Lancaster Men

by Peter Rees

  Kaufmann, who had served five years with the RAF since joining a short-term commission from 1936, had established good contacts in England. He got in touch with an officer he knew in the Air Ministry and said 460 Squadron would not accept the Halifaxes and that he wanted to refer the issue to Air Vice-Marshal Henry Wrigley at Overseas Headquarters in London. Although the officer opposed this, he agreed that Kaufmann could contact the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) No. 1 Group, to which the squadron was attached. In the meeting with Air Vice-Marshal Robert Oxland that followed, Kaufmann requested that the squadron be given Lancasters instead of Halifaxes but was told there were not enough Lancasters to go around. Kaufmann refused to accept this. ‘I said, “Sir, would you mind if I took this matter up with the Australian Air Force Headquarters in London because I feel that we are an Australian squadron operating with the Royal Air Force . . . and I think that we shouldn’t subject our Australian aircrew to flying in aircraft that are not capable of doing the job and, in fact, are killing us.”’ Oxland said, ‘Oh, no, Kaufmann, leave it with me.’ Ten days later, he phoned to inform Kaufmann that 460 Squadron had got its Lancasters—as had the whole of 1 Group.

  Peter Isaacson had been among those preparing for the switch to Halifaxes. He had a high regard for Keith Kaufmann, but was unaware of his commanding officer’s machinations to replace the squadron’s Halifaxes with Lancasters. With the Halifaxes withdrawn before he flew them operationally, Peter was pleased to move straight into Lancasters. He and his crew made their first Lancaster raid on the night of 28–29 November 1942, when, along with 227 other aircraft, they headed for the Italian industrial centre of Turin, about eight and a half hours from southern England. The target was the Fiat automotive works. Peter wrote home that crossing the Alps by moonlight was a glorious sight.

  Flying as we were only about a thousand feet above the peaks, we could see all the crevasses and ridges covered with snow. Gosh, they looked grim—no place for a forced landing. Mont Blanc, which seemed to be just off our wing tip, was almost free of snow, its top standing out like a bald man’s head (sorry Pop). The whole trip across was most inspiring. I’d like to do it by daylight. Maybe I will some day. The Italian defences were rather weak and didn’t worry us in the least. We saw one fighter and managed to evade him successfully.

  Also on the raid was Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton, who was flying a Stirling. A twenty-six-year-old from central western New South Wales, he had been educated at Dubbo High School and had worked as a jackaroo before enlisting in the RAAF on 14 October 1940. Known variously as Ron and Rawd, he was quiet and a little moody, with a strong streak of honest determination. Arriving in Britain in September 1941, he was soon promoted to flight sergeant and posted to 149 Squadron RAF in February 1942. After gaining experience as a second pilot in Stirling bombers, he became a first pilot and captain five months later. By 28 November, he had completed twenty-eight sorties. Three of his crew had already flown their tour quota of thirty ops and could have left, but they decided to stay out of loyalty to Ron.

  Flying Stirling ‘H for Harry’, they set out for Turin. The flight did not go well. They began to experience mechanical problems and struggled to climb to 12,000 feet to cross the Alps in darkness that left the mountain peaks almost invisible. With barely sufficient fuel for the return journey, Middleton decided to press on. Sighting flares ahead at Turin, he dived to 2000 feet and flew over the city three times before identifying the target. But as he did so, the Stirling came under fire from light anti-aircraft guns, which blew a large hole in the port wing. As Ron struggled with the lateral controls, a shell burst in the cockpit, shattering the windscreen and wounding both pilots. A piece of shell splinter tore into the side of Ron’s face, knocking him out, shattering his right eye, and probably wounding his body or legs. The second pilot was bleeding profusely from similar wounds, while the wireless operator was also wounded in the leg.

  With Ron unconscious, the aircraft plunged to 800 feet before the second pilot regained control. Taking it to 1500 feet, he released the bombs amid intense flak, while the three gunners fired furiously until the rear turret was put out of action. At this point Ron regained consciousness. By now clear of the target, he ordered the second pilot back to receive first aid. But knowing that Ron could hardly see, was bleeding badly and found speaking excruciatingly painful, the second pilot returned before the treatment was completed.

