Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys: Saving Britain 1940–1945

by Patrick Bishop

  Five of the crew managed to struggle out. Floating in the moonlight, buoyed up by his lifejacket, rescue seemed very far away and Elliott assumed he was doomed. He found himself thinking of his friends in the squadron whom he would never see again. But his hopes rose when he saw they were only about a mile from land. The aircraft was still afloat. The survivors clambered on top but it was clear that K-King would soon sink. The inflatable dinghy which was supposed to be released in emergencies had failed to emerge. Somebody volunteered to slither back inside and pull the switch. The dinghy shot to the surface. They pulled themselves on to it one by one. A debate began about what to do next. There was a suggestion they try to paddle to neutral Sweden, a mere 300 miles away. It was Elliott who talked them out of it and proposed firing off the distress flare and heading for shore. The signal fizzed into the night sky and not long afterwards a tug pulled up alongside and took them aboard. On dry land they were met by ‘a picture postcard Nazi officer with a monocle and a long cigarette holder’ who announced that for them the war was over.18

  It would be some time before Bomber Command could bring its full weight to bear on Germany. During the winter it was diverted to bombing industrial targets in northern Italy. Early in 1943 it was called in again to attack the French ports of Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Brest and La Pallice from where German submarines were once again threatening the Atlantic sea lanes. Lorient was hit eight times between mid-January and mid-February. By the end the town was ruined and deserted and many of its civilian inhabitants were dead. The U-boats and their crews, however, were virtually unharmed. The Germans had been left alone since the raids of 1941 and had used the time to build pens encased in thick concrete which conventional bombs were unable to penetrate.

  The attacks shifted to Saint-Nazaire. On 28 February 427 aircraft bombed the port destroying two thirds of the town and killing twenty-eight inhabitants. Having seen what had happened to Lorient, most of the population had fled. The almost total lack of positive results led to the cancellation of further operations, sparing Brest and La Pallice.

  By the spring of 1943 the elements for an all-out attack on German cities were at last in place. In February 1943, Harris had more than 600 heavy bombers available to him and the numbers were growing. On the grand strategic front, the war was swinging the Allies’ way. At Stalingrad, the German army was on the verge of defeat and surrender. Between 14 and 26 January 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt, along with the combined British and American Chiefs of Staff, met in the weak sunshine of Casablanca, to seek agreement on how their campaign should proceed and what part the RAF and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) should play in it.

  The role of Bomber Command was spelled out in what became known as the Casablanca directive. Harris was told: ‘Your primary object will be the progressive destruction of the German military industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their armed resistance is fatally weakened.’

  Harris thus had the highest official approval to proceed with a campaign of all-out destruction. He chose to devote the rest of the spring and summer to hurling Bomber Command’s greatly expanded destructive power against the Ruhr. Between March and the end of July, Bomber Command launched forty-three major operations, two thirds of which were aimed at the area. The RAF used the geographical designation ‘Ruhr’ loosely. It took in not only the Ruhr area itself but the whole industrial conglomeration along the Rhine and the Lippe. It was one of the great productive regions of the world, providing Germany with most of its coal and almost half its electricity. It was ugly even in peacetime, overhung with a perpetual haze, a de-natured monochrome sprawl of mills and factories churning out iron, steel and chemicals to feed the ravenous Moloch that Hitler had called to life. This was the heart of Germany’s might. The aim of the Battle of the Ruhr was to stop it beating.

  The Ruhr had been attacked many times before but with little effect. The innacuracy of navigation techniques, the perpetual blanket of smog and the strength of the defences combined to protect it. The crews, with their habitual dark humour, called it ‘Happy Valley’. The news, at briefing, that it was the target for that night, provoked groans of dismay. But at least the journey was short, usually less than a six-hour round-trip, which reduced exposure to flak, fighters and bad weather.

