At Elsham two aircraft were diverted, one to Lindholme, the other to Kirmington, while another made an emergency landing in a field near Barton-on-Humber. Two 166 Squadron aircraft crashed on their return, Sgt Stan Miller’s Lancaster hitting high ground near Caistor while F/Sgt Arthur Brown’s machine came down near Barton. There were no survivors from either aircraft. F/O Peter Pollett and crew failed to return from the raid.
The visibility had been a fickle opponent that night. At Wickenby all the aircraft sent by 12 and 626 returned safely and landed with no problems. It was the same story on 5 Group airfields yet further south at Bourn in Cambridgeshire 97 Squadron lost seven aircraft in crashes, while another made a safe landing on the grass runway at Ingham, one of the few times a Lancaster landed there. The 1 Group Summary for December spoke of the need for crews to ‘master the elements’ and, while admitting conditions were ‘vile and unexpected’ stressed that 136 aircraft had landed safely, adding ‘We must continue to strive for better airmanship and more effective ground control’.
The RAF had carried out the first successful test of fog dispersal equipment a month earlier when four Halifaxes of 35 (PFF) Squadron landed at Graveley in Cambridgeshire in poor visibility. The device that helped them get down was FIDO, the acronym for ‘fog investigation dispersal operation’, a system which had been developed at Birmingham University and involved burning huge quantities of petrol in special burners on each side of the runway, the heat generated dispersing the fog. It was an enormously expensive system which could burn more than 100,000 gallons of fuel an hour but it worked and it went on to save the lives of many RAF crew. Several crews did use FIDO to get down at Graveley but it was March before a 1 Group was to get the device, burners being laid alongside the main runway at Ludford Magna.
A Berlin survivor, JB555 flew to ‘The Big City’ on at least 10 occasions, first with 103 Squadron and then with 576. (Norman Storey)
FIDO was to be installed at a number of other airfields, including both Metheringham and Fiskerton (later to become part of 1 Group), along with the three special emergency airfields at Manston, Woodbridge and Carnaby in East Yorkshire, all of which had specially lengthened runways. It was also installed at the airfield at Sturgate, near Gainsborough, which was planned for 1 Group but was never used operationally.
Berlin was attacked again on the night of December 23-24 and once again tragedy struck at Waltham. It was almost midnight before most of the Lancasters of 100 and 550 got away from the airfield, the operation being delayed because of bad weather, and shortly after midnight reports came through that a Lancaster from Waltham had crashed at Fulstow, just off the Louth road. It was only discovered later that in fact two aircraft had collided after take off and crashed. There were no survivors from either F/Sgt William Cooper’s 100 Squadron aircraft or from Sgt Hubert Woods’ 550 Squadron Lancaster. Two other aircraft failed to return, one flown by P/O Don Dripps, a popular Australian whose crew were on their 23rd operation. Three aircraft were also lost from Elsham, two of them from 576 Squadron, while another, flown by Sgt Geoff Clark, failed to return to Kelstern.
One Kelstern crew had to thank the skill of their pilot, W/O Ted Ellis, for making it home. Their aircraft was hit by flak near Berlin and the rear turret damaged. They went on to drop their bombs but, as they did so, were attacked by a night fighter, both gunners being injured by cannon shell fragments. The aircraft by now had no hydraulics, intercom, the bomb doors were jammed open and there was considerable damage to the wings and fuselage, but W/O Ellis managed to get the aircraft and his crew home, an action for which he was to be awarded a Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
There was to be one more major attack on Berlin before the year ended, five 1 Group Lancasters being lost on the night of December 29-30. Eighteen members of the crews of three of them, from 12,101 and 103 Squadrons, survived to become prisoners, an unusually high percentage, but only one man lived from the two aircraft lost by 460 Squadron.
If crews thought that 1944 was to bring a different direction they were mistaken. Early on January 1 orders came through for another ‘maximum effort’ and, once more, the target was Berlin although, once again, it was to be midnight before most of the 421 Lancasters taking part actually got away. A quarter of the 28 aircraft lost came from 1 Group, two of them ABC Lancasters from Ludford Magna. One crashed in Belgium while the second vanished without trace. This was flown by S/Ldr Ian Robertson who had won a DFC in a raid on Nuremburg the previous August. Also decorated in that operation was his flight engineer Sgt Tom Calvert and navigator F/O Sid Kennedy. His special operator that night was F/Lt Alf Duringer, who had won a DFM while flying as a wireless operator with 150 Squadron at Snaith and had later added a DFC while with 101. 550 Squadron also lost two aircraft that night others were lost from 12 and 626 at Wickenby and from 460 Squadron.
