by Ray Ollis
Nobody whistled; nobody wanted to. Every man sat and gazed sullenly at that vicious, arctic trip of over two-thousand miles return. That’s if anybody did return. Wendy for all her beauty could almost have walked in front of those two hundred young men naked and nobody could have raised a whistle … so preoccupied was every man with the thought of this dreadful trip on this dreadful night.
‘The weather,’ Wendy began, the copper gleam of her eyes flashing around the room, ‘the weather, we are assured, is fair for this difficult target. We are told,’ and she accented ‘told’ as if to imply she had been ordered to agree, ‘that a cold front lies down the Irish Sea. You will take off before it reaches Base.’
‘But the bloody thing’s here now,’ somebody grumbled, and the Wing Commander had to call for silence.
‘This frontal system of severe weather will take eleven hours to pass over England. You could not possibly land during that time; that is why a distant target is considered ideal, so that you will remain airborne the whole duration of bad weather over Base. Behind a cold front, as you know, is much cloud but good visibility. In these patches of good visibility you will land.’
‘I know the only patch we’ll land in. A six-foot one.’
There was another angry murmur from the men and Flight Lieutenant Marshall, the Signals-leader, remarked to the Hon. H-H that he had never seen a squadron so disinclined to fly during his eleven years in the RAF.
The Wingco was again obliged to call for silence. He was to fly this trip himself and it was to his credit that he restrained the men, whose misgivings he must have shared completely, with such military severity.
An intelligence officer entered from the map end of the hut and whispered to the Wing Commander. Every eye watched him.
The Wingco stood, motioned Wendy to stop briefing, and announced: ‘The operation has been cancelled.’
‘Scrubbo!’
‘Trip scrubbed!’
‘Thank Christ!’
‘Scrubbo!’
Every man had heard, yet every man was happily telling his neighbour.
Wendy looked as pleased as the men. Her eyes sought Hyde’s and she wrinkled her nose in a grin. Hyde said to Johnnie: ‘I’m being mothered from a range of thirty feet now.’ It was clear he did not like it.
The flyers were tumbling out of the briefing-room into the squall-driven rain, but now they did not complain. This weather could only wet them now, they did not mind; it was when it could kill them that they hated it.
Whenever a short or easy trip is cancelled, aircrew are often heard to say; ‘I really wanted to fly tonight. Not just because it was an easy target; I really felt like flying.’
When a tough target is scrubbed there is an equally frequent reaction; ‘Let’s get stinko!’ Escape demands celebration and the bar is rushed. Spirits, so low ten minutes before, soared as the men rocked in the crew bus bound for the warm mess with its cheerful fires and cheering bar. More than momentarily, it seemed, morale was high.
Somebody struck up a popular hymn, but these were not words of heavenly praise that the bus-load of young men started singing:
An airman told me before he died,
I have no cause to think he lied,
No matter how he tried and tried
His wife could never be satisfied.
So he built her a …4
There is a sameness about most of the hymns in Ancient and Modern. It might be said that they had ‘one theme’. So was there a sameness about the words these young servicemen sang to many of the hymns, perhaps because they had ‘one theme’ too? As the crew bus rumbled through the village, Ludford Magna’s rustic citizens could be excused for any nostalgic longings they may have nurtured for their pre-war sleepy town.
‘No we come to the tragic bit:
There was no way of stopping it …’
The airman bus driver jammed on the brakes outside the sergeant’s mess and the song was lost in tumbles and grumbles as the standing sergeants fell forward in a blaspheming jumble.
Although Yarpi bought the first round he was still in the chair when Vincent arrived from distant nav section so, despite his wile, Yarpi bought drinks for all.
‘Whacko the scrub, eh?’ Joe greeted Vincent. Having mixed with Australians in Crete Vincent understood, and replied: ‘It’s okay for you blokes. I had almost finished a two thousand mile flight plan.’
‘Eeeh! Well let’s bludy-well fly then, lad.’
‘Can’t waste your flight plan, man.’
‘Let’s not bloody-well fly, eh?’ Vincent smiled.
Joe glanced at Vincent more approvingly. It was the first time Joe remembered having heard Vincent swear, and he drew reassurance from it.
