Bombs Gone

by Richard Townsend Bickers

“What a damnable waste of time! We had a perfect view of all that shipping in harbour. What the hell is the point of sending us across if they won’t let us do anything when we get there?”

  “Perhaps they’ll change their minds after this,” said Clive. But he did not sound as though he had convinced himself.

  Ridley dined with the Wards that evening. They could all see that he had something on his mind, although he gave no hint and tried to behave as though he had not a care in the world.

  When Shirley and her mother left Gp-Capt Ward and Ridley together over their glass of port, the group-captain asked bluntly, “What’s biting you, Derek?”

  “Nothing I can say without sounding highly insubordinate, sir.”

  “Between these four walls.”

  “Well ... we couldn’t have asked for better Met, today — considering the time of year — and when we got across there ... Wilhelmshaven ...”

  Gp-Capt Ward nodded, “I know.”

  “We could see perfectly. Any number of good-sized ships ... naval and merchant ... and we couldn’t do a damn thing about it, because they were too close inshore. It’s damn bad for morale, sir.”

  “I understand how you feel. It’s not Air Ministry policy, it’s the Government’s. I’m afraid we’ll all just have to put up with it.”

  “But your chaps don’t have any restrictions, sir.”

  “Not of the same kind.” He was obviously not prepared to take this subject further. “It’s important that we ... this country ... not only do what is right but also make sure that the whole world sees that we are doing it.”

  To the tune of making the enemy laugh at us while we lose lives unnecessarily, thought Ridley. He kept his own counsel. It was bad enough that Shirley was going off in less than two weeks’ time, without antagonising her father into the bargain.

  *

  Reinert was exultant. The evening paper was full of the fighters’ success that morning. The radio news bulletins gloated over it.

  “Was that you?” Lotte had asked.

  “The Püppchen made a slight contribution.”

  “How many did you shoot down, Liebchen?”

  “Only two, before they hid themselves in cloud.”

  “Why didn’t they drop any bombs, after coming so far?”

  “We scared them away.”

  “Let us hope you have given them a lesson they won’t forget.”

  “If they don’t keep coming over, how am I going to increase my score enough to win the Knight’s Cross?”

  “Oh! You are impossible. I don’t believe you want this war to end.”

  “To be honest ... I don’t. I hope it will go on long enough for us to give the English a thorough lesson ... a real whipping, not just a quick victory but total defeat.”

  *

  Apparently the British did not readily heed warnings.

  The weather stayed fine for another twenty-four hours. Word came to Saunderton that twenty-four Wellingtons from three other squadrons, Numbers 149, 9 and 37, had been detailed for another operation over Wilhelmshaven.

  “More waste of time,” was the general comment.

  The two Saunderton squadrons went about their day’s practice flights, bombing on the range, navigating, air testing, with annoyance that they had been left out this time tempered by a suspicion that the other three squadrons would probably find the enemy ships still in harbour and unassailable.

  By that evening, information had come through that none of the Wellingtons had been able to bomb. And that 15 had been lost: 10 in the target area, two through forced landings at sea and three in crashes at base occasioned by damage sustained in the battle. All had fallen victim to fighters which were awaiting them already airborne. British Intelligence still did not know about the newly sited Freya radar station.

  Eleven

  “I wonder what the clots who are supposed to be running this war will think up next,” Ridley remarked.

  The full extent of the abortive raid the day before had by now leaked out. The twenty-four Wellingtons had been intercepted by twenty-five Me 109s and 110s over the Heligoland Bight. More fighters had met them over Wilhelmshaven. With the Wellingtons’ inability to defend themselves against attacks from the beam the enemy had created utter carnage. The Messerschmitts had attacked each bomber methodically in two pairs. The defending air-gunners could not stave off attacks even from ahead or astern when made in such force.

  Ridley had his answer the following day.

  The station-commander delivered it personally at a special briefing for all aircraft captains.

