by Steve Holmes
John Holmes lay awake on his bunk. Sleep was hard to come by.
He felt more than a little cheated by the men from the ministry of defence. He’d fallen in love with the Stirling Bomber, and that’s what it was… a bomber. That’s what it was designed for and that’s what it should have been used for, but overnight it was as if someone had removed the toys from his pram.
He reached down and tugged at the laces of his boots, loosened them, eased them off and dropped them to the floor. He lay back on the bunk and let out a long sigh. Thick of the action, Vanrenen had said, at least at 16,000 feet we’d have a chance, he’d said.
John closed his eyes, tried to envisage all those low flying exercises and how skilfully Vanrenen had flirted with the tops of the hills, the trees, landmarks like water towers and windmills and although he didn’t like it there was nothing he could do about it. As he drifted off to sleep he consoled himself that he and his crew really were flying with the top man and if anyone could get them out of the mess they were in then it was Vanrenen.
The RAF had made their decision and wasted no time in appointing John Holmes and his crew to 196 Squadron in Leicester. They were officially released from Bomber Command along with many other squadrons and joined the recently formed 38 Group. There, reality sank in as they spent the first three weeks towing Horsa Gliders during the day and on night exercises. The Horsa Glider carried up to 30 troops and in addition could carry a jeep or a 6 pounder anti-tank gun. Notoriously unpredictable, their safety record was pretty poor and because of their flimsy construction it was not uncommon for them to break up on landing. They were looked upon by the troops and air crew who towed them as rather unlucky. Indeed on the Horsas’ very first operational flight on the night of 19th November 1942, two gliders were cast loose over the German Heavy Water Plant in Rjukan, Norway. The two gliders, each carrying 15 sappers, crashed in Norway due to bad weather. All 23 survivors from the gliders were executed on the order of Hitler.
That first mission set an unenviable precedent that would be hard to shake off.
After six weeks’ training at Leicester East, the crew were sent to Tarrant Rushton in Dorset on the south coast of England, a mere stone’s throw from the English Channel, a perfect launching pad for their sorties into France and beyond.
The crew of ZO U, which signified their squadron (ZO) and Vanrenen’s crew (U), sat in the briefing room of RAF Tarrant Rushton on 4th February 1944. The officer in command almost seemed to be giving a lecture on the French Resistance, such was his praise for the freedom fighters who continued to battle against their Nazi occupiers. The officer had told the three assembled crews that the 2nd Panzer Division had been stationed north of Toulouse in the Central West region of France and the resistance had managed to wreak havoc in the area taking out many of the bridges crossing the River Glane, which in effect kept the Panzer Division pinned down. This had frustrated the Germans, stopping them from advancing northwards. As always the resistance wanted more weapons and of course the essential materials to construct and make shells and explosive devices.
‘Bloody French chaps are doing a super job, but they need more kit and that’s where we come in.’
The officer pointed to a huge map hanging on the wall.
‘This is Oradour-sur-Glane, and this,’ he pointed with a shiny wooden stick, ‘is the bridge that the Nazis have tried to repair again and again.’ The officer was almost smiling now. ‘The thing is, each time the bridge is repaired the French chaps manage to blow the bugger up again.’
He walked around to the front of the table to the assembled crews. He handed each of the navigators a slip of paper.
‘These are your map references. You’ll be flying in tomorrow night, leaving at 22.15 and the good news is that you won’t be towing any of those bloody wooden gliders. All we need to get out there will be three panniers lodged in each plane.’ He looked towards the pilot of ZO U.
‘Vanrenen, your boys will take the lead. You’ll be flying plane EA 874.’
Vanrenen simply nodded to the officer in charge.
John Holmes sat at the rear of the briefing room with Reg Tammas on his right hand side. He breathed a sigh of relief; what was it about those Horsas that he didn’t like? Reg was studying his coordinates and John couldn’t help but gauge his reaction. Reg didn’t seem too phased and was already making notes in his log book. A flight engineer from another crew raised his hand.
