101 Nights

by Ray Ollis

Manston was specially equipped: squads of ambulances, fire engines, crash crews and bulldozers there could handle a crash a minute.10 Vincent’s graph showed that in one hour they should be over a point north of Wiesbaden at 11,200 feet.

  In fact, they reached it a few minutes late and by then they had fallen to 6,500 feet.

  ‘Do you want a course for Juvincourt, skip?’, asked Vincent. ‘Champagne sells for eight bob a bottle and we could be in Rheims tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d rather make Manston, nav. Better hospital there in case Snow’s alive. We’ll be right if the port outer holds.’

  After two hours they should have been almost to Brussels and at 7,100 feet. But the port outer cracked. Temperature and oil pressure went simultaneously and Magnetic and Jackal feathered just in time. They flew past Brussels 4,600 feet below schedule height and sixteen minutes behind time.

  ‘Shall I switch the IFF on to ‘Distress’?,’ asked Vincent.

  ‘Might as well, nav,’ said Jackal. ‘If we’re going to ditch we might as well have them ready for us.’

  IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) was an automatic SOS radio. Once on ‘distress’ it would be picked up and followed by the RAF rescue teams.

  M-Mother was now flying only on her starboard inner. On one-quarter power she was limping home; slow, tired and dangerously low. Fortunately she was as light as possible: the bombs were gone and most of her petrol was used. Jackal did not agree with throwing guns and gear overboard; those few pounds made no real difference to the weight of a huge aircraft. Everything depended on that one Rolls-Royce Merlin.11

  Their rate of descent had been terrifyingly steep at first, but as they fell into heavier air their fall decreased. At Wiesbaden they had been 4,800 feet below schedule. At Brussels they were 4,600 feet below schedule. At the coast of Belgium they were 1,800 feet below schedule.

  But Vincent’s schedule was only 2,700 feet.

  They slid out over the sea at 900 feet.

  This was the tricky stretch. Sixty miles of freezing sea. There was nothing they could do but wait. They simply looked at that starboard inner and prayed it would hold. It showed no sign of going wrong. Every note was correct; every gauge read perfection. Still it could not keep them at height.

  Gradually, foot by painful foot, M-Mother was sinking toward the waves. That engine had to last another twenty-five minutes, that was all. It had flown hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of miles. Now it had to last a little longer: just half of one hour, another fifty-odd miles.

  They were at 350 feet when they saw the coast. Manston was lit, waiting for them. While they had watched that starboard inner, hoping helplessly, a hundred faces on shore had tracked them across the channel.

  ‘It’s happening as you see it in the films’, thought Krink. ‘A scene of the aircraft skimming the water. A scene of the crew watching, praying. Then a flash to rescue control, with worried friends watching the plot. All it needed was a girlfriend in air-sea rescue and this was the peak of a dozen scenarios; a chance for some wizard silent acting. All the actors a-tip-toe with the audience, were dreading the splutter that would spell disaster by just a shrinking gap of water.’

  They came over Manston at 200 feet. ‘Liedown-Mother on one,’ said Jackal. ‘Wounded on board. Request emergency landing.’

  Control answered, ‘Roger Liedown-Mother. Standing by. You may pancake.’

  The Manston runway is huge; Tiger Moths can take off across its width without leaving the tarmac.

  But Jackal could not manoeuvre, he had to land the way he was heading.

  M-Mother was off the runway and bumping on turf when she finally stopped.

  As he cut that one wonderful engine, Jackal spoke a line that was often quoted thereafter; ‘I have two firm friends: Mr Rolls and Mr Royce.’12

  The doctor said that Snow was dead. ‘He died almost instantly. Shock. His wounds are frightening but they shouldn’t have killed him.’

  All the crew suffered shock.

  For the first time, Joe had been sick in the air. Yarpi was pale and shaken. Jackal was cursing the dentist. In the midst of their combat he had been attacked with toothache.