  The Battle of the Ruhr was an exhausting and bloody slog, in which night after night, large forces of up to 800 aircraft pitched themselves against the heaviest flak defences in Germany and the most experienced and best-equipped units of the Luftwaffe to deliver ever greater weights of bombs. The levels of killing and destruction soared. The same cities were attacked over and over again until, after studying the reconnaissance photographs that he pasted into ‘blue books’ for the enlightenment of important guests, Harris was satisfied. Essen, in the very centre of the Ruhr and the home of the Krupp steel works, was bombed five times. The raids killed nearly a thousand people, destroyed about 5,000 homes and damaged Krupp’s, but not so badly as to seriously reduce production. The actions cost Bomber Command ninety-five aircraft.

  In the midst of this grim catalogue of demolition and loss, one operation stands out. The Dams Raid of 16/17 May gave a much more positive demonstration of Bomber Command’s abilities and the technological advances that had been made since the beginning of the war. It was carried out by 617 Squadron which had been formed in March from selected crews under the leadership of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, by now the pre-eminent operational leader in Bomber Command. The main targets were the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams. They were to be attacked with bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis, the scientist who had invented the geodetic construction technique used in the Wellington.

  The dams had been selected for attack by the Air Ministry before the war. They were a prime example of the sort of targets a strategic bombing force should be going after. The Möhne dam, south-east of Dortmund, held back nearly 140 million tons of water and was the main source of supply to the Ruhr valley, twenty miles away, as well as a provider of hydro-electric power. The even larger Eder reservoir south-east of Kassel supplied the water for an important canal which linked the Ruhr to Berlin. A successful attack on these targets could do severe damage to the German war economy.

  The crews were the cream of 5 Group. For six weeks they trained intensively under Gibson’s critical eye, practising the low-level approaches which were necessary to release the bombs at the right height. Harold ‘Hobby’ Hobday, a trainee insurance worker in pre-war life, had just completed twenty-six operations with 50 Squadron as a navigator and was preparing to go off on an advanced navigation course when his skipper Flight Lieutenant Les Knight was approached by Gibson and asked if he was willing to join 617. Knight agreed, leaving Hobday with a dilemma. He decided to ditch the course and stick with his mates. ‘I didn’t want to let my crew down,’ he remembered later, ‘and I was quite keen on bombing. I loved the life … I liked the idea of the crew staying as one integral part of the set-up. I wouldn’t have liked the thought that another navigator would have taken my place in my own crew.’

  At 617 Squadron’s base at ‘Sunny Scampton’ he met Gibson and quickly formed an impression of a man who although friendly ‘would not stand any nonsense’. If anyone drank before flying ‘he’d be down on them like a ton of bricks … one chap had a pint of beer before he was going on training and he was severely reprimanded.’ Gibson delivered his rockets personally and with withering effect. ‘He’d do it in front of the squadron and, of course, that made you feel about two inches high.’

  Day and night the crews skimmed Scottish lochs and Welsh lakes at fifty to a hundred feet with no idea what they were preparing for. The first thought was they were to be sent against the battleship Tirpitz, a menace to shipping and the subject of numerous unsuccessful attacks. They also practised synchronizing the beams of two searchlights fitted to their Lancasters so that they harmonized at one spot, sixty feet above the ground, at exactly the right height at which
the bombs should be released.

  On Saturday 15 May, the day before the raid, pilots and navigators were finally told the target. The following morning all 133 crew of the nineteen aircraft that would take part gathered in the huge airmen’s dining room to be briefed. The first to speak was Ralph Cochrane, the 5 Group commander. ‘Bomber Command,’ he told them, ‘has been delivering the bludgeon blow on Hitler. You have been selected to give the rapier thrust which will shorten the war if it is successful.’ Then Gibson outlined the plan before handing over to Barnes Wallis. He struck Hobday as ‘a very kindly man, obviously very dedicated, frightfully clever … but a fatherly type … we thought he was a marvellous man. Everybody did.’

  Wallis described how his bomb, if delivered correctly, would hit the water and skip along before exploding just below the parapet of the dam. Models of the dams were unveiled and studied. Hobday recalled a hum of animated chatter after the briefing closed. The crews ‘were confident. There was no doubt about that. [This] was a marvellous thing to be on. It was so different from any bombing we’d ever done before and much more exciting. We thought it was a great effort.’