  The navigator plotted the course for home, but crossing the Alps again presented a challenge. Despite the severe damage to the aircraft, Ron rejected the options of flying to Africa or bailing out over occupied France. Putting the crew first, he insisted on returning to England. Ron was in agony during the four-hour flight. With sufficient fuel for only five minutes’ flying and wanting to avoid crashing into a populated area, Ron ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft over the English coast. Five of the crew jumped out and survived. The front gunner and flight engineer chose to stay and assist Ron as he took the plane back out over water. Not long after, it crashed into the sea. The two crewmen scrambled out but drowned. Their bodies were recovered the next day. Ron was unable to get out and died in ‘H for Harry’.

  His heroism was saluted with the first Victoria Cross awarded to a member of the RAAF in the war. His citation read:

  Flight Sergeant Middleton was determined to attack the target regardless of the consequences and not to allow his crew to fall into enemy hands. While all the crew displayed heroism of a high order, the urge to do so came from Flight Sergeant Middleton, whose fortitude and strength of will made possible completion of the mission. His devotion to duty in the face of overwhelming odds is unsurpassed in the annals of the Royal Air Force.

  Back in Australia, his father said, ‘My son did his duty.’

  Ron’s body washed ashore near Dover, in February 1943, and a funeral with full Air Force honours was arranged. Among those who attended the funeral was thirty-four-year-old nursing sister Doris (Dee) Walsh, from Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. She had been working as a nurse in England since 1937, and as the war went on, she and her flatmates, who were also nurses, kept an open house for lonely Australian and other Dominion Army and Air Force boys in London on short leave. Dee was named as next of kin by several of the Australians scattered among British squadrons. Dee knew Ron, and she and her flatmates were ‘very upset at the heroic story’ of his death. She wrote home:

  . . . when I think of what he went thro’ on that awful journey back from Turin, with his injuries and pain, I just die inside, bless him—such a story of valiant and enduring courage one will never know again—and in many ways, knowing how he was injured, after the first shock—I was glad he went into the sea with his beloved Stirling—H. for Harry—then we were appalled when we heard the news he’d been found on Dover Beach and it all came back again.

  The RAF had asked Dee and her friend, Mary, to attend the funeral, as they ‘specially wanted someone who knew him to be present to make it more personal and not seem so far from home . . . You can imagine how we felt and quite frankly, I didn’t think I could do it—but I worked it all out,’ she wrote. ‘The RAF were wonderful, met us with a car [and] had everything arranged and took us at once to the Chapel at the [RAF] Station where the Service was held. My knees could scarcely hold me up, but as I got out of the car I saw all the boys, the RAAF—all pilots—volunteers, 50 of them outside and at once I felt a bit better.’

  Dee took with her a sprig of wattle specially grown in London.

  I felt I must take some up to Rawd. So I carried it in my outside hand so the boys would see it and be cheered up too. Inside the wee Chapel was a most moving and impressive scene—but somehow, the moment I went in I felt better—I just felt it wasn’t Rawd there at all—just like something I was looking at from a very far distance. I only had one moment of despair and that was when I saw his cap on the top of the flag—’cause suddenly I remembered how his hair used to stick up a little at the back, bless him. Then so many people came in—all the RAAF bi
g shots and RAF—and the aircrew lads from 149th Sqdn. had taken over the Guard at each corner of Rawd.

  An Australian chaplain conducted the service, after which they followed the RAF lorry carrying his body to the ‘wee old-fashioned little English churchyard where he was buried’. Dee thought the RAAF boys looked wonderful slow-marching ‘as perfectly as guardsmen who have done it daily. Never have I been so proud of my Aussies,’ she wrote. The RAAF stood on each side of the grave as a volley was fired and the Last Post played. ‘Then I put my wattle in with Rawd and that was the end.’ For Dee, it was ‘a grim and desolate day and until I die I shall never forget the sound of the volley being fired’.