  They assembled in the Operations Room and his demeanour was as grim as theirs when he looked round the faces of the men who made no secret of their disapproval of what they condemned as sheer cynicism on the part of higher authority.

  “It has been decided that, for the time being, no more unescorted daylight raids will be carried out.” If he was looking for some sign of approval, he was to be disappointed. “Instead, we are switching to night operations.” This brought a quickly suppressed sigh of resignation and a rash chuckle. The group-captain’s face relaxed into a smile. “No, not more bumph-dropping. The enemy has been very active lately with mine-dropping in our river estuaries and harbour mouths. He is using seaplanes from bases in the Frisian Islands. Our prior task from now on will be to patrol that area and keep a lookout for flarepaths. As soon as we see one, we shall bomb it to prevent the seaplanes taking off and to destroy any that are on the water.”

  The group-captain and the senior Intelligence officer continued on this subject for half an hour, with details of the latest information about searchlights and flak batteries on the islands, and the disposition of fighter squadrons on the mainland which could interfere.

  As the pilots filed out, Ridley said to his flight-commander: “One doesn’t have to be a great intellect to guess what Jerry will do after a few nights of that: switch to using ordinary land aircraft to do his mine-laying.”

  “Jerry’s as thick as two bricks,” said Skelton. “It’ll take ages for the penny to drop and meanwhile we should prang a few of the bastards just as they’re taking off. I like the idea.”

  “So do I,” said the disillusioned Ridley. “As long as it lasts. We’ll be able to go low enough to strafe as well as bomb.”

  “Don’t go too low, old boy. We’ll have to use instantaneous fuse settings, and you know what that means.”

  Ridley recalled his comment about the hardness of seawater and resolved to bomb from no lower than 500ft.

  His was one of the crews detailed to patrol that night.

  It was not a night on which to court misadventure. And although the Wellington was a solid, reliable aeroplane, too many bombers of this and every type had mysteriously disappeared without trace and for no apparent reason in the crowded months since Britain went to war. The increasingly crowded flying programme demanded that crews took off now in conditions which would have been considered too dangerous in peacetime. It was the least experienced crews that needed the most practice; and too often they died before they acquired enough of it for their own safety.

  It was not only the captains with the fewest flying hours and the least competent navigators or wireless-operators who failed to return from what should have been short training sorties into the night. Or in broad daylight. On too many occasions the crews that did not return from a navigation exercise or from blind-flying practice had been on several operations and survived flak and enemy fighters.

  Only a small shift in wind direction or strength, only a zone of impenetrable cloud where none had been expected could be enough to cause disaster. Without radio beams, radar or any electronic means of fixing their positions when out of sight of land or even when over it above cloud, a fix that was accurate to within ten miles was as much as anyone could hope for. Observers depended on “shooting” the sun with their sextants. But all too often the sun was hidden throughout a sortie. At night, they depended on the stars. Very frequently the stars w
ere obscured behind successive layers of cloud. If they could be seen, identifying them was not as easy as instruction books and lectures made it seem. And what was feasible from a steady platform on land was a lot less easy to do from the astrodome or side window of a bucketing, pitching, rolling, yawing aircraft.

  The astronomers were great ones for likening constellations to familiar objects; and to others less so. The Plough, the Great Bear, Orion and his sword, sounded fine when student navigators were told about them. They could be conceded to be recognisable when depicted on a diagram. But try to spot them in a stormy sky, try to tell Pollux from Castor, identify the North Star, Taurus or the Pleiades through a ragged hole in the clouds, with other clouds constantly scudding across to hide it, while the aeroplane tilts and slides you about every second. Finding your way about the sky then takes on a whole new set of complexities and inaccuracies.

  Night flying in winter in an era before Gee, H2S, or directional beams, was a venture into a wilderness which was entirely unforgiving.

