G-4/U1 and one of the few fitted with the upward-firing Schräge Musik, also from Laon-Athies, 65 miles away, shot down five Lancasters on what was his 113th operational sortie.

‘In the area of Chamäleon (south of Compiègne) we were directed into the bomber stream and, at a height of 2,500 – 3,000 metres [8,100 – 9,700 feet], I immediately had contacts on my radar on a reciprocal course but by the time we had turned, they were out of our radar range. We flew on and finally saw the target burning in front of us and this enabled us to get into the bomber stream. I guided my pilot with the SN-2 onto the nearest bomber and at 600 metres we could see it. The weather was wonderful, almost full moon. The flak was putting a barrage over the target. We decided not to follow the Lancasters over the target for fear of being hit by their bombs. Twenty kilometres [12 miles] to the south we again headed after the bombers, descending all the while, as they had, in the meantime, lost height to 2,300 metres [7,500 feet]. We sat under a Lancaster, which was only at 2,400 metres and shot from underneath into the wing, which burned at once. Almost immediately the bomber went down in flames. It was our 41st Abschuss.

‘I had already found another target on my screen at 270 degrees, which meant that it was a homebound aircraft. It was flying away to the west at 2,000 metres [6,500 feet] and at a distance of 500 metres [550 yards] we spotted it; it was another Lancaster. We got 500 metres underneath it and then climbed to within about 70 metres under the cockpit area and we fired this time into the fuselage because we could now be sure there were no bombs there. The Lancaster erupted into a bright fire and it soon crashed, ten minutes after our first victim.

‘Then I again caught a machine on my radar while we were already overtaking it. It flew just in front and underneath us. We dived down fast and we spotted it 500 metres [550 yards] to our left and over us. Again we positioned ourselves quite far underneath, pulled up slowly and fired into the middle of it. There was a bright fire and immediately the Lancaster plunged down. It exploded into several parts and crashed eight minutes after our second and just like our 42nd, it came down on the banks of the river Seine near Romilly. This was our 43rd kill.

‘Then Schorsch our Funker suddenly saw one passing diagonally over us. We immediately banked towards it. As visibility was so splendid we could keep our eyes on it easily. Again we dived down, re-positioned ourselves low underneath, as of course we didn’t want to be seen, and slowly pulled up but the Lancaster also climbed, so that only at a height of 3,000 metres [9,700 feet] did we get into effective firing range. We fired a long burst of fire vertically with our Schräge Musik, again aiming into the middle of the bomber. The whole tail unit broke off and, engulfed in bright flames, the Lancaster plunged down. It was six minutes after our third Abschuss.

‘The next one was immediately spotted by Petz, which weaved quite violently whilst climbing all the time. We adapted to its weaving pattern and flew along 500 metres [550 yards] underneath it. After ten minutes, when we had reached a height of 4,300 metres [14,000 feet], Schorsch saw another one closing in from behind but this one flew on a steady course. Then I spotted two more to the right and over us, of which we picked out the aircraft that cruised on most steadily. The others were only 600 metres [660 yards] away when we shot up this one from below, at a distance of 80 metres. At the same instant, it plunged down in flames and my pilot had to pull away sharply. This caused us to lose contact with the others and unfortunately, we didn’t succeed in finding them again. All our kills were Lancasters. Our final victim crashed 50 kilometres [32 miles] south-west of Paris near Dreux.’³⁹

Squadron Leader Sparks the deputy controller, continues:

‘As we left the target my rear-gunner, Warrant Officer ‘Tiger’ Teague, reported four fighters on our tail. I immediately started a corkscrew, intending to lose height rapidly from 3,000 feet to return as near to ground level as possible and I took a straight line from Mailly towards England. During our second steep bank to the left I saw another fighter directly beneath us, perhaps 1,000 feet below. I pressed on with the corkscrew but this chap somehow put perhaps a dozen cannon shells into my starboard wing fuel tanks. We had no nitrogen suppression and, in a short time, the top skin of the wing had burnt through with a mass of flame. I had seen so many Lancasters with burning wings that I knew my aircraft had at most two minutes before the main spar failed with a consequent uncontrollable spin. I gave the order to bale out in my No. 2 method, which was unofficial but known and practised by my crew. This method was that the crew were to get up and get out without delay and any intercom. This they did and I was sitting there keeping an eye on the burning wing and calling up all crew positions to check that no one was left on board. None was and all lived. As I was calling the last position, the wing folded up and I immediately made a turning dive through the front hatch.’⁴⁰

Sergeant Ronnie H. ‘Squiggle’ Eeles recalls:

‘On arrival at Mailly we were directed to proceed to a point 15 miles away and there orbit a yellow marker. After a few minutes we did not like this at all and the crew were worried, as visibility was clear and good and we knew from experience the danger of hanging around enemy territory any longer than absolutely necessary. We were circling this flare for approximately half an hour and becoming increasingly worried, as it appeared impossible to receive any radio instructions due to an American Forces Network Broadcasting Station blasting away. I remember only too well the tune “Deep In The Heart of Texas” followed by hand clapping and noise like a party going on. Other garbled talk was in the background but drowned by the music. Whilst this noise was taking place I was suddenly aware from my position that several Lancasters were going down in flames; about five aircraft, and the fire in each was along the leading edge of the mainplane. I saw some of these planes impact on the ground with the usual dull red glow after the initial crash. My job was to keep my eyes open for enemy aircraft so I did not dwell for more than fleeting seconds on these shot down planes. At this stage I did not see any night fighter activity nor anti-aircraft fire but with regard to the latter we were still orbiting 15 miles from Mailly.

‘At about 00.30 hours my pilot commenced his run in to the target and I could then see several planes burning on the ground. I do not remember hearing any instructions to the pilot from outside sources but obviously he would have obtained clearance to proceed with the bombing. During the bombing run, with the bomb-aimer directing the pilot, there was a sudden huge bang and a blinding pink red flash along the port side of the aircraft, followed immediately by the pilot saying (not shouting), “Christ, put on chutes chaps”. Within a second of this the plane was hit again by anti-aircraft fire along the fuselage. There was a sizzling sound in the intercom system and then it went dead. The pink red glow on the port side persisted and I assumed we were on fire.

‘I was disconnecting my electrical suit plug and leaving my flying helmet on the seat with intercom and oxygen connected when I now come to a point which has always mystified me and to this day I still think of it at times. I had a vision of my mother’s face outside my turret and she said, “Jump son, jump”. I was at this stage about to vacate the turret anyway. On leaving my turret and attaching my parachute, I saw the mid-upper gunner (Sergeant “Speedy” Quick) already at the fuselage door. He was using an axe to open the door and this came as no surprise as this door had previously given trouble due to difficulty in opening. Our ground crew had checked it out more than once and said they could find nothing wrong with it. By the time I reached the door Sergeant Quick had left the plane. I could see nothing in the fuselage as it was full of smoke and the plane itself seemed to be out of control.

‘I rolled out of the plane in the recommended way to avoid hitting the tailplane but my legs did, in fact, brush along the underside. Fortunately my flying boots remained on. I have no recollection of pulling the parachute’s “D” ring although I had it in my grasp as I baled out. I have simply no idea of when it was pulled. Being at a low level the descent did not take long but it was quite a pleasant sensation whilst it lasted. I was unaware of any noise but would have been a distance from Mailly. I came down somewhere in the area of Rheims. On looking down during the descent I thought I was heading towards what I thought was a small lake surrounded entirely by woodland. Suddenly and unexpectedly I landed heavily in what turned out to be a clearing (not water). Although I did not realize it I was actually floating backwards but on hitting the ground my head was protected by the padded collar of my Taylor suit otherwise I would probably have been injured about the head.

‘On the ground I could hear bangs, maybe bombs in the distance and shouts and dogs barking in the near vicinity. I freed my parachute harness and discarded my Taylor and inside electric suits. The chute drifted across the open space and came to rest against the nearby trees. I tore off my brevet and sergeants chevrons and placed them in my battle dress pocket. I made no attempt to hide or bury the chute and left the area. I recall at this time a Mosquito flying past very fast and low in the direction of Mailly presumably, probably to take a last look at the target.

‘For the remainder of the night I kept walking and at dawn heard voices in a nearby field by a large fire. As I was uncertain if this was a crashed aircraft with military or merely farm workers I gave the area a wide berth. At this time an observation plane approached at low altitude and slow speed, very close to where I was. I hid behind a tree and do not think I was noticed. Walking on, I came to the outskirts of a village and saw German troops and motor cycles and sidecars manned by soldiers. Cautiously approaching the end small cottage in this village, I rushed through the front door. A very elderly Frenchman and his yapping dog were naturally surprised and he tried to push me out, shouting “Allemandes, Allemandes”. In view of the noise and perhaps his fear that I was in his cottage, I immediately left and ran out of the village. All I really wanted to know was where I was as I had my silk escape map with me. I next remember coming up towards an isolated large house but remember nothing further. Although I was not injured in any way I must have passed out. I suppose by then it was probably about nine a.m.