  Least upset was Pussy Newman. But he had only recently started flying. This was his first dicey do and the effect of such experiences is cumulative.13

  The crew waited at Manston so as to bring both the patched M-Mother and their dead comrade back to Ludford. Pussy was horrified at the sight of Snow’s beard. He had never seen a corpse before and did not know that human hair grows many days after death.14

  Joe could no longer keep his illness a secret. The MO at Manston had questioned him at length, and impressed on him that he must report sick as soon as he returned to base. Joe was embarrassed by this spotlight on his weakness and reverted to Australian vernacular to cover his blushes. ‘Dicken a bloke didn’t feel much of a grouse old galah,’ he said.15

  Jackal reported his return of altitude toothache.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s really been happening,’ the dentist said. ‘You have had an altitude toothache once and once only. That was the first time you got it during training. But your subconscious mind associated toothache with altitude and there began your trouble. Right. When you started flying ops again after a long rest your subconscious was upset about it. Our subconscious mind wants to make cowards of us all. So it tried to give you toothache so severe that you wouldn’t be able to concentrate on flying. I thought this was so the first time you came to see me. But I still took the tooth out because that was the best form of psychological treatment. If you remember, I also gave you a long speech of why this would cure it. All psychiatric suggestion. When it happened a second time I knew it was psychological but I still thought the subconscious might respond to physical treatment so I extracted that one, too. It is possible that, in time, this method might cure you.’

  He smiled. ‘But you may not have enough teeth to finish the treatment. Now you have shown me which tooth you want extracted this time I must refuse. You have terrible teeth. As a dentist I assure you they are dreadful. But amidst this rubbish is one fine, flawless, perfect tooth and this is the one you want me to extract.16

  ‘Instead, I want you to do this. Recall the trips when you have had toothache. They’ve been the tough trips; the times you were worried, yes? Well, that proves that it’s psychological. Were it physical, you’d always get it at exactly the same altitude. But this time you got it when you were actually going down. Impossible. So when it happens again, if it does, just say to yourself; ‘I have not got toothache, it is imagination’, and you’ll find it will go away.’

  ‘Might it be a similar thing that makes my rear gunner sick?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘But the MO has dismissed natural medical grounds as a cause and wants to reclassify him LMF.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I shall be in trouble with the MO. Don’t tell the MO I suggested it, then, but advise your gunner to appeal to the Senior Base MO straight away. If it has a psychological origin, they’ll find it.’

  They were given a rest before they flew again. When they returned to duty a new bomb aimer and a new rear gunner awaited them. They were both Londoners who had flown together before. Bomb aimer Bob Kellogg was a huge boy, over six feet tall, fifteen stone and shapeless, with black hair, a round face and a delightful voice.

  Bob had more nicknames than any other man on the squadron; Corn Flakes; Crispie; Snap, Crackle or Pop; Dog’s Breakfast; All Bran: Bob answered to them all, but the most popular one was Roughage. His girlfriend was known as Regular, and everywhere they went they were greeted by cries of; ‘Keep Regular with Kellogg Roughage!’

  Their new rear gunner was a cockney named Ray Payne. He was slight and nimble with bright black eyes and a flashing smile. Payne wore a DFM, won during his first tour. Both newcomers were Pilot Officers so that Yarpi became the only non-commissioned member of the crew.

  They were named ‘the dice crew’ almost immediately. Between them they had certainly
survived more than their share of dicey-do’s. Bob, Vincent and Ray had baled out and wore golden caterpillars. Everybody but Pussy Newman had been shot down at least once, Bob and Ray had been shot down twice and Vincent four times. They once worked out that, between them all, they had written off over twenty aircraft worth almost a million pounds.

  Their first target was Tomaszow in Poland. The story was that, under political pressure, the RAF had been committed to give close support to the Russian army.

  ‘’Ere!’, said Ray. ‘Wot do they mean ‘close’ support? Russia ain’t close, it’s two farsand bleedin’ miles away!’

  The target was a bridge seventeen miles from the Russian front. To fly to Poland and back would leave very little weight for bombs, so the authorities suggested going on to land in Russia after bombing Tomaszow, then reloading and bombing another target for the Russians en route home. The Russians replied; ‘We can’t spare the petrol.’