‘What’s in the panniers, Sir?’
The officer smiled.
‘I’m afraid, Flight Engineer, that’s of no concern to you. You just get them dropped and, God willing, about turn and head back to dear old Blighty.’
The officer informed them to report to the Sergeants’ Mess where a late supper had been laid on for them. It was a chance to get to know the other two crews who would be flying with them. John sat next to a young man from Chiswick as they tucked into corned beef and onion sandwiches and chips with plenty of salt. John bonded instantly with the Londoner, Mark Azouz, and took an instant liking to him as they counteracted the effect of the salt with several pints of bitter the RAF had kindly supplied.
‘Free beer, Sherlock,’ said Azouz, ‘and a feed too. Good old RAF,’ he grinned. ‘I only hope it isn’t our last supper.’
He slapped John Holmes on the back and roared with laughter. The frivolity lasted into the early hours of the morning, the theory being that the crews would enjoy a long lie in the following day, ideal preparation for the mission that lay ahead.
At around 2.30 in the morning each crew member lined up a small whisky and gave a personal toast to something they dearly wanted to set eyes on again. John raised his glass to the Crook O’ Lune and Len Jones recited a six verse poem about the Canadian Rockies and the mist that covered their peaks. When he finished everyone stood and applauded. When it was Mark Azouz’s turn he simply raised the glass to Ralph and Esta… his parents. It was a fitting tribute and one that John could relate to but one he didn’t need reminding of. For some strange reason he was trying to block out the images of his parents, brothers and sisters but above all that of his wife and his infant son… if only for a day or two.
As John left the mess hall and walked back to the billet he became aware of a small black and white dog following him. He bent down to stroke it.
‘Hello little fella, who do you belong to?’
It was a cold night and John wondered what it was doing out so late. As he opened the door the dog made a desperate lunge to get inside. John put his foot across the gap.
‘No you don’t boy, no dogs allowed in this hut.’
It was another restless night on John’s bunk. The beer had not had the desired affect and the memories and pictures of his beloved family could not be dispelled by alcohol. On a full stomach he prayed that sleep would come quickly but it was no good, too many cogs were turning in his subconscious.
This flight would be different to every one he’d ever flown. This time it was for real and this time the anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes of the Third Reich would be doing their level best to blow them to bits over the night skies of France.
Vanrenen’s face was a picture of concentration as he eased the plane up into the blackness, turned immediately to starboard and headed towards the English Channel. Within twenty minutes Tammas had indicated to the crew that they were flying over Nazi occupied France and into enemy territory. The normal banter and high spirits were non-existent, the entire crew on high alert on the lookout for enemy aircraft. There were another two crewmen flying with them tonight, two army dispatch men responsible for throwing the panniers from the plane. Conditions however were on their side; thick cloud cover would hide the Stirling from the anti-aircraft guns below. With a little luck they would drop their cargo at the designated spot outside the village of Oradour-sur-Glane without too many problems.
John had come to terms with the kind of missions they would be flying, almost a little relieved that he wouldn’t be part and parcel of a crew destined to drop thousan
ds of tons of bombs on the innocent citizens of cities, towns and villages. He’d viewed the Pathé news reels at the cinema, the bombing of Coventry and in particular the London blitz. He wondered if the German crews had any regrets or feelings of compassion as they released the deadly loads on the innocent men, women and children below. For 76 consecutive nights during the spring of 1941 they’d rained bombs on England’s capital. Over 25,000 civilians had been killed and more than a million houses destroyed.
He’d felt for them, he really had, as he’d mumbled poor bastards to himself over and over again in the darkened cinema. His head was full of the images from the cinema screen, young children and the elderly weeping for their loved ones buried dead or alive in the tons of masonry that had been blown apart. Were their tears any different from the German civilians in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Dresden?
They were now nearly three hours into the flight and Tammas announced that the cloud cover was breaking up as they neared the drop zone.