‘When I came to, I was lying on the ground and I was being kicked about the body. On opening my eyes a German officer was pointing a pistol at my head and I was surrounded by several soldiers. I was walked back I believe to the same village I had left, searched in some presumably Army HQ and then taken to a cell. Whilst there I was told a rear-gunner had been taken out of the turret of a crashed plane and was very badly injured. I asked if I could see him but the request was refused. After two days I was taken to another town where I was placed in a cell with a navigator from 50 Squadron but after a few hours we were separated. Thereafter I was taken under guard to Oberursel Interrogation Centre at Dulag Luft near Frankfurt.’⁴¹

It had been while crossing the English Channel that Flight Lieutenant Tom Bennett, navigator of the 617 Squadron Mosquito flown by Flight Lieutenant Gerry Fawke, realized how bright the moonlight was. An advantage of being in the second wave was that they could see the ‘party’ starting well ahead of them and the final run in could be made by visually steering towards the action. To Bennett the raid had seemed at first to be ‘progressing favourably’ and everything had appeared to be ‘as normal as one would expect on a raid of this size’. However, he was shocked when he saw that the yellow route markers, placed north of the camp at Germinon to mark the datum point, were visible from ‘a long way off’. If they could see them from that distance ‘so could the Germans’. They were shocked again when bombs began falling as they tried to mark for the second wave. No one appreciated the chaotic conditions that were developing above.⁴² For the first and only time they heard another voice across the ether. ‘Well get a move on, mate,’ said a calm but firm Australian voice. ‘It’s getting a bit hot up here.’ This was the first indication they had that everything was not going according to plan. Satisfied with a job well done the Mosquito crew readily obeyed their order to ‘cut and run’ and Bennett set course for the return route. They had seen no aircraft shot down until they were on the first leg away from the target. Then they saw the first ‘ghastly’ sight of a Lancaster hitting the ground and exploding in flames: ‘The fireball illuminated the pall of oily smoke that was always part of such a macabre scene. To our mounting horror and concern, that was not the only casualty. Again and yet again, the tragedy was repeated. I tried to convince myself that it was German night fighters that were being shot down but the funeral pyres were too large for that. When a fifth bomber was cremated beneath us Gerry said, “Not a healthy area for a twin engined aircraft, Ben, let’s find another way home.” It was pandemonium in the air. Lancasters were jinxing in the sky trying to escape from the Messerschmitts and Junkers. Our gunners were aiming at the enemy but they could only hold the fighters in their sights for a few seconds before they had flown on. We didn‘t waste time. We were as likely to be shot down by one of our planes. The Mosquito could have been mistaken for a German night fighter. I gave Gerry a rough course for the nearest safe part of the coast and then busied myself in the niceties of tidying up to ensure that we crossed the coast at a reasonably safe spot. I could not exorcise from my mind the glimpse of hell we had seen or the thought of the crews that had been flying the planes that had crashed ... Our worst fears were confirmed later that day – 42 Lancasters missing; 14 from 5 Group and 28 from 1 Group. My first reaction was that 5 Group had stirred the hornet’s nest and 1 Group had taken the stings.’⁴³ It was as they flew over Mailly-le-Camp that the pilot of a Lancaster from Elsham Wolds had a feeling of disaster. Squadron Leader Charles Wearmouth DFC recalls:

‘I saw the Lancasters circling over the datum point and I knew they were asking for trouble. It was absolute mayhem. We flew straight on several miles out from Mailly. I waited for the order to go in and bomb but all we could hear, was Glenn Miller and his music – The American Forces Radio. Then we heard the order to go in. The navigator gave us a course that took us straight in over the target. We dropped our bombs and flew straight on and home. We didn‘t see any German fighters and we weren‘t attacked but we saw aeroplanes that were. Two Lancasters exploded alongside us; another was diving towards the ground leaving a trail of smoke. Two parachutes emerged before it too exploded. We could see broken aircraft, flames and smoke, so much smoke. It wasn’t until we were being debriefed that we realized how disastrous the raid had been.’

At debriefings some crews praised the ‘precise’ and ‘accurate’ marking. At Spilsby Squadron Leader Blore-Jones of 207 Squadron added this rider: ‘Yellow TI on datum. No orders from Controller. Complete chaos in target area. Controller inefficient and crew discipline bad.’ A further comment from 49 Squadron at Fulbeck was: ‘Congestion over target to a degree of suicide – 18 – 25 minutes wait for order to bomb.’ At Elsham Wolds Fred Browning’s Lancaster was one of the last to return to the station. Jack Spark DFM recalls: ‘Although our ground crew were pleased to see us there was a subdued air in the camp’. Mailly-le-Camp at least changed the policy that raids over France only counted for a third of a op; from now on they counted as a full operation. It meant that Spark and his fellow crew had finished their tour. The rear-gunner on 103 Squadron, who was just starting his tour and had not known what to expect, made it back to Elsham Wolds also. He hardly had the strength to climb out of the Lancaster when it landed. He was absolutely exhausted. He had not done anything to make him feel so tired but he supposed that reaction had set in. He and the rest of the crew looked around the Lancaster. It had been knocked about and it would need to be patched up before it flew again. All of them were subdued as they went to the debriefing. They took their coffee to the debriefing table. The coffee had a lot of rum in it. The rear-gunner did not like rum. ‘What the hell’ he thought. ‘We had got home and I was alive. It tasted good.’⁴⁴

The Lancaster piloted by Pilot Officer R. R. Reed DSO of 576 Squadron returning to Elsham Wolds needed assistance and he radioed ahead. That sounded ominous to men in charge of the runway in the big, heavy, four-wheeled caravan, with its glass dome on top. They scrambled into the glass house where they watched the Lancasters leaving at 30 second intervals and returning hours later, many of them badly shot up, some on three engines and demanding priority. The fire engines and ambulances were lined up and then they heard the throb of the engines as the Lancasters approached. Everything else was forgotten in the excitement of landing. Shocked at the state of some of them, one stayed in the mind of a flying control officer for the rest of his days. Those in the tower saw Reed’s ailing Lancaster first and recognized the throes of a dying aircraft, tail down with the two propellers on the port side standing immobile. There was a gaping hole where the H₂S should have been and there was something heavy and bulky hanging behind the tail wheel. There was no finesse in getting down. The Lancaster came straight in, down wind, fast and low over the hedge and, as it hit the runway, the rear turret parted from what was left of the tail structure and bounced in a rolling arc towards those watching on the perimeter track. Sergeant A. A. H. Hodson was killed. Crash tenders and ambulances were already racing across the grass towards the Lancaster, veering towards it as its undercarriage collapsed and its wings and propellers gouged the ground. The Lancaster twisted, slid and stopped. The radio operator had been mortally wounded in the fighter attack that had crippled the aircraft. The mid-upper gunner had jumped down from his turret to care for his wounded colleague and had dropped straight through the hole where the H₂S had been. His chest type parachute was still in its stowage.⁴⁵

Squadron Leader Charles Wearmouth DFC concludes:

‘I always reckoned that we were the luckiest crew in the squadron. We flew 34 operations and only had trouble on two of them, Essen and Mailly-le-Camp. We lost an engine before we reached Essen and another over the target when a German night fighter attacked us All I could think about was getting the crew home. The rest of the bomber crews had left us behind and we had the skies to ourselves but the Lancaster flew steadily on. As we approached the English coast two Mosquitoes flew out and accompanied us in. We landed at West Malling in Kent. The CO phoned Elsham Wolds to say we were safe and he was told to send us home by rail so we were given travel warrants and taken down to the station. We were in full flying kit; boots, helmets, parachutes, the lot and not a soul took any notice of us. We got to King’s Cross and a lady porter came over and said, “I’ll give you a hand with your luggage” and she picked up a parachute by its handle and immediately the parachute was fully open and towing the porter down the platform.’⁴⁶

On 6/7 May 149 aircraft attacked railway installations at Mantes-La-Jolie, a suburb of Gassicourt, for the loss of two Lancasters and one Halifax. Lancasters and Mosquitoes also raided Sable-sur-Sarthe and 52 Lancasters attacked an ammunition dump at Aubigne Racan for the loss of one bomber, which was piloted by Flight Lieutenant J. M. Shearer RNZAF and an NCO crew with Air Commodore Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman, the Elsham Wolds Station Commander, aboard. The New Zealander pilot and five of his crew were killed. One man evaded capture and Ivelaw-Chapman, who had only just taken up his position after a staff job, in which he had access to details of the coming invasion, survived and he was taken prisoner. His importance was never realized and the Air Commodore, the highest-ranking officer to be lost on an operation in a Lancaster, was treated in the usual manner.⁴⁷

On 7/8 May 471 sorties were flown against five targets in France for the loss of 12 aircraft. After the attack by 53 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes of 5 Group on the airfield at Tours, in which one Lancaster and one Mosquito were lost, Ron Watkins’ crew in 57 Squadron were attacked by a night fighter while on the bomb run. ‘Ginger’ Hammersley, who was on his 14th operation of his tour, recalls:

‘Ken Bly had warned of horizontal tracer on our starboard side and Bill Carver, of a fighter attacking someone on the port quarter. Whilst Bill kept an eye on this action from the rear turret, Tom Quayle was searching above and to the rear from his turret on top of the Lancaster. Things happened quickly, Tom called, “Fighter, Fighter, Corkscrew port – Go!” Ron needed no second telling and we went down to port in the first move of the corkscrew and the remaining bombs sprayed out from the bomb bay in all directions. I could hear Tom’s and Bill’s guns firing and then the crash of cannon shells and bullets from the fighter hitting our aircraft. Pulling out of the initial dive, I heard Bill call, “Are you all right up front?” Ron hastened to reassure him. In the meantime Tom had seen a fighter about 400 yards astern and just above us, identified it as a Ju 88 and opened fire simultaneously as the Ju 88. Bill quickly joined in. We were doing 250 mph on the first dive, yet the Ju 88 passed us in a vertical dive. We hoped that his dive terminated on the ground and not before. Ron completed two cycles of the corkscrew, Ken yelled to keep weaving, but Ron decided to turn onto a course 323 degrees true. Already deep into France there was no desire to go any deeper. On turning onto our course and clearing the defences, Bill was heard to call, “Skipper, I’ve had it”. I immediately left my wireless set and went back to the rear turret, letting Bill know I was with him on arrival. He was in a sad state. Face, arms and legs were simply streaming with blood. I helped him out of the turret and with some difficulty, managed to get him along the fuselage to the rest bed. Ken had clipped on his parachute in case we had to abandon the aircraft and, on hearing the news of Bill, he came back to help me for a few minutes. He then checked the rear turret, only to find it was too badly damaged to be used. We were without any defence for the rear end! Ken rejoined me at the rest bed and we set about caring for Bill.

‘Meanwhile Esmond Chung had completed an engine check and discovered the port outer engine had no oil pressure and had to be switched off and the propeller feathered. This put the power for the Gee navigation equipment out of action. To counter-balance the loss of the engine, Ron began to wind the rudder trim, only to find that it went round and round and did little more, so he had to jam the rudder over to starboard. Esmond went down into the nose and hung onto the rudder bar to ease the strain off Ron. Really, a rope was needed but that had to wait a while, whilst Bill’s wounds were dressed. It was necessary to cut away clothing from his arms and legs. There were several nasty wounds bleeding profusely in both legs. These Ken and I covered with wound dressing pads and applied a tourniquet for a short while to each leg. His face wounds were bleeding and Ken slapped a wound dressing straight onto his face. I had to remind him it was necessary to uncover his nose, as it would help Bill to breath that much better. Having dealt with Bill’s wounds, I now found the rope that was required up front and thus Ron and Esmond were able to have some of the strain of holding a straight course removed. Mack MacKinnon told us that we were about 50 miles from the French coast. This also reminded us of the briefing before the operation when we were told of the heavy coastal defences, in particular the light anti-aircraft batteries.

‘After injecting pain-killing drugs into Bill’s arms, I acted as another pair of eyes from the astrodome. By now Ron had decided to take the aircraft down as close to the ground as possible and we literally hedge-hopped across France with the three engines giving us 180 mph. Ron’s skill as a pilot now came to the fore. It was agreed that we should get up to 10,000 feet to cross the French coast to avoid the light flak guns. We were nearly too late. As we commenced the climb, one battery opened fire at us. Ron immediately put the Lancaster into a dive straight at the guns. I watched in amazement from the astrodome, as the coloured tracer fire came flashing by my head and to each side of the aircraft. Later I discovered that we had been hit along the length of the bomb bay doors in that incident. We pulled up out of the dive and were away into the darkness as the gunfire stopped. We crossed the coast at 10,000 feet as intended, avoiding the Channel Islands. Bill was feeling the strain, being semi-conscious much of the time. He was not plugged into the intercom at this stage. In one of his brighter moments, he indicated that he wished to talk, so he was switched into the circuit.

‘After clearing the Channel Islands, Tom said that there was another aircraft approaching, which he identified as a fighter. Ron was asked to turn a little to starboard and Tom opened fire with the four guns in his turret, it was a long burst, Ron then put the aircraft into a corkscrew. The night fighter appeared not to appreciate our gunfire and dived away to port and was not seen again.

‘We passed over St Alban’s Head and commenced to send out a “May Day” distress call. Hurn answered faintly but did not switch on its approach and runway lights. However, ahead there was another aerodrome, Tarrant Rushton, which did “light up”, so we went in there. Other aircraft preparing to land were instructed to wait until we were down, Ron made a good landing on three engines and called for an ambulance. This pulled alongside us as we came to a stop near the control tower. Bill was helped from the rest bed, out of the aircraft and into the ambulance by several willing hands. He went off to Station Sick Quarters, whilst the rest of us were taken off for debriefing and breakfast. After breakfast we made our way to sick quarters only to find that Bill had already been taken to the Military Hospital in Shaftesbury. We all admired his fortitude and courage in the somewhat harassing circumstances. The flying time had been 4 hours 15 minutes. Later, when looking at the aircraft, it was in a mess. The rear turret was sheeted over and the signs of battle damage were all too obvious.’⁴⁸

On 8/9 May the largest operation of the night was an attack by 123 aircraft on rail yards at Haine-St-Pierre, which cost six Halifaxes and three Lancasters.⁴⁹ One of the bombers that failed to return was a 405 ‘Vancouver’ Squadron RCAF Lancaster flown by Flight Lieutenant Chase. Flight Lieutenant Tim Woodman and Pat Kemmis of 169 Squadron, supporting the operation, could clearly see the bombers, as many as 10 at a time but no sign of German night fighters. He and Kemmis ‘sniffed around’ for 109s and 190s over the target area but they saw none. Woodman then saw three Halifaxes ‘weaving like dingbats’ up at 6,000 feet. Below the leading bomber he and Kemmis could see a twin-engined aircraft climbing up to attack. It was a Bf 110 of I./NJG 4, flown by Leutnant Wolfgang Martstaller and his radar-operator/air gunner, who had taken off from Florennes at 03.00 hours. They had just shot down Chase’s Lancaster and were after another victim. In a letter to his parents on 12 May, Martstaller wrote: ‘The sky was fully lit, so we could easily see the Tommy. We saw at least 10 bombers. However, we could only concentrate on one aircraft. When I was near him and fired (and my burst of fire bloody well blinded me!) the Schwinehund fired off a flare with a signal pistol, so that an enemy night fighter could post us).’

Martstaller, however, was unable to pick off another of the bombers because he was attacked immediately by Woodman and Kemmis. The Mosquito pilot fired a two-second-burst and Martstaller dived into the darkness, Kemmis following him on Serrate. Martstaller soared up in a steep climb and Woodman fired from 800 yards. This time he opted out and took the Mosquito on a chase across the French countryside at treetop height. Though they could not see him as he flew away from the moon, they easily followed him on Serrate. Martstaller went into a steep dive to almost zero feet (‘at night!’) but still he could not escape from the Mosquito’s attention. The German made the mistake of flying towards the moon and Woodman saw the moonlight glint off his wings. He fired and got some strikes on his fuselage and wings as he flew across a wide open space, which looked like an aerodrome. Martstaller went into a steep turn and, firing 50 yards ahead of him to allow for deflection, Woodman hit him again. White smoke poured from the 110’s port engine and, closing to 150 yards, Woodman gave him another two seconds burst and hit him again. Martstaller was fortunate to spot a field in which to belly land. He and his Bordfunker were slightly injured from shrapnel. Next day they discovered that a large explosion they had seen two miles away was ‘their’ Viermot ‘with seven crewmembers burned to death’. Martstaller ended his letter, ‘We were so happy!’⁵⁰

Further raids were made on 9/10 May on coastal batteries in France and on 10/11 May rail targets were bombed. On the night of 11/12 May, 429 bombers of the main force made attacks on Bourg-Leopold, Hasselt and Louvain in Belgium. The target for 190 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes of 5 Group was a former Belgian Gendarmerie barracks at Leopoldsburg (Flemish)/Bourg-Leopold (French), which was being used to accommodate 10,000 SS Panzer troops who awaited the Allied invasion forces. The weather was bad with low cloud and poor visibility and a serious error was made with the broadcast winds. As a result, the aircraft were late over the target area and consequently flare-dropping was scattered and provided no adequate illumination. An Oboe Mosquito flown by Flight Lieutenants Burt and Curtis, of 109 Squadron, dropped a yellow marker. The Mosquito marking force of 627 Squadron arrived late over the target with the result that the Oboe proximity marker was seen by only one of the marking aircraft and it, unfortunately, seemed to burn out very quickly. Flare dropping was scattered and did not provide adequate illumination of the target. Haze and up to 3/10ths cloud conditions hampered the marking of the target. The ‘marking leader’ then asked the ‘master bomber’ (Squadron Leader Mitchell of 83 Squadron), if he could drop ‘red spot fires’ as a guide for the flare force. The master bomber agreed and ‘RSFs’ went down at 00.24 hours in the estimated vicinity of the target. Unfortunately, the ‘main force’ started to bomb this red spot fire immediately it went down and half of the main force bombed this. The result of this was the five Mosquitoes of 627 Squadron returned to Oakington with their bombs and were unable to mark the target. Immediately Mitchell ordered ‘stop bombing’, as he realized it was impossible to identify the target but VHF was very poor, particularly on Channel ‘B’ and the Germans had jammed Channel ‘A’. Only half the main force received the ‘stop bombing’ instruction and 94 Lancasters bombed the target. At 00.34 hours a wireless message, ‘Return to base’ was sent out to all crews.