  The squadron began taking off just before 9.30 p.m. One aircraft had to return after it struck the surface of the sea and lost its bomb. Another was so badly damaged by flak that it abandoned the mission. A further five were shot down or crashed before they reached the target. That left twelve. Hobday’s crew had a trouble-free flight until they reached the Möhne dam where they held off while Gibson and four other aircraft launched their attacks through a blizzard of light flak. On the fifth attempt the dam wall crumbled.

  Gibson now led four other crews on to the Eder. The dam was in a deep valley and surrounded by wooded hills. The Germans regarded the daunting terrain as sufficient protection and had not bothered with flak batteries. The first attack was made by Flight Lieutenant David Shannon’s crew. Lying in the belly was Len Sumpter, a former guardsman who had switched services and become a bomb-aimer after seeing his comrades die in a Luftwaffe air raid. He was unhappy with the approach and told Shannon to go round again.

  Gibson ordered Squadron Leader Henry Maudslay, a highly experienced pilot and the holder of the DFC, to go next. His bomb left the aircraft late and struck the parapet, exploding as the Lancaster passed overhead. Hobday ‘saw the bomb go up in a huge flash … Gibson called the pilot and there was a very faint reply, very faint indeed … it was obviously someone who was in a great deal of trouble.’ Maudslay struggled to keep the aircraft flying for another forty minutes before it was brought down by flak near Emmerich. There were no survivors.

  Shannon’s aircraft went in for another run and this time Sumpter was satisfied with the height, distance and speed. The bomb bounced twice and sank at the dam wall before exploding, sending a tower of water climbing 1,000 feet into the night sky. A small breach was seen in the dam but Gibson had to be sure.

  At last it was the turn of Knight’s crew. They attacked at 1.52 a.m. with the moon on the starboard beam lighting up the lake. After an initial dummy run they went round again, this time in earnest. Hobday ‘wasn’t tense. I was excited. It was a great thrill.’ The only distraction was another pilot who came over the VHF radio offering tips on how to succeed. He was brusquely cut off. Gibson, who was flying alongside, watched the bomb bounce three times, hit the dam and explode. This time ‘the thing broke … we watched the water billowing down the ravine from the dam … I could see cars going along and being overtaken by this wall of water … It really was fantastic, a sight I shall never forget.’

  They headed for home and ‘a very nice reception’. After debriefing and many celebratory drinks Hobday fell off to sleep in an armchair in the mess. The only unhappy man at Scampton was the inventor of the weapon who had made possible the success. Hobday thought Barnes Wallis ‘looked shattered, because so many planes were missing. We were used to it of course, although it was rather more than average.’19

  In fact eight out of the nineteen aircraft dispatched had been lost and fifty-three crew members killed. The raid had been an enormous success, though it failed to fulfil the more extravagent hopes of the planners. Two great dams had been destroyed. The breaching of the Möhne caused widespread flooding and disruption of railways, roads and canals and reduced the water and electricity supply to the Ruhr. The destruction of the Eder dam caused considerable damage to waterways in the Kassel area. Houses were wrecked, bridges swept away and 1,294 people drowned, 493 of whom were foreign workers and prisoners of war. This was a new record. At least as important was the propaganda success that resulted. The Dambusters legend was created. Their feats showed Bomber Command as it preferred to be seen, wielders, in Cochrane’s words, of the rapier rather than the bludgeon.

  But it was with the bludgeon that it did most of its work. An operation that took place on the night of 13/14 May was far more typical of Bomber Boys’ efforts at this time. Just after midnight on 14 May 1943, Arthur Taylor, who was now a bomb-aimer with 218 Squadron, took off with the rest of his crew from Downham Market in their Stirling, I-Ink, to attack Bochum in the dead centre of the Ruhr. He was setting off with more than his usual share of anxieties. Arthur had begun to lose confidence in his skipper, Bill, whom he suspected of being ‘windy’. They were carrying an all-incendiary load. Arthur was ‘determined to get there at all costs, with or without Bill.’