‘Fifteen minutes to DZ,’ he announced. John signalled to the two army dispatchers who sat in the fuselage. One of them crawled up towards him.
‘What is it Sarge?’
‘Fifteen minutes to the drop zone, are you two lads ready?’
‘We will be,’ he replied. ‘Ready as we’ll ever be, Sarge.’
The French Resistance were ready and waiting to carry out the operation with military precision. Three sections of men stood by each truck ready to go to work as soon as the containers were dropped. Pierre-Henri Poutaraud, Louis-Leonard Chapelot and Henri-Pierre Raynaud were in charge of their respective teams. Henri Pierre spoke.
‘What time do you have Louis, how long is it until our friends arrive?’
Louis-Leonard Chapelot checked his watch.
‘A little over four minutes. Tell the men to get ready.’
Henri Pierre signalled to the man standing by the haystack. He removed the cap from a small tin of petrol.
Vanrenen had brought the Stirling below the clouds and listened to Reg as he called out the decreasing altitude level every twenty seconds. The adrenalin was coursing through John’s veins and he positively tingled as he sat in the second pilot’s seat and looked below. Gradually the shape of the French countryside unfolded before him. Vanrenen glanced to his right.
‘See it yet Flight Engineer?’
‘Not yet Skip.’
‘What about you Bomb Aimer?’
Doug Handley lay flat on his stomach in the front turret.
‘Negative, Skipper.’
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to spot, the terrain’s fairly flat. Keep your eyes peeled.’
‘Will do, Skipper.’
Vanrenen spoke into the radio. ‘I’m opening up the doors Bomb Aimer.’
John heard the hydraulics of the hinges grind into action. Len Jones, the rear gunner confirmed that the other two Stirlings were following suit and all three were lined up like three geese crossing a lake.
‘I hear them Pierre, I hear the planes.’
The resistance fighter assigned to the petrol can had heard it too and didn’t need any prompting as he poured the fuel onto the haystack and struck a match. The haystack exploded into a ball of flames that lit up the night sky.
Louis-Leonard clasped his hands together and prayed that the men from the RAF were as anxious as they were to complete the mission and get out of there as quickly as possible.
John was the first to spot it.
‘There Skip, there it is,’ he shouted with excitement as he signalled to a faint glow two or three miles to the west.
Vanrenen had already banked the plane to the port side and threw it into a steep dive. Once again John Holmes marvelled at the manoeuvrability of the Stirling but in particular the skill of Vanrenen who within a few seconds had levelled the plane out and reduced the speed so much that it convinced him it would simply drop out of the sky.
‘Bomb Aimer, you take over from here, make sure you’re ready to tell those chaps when to push.’
‘Ready and waiting, Skipper.’
John could see the lights of the truck now; the French Resistance fighters had turned the vehicles to light up the drop zone.
‘I reckon about ten seconds bomb aimer…nine, eight, seven.’
The Stirling was almost touching the tops of the trees as Vanrenen continued the countdown, Doug Handley was ready to push the button that would light up a signal box a foot or two away from where the army men stood.
The lone German sentry at the Chateau Marmont at the end of Rue de la Lande in Oradour-sur-Glane had noticed the change in the contrast of the night sky. The chateau housed the 2nd Waffen SS Panzer Division. The sentry was already on the radio and a truck load of German soldiers had been scrambled. The driver was already at the wheel of the truck as the sentry opened the gates to the street outside.
‘Probably just a barn fire,’ one of the soldiers said, complaining as he ran alongside his colleague while fastening the buttons of his jacket. ‘I thought we were supposed to be the best fighting soldiers in the world, not fucking peasant firemen.’
As they climbed into the truck another soldier reminded him that the French resistance fighters were very much alive and kicking in this part of France.
‘We need to make an example of these fucking pig dogs when we catch them. Line the bastards up against the wall and shoot them in front of the whole village, that’s what I say Hans.’
‘Go, go, go!’