One of the aircraft that failed to return on 11/12 May was a Lancaster of 166 Squadron flown by Pilot Officer Geoffrey J. R. Clark, which was probably shot down by Oberleutnant Gottfried Hanneck of 6./NJG 1 for his first victory.⁵¹ ‘In the early morning of 11 May my crew and I were detached from Deelen to Düsseldorf. In the evening we came to immediate readiness at around 18.00 hours and one hour later, I was ordered to fly to Melsbroek near Brussels and ‘towards the enemy’ as I was told. I touched down at Melsbroek at 20.42 hours and came to immediate readiness again. Our patience was really tested as only just before 23.00 hours our night fighter Jägerleitoffiziers reported aircraft flying in. After having been ordered to scramble at 23.20 hours, we flew in the direction of the Ruhr area in the hope of intercepting the Viermots during their outward flight. And we succeeded; we caught one on our SN-2! My radar operator gave me courses to steer to get a visual on the target. However, before we caught a first sight of our target, a steam of tracer appeared before me, which smashed into a Viermot, putting it on fire and it plunged down out of control. All of a sudden, the night sky was turned into daylight by the burning bomber and I had to break off and ‘hide’ into the darkness some distance away, fearing that the massed firepower of other Viermots would ‘fry’ me!

‘In the meantime, I had arrived over the edge of the flak zone, so I turned away and started searching for a new target in the withdrawal route of the British. We were successful in our search, as we flew several tracks to the west and north-west. Thus, we got a new contact on the SN-2, a four-engined aircraft that tried to get home and away at high speed, whilst slightly losing height. This time, no ‘colleague’ was chasing the same target. I slowly got closer, until I could make it out with my bare eyes. Approaching at the same altitude (13,000 feet) I gradually lost some height and positioned myself 100 to 150 metres beneath my target. It now hung over us, as large as a barn door. I put my sights on the fuselage and with the Schräge Musik. I fired through the whole length of it, by slowly pushing my aircraft down and away from the bomber. We watched how many hits registered in the whole fuselage; our target dived down steeply and crashed onto the ground in the area of the mouth of the River Scheldt. We saw how it exploded on impact, with a huge detonation and a sheet of flames. Time of our Abschuss was 00.48 hours. Fifty minutes later we touched down on our aerodrome at Deelen, it was a good landing and we were unhurt. Later on, our weapons mechanics established that I had used ample ammunition. This was quite understandable, as I was only a novice who wanted to make sure of the kill. During my later Abschüsse I was more economical!⁵²

George Vantilt, a 15 year old Beverlo boy, recalls:

‘The raid of 12 May had brought the terror of war again to the doorstep of the people of Beverlo. Eighty-four people were killed and many more were wounded. One lady died one year after the raid. She lost her whole family and could not get over her grief. Low flying aircraft woke us up that night. We lived in the Korspel-straat No.3. We had no air-raid shelter. Together with my parents and sister we ran to the neighbours who had a shelter in the garden. Once inside, the first bombs were falling very close. We were thinking that they bombed the coal mine at Beringen.⁵³ We all prayed. The constant change of air pressure hurt our ears. I can assure you it was hell on earth! The family escaped unhurt and our house, too, was lucky. As we came out of the shelter, fires were all around. Most of the people had small farms and even now when I smell burnt hay I think of that terrible night in May. The day after the raid we all went to the village. The road called Zuidstraat was hit the most. It was totally destroyed. The dead cows in the fields spread a terrible smell. The people were shocked and in one house a complete family was killed. Everybody in the village lost a relative or friend that night. The next Sunday after the raid we went to church as usual. After the service, my friend and I went to the crash site of a Lancaster, which had exploded in mid-air during the raid. The place where one of the crewmembers had died could still be seen as a print in the cornfield. Parts of the aircraft were scattered over one kilometre.’⁵⁴

On the night of 19/20 May Bomber Command resumed operations with raids by 900 aircraft on five separate rail targets in France, two French coastal gun positions at Le Clipon and Merville and a radar station at Mont Couple. At Le Mans 112 Lancasters and four Mosquitoes attacked rail yards and caused serious damage. Three Lancasters, including two 7 Squadron aircraft, one carrying the CO and master bomber, Wing Commander John Fraser Barron DSO* DFC DFM a New Zealander from Dunedin, and the other his deputy, Squadron Leader J. M. Dennis DSO DFC, were lost in a collision over the target. Crew reported hearing Barron, who was 23 years old, and was flying his 79th operation, talking to another Lancaster crew before the night lit up with a huge explosion.⁵⁵ The railway yards at Orléans were bombed accurately by 118 Lancasters and four Mosquitoes without loss but a similar force found that their target at Amiens was cloud-covered and the master bomber ordered the attack to stop after 37 Lancasters had got their bombs away. The most difficult sorties of the entire night⁵⁶ were flown by 113 Lancasters and four Mosquitoes of 5 Group, who attempted to bomb the railway installations in the centre of Tours where a previous raid by 5 Group had destroyed the St Pierre-des-Corps yards on the outskirts of the town. Both the marking and the bombing force were ordered to carry out their tasks with particular care and to be prepared to wait until the master bomber was satisfied that the surrounding housing areas were not hit. Pilot Officer Ron Auckland of 61 Squadron flew one of the Lancasters that took part. His bomb-aimer, ‘Pat’ Patfield, who was on his sixth op, recalled that it was another ‘funny do’.

‘I settled down in the nose of the aircraft with my maps and prepared for what we anticipated would be a fairly short trip of about 4½ hours. Not flying over Germany we were not unduly worried. The outward flight, apart from a fair amount of flak, was fairly uneventful. Some distance from Tours we could see the area illuminated by the marker flares and I got ready for the bombing run. By now the flak was more intense. I tried to ignore it as much as possible, concentrating on getting the target aligned in the bombsight graticule by giving the usual instruction to the pilot. “Left-left-right-steady”-etc. Just as I was about to give the order, “Open bomb doors” there was a hell of a crash and a shout from the pilot and the aircraft vibrated like a mad thing. Obviously, I thought that we had been hit by flak. The aircraft went up on one wing. “We’re OK – Pat, can you bomb?” called the skipper. I said, “Yeah.” The bombsight graticule was vibrating badly but things seemed to be OK. We had, by now, turned slightly off target but I took an average and let the bombs go. Normally, when the Lanc crossed the target you would release the bombs as the aiming point reached the cross wire. As we left the target area, the skipper said: “Right Pat, you’d better come up here quick, we’ve been hit by another Lancaster.”

‘After I’d closed the bomb bay doors, I went up. In spite of the poor light I could see that there was about 10 feet of the port wing slashed open, the port outer prop was bent back over the wing and the port inner sounded like a bag of nails. The Perspex top of the cabin just above the pilot’s head was also broken. He told us that the aircraft, which had hit us, was flying in almost the opposite direction and had just skimmed over us. Only another foot or so lower and there would have been an awful big bang and “curtains‘’ for the lot of us. With the vibration now minimized by nature of the dead engine, we carried on, and headed for home. After a while the port inner engine gave trouble and the prop had to be feathered. This meant continuing on the two starboard engines only. We were getting pretty low as we approached the south coast of England so it was decided to make an emergency landing at Tangmere airfield in Sussex. We were all relieved in making a safe landing. The next day, leaving our somewhat bent Lanc on the airfield after collecting our charts and equipment, we were flown back to Skellingthorpe. How true it was, I cannot vouch, but apparently the aircraft which hit us had made a dummy run over the target, turned around to make another run up and had crossed the bomber stream. The aircraft was later being identified by the damage to its underside caused by the collision. For bringing his damaged aircraft safely back, Ron Auckland was awarded a well-deserved DFC. I was to do a further 14 operational flights (before joining another crew for the remainder of my tour of 33 ops) with Ron. Incidentally, on this flight, our target photograph showed that we had hit the marshalling yards OK!’

