Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys: Saving Britain 1940–1945

by Patrick Bishop

  ‘We were silent for several seconds, then Doug said something we had forgotten in our moment of self-recrimination.

  “‘I think it might have gone the same way with them if they had taken B. They wouldn’t have been prepared for that port outer. We were.”

  ‘Geoff was poking the fire. “I suppose that’s the way it goes,” he said.’9

  The decision to maintain distinctions between commissioned and non-commissioned ranks within crews meant that they lived different lives when not in the air. Facilities were better for officers than NCOs though sometimes the differences were slight. Sergeants slept up to ten to a Nissen hut whereas officers’ quarters offered a higher degree of comfort. Reg Fayers was delighted with the improvement in his accommodation after he was commissioned as a pilot officer. ‘I’m sharing with a pilot called Wright who should soon be leaving,’ he wrote to Phyllis. ‘The room has at least the elements of comfort, including a chest of drawers, a fireplace conspicuously sans feu, a table, chairs, and wow, two mirrors.’ The habit of dressing for dinner seemed ‘a pleasant thing to do’. Even small privileges like the right to wear a soft, Van Heusen officer’s collar rather than the stiff, chafing NCO variety were much appreciated.10

  The quality of life depended on the quality of the station and amenities differed considerably. Fayers was at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor which had opened in 1941 and had been built to reasonably exacting pre-war standards. Dennis Field was based at Tuddenham, in Suffolk, one of the ‘pre-fab’ bases thrown up hastily in 1943. Promotion meant ‘merely a change of Nissen huts … there were slightly fewer occupants and occasionally a WAAF swept and cleaned out.’ The service in the mess was virtually the same. The main difference he noted, was a sombre one: ‘when a crew did not come back, there might be one, or at most two empty beds next morning instead of six or seven.’11

  The change in status could be unsettling. When Doug Mourton was made a pilot officer he went to Burberry’s in London to be fitted with two barathea uniforms and a Crombie overcoat and went on fifteen days’ leave ‘feeling rather proud, especially as I walked along and acknowledged the salutes of the airmen and soldiers.’ But when he returned to duty, he found he ‘did not like living in the officers’ mess which was so different to the sergeants’ mess which I had been living in for several years. The atmosphere was different. I knew no one and felt out of it.’12

  On base officers had to be formally invited into the sergeants’ mess. Away from the station it was easy to mix even though official policy frowned on it. Good skippers took little notice of the rule. ‘Officers weren’t encouraged to go out at nights with the other ranks,’ Reg Payne remembered. ‘It was taboo. [But] we did have get-togethers.’ Michael Beetham, his captain, organized private dinners for his crew and their wives and girlfriends at the Saracen’s Head, the Lincoln hostelry where, during the war years, aircrew drank, flirted and relaxed. ‘We had a room upstairs, a room with service. There was a fire in winter time. You rang the bell, the waiter would come to the door and you’d give him your order and he’d go downstairs [then] bring your drinks up.’13

  As promotion was fairly rapid with many NCOs being commissioned after a reasonable period on operations the social divisions did not seem as irksome or unfair as they might have appeared to outsiders. There were occasions, though, when the distinction rankled. When the King and Queen visited Scampton on 27 May 1943, just after the Dams Raid, Len Sumpter, then still an NCO, was annoyed that they went straight to the officers’ mess for lunch. ‘All the photographs were taken with the officers in front of the officers’ mess. But the flight sergeants and the sergeants didn’t see a sign of the King and Queen. They didn’t come near our mess. And yet there were more NCOs on the raid than there were officers.’14

  When it came to medals it did seem that an officer’s courage was more likely to be recognized than that of an NCO. The majority of aircrew, more than 70 per cent, were not commissioned. Yet the Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM), for acts of valour, courage and devotion to duty performed by an NCO, was awarded far less frequently than the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), which was given to officers. DFMs accounted for less than a quarter of the combined total of almost 27,000 DFMs and DFCs relating to the war.