When it fell his turn to buy, Johnnie Muller turned towards Joe and asked: ‘Can you led me a pound, Joe?’
An RAAF flight sergeant, Joe earned twice as much as Johnnie. Johnnie’s pay was a constant problem; he had even asked the Adjutant to investigate if pay section really was entitled to deduct income tax from Germans. He knew Joe paid no income tax. But maybe King’s Regulations had foreseen Australians as Allies and made allowances.
Joe said: ‘Gee, I’m sorry, Johnny; I’m so broke that if Christmas turkeys was fourpence-a-dozen I couldn’t afford a tom-tit’s ear-hole!’
Bill Graham was standing next to them. He slipped a pound into Johnnie’s hand with no more than a finger placed to his lips.
Presently, Dickie Bird strolled over to Vincent and asked to play him table-tennis. Joe leapt at the chance of a contest. ‘For the squadron championship!’ he demanded.
‘I was just thinking of a friendly game.’
‘No sleeping champions here, lad. Defend your title or give it up.’
‘Hey! Just a tick,’ said Vincent. ‘I’m half-stinko.’
‘Half?’ echoed Dickie. ‘I’m three-quarters.’
That was taken as acceptance. Joe announced to the mess (which took little notice but continued on its own noisy way) that this was to be a rubber for the championship, and the game was on.
Despite their protests about drinking, both men seemed very swift of action and keen of eye. Because Vincent was a newcomer most of the spectators favoured Dickie. The Parke crew, however, gave lusty support to Vincent. It was the Parke supporters who cheered most frequently as their entrant steadily drew ahead.
During normal play Vincent and Dickie were closely matched, but each time he took the service Vincent would gain a point. Vincent won the first game and when it fell his service and when he was up 19–16 in the second, the result looked a foregone conclusion.
At 21–17 Joe shouted: ‘The champ! A beer for the new champ!’ and led Vincent triumphantly to the bar.
The cold front of severe weather that was to have taken eleven hours to pass over England in fact moved diagonally down the Channel, finally blowing itself out on the morning of the third day.
The rest had left the aircrew refreshed, so when the Tannoy blared out the special mealtimes for navigators that signalled another operation, there were few complaints. Instead, the expert eyes appraised the clearing skies and most men agreed when Joe said: ‘It should be bang on for dicing tonight.’
The target was Karlsruhe, near the Ruhr. But at least they would be there and back in six hours. By the look of things there would be a good chance of finding the target visually and bombing accurately. That was always gratifying.
‘I don’t so much mind sticking my neck out,’ Bill would say, ‘when I get something good in my bomb-sight and know I’ve pranged it well.’
After the briefing, Flight Lieutenant the Hon. Holbrooke-Hardwicke was surrounded by his brood of Specials in a more excited mood than usual. Clear skies meant a busy night for fighters.
‘Sir,’ one of the Specials called, ‘I can never think of anything to say except ‘fly such-and-such a course.’ It sometimes sounds unconvincing. What else could I say?’
‘Say any jolly thing you like,’ said H-H.
‘
But what, sir?’
‘Well, any dashed thing. If you don’t want to give an actual course just say, er, ‘Fly north and await instructions.’
‘And what will I say?’
‘The same, if you like.’
‘And me, sir?’
‘And I, sir?’
Again H-H cursed the day he had volunteered the information that he had spent his youth in Germany and spoke German perfectly. No Continental, he was sure, would think for himself if he could find an officer to think for him. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, all say it,’ he said curtly. ‘Everybody. Just keep repeating ‘Fly north and await instructions.’’
Johnnie tried the phrase in English, then in German. He liked the ring of it.
With the exception of Vincent who was finishing his flight plan, the crew arrived early at the aircraft. It was not yet dark and they lolled around happily, enjoying the evening quiet. Hyde passed around the cigarettes, carefully including the ground-crew whose work was so vital and whose approval he always strove to win.
Hyde was surprised, though, that Joe refused. He noticed, too, as Joe wandered away from the group towards the mechanic’s hut, that his usual exuberance was gone. After lighting the cigarettes all round, Hyde walked over behind the hut where Joe had disappeared.