Bomber Command directed its might against German targets once again on 21/22 May when 532 aircraft raided Duisburg. Twenty-nine Lancasters were lost, Zahme Sau crews claiming 26 bombers shot down, most of them over the southern provinces of the Netherlands.⁵⁷ The next night, 22/23 May, Dortmund was severely hit by 361 Lancasters and 14 Mosquitoes for the loss of 18 Lancasters. A second stream of 225 Lancasters and 10 Mosquitoes that went to Brunswick lost 13 Lancasters. Two nights later Bomber Command’s main objectives for 264 Lancasters, 162 Halifaxes and 16 Mosquito bombers were the Westbahn rail station in Aachen and the Rothe Erde marshalling yard east of the town. Aachen was an important focal point for traffic moving from the Ruhr to France.⁵⁸ No aircraft were lost on the raids on Eindhoven (where bad weather prevented bombing), the French coast or Antwerp but 25 Lancasters and Halifaxes failed to return from the attacks on Aachen-West, which was well hit, and the Rothe Erde yards, which escaped serious damage.⁵⁹

After a night of minor operations on 26/27 May, the men of Bomber Command steeled themselves again for main force attacks on Bourg-Leopold, the Rothe Erde railway yards at Aachen, a railway junction at Nantes, the airfield at Rennes and coastal batteries on the French coast. Altogether, over 1,100 bombers, minelayers and Mosquitoes, who visited targets in Germany, were dispatched against 17 separate operations. Bomber crews were cautioned that the target at Bourg-Leopold in the north-east corner of Belgium was a rectangle image of lines dividing it diagonally and Allied prisoners were on the close side and to the left so they were told, ‘Don’t undershoot’. This time 331 aircraft⁶⁰ were to finish the job that had ended in disaster a few nights earlier. A lone Mosquito bomber had already dropped a yellow flare on the target and it was backed up by a Pathfinder Force dropping flares when the bombers arrived. Five Oboe Mosquitoes dropped TIs and the third and most accurate salvo fell 320 yards short of the aiming point. The early visual markers were wide to the south but a salvo of ‘whites’ went down 250 yards south-west of the aiming point. Wing Commander S. P. ‘Pat’ Daniels of 35 Squadron, the master bomber, saw early bombs fall among the camp buildings and the aiming point soon became obscured by smoke. Daniels reported:

‘Our load for the trip to Leopoldsburg was 28 hooded flares, six TIs yellow, five TI yellow and one 4,000lb “cookie”. The weather over the target was no cloud and the vertical visibility good. The target was identified visually, aided by a red TI and flares. On approach to the target at 01.59 hours two red TIs were seen on aiming point. I broadcast from 02.01 hours to 02.13 hours. Our own yellow target indicator was dropped on the NW end of the red TI. I instructed the main force to bomb on the yellow target indicators. White TIs were well backing up yellows. I instructed the main force during the last 3 mins to bomb on whites to port and this with one-second overshoot. The main force bombing was good. One large explosion from the centre of target, rising well above ground with minor explosions in the air and this at 02.07 hours.’

Nine Halifaxes and one Lancaster were lost on the Bourg-Leopold raid. In all probability they were all shot down by prowling Nachtjäger over Belgium. One Lancaster each was lost attacking the coastal batteries and Nantes and 12 Lancasters failed to return from the raid on Aachen. One of the Lancasters of 166 Squadron that took part in the attack on the Rothe Erde railway yards and was seriously damaged by fighter attack was Fair Fighter flown by Flight Sergeant S. G. Coole. Sergeant A. W. Downs the flight engineer recalls:

‘We had already done 10 ops in Fair Fighter and were half way to the Belgian coast on the way home from Aachen when we were attacked by a Bf 109. The intercom was damaged and smoke filled the cockpit. The skipper motioned that he had lost control of the rudders; the port engine temperature was rising and we were losing power on the others. In the thick smoke the rear of the aircraft seemed to be all right and I went back to take a look. With the W/Op and mid-upper gunner we put the fire out and then found that the rudder control had been shot through and the rear-gunner injured – as well as three of the parachutes having been riddled with incendiary bullets. I made a rough repair to the rudder control and went back up front. The skipper decided to make for Woodbridge. The rudder control gave way again and we had to blow down the undercarriage using the air bottle, as the hydraulics had gone. We also had no flaps. It was a fast touchdown and almost at once the aircraft veered to starboard; the brakes had been damaged so we had to go where the Lancaster wanted to go! On reaching the edge of the runway we hit an incline and the aircraft was momentarily airborne again. A terrific roar and then the aircraft stopped. We had come to rest in a wood and we all clambered out. After breakfast and a rest we took another look at our Lancaster and realized how lucky we had been to survive. That afternoon an aircraft came down from Kirmington to collect us and in due course we had a brand new aircraft, which we named Fair Fighter’s Revenge.’

Following the raid on Bourg-Leopold Marcel Heselmans, a resistance fighter code-named Sixtus, whose brother Leon was also in the resistance, cycled to see the damage to Bourg-Leopold so that he could transmit information to England. According to Sixtus, 7,000 German soldiers were killed or missing and 218 German women, who arrived on 26 May to receive nursing training, were also killed. He added that the spirit of the German soldiers at Leopoldsburg was totally destroyed. Many were still absent and hiding in the surrounding woods and had deserted. Civilian casualties were 22 killed. All the buildings ‘including the big messes’ had been destroyed. The ‘Cavalry Camp’, which held many Belgian political prisoners survived the attack. The guards had closed the doors and ran away leaving the prisoners locked up unattended. Marcel, together with other members of his team, was taken prisoner a few weeks later and he was shot on 15 July 1944, as he tried to escape when he was transported from the interrogation office to the prison of Hasselt.

An operation to Angers went ahead on the night of 28/29 May when 118 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes attacked the railway yards and junction. Frank Dengate recalls:

‘We did the usual air test in daylight then attacked Angers – 1,780 gallons of fuel and 10,885lbs of bombs. This was a strange trip. We flew across England at 1,000 feet from Cambridge to Lands End. It was wonderful sight seeing all road traffic stopped below and people waving – the noise of a few hundred Lancasters must have been deafening on the ground. Then out we went to sea and east towards France. As we got closer we climbed to 19,999 feet, the idea being to avoid early radar warning by the Germans. It was a very good prang. No flak. No fighters.’⁶¹

The long range heavy gun battery at St Martin de Varreville, behind what was to be Utah beach, presented a threat to Allied shipping approaching Normandy and also to the troops landing on Utah beach. It was decided that 5 Group would attack this precision target, so on the night of 28/29 May, a force of 64 Lancasters, led by a flare force from 83 and 97 Lancaster Pathfinder Squadrons and four Mosquitoes of 627 Squadron, flew to St Martin de Varreville. The flare force identified the gun battery on their H₂S sets and laid a carpet of flares over the target. At zero hour minus five minutes, the Mosquitoes roared in at 2,000ft and identified the gun battery visually. They released their red TIs on the battery, creating a box of flares around it. The master bomber now called in the main force, with each aircraft carrying several 1,000lb armour-piercing bombs and the target was obliterated.⁶²

On 31 May/1 June, 219 aircraft⁶³ in another operation in support of the forthcoming invasion, attacked the railway marshalling yards at Trappes in Paris in two waves. The purpose of the operation, carried out in brilliant moonlight, was to disrupt German troop movements and war materials from eastern France, central Germany and the occupied countries. As the bombers approached the target area, flying high above the almost 10/10ths low lying cumulus, the target area was apparently full of night fighters. The master bomber called for assistance but the anguished reply from the deputy master bomber was, ‘I bloody can’t. I’ve been hit’, whether by one of the numerous bursts of heavy flak in the target area at that time or enemy fighter activity. Several aircraft, including some squadron commanders’, were lost. On the whole, enemy fighter activity was considered intense in the target area. Presumed to be a relatively easy target, Trappes apparently lived up to its name and had become an operational aircraft trap. The presence of 14 Bomber Support RCM aircraft and 16 Serrate and nine Intruder Mosquitoes may have had something to do with the low loss rate as did other operations this night.

Pilot Officer Ron Walker’s crew were one of four crews in 57 Squadron at East Kirkby who flew Gardening sorties, laying sea mines in the Kattegat, as Sergeant ‘Ginger’ Hammersley, recalls:

‘Before we were briefed, we carried out air to air and air to sea firing from the gun turrets. At the same time all equipment was checked ready for the minelaying operation we would be carrying out that night. The firing and testing took 45 minutes after taking off at 14.40 hours. At briefing there was invariably an officer from the Royal Navy who specialized in minelaying. We were to carry six Mk.VI mines which had to be dropped following a timed flight from a point given at briefing and based on the reading given by the H₂S radar equipment. The whole flight would be at low level so as to avoid the enemy radar detection equipment. The target was in the Kattegat, well down this waterway between Denmark and Sweden and not far from Kiel Bay. The altitude for the bombing run right up to dropping the mines was to be at 4,000 feet. We were away at 21.35 hours in fine weather. There was no opposition and all the mines were dropped into place as briefed, after which all the crews returned safely to base. We landed at 05.20 hours, a total of 7 hours 45 minutes flying time. Later the Wall Newspaper reported: “A long low-level flight in near daylight conditions by four aircraft of 57 Squadron is worthy of note. These four took off into the fading sun of double summer time at 23.40 hours to fly at 500 feet around the northern tip of Denmark and down the Kattegat to drop their sea mines off Alborg, returning by the same route. The late sunset and early dawn were linked by the midnight sun and for the whole flight it was possible to see clear to the horizon. From two miles out we could see clearly Gothenburg’s neutral waterfront ablaze with street and house lights, this was a rare sight after the experience of a blacked out Europe.”