  She went back to London on a train, ‘bulging with Australians bless them’. The Officer in Charge sat with her and talked of ‘how thrilled the boys were when they knew they were to go to Rawdon Middleton’s funeral’. They knew it was a great honour to farewell an Australian hero. His death devastated his mother, who wrote to Dee a few months later. ‘Dear old Rawd—I’ve just had a lovely letter and portrait of him from Mrs Middleton—she is heartbroken.’

  By now, Hadge McPherson at 77 Squadron RAF was starting to come to terms with such experiences. He wrote home about an op to Lorient, in north-western France, on 13 February 1943, where ‘the fires and explosions were really terrific’.

  Just as we were leaving the target area we were caught in searchlights and talk about fun, they threw everything up at us and all around my turret there was red and green tracer whizzing up past me. Honestly I was expecting to collect one any moment, it’s such a strange sensation, you don’t realise that they can do any harm to you, they just seem to float past, all very fascinating, but [pilot Jack Rank] really threw the big kite around, he dived, turned in fact I think he nearly looped once and still we couldn’t get rid of the stuff. It was only when we were out of range that they stopped and we all heaved a sigh of relief. In the middle of it all something exploded right under us and lifted the kite but fortunately didn’t do any damage. All the time this was happening I was trying to think of a decent prayer to say but all I could think of was, ‘For what we are about to receive’, so I gave up and left it all to Jack, who can really throw the old kite around.

  When they got back, a couple of the other crews told them about a bomber that had been caught in the searchlights and had hell belted out of it. Hadge and the rest of the crew laughed at their luck. For many, it was the only way to cope.

  6

  COLD, GUT-WRENCHING FEAR

  Air Vice-Marshal Henry Wrigley, the Air Officer Commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters at Kodak House in London, had a ticklish job when he greeted Rollo Kingsford-Smith in a city blacked out for fear of German attacks. London was full of servicemen on leave, and servicewomen too. Normally, sergeants or pilot officers met aircrew arrivals, but as a squadron leader, Rollo was given the honour of being welcomed to England by the RAAF’s senior officer for Europe and the Middle East.

  Wrigley was a decorated First World War veteran from the Australian Flying Corps who had flown over the Western Front. He was popular with the thousands of Australian airmen who passed through London during the war. He did not pull rank and was known to take off his jacket and tend bar at Codgers, the headquarters watering hole. An Australian airman explained the respect for Wrigley:

  In 1943 and 1944 under Air Vice-Marshal Wrigley we got tremendous service. I was in North Africa, Italy, Sardinia, Corsica and then back in the United Kingdom. We got our mail, we got our comforts and we got tremendous service. Not only that, when some cow went and pinched 100 quid from me when I was on leave in London, the next day, with a shaking hand, I was able to sign for another 100 quid and have a good time.

  Wrigley was gregarious and liked good company. A future RAAF Air Commodore, Group Captain Keith Parsons, who would become Commanding Officer of the Binbrook Station where 460 Squadron was based, later recalled Wrigley’s friendship with a barmaid named Eve:

  When I went to London I had to go and brief old Wrig. He was always late getting back from Eve’s [pub]. The pubs closed at two o’clock [in the afternoon] and didn’t open until five. But Wrig didn’t seem to get back from Eve’s until about four o’clock. Eve was a very attractive woman and everybody over there knew that old Wrig had a very nice little set-up. Wrig was a good man to work with.

  As well as being responsible for looking after the interests of RAAF aircrew stationed in Europe and the Middle East, Wrigley also liaised between the British Air Ministry and the Australian government regarding technical developments, relayed information on the war in the Pacific, and negotiated revisions to the terms of the Empire Air Training Scheme. He had little influence over the deployment of Australian personnel, who were subject to RAF policy and strategy even when they belonged to RAAF squadrons. The Australian air-war historian John Herrington commented that Wrigley and his predecessors could hardly do more than ‘retard the centrifugal forces affecting Australian disposition, and repair the worst administrative difficulties arising from wide dispersion’.

