Wings

by Patrick Bishop

  ‘Life on the squadron was seldom far from fantasy,’ wrote Don Charlwood, a thoughtful Australian navigator. ‘We might at eight, be in a chair beside a fire, but at ten in an empty world above a floor of cloud. Or at eight walking . . . with a girl whose nearness denied all possibility of death.’4

  Even inside the bomber the airmen could feel disassociated from the lethal events they were engaged in. Reg Fayers, a navigator with 78 Squadron, described the feeling to his wife Phyllis in the summer of 1943. ‘Lately in letters I’ve mentioned that I’ve flown by night and that I’ve been tired by day, but I haven’t said that I can now claim battle honours – Krefeld, Mülheim, Gelsenkirchen, Wuppertal and Cologne. I suppose I’ve been fighting in the Battle of the Ruhr. But it hasn’t felt like that.’5

  ‘Battles’ were how Harris chose to describe certain phases of the campaign. It was a misleadingly neat term for something that was repetitive, widespread and lacking a focused objective. There was no measure of success. There was, however, a yardstick for failure – the ability of his force to soak up punishment, which, in the winter of 1943, the German defences were efficiently meting out.

  As had always been the case in the short history of aerial warfare, when one side developed a new technology or technique, the other was not long in countering it. So it was when Harris unleashed his assault on German cities. German reactions sharpened. Around the big towns, searchlights and radar-directed batteries evolved systems that created a cauldron of fire that unnerved all but the most self-contained or the least imaginative. It was a civilian, the BBC reporter Richard Dimbleby, who put into words the bowel-melting, yet awe-inspiring nature of the sight, when he bravely flew to Berlin with Guy Gibson and 106 Squadron on the night of 16–17 January 1943. They took off from Syerston at tea time. ‘It was a big show as heavy bomber ops go,’ he broadcast later. ‘It was also quite a long raid, as the Wing Commander who took me [Gibson] stayed over Berlin for half an hour. The flak was hot, but it has been hotter. For me it was a pretty hair-raising experience and I was glad when it was all over, though I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But we must all remember that these men do it as a regular routine job.’

  The journey out had been trouble-free, but they ‘knew well enough’ how bad things could get when they were approaching Berlin. ‘There was a complete ring of powerful searchlights, waving and crossing,’ he reported. ‘There was also intense flak. First of all they didn’t seem to be aiming at us. It was bursting away to starboard and away to port in thick yellow clusters and dark, smoky puffs. As we turned in for our first run across the city it closed in right around us. For a moment it seemed impossible that we could miss it. And one burst lifted us into the air, as if a giant hand had pushed up the belly of the machine. But we flew on, and just then another Lancaster dropped a load of incendiaries. And where a moment before there had been a dark patch of the city, a dazzling silver pattern spread itself, a rectangle of brilliant lights, hundreds, thousands of them, winking and gleaming and lighting the outlines of the city around them. As though this unloading had been a signal, score after score of fire bombs went down and all over the dark face of the German capital these great, incandescent flower beds spread themselves . . . as I watched and tried to photograph the flares with a cine camera, I saw the pinpoints merge and the white glare turning to a dull, ugly red as the fires of bricks and mortar and wood spread from the chemical flares.’

  Dimbleby was very impressed by Gibson’s skill and coolness, which would be demonstrated brilliantly a few months later when he led 617 Squadron on their dambusting mission. The Dams Raid, however, was a spectacular side show, which did more for Allied morale than for the war effort. The real business of Bomber Command during 1943 and 1944 was city-bashing.

  The industrial nature of the campaign meant that by 1944 operations had settled down into a regular routine that was no less harrowing for its familiarity. After breakfast, aircrew would report to their flight officers to learn whether or not ops were on that night. The decision lay in the hands of the group headquarters. During the winter of 1943–44 the campaign went on relentlessly, night after night, interrupted only by the most extreme weather conditions. Details of the destination and the size of the force were telephoned through to the bases. Further information on routes, bomb loads and the time of departure – H-hour – would follow later.