‘Whilst the four crews that had flown the minelaying operation were sleeping during the daytime on the 1 June, the squadron was preparing for a night attack on the Saumur railway junction. Fifteen crews took part in the attack and all returned safely to base. On 2 June I was promoted to flight sergeant. Great rejoicing and a couple of beers in the mess bar that night. Ten crews, including my crew, were briefed to destroy the Wireless Telegraphy Station at Ferme-D’Urville on the French coast that night with 4,000lb MC and sixteen 500lb MC bombs per aircraft. Our take-off was at 23.00 hours. It was 3 hours 40 minutes later when we returned from the attack, which had proved successful against light opposition. There were no squadron losses. There were operations on for the 4th but my own crew was stood down and the attack took place by 15 crews from the squadron on enemy gun emplacements at Maisy on the French coast. All returned safely.⁶⁴ On the 5th a check was carried out to see how we were faring as a crew and to see if we were all still capable of carrying out our duties to the full. This proved to be satisfactory. We were also on the battle order for an early morning attack on the 6th.’

Almost everyone had known for several weeks that the invasion of France was imminent but only the Chiefs of Staff knew when and where. Wing Commander Rollo Kingsford-Smith RAAF,⁶⁵ CO of 463 Squadron, which operated Lancasters at Waddington, recalls:

‘In June I heard more and more accounts about the masses of Allied troops, guns and tanks building up in the south of England. It was obvious a very substantial army operation would soon begin but I was too busy with my own war even to think about the Army’s activities, let alone find out any more details. On the evening of 5 June the Operation Order coming through on our teleprinter began: “Main force aircraft from 53 Base will attack the enemy gun battery at Pointe du Hoc. Objective to destroy enemy gun positions at 4.50 am on 6 June.”’

Allied intelligence had pinpointed 73 fixed coastal gun batteries that could menace the invasion. The gun positions were bombed throughout May, with a heavier than average attack by both day and night three days before D-Day. Now they were to be bombed again during the night of 5 June. Pointe du Hoc, a cliff rising 100 feet high from a very rocky beach, 3.7 miles west of Vierville, where a six-gun battery (thought to be 155mm, with a range of 25,000 yards) could engage ships at sea and fire directly onto Omaha and Utah beaches.

‘In my mind this attack would be about the most important my squadron had ever made’ says Kingsford-Smith ‘and we were all determined that it would succeed. The location given in the operation order was on the Normandy coast. To me it meant that Allied forces could be landing there immediately after we had finished with the enemy gun battery. I say, “could be landing” because the weather forecast for the English Channel for the 6th was terrible and it seemed quite unsuitable for the small craft that the invasion forces would be using.’

Notes

1

Figures on a clock face, i.e. east to west in the northern part of the night fighting area.

2

The highly prized Knight’s Cross was awarded to Bergmann after he destroyed six Lancasters on the night of 3/4 May.

3

Lancaster-The Story Of A Famous Bomber by Bruce Robertson (Harleyford Publications Ltd, 1964).

4

Lancaster III ND395 of 83 Squadron was destroyed by the Aachen flak defences. All the other eight losses were due to Nachtjäger. One Viermot each by Oberleutnant Werner Baake and Feldwebel Rauer (on his 1st combat sortie) of I./NJG 1 at Venlo and Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer of Stab IV./NJG 1 at St Trond claimed two heavies (Lancaster III ND389 of 83 Squadron west of Turnhout, and Lancaster I LL899 of 49 Squadron near St Leonhard) destroyed. At the end of 1943 Schnaufer’s night victories stood at 40, with four Lancasters being shot down on 16/17 December.

5

In October 1944 Group Captain Hugh S. L. ‘Cocky’ Dundas reached the rank at the age of 24.

6

The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill (Evans Bros, London, 1951).

7

Cheshire used this aircraft on 10/11 April to mark a Signals Depot at St Cyr during a dive from 5,000 to 1,000 feet. These successes led to 617 Squadron receiving four FB.VIs/XVIs for marking purposes.

8

At First Sight; A Factual and anecdotal account of No. 627 Squadron RAF, researched and compiled by Alan B. Webb, 1991.

9

Three Oboe Mosquitoes of 8 Group also took part in the operation.

10

The target at La Chapelle was marked by three 617 Squadron Mosquitoes. Six Lancasters failed to return from this raid. Main force targets included Cologne and four rail targets in France and Belgium. Two hundred and forty-seven Lancasters of 5 Group and 22 Mosquitoes were dispatched to the rail target at La Chapelle. Another 175 aircraft attacked Lens, while 196 aircraft attacked rail yards at Ottignies in Belgium. Four Lancasters were lost on the Cologne raid. None of the aircraft attacking Ottignies was lost.

11

The raid was not successful. The initial marking by 617 Squadron Mosquitoes was accurate but many of the main force of Lancasters did not bomb these, partly because of a thin layer of cloud, which hampered visibility, and partly because of faulty communications between the various bomber controllers. Many bombs were dropped in the centre of the city but the remainder of the force bombed reserve H₂S-aimed TIs, which were well to the south. Damage caused was not extensive.

12

When 637 aircraft bombed Karlsruhe and 234 Lancasters and 16 Mosquitoes raided Munich.

13

Sir Arthur Harris had sanctioned the release of the Mosquitoes to 617 Squadron and insisted they could be retained only if Munich was hit heavily. While no award of the Victoria Cross was ever made for a Mosquito sortie, Cheshire’s contribution to the success of the Munich operation on 24/25 April, when he led four Mosquitoes of the marking force in 5 Group, was mentioned in his VC citation on 8 September 1944. In part it said, ‘Cheshire’s cold and calculated acceptance of risks is exemplified by his conduct in an attack on Munich in April 1944. This was an experimental attack to test out the new method of target marking at low level against a heavily defended target situated deep in enemy territory. He was obliged to follow, in bad weather, a direct route, which took him over the defences of Augsburg and thereafter he was continuously under fire. As he reached the target, flares were being released by our high-flying aircraft and he was illuminated from above and below. All guns within range opened fire on him. Diving [from 12,000 to 3,000ft and then flying repeatedly over the city at little more than 700 feet] he dropped his markers with great precision and began to climb away. So blinding were the searchlights that he almost lost control. He then flew over the city at 1,000 feet to assess the accuracy of his work and direct other aircraft. His own was badly hit by shell fragments but he continued to fly over the target area until he was satisfied that he had done all in his power to ensure success . . . for a full 12 minutes after leaving the target area he was under withering fire, but he came safely though . . . What he did in the Munich operation was typical of the careful planning, brilliant execution and contempt for danger which has established for Wing Commander Cheshire a reputation second to none in Bomber Command’. The crews who took part were: Cheshire and Pat Kelly; Squadron Leader Dave Shannon DSO and Len Sumpter; Flight Lieutenant Terry Kearns and Flight Lieutenant Hone Barclay, and Flight Lieutenant Gerry Fawke and Flight Lieutenant Tom Bennett. The four aircraft flew to Manston on the Kent coast to begin the operation. Shannon dived from 15,000 to 4,000 feet but his markers hung up, while the fourth Mosquito got four spot flares away. Shannon received a bar to his DSO in September 1944 after he had completed many more important operational sorties with 617 Squadron. The most outstanding of these was when he flew as deputy master bomber and deputy leader to Wing Commander Cheshire on the Munich raid.

14

A liquid-filled 30lb incendiary bomb, which was not as effective as was hoped and many failed to explode. Bomber Harris gleefully pointed out that the Germans, who recovered these, warmly welcomed them and the petrol content was used as ersatz motor spirit for their vehicles.

15

All Groups except 5 Group dispatched almost 600 bombers including 323 Lancasters, to Düsseldorf in what was described as an ‘old style heavy attack on a German city’. (The Bomber Command War Diaries by Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt). Brunswick was visited by 238 Lancasters and 17 Mosquitoes of 5 Group and 10 Lancasters of 1 Group, while 181 from four Groups attacked the railway yards at Laon in two waves.

16

Nachtjagd claimed 28 – 31 kills with Hauptmann Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer destroying four Viermots for his 53rd-56th victories. Two nights later Schnaufer claimed two more kills (Lancasters of 156 and 408 Squadrons). On six nights, 21 – 28 April, 1,407 night fighter sorties were dispatched, which resulted in claims for 135 bombers destroyed. During the whole of April 215 victories were claimed by Nachtjagd crews.

17

That night, 26/27 April 1,060 aircraft of Bomber Command were to raid Essen, Schweinfurt and Villeneuve-St-Georges, 493 aircraft going to Essen and 217 Halifaxes, Lancasters and Mosquitoes attacking the southern end of the railway yards at Villeneuve-St-Georges.

18

Two hundred and six Lancasters were heading for Schweinfurt, which was to be marked by eleven Mosquitoes of 627 Squadron, which had recently transferred to 5 Group from 8 (PFF) Group.

19

They had been hit by a Bf 110 night fighter flown by 22 year old Experte Oberleutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer Ritter-kreuztrager and Gruppenkommandeur, IV./NJG1. V-Victor was one of the ‘Night Ghost of St Trond’s’ two Lancaster victims that night. During 1944 he achieved 64 victories; a record that was unequalled in the Nachtjagd.