  Nonetheless, Wrigley had argued for, and won in March 1943, amendments to the original Empire Air Training Scheme agreement. This finally guaranteed that Australia’s airmen would be concentrated in RAAF squadrons rather than dispersed among RAF units, and that Australian staff should have reasonable prospects of promotion and receive pay and conditions according to RAAF stipulations. However, according to the historian, ‘for the most part Australia was still left chasing a dream rather than a reality’, as many clauses in the agreement were ‘subject to operational exigencies’ and to be adhered to only ‘as far as possible’. Without the amendments, the situation Wrigley faced was untenable. ‘When I arrived over there, there were RAAF personnel serving in 400 different units of the RAF,’ he recalled. But despite assenting to the changes, the RAF was reluctant to implement them.

  Rollo Kingsford-Smith had left Australia in the belief that he would be flying coastal surveillance in Britain. When he went into Wrigley’s office, he saw the message confirming this: he was to go to ‘G/R’—general reconnaissance—to fly Sunderlands. But that was not what Wrigley said. ‘Kingsford-Smith,’ the Air Vice-Marshal remarked, ‘I see you are posted to Bomber Command.’

  Not liking my senior officers to be wrong, I reminded him I was in fact destined for a general reconnaissance squadron. What is more, I could see the posting signal on his desk and it said the same thing. Wrigley agreed with me but said there was a temporary shortage of flight commanders in the Australian bomber squadrons and I would be attached for bomber duties until the shortage was overcome and then I could go and fly Sunderlands. Still not very happy with this, I asked what aircraft I would be flying and was told ‘Lancasters’. This changed things completely. I had heard rumours about the Lancaster, the newest, fastest and best four-engine bomber in the Allied forces. I was happy to take the posting.

  Contrary to what Wrigley had told Rollo, there was no temporary shortage of flight commanders: there was a permanent shortage, not only of flight commanders but of squadron leaders and experienced crews. But in Rollo’s case, there was also a specific request. Sam Balmer, whom he had last seen on a short visit to New Guinea the year before, had also been posted to England and was now Commander of 467 Squadron, flying Lancasters. ‘I gathered that Balmer asked for me, which could be the reason why I did not finish up in Coastal Command on flying boats,’ Rollo recalled.

  Rollo and his mate Alan McCormack were posted to No. 27 OTU at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, to train on the now outdated Wellingtons. But first they spent a few days in Oxfordshire learning how to land a plane with the aid of a radio beam. After only ten hours of intensive instruction, Rollo could approach and land without seeing the runway, and was confident he could repeat this feat in any aircraft anywhere.

  Training was not all hard work. Rollo was soon enjoying the English summer, making the most of glorious weather in July and August 1943.

  There were plenty of bicycles, so when we were
not training, and if we were not playing squash, we spent our spare time cycling to village pubs or organising swimming races in nearby canals. At each lock in the canal there was a pub and the locks were not too far apart, so the swimming became fairly hilarious at times. After a few drinks on the hot days the Australians found it hard to resist the filthy canal water, the locals kindly tolerating our weird behaviour.

  Within the first few days of their arrival at Lichfield, Rollo’s crew ‘sort of formed itself’. As happened in most units, pilots, navigators, radio operators, gunners and bomb aimers were thrown together in a hangar or mess in equal numbers of specialities and left to choose their own crewmates. He soon had his entire Wellington crew except the flight engineer and mid-upper gunner, who joined later. ‘Any stupidities or slowness on my part could not be hidden,’ Rollo noted.

  About the same time Rollo was going through the crewing up process at 467 Squadron, another Australian gunner, twenty-year-old Melbourne man Leigh Johns, was doing the same at an Operational Training Unit. He recalled how he ‘was having a shave one morning and this very pukka Englishman came up to me and said, “You’re an Aussie aren’t you?” I had to admit that I was. “And you’re a gunner?” “Yes.” “Marvellous, I’d love to have an Aussie gunner used to popping off rabbits and all that.” I couldn’t tell him that I’d never shot a rabbit in my life.’ But he accepted the offer and joined an RAF squadron.

  Rollo’s first crew comprised rear gunner Darrell Procter, bomb aimer Bruce Webb and navigator Allan Wright. (Wright was killed on his first flight, and was replaced by Polish-Australian Norm Kobelke—nicknamed ‘the mad Pole’). A fifth crewman, Jim McLeod, was ill for the first part of his tour.