  The men of Bomber Command were among the boldest and most individualistic of their generation. They had been propelled towards the RAF by a sense of adventure as well as duty. It was unsurprising that the rigorous professionalism they showed in the air was not always reflected in their conduct on the ground, so that to some of the more unbending older officers they sometimes appeared more like civilians in uniform than proper servicemen. The pre-war culture of conformism and respect for authority meant that British volunteers were in the end reasonably adaptable to authority, if more apt than their peers in other services to question it. The men from the Dominions came from a less stratified world where rank was not automatically deferred to and discipline was founded on respect. Ken Newman was returning to Wickenby from an operation against oil storage depots in the Bordeaux area in August 1944 when he was ordered to divert to a faraway airfield in Scotland, as the base was about to be blanketed in low cloud. He thought it better to land at Sturgate in Lincolnshire which was much closer to home. This decision got him into trouble when he got back to Wickenby. He was told that as a result of his disobedience the trip might not count towards the crew’s total of operations. When he passed this on to his men, the Canadians in the crew ‘were very angry indeed. This in their eyes was a prime example of the stupidity of senior RAF officers and of the “bullshit” that they had been warned about before arriving in the UK, and which they regarded as intolerable.’ They threatened to telephone the Canadian High Commission in London. The authorities relented and let the operation stand.15

  Everyone, no matter where they came from, was only too aware of the exceptional risks they were taking. They were disinclined to put up with displays of arrogance or attempts to impose mindless pre-war discipline. Flight Sergeant George Hull, a cultured Londoner who emerges from his many letters to his friend Joan Kirby as notably decent and dedicated, had to endure a dressing-down from the station commander at Coningsby after two WAAFs were reported for returning to their quarters after midnight in breach of the rules. Hull and some fellow NCOs had been seen chatting innocently to them earlier in the evening. The group captain accused them of ‘disgraceful conduct’, and doubled the offence by referring to them as ‘errand boys and chimney sweeps’.

  ‘Well feeling ran rather high I can tell you [Hull wrote]. As for the “Errand Boy” remarks, that is the statement of an out-and-out snob … Such [are] the antics of the brasshats in the RAF.’ The crew retaliated by chalking ‘Errand Boys’ on the side of their Lancaster when they set off for Berlin the following day. The CO later apologized.16

  Attempts to get crews to smarten up seemed ludicrous given the dangers they were facing. Cy March once got a ‘rollicking’ from a senior officer for the offence of allowing his air gunner brevet to come loose. ‘He told me to go away and come back tidied up. I went away, put on my best blue, bulled up to death and went back. “That’s much better,” he said, “go away and keep smart.” I could see us saluting before taking evasive action and asking permission to shoot.’17

  The crews were facing nightly death, engaged in an open-ended struggle the point of which was often hard to discern. Persuading them to carry on doing so required subtle and intelligent leadership. Guy Gibson exemplified one approach to the problem. He was short, with rubbery good looks and a loud, confident manner that hid occasional deep depressions and agonies of self-doubt. He had the power to enthuse and inspire, and was sent by the government to give pep talks to war-workers and on morale-boosting missions to the United States.

  Nonetheless many of the aircrew who encountered Gibson felt some ambivalence towards him. He had not been overly-popular among his colleagues in the pre-war RAF who found him boastful and bumptious, and later, after he had proved he had much to be boastfu
l about, some still found his energy, flamboyance and unhesitating opinions off-putting.

  He could, as Harold Hobday who flew with him on 617 Squadron noted, be ‘the life and soul of the party’ at squadron piss-ups, at least with fellow-officers. He also had a fine understanding of the dynamics of crew relationships. ‘There was a bit of a rivalry between navigators and pilots. He came up to me and he said “You’re a navigator, aren’t you? I’ll swap jackets with you.” So we swapped jackets in the mess. It was rather a nice touch, because it made everybody feel how friendly he was.’18

  It was his other side that Len Sumpter, who flew with him on the Dams Raid, saw. He only met him once to speak to. ‘That’s when he tore a strip off me,’ he later remembered. Two days before the attack Sumpter took part in a dummy run at Reculver beach but released his bombs too early. ‘He had me in the next morning and told me off about it.’ There were no hard feelings. His Grenadier background made him appreciate discipline. Nonetheless he felt the faint chill of hauteur when he saw him around. ‘He certainly wasn’t a mixer down on the floor as far as we were concerned, the NCOs … Gibson had just a little bit of side.’

