Among the bleak, utilitarian infrastructure of Bomber Command there were a few outposts of graciousness. After the horrors of Wigsley, the operational station of Coningsby was a sybaritic dream to George Hull. ‘We’ve struck oil at last,’ he announced to Joan. ‘Coningsby the Beautiful, Coningsby the Comfortable.’ The Nissen hut days were over. He was ‘lording it in a double bedroom which contains a deal table and radiator’ with a fellow-crew member, Jack Green. Suddenly Bomber Command life was not so bad. ‘The food is eatable (so far),’ he wrote, ‘and the hours are reasonable. Hurrah for the RAF.’
The Dambusters Squadron, 617, was fortunate enough to be located at Woodhall Spa, south-east of Lincoln where wealthy Victorians and Edwardians once went to take the waters. On the edge of the town stood a house called Petwood, built at the beginning of the century in half-timbered neo-Elizabethan style by the Maples furniture-manufacturing family. It was there, in a low-beamed, oak-panelled parlour that 617 established its officers’ mess. A photograph taken in 1943 shows a smiling Guy Gibson standing on the terrace alongside fellow officers, gins and tonics and ‘half cans’ of beer in hand. This was the sort of life many trainee airmen imagined they might enjoy when they finally reached an operational squadron. In most places the facilities on offer would turn out to be far more basic.
Most stations had a cinema which showed up-to-date films. There were attempts to raise the cultural tone with serious plays and concerts. Bomber Command was a rich social mixture and there were some who appreciated these occasions. Michael Scott, a schoolmaster before he joined up, listened to at least one piece of classical music virtually every day of his short career as well as devouring every book he could find. His cultural intake is listed, touchingly, in the pages of his Charles Letts Office Desk Diary. In four days in January 1941, during his flying training, he listened to Schubert’s Alfonso and Estrella Overture and C Major Symphony, Bizet’s Symphony No. 1, Haydn’s Symphony No. 97, Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Suite in G, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel Overture and Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. He also managed to read three books.
Many of those who kept diaries had literary ambitions. The life of a writer held a surprising appeal to the men of action who volunteered for Bomber Command. When at the end of the war the restless Leonard Cheshire was looking for something to do his first thought was that he should become an author. Scott found space in his limited off-duty time to work away at short stories. On the first day of 1941, he listed his hopes for the New Year. ‘I would like to know where I was going to stand on December 31st,’ he wrote. ‘Let us look forward in a spirit of hope. In twelve months I hope to be back home with 500 hours [of flying], a demobilized Flying Officer about to return to schoolmastering. To have flown is one of the greatest joys of my life, but I want to return to my life’s work. I hope to have thirty short stories in my notebook, two of them published and a novel half-finished.’
The entries in Scott’s diary get shorter and shorter as his training progresses and the prospect of action grows nearer. The literary references and nostalgia for his old life at Cheam prep school dwindle and there is a mounting tone of excitement. The last entry, for 18 May reads: ‘A very heavy day, all formation flying. I found this very hard work at first, but it was a bit easier towards the end. We went over to Wotton to join up with 21 and 89. Apparently we are to do a show on Tuesday morning with fighter escort. May the Gods be with us! Formation flying is the most companionable of pursuits.’ Six days later he was reported missing after he failed to return from a sweep over the North Sea on 24 May. It was his first operation. He left behind a poem, written just as spring broke in the countryside he loved.
Why do I weep the follies of my kind?
Larks are still merry, sing the birth of day
Eagles still soar their proud majestic way
The April coppices are primrose-lined
Why do I weep?