  As yet, none of this was relayed to the crews, who simply busied themselves with preparations. Their first task was to drive out to the dispersal areas to check with the ground crews on the serviceability of their aircraft, going over engines, instruments, radar and wireless. Later, the aircraft would be fuelled, armed and bombed-up. They returned to the base for lunch, officers and NCOs heading off to their respective messes.

  In the afternoon the briefings would begin. The crews gathered in a large briefing room filled with chairs. At one end was a platform and behind it a large map shielded from view by a blackout curtain. A roll call was held, and when it was confirmed that all crews were present the assembly got to its feet and the station, squadron and senior flight commanders walked in to join the meteorological, intelligence, engineering and flying control officers already on the stage. The doors were shut behind them by an RAF policeman who stood guard outside.

  The CO then rose and approached the large cloth-covered rectangle. He whisked the cloth away and declared. ‘Gentlemen, your target for tonight is . . .’ Hundreds of eyes took in the red tape leading to their destination. An ‘easy’ target where the flak was light was greeted with relieved laughter. A tough one like Berlin, with groans and muttering. The briefing then commenced, invariably stressing the importance of the target and the significance of the contribution the operation would make to the war effort. Peter Johnson, attending his first briefing before his first op, was struck by the crews’ indifference to these exhortations. The intelligence officer was a WAAF, a ‘formidable lady who minced no words. The target, for the umpteenth time, was the Krupp factory at Essen. ‘“Yes, they’ve been damaged!” she shouted over the chorus of groans and expletives. “But make no mistake, they’re still turning out guns and shells aimed at you!”’ She went on to warn that the defences would be stronger than ever, and gave details of the known searchlight and flak battery positions. ‘“They’re going to give you hell!” she spat. “See that you give it them back!’”

  Johnson found this theatricality distasteful coming from a non-combatant, but he was impressed by the dangers she had described. Looking around, though, he noted that the others ‘seemed almost totally untouched by what they had heard’. Many were sitting back with their eyes closed. All they wanted to know was ‘the details of route and navigation, which colour of target indicator they were to bomb and what they could do to make sure they arrived on time and got home safely’.6

  With the detailed briefings on start-up times, designated runways, weather on route and bombing routines completed, each squadron commander gave a briefing to his unit, then the station commander rounded off by wishing them good luck and a safe return.

  They then filed out, navigators to pick up maps, wireless operators the ‘flimsies’ telling the radio frequencies for the night, before heading off to the mess for the traditional ‘operational meal’ of bacon and eggs. Sometimes there were a few, fretful hours to kill before H-Hour. They spent these trying to sleep, writing letters to family, wives and girlfriends, mooching around the mess, listening to the bittersweet tunes of the time. In the mess at Elsham Wolds an arrangement of ‘Tristesse’ was forever turning on the gramophone. ‘I wondered why it was that this recording happened to be played so often as we waited to leave,’ wrote Don Charlwood. ‘To me it was a song without hope, full of urgent pleadings we could never heed.’ He recalled finishing off a letter back to his folk in Australia, while around him men dozed in armchairs waiting to go. As they were roused by their comrades he ‘noticed how child-like they appeared in the moment they woke’. Outside ‘the rain had increased and as they passed thr
ough the door they put on their coats and turned up their collars’. Charlwood followed. ‘Outside the night was empty and very dark, the rain heavier. I shuddered and pulled on my coat. As I left the building the last words of the song followed me, as on other nights they had followed men now no longer there. “No moon tonight, no moon tonight.”’7

  The next stop was the crew room where they climbed into their flying gear – layers and layers of it to combat the cold: electrically heated vests, long johns, trousers, roll-neck pullovers, tunics, sheepskin jackets and helmets, fur-lined boots. They collected parachutes, Mae Wests and escape kits containing maps, currency and false ID cards, as well as a few comforts for the trip – Thermos flasks of coffee, sandwiches, barley-sugar sweets and Fry’s chocolate bars. They were ferried to dispersal by lorries or buses. There was time for a last once-over of the aircraft, a final cigarette and perhaps a communal piss against the tail wheel for good luck.