  Cheshire however ‘had no side or anything. He was one of the best. He wasn’t blustering. Some people tell you to do something and you’ve got to do [it] that way … he’d put it in such a way, nicely, that you’d do it without being told to do it. He had a manner with him, softly spoken, quiet, never lost his temper, always smiling. And always joking too. He could be a little sarcastic sometimes but in a nice way … he was the best chap I met … as far as squadron commanders were concerned.’19

  Cheshire struck everybody who came across him as remarkable in every way; exceptionally tough, brave and good. He possessed a warmth and humanity that touched all who were fortunate enough to serve with him. When Tony Iveson went to report to him on his first day at 617 Squadron he was greeted with an enthusiasm ‘that made you feel he had been waiting to see you all day.’20 He worked very hard at winning trust and affection and made sure he learned everybody’s name, from the crews to the cooks. A story was told of how a wireless operator who had just arrived at Linton where Cheshire was commanding 76 Squadron felt an arm around his shoulder as he was boarding a truck to head out to dispersal. ‘Good luck, Wilson,’ said the CO, to the pleasant amazement of the newcomer who never imagined he would know his name.

  He was without any trace of the snobbery that afflicted some senior officers and was as friendly towards the ground crews as he was with his airmen. Cheshire’s manner masked a determination that was as strong as anybody’s in Bomber Command. He was every bit as ruthless as Harris and shared his view that the more Germans that were killed the sooner the war would end. The government were quick to spot his potential. Like Gibson he wrote a book and gave morale-boosting lectures in war factories.

  Cheshire’s outstanding qualities made him a daunting act to follow. Many a commander fell short of the ideal he represented. On their way to 76 Squadron in the summer of 1943 Willie Lewis asked his skipper what sort of outfit they were joining. According to Lewis’s thinly fictionalized account, Maze replied that it had ‘quite a reputation. It was Cheshire’s until about two weeks ago and you know what a fine type he is.’ If they were expecting similiarly inspirational leadership they were in for a disappointment. His replacement

  stared at them across the table with cold, hard eyes. They were just another crew to him and not an attractive one. A tall, thin pilot with a stoop, an officer gunner and a group of shabby-looking NCOs … how long would they last, he asked himself? Not very long! Even the smart crews disappeared in no time. Just the same it was his job to welcome them.

  ‘How long have you flown on Halifaxes?’ he asked. His thin, black moustache, set in a white face, made the question appear [like] a sneer.

  ‘Forty-four hours sir,’ replied John.

  ‘Hmm. Hardly enough to learn how to land it properly. You fellows are sent on here only half-trained and we have to do our best to make you operational quickly. It’s not good enough …’

  He sighed wearily and glanced towards the side wall where a score of photographs showed the existing crews …

  ‘I’m not going to disguise from you that we are losing crews steadily so there won’t be much time to give you training flights. You’ll get one cross-country and that’s all.’

  After telling Maze that he would fly two trips as ‘second dicky’ with an experienced pilot he dismissed them. Jock, the wireless operator, thought him a ‘damn unfriendly type’ who ‘made me feel as welcome as a leper’. Joe the bomb-aimer remarked that he did not ‘look to me as if he would like anybody’. Jock disagreed. ‘Oh, he likes himself all right. You can see that.’21

  The best squadron commanders were those who conveyed an understanding of what their men were going through. On his first day at his conversion unit Don Charlwood reported to ‘a pale boyish squadron leader who wore the ribbons of the DSO and DFC over his battledress pocket. Of his words I remember very little but his dark, staring eyes I have never forgotten. I felt that they had looked on the worst: and on looking beyond it, had found serenity. They gazed from an impassive face with a challengingly upthrust chin and firm mouth.’ This was David Halford who won the DFC at eighteen and the DSO at twenty-one. He was now only twenty-two but had already completed sixty operations. His men loved him. A year later when Halford was in charge of a Heavy Conversion Unit at Lindholme, Charlwood heard a flight sergeant say that if Halford decided to return for a third tour half the base would follow him. He did eventually go back on operations and was killed in 1943 while landing in fog. In Charlwood’s valuable judgement ‘he was the personification of all that was best in the RAF.’22