  Fortunately the Wellington was an aeroplane that did forgive. Not that it was usually the pilot who detracted from its performance. Rather it was the accretion of ice deforming its wings and making it ponderous that was to blame for the fact that instead of its usual clean-limbed and assured flight it wallowed and laboured.

  Ice, Ridley told himself, would not be a problem tonight. They would stay at 500ft where the air would be warm. As warm as it ever could be in December above a latitude of 53 degrees north. Wind would give them some trouble, blowing strongly from the west. Visibility should be fairly good. But the greatest adverse factor would be the fixing of their position. The stars would be hidden all the time and they would have to rely on dead reckoning based on speed and course. Flying on their own, they would not be able to check their course against another’s navigator’s. This was no night for errors caused by miscalculating wind speed and direction or by some erratic behaviour of the compass.

  He was not made any more carefree in his approach to the night’s work by the identity of the aircraft he had been allocated. Her identification letter was S. S for sugar, in the signals alphabet. In her early days on the squadron she had been known affectionately as Sue. S for Sweet Sue. But Sweet Sue had turned into a sour old bitch lately, much battered by the enemy. Nobody, not even the most experienced Engineering officer or technical flight sergeant on the station, could diagnose precisely what afflicted her.

  Ridley, who displayed on occasion a more fluent gift of expression than the majority of his comrades, grumbled to Clive.

  “She came to us as an unblemished virgin and now she’s a poxy old cow. That blasted aeroplane has simply taken against flying. She’s had enough. I can’t understand why we can’t get her replaced. It would be a kindness to ditch her, or do such a heavy landing that she’d be written off.”

  “You can forget that,” said Clive. “An occasional baling-out I can stand, but ditching in this temperature ... no bloody fear. And if you’re thinking of dumping her with a Chinese landing I’m going L.M.F. and you’ll have to find yourself another observer.”

  “Eric flew the old cow yesterday and he says he only just got her over the hedge with a full load. She’s just reluctant to leave the ground. And I’m not surprised. Practically every square inch of canvas on her has had to be replaced two or three times. She seems to attract flak and fighters like a magnet. Her engines sound all right, but whatever the instruments read she can’t be putting out rated power. Why the hell did we have to draw her tonight, of all times?”

  Competition between crews to score the first success of these intruder missions was high. Ridley had been given S to fly because it was his turn; and by way of a compliment: there were not many pilots to whom the squadron or flight-commander would have entrusted this cantankerous old warhorse.

  They walked morosely out of the crew room to the light van that was to take them to their aircraft. Ridley noticed that Cpl Pyne was carrying something more than his parachute and wireless operator’s books and papers.

  “What have you got there, Corporal?”

  It was too dark to see each other’s faces, but Ridley sensed an uneasiness. Pyne said, “Lucky mascot for the crew, sir. My girlfriend gave it me.” He held up a rag-doll in a semblance of maritime rig, with a little pipe protruding jauntily from its face. “Popeye the Sailor. She made it specially for us, an’ all.”

  Ridley peered at the foot-long dummy. “She’s done a good job. Tell me something: is Popeye supposed to bring us luck when we have one of our arguments with Jerry, or is he here to safeguard you lot against pilot error, what?”

  They were still laughing and wrangling about this when the van stopped alongside the maligned and somewhat dreaded S for sugar.

  Ridley had given thought to his take-off ever since he knew he was going to have to coax this particular aeroplane off the ground. He had decided that it was an occasion for brute force rather than delicacy. And he would communicate to his crew, loud and clear, that he had taken S severely in hand.

  He ambled her along the blue-lit track and to the downwind end of the runway and braked hard. The wind was well off to one beam and not as helpful as he would have liked. His usual technique was to release the brakes at the moment that he began to open the throttles. Tonight, he held the aircraft firmly anchored while he pushed the throttles forward. The engines bellowed and S strained angrily against the grip that restrained her. Ridley could feel her thrusting her snout up, protesting; she seemed literally to be stretching herself and reaching for release. For twenty seconds he tantalised her, her din hideous, the gale sweeping back from her propellers sending stones and grass skittering away behind the tail-wheel that still sat so stolidly on the ground. He hoped the terrible roaring and straining was encouraging his crew.