Why do I weep this man-made frenzied strife
Mountains still sweep to heaven their rock-scarred crests
Lakes are still blue as sunlit amethysts
Nature is changeless, Earth is full with life
Why do I weep …12
The Australians cultivated a reputation for hard-living philistinism. Don Charlwood and his well-read, thoughtful friends rather contradicted the image. In the evenings he would as soon listen to a classical concert on the radio as go to the bar. His friend Johnnie Gordon was a ‘scholar of Latin and Greek who read Oedipus and The Medea because he “liked the murders in them” [an] accomplished violinist who “knew nothing about music but enjoyed the noise it made.”’13
Even so, it could not be said that high culture was a major pre-occupation among the crews and those who supported them. One night George Hull tried to forget the horrors of Wigsley at an orchestral concert put on at the base by RAF musicians. ‘It was pretty good,’ he wrote to Joan, ‘although there was rather an interruption when I “ordered” two WAAFs and an airman outside for making a lot of unnecessary noise.’14 Sometimes the entertainment was the best the country could offer. One night Robert Donat, Edith Evans, Joan Greenwood and Francis Lister, who worked for ENSA six weeks a year as their contribution to the war effort, arrived at Holme to perform a play by George Bernard Shaw. To the fastidious eyes of Reg Fayers, the reactions of the ground staff present somewhat lowered the tone. ‘Everyone was darned grateful for the show they’d given us, especially under rather trying circumstances,’ he wrote. ‘Shaw’s wit and ideas are hardly written for a gang of erks whose literary standards are mostly pornographic or James Hadley Chase.’15
The democratic, popular nature of Bomber Command meant that undemanding literature and light music held more appeal than the rather earnest entertainments preferred by Hull and Fayers. Hadley Chase’s No Orchids for Miss Blandish was perhaps the most widely-read book of the war. Soldiers, sailors and airmen loved this pulp thriller whose risqué passages marked a new frontier of daringness in popular literature. It earned the prim disapproval of George Orwell who claimed it bordered on the obscene. To its many readers in uniform it provided a merciful diversion from the boredom interspersed with anxiety that characterized service life.
The music that affected them most were the bittersweet ballads and dance tunes that summoned thoughts of distant homes and longed-for girls who held the promise of happiness and fulfilment but who might never be seen again. The potency of these songs and melodies was at its most emotionally devastating just before ops. John Dobson, the 218 Squadron sergeant pilot who took part in the disastrous Berlin operation of 7 November 1941, remembered how before they set off, the mess echoed to the sounds of the crews’ favourite records. ‘Even the swingiest of them could almost evoke tears from the listener as it is impossible not to be moved by the most blatant passage of jazz when it tangibly recalls a memory that had been stored away in the innermost recesses which men who fear death keep hidden away for ever. I remember one very vividly, it began: “I dreamed that my lover had gone for a moonlight walk, I spoke to the moon, but the moon wouldn’t talk.”’16
To those who went out in bombers at night, the moon was a powerful presence. Its waxing and waning set the rhythms of their lives. They flew in its light. The sight of it hanging mysteriously in the purple blackness filled even the most unfeeling airman with wonder. It was beautiful and it was treacherous. It helped them on their way as the bombers trundled towards their targets, but it also swept away the darkness that shielded them from the night-fighters. It was easy to see why No Moon Tonight was an unofficial anthem of Bomber Command.
The messes provided the station’s social hub. There, off-duty airmen could go for a quiet drink or a full-scale piss-up as the mood took them. The RAF took a relaxed view about alchohol consumption. Harris felt the need to justify the frequent mention of drink contained in Guy Gibson’s memoirs. ‘It may well be that references to “parties” and “drunks” in this book will give rise to criticism and even to outbursts of unctuous re
ctitude,’ he wrote in the introduction. ‘I do not attempt to excuse them if only because I entirely approve of them … remember that these crews, shining youth on the threshold of life, lived under circumstances of intolerable strain.’ Anyway, he argued, the booze-ups were ‘mainly on near-beer and high rather than potent spirits.’17 This was not strictly true. Wartime restrictions meant that the beer available in the NAAFI and local pubs was notoriously flat and watery. But whisky was available and gin, which when mixed with lime cordial was supposed to have a liberating effect on the morals of WAAFs.