  Squadron leaders were not required to fly on every operation. But it was essential if they were to maintain their authority to go on some, and they were expected to accompany their men two or three times a month. The crews were contemptuous of those who put themselves down for relatively easy trips to France and Italy and grateful to COs who volunteered to share the dangers of Berlin or the Ruhr. Ken Newman had a particular admiration for his CO at 12 Squadron, Wing Commander John Nelson. He was ‘a thick-set New Zealander in his thirties who was liked and respected by everyone. He led the squadron from the front and was often in trouble with the Air Officer Commanding No 1 Group for taking part in too many operational sorties … But John Nelson headed the operational order whenever the target was a tough or interesting one. Moreover he seemed indefatigable, as he was always present at briefings and in the debriefing room when the squadron’s aircraft returned … whatever time of day or night …’23

  Displays of reckless courage were by no means appreciated, however. One night Doug Mourton found himself flying with Squadron Leader Burnett who had just arrived on the squadron but had already established a reputation as a ‘press-on type’. The target was Hamburg. It was, Mourton wrote later, ‘one of the most nerve-racking flights I had taken part in. The anti-aircraft that night was particularly heavy and on the run up to the target we were caught in about twelve search lights. It was so bright it was impossible to see. If Stevens [an earlier skipper] had been the pilot he would have shouted to the bomb-aimer, “Drop those bloody bombs and let’s piss off home,” but Squadron Leader Burnett was made of different stuff.’ He put the aircraft into a steep dive and jinked and weaved his way out of the searchlights’ glare. Then to Mourton’s dismay he announced they were going in again. ‘The majority of aircraft had now left and once again the searchlights came on us and the anti-aircraft began noisily banging all around us. Somehow we got out of it, but it was only purely by luck, and eventually we left the target area and returned home.’24

  Many of the Bomber Boys were young, green and away from home for the first time. If they were lucky there was someone on the base who took a fatherly interest in their feelings and concerns. Brian Frow found such a figure when he was posted to 61 Squadron at North Luffenham. Flight Lieutenant ‘Cape’ Capel was the s
quadron adjutant and a veteran of the First World War. He was was ‘a tower of strength to me personally. He seemed to be aware of matters which were not obvious, and able to advise without being patronizing.’ When he discovered that while Frow could pilot a four-engined bomber he could not drive the Hillman runabout allotted to each flight he saved him any loss of face by giving him a few lessons. He then took him for a test drive to a local pub where they spent a pleasant evening talking about everything but the RAF. ‘This display of support, so essential to a newly commissioned, very inexperienced skipper was a tremendous boost and had a vital but subtle effect on my development as a Bomber Boy,’ he wrote. ‘It certainly helped me to face the terrible events that I was about to witness and experience.’25

  In the air it was on the shoulders of the skipper that the burden of maintaining morale weighed the heaviest. Confidence was the great sustaining quality and Willie Lewis’s skipper John Maze had it in abundance. Pilot Officer John Maze was really Etienne Maze. He was the son of Paul Maze, a French painter who became an unlikely but firm friend of Arthur Harris. He seemed unshakeable, cool to the point of numbness. It seemed at times, alarmingly, as if life meant little to him. But there was also an earthiness there and a love of comfort that reassured. Soon after he met Lewis he told him his father had a beautiful young mistress. ‘His eyes glowed and he obviously would have loved to go to bed with her.’ Maze found the long journeys to and from the target tedious. Hanging around in the air above the base waiting to get down was particularly tiresome. Even though the bombers were free of their loads on the return leg, it still took longer than the outward trip, partly because they were flying into the prevailing westerly wind, partly because they flew slower than their maximum speed to help crippled aircraft keep within the relative safety of the bomber stream. As one of a hundred blips on the German radar screens there was a reasonable chance of slipping through the defences whereas a lone smudge was naked and exposed.