The Stirling was less than fifty feet from the ground when Doug Handley pushed the button and screamed at the top of his voice. One by one the panniers almost seemed to float through the night sky before crashing onto the muddy ground the French resistance fighters had soaked earlier that day. The panniers landed perfectly, skidding through the quagmire before coming to a halt. The other two Stirlings flew in behind Vanrenen and his crew and repeated the drill faultlessly.
Len Jones’ excited voice came over the radio.
‘Nine boxes on the ground Skipper. Mission accomplished.’
John couldn’t help thinking that Len was being a little premature. After all they had to get back home and one thing was for certain, the fire that shone like a beacon and the noise of three Stirling Bombers less than 50 feet from the ground had awoken every German within a 20-mile radius. Vanrenen had already started climbing and gave the orders to the other two Stirlings to head for home. John’s heart was in his mouth at what he’d noticed just over a mile to the east of the drop zone.
‘Headlights Skipper, at nine o’clock, looks like someone’s in a hurry to see what’s in those boxes.’
Vanrenen cursed. He looked over to the headlights of the vehicle getting ever nearer.
‘Shit, shit, shit, they’ll never make it. Jerry will be on top of them in two or three minutes.’ Vanrenen spoke into the radio. He told the other two crews he was heading back into the drop zone. The other planes had noticed the rapidly approaching truck too and Mark Azouz who flew the second plane asked the lead pilot if he wanted assistance. Vanrenen declined.
‘We’ll lend a little hand to the Frenchmen; I’ve a good rear gunner on board, no use putting anyone else in danger.’
The other two navigators charted their course for home and Vanrenen swung the Stirling to port side as he pushed her into a dive and lowered the speed.
‘Flight Engineer, get yourself to the back of the plane, make sure the rear gunner is well supplied with ammunition.’
‘Yes Skipper.’
John Holmes knew exactly what the order meant. The rear gunner was a sitting duck at this level of operation, life expectancy low. Vanrenen had ordered his replacement to the rear of the plane.
‘Rear Gunner!’
‘Yes Skipper.’
‘You’ll only get one chance at this. The area will be crawling with Huns soon. I don’t want to hang around here too long, but if we don’t do something to help, the operation fails.’
John made his way down the plane and crouched behind Len in t
he rear turret, which gave a bird’s eye view of the world. Len gripped the handles of the gun and trained the sights on to the ground.
John peered out of the turret too, desperately looking for the headlights of the German truck.
‘There,’ he shouted. ‘There Jonesy, there they are.’
Len nodded, twisted in his seat a little and concentrated hard.
He opened up his fingers and closed them half a dozen times then returned them to the gun. He had turned one hundred and eighty degrees in his seat and faced his flight engineer. He looked up and gave John a little wink.
‘I’ve got them, Sherlock. I’ve got the bastards in my crosswire.’
‘Slow down a little, Skip,’ he called into the radio. Vanrenen eased back on the throttle so much that John felt sure the giant aircraft was about to stall. By now the truck and the helmets of the Waffen SS were clearly visible.
‘Rear Gunner, don’t be tempted to take out those Jerry bastards, aim for the underside of the truck, that’s where the gas tank is.’
‘Roger, Skipper.’
The German truck was now less than half a mile from the field where the French Resistance fighters were loading the panniers into the trucks. They only suspected something was wrong when the Stirling flew over the tops of their heads. A split second later they heard the sound of gunfire.
The truck had slowed to almost a stop as the German soldiers stood up shooting at the fast disappearing Stirling. Bullets rained down in the direction of the truck and tracer fire lit up the night sky. Two bullets ripped into the fuselage and out the other side narrowly missing the head of Reg. He screamed into the radio.
‘C’mon Jonesy, save my fucking life, the bastards are out to get me.’
Vanrenen had taken the Stirling down to less than a hundred feet as they flew over the vehicle. By now Len’s fingers were permanently fixed on the triggers as the Browning machine guns pumped out bullets at the rate of 1,200 rounds a minute. It took less than ten seconds before half a dozen bullets raked into the tank beneath the truck.