  It was a disappointing answer but not altogether unreasonable. To fuel five hundred bombers for the return trip would take over a million gallons of petrol. Perhaps it genuinely was more than the Russians could spare.

  So the RAF had to plan it differently. Navigation was the main problem. Poland was far beyond Gee range. H2S would be effective but not all aircraft had it and up-to-date maps of Poland were not available even for those who had H2S. They could not afford to waste petrol searching for the target, so they asked the Russians to send out one aircraft a few minutes before TOT to drop a flare over the bridge.

  And the Russians replied; ‘We can’t spare the petrol.’

  Britain could spare 500 bombers and 3,500 valuable men and £2,500,000 worth of bombs, but Russia could not send one small plane seventeen miles!

  Nobody was very surprised. Any man who was obliged to deal directly with Russians knew how infuriatingly unco-operative they always were. Even, as in this case, when you were trying to help them.

  ‘They were not only unco-operative,’ said the intelligence officer, ‘they were downright hostile. They seemed to be thinking: ‘You’ve promised to fly this raid and we’re going to make you keep that promise. We don’t intend to help you. One of these days we’re going to fight you, and the more British airmen who are killed now the less we’ll have to kill then.’

  Krink summed up squadron feelings when he said; ‘We might as well fly the few extra miles and bomb Moscow straight away. We’ve got the power to do it, now. It’ll save a lot of trouble later on.’17

  They all resented the prospect of this dreadful, useless, wasted trip. With heavy hearts they walked out to their aircraft.

  Jackal had gone out early to see if he had left his helmet in his cockpit after their morning air test. As he climbed into M-Mother, he heard a noise up forward. Looking up quickly, he saw Yarpi in the cabin. The covers were off the magneto switches.

  Yarpi spun around. His eyes were frightened. He stood, trembling, a screwdriver in one hand and a spanner in the other.

  ‘Were you tinkering with those switches?’

  Yarpi did not speak. He looked wild-eyed at Jackal and his moist mouth quivered.

  ‘You’ve disconnected those wires,’ Jackal said. ‘I can see them from here.’

  And he added, incredulously, ‘That’s sabotage!’

  ‘Yes,’ screamed Yarpi suddenly. ‘It’s sabotage!’ He turned back and started pounding the instrument panel wildly, plunging the screwdriver through dials. He smashed the rows of switches with the spanner, screaming, ‘Sabotage! It’s sabotage! It’s always been sabotage and it’s always been me! Not Schydt but me!’

  Yarpi hit the heavy windscreen so hard it cracked. He struck it again, furiously, and then again, enraged because it would not break.

  ‘I’m glad you caught me,’ he screamed. ‘Now you can gaol me or shoot me. But I won’t have to fly. I won’t get burned again or hear my friends get killed.’

  Jackal restrained him. Yarpi offered no opposition and started to blubber. ‘What do they expect? I can’t stand it. Long ago I had a fit. I could have been grounded then. But I flew on. Really, I’ve been brave.’

  He whined miserably, tears lining his pathetic, exhausted little face.

  ‘Yes, Yarpi,’ said Jackal, leading him away. ‘Really, you’ve been brave.’

  — 6 —

  The Specials’ section was delighted. It had been decided that Specials could fly on all raids, including daylights. It had been argued, previously, that Specials were only needed to jam night-fighter messages. Now it was agreed that most daylight raids were close support against the German army who used radio, and that army messages could be jammed while the force flew over the front in the same way 101 had jammed them on D-Day.

  Almost immediately they were given a daylight raid on Essen. Met had forecast cloud and light winds over the Ruhr so PFF used a new technique. Aircraft equipped with H2S sets which enabled targets to be bombed accurately through cloud released, not candle bombs, but coloured parachute flares at the point at cloud-top where bombs to hit the target should reach the clouds.

