Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys: Saving Britain 1940–1945

by Patrick Bishop

  Prisoners were remarkably well connected with the outside world. They listened to the BBC on home-made radios, and interrogated the friendlier goons who also supplied them with German newspapers. News of the progress of the war created wild mood swings. By April 1944 Sagan was humming with rumours of the impending invasion. Fantastic bets were struck about the date. A sergeant pledged he would allow himself to be thrown into the communal latrine if the landings did not come before a certain date. There was a craze for table-rapping séances to seek the spirit world’s advice on when liberation would come. Already they could see evidence of the Allies’ progress in the far-off flashes from the air raids on Berlin.

  For once it seemed that the veteran kriegies’ predictions that they would ‘all be home by Christmas’ would come true. But Christmas 1944 came and went and they were still there. Geoffrey sang in the camp choir’s production of Messiah. The festivities were overshadowed by news of the success of the German offensive in the Ardennes. Nonetheless they managed to put together a feast of tinned turkey, sausage, and Christmas pud and ‘cheer up momentarily’.

  In mid-January their spirits received a real lift when they heard that the Russian offensive was gathering pace to the east. Soon they could hear the guns in the distance. On the evening of 27 January the order was given to evacuate the camp. One ordeal was over but another was beginning.

  At 1 a.m. Geoffrey and his fellow prisoners passed through the camp gates and out into the freezing snow. They piled their Red Cross provisions on to makeshift sledges, which began to break up within a few hundred yards. They trudged through the night, passed by streams of refugees and white-clad troops heading towards the sound of the guns. The few guards with them abandoned any pretence of discipline. Kriegie and goon were facing the future together.

  The civilians in the fearful villages they passed through seemed ‘amazingly friendly’. Geoffrey, who had learned German in captivity, overheard two women discussing the prisoners as they passed. ‘The older one said, “I do feel sorry for them but they are terror bombers.” The younger one answers, “yes but they are a lot of nice-looking young men.”’ The Red Cross coffee and chocolate and the cigarettes they brought with them could be traded for almost anything that was available. They slept in barns and one night in a bomb shelter.

  The greatest danger seemed to be not from the Germans but from the Allied aircraft which droned frequently overhead, sometimes shooting up trains and traffic. The Russians were coming and everyone knew it. At one point, as they trailed westwards, away from the direction of the advance they watched ‘small groups of old men dig pathetic little gun pits and sit in them,’ waiting fatalistically for the enemy. After six days’ march they were put on cattle trucks which hauled them off to another camp at Tarmstedt, near Bremen. They stood in the freezing slush outside for three hours before they were let in. It was a surreal moment. ‘A few hysterical voices can be heard shouting “open the bloody gates!”’ he recorded. ‘Fancy shouting to be let in’ to a prisoners’ camp.

  Geoffrey and his fellow-prisoners had to endure another forced march before liberation. When it finally came they were billeted in the farm buildings of a large estate not far from Lübeck. They shared it with Polish female slave workers aged from twelve to seventy who had been living and working there in appalling conditions for five years. When he woke up on 2 May the guards had gone. He ate a breakfast of egg and chips in glorious sunshine and with the sound of approaching gunfire in the background. ‘Unmistakably this time tanks on both sides of us,’ he wrote. ‘German soldiers of all kinds start straggling along the road – all going to give themselves up … they are tired & bedraggled and some of them are armed but most have thrown their guns away. We give them cigarettes and they give us their belts, badges, food etc. Their chief feeling is relief that it is all over …’

  A rumour began that British tanks were at the edge of town. At last ‘a Bren carrier rushed into the camp and the Kriegies go mad. We shout, cheer and clamber all over it, shaking the crews’ hands … we are prisoners no more … the wireless on the Bren carrier starts up. The driver answers “tank 19 speaking. Am in village & at PW camp. Over to you, over –” Yes. Over to you, over the English Channel & home.’

  In the strange anarchic interlude between the Germans abandoning their posts and the arrival of their liberators, some had the chance to see the nature of the enemy they had been fighting. The Germans had seemed amiable enough to Geoffrey Willatt. Reg Fayers saw another side of them. When the Russians arrived at his camp on 2 May the inmates set out to explore the surrounding country. When they returned they told each other what they had seen. There were two concentration camps nearby. ‘Thirty thousand have reputedly gone thru it,’ he wrote. ‘The other one, eight thousand. On two potatoes, watery soup, one seventh of a loaf, forced labour worked hard until they were useless, then they were gassed. Our army doc was, he said, almost sick when he entered rooms where living skeletons sat around tables too weak to move, to get out of their own excreta … the bodies stayed there, decomposing, bloated. One thousand were supposed to have been drowned in the creek on one barge. And so on …’ All the prisoners shared his disgust. ‘This has been going on within a few miles of us. Any humanitarian feelings for the German plight now is banished by all this.’18

  Back in England the crews celebrated VE day in the way that they knew best. Dennis Steiner and his comrades went into Gainsborough to their favourite pub, the Woolsack, where they ‘made a thorough nuisance of ourselves. We “borrowed” a builders barrow and loaded it with WAAFs and toured the town, on the way removing convenient bunting that had decorated the streets …’ The following day the mayor of Gainsborough arrived to reclaim the town’s decorations. Negotiations were conducted in the mess where he was ‘well and truly entertained and had to be driven home, having lost all interest in his bunting.’19