  When the moment came to unfetter S from her bonds she flounced forward and flung herself into the tunnel of darkness between the runway lights and clambered into the air indignantly. The marker lights at the far end were almost a hundred feet beneath as the old aircraft thundered over them and Ridley smiled with satisfaction. He, or Pop-eye, or the pair of them in combination had won the first tussle with S for sugar. She had taken defeat quite sweetly. Now to see how she performed for the next six hours.

  They were going to patrol near Borkum, the nearest of the German Frisian Islands. The first thing to ensure was that they did not encroach on neutral territory: the Dutch islands in the same chain.

  The lesson he had administered at take-off seemed to have been salutary, for S obediently took them to their destination on time and without deviation. They orbited cautiously, climbing to the maximum 1,600ft that cloud base permitted. The island, low in the water, curved in the shape of a huge prawn. Its entire coastline was visible as a thin, faint phosphorescence emphasised by the whiteness of breaking waves. They kept their distance, two miles away and on an L-shaped track to west and south. There was no need to circle the island continuously. One sweep right round established that their patrol line afforded them all the view they needed. They would see any lights switched on anywhere on Borkum.

  To the north of them, other aircraft were keeping watch over the other islands. Clive left his navigating-table for the time being, to join Ridley in the cockpit, add his eyes to the constant surveillance and take over the flying for a couple of half-hour spells. Monotony became lethargy; imperceptibly, their attention wavered. Three times there were false alarms, given by different members of the crew. Each time the man who gave a warning was convinced that he had seen a light or lights; and equally convinced that the others were inattentive or blind because they had missed it.

  Ridley had resumed the controls a few minutes since, when he saw a sudden glimmer of faint light inside the curve of the island, on the narrow bay enclosed by the two long spits of land.

  He hesitated for a moment, then called the attention of the others.

  “Captain to crew ... lights on the port bow ... see them?”

 
The reaction from the nose turret came instantly. “Front gunner, Skipper ... thought I saw something ... thought I’d wait for someone else, this time. It’s clear, isn’t it?”

  Clive stood up and leaned across the cockpit, then confirmed that he had also seen lights ahead.

  Ridley dived the aircraft gently, letting speed build up as quietly as possible, not opening the throttles. The lights burned steadily. A Verey cartridge flared green, vividly. They were down to 500ft and able to see a beam of light gliding along the water. The sea sparkled with the lights from the flarepath and the moving seaplane.

  Clive’s voice on the intercom was tinged with excitement. “Observer to captain ... shall we bomb?”

  “Yes.”

  “Steady as you go, then ... right a very little ... steady ... left-left ... steady ... hold it ... bombs gone.”

  It had happened in 40 seconds from the moment that Ridley had first alerted them. The lights went out. Neither flarepath nor seaplane could be seen.

  Ridley had time to say, “Must have heard us and panicked,” before the bombs exploded. He turned, diving to 200ft, and flew back in the opposite direction. The water was in turmoil but there was nothing they could see. Except the flak. Multiple 37mm pompoms, heavy machine-guns; and searchlights. A beam fell full on them and was joined at once by a second.

  Dazzled, Ridley dived again, across the southern end of the island towards the open sea. S for sugar was no longer capable of response to such urgent demands. Her engines responded sluggishly, her control surfaces moved stiffly. She levelled out at 80ft and the storm of shells and bullets followed her.

  It was only when they were 35 miles from the English coast that she showed the extent of her resentment at such rough treatment. Ridley had climbed to 500ft again and although he held his control column steady the altimeter began slowly to show a loss of altitude. He watched it for a minute, during which the aircraft lost 50ft. He drew the stick back but it showed no indication of a climb. He gave more throttle. Still S for sugar would not climb.