20

In all, 30 aircraft (28 per cent) were lost this night. The award of the Victoria Cross was made after the war, on 26 October 1945, to Sergeant (later Warrant Officer) Norman Cyril Jackson RAFVR, a flight engineer in a Lancaster of 106 Squadron, which was shot down near Schweinfurt. A German night fighter hit the Lancaster and a fire started in a fuel tank in the wing near the fuselage. Jackson climbed out of a hatch with a fire extinguisher, with another crew member holding the rigging lines of his chute, which had opened in the aircraft. Jackson lost the fire extinguisher and, as the fire was affecting both him and his parachute rigging, the men in the aircraft let the parachute go. Jackson survived, though with serious burns and a broken ankle received on landing with his partially burnt parachute. The remainder of the crew baled out soon afterwards. Jackson was born in 1919 at Ealing. He was a fitter in civilian life and joined the RAF in October 1939. His first operational tour was with Coastal Command and he joined Bomber Command in 1943. He had completed 30 operations on 106 Squadron up to the time of his capture.

21

He was. Smith was killed when Lancaster I ME679 DX-K of 57 Squadron was involved in a collision with Lancaster I of 44 Rhodesian Squadron piloted by Flying Officer G. W. Oldham DFC who was a Rhodesian who had flown his first tour on 61 Squadron. There was only one survivor from Boyle’s crew. All seven of Oldham’s crew died. Two I./NJG 6 Bf 110s were lost to flak and return fire but the Nachtjagd crews returned with eight Abschüsse plus three probables. The Schweinfurt force lost 21 Lancasters, or 9.3 per cent. At Asten near Eindhoven RitterkreuzträgerOberfeldwebel Rudolf Frank of 3./NJG 3, flying a Bf 110G-4 night fighter with Schräge Musik cannon from Vechta claimed his 45th and final Abschuss (Lancaster III ND873 of 12 Squadron) before he and his crew were hit by debris from their quarry. Frank and Oberfeldwebels Schierholz and Schneider crashed to their deaths. Frank was posthumously promoted to Leutnant at the end of April on Hitler’s birthday. II./NJG 5 and I. and II./NJG 6 dispatched 33 Zahme Sau Bf 110s against the stream of 206 Lancasters heading for Schweinfurt.

22

Sergeant D. Clark, Pilot Officer W. F. Collins RAAF; Flight Sergeant S. Evans, Sergeant E. A. Hatch, Sergeant L. A. G. Izod, Squadron Leader Murdoch RNZAF and Sergeant J. E. Rees, were buried in graves near the village.

23

Bradley, who was badly wounded, was taken to St Dizier and to Dr Rény’s clinic where he was given the best treatment that his limited supply of drugs and paper bandages would allow. However, the young pilot had lost a lot of blood and further risks to all concerned would serve no purpose so the German controlled hospital at Chaumont was contacted and he was hospitalized. The medical orderly ironically, had once lodged in Lincoln. After two visits from the Gestapo Bradley was put on a train under guard for L’Hôpital Beaujon at Clichy in Paris, an imposing building of 11 floors and a huge entrance hall, boasting busts of Hitler and Goering. Bradley shared a room with a young American bomb-aimer, Otto P. Mathis, from Cleveland who seemed in ‘bad shape’. On 9 May Bradley ‘celebrated’ his 22nd birthday and then, with other aircrew, began the train journey to Frankfurt and Dulag Luft and finally, POW camp. Bradley’s own crew was posted to 619 Squadron at Dunholme Lodge where they received a new pilot, Flying Officer L. A. Hall. On 9 August 1944 in Lancaster I ME866 this crew was involved in a collision with a Lancaster of 50 Squadron over Châttellerault near Poitiers. Only Sergeant Clelland, in Hall’s crew, survived and similarly, only one member of the 50 Squadron Lancaster survived.

24

Bomber Command Quarterly Review No. 9.

25

In all 1,234 tons of bombs were dropped on the target thanks in no small part to the marking by the PFF Force. Bomber Command later estimated that 67 per cent of Friedrichshafen’s built-up area was devastated and German officials later admitted that this was the most damaging raid on tank production of the war.

26

Sergeants R. Watson and J. G. Eastman and Flight Sergeants A. Matthews and W. Cully. The Lancaster crashed at Schoenau, a small village on the west bank of the Rhine and opposite the little German community of Rheinhausen (Oberhausen). Some 16km west-north-west is the French town of Selestat. Those who were killed are buried in Schoenau churchyard. That same night 15 Squadron lost another Lancaster to a night fighter when Flying Officer S. J. R. Soper RCAF and his crew were killed. In all, the force lost 18 Lancasters. Thirteen confirmed victories plus a probable were credited to a Ju 88 Luftbeobachter crew, Austrian-born Hauptmann Leopold ‘Poldi’ Fellerer of II./NJG 5, and I./NJG 6.

27

After the war he spent two years in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force flying Spitfires. Every year since the war Miller, Beazley-Long and Mead met under the station clock at Charing Cross on the anniversary of their escape and in 1979 they travelled together to visit the graves of the four other crew members at Schoneau. During the late 1980s-early 1990s Len Miller met, and became firm friends with, Martin Becker, the former Luftwaffe officer responsible for the deaths of four of Len’s crew. It was only the exceedingly poor health that both men later suffered and eventually Len’s passing, that brought that friendship, and many others, to an end.

28

Webb, op. cit.

29

Mailly actually accommodated a Panzer regiment HQ, 3 Panzer battalions belonging to regiments on the Eastern Front and elements of two more as well as the permanent training school staff.

30

The crew flew their first operation, an 8 hour 5 minute trip to Schweinfurt in Lancaster ND573 on 24/25 February, followed by 14 further ops 25/26 February (Augsburg)-1/2 May (Toulouse).

31

Five Special Duties Lancasters of 192 Squadron at Binbrook and six Mosquitoes and three ECM Halifaxes of 100 Group also took part.

32

Squadron Leader Tom Bennett DFM.

33

Marking began at 23.58 hours. Zero hour was 00.05. The first two Mosquitoes arrived early at the rendezvous and flew on for 30 miles before returning to the site. Nos. 87 and 93 PFF Squadrons had already dropped flares and these lit up the area so that Cheshire, dropping to 1,500 feet from 3,000 feet, had no problem in locating his two red spot flares on target. Cheshire was not happy with their position and called up Squadron Leader Dave Shannon in the accompanying Mosquito to mark the site that needed to be bombed more accurately, dropping his red spot fires accurately at 00.06 hours. Cheshire told the master bomber to hold the main attack off until he was satisfied. After Shannon had dived down to 600 feet to lay the markers, Cheshire gave the master bomber the go ahead. The green TI dropped by the Oboe controlled Mosquito was timed at 23.59 hours and fell 800 metres north of the centre of the target. Shannon’s marking was completed seven minutes later. The target was marked on time.

34

Approximately 1,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Mailly and 114 barrack buildings, 47 transport sheds and workshops and some ammunition stores were hit. Two hundred and eighteen Germans were killed or missing and 156 were injured. One hundred and two vehicles, including 37 tanks, were destroyed. Damage to the buildings was German assessed as ‘80 per cent destroyed, 20 per cent worth repairing’. The only French civilian casualties were 14 people killed when falling aircraft fell on them.

35

All from I./SKG10, a single-engined fighter bomber and fast recce unit. One pilot, Feldwebel Otto Heinrich of the 3rd Staffel, claimed three destroyed for his first and only three combat victories. Heinrich was KIA on 22 May.

36

Oberleutnant Richard Delakowitz of 7./NJG 4 destroyed three Viermots south-west of Châlons-sur-Marne.

37

Ron Emeny, whose head was badly burned, and Flight Sergeant Jack Pittwood, navigator, who was from Warley near Birmingham, were taken in by the underground who sent them along the lines into Spain and they were flown home from Gibraltar. Emeny was posted to Coningsby, to the Pathfinder Force, but was not allowed to fly over France until the Allies had reached the Rhine. But his burns had not healed as well as he thought and he became a member of Archibald McIndoe’s ‘Guinea Pig Club’ at East Grinstead, remained in the RAF post war and retrained as a wireless operator on Valiants and Vulcans. See Not Just Another Milk Run; The Mailly-le-Camp Bomber Raid by Molly Burkett & Geoff Gilbert (Barny Books, 2004). Nick Stockwood and 18 year old Sergeant Phil King, WOp/AG, from Birmingham, who shortly before baling out had said, ‘The whole arse end’s on fire’, also evaded capture. A week after returning home, Stockwood died of pleurisy. Sergeant Laurie Wesley, the bomb-aimer, who came from West Bromwich, baled out and was captured. He was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp but was released at the end of the war. See Flying Into Hell by Mel Rolfe (Grub St, 2001)

38

Handke, born 2 November 1920 in Darmstadt, trained as a Bordfunker during 1941 – 42, crewing up with Feldwebel George Kraft and joining 12./NJG 1 in October 1942. The team rapidly made a name for themselves, scoring 14 kills during the following months. Their partnership came to a violent end on 17/18 August 1943 when Kraft, flying with another Bordfunker was shot down by Wing Commander Bob Braham DSO DFC* of 141 Squadron. Kraft’s body was washed ashore in Denmark four weeks’ later. Handke then joined the crew of Oberleutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer with whom he claimed five Abschüsse, before briefly flying on sorties with Oberfeldwebel Karl-Heinz Scherfling and contributing to the destruction of two more bombers. Shortly before the end of 1943 Handke had teamed up with Hauptmann Martin Drewes who, at the time, was Staffelkapitän 11./NJG 1 and an Experte with seven victories and Oberfeldwebel Georg ‘Schorsch’ Petz, Bordschütze. On 1 March 1944 Drewes assumed command of III./NJG 1 and this team went on to score 37 kills in less than 5 months.