Berlin was attacked yet again the following night. This time only four 1 Group aircraft were lost while a fifth, flown by F/Lt Barrington Knyvett, crashed on take off from Binbrook, killing all seven men on board. Two nights later it was an even longer haul for the Lancasters, this time to Stettin. A diversionary raid on Berlin drew off many of the fighters and only 16 aircraft were lost, six of which were from 1 Group with 12 Squadron losing two. One was shot down over the target while the second force-landed in Sweden with battle damage, the crew, which included three Canadians, being interred. Three failed to make it back to Elsham, two of them from 576 Squadron, while a 626 Squadron Lancaster ditched in the North Sea not far from the Yorkshire coast at Withernsea. The aircraft had taken off from Wickenby shortly before midnight but it was almost 10am the following day that the aircraft came down on the sea, out of fuel. Australian pilot F/Lt Bill Belford and his crew were quickly picked up and were landed at Yarmouth, weary and glad to be alive after an eventful night. They were taken to a nearby USAAF airfield where Wickenby’s Station Commander, G/Capt Crummy, was waiting to fly them ‘home’ in one of the squadron’s Lancasters. Their reprieve was to be only temporary, six of the crew being killed and the seventh, navigator Sgt Alan Lee, becoming a prisoner of war when their aircraft was lost over Berlin later in the month.
The ground crew of 625 Squadron’s H-Harry, which was lost over Berlin at the end of January 1944. The aircraft had previously flown with 100 Squadron. (Author’s collection)
The next major target for Bomber Command was Brunswick on the night of January 14-15 and it was to cost 166 Squadron its commanding officer. W/Cmdr Colin Scragg was an American who joined the RAF in the 1930s and flew fighters before being posted back to Canada as a flying instructor. Like many others in his position he was desperate to get back to Britain to take part in the real war and he finally achieved this in the summer of 1943, dropping a rank and eventually found himself at 18 OTU at Finningley before a spell at 1656 HCU at Lindholme, where he became a friend of W/Cmdr Holford, the 100 Squadron CO killed a few weeks earlier. In October 1943 he was finally on operations as A Flight commander at 103 Squadron and two months later promoted back to wing commander and appointed CO at 166 Squadron. That night he flew as pilot in S/Ldr Pip Papes’ crew. Hampered by intercom problems, they bombed the target before being attacked by a night fighter. The aircraft went into a steep dive and Scragg ordered his crew to jump before unfastening his own straps. He managed to break the starboard window and squeezed through. Seconds after pulling the ripcord he landed on the ground, hid his parachute and began to walk. He hid up for the day in a hay loft before spending the next night heading, he hoped, for the Dutch border. Next morning brought him to the small town of Vienenburg in Lower Saxony and there he hid in the town’s railway station, first in an outbuilding and then in the ladies lavatories. When night came he tried to board a train, only to be immediately spotted and surrounded by soldiers. He was to spend the remainder of the war as a prisoner and was the only survivor from his aircraft. His was one of two aircraft lost that night from Kirmington. Three Lancasters, all fitted with ABC, were lost from Ludford, only one man surviving.
Among the other aircraft lost was that flown by F/O David Cobbin of 550 Squadron, their first operational loss from their new airfield at North Killingholme. Six of the crew died. 576 Squadron also suffered two more losses as did 626 Squadron.
1 Group’s losses were to be small on the next two major attacks of the campaign, three aircraft being lost in attacks on Berlin and Magdeburg, one of those a 460 Squadron Lancaster which crashed on Whitegate Hill in Caistor, not far from the airfield, all the crew being injured.