Joe was leaning on his arm against the hut, vomiting violently. Hyde placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. ‘What’s up, Joe?’
‘Nothing,’ said Joe, averting his ashen face and watering eyes. ‘Just a bit crook in the guts.’
‘Sure it’s only biliousness?’ Hyde translated the lurid Australianism.
‘Quite sure,’ said Joe, ‘I’ll be okay in a minute. It always goes as soon as I get in the air.’
‘You’ve had it before, then?’
Joe had not expected that. But he forced a wide smile. He really did seem to be recovering. ‘Yeah. I’ve had it for years.’
Hyde did not believe that, but he could hardly say so. ‘Certain you’re fit to fly?’ he asked.
‘Quite certain. I tell you it’s all right as soon as I’m airborne.’
By the time the two men had walked back to the group Joe seemed almost recovered. ‘I’ll have that smoke now if I may, mate,’ he said. Either he really was better or he was making a terrific effort to appear so.5
Vincent arrived, weighted down as usual with equipment. As he tossed his nav-bag on the ground, Hyde noticed the contents included gauntlets.
‘Hey, Bill, Joe!’ called Vincent. ‘Spare a minute?’ Vincent brought out his chart and maps and pointed. ‘There are four pinpoints I’d like to get. If either of you see them let me know. On the coast-in here … on the bend of this river; should be easy, that bridge will be up-moon … this railway junction at the bridge here … and this town; you can’t miss those canals. I’ve written down on these two pieces of paper our approximate times over each point. If you could find those for me we’ll be bang on.’
‘Okay, Vin,’ said Joe. ‘And if I’ve got a minute I’ll scout around for a few fighters, too.’
It was a fair retort. Every member of aircrew feels that the whole aircraft is there to further his own particular job. In a way, that is. That is how eight men become one crew.
Further around the airfield an engine started. ‘Let’s go,’ said Hyde.
Daylight still lingered. Aircraft taxied quickly into position and took off close to each other’s heels.
‘Pity it isn’t a little lighter,’ Hyde thought. ‘I could’ve taken off to the mess.’ It was squadron practice, a sort of game, to do a flashy take-off or landing to the audience in the mess whenever daylight allowed the audience to see. However, with anything up to eight tons of bombs on board and the same weight of petrol, the flashiness was seldom flamboyant.
Hyde recalled the cat-calls and cracks after his last daylight take-off. Tied to the tall XYZ aerial of Q-Queenie had fluttered a pair of scarlet-dyed Waaf-issue bloomers known to Waafs (and, it must be admitted, to airmen) as ‘romance wreckers’.
‘I wonder what happened to those romance wreckers?’ thought Hyde. ‘Probably blew down into Germany where some fat old Frau is wearing them now. Well, if she lives in Karlsruhe, she’ll have to wash ’em tomorrow by the look of this weather.’
As they lumbered, heavy-laden, into the air Hyde’s eyes approved the clear horizons and bright skies. This trip should be fun.
As usual with a dusk take-off they were to cross the coast-in at low level. Sunset occurs later at altitude than on the ground directly below. Twenty thousand feet up, the flyer can peep over the rim of the earth and see the sun almost half-an-hour after the rays have deserted the groundlings beneath him. Even flying low, in the shadow, it seemed to Hyde that the enemy coast would catch them still visible in the dusk.
But men who plan RAF attacks do not make such mistakes. They flew into the night a meagre minute before the shores of France rushed under their bomb-crammed belly. Once into France their climb to height began: a dragging, clawing climb four miles into the sky. Hyde knew Q-Queenie well. He had flown her often and she had never let him down. Now he eased her up and up, aimed at a star, and she rode it like a lifeboat rides rough seas; fighting, straining, shuddering, but never for a moment anything but absolute master of her element.
As they rose from the cover of coastal hills, German radar started to pick them out. Johnnie made his first contact and promptly ordered; ‘Fly north and await instructions.’