  There had been a hundred nights like it but this time there was an altered quality to the fun. There was something that was lacking, something whose absence was very welcome. For the first time in nearly five years, the thought that this party might be the last no longer hung over the celebrations. Cy March was on leave and in bed with his wife Ellen when they heard a tremendous crashing at the door. He ‘went out and asked what the hell they thought they were playing at.’ The neighbours told him the news. ‘I can’t explain the relief I felt,’ he wrote later. ‘No more flak or fighters, biting cold, sleepless nights.’ The following night he celebrated in the local pub, all the time time wishing ‘I had been on the station with all the boys.’ When he got back to Syerston he took the ground crew on an aerial ‘Cook’s Tour’ of the places they had contributed to bombing. The flight took eight hours. ‘We flew quite low at times and you could see the crowds milling about in the towns, all as chuffed at the war’s end as we were I suppose. One thing stuck in my mind. We flew over the Black Forest and it must have been a forester’s cabin, but he and his wife and little girl were at their door waving like mad. Yesterday’s enemies, I thought, just like families at home after all that.’20

  19

  Forgetting

  Eight days after the end of the war Harris issued a special order of the day to Bomber Command. It was a tribute to his men and women, thanking them for all they had done for him, the country and the free world. ‘To those who survive I would say this,’ it ran. ‘Content yourself and take credit with those who perished that now the “Cease Fire” has sounded countless homes within our Empire will welcome back a father, husband or son whose life, but for your endeavours and your sacrifices, would assuredly have been expended during long further years of agony.’ He went on to list their many feats and finished by declaring his pride in having been ‘your Commander-in-Chief through more than three years of your Saga … Famously have you fought. Well have you deserved of your country and her Allies.’1

  The nation’s thanks, though, were slow in coming. Bomber Command was both the symbol and the instrument of Britain’s defiance of the Ge
rmans throughout the war. It provided an antidote to despair and sustained the hope of victory and peace. In the early years, Britain suffered serial defeats. But in the air it seemed different. Every night the bombers went out into the darkness, the searchlights and the flak to show the world that though the struggle against the Germans might appear futile, there was still someone prepared to wage it. Hearing the throb of friendly bomber engines overhead, listening to the radio bulletins or reading the reports in the papers, the nation could comfort itself with the thought that their injuries at the hands of the Luftwaffe were being repaid. With the arrival of new aircraft, new crews and new equipment and techniques, the attack ceased to be symbolic. By the middle of the war British bombers were inflicting terrible destruction and pain on the enemy.

  At the end, their now enormous power helped to crush the last sparks of vitality out of Hitler’s empire.

  The main job carried out by the crews was amongst the worst that warfare could devise. There was little satisfaction or glory in bombing cities. Yet that was what they had been asked to do and that is what they did, unflinchingly for the most part and at enormous cost to themselves. Yet when it came time give thanks and honour to the living and the dead the official voice was muted.

  Churchill broadcast his speech announcing Victory in Europe on the afternoon of 13 May. All over the country, in NAAFI and mess, sitting room and pub, citizens and servicemen clustered round the wireless to hear the prime minister thank all who had secured Britain’s survival and eventual triumph. Everyone received their share of praise: the Royal Navy for keeping the sea lanes open, the Merchant Navy who gallantly manned the convoys, the Army whose victories in North Africa paved the way for the reconquest of Europe. The crews listened eagerly as he reached the part played by the RAF. He began by eulogizing Fighter Command and its victory in the Battle of Britain, asserting again that ‘never before in the history of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ He predicted that the name of Dowding, its commander, would ‘ever be linked with this splendid event.’ He spoke of the danger posed by the Germans’ V weapons and the RAF’s role, along with the domestic anti-aircraft batteries in suppressing them. They had not completely destroyed the menace, however. The credit for that went to the Allied armies who ‘cleaned up the coast and overran all the points of discharge.’ Otherwise, he went on, ‘the autumn of 1944, to say nothing of 1945, might well have seen London as shattered as Berlin.’

  The Bomber Boys leaned forward to enjoy their share of the praise that seemed to be coming next. But that was it. Churchill passed on to survey the post-war scene. The strategic air campaign might never have happened. As the speech ended and the radios were switched off, the airmen were left with the uncomfortable feeling that all their mighty effort, all the fear and sorrow, the stresses and sacrifices, had not been been considered worth mentioning.