Bomber Command had still not finished with Berlin and three more heavy raids were staged on successive nights before the end of January. The first was to cost 1 Group 12 of the 33 Lancasters lost. One from 625 Squadron at Kelstern was hit by flak on the return journey. The pilot, P/O Roy Cook, who had won a DFM and promotion earlier in the month, managed to keep the burning aircraft in the air for almost an hour before it crashed, killing him and the rear gunner, 37-year-old Sgt Jack Ringwood, one of the oldest men to serve with 625 Squadron. The others on board all managed to escape. 460 Squadron at Binbrook lost three aircraft but 10 of those on board survived to become prisoners. Another three were lost by 12 Squadron who were even more fortunate with casualties, six men being killed, 11 being taken prisoner and four more evading capture after coming down in Belgium where they were picked up by the Resistance and found their way to Spain and home. Another loss from Wickenby was the Lancaster of 23-year-old Australian F/Lt Bill Belford and crew, the survivors of the ditching earlier in the month.
It was Berlin again the following night as the Halifax squadrons of 4 and 6 Group were committed once again alongside the Lancasters of 1, 3 and 5 Groups, only to suffer disproportionate losses. Just four 1 Group Lancasters were lost, from 576, 625 and two from 166 Squadron, the pilot and navigator of one being blown clear when the aircraft exploded after a mid-air collision. The third wave of the attack saw three Lancasters lost of 16 sent from 100 Squadron at Waltham, with just two men surviving. All three aircraft were acting as PFF supporters and it was at this stage in the attack that many of the losses occurred as fighters got amongst the bomber stream.
The penultimate raid in the Battle of Berlin came a little over two weeks later in what was the heaviest raid so far on the German capital, 891 Lancasters and Halifaxes with 27 Lancasters and 17 Halifaxes being lost. One of the six lost from 1 Group was a 12 Squadron Lancaster which lost all four engines when it was hit by flak over the target area. The crew all bailed out but the unfortunate flight engineer, 19-year-old Sgt Eric Auty was killed when his parachute became entangled in the tail plane of the aircraft and he was dragged to his death. There were many bad ways of being killed in the air war but that must have been amongst the worst. Another aircraft that failed to return was flown by F/Lt Ken Berry of 103 Squadron. He was just 20 yet had won a DFM with the squadron a year earlier, was later promoted and was on his second tour. He and his crew died when their aircraft was shot down by a night fighter over Holland. His navigator was S/Ldr Harold Lindo DFC, a 27-year-old Jamaican who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. He had won his DFC in 1942 after he completed 21 operations in Wellingtons with the squadron. He was an outstanding navigator who became the squadron’s Bombing Leader and survived a North Sea ditching in August 1941 when the Wellington he was in ran out of fuel 40 miles off the Yorkshire coast. S/Ldr Lindo was among a number of highly-decorated Jamaican officers who flew with Bomber Command and, after his death, his father sent a number of gold watches to the squadron to be awarded to the pilots who had completed the highest number of operations to Berlin.
There was now just one more raid on Berlin to come in the battle, but another six weeks were to pass before Bomber Command went back to the German capital. In between came a number of heavy raids on other German targets which were to cost Bomber Command, and 1 Group, dearly. The first of these was to Leipzig on the night of February 19-20 when the RAF lost a staggering 78 of the 823 aircraft sent. Seventeen of those lost were from North Lincolnshire, with two more being written off in crashes.
Two Lancasters from 103 were lost over Germany and two more in a mid-air collision during landing, one getting down safely while the second crashed with the loss of five lives. 625 Squadron at Kelstern was also badly affected, losing three aircraft and the lives of 18 men. The casualties included P/O Jim Aspin who was on his 13th operation. He had been awarded the DFM in one of the squadron’s first operations shortly after it was formed. Three Lancasters from Kirmington were also shot down while a fourth flown by P/O Jim Catlin was attacked over the target by two Me110s and badly damaged with four of the crew being wounded. The rear gunner, Sgt Bill Birch, fought a running battle with one of the night fighters and was later to claim one as a ‘probable’. His turret, in the meantime, had been virtually wrecked but he still managed to drive the second night fighter away. The flight engineer, Sgt Barry Wright, was badly injured and lost a lot of blood but, showing enormous determination, managed to nurse the engines and help keep the Lancaster flying. With the bomb doors stuck open, the hydraulics gone and the trim controls stuck, the pilot struggled to keep the aircraft level as they painstakingly headed back for England where they managed an almost perfect landing at Kirmington after hand-cranking the undercarriage down only to discover both tyres were flat. Sgt Wright was later awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for his endeavours, while there were DFCs for P/O Catlin, the navigator P/O Tony Pragnell and the bomb aimer, P/O Frank Sim, and DFMs for Sgt Birch, the mid-upper Sgt Tom Powers and the wireless operator Sgt Tom Hall.