  Even the most rational succumbed to superstition. Panic could ensue if someone arrived at the aircraft to find they had left behind their lucky charm. ‘Luck and a Lancaster were our daily bread,’ wrote Harry Yates. ‘We loved the one and couldn’t expect to live without a large slice of the other. We all carried a keepsake, a sign of our trust worn around the neck or pocketed next to the heart. It could be the ubiquitous rabbit’s foot or a rosary, letter, St Christopher, coin, photograph, playing card . . .’8

  Then they mounted the ladder at the rear of the fuselage and clambered past the many sharp edges of the interior to reach their stations. For many it brought a temporary relief to be in their place, going through familiar routines waiting for the churning of the ignition, the splutter of engines, the cough and bark of the exhaust and the judder of turning propellers. You were shackled to your fate and nothing you could do now could change its course.

  The bombers followed each other around the perimeter track, then onto the designated runway, lumbering down the tarmac until the four engines hauled airborne bomber, bombs and the seven small men inside the fuselage. Always, whatever the weather, a knot of WAAFs and ground crew would be standing at the end, waving them off. After they had formed up and set off over the sea a sort of calm descended. Willie Lewis, a flight engineer, wrote of how the ‘powerful mechanism of the aircraft had overborne [our] individuality and welded it into the machine’.9

  The pitch of the engine notes produced a curious effect, so that some thought they were hearing celestial music. The calm was first broken by the thud of the gunners test-firing their weapons. In his cramped station amidships the wireless operator tuned his set to receive the latest meteorological data on wind direction and speed, while the navigator adjusted his Gee cathode-ray tube to get the best picture.

  Then, from the nose, the bomb aimer was calling ‘Enemy coast ahead!’ and they tensed for the flak rising to meet them from the anti-aircraft ships and batteries below. They were above 5,000 feet now and breathing oxygen, which made a sinister rasping noise as they inhaled and exhaled, an unwelcome reminder of the tenuous mechanics of life.

  By now the Germans were watching, following them on radar from a string of stations stretched the length of the approaches to the Reich. To confuse the Germans, bundles of alumunium foil – ‘Window’ – were shoved through the chute used for dropping flares to swamp the operators’ screens with a cloud of false signals. Once the raid was detected, enemy night-fighters took off to circle a radio beacon and await orders from a central control room. By mid-1943, the Luftwaffe had about 400 of them fitted with short-range radar sets, which, once they were set on the right track, would guide them on their target. They were armed with 20 mm or 30 mm cannon, and some with upward firing guns which allowed them to creep up under the belly of the victim’s plane and fire into the bomb bay, which was packed with incendiaries and high explosive.

  Night-fighters accounted for the majority of Bomber Command’s losses in 1943 and the first six months of 1944, the most dangerous period in the Bomber Boys’ war. In those eighteen months the Luftwaffe destroyed 1,625 Allied aircraft, against 878 shot down by flak, a ratio of two to one.10

  Attacks almost always came without warning. Donald Falgate, a bomb-aimer with 49 Squadron, was peering through his perspex nose-cone on the approach to a raid on Magdeburg when he saw tracer from a night-fighter’s guns floating past.

  ‘He was on to us before we saw him,’ he remembered. ‘He made the first attack from the rear and from above, which was unusual. He’d obviously come upon us quite by mistake. If it was a radar interception, they usually picked up from below.’

  The attacker, a Ju 88, fired a brief burst then broke away, swinging around immediately for a second attempt. He got in too close and the shots went wide. Undeterred, he latched on to the bomber’s tail. The rear-gunner yelled for the captain to ‘corkscrew’. For all its weight and size, the Lancaster was a remarkably nimble aeroplane. A good pilot could send it into a screaming, twisting 300 mph dive then jerk it upwards, a manoeuvre which, with luck, could shake off an attacker. Falgate’s skipper ‘managed to evade him and get into cloud, but it was a very scary time. It wasn’t until we got back to base that we found bullet holes in the fuselage and two huge holes in the mid-upper turret where the shells had gone through. The poor gunner nearly froze to death.’11

  By early 1944 Pathfinders equipped with H2S downward-looking radar were usually at the spearhead of major attacks. They played a variety of roles, dropping Window and using colour-coded pyrotechnics to mark the route, then, once they had reached the target, to light it up and identify the aiming points for the main force squadrons to bomb on as designated.