  The peace celebrations had barely begun but the victors were already constructing their version of history. The war had been a triumph for morality and civilized values, of light over darkness. The presence of Bomber Command loomed awkwardly over this legend. From then on, the political establishment colluded to keep it to the margins of the story. The intention seemed to be to avoid any mark of distinction that would draw attention to what Bomber Command had actually done. Harris complained to Portal that neither he nor any member of his staff was invited to any of the surrender ceremonies. When it came to awarding medals, care was taken not to identify the strategic bombing offensive as a distinct campaign. Those who served in other campaigns such as such as those in Africa, the Far East and France and Germany, were awarded their own star. Despite intense lobbying from the Air Ministry the official line held firm. These were awards for overseas service. Bomber Command had been fighting from home and would have to be content with the Defence Medal, given to all who were engaged on the home front. The aircrew, and the men on the ground who supported them were entitled to the 1939–45 Star, but that was issued to everyone. This provoked a protest from Sir Arthur Street, Permanent Undersecretary of State for Air, who represented the RAF on the Treasury committee which oversaw the grant of honours. The Star he, wrote ‘is to be distributed universally … altogether it will not be a very worthy distinction for the aircrew of Bomber Command.’ They did receive the Aircrew Europe Star. But the citation for this award was phrased with diplomatic precision. In an early draft it was described as decoration for those who had taken part in ‘strategical bombing and fighter sweeps over Europe from the United Kingdom.’ Later the distinction was dropped and it was given simply for ‘operational flying from the United Kingdom bases over Europe.’2

  Harris was infuriated at the perceived insult to his men. His anger was increased by his belief that it was Churchill, whom he counted as a friend as well as his most prominent supporter, who was behind the decision. On 1 June, he wrote a bitter letter to Portal and Sinclair declaring that ‘if my Command are to have the Defence Medal and no “campaign” medal in the France-Germany-Italy-Naval War then I too will have the Defence Medal and no other – nothing else whatsover, neither decoration, award, rank, preferment or appointment, if any such is contemplated or intended … I will not stand by and see my people let down in so grossly unjust a manner without resorting to every necessary and justifiable protest which is open to me …’3

  Only a fortnight after this outburst, Harris did accept a knighthood, awarded to him in the King’s Birthday Honours, feeling he was unable to reject it because it came from the sovereign. The other giants of the RAF war effort, Portal and Tedder, were ennobled. The absence of a peerage excited conspiracy theories among Harris’s supporters, which he was inclined to encourage. The truth was that a peerage was subsequently offered in late 1951, when Churchill returned to power. Harris decided his battle to obtain a special medal for his men was unwinnable. He declined a peerage, preferring the less cumbersome problems of duty and style presented by a baronetcy.

  Why was the political establishment so reluctant to honour those who, for the duration of the war, had been cherished by the public and lionized by the government? And why was the embarrassing post-war silence when it came to marking Bomber Command’s achievements not more of a public issue than it was? Harris had objected to the award of the Defence Medal on the grounds that the business of Bomber Command had been offence. This distinction lay at the heart of the problem. The moral rectitude of the Fighter Boys had been unquestionable. The Battle of Britain was as just a war as it was possible to fight. The pilots were defending their homes and loved ones from a cruel enemy who rejected the values of civilization. The Bomber Boys could argue that they were protecting Britain by so preoccupying the Luftwaffe that it did not have the means to continue its air offensive. But few saw this as their real purpose.

  Bomber Command’s task was to attack the enemy in their own homes. The British people had lived under the shadow of aerial bombardment ever since the end of the First World War. In the winter of 1940–41 they experienced the reality. They appreciated, at the time, the retribution that was delivered on their behalf. But once the war was ended they had no great desire to be reminded of the deeds that had been done in their name. That amnesia, inevitably, extended to those who had been carrying them out. Harris had summed it up with his usual harsh shrewdness: ‘People didn’t like being bombed and therefore they didn’t like bombers on principle.’

  Even those who had taken part in the campaign were filled with awe at what they had done. In May Peter Johnson was summoned by Harris to Bomber Command. ‘The C-in-C drove me to his house, Springfield, for lunch wih him and Lady Harris,’ he remembered. ‘The journey in his Bentley, often at nearly 100 mph through Buckinghamshire lanes, was as alarming as anything on operations.’ Harris offered him a post in the Bombing Research Unit being set up to gauge the level of destruction to Germany and particularly to its industry. It was small and inadequately staffed and Johnson believed its pupose was political as much as practical. ‘Bert Harris knew that the Amer
icans had an enormous bombing research unit and would be likely to claim all the credit.’4

  He started work in the Ruhr and his first call was on what remained of Krupp’s. He had already looked down on the scenes of devastation from the air. The view on the ground was even more impressive. ‘Driving through Essen,’ he wrote, ‘I had my first close-up view of a bombed German city. As we progressed slowly down the pitted and cratered roads and streets leading to the centre of the town, the full horror of what I had seen from the air three weeks before came through to me. Every street, virtually every building, was gutted, the empty window frames showing the bare and blackened interiors, with twisted and charred remains of beds and furniture often hanging over into the streets.’

  His chief, Air Commodore Claude Pelly, was similarly struck when he arrived in the Ruhr. ‘There is a deadly silence, which creates a deep impression on the visitor’s mind,’ he reported home.5 Johnson saw few people in the towns and most of them were old. ‘Dressed mostly in black, they walked slowly, their heads bowed. The pall of their defeat was all around them and they seemed as desolate as their ruined houses.’ Johnson wondered where these scarecrows lived. The answer was in cellars underground. Some of the workers who remained had lived like this for three years.