  Bombs aimed accurately at the floating flares should land just as accurately as if they had been aimed at markers on the ground. True, the flare would slowly drift off the target, but each flare only lasted a short while. Target flares would be constantly renewed and the master bomber would order by radio which flare was currently accurate and was to be used for aiming. Any sceptic who thought the ruse inaccurate was soon silenced by the results.1

  Cloud-top was a little higher than forecast, at 8,500 feet. If this attack missed the target it would be an expensive failure; more than a thousand heavies were engaged. Opposition was not inconsiderable even for the Ruhr, but German fighters seldom managed to burst through the RAF fighter cover.

  The bombers found it frankly dull. All that was to be seen of the target was a green or red flare floating beneath a tiny parachute, above a passive, dead calm ocean of cloud.

  Then suddenly the cloud shook, and rapid ripples destroyed its calm, like the smashing of clear reflections when a trout jumps from a placid pool.

  Instantly every bomber in the force was shaken by a blast-wave from some mighty, as yet unseen, explosion. And then, as they looked down a little fearfully, they saw the cloud-top open in a mighty billow. That endless cloud, almost two miles high, was broken open and flung aside by the flame and force of the greatest explosion that any of them had ever seen. A mushroom of smoke poured up through the cloud and, curling and rumbling, rose to the height of the bombers themselves, telling its terrible story of destruction.

  In awe, that mighty bomber force turned for home, a little fearful of what they had done.

  At debriefing, Vincent was talking with Krink and Magnetic when Johnnie Muller drew them aside.

  ‘You saw that great explosion?’, he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘My bomb!’, said Johnnie.

  In undiminished hate of Nazis, Johnnie still dropped his eleven and a half pound bomb every trip.

  That night’s newspapers told the story:

  ‘After the biggest of all daylight raids, by a force of well over a thousand RAF heavy bombers, Essen is tonight a city of fires and smoking ruins. This mighty blow by a mixed force of our heaviest bombers, which dropped between four and five thousand tons in half an hour, brings the total on Essen during the war to over 35,000 tons. The 450 square miles of the Ruhr contain not a single town of any industrial importance and not a single major factory of any value. It has been devastated beyond recognition.’2

  The flyers were happy. The RAF had flown the ‘biggest of all daylight raids’. They had led the way in the air, and now that changed conditions made the tactics wiser, they had outdone the Americans at their own game.

  But a little of the Specials’ elation had gone. Two 101 aircraft were missing. Two Specials who would have been in the mess tonight had they not started flying daylights.

  Altogether, war in the air was not becoming as easy as most of them had hoped.
Losses generally hovered between two and four percent. It was better than the old days, much better; and now that they were flying so successfully it seemed more justified. But a tour had been increased from thirty to thirty-six trips.

  In thirty-six trips at three percent losses, a crew had a 108 percent chance of being killed in one tour.

  Some men on the squadron had flown over sixty trips, but the experienced flyers flew better and were safer. More flyers were lost on their first six trips than at any other stage of their flying. Until then, they lacked the experience that training cannot teach. War itself is the final schooling. After five trips a keen crew are alert to most of the enemy’s tricks. They have learnt not to gawk in wonder at what goes on around them but to recognise each event for what it is and, if necessary, get out of the way of trouble.3

  But even the best crews could be unlucky. In fact, good crews could even be murdered.

  The target was Wanne Eickel, Eastern Ruhr. It was a daylight attack.4

  The Squadron Commander was flying S-Sugar, one of those fantastic aircraft that never die. She had passed the hundred trips mark, more than twice as many operations as any other aircraft on the squadron, and still she flew and always came back. She had just been in for a ‘major’—a complete overhaul. She had four new engines, all American Merlins, for Rolls-Royce could no longer meet the demand for these engines and had supplied the blueprints to the United States.

  Taking off for Wanne Eickel, S-Sugar lost her starboard inner. To ‘go round on three’ was not particularly healthy, but it had often been done before. They set course a few minutes early hoping, at reduced speed, to start ahead of the main force and still be with them at the target.

  Somewhere over France another engine had to be feathered. Valiant S-Sugar flew on with two engines, dropping back further and further.

  They watched her, a mile or so behind, plugging on to the target.

  Foolish? If it were foolish then World War II was won by fools. Bomber Command did not turn back. S-Sugar had bombed a hundred times and she would bomb again. That was the spirit which drove her.