The flak started. Light stuff. Until an aircraft is at height the big anti-aircraft guns cannot train on it accurately. The more manoeuvrable light guns, however, are effective up to eleven thousand feet. The bombers were still well below that, and the light guns sprayed the skies with a dazzling pattern of criss-crossing tracer.6 But the risk of light flak seemed worth the entertainment. Shells fired upwards spiral forward as if following a fine-spun corkscrew. This dainty pattern of light is seen nowhere to better advantage than from an aircraft towards which the shells are travelling. The flyers, light-hearted in the face of this paltry opposition, watched the vivid counterplay of streaking lights with delight.
Then, suddenly, the ground below seemed to erupt in a chain of great explosions. Nine distinct blasts in a straight line: eight big and one very big. Q-Queenie rocked as the shock-wave hit her. ‘That was a bomb-load,’ announced Bill. ‘Eight thousand-pounders and one four-thousand-pound cookie. Jettisoned!’
‘Hell!’ said Joe. ‘Is that what we drop? I’m glad we’re flying. It must be dangerous down there.’
Turning away from the bomber stream with both port engines ablaze, the Lancaster that had jettisoned its bombload was struggling to maintain height. Westward they flew, visible as twin flying fires, back into the tracer that had wounded them.
‘With luck they’ll make it,’ said Hyde, ‘provided a fighter doesn’t jump them. How is fighter activity, Special?’
‘Fairly brisk, Skip,’ said Johnnie, ‘but I’m telling them all to fly north.’
It had grown quiet. The light flak faded behind. At operational height the bombers were quickly covering the miles to the target. ‘Skipper to gunners. Seen any combats?’
‘Nothing, skip.’
Nobody liked to tempt Fate by speaking his thoughts on the subject, but everyone was thinking the same thing: there should be more fighters on a bright night like this.
The bomber stream seemed well concentrated. Joe and Bill found Vincent’s pinpoints. The usual flak, wide to left and right, punishing planes which strayed off track, did not appear. The miles sped back below them; Karlsruhe was at hand. Still the lack of those tell-tale bursts of horizontal tracer revealed the absence of fighters.
‘Five minutes to TOT,’ said Vincent.
The flak started coming up dead ahead.
‘I’ve got it!’, Bill announced excitedly. ‘I can see it perfectly. Oh, wizard! Left, left, Skipper. Steadee …’
The attack opened dead on time. The sky was filling with flak but the flyers, intent only on this vulnerabl
e target, were not diverted.
‘Right a bit. Steady, steady. Right-right steady.’
Bill was excited but calm; his voice told of a Karlsruhe square in his sights. ‘Steady, steady, steadee …’
‘It’s as slow as this at two hundred and fifty mph. My heart’s knocking chips off my ribs’, thought Joe.
‘Bombs away!’
Q-Queenie shuddered rhythmically as the nine heavy weights dropped away one after the other, then lurched upwards as her sudden lightness gave her extra lift. Hyde re-adjusted trim and Queenie was in level flight again.
The attack was absolutely copybook. Every bomb-aimer was locating the target and every bombload was hitting its mark. String after string of close-knit explosions sprinkled across the wretched city. The flak was getting erratic: ‘Bombed off a good length,’ as Joe put it. Fires had started and were spreading as hurtling explosions flung burning masonry high and wide.
And still the fighters did not appear.
‘Absolutely bang on,’ said Hyde.
‘Wizard prang!’
‘Poor bastards!’ Even as they bombed some airmen could feel pity.
‘She’ll never get ’em clean,’ laughed Hyde.
‘What’s that, skip?’
‘Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.’
They left the target searchlights and burrowed into the night, diving away from danger for home. It was all Joe could do not to spoil his night-vision by staring at the flaming mass that was central Karlsruhe.
‘We won’t have to bomb Karlsruhe again.’
‘I’ll bet they’ll be glad to hear that.’
‘Last time I operated here,’ announced Hyde, strangely talkative, ‘we dropped leaflets. Each one had written on it in German, ‘This might have been a bomb.’’
‘You dropped only leaflets?’
‘Well, in theory, yes. But in fact I brought along a ginormous housebrick, wrote on it in German, ‘This might have been a leaflet’, and tossed that out.’
Before they could laugh they were snapped back to the present. ‘Mid-upper to rear-gunner. Can you see anything dead behind, up fifteen?’
‘It’s a Stirling.’7 Joe’s prompt identification showed he had seen it before; a friendly bomber.