  It was a beautiful moonlit night and he found his way quite easily until sometime before the target area, ‘the Gee went u/s (unserviceable)’ and they found themselves separated from the bomber stream and alone over Düsseldorf. ‘Being the only kite there, they gave us all they’d got,’ he wrote. ‘Bill panicked and circled about in a frantic endeavour to get out, losing height all the time. Before we left Düsseldorf we were at 6,000 feet, picked up by immense cones of thirty to forty searchlights at a time, and a sitting target for light, medium and heavy flak.’ It was at this point that Bill gave the order to bale out. Taylor replied that ‘if we did we would never reach the ground in one piece. Bill then said, “You bloody well fly it then” and I ran up the steps and grabbed the second pilot’s controls. I steered a straight course and in a few minutes we had left Düsseldorf behind.’

  Bill recovered his composure and took over again. The respite did not last long. To get to Bochum they passed over the southern outskirts of Essen where ‘for several minutes we were fired at continuously. There was a clap like thunder when flak hit the aircraft and a strong smell of cordite.’ At last they arrived at the target. ‘The place was ablaze. Immense fires covered the ground reflected red on a great pall of smoke that hung above the town.’ They launched their bombs into the inferno and turned homewards.

  A check on the intercom revealed that Jock the rear gunner was in desperate trouble. Arthur went back to help. He found he ‘had obeyed the order to bale out but had pulled the ripcord too early and his parachute had partly opened, jamming him in the hatch. He had received the full blast of the explosions and was in a dazed condition when I pulled him back into the kite.’

  Arthur struggled back along the fuselage, clambering laboriously over the centre spar and into the cockpit. ‘I sat next to Bill to quieten him down and in case he was hit … I had to hold the throttles all the way as I-Ink was shaking badly.’ Between them, they nursed the aircraft back, crossing the Dutch coast at the Zuyder Zee, and arrived over Downham Market in the half-light of dawn and with only a few gallons of petrol to spare.

  This was not the end of the drama. The radio was wrecked, so they decided to land without permission. ‘Just as I thought everything was OK I looked at Bill to find that he had let go of the controls and had both hands over his eyes. The kite swerved suddenly to port and the next thing I knew we had pranged into the control tower.’ Arthur headed for the escape hatch but the way was blocked by Paddy, the flight engineer, who was wielding an axe, trying to hack his way through the fuselage. ‘I remember tapping him on the back and asking him if he had tried the hatch … with that everyone tore hell
for leather out of the kite.’

  The starboard wing of the aircraft had ploughed through the briefing room demolishing much of it but mercifully only injuring a few of the people inside. But I-Ink had also careered into a lorry bringing back crews from the raid, cutting it in half and killing Sergeants Denzey and Lancaster.

  The kite had had it. The turret of Len, the mid-upper gunner, was sieved with shrapnel, a splinter of which had grazed his nose on the way through. The Perspex astrodome observation point which bulged from the top of the fuselage had been whipped away by blast while Paddy had been looking through it.

  They traipsed off to see the medical officer. Jock was sent to the sick bay with a deep cut to his head. The doctor gave Arthur and the rest ‘two little yellow pills each which all but knocked me out before we reached the billet’.20

  Shortly afterwards the crew announced they were sacking Bill. The crew was split up and Arthur was posted to a new station.

  Bochum had been a costly operation. All together sixteen aircraft had been lost, killing sixty-four airmen. Another twenty-one were taken prisoner. So it was to go on all through the summer. Between the start of the campaign in early March to the end of July, when the battle was suspended after Harris chose to switch the attack to Berlin, Bomber Command lost just over a thousand aircraft. But it had also dropped more than 57,000 tons of bombs, often with devastating effects. On the ground, after three and a half years of the air war, the apocalyptic fate that Bomber Command’s leaders had promised German cities was becoming a reality.

  7

  The Feast of St Peter and St Paul