As Harris acknowledged, parties were a necessary part of Bomber Command life. On some occasions drunkenness and high jinks were almost obligatory. George Hull described to Joan a typical Saturday-night dance at Coningsby. ‘Many people were drunk or merry (your humble servant was not among them although he drank all night at someone else’s expense!). The Station Warrant Officer did an Apache dance with a redhaired bit of stuff from the orderly room. Two Squadron Leaders played rugger with a squashed bun and finished up under the billiards table. Two F/Sgts fought a bloody battle on the stairs over something they had both forgotten. We shot horrible lines to the girls we had invited from Boston, two of whom missed the bus back and spent the night in the WAAFs’ quarters. The Group Captain danced a beautiful solo tango with his wife (despite his bulk) and even the Air Officer Commanding had a good time.’
Ken Dean, the flight engineer in Hull’s crew and still only eighteen years old, could not stand the pace and had to be helped to bed by George and Jack Green. ‘He insisted on kissing us both four times before going to sleep and this morning was filled with alcoholic remorse.’18
As the Coningsby dance showed, the best commanders understood it was important to occasionally reveal a less dignified side. One of the most evocative photographs of the war shows Wing Commander John Voyce, a popular and notably courageous flight commander in 635 Squadron, in black tie and braces leading a chorus of a mess favourite entitled ‘Please Don’t Burn Our Shithouse Down’.19 Charles Patterson remembered one squadron commander from 2 Group who had to be replaced ‘after an unfortunate accident … not a very gallant accident for such a gallant man. He fell out of the first-floor window of Weasenham Hall which was our mess after a party and had to be carted off to Cambridge hospital.’20
The licensed boisterousness was thought to build the team spirit which sustained the whole business of bombing. The well-oiled good fellowship that pervaded air force life could be overwhelming to a quiet men like Frank Blackman. He complained from Topcliffe to his girlfriend Mary that his attempts to concentrate on a classical music broadcast on the radio in the mess had been defeated by a dozen officers, ‘mug in hand and obviously having huge fun but nevertheless making such a disturbance that music was out of the question for the three or four of us who would have liked to listen. And these were not all your heathen Canadians but partly English squadron leaders and Flight Lieuts of the type you might personally meet anywhere.’ Frank was obviously sensitive to teasing about his high-mindedness, asking ‘do you not see how much more childlike are these bluff playmates than those of us who rely perhaps more upon intellect for interest and amusement?’21
But people like Frank Blackman were in a minority. Most members of Bomber Command were too young to be very worldly and most came from unsophisticated backgrounds. It was just as well. The bomber bases were located in parts of the country where the opportunities for pleasure were limited. Bomberland lay in the eastern half of England. It started where the pregnant belly of East Anglia juts towards the Lowlands and Germany, and stretched northwards to Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. It is a land of watery steppes and huge skies. Martha Gellhorn thought it looked ‘cold … and dun-coloured. The land seems unused and almost not lived in.’ George Hull was not impressed. ‘It’s flat,’ he wrote, ‘monotonously flat, petering out to a forlorn seashore grudgingly giving way to the sea. Windmills are the distinctive feature, great brick towers of placidity with their sturdy sweeps turning as they have done for two hundred years.’
Where the ground rises it exposes itself to the easterly winds slicing in from the North Sea. It is scattered with well-preserved small towns and villages, full of fine buildings reflecting the area’s mediaeval wealth. The industrial revolution largely passed it by. The county towns are rich in old-world charm. But historical tourism was not what most of the airmen had in mind when they left the base to look for fun.
They were looking for a cinema, a dance-hall, a pub. Cities like Lincoln, York, Nottingham, Norwich and Cambridge had enough of each to cope with peacetime demand but were stretched by the influx of men in blue. On off-duty nights they would set off by bus or bike to the nearest town or metropolis, full of the romantic optimism of youth. The provincial streets and dingy bars held the prospect of fun and even romance. That, at least, was how the evenings started.