  The system achieved a grim efficiency. In a typical raid on the Ruhr in late 1944, a stream of 550 bombers could pass through the target area in just fourteen minutes. By this time the erosion of the Luftwaffe’s strength meant that some of the dangers of flying by night to Germany had subsided. In 1943 and early 1944 it was probably the most harrowing and hazardous activity open to any Allied fighting man. In the year from September 1943 a total of 16,483 British and Dominion airmen were killed flying with Bomber Command. Another 2,413 lives were squandered in non-operational accidents.12

  This was the price that was paid for Harris’s stubborn belief that the Germans could be blasted into submission. The policy reached its height – or nadir – with the Battle of Berlin, waged between the end of the summer of 1943 until the end of March 1944. It opened with three attacks in late August and early September. The results were disappointing and the losses sobering. On the first raid, in which 727 aircraft took part, nearly 8 per cent of the force was lost. Most of them were Halifaxes and Stirlings. By the time of the third, only the better-performing Lancasters were sent. Even so, twenty-two of the 316 bomber force were destroyed, a loss rate of 7 per cent.

  Harris waited for the nights to close in before he sent another large force. His pugnacious mind was set on proving the righteousness of his vision, which was now under attack from the Americans, whose strategic preference was for a much more precise choice of targets and in particular the German aircraft industry. In November 1943 Harris promised Churchill that with American help ‘We can wreck Berlin from end to end . . . it will cost between us 400–500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.’13

  In all there were sixteen major attacks on Berlin, as well as an equal number of heavy diversionary raids designed to confuse and divide the defences. It was a dreadful task to set anyone, as Harris himself acknowledged. He wrote afterwards that ‘the whole battle was fought in appalling weather and in conditions resembling those of no other campaign in the history of warfare. Scarcely a single crew caught a single glimpse of the objective they were attacking . . . unbroken cloud . . . concealed everything below it except the confused glare of fires.’14

  Berlin suffered. In the second raid of the winter, 2,000 were killed; 1,500 in the third raid; 4,330 in the fourth. By the end of the sixth raid, a quarter of the city’s housing was unusable. But Berlin is a large place –
‘The Big City’ in crew parlance. Its eighty square miles of brick and stone apartment blocks were spread out between woods and parks, lakes and waterways. There was no tinderbox old town to spark a catastrophic inferno. It was also a long way – an eight-hour round trip, and it was frequently covered by cloud. There was despair, panic, terror in the streets, but nothing like the paralysis that Harris hoped to induce. Many bombs fell in open countryside. The authorities began an evacuation programme and casualties fell. Industry was damaged, but not knocked out.

  The strength of the capital’s defences and the long journey in and out meant Bomber Command’s casualties were high. On the night of 28–29 January, 677 aircraft, most of them Lancasters, raided Berlin. Forty-six of them were shot down by night-fighters over the city. Two nights later another thirty-three were brought down. Harris was now exhibiting the ‘one more push’ mentality that he had derided in the trench generals of the previous war. On 15–16 February he amassed the biggest force so far: 826 aircraft. They dropped 2,642 tons of bombs, another record. Forty-three aircraft were destroyed, but the results seemed hardly to merit the loss. The battle was effectively over, although Harris would not admit defeat until April, when he conceded that the clear conditions needed for good bombing handed an equal advantage to the defenders. In other words, the costs incurred did not match the results.

  As the battle drew to a close another terrible trauma awaited the crews. On the night of 30–31 March 1944 the distant city of Nuremburg was chosen for a full-scale raid. The weather forecast predicting concealing cloud for most of the journey, but clear skies over the town. Then a Meteorological Flight Mosquito returned from a reconnaissance reporting just the opposite: the likelihood was that there would be clear skies en route and poor visibility over the target. These were the worst conditions possible, but the operation nonetheless went ahead. There is a famous photograph of the pre-operational briefing, taken at 51 Squadron’s base at Snaith. Squadron Leader Peter Hill is standing in the aisle, looking confidently ahead as he instructs the crews. In front and behind him, men stare, expressionless, at the board on the platform and the red ribbons stretching far into the heart of Germany. Hill did not return from the trip. Nor did another thirty-four men in the picture.