39

Drewes’ fifth victim (Lancaster EE185 KM-A of 44 Squadron, which crashed at Dreux with the loss of Pilot Officer Allen W. Nolan RAAF and his crew) almost fell on top of the Bf 110 and Drewes had to dive steeply to avoid his flaming victim. The five Lancasters shot down in a 40 minute period took Drewes’ score to 34 victories. Hauptmann Helmut Bergmann of 8./NJG 4 destroyed six Lancasters in 30 minutes for his 29th – 34th victories. (The Ritterkreuzträger’s score stood at 37 when, on the night of 6/7 August, his Bf 110G-4 was shot down in the Avranches-Mortain area by a Mosquito. No trace was found of the crew and it was not until 1956 that Bergmann’s badly burnt remains, which had been recovered from a crash site near St James in mid-August 1944, were formally identified. Bergmann, who was probably shot down by a 604 Squadron Mosquito, was buried in the large German military cemetery of Marigny, Manche). Oberleutnant Dietrich Schmidt, Staffelkapitän, 8./NJG 1 flying a Bf 110 destroyed three Viermots for his 23rd – 25th confirmed victories: His 23rd victim crashed near Chavanges, followed by a second Lancaster kill 16 minutes later, near Mailly-le-Camp. His 3rd victory of the night came down near Romilly.

40

Sparks and five others in his crew (two POWs) evaded, after baling out of Lancaster III JB402 OL-R. The French Resistance found Sparks and told him that his rear-gunner had shot down one of the German fighters. Sparks was back with 83 Squadron at Coningsby seven weeks later.

41

‘Arriving in Frankfurt in late evening a bombing raid was in progress and I was taken by my guard into a large air raid shelter. Local inhabitants did not seem concerned although there would be no doubt that I was a shot down flyer. After 12 days in solitary confinement apart from two interrogations, I was passed out to the transit camp. I met Speedy Quick who was attached to the small HQ staff working in the kitchen and distributing clothing and Red Cross food, etc. He had no news of any other members of the crew and we concluded they must have all been killed. I was then moved to Stalag Luft III, Sagan, in Silesia (East Compound).’ Eeles learned later that of the 346 bombers dispatched to Mailly-le-Camp 42 Lancasters (or 11.6 per cent) were lost (two more were so badly damaged that they had to be written off). Ball’s crew, less the two gunners, returned to base in their severely shot up Lancaster even though the aircraft had been further holed in a night fighter attack after the anti-aircraft damage. Pilot Officer Ted Ball was awarded an immediate DFC. On completion of repairs, ND647 was relegated to 1653 CU, where it was lost during fighter affiliation on 8 April 1945. Pilot Officer Ball’s crew, with two other Squadron gunners, went on to fly on ops but towards the end of their tour they were shot down, probably by ‘friendly fire’ from another Lancaster, on 7/8 July 1944 during an attack on a flying bomb storage depot at St Leu d’ Esserent (Credeil, France). There were no survivors. Their average age was 22.

42

Flight Lieutenant Terry Kearns flew the fourth 617 Squadron Mosquito.

43

Squadron Leader Tom Bennett DFM writing in Burkett & Gilbert, op. cit. No. 1 Group losses included five out of 17 crews from 460 Squadron RAAF at Binbrook and Nos. 12, 50 and 101 Squadrons each lost four crews. One Mosquito Intruder and one RCM Halifax were also shot down.

44

Burkett & Gilbert. op. cit.

45

ibid.

46

ibid.

47

Later ACM Sir Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman GCB KBE DFC AFC. Robertson, op. cit.

48

Pilot Officer Ron Walker was recommended for the immediate award of the DFC and this was made in June.

49

Five French targets were bombed in 452 sorties and 12 aircraft were lost – seven Halifaxes and four Lancasters.

50

Lancaster ND587/D crashed at 03.45 hours at Gallaix (Hainaut) 12km east of Tournai. Martstaller was killed in a crash on St Trond aerodrome in August 1944.

51

Hanneck had entered the Luftwaffe in July 1939 and trained as a fighter pilot during the next year. Expecting a posting to an operational unit, he was selected to serve as an instructor instead. Throughout 1942 he served in a liaison unit on the Eastern Front but he became so bored that he volunteered for night fighter pilot training. He had finally been posted to 6./NJG 1 in April 1944 and on 1 May he started flying at Deelen near Arnhem.

52

Geoffrey Clark and three crew KIA when the aircraft crashed at the hamlet of Elkerzee north-east of Haamstede. Three survivors were taken prisoner. After Nachtjagd’s successes during the Mailly-le-Camp raid, just a few Zahme Sau operations were mounted by First Jagdkorps during the remainder of May. On the nights of 11/12 May and 12/13 52 and 65 night fighter crews respectively achieved 12 and 13 victories.

53

Twenty-eight houses were flattened; 40 houses were evacuated and 528 houses damaged.

54

Most probably Lancaster I LL792 of 467 Squadron RAAF flown by Pilot Officer J. F. Ward with Wing Commander J. R. Balmer OBE DFC RAAF and crew, which was making its final bomb run when it was attacked by Oberleutnant Fritz Lau of 4./NJG 1. LL792 exploded with a full bomb load, killing all eight crew. It came down 2km west of Beverlo. Five Lancasters were lost on the raid.

55

John Barron had joined the RNZAF at the age of 19, arriving in England in March 1941. He joined 15 Squadron as a sergeant pilot on Stirlings. After a tour of 42 ops he was rested and became an instructor. Less than four months later he returned to operations with 7 Squadron and flew a second tour. On 14 February 1943 Barron completed his second tour and he returned to instructing, this time for over a year. On 28 April 1944 he again volunteered to return to operational flying, and was given command of 7 Squadron, now flying Lancasters.

56

All told, seven Lancasters were lost this night. 143 aircraft – 106 Halifaxes, 32 Lancasters and five Mosquitoes accurately bombed railway yards at Boulougne without loss.

57

Over England Feldwebel Johann Trenke and Unteroffizier Beier of 6./KG51 claimed three Lancasters and two Liberators shot down respectively.

58

Another 59 Lancasters and four Mosquitoes were dispatched to Eindhoven to bomb the Philips factory; over 200 bombers were to attack coastal gun positions on the French coast and 44 Lancasters and seven Mosquitoes attacked the Ford Motor factory at Antwerp.

59

Before the bomber stream reached Aachen, the ‘Night Ghost of St Trond’, Oberleutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer of St.IV/ NJG 1, claimed five Halifaxes destroyed in 14 minutes. He 219 Uhu (‘Owl’) aircraft of I./NJG 1 at Venlo destroyed another seven of the Aachen raiders. II. and III./NJG 6 were guided to the Aachen force via radio beacon Ida. Despite strong intruder activity and jamming of the SN-2 radar, these claimed five Lancasters and Halifaxes destroyed plus one ‘probable‘Viermot for the loss of three Bf 110G-4s.

60

Two hundred and sixty-seven Halifaxes, 56 Lancasters and eight Mosquitoes.

61

Only one aircraft was lost. Flight Sergeant T. R. Teague RNZAF piloted Lancaster I LM108 of 622 Squadron. Five crew were taken prisoner and two evaded capture.

62

On 6 June the 101st Airborne Division landed behind Utah beach as planned, but amid a certain amount of confusion. However, by 06.00 hours Major General Maxwell Taylor had mustered one sixth of his force and with this he captured the exits from Utah beach. An element of the 502nd Regiment had orders to overrun the battery and to crush the garrison if necessary, but Captain Frank Lilleyman, the first US soldier to land in Normandy on D-Day, reconnoitered the battery and discovered that it had been bombed and abandoned as a result of the 5 Group attack on 28/29 May. A document captured soon afterwards revealed that the Officer Commanding, Heer Kust Artillerie Regiment 1261, reported the bombing attack had begun at 00.15 hours, parachute flares having been dropped first in great numbers. He said that the battery had been hit ‘with uncanny accuracy’, approximately 100 bombs of the heaviest calibre having been dropped in addition to several hundred smaller ones. Very large bombs had made several direct hits on the gun casement and it had burst open and collapsed. As a result of the destruction caused by the attack he had cleared the remainder of the battery out of the position into three farms in the Mesier area.

63

One hundred and twenty-five Lancasters, 86 Halifaxes and 8 Mosquitoes.

64

On 3/4 June 127 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes continued with deception raids on coastal batteries at Calais and Wimereux. On the night of 4/5 June a gun site at Boulogne was to have been the target for 10 Lancasters of 15 Squadron but half an hour before briefing the operation was cancelled. Bad weather affected the night’s operations against two of the three coastal batteries in the Pas de Calais and they could only be bombed through cloud.

65

A nephew of Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith MC who, with fellow pilot C. T. P. Ulm and crew. made the first trans-Pacific flight 31 May-9 June 1928 in Fokker F.VIIB/3m Southern Cross.