Don Charlwood described a night out in Scunthorpe, a popular destination with the Elsham airmen. It was typical winter weather. Cloud had settled on the low fields and the wind howled in from the east driving the rain and flocks of seagulls before it. It was a night to get drunk and many were intent on doing so. Ops had been scrubbed and in Charlwood’s huts there were deaths to mourn. Two of the occupants had failed to return the previous night. The authorities had laid on buses. ‘As we clambered in at the back, hurrying to get out of the rain, a dim blue light was switched on. It blanched the faces of twenty or thirty men who had begun singing with steaming breaths …’
They stopped at the Barnetby crossroads to pick up a dozen rain-soaked WAAFs, then raced towards Scunthorpe through wet, invisible countryside, the tyres hissing on the roads. The delights of the town were limited. ‘One could get drunk at the “Crosby”, or see a floor show and get drunk at the “Oswald” or dance and get drunk at the “Berkeley”. And in the event of missing the bus back, it was always possible to stay the night at Irish Maggie’s and return to camp by train in the morning.’
When the bus light was switched on, Charlwood realized he was sitting a few seats away from his friend Keith Webber. Scunthorpe was sunk in darkness. They groped their way through the Stygian streets to the Berkeley. ‘We stepped out of the rain and darkness into the sudden brilliance of a large dance floor. RAF men, Poles, Americans, Canadians and Australians circled and swayed under a pall of tobacco smoke.’
They were vying for the attention of a far smaller number of WAAFs and local girls. The serious drinkers withdrew from the competition and clustered at the bar. The buses left again at 10 p.m. The one Charlwood boarded was packed solid and he found himself hanging out of the back. As it lurched off ‘the singing increased in volume. Sometimes three or four different songs were being sung together, the most tuneless now shouted to the skies … with each expulsion of the singers’ breaths, the smell of regurgitated beer became stronger.’ As the journey lengthened, the distress of the drinkers mounted. The bus stopped by the WAAF camp. ‘Somewhere among the tangle of bodies a voice shouted hoarsely, “Lemme out. I gotta get out or I’ll bust!”… a dozen men stumbled to the roadside.’ Finally the bus reached Charlwood’s hut. He and Webber stepped out of the fog of stale beer, cigarette fumes, perfume and wet coats into the icy night. The rain had stopped and the skies shone with frigid brilliance. The clear weather did nothing to lift their spirits. It meant that tomorrow, ops would be on for sure.22
The nights out described by George Hull were rather more sedate. ‘The crew ambled into Lincoln on Wednesday evening,’ he wrote to Joan. ‘We [didn’t have] much money so after a few beers and eyeing a few doubtful-looking women, we went to a local dance-hall for a session. Now only a few us can dance much, [I’m] amongst the majority, so we looked over the place, met a great many old friends from other stations, and contented ourselves with a waltz or so, a shuffle, and a cycle home – sans lights.’
The important thing was to get off the base. The nearest pub provided a welcome taste of the civilian lives they had left behind. While based at Tuddenh
am in Suffolk, Arthur Taylor and his crew headed whenever they had the chance for the Bull, a pub at Barton Mills. It was a ‘comfortable and roomy Georgian coaching inn … there was a cheerful air about the place and it became the haunt of RAF personnel as it was situated close to three aerodromes. There was a good fire going when it was cold and the air was full of cigarette smoke, loud talk and laughter. To get off your bike on a black night and enter this building was a heartening experience.’23 Jack Currie and his crew frequented a similarly welcoming pub on the northern boundary of their base in Derbyshire. There, they were ‘privileged to share … the landlady’s favours, which included the use of her kitchen for bacon, eggs and sausages after hours, and the company of her daughters. The eldest of these was a big, untidy, cuddlesome girl whose efforts to keep her relations with us on a sisterly basis weren’t always successful.’
The pub had a piano, as most did in the days when jukeboxes were still a novelty. ‘For the last half-hour or so before closing time … downing the clear, bitter ale they brew beside the Trent, we liked to sing … while the village postmistress pounded an accompaniment. Her repertoire was limited to hymn tunes and a few songs of the day, of which we favoured “Roll Out the Barrel”, “Bless ’em All” and, for the Australians’ sake, “Waltzing Matilda”.’24
Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys: Saving Britain 1940–1945 Page 83