Snow clearing at Ludford Magna, February 1944. The airfield was almost completely snow-bound for a week. (Vic Redfern)
At Wickenby, three Lancasters failed to return, two of them from 12 Squadron. Two more were lost from Binbrook, another from 576 at Elsham and one from Ludford. It had been a very bad night indeed.
Berlin may have got some respite over the next few weeks but Bomber Command did not with seven more deep penetration operations over Germany. Stuttgart was the next to be hit, 1 Group losing a single Lancaster, the 460 Squadron aircraft being written off in a crash. Two nights later the bombers went to Schweinfurt as part of the Anglo-American assault on Germany’s ball bearing production. Bomber Command lost 33 aircraft, far fewer than an earlier USAAF attack, with nine of the losses coming from 1 Group squadrons. Worst hit was 100 Squadron at Waltham which lost three aircraft, one of them with the squadron commander at the controls. W/Cmdr John Dilworth, who had only taken over the squadron after the death of W/Cmdr Holford just before Christmas, flew as second pilot in the crew of 20-year-old Sgt Arthur Merricks on what was to be their first and last operation. Two of the crew survived as they did from the second 100 Squadron aircraft, flown by F/O Vernon Jones, which was brought down by flak over France.
Waltham’s third loss that night was the Lancaster of F/Sgt Francis Wadge. Only a few days earlier F/Sgt Wadge had been awarded an immediate DFM after his Lancaster collided with what may have been a German night fighter during the attack on Stuttgart. The collision tore away part of the port wing, wrecked the mid-upper turret, damaged the fuselage and bent the starboard rudder. The mid-upper gunner was injured in the collision and, with the engines vibrating badly, it took all the skill of the pilot, aided by his crew, to keep the Lancaster flying until they were able to make an emergency landing at Ford in Hampshire. Two nights later F/Sgt Wadge was on the battle order again for the attack on Schweinfurt. Flying with only two of his original crew, he turned back after reporting he was feeling ill and when his aircraft returned to Waltham he was ordered to fly out to sea and jettison some fuel. He returned to report that the jettison equipment would not work. He was then told to go back out to sea again and dump the bomb load. This he did but after that nothing more was heard from F/Sgt Wadge’s Lancaster. No trace of it or its seven-man crew was ever found.
In an attack on Augsburg on the night of February 25-26, F/Lt Bill Eddy’s 103 Squadron Lancaster was hit by flak in the target area and a small fire started in the fuselage
. Worst still, fuel pipes had been fractured and an engine failed as they turned for home. By the time they had reached the Vosges area two more engines had failed and the pilot ordered the crew to bail out, fully aware that his own parachute had been destroyed in the fire. Somehow, F/Lt Eddy managed to land the badly damage Lancaster on a snow-covered field. Bill Eddy spoke both Spanish and French fluently (before the war he had lived in Argentina where he owned a cattle station) and fancied his chances of getting home again. After walking some time he made contact with the Resistance and within a few weeks found himself in Spain. He returned to England from Gibraltar in a destroyer and arrived back at Elsham with numerous bottles of wine and, best of all, a crate of oranges. Bill Eddy was then screened from operations but, after pulling some strings, was posted back to a Mosquito Pathfinder squadron in which he went on to complete a further 60 operations, adding a DFC and Bar to his DSO.
Stuttgart was attacked twice more at the beginning of March and again a fortnight later. There were no 1 Group losses in the first of these but on the second three Lancaster from Kelstern were among the seven aircraft from the Group which failed to return. Losses on this scale were felt particularly badly on recently formed squadrons like 625 and on tightly-knit airfield communities like Kelstern. P/O Derrick Gigger’s Lancaster crashed in the sea off the French coast while the aircraft of F/Sgt Frank Hodgkins was attacked by a night fighter and exploded over Germany. The third Lancaster, flown by Canadian F/Sgt John Bulger collided with a Waddington-based 463 Squadron aircraft near Lincoln on its return. There were no survivors from either Lancaster. 625 was to lose another aircraft when Frankfurt was attacked two nights later, while Lancasters were also lost from101, 166 and 103 Squadrons. Four more were lost on a second raid on Frankfurt two nights later before what was to turn out to be the final major Bomber Command raid